Jimbo’s Mailbag – Going Caroling with the Jazz

Andrew D. Bernstein via utahjazz.com

Some questions demand answers. Others demand Jimbo. Jimbo’s Mailbag is our regular dose of levity here at Salt City Hoops. Jimbo, by virtue of being recently featured in the Deseret News, is now the world’s most famous Utah-based basketball mailbag artist. You can submit questions to Jimbo at mailbag@saltcityhoops.com or by tweeting to @JimboRudding.

Q: I don’t know, Jimbo. I was told I’d be on last week’s Mailbag and I wasn’t. #trustissues
@TravisBruerton

Travis, I am so sorry for giving you false hope.Let me be the first to apologize…actually I’ll also be the last to apologize because I’m the only one who writes this thing. You have to believe me that it wasn’t my intention to dismiss your question.

I feel so bad. You must’ve been devastated when the mailbag was published and your question was missing. I’m sure you told your friends and family and maybe even your Schwan’s frozen food delivery guy all about how you were gypped out of a mailbag appearance. Hopefully making the opening of the mailbag makes up for all the hurt you had to endure.

Sometimes there are so many questions submitted and there just isn’t enough time and/or internet to get to all of them…of course, there are some weeks where there aren’t enough questions submitted and I have to make some up from fake Twitter accounts… but let’s just keep that between me and you and the other six or so people who may skim down this far.

The fact is, Jimbo’s Mailbag is a delicate work of art that requires extensive thought and preparation. Creating the content herein can cause so much anxiety and internal turmoil that I’ve been known to start freaking out and drive to Beto’s late at night and actually eat some of their food. Those are the times I am most disgusted with myself.

I hope this answer didn’t come across as mean-spirited or condescending. I really am grateful that you took the time to submit to the mailbag. This is a fun thing I do that will hopefully allow me to finally become incredibly famous and all powerful just like that psychic back in New Orleans told me I would.

Q: I’ve been experiencing knee pain. Did the Jazz sign me when I wasn’t looking?
@joel_hiller

Ha ha! Good one. Not quite an “LOL,” but WAY funnier than a single “ha.” Also, that exclamation point is well deserved so don’t let anyone tell you it wasn’t.

Every week I write this mailbag and think, “Maybe the team will finally be healthy next week and no one will ask about injuries?” Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy receiving injury questions as much as the next mailbag writer, but it’d be nice if we could talk about how the actual full team is doing. It’s not your fault, Joel. I am just tired of waiting to be good, you know?

How awesome would it be to cheer for an NBA team that had everyone healthy? Heck, it’d be nice to cheer for a team that wasn’t missing more than ONE starter for a game. Seriously, one guy comes back from a knee sprain and another hurts his thumb. Then, one guy’s back feels better and another guy gets diarrhea. I mean, are injuries and diarrhea contagious???

All that being said, I’ve also been suffering from an injury the past few weeks. I have plantar fasciitis. It’s true. I’m not sure how it happened, but it hurts like the Charles Dickens. Mornings are alright, but at night I’m limping around the house just like my grandpa did after the “escalator incident.”. Oh well, God bless us everyone.

Q: You get to carol with one Jazz man from the past and one from the present. Who do you choose and what do you sing?
@JamonWinegar
I LOVE this question! Way to go Jamon! (Love your name by the way.)

Caroling is such a strange tradition. Why do we still do it? Who thought of it? Why did Sara Braithwaite call the cops on me when I caroled at her house for 13 days in a row back in 1994?

It’s just ludicrous to me that a long time ago someone said, “Hey, I have an idea, let’s approach some strangers and sing holiday songs to them!”

And then someone else responded, “What if they don’t like it?”

Then, the original person said, “Then just sing louder.”

I don’t know. That’s how I imagine the conversation went and that’s what I’m going to put up on Wikipedia later tonight.

Also, why don’t we have carols for other holidays? I mean, I know there’s the Monster Mash, but does that really count as a “carol.” And why don’t we have Labor Day carolers or President’s Day carolers? I personally wouldn’t mind if strangers approached me and started singing about Thomas Jefferson. Heck, maybe that’s how the musical Hamilton started? I’ll enter that in Wikipedia as well I guess.

Back to your question—I “get to” carol with former and present Jazz players. Hmmmm.

I know what former player I WOULDN’T choose to carol with—Jim Les. That guy wouldn’t know a carol if it was sung directly into his butt! (I have no idea what that even means. In fact, for all I know, Jim Les is a wonderful singer. My apologies to Jim and the rest of the Les family. May your holidays be filled with merriness and TONS of light. Love, The Ruddings.)

I guess the former player I’d choose would be Antoine Carr because I think it’d be entertaining to watch him sing. For our song, I would choose “Little Drummer Boy” because I’d be willing to bet that the Big Dawg can “pa rum pum pum pum” like nobody’s business.

For my present player I would choose Raul Neto and we would sing “Carol of the Bells.” You have to admit that it’d be hilarious watching him try to sing that fast in English.

Q: What is Derek Fisher getting for Christmas?
@SamJud_17

Hopefully not a new family.

Q: If you were to write a Hallmark Christmas movie called “A Christmas Promise,” what would it be about and who would be in it?
@spenbear

Allow me to get real here—I have never seen a Hallmark movie all the way through. I know, I know—I was raised in a barn and a cave…it was a barn-type of cave where on older gentleman kept his sheep. It was a strange situation and I’d rather not get into it at this juncture in the mailbag.

Now that you understand I am no expert in the art of Hallmark movie creation, I’ll do my best to come up with a short synopsis. Here you go:

A Christmas Promise by Jimbo Rudding

Mark is a young train engineer. Shannon is just back from college and ready to enjoy the holidays with her family in the small town of Frumpertroff. After a terrible snow storm, Mark’s train gets stranded in Frumpertroff and he and his crew must spend a few nights in an old haunted motel on the outskirts of town. Shannon moonlights as Frumpertroff’s only ghost whisperer and is called in after Mark complains of ghosts in his motel closet. Mark finds Shannon prettier than lilacs swaying in an autumn breeze, but when he tells her that to her face, Shannon finds it extremely embarrassing and pretends not to hear him. Mark continues to tell Shannon how beautiful she is and compares her to the bright stars in the galaxy and the smell of pastures after a rain storm and Shannon gets so uncomfortable that she pretends to capture the ghost in the closet and charges Mark double.

As Christmas nears, Shannon’s family and the other Frumpertroff townsfolk take quite a liking to Mark and some of his crew (Except Chuck. People find him creepy because he’s always asking about everyone’s pets. Later in the movie you find out that he has been going out at night and shaving every cat he comes in contact with and mailing the cat fur to the President of the United States).

Shannon still finds Mark juvenile and awkward, but she was born with a slight hunchback and a medium-sized birthmark on her calf, so she decides to settle and Mark and Shannon are married on Christmas Day in front of the whole town of Frumpertroff.

What happens to Chuck, you ask? Don’t worry. He gets attacked by cat ghosts. (This part is kind of rated R)

Thanks for the questions this week, you guys! Have a Merry Christmas and remember to tell your entire family about Jimbo’s Mailbag. Do it at the family Christmas party. Offer to read “T’was the Night Before Christmas” and then throw the mailbag in there somewhere. Then cough hard every once in a while and gradually turn your coughs into “Ho’s.” Make it weird.