I Went To Miami And I Didn't Party With Frank Stallone

Greetings, sportsfans! Bumpers here. I’m flying back to Los Angeles as I write this. When I’m finished, I’ll just electrically zap it to the boys at SportsPage.com, and bang! There it is. I remember the days when it took a reverse press seven hours just to print the promotional posters for my latest show. I’ll tell you one thing about technology – I like it!

The reason I’m soaring over flyover country right now is that SportsPage.com let me take the company biplane to Miami to take in the Heat/Pistons playoff game. I must admit how scary it can be for myself and other singers to take to the skies. Everybody knows the sad history of superstars going down in plane crashes; Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, Richie Valens, Jim Croce, and more recently, Bob Denver. Bob, if you can hear me, I’m feeling a little "Rocky Mountain High" myself right now.

Anyway, getting to the game itself was no piece of cake in the park. When I hopped into the biplane at Burbank Airport here in the City of Angels, I told the pilot to take me to the Motor City, which as we all know, is Miami. Well, I don’t know what this guy had for breakfast, because he flew me to Detroit. When the flight crew greeted me and said "Welcome to Detroit, Mr. Bumpers," I nearly went Vietnam on those jokers. After a stern lecture on respect and geography, we were back in the air and on our way to Miami.

No thanks to my pilot, I arrived a quarter late for the game. I didn’t mind so much, because I knew how when stars arrive late to games, they make a big to-do and put their face on the scoreboard along with a welcome message. I’ll just say I got neither and leave it at that.
They escorted me to my front row seat, where I discovered I was lumped in with Frank Stallone, Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the whole Sound Machine wasn’t even on hand. Tito, the conga player, was nowhere to be found. I kept asking, "Where’s Tito?" until Ms. Estefan told me that his wife was having a baby that night. This whole time I thought he was as gay as a colorful parrot in leather pants. That just goes to show that you never know.

Now on to the game. It featured multiple lead-changes, jaw-dropping plays and a key injury to Grant Hill. Yes, it had all the drama of a Bewitched episode and then some. Somehow, Miami was able to hold on to the lead at the end of the game to win 84 – 82 and take a 2 – 0 lead in the series.

After the game, Gloria and Frank invited me to a party at Frank’s brother’s place in Key Biscayne. I told them I couldn’t go because I had an early flight the next morning. After they left, I went down to South Beach to check out the club action. I bumped into Ricky Martin at the Cha-Cha Lounge. For about an hour straight, he asked me for pointers on singing and kept offering to buy me banana daiquiris. Finally, I punched him right in his pretty nose and told him to beat it. I expect the lawsuit to arrive any day now. I crushed his nose good.

Since I didn’t get back to my hotel pad until 5 a.m. and had a 6:30 flight, I decided to just stay awake all night and think. When I arrived at the airfield at 6 a.m., I wrote down on a piece of paper that I wanted to go to Los Angeles and handed it to the pilot to avoid any further screw ups.

I think I’m over Missouri by about now. The pilot keeps spitting and it keeps hitting me in the face. I think he’s doing it on purpose. If I find out that’s the case, I know of one hotshot flyboy that’s going to be grounded for awhile. And I don’t mean Val Kilmer.

I’m winkin’ at ya, and thinkin’ of ya.
The Showman