#63 - Alonzo Mourning is Dr. Pierre Chang

Both of these men lost parts of their body and inturn had their lives saved by estranged family members. I’M NOT FUCKING AROUND WITH THIS LIST! Actually, I’m really really fucking around with this list, but let’s get to that bit later. 

I fucking love(d) Zo! Oh man, I was all-in, ALL FUCKING IN, for the Charlotte Hornets when I was a kid. I was 8 years old and a just a bottomless pit of sports trivia when the teal, purple, and white drafted Larry Johnson and I loved me some Larry “Grand Ma Ma” Johnson. Man, I was a kid in New Jersey with a love for the Rebels of UNLV because of Larry and that made me a Hornets fan with an exclamation point mark. Besides UNLV, I fucking loved, LOVED, the Georgetown Hoyas. I had a hat and everything. Again, I have no actual connection to Georgetown or UNLV and if you asked me at any point during the 90s what two colleges I would apply to when it was time to - I would’ve for sure said Georgetown and UNLV and I would go on to apply to neither. No fucking way could I get into Georgetown and, honestly, am still a bit frightened about being a college student in Las Vegas. Anyway, I was already primed as a full-on Hornets fan and a full-on Hoyas fan when they drafted, the one and the only, Alonzo Mourning. DAMN IT! WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!

Alonzo looked like the baddest, no nonsense dude and he went to the baddest, no nonsense college and he played the baddest, no nonsense position against a whole bunch of monsters that no doubt are on this list. We all had high hopes for Alonzo too with him being the heir apparent of Patrick Ewing, and Zo was damn good. He just looked so tough. Centers are absolute freaks, each and everyone. They’re usually pretty gangly with these crazy long legs and crazy long arms and sometimes small looking torsos, but then there are some guys like Shaq and Zo who look proportional like they’re some super-sized 6’ beefcake. Alonzo had this heavyweight boxer look to him. I feel like if you imagined Patrick Ewing or Olajuwon in a fist fight, you’d think they’d be crazy slow punchers because it would take their arms forever to go from where it is going to retracting for the next punch. Only me? Not Zo. You’d imagine he’d truck someone like Wladimir Klitschko fka Hayden Panettiere’s 2x husband. 

Dr. Pierre Chang is a bad, no nonsense dude and was apart of a bad, nonsense team and his job was a bad, no nonsense job. We’re talking the stern-faced, one-handed, Mr. mysterioso, doctor-scientist whose name changes with the wind in those THE island Zapruder films found in every tom, dick, and larry hole/station. For like 2 or so seasons, we’re seeing flickering celluloid of this dude talking about the craziest ass science stuff in these deeply unsettling post-apocalyptic laboratories. Then we start with the flashbacks. And the dude’s going by like 4 different names! What is going on? Whatever he was being called from Candle to Halliwax, you knew this guy was all business and someone to be feared. He was a Dharma heavy, for sure. 

What else? Oh yeah, that part about them both losing parts of their bodies and having their lives saved by estranged family members?! YEAH! It’s time. 

• Chang loses his hand during ‘The Incident’, which is started when an enormous spike in magnetic energy draws all the metal within like 50 feet of a drilling hole to come flying at Chang as he is standing next to said drilling hole and his hand gets crushed to smithereens, but he could’ve died if not for the quick help of his estranged son, Miles, who was there and he only got to have a relationship with because that son traveled back in time and got to know his dad who he was not raised with as his dad was told by Miles to evacuate Chang’s wife and newborn baby aka Miles off THE island before The Incident happens. 

• Alonzo lost his kidney from a life-threatening disease called focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, but got the life-saving kidney transplant from his estranged cousin, a retired US marine who he hadn’t seen or talked to in 25 years.

Ain’t that some wild shit?! Also, Patrick Ewing got tested to see if he was a match for Alonzo to give him his damn beautiful kidney. Motherfucking love Patrick. Alonzo thought he was never going to play in the NBA again (or maybe live either), but that kidney transplant saved his life and he played for another like 5 or 6 years including winning a fucking NBA championship with the Miami Heat. Unreal. Dr. Pierre Chang got to save his son’s life by sending him away on a submarine to never be seen again and, at the same time, got to hang out with that same son as a 30+ year old who gave him the info to save the baby form of himself. Unreal as well. I guess they both lived pretty cool lives.

And when the lights go off in the bedroom, it is some serious fucking. I don’t think Alonzo or Pierre talk at all when having sex and are basically mute during it. It’s not silly sex or giggle fucks, it’s some archetypal non-verbal and intense banging. They’re locked into game mode and they’re on a mission to solve a problem, which is not having orgasmed and they are there to solve that problem of having orgasms.