Ray Manzarek lives in an Omaha suburb working part-time as the organ player at the Skate World roller rink.  Manzarek, of course, is old school and is trying to come to grips with the in-line skaters who dominate the rink. 

“Whatever happened to the 4-wheel roller skates, man?” he asks no one in particular, stubbing out another cigarette, announcing a reverse skate into the microphone and starts playing, I’ve got a Brand New Pair of Roller Skates (You’ve Got a Brand New Key).

A kid, maybe 7 or 8 years of age, skates over and tells Ray, “You suck, mister.”

Frantically, Ray slams the keys of his organ like he did at the Fillmore East in 1969, stops suddenly and says to the kid, “I was with The Doors. I don’t suck.” 

The Manager, overhearing the last bit of the exchange says, “Ray, knock it off, will you?” 

Ray knocks it off.  This would never be happening had Jim lived longer.  Jim Morrison promised revolution, but delivered only an early death. 

“The kids don’t get it.  None of them get it.  Our society has bred two successive generations of complete ignorance.  The Doors are timeless.  We wrote Moonlight Drive and People Are Strange and The End, for Christ sake…those compositions are timeless, like the philosophy of Nietzsche and the poetry of Rimbaud. We changed the world.  We were, and this is truth not ego, we were Gods.”

Manzarek landed this job after various attempts at Doors revivals proved commercially unsuccessful.  With little more than a continuing desire to fuel his organ art, Manzarek traveled the country looking for gigs, finally ending up at this suburban Omaha rink. 

“I still have trouble with authority, man.  Nobody will alter or change or dissuade my art, man.  Nobody can move me away from my raison d’ etre.  Now it’s all about Britney Spears and 50 Cent and Clay Aiken and people like that.  But, I told management when I started here there are a lot of Doors fans out there, even 10-year olds love us once they understand us.  I play a lot of Doors, a lot of Big Brother and the Holding Company and Jefferson Airplane in my sets. Jim said, ‘Once you make peace with authority, you become authority.’ I’ll never accept total authority, man. Not now, not ever, you know. At first when I got here and started this gig, man, The Man hassled me, but like all true artists they’re coming to accept my genius.” 

Assistant Manager, Chuck Tracy, said Ray was on the verge of being let go by management until he noticed the owner’s daughter choking on a chicken bone in the rink’s eating area.  Ray - a devout follower of Zen Buddhism, the Maharashi, and Shamanism, also has his life-saving badge and first-aid certification earned at a Los Angeles YMCA - saved the owner’s daughter with the Heimlich Maneuver.

“The owner is always saying, like, ‘My daughter is the apple of my eye’…more like the apple pie with a double scoop of ice-cream with a chocolate shake of his eye. She’s big, dude. Are you going to print my name? Ray was gone until he saved her life.  The kids are sick of hearing Doors songs.  It’s really bad.  I mean it’s no different than making the kids study for and take a test about the Pilgrims.  This is supposed to be fun.” 

Ray views his current job as a test of his resolve and as suffering for his art, 30 years removed from his success with The Doors.

“What I really want is to find someone to replace Jim as a lead vocalist, man, that is my ultimate goal. I’m applying with various NHL and NBA and MLB teams to play the organ at their games.  I could be good with the Sabres, or the Suns, or the Dodgers or any of those teams. The Lakers, man, that would be ideal. I’d be back in the city where it all began for Jim and me. Kobe Bryant, I’m sure he gets it. Can you imagine?  What a more fitting tune than Light My Fire, to get a team fired up. People are always saying that The Doors were done after Jim died, but that’s not true, man. All of us, me, Robbie and John…we’re all out there perfecting our art.”

After two more songs – Break on Through and LA Woman (which Ray also sings) – it will be time for him to clean the urinals. 

 

 

 

 

The car is a 1988 Volvo and my wife recently went from suggesting I sell it to demanding I do so.

My neighbor, an eccentric and eclectic man, who raises pigeons in his backyard and yet hunts pheasants and dove and quail and turkeys and other assorted birds, does not disagree with my wife. 

“You think I should sell it?”  I asked him one afternoon as he was spray-painting his truck’s gun rack in his driveway.

“Yes,” he said. “You should sell it.”

He has a bumper sticker on his truck reading:  “Fear the government that fears guns.”

I asked my wife once, after reading the bumper sticker, “Does that mean we should fear a government that doesn’t have an army or weapons or something like that?

“Are you serious with that question?”  She asked me.

“I guess I was at first, but probably not now.”

“C’mon, now, please. You got to be joking on that.” 

The Volvo is heading towards 200,000 miles and was once burgundy-red in color.  The exterior is aging badly and rusting at an awkward, confused pace making it look like a Jackson Pollack painting.

In a twist of ironic weirdness as far as car sale mythology goes, the only person who answered the newspaper ad was a 55-year old minister who needed a reliable car to get him to and from church on Sundays.

“Is it reliable enough to get me to and from church every week?” The minister asked, not looking at me.

The car had taken me to Alaska, Canada, Mexico, Florida, Arizona, California, Nebraska, Iowa, Utah, Washington, New York City and hundreds of places in between. It had been ticketed for drag-racing and had been to repair shops after being damaged four-wheeling.  It tried to chase down the limousine carrying Red Auerbach and his cigar after an NBA All-Star game when he refused to acknowledge my, “Hey, Red, how’s it going, bra?”  The Volvo drove me to Joe Montana’s retirement party at San Francisco’s Embarcadero Square and to a basketball tournament at Rucker Park in Harlem, but never once had it taken me to a church anywhere.

“I really have no idea,” I answered the minister. 

The day before the minister arrived I cleaned the car out and found a ticket from the 1995 Colorado-Oklahoma football game.  My friend Deke and I drove to Norman for the game and watched Colorado beat Oklahoma. The Sooner Schooner tipped over right before halftime and Deke was slugged in the back of the head before the game by Oklahoma quarterback Cale Gundy’s aunt for loudly questioning Gundy’s gender while in the pocket.  It was an eye-watering punch that brought him to a knee. He recovered, got to his feet, apologized to her and bought her a cold drink.  That’s the way to do it down there.

Unable to get tickets together, we used walkie-talkies as a communication device throughout the game.  Deke purchased a yellow windbreaker and a blue baseball hat the day before at a sporting goods store and managed to get down on the Colorado sideline pretending to be game security. He radioed me, told me where he was, which was directly behind coach Bill McCartney, and waved to me at the same time the real security was escorting him away from the sidelines and off to jail.

While waiting for Deke to be processed and released later that evening, I sat on a barstool next to Barry Switzer drinking Coors.  Switzer was fired a couple of years earlier for running an outlaw program.  He was anything but an outlaw that evening, talking to me for several hours about the best fishing spots in the Southeast.  I have never been fishing, but am an avid reader of fishing magazines and had a few things to say back to Barry, like, “fish flop around for awhile on the shore after you catch them before they die for good.”  I consider him a friend after that night, even though he wouldn’t remember me if we passed on the street.  

A couple of years earlier, Deke and I drove the Volvo to Miami for the Orange Bowl.  We didn’t have enough money for immediate accommodations having run our credit cards to the limit making t-shirts for the Orange Bowl game and had just enough cash to get us back to Colorado.

“We’ll make enough off t-shirt sales to live at a South Beach hotel for months,” I told Deke.

“I want to drink multi-#### drinks out of big glasses with stir-sticks, too,” Deke said, always the Zen optimist.

Deke is generous with his wisdom.  He has told me important things like, “Don’t throw the bottle out of the window in front of the cops.” And, “Don’t be in a hurry unless you need to get somewhere really fast.”  And, “Don’t climb big fences to get something that isn’t yours. If the wire doesn’t get you, the dogs will.” And, “Don’t take a lot of hits of LSD on Fat Tuesday.” 

Four hours into our Miami stay and about 32 minutes into selling our t-shirts, we were busted by an Orange Bowl representative claiming the shirts were not properly licensed by the universities or the Orange Bowl.  We plead ignorance, because we were ignorant about the recent t-shirt legislation.

After the shirts were confiscated, we had $267 in cash and no credit.  We slept in the car for three nights and hung out in Miami during the days.  The Orange Bowl is a game you don’t miss when you’re in Miami on January 1^st and have tickets. We were unshowered and gamey for the game, but this was humid Miami. Everyone has their game face on and their gamey bodies on. 

A newspaper columnist made the mistake of critiquing our hero, John Elway, too often. We found out where he lived and drove by his house to do something to make him understand our position, and saw him laying sod down at his new house.  Later, eight of us crammed into the Volvo, and in the middle of the night, quiet and effective like mute landscape laborers; we rolled the sod up and put it back on the pallets. 

The Volvo took me and three buddies to Tempe for an Arizona State-Nebraska football game.  On the way down we purchased 3 cases of beer and put them in the trunk of the car.  Driving through the desert in 100 degree heat without air conditioning, we started hearing popping sounds coming from the car trunk. 

At first we thought they were gunshots, but when we pulled over we found the desert heat was causing the beer cans to explode.  Not wanting to lose our investment, we began drinking as many beers as fast as we could.  Being more than a few sheets to the wind, probably a mid-sized laundry to a gale, we took off and a few miles down the road, drinking, weaving, and listening to a Guns & Roses CD, Deke, with his arm hanging out of the window slammed it into a mile-marker. 

We found a chain-smoking rural doctor who set the broken arm and asked us, “So let me get this straight. You were arm-wrestling to see who drove the next leg of the trip?” 

“Something like that,” I answered for Deke, knowing that it is always better to lie and maybe get away with it, then it is to tell the truth and face an immediate consequence.

After the Arizona trip, we solved the exploding beer can problem by drilling a hole into the back seat of the Volvo to the trunk so we could carry a keg in the trunk and run the tap through the hole and into the back seat. 

There was a night driving down a highway from Colorado Springs to Denver with my buddies in a blizzard after watching a friend play goalie for the Colorado College hockey team. We were drinking beer from the trunk-keg when the Volvo was stopped by a cop. 

“How fast do you think you were going?”  He asked me, the designated driver at 1:55 AM with a .18 BAC.

“I don’t know…70, 75.” 

“14” 

He made each of us get out of the car and stood facing us jingling coins in his pocket.  He then threw the coins from his pocket and into the snow.

“Whoever can come closest to telling me how much change I threw out is driving.”

This same goalie, after his first year at Colorado College, asked me to keep his goalie pads in the trunk while he spent some time with his new girlfriend. They had a lot of catching up to do, because I didn’t see him the entire summer.

That August, at a drive-in movie theater, his pads combusted and caught on fire.  When the police arrived after the pads were extinguished, the investigating officer told me, “I have a couple of questions for you.” 

“Will you be expecting good answers?” I asked. 

There was the time on my way back to Colorado after my grandma’s funeral I stopped in the town of Alta, Iowa, population 1,865. Curious as to why 1,865 people would live there, I exited the highway and lost the alternator belt on the main street. I pulled into a gas station and asked the owner when he could fix the Volvo.

“Tomorrow.  Tonight is the sectional basketball finals. Alta and Aurelia. They’re big, but we’re better. Get in the truck.”

I think every town member was at the game, and for these people, it was like Game 7 of the NBA Finals. I locked away my cynicism and witnessed a good game of basketball played at Iowa’s lowest high school classification.

Afterward, I ate pot-luck dinner with the fans and the players and the coaches. I never knew you could use Jell-O to make so many different dishes.

I looked at the minister as these thoughts ran through my head and then I looked at the car that had brought so much life to my life.

“You’re really going to take this car to church and back every Sunday?”
“Yeah, and maybe do some church-related errands.”

I thought about the time me and Deke drove the Volvo to Mexico to see a bullfight. We committed felonies, probably, and compromised an international treaty or two, maybe.  All I really remember is we never found the bullfight and the car smelled like a reggae concert for three months afterward.

“I’m sorry.  This isn’t the car for you.”

I made the decision without talking to my wife. I know communication is the key to a successful relationship, but there is a clause in the vows about for better or for worse. I don’t think keeping the car qualifies as a for worse. At least not just yet.

 

EMBRYO, EMBROYO! WHEREFORE ART THOU EMBRYO?

 

Imagine a world where Yale, Harvard, Colgate, Brown, MIT and Oberlin are regular BCS participants. 

Imagine a world where the Final Four consists of Yale, Harvard, Colgate and Brown.

Imagine a world where the Duke Lacrosse team wins a national championship each year and the gene for aggressive behavior towards exotic dancers has been removed, or at a minimum, a gene making them more believable to law enforcement is inserted.

Genetic engineering has progressed from the imagination of science-fiction writers to becoming scientific reality.  

Steroids, prior to becoming a reality, was first imagined by both chemists and cartoonists. The thought of a drug’s ability to create supermen has moved from fake heroes created on comic-book pages, to chemists making and selling the drug to create fake comic sports heroes.

Steroids may soon become the jealous ancestor of technology developed to create “designer babies” by enhancing genetic makeup before birth.

The idea of creating “designer babies” is no longer a pencil-sketch; it is published science, and these “designer babies” may be coming to schoolyards and ball fields and basketball courts very soon.

The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, which oversees tests involving human embryos in Britain, ruled last week that fertility clinics may screen out human embryos carrying genes that raise the risk of certain adulthood cancers.  Those in favor of the move view it as a needed step in preventing human suffering, while critics view it as the first step in the age of handpicking babies.

The British Medical Association embraced the decision "to extend the criteria for embryo selection." The Association’s chief of ethics and science, Vivienne Nathanson, calmed critics by stating:

"We do not see that today's decision is moving towards 'designer babies.'  There is a world of difference between a parent not wanting their child to develop breast cancer and someone wanting a child with blue eyes and blond hair."

Nathanson provided the Aryan physical description without an irony addendum.

The Authority stopped short at selecting embryos with genetic markers for eczema and asthma - because they are treatable- and for schizophrenia, a condition without a single gene of causation.

In a foreseeable future, a society of breast healthy, cancer-free, wheezing, scratching people debating politics with imaginary friends is a distinct possibility. In a future a little fuzzier, once genes for various items such as height, obesity, personality, IQ, physical makeup and others are identified and found to be adjustable in a lab, parents will be ordering up offspring as if in a Chinese restaurant:

“I’ll take blonde hair, blue eyes, no cancer, no mental illness, no teenage rebellion, a height gene, a big-bone gene, the speed gene, the vertical leap gene, the strength gene, add 75 IQ points, an outgoing comedy gene, and throw in some personal responsibility as well.”

Altering a human being prior to birth would be cost prohibitive for the masses, but an elite few - an elite few who want to cheer a son scoring 15 goals at a peewee soccer game and then change to a suit and tie in the car to win the national spelling bee, and then later that evening play cello for the Boston Pops Orchestra – will be able to afford a procedure or set of procedures to make this a reality. 

There is an absolute truth about the human being and science is finding the proof.

Nature is an absolute, a fact, and with each scientific discovery concerning genetics, personal experience and environment as dominant factors in human achievement is nothing more than anecdotal dialogue.

Studies indicate two different children can be raised identically in the same household and become vastly different people; and, two nearly identical people can be raised in vastly different households and become almost identical people.

For example, a two-parent family can raise children adhering strictly to the teachings of Dr. Spock and one of the kids may grow up to be a responsible, well-adjusted kid, while the other may dress up like Spock from Star Trek and abuse stray animals in the neighborhood.  Identical twins, separated at birth, and raised in different environs, tend to be indistinguishable people as adults with the same interests, personalities and talents.

Genetics as final destiny is a fallacy, but genetics as a road map is undeniable. Environment can merely prescribe road choice, it cannot determine the pace or make of the vehicle or the distance it will cover.  Our society fears science revealing biological factors over environmental factors, because it removes us as our own ultimate path maker.

Behaviorists point to various studies to improve the argument we can be anything we want to be if we just stick to it and work hard.  John Watson, an American Psychologist, believed he could take any healthy child in his controlled environment and make the child into anything he wanted to make him be regardless of talent, intelligence, tendencies and abilities.  His theory, when viewed through the eyes of modern science, is laughably improbable.  But maybe, had he lived long enough, Watson could have trained, for instance, the hyper-aggressive Charles Manson to be the featherweight champion of the world instead of a serial killer, or trained a Palestinian child seasoned in rock throwing at Israeli tanks to be a major league baseball pitcher. 

B.F. Skinner believed the human could be conditioned to do anything.  He pointed to studies where he taught pigeons how to dance and play tennis.  That’s an interesting experiment as circus sideshow, but he never studied or explained differences in ability levels amongst his tennis playing and dancing pigeons.  Any human being can learn how to dance or play tennis or play basketball or baseball or football.  The gist is that certain people do things much better than others, and not that they simply can do them at all.    

Denying genetic truths for environmental dominant theories is understandable.  It is the way we control our lives and the lives of our children. We want to believe we can do and be anything we want to be. Our society is founded on this belief.  Our system of law, politics and education is founded on this belief, and western religion is wholly dependant on this belief. 

This belief - held by millions of parents - at its tamest, is simply egotistical; and, at worst is a reckless ambition aimed at their children causing lifelong trauma for both child and parent.  This belief has led to athletic performance and enhancement centers for children beginning as early as two years of age.  These centers can make the slow and weak a tad faster and a tad stronger; the average guy a little above average; the above average very good; the very good great; the great elite. But, parents are shoving their kids into these enhancement programs with a false dream their kid will be a professional athlete, when they are better suited for CPAing, or constructing homes, or as career counselors.  

Talent and genius is not manufactured, it is born, and is merely nudged by environment.

We think we can be a John Elway if we put in the time and the effort. 

We think we can be a Michael Jordan if we put in the time and the effort.

We think we can be an Alex Rodriguez if we put in the time and the effort.

We tell ourselves these things as kids, and when we fail, we owe the failings to disadvantageous training, to bad coaching, to the wrong school district, to uncomfortable shoes, to bad teammates, and many other excuses.  Some of these environmental excuses may apply, but science is telling us through continuing genetic advances that our failings in athletics happen well before we even step on a field a diamond or a court.

But science may be coming to the rescue of the athletically challenged very soon, if the critics of the British Medical Association are also prophets.

Imagine an all Ivy League Final Four.

Imagine a BCS where the players are also responsible for creating the computer analysis determining the teams.

Imagine professional leagues comprised solely of the genetically enhanced.

Imagine this could never happen?

Imagine it already has.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE ALL-TIME NBA DRAFT  

In his 1974 essay, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig examines the idea of quality and how to attack the question through logical, systematic and rational thought. Pirsig’s protagonist, Phaedrus, is a rhetoric professor at the University of Montana who is driven mad by his pursuit to define what is best. 

Thirty years later in a parked car high atop the city of San Diego, Ron Burgundy argues with Veronica Corningstone about the origins of the name “San Diego.”  Burgundy is convinced the city was named for a whale’s genetalia, while Ms. Corningstone correctly argues the city is named after the Spanish Saint, Saint Diego.  With a dismissive wave of the hand Burgundy tells Corningstone, “We agree to disagree.” 

 

The first example illustrates the difficulty in defining what is best on an abstract level, while the second example demonstrates the absurdity of arguing a point that has a definitive answer.  At first glance, it appears that there can be nothing in common between Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and the movie Anchorman: Legend of Ron Burgundy, but the two examples come together perfectly when sporting events and athletes are the topic of debate.  Most arguments about athletes and sporting events center on defining what is best and then structuring and defending a particular position.  Most times, no matter how persuasive the argument on either side, the only conclusion is to agree to disagree.  

 

The NBA MVP debate this year is a perfect example of an inability to agree on quality and what is best.  I’m not certain we could reach a unanimous MVP if each of us were to put aside all of our beliefs and prejudices and preconceived notions of how we feel the game should be played.  

 

This June, the NBA draft will lay the foundation for new debate.  Without high school players eligible, this year’s draft is slim-pickings. Adam Morrison, for example, the potential first pick, is the destitute man’s Larry Bird.  The 2006 NBA draft offers little hope of excitement, except for those people who enjoy watching long-term role players.  In its 60 years of existence, the NBA has produced thousands of great players, hundreds of superstars, and about 50-60 legends.  The NBA came out with a list of the 50 best players of all time at the 1996-1997 All Star Game.  A panel comprised of former players and media members took on the arduous task of determining the greatest players in NBA history and their selections were, for the most part, dead-on accurate.

 

As an exercise to ####e up this year’s bland draft, I examined each team’s draft needs, and instead of choosing from this year’s mediocre crop of college kids, any player who has ever played the game is eligible for selection in this fantasy draft. My first-round picks are all guys who made the NBA’s 50 greatest list.  Each pick was selected by using Pirsig’s rational, logical and systematic method of choosing the best player for each team.  As for any disagreements about these selections, my response, unless I can be convinced otherwise, will be to use Ron Burgundy’s “agree to disagree” stance.  

 

1.                  Portland Trail Blazers – The Blazers need help at every position, and in this draft, the Blazers know Sam Bowie is not the answer. Feeling nostalgic, they toy with the idea of drafting Bill Walton.  Cooler heads prevail and the Blazers do what they should have done in 1984.  With the first pick in the 2006 draft, the Portland Trail Blazers select Michael Jordan.

2.                  Chicago Bulls – The Bulls tried to trade their entire roster and this pick to the Blazers, for the chance to again draft Jordan, knowing the Blazers would certainly not make the mistake of the century again.  Having failed, the Bulls keep this pick.  Feeling good about guards Ben Gordon and Kirk Hinrich and looking for size at this pick, the candidates are Kareem, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain.  The Bulls flirt briefly with making the solid and safe pick in Bill Russell, but in the end select Wilt Chamberlain.

3.                  Charlotte Bobcats – Charlotte needs help at every position and it’s a miracle they won 26 games this year.  Needing a scorer, a rebounder and a playmaker in just this one pick, the Bobcats select the do-it-all Oscar Robertson.

4.                  Atlanta Hawks – The best players drafted in franchise history are Lenny Wilkins, Pete Maravich and David Thompson.  GM Billy Knight thinks long and hard about drafting either Maravich or Thompson until the team psychiatrist provides him the definition of insanity, which is doing what you’ve always done and expecting different results.  This team needs bigs.  This team needs smalls. This team needs miracles. This team needs and gets “Magic.” 

5.                  Toronto Raptors – It’s tough being a professional athlete in Canada with the currency exchange rate. Athletes in baseball, basketball and hockey bolt as soon as they’re eligible for free agency.  The working-day malaise phrase in Canada is: “Another day, another 64 cents.”  A GM could build a championship team with the list of former Raptors. Every player on this current Raptors team is expendable.  The Raptors decide to go franchise and select Kareem Addul- Jabbar.

6.                  Minnesota Timberwolves – Kevin Garnett and a pack of baby wolves.  KG, the 2003-2004 league MVP, led the Wolves to the Western Conference Finals that same year.  They haven’t been back to the playoffs since. Kevin McHale thinks about drafting himself with this pick. He is talked down from the ledge and drafts a player he knows better than anyone. His pick is Larry Bird.

7.                  Boston Celtics – The city mourns the previous pick made by one of their own, of one of their own.  This team needs guards and a center. In an effort to restore Celtic Pride, their choices come down to Sam Jones, Nate Archibald, John Havlicek, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, and of course, the guy they pick, Bill Russell.

8.                  Houston Rockets – Is Yao the guy they want to continue to build around?   At 25 years of age, the answer is yes.  Jeff Van Gundy, however, isn’t the architect for the project. He’ll be gone and the Rockets will continue with Yao and a guy named T-Mac. With an inside presence and a 25 point a night guy, the Rockets look to the point and take Isiah Thomas.

9.                  Golden State Warriors – The Warrior backcourt is solid with Baron Davis and Jason Richardson. Number 9 in this draft is too high to pick the Warriors’ most famous player, Rick Barry.  Houston’s Hakeem Olajuwan’s athleticism fits in brilliantly with that of Davis and Richardson. Coach Mike Montgomery is a better fit at the University of Houston and won’t be around to coach this guy. Olajuwan is the pick.

10.              Seattle SuperSonics – The Sonics best players are a shooting guard and a small forward.  In the NBA, that combination makes you a perennial lottery team unless those guys are Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.  Luke Ridnaur will never be an NBA championship point guard, nor will the guy they take at number ten, Washington homeboy John Stockton.

11.              Orlando Magic – This team has several nice pieces, including rookie power forward, Dwight Howard, their franchise player.  The Magic goes backcourt selecting Clyde Frazier.

12.              New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets – With two different mailing addresses, the Hornets have a 20-year old point guard who will be dynamite for the next 10 years. The Hornets decide to take a guy who can rebound, get up and down the floor, and knows how to deliver the mail. The Hornets select Louisiana native Karl “Mailman” Malone.

13.              Philadelphia 76ers – Can they get three more productive years from AI?  The Sixers can lengthen his career by taking the bulk of the scoring load from his slight shoulders and take a guy who can effectively slow the pace of every game he plays in. He led the Sixers to The Promised Land in 1983. Can Moses Malone do it again?

14.              Utah Jazz – Average players will give you a .500 team and that’s exactly what the Jazz were this year, .500.  Carlos Boozer and Andre Kirilenko are decent frontcourt players, but the center by committee isn’t working.  The most logical choice here would be to take a big man, a guy like Patrick Ewing, David Robinson, George Mikan or Robert Parrish.  But, Jerry Sloan, who isn’t big on bigs, takes a Jerry Sloan guy who shares his given name. With the 14^th pick, the Jazz select Jerry West.

15.              New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets (from Milwaukee) – Chris Paul has a running mate in Karl Malone, who they drafted with their 12^th pick.  P.J. Brown isn’t getting any younger, and the Hornets decide to choose the most athletic center remaining, a guy who knows how to play with other great players and make it work.  The Hornets select David Robinson.

16.              Chicago Bulls – Are they really certain Kirk Hinrich and Ben Gordon are the right guys to play with Wilt?  The Bulls are convinced that they can make it work, but decide they want a pass first point guard and make a move towards becoming the most powerful paint team in the league by trading this pick to the L.A. Clippers for Elton Brand and Sam Cassell.  Elgin Baylor, who loves Elgin Baylor, picks Elgin Baylor at 16 for the Clips.

17.              Indiana Pacers – The Pacers are about Larry Bird and Rick Carlisle.  Tough, hard-nosed and competitive.  Carlisle and Bird decide they can continue to work with Jermaine O’Neal at the power forward position and Jamaal Tinsley at the point. Peja is drugstore cotton soft, but can score the basketball. The Pacers need help at the center spot, and briefly flirt with the idea of unloading O’Neal to Sacramento to re-obtain Brad Miller.  In the end, Bird, Carlisle and the Pacers go Celtic tough taking John Havlicek.

18.              Washington Wizards – Gilbert Arenas is a light it up point guard and Antwan Jamison and Caron Butler are dependable scorers. Centers, Brendan Haywood, Peter John Ramos and Calvin Booth are the league’s most highly paid and ugliest cheerleaders. Now they have the ugliest center in NBA history, besides Paul Mokeski, to go with the ugliest cheerleaders/backup centers.  Georgetown alum, Patrick Ewing, is their pick.

19.              Sacramento Kings – The Kings like their pieces as evidenced by their unwillingness to trade Brad Miller for Jermaine O’Neal. With Mike Bibby, Bonzi Wells and the emerging Kevin Martin in the backcourt and Ron Artest and Brad Miller up front, their need is power forward. The Kings love Kevin McHale at this pick, but are too intrigued by a Barkley-Artest frontcourt to pass on “The Round Mound of Rebound.”  The Maloof brothers, who are chasing Mark Cuban for the most visible owner in the league award, are certain this pick will give the organization more controversial airtime than any team in the history of the game.  The question now is this:  Who will pay more money in fines next season, Artest or Sir Charles?

20.              New York Knicks (From Denver) – The worst team in basketball with some great pieces in place.  The Knicks fire the nagging Larry Brown and attempt to lure Pat Riley back to the Big Apple.  Keeping Starbury and Stevie Francis, the Knicks want Riley and his Laker version of Showtime and not his Knick version of Slowtime.  Riley decides to stay in Miami. Undeterred, the Knicks hire the wacky, unconventional Don Nelson to head up their wacky, unconventional new-look team.  Is there a doctor in the house?  There is now.  The Knicks get Roosevelt’s own, Julius Erving.

21.              Phoenix Suns (From LA Lakers) – The Suns get this pick from the Lakers, a team that has shown them exactly what it is they need during their first round series this year.  Their need is obvious.  They need size. Amare Stoudemire will be back next year, and the Suns like him at power forward. With perimeter shooters at every position, they will continue to light teams up from the outside next year.  Their run and gun brand of basketball is thrilling and fills arenas, but the half-court game wins come playoff time. The Suns, with this pick, automatically become a great half-court basketball team selecting Robert Parish.

22.              New Jersey Nets (From LA Clippers) – The Nets have back-to-back picks and Jason Kidd.  The Nets, taking a lesson from the Nets, and the always dependable Jason Kidd, go for steady and select Kevin McHale.

23.              New Jersey Nets – The Nets’ starting lineup for next year looks like this: Jason Kidd, Vince Carter, Richard Jefferson, Kevin McHale, and a guy by the name of Wes Unseld.

24.              Memphis Grizzlies – Their first off-season move will be to send Mike Fratello packing. This very soft team hires Chuck Daly and decides to improve their backcourt and their toughness by picking Bob Cousy.

25.              Cleveland Cavaliers – The Cavaliers’ LeBron James will be one of the NBA’s greatest players of all time. He is Oscar Robertson with Randy Moss’ athleticism.  LeBron can play every position on the court. The Cavs need to get tougher defensively, and tougher overall, to compete against teams like the Pistons and the Heat. When looking for toughness, Cavs’ management watch miles of game film and are still uncertain of their pick until they view Game 7 of the 1970 Knicks-Lakers NBA Championship. They don’t watch the game tape.  Seeing Willis Reed limp out of the locker room and onto the Madison Square Garden floor is enough to convince them he is their guy.

26.              Los Angeles Lakers- Kobe Bryant, like LeBron James, will be named as one of the NBA’s greatest players after his playing days are done. Phil Jackson won 9 NBA championships without the benefit o####reat point guard.  Jackson may be able to live with Smush Parker at the point, but may not be as patient with Kwame Brown in the post. Wouldn’t matter in this draft if his post player is Shaq or Wilt.  In this draft, Jackson finds a kindred spirit, a soul mate, a best friend, a leader in a Jerry Garcia sense, and Luke Walton’s father. The Lakers select Bill Walton.

27.              Phoenix Suns – Their effort to get tougher and better in the half-court game improved by picking Robert Parish at number 21. The Suns’ get even tougher picking Dave DeBusschere, arguably the toughest forward in the history of the NBA. 

28.              Dallas Mavericks – Avery Johnson’s attention to detail and emphasis on defense has paid dividends in the “Big D,” as the Mavs’ big-time D gives them a legitimate shot to win the Western Conference this year. With all the parts in place for several runs in the West, Johnson loves both Dave Cowens and Nate Thurmond.  In the end, Johnson decides he loves Thurmond’s talent more than he loves Cowens’ hustle and determination.

29.              New York Knicks (From San Antonio) – Did I mention the Knicks and Don Nelson are wacky? With Starbury, Stevie Francis and Dr. J in the lineup, this team already has enough offense, but this is Don Nelson’s team now. Nelson may not promise championships, but he does deliver excitement. The Knicks pick here is “The Big E,” Elvin Hayes.

30.              Portland Trail Blazers – The Blazers, learning from their 22-year old mistake picked MJ with the number 1 pick.  As great as he was in Chicago, even MJ needed a sidekick to get him over the hump and win championships.  Hey, the Blazers are getting really good at this draft thing now!  With the last pick in the first-round the Portland Trail Blazers select Scottie Pippen. 

 

Stay tuned for the second round of this fantasy draft later this week, unless my obsession becomes like that of Phaedrus’ and I am committed to a hospital for rest. 

A SPORTING LIFE, MEDICORE FAME BRUSHING AND ADVICE TO YOU DARN BLOGGING KIDS

 

 

I’ve learned that angels come in many shapes and sizes, and to avoid those angels who drink whiskey and attend cockfights with loose women.

 

I’ve learned that the person who claims “rainbows are a reflection of God throwing up after a night on the town with the devil” is probably a cynic and should be avoided.  

 

When I was in junior high school, my basketball coach sent me to a Denver talent agency to try out for a part in the movie One on One.  The movie starred Robbie Benson as a talented, yet naïve, high school basketball player who learns tough lessons about the demands of big-time basketball when he gets to college.  I auditioned to play the junior high school version of Benson’s character.  It was a non-speaking role, which would require me to shoot hoops in the driveway of his character’s home.  A talent scout came to my house, took a few Polaroids and watched me shoot a few hoops.  She stayed for about 20 minutes and then told me I was going to be one of the finalists.  The final audition took place at a high school gym and I got the chance to play a game of one-on-one against Robbie Benson.  I hadn’t seen any of his prior movies, but I was told he was going to be the star of the film.  I played Benson hard, thinking that if I won I would get the part and be the most famous kid in my town.  A couple of weeks later I learned that looking nearly identical to Benson was more important than basketball ability, and a kid by the name of Doug Sullivan got the role.  I am in the movie, however, as an extra playing soccer across the street from where Sullivan is shooting hoops in the film’s opening scene. If you ever find the movie in a video store, I’m the kid wearing the Rugby shirt. 

I learned, after this experience, that Robbie Benson at 5’10” can dunk a basketball, it takes two days to shoot a two minute film scene and being an extra in a movie doesn’t mean your name will appear in the credits. 

 

In 1978 at the Pocono Invitational Basketball Camp in Pennsylvania, Rollie Massimino accused me of being a great player.

“Kid,” he said, “You’re a great player.” 

This was before the advent of cable television, and several years prior to Villanova’s upset of Georgetown.  At the time, I thought he was nothing more than the coach of a mid-major team that sounded more like a Baskin-Robbins ice-cream flavor than an institution of higher learning. It was at this same camp that I had an opportunity to watch Moses Malone play one-on-one against Kelly Tripucka.  Malone was recovering from an appendectomy, but this didn’t stop Tripucka from ####ing away at Malone.  Malone played Tripucka like it was a Game 7 of the NBA finals and ended up winning by 3 baskets.  At that time in my life, I knew I was just a few years away from playing in the NBA. 

I learned many years later that I should have listened to the coach of the then mid-major school and it would have prevented me from having a major mid-life crisis.

 

 

In 1981, I was chosen to play at the BCI basketball camp in Milledgeville, Georgia.  The camp was for the top 200 high school players in the country.  The MVP and slam dunk champion of the camp was Richard Reliford, who would have a solid, but not great career at the University of Michigan.  In the slam dunk finals, Reliford beat Kenny “Sky” Walker who would have a decent NBA career and win the slam dunk contest at the 1989 NBA All-Star Game.  I sat next to Reliford on a puddle-jumper from the Atlanta airport to Macon, Georgia, not knowing at the time he was going to be the best player in the camp and I was going to be just another guy.  His legs were the size of my waist and I remember, to this very day, asking him about his college plans. He mentioned several scholarship offers he had received - including the offer to the University of Michigan - but seemed more interested in my future plans.  I lied and told him I was thinking about UCLA and Kansas.  They were the first schools that came to my mind.  It was better than the truth, which was I had no offers, but a couple of Division II schools were going to evaluate me during my senior season.  Reliford was a great guy.  If I would have told him the truth, he probably would have been just as interested. 

We rode together in a van from the Macon Airport to the Georgia Military Institute in Milledgeville where the camp took place.  We shook hands, wished good luck to each other and didn’t speak again.  I cheered him on at both the slam-dunk contest and the camp all-star game.  A few years later, I watched him play on television for the University of Michigan. 

Al Lewis, who played Grandpa on the television series The Munsters, was a fixture at the week-long camp. Lewis’ passion was basketball, and in particular, he loved watching young players develop.  Lewis, with a stogie hanging from his mouth and thick Brooklyn accent, spoke to the camp about taking advantage of opportunities in life on and off the court.  I should have taken his advice.

A few days into the camp, I realized that I was not going to be in the NBA and would probably not be playing at a Division I school.  Camps like this are designed to let some people know how gifted they are, and for others, it allows them to understand how ungifted they are.  After accepting this new reality I walked to a Milledgeville restaurant, had my first taste of authentic southern soul food and took a walk to writer Flannery O’Connor’s gravesite at the Memory Hill Cemetery.  I had become a fan after reading her short story collection, Everything that Rises Must Converge.  I spent about 30 minutes trying to find the site, but didn’t, so I left the grounds and the basketball camp the next day.

I learned, after this basketball camp, that the truth will make you very miserable before it sets you free.  This is a universal lesson which will never change, no matter how old you are.

 

 

I attended a small college in Nebraska and played basketball on scholarship for two years before quitting.  My coach told the team a story about a kid he recruited from East St. Louis, Illinois by the name of Kevin Ross.  Ross managed to get through 4 years of school at Creighton University without being able to read or write.  As my coach explained, Ross could not even read a menu or write out a check.  Ross could, however, play basketball. After an injury ended his playing career, he sued the university and Creighton and Ross worked out an agreement whereby they would fund all of Ross’ education.  A few weeks later, Good Morning America ran a piece on Ross and showed a clip of him sitting and learning with a group of elementary school children.  He was the original Billy Madison.  A couple of years later the national news ran another piece on Ross only this time, he was throwing furniture out of an apartment window threatening violence.  Ross, frustrated with the pace of his education and diminishing job prospects, realized that the coaches and administrators at Creighton who were trying to get him to the NBA hadn’t provided him any favors.

This was my first time away from home.  I learned not to iron a shirt while wearing it and that frying sausages without a shirt can be very painful.

 

I also learned that changing the oil in your car every 30,000 miles will ensure that your car won’t run 30,000 miles.

 

 

With no real logical reason or planning, I enrolled and attended the San Francisco State University film school.  For three years I wrote, directed, edited and even starred in several low-budget student films. The dean of my school was August Coppola.  He is Francis Ford’s brother and Nicolas Cage’s father.  In my entire time at San Francisco State, he was the only professor who took the time to speak to me about my major and my future.  He is an intelligent, quiet, compassionate and brilliant man who once said to me, “If there’s anything I can do for you, let me know.”  For reasons unknown to me even today, I did not ask him for help then or ever.  Ten years later, I took a research job in San Francisco.  Bored with the new job within two weeks, I applied to Francis-Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope studios and got a rejection slip.  I think about August Coppola’s gesture and not taking him up on it everyday. I sometimes think about it 16 or more times a day. 

I learned, around this time, that there are many ways to prepare crow that doesn’t taste too bad.

 

I also learned if you get a hand-up, take it.  If you get a hand-out, take it.

 

 

In my second year of film school I lived in an apartment across the street from Keyser Stadium where the San Francisco 49ers played from 1946-1971 before moving to Candlestick. They were demolishing the stadium and I got a job on a crew helping to get rid of the old ballpark’s cement.  It dawned on me years later that I was part of the crew responsible for removing the memories created by 49er greats like Hugh McElhenny, Y.A. Tittle, Joe Perry and Dave Wilcox, and memories created by bands like Led Zeppelin, The Doobie Brothers, Jefferson Starship, Santana, The Grateful Dead and Neil Young.  Recently, on a trip back to the Bay Area, I was relieved to discover that Kezar, in its new incarnation, hosts high school track meets, lacrosse, soccer and football games.  New memories for a new generation, although I wouldn’t mind going back in time to see the Niners play the Cowboys and afterward see Zeppelin play.

I learned, around this time, waiters at San Francisco restaurants expect to be tipped and every dishwasher over the age of 40 at restaurants are probably serial killers.

 

I also learned that using a blow-up doll, propped up in the passenger seat of my car to use the carpool lane to get across the Bay Bridge, is a good idea.  But telling your friends you’ve fallen in love with the blow-up doll and want to fly to Vegas to marry it is a bad idea.

 

 

I spent a few years in the city of Los Angeles after film school trying to make a living in the industry.  I spent most of my time in LA writing film scripts that went unread and as a telemarketer for Time-Life Books.  For those of you who remember Time-Life Books, we were the company that suckered people into buying books about everything from woodworking to killer sharks to woodworkers who were maimed by killer sharks.  Once someone bought the first book, we would keep sending one a month until they had to declare bankruptcy.  I spent my days at Time-Life reading Sports Illustrated and fishing magazines.  To this day I’ve never been fishing, but I love reading about it for some odd reason. 

I had an interview setup at Columbia Pictures the third year I lived in LA.  It was a competitive spot, so I planned on getting to the interview early.  I borrowed a friend’s car and arrived a couple of hours early.  The weekend before the interview some friends and I went to Tijuana and bought a few packs of these Mexican cigarettes, which were probably Marlboros soaked in paint thinner, lighter fluid and angel dust.  I smoked one, got light-headed and took a nap in the backseat of the car.  When I woke up, I looked at my watch and realized I had been asleep for about 5 hours.  I missed the interview and my opportunity with Columbia. 

Panic set in after several years without a steady paycheck and I decided to go to a paraprofessional school.   I was in class for about 6 weeks when I asked my instructor, “Hey, man, when are we going to learn CPR?”  He looked at me with confusion and said, “This is paralegal school, not paramedic school.”  Since I had already been there for 6 weeks, I decided to just go ahead and earn that degree.   After graduation, I started working in law firms as a research analyst, an investigator and a paralegal. It is what I do for a living today. 

I learned, during this time, that watching infomercials devoted to career training while under the influence at 1:30 in the morning with a credit card by my side is a very bad idea.

 

I also learned if you put a “For Sale” sign around your neck and go into the marketplace, there will be many potential buyers.

 

 

I learned, 2 years ago at the age of 40, you can meet the woman of your dreams.  She will tell me to write everyday and to seek passion in everything I do.   She will renew my spirit and make me understand that life begins anew with every sunrise.  Two months ago, she will tell me she is pregnant with my first child.  We’re due around Christmas.

I learned, after my wife told me she was pregnant, the name Chlamydia which sounds like such a beautiful name for a girl, is not the name of a flower and if we should choose that name, we could end up causing her irreversible psychological trauma.

 

Should our first child be a son, I learned through Internet research, that watching Hockey Night in Canada  while sniffing glue with my son isn’t what Social Services considers bonding.

 

 

My advice to you all is to keep writing everyday.  Believe in yourself and always follow a dream.  If your heart isn’t broken at least once or twice every few months you’re not living.  Good luck to you all, my blogger brothers and sisters.