I was walking back to the Allido Records office from this event at the Rivington Hotel with Rich Kleiman (Mark Ronson’s manager/head of Allido), Doug Grayson (Allido DJ) and Sam Gilbert. We were walking by these courts on Chrystie and E. Houston and Rich started talking some basketball shit. Somehow a bet arose for $600 that his friend Sam, who played at Lafayette, could beat me 11-2. I was rocking jeans, Jordan XIII’s and a t-shirt. He was rocking some Reebok runners, jeans and a hoodie. I said I was 100% down but was gonna take my jeans off and play in my boxer briefs because my pants were going to fall down otherwise. Unfortunately nobody was on the court and there were no basketballs in sight. I offered to go buy a ball at the Adidas store down the street. I head down there and the only ball they have is $60 (kinda absurd right?). I manage to convince the cashier to give me their employee discount though so I also bought some shorts. I came back to the court with the ball and the bet changed to Sam would beat me 11-4. Again, I agreed. I don’t care if Sam played college ball. I played in high school, coulda played D2 or D3 in college (or a really shitty D1 program), play in a league and play everyday. Not only that, I work out everyday and Sam, although slender, hasn’t worked out in years and smokes cigarettes. Unfortunately the ball was a little flat and a little lopsided but we made due. Wale then showed up for moral support. I let Sam warm up a bit and let him have ball. I quickly went up 3-1. He made a solid comeback and it was 7-3. I then got rebound, scored twice and won the game. I would have won the game earlier had I known that in New York City, if you call “foul” or “and one” or “I got that” while you’re shooting and MAKE the basket. It doesn’t count. I probably had 3 baskets like that; it was very frustrating. So I went up $600 and Rich was pissed. He then wanted me to play him double or nothing. I said no, as I’m not really a gambler. I let him convince me to play him to 5 for $200. I only agreed because he wasn’t gonna let me go unless I played and because I was pretty confident I could beat him. He went up 3-1, we tied 4-4 and I got a few possessions but couldn’t convert. There were some suspect calls but whatever. He won. He almost had a heart attack cuz he smokes. And I am $400 richer. I shoulda had Wale shoot it with my Flip cam. This woulda been great footage.