it doesn’t matter who you were — a street thug turned rapper, a prize winning physicist, actor jack nicholson — nothing you did mattered, because secretly, you wanted to be like mike. we all wanted to be like mike. by the mid-nineties, he led the bulls to five gazillion championships, was the greatest athlete ever in the history of all time, helped defeat the monstars with his friends the looney tunes, and even got the “da bears” guys on snl to switch over to “da bulls” on many occassions. michael jordan was a basketball playing demi-god, at a time when the term “demi-god” really meant something.

i had michael jordan cards, i saved his wheaties boxes, i tried valiantly to drink gatorade, and for that matter, play basketball (my coach at basketball camp said i was “the smartest” basketball player there, code for “terrible”). you couldn’t not look up to michael jordan in his prime. he was the perfect American guy: awesome at sports, incredibly polite, good looking on camera, and willing to sell out. the four perfect qualities.

in fact, michael jordan was so awesome when this commercial came out, that you could get away with the slogan “be like mike. drink gatorade,” without so much as a second thought. today, if someone said, “be like kobe. drink gatorade,” i’d laugh, then tell them that gatorade sucks. but that’s the magic of michael jordan - he makes you forget about everything that’s not michael jordan, including cynicism.