I'm TOTALLY "NOW."

Guys, I think I am pretty "NOW."

Here are my reasons:

Rugged good looks.
fantastic jumpshot.
Knowledge of various subjects.
Attitude.
I wear an armband.
Cool name.
I wear socks.
Bearded.

There's more, but isn't that already enough?

I mean, what else do I need for "NOW"ness, right?

Maybe a spread in a major magazine or something. Or a crazy story about Native Americans fighting me while I was drunk. Or a hit album. Or a grandiose sports achievement. Or some fantastic breasts.

Maybe if I owned a sweet car. Or battled a man to the death on live TV. Or made a fantastic party parfait. Or maybe if I invented potato vodka. Or crafted a thesis on gelatin operated automobiles and their practicality in the new age.

Perhaps I could be "NOW" if I played cards really well or owned a vineyard or drove a stolen tank through Scott Erickson's yard or won the Prize Patrol sweepstakes or crafted a more user-friendly thesaurus for the interwebnets.

What if I cheated on Ned Beatty, fed corn to a mountain goat for money, disassembled a classic hot rod piece by piece with no manual, participated in a walk through the center of the Earth, raised money for "headband head" awareness, or glued computers to my legs? Would I be more "NOW?"

I think I might be "NOW" if I could turn invisible, make a blender out of my own record albums, broke glass with my mind, outran a fastball at it's apex of its speed, rid humans of their need of skin, wore four shirts at a time no matter the weather or came up with a new mathematical formula to measure sunburn efficiency.

How about this for "Now": I could cover myself in mince meat pies, eat dirt for a full year, win an NBA title without every playing a game, beat Jacquez Green in a race to the liquor store, bring a pinata to every party I ever attend for the rest of my life, turn into a Chinese black chicken or be the first man to ever mix milk and lotion with vodka.

Now that's "NOW..." right?

If I was "NOW," I'd probably have been a bear in my past life, or played golf with a cast member of "Roseanne," or made a washer and dryer out of my own ear wax or pierced my peanut butter bottle or made the greatest cup of coffee Otis Redding ever tasted or lambasted a muskrat for being late to a meeting with the board (HA!) or made a bookcase dance for money like a commonplace whore.

I mean, what is "NOW," anyway? Is it shifting gears on the thruway with your hands on a woman's thin white skirt? Pushing a few hundred kilos of cocaine though Interstate 85 on a Sunday? Blasting Jimmy Eat World at a wedding reception? Riding a bull through a house of Elvis Presley memorabilia? Memorizing the periodic table with the longest mnemonic device in history?Bracing yourself for a hurricane in the middle of Winter? Being a woman in the year 2345? Is any of that "NOW?"

I'll bet "NOW" is being Al Green before he was cool, slipping Albert Belle a mickey while he colors his arms with crayons, playing Clue with a former lover, marinating Chicken in Sprite, roasting cocoa beans over a closed fire, playing a rock show to a mainly Tibetan crowd, mongering whores in a fish factory. I'll bet "NOW" is exactly, not less than or more than but actually equal to, all of THAT.

And if not, I'm fairly certain it's not what ESPN thinks it is: a series of arguments and buzzwords that nullify everything good about sports coverage. I know at LEAST that much.