In case you missed the awful NBA All-Star Saturday Night, you didn't miss much other than missed dunks in the Slam Dunk Contest, but you did miss a betrayal for the ages. In an effort to get San Antonio Spurs Forward Matt Bonner into the Three-Point Contest, Kobe Bryant bequeathed the nickname the "Red Mamba" to him. Needless to say I was heartbroken.
Let's go over the facts: Kobe Bryant is my second favorite basketball player of all-time behind Michael Jordan. The Lakers are my favorite team. I have red hair. Those three factors alone put me on the short list for greatest nickname ever, "The Red Mamba".
Not only did Matt Bonner -- whose name is really close to being Matt Boner -- get the greatest nickname on Planet Earth and probably the Milky Way Galaxy, but he also got a shirt of a Red Mamba in attack mode?!
That is my shirt. I understand your mistake Kobe, so I'll take that shirt in Men's Large, does it come as a tall tee? I am ready to terrify the little kid that was jumped over in the Slam Dunk Contest.
Now after being bestowed the "Red Mamba" nickname and an equally awesome and horrifying shirt, the Red Mamba has to run away with the Three-Point Contest, right? There's no way the Red Mamba could lose!
At this point, I was torn. Do I root for Mr. Red Mamba even though he stole my rightful name? Us Gingers do have to stick together, you know. Or...has this man become my mortal enemy -- the Joker to my Batman, the receding hairline to my LeBron James -- and I must destroy him to regain what is rightfully mine? I decide to go with the former seeing as he's a big, white guy with red hair, he's just too damn lovable. Damn you Bonner!
The Red Mamba comes out nailing everything. Maybe Kobe was right. Bonner advances to the finals against Kyrie Irving.
I'm now on the #REDMAMBA bandwagon, if you can't beat them join them. And make it a #Hashtag, of course.
Unfortunately, being tall and white and a Ginger caught up to big Bonner in the Finals where he ran into the buzz-saw that is Kyrie Irving.
The Red Mamba loses, which gets me thinking - I lose all the time. I could've lost at the Three-Point Contest, I could lose a lot of things for the right to be called the Red Mamba by Kobe Bean Bryant. Lance "Second Place" Cartelli doesn't quite have the same ring to it. Therefore, the twitter campaign #Lance4RedMamba begins, it shall be trending in no time.
At least Kobe still has his back right? The guy that created the nickname and started the campaign to get Matt Bonner into the Three-Point Contest wouldn't just turn his back on him would he? Never turn your back on a Mamba!
Oh. Nevermind. Me and my Bonner feel betrayed again.
After being stabbed in the back by Kobe, I doubt Mr. Bonner wants to keep this nickname that is tainted by the 2013 NBA Three-Point Contest. Which means the reign of Lance "Red Mamba" Cartelli is in full affect. Hopefully the power doesn't go to my head and I become Joffrey from Game of Thrones.
I had to do more research on this Red Mamba. Like a Method Actor, I had to do more research to get into the role of a lifetime.
First, a Google search. The seventh thing on the list is a movie called "The Red Mamba" made in 2002. I don't even need to read the plot summary I know that this will be the best movie ever made (sorry, Highlander) and that if there is a God, it will be streaming on Netflix. But, I get sucked into the IMDb page. A movie written and directed by James Jackson - whose other credits include: Actor - Aliens vs. A-Holes and he was also a Cinematographer for Blood, Guts, and Cleaning Supplies: The Making of "The Janitor" - well, that's two more movies on my Netflix queue. Still perusing around the IMDb page, I get to the plot summary and it is everything I've ever wanted and more.
A bright sunny day in the deep wilderness fades to black for Oz and Lucy, two teens on a quest for a magical sex drug which grows wild in a mythical mushroom field known as Cloud 9. Oz assures her that the story about a man who claims to have seen a caveman in the woods was either a delusion caused from his eating a similar but poisonous variety of the sex drug known as the "Red Mamba", or more likely a spook story to keep poachers clear of the treasured fungus in Cloud 9... Or is it?
Why did Christopher Nolan not write and direct this? There's always the sequel. I am available, by the way.
Unfortunately, there are no reviews or even any message board comments. How can this be true? But, from eight satisfied patrons it is rated 8.4 which would effectively put it as the 50th greatest movie of all-time according to IMDb. I'm sold.
But I digress, I finally return to my Google search to realize there is no Wikipedia page for the Red Mamba and that it doesn't even exist! Time to genetically mate a Black Mamba with a Ladybug to create the #REDMAMBA.
Kobe - I know you will read this and I just want you to know I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed.
#LANCE4REDMAMBA
- Lance Cartelli
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