Here’s Old Glory flying atop Mugu Peak in the Santa Monica Mountains, overlooking Point Mugu Naval Air Station. Have a great weekend!
The Writers Guild is currently conducting a survey of its membership to select the 101 Best Written Television Series, asking members to submit votes for their personal top twenty. Although the usual suspects pop up immediately – I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, The Twilight Zone, Mary Tyler Moore, The Sopranos – filling out the list turns out to be self-revealing in more ways than I’d thought.
To begin with, any show with a writing credit and more than six episodes is eligible. That includes talk shows, cartoons, mini-series, variety shows – and unfortunately excludes one of my favorites, the ’84-’85 Bears Super Bowl Season. Just kidding. Really.
But what constitutes best? How do I evaluate shows that I watched religiously as a kid, or discovered in reruns when I was in high school and college? When a show creates characters that are so compelling that they become part of the national conversation, isn’t that a sign of great writing? (Think Star Trek). And how about a phony conservative talk show host who stays hilariously in character four nights a week and jump starts the national conversation on election finance? The Colbert Report makes my list.
Despite the fact that my TV credits have been on the drama side, I found myself drawn to comedy. Certainly you can draw a straight line from Sid Caesar’s writing room — Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart, Neil Simon, Carl Reiner, et al — to most every significant show that followed. It wasn’t until the movie “Ten From Your Show of Shows” was released that I actually saw those sketches, but I think any “Best” List has to start there. Similarly, even though my memories of Ernie Kovacs are sketchy, he burrowed into my subconscious early on.
Most of my favorite sitcoms would be on everybody’s list: Seinfeld, MTM, Dick Van Dyke, Lucy, MASH…and if The Larry Sanders Show isn’t exactly a sitcom, it was brilliant from start to finish. (Any show that motivates me to actually pay for HBO gets on the list).
Carol Burnett certainly belongs. Not so obvious, I think, is Barney Miller. If you asked cops during that time period what was their favorite cop show, they would have chosen Barney over most of the dramas. It conveyed the everyday pathos of life in the precinct with wonderfully constructed characters and stories. That said, I was drawn to Hill Street Blues, and followed it right to the end.
You’ve certainly got to include The Simpsons when you turn to animation, and I would go back to Rocky and Bullwinkle as a forerunner – for those of us who grew up with Moose and Squirrel, it is still hilarious.
There are way too many great shows to limit a list to twenty – the final WGA list will be a hundred and one. From the other side of the pond, there are plenty of great dramas – my favorite is The Jewel In The Crown, and Tim Pigott-Smith is one of the great villians of all time. And of course, Monty Python.
But…but…What about? And where’s….And Beaver! Where’s Leave It To Beaver? Sorry. I’m still trying to figure out how to include Bears 44, Dallas 0.
We’re happy to announce a special one-time addition to the Katz of The Day Omni-Cultural Experience. My Mini-Drama, “The Wiki-Murders,” will be performed as part of the LANU Showcase: Showpocalypse, May 30-31, live at the Lillian Theatre in Hollywood. LANU is presented by the Northwestern University Entertainment Alliance and features scenes written and performed by Northwestern Alumni. The scenes are all designed around a common theme: Apocalypse. No, I did not write a scene about me playing left field.
Come see this collection of talented young NU Alums, plus one old guy!
I can’t vouch for the appearance of famous NU alumni, although I do intend to bring my Pat Fitzgerald bobblehead doll.
If you are an agent, manager, producer or someone who wants to drop a bundle on an independent film, come on down! (contact: industry@nueawest.org)
If you simply want to experience the OCE and get a wonderful night’s entertainment, contact me about tickets.
See you there!
My friend Weinberg took time out from tunneling his way out of Santa Monica this weekend to complain bitterly about a rating his Internet stock brokerage had given one of his investments. “An F!” Weinberg ranted. “They gave me an F!”
“Calm down,” I told Weinberg. “They are a stock brokerage. They can’t actually flunk you in anything.”
“But I’ve never gotten an F! Not in anything.”
Weinberg’s F was actually assigned to Newmont Mining, heretofore regarded by most analysts as best of breed in a group, gold and silver miners, that has recently fallen out of favor. It’s stock had declined over the past few months, though no one was suggesting it was poorly or dishonestly managed or would soon be circling the drain. “How does that rate an F?” Weinberg wanted to know. He has always considered himself a savvy investor who subscribes to financial newsletters and managed to mostly avoid the last two meltdowns. “An F would be Bear Stearns. An F would be Lehman Brothers or Enron. An F is for being fraudulent or criminal or recklessly incompetent. How dare they give me an F!”
All of which made me think about the true value of an F. An F is a wake-up call. An F shocks you out of your complacency. A D, as most of us who muddled through higher education know, can be attained merely by spelling your name right. You are lazy and lacking ambition and not much fun at dinner parties, but you showed up. An F? You have to skip a letter to get an F.
I vividly recall the one F in my life. It was for a term paper in English at the end of my first semester, senior year in high school – the last set of grades that would go to colleges. Our teacher, Mrs. McGuire, had assigned us to compare Graham Greene’s “The Power And The Glory” and Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.” Or maybe it was “Lord Jim.” The details are fuzzy. There had been a lot spoken in class about the Human Condition, or H.C. as we knew it in shorthand. I remember a few distractions at the time that may have negatively impacted my composition, such as the state debate championships and my duties as sports director at our radio station. Was it a good paper? Was it a great paper? I’m pretty sure I spelled my name right. I’m not sure about Graham Greene’s.
On the day Mrs. McGuire returned the papers, I remember shuffling to the last page and peeking at the grade penned in red ink on the bottom: F
F?
F?!!
I had never gotten an F. I wandered through the hallways of New Trier, scouring the comments Mrs. McGuire had written on my term paper. Comments like: “Preposterous!” And “Oh, Really!” A few other thoughts crossed my mind, such as that you could not graduate without passing English. Viet Nam beckoned.
I staggered into Mrs. McGuire’s office after school. Her first comment was, “Do not even attempt to defend this paper.”
Of course not. How can you defend an F? Given that Mrs. McGuire was head of the English Department, there was no one else to defend it to. Generous person that she was, I was given the opportunity to write the paper over. This time I got a C.
So I passed Senior English. A few months later I took the English AP test and aced it, thereby avoiding several college requirements and stockpiling credits that would eventually help me graduate Northwestern a quarter early. I was tempted to wave the score in front of Mrs. McGuire’s face, but didn’t want to tempt fate. Besides, one of my classmates had suggested that she was trying to convert us all to Catholicism, which I somehow doubted, though I didn’t want to test the theory. I was not a likely candidate for proselytizing, unless someone could convince me that there was a religion that was even less work than being a Reform Jew on the North Shore in 1969. But the F left it’s mark. Henceforth I took all my English Lit classes Pass/Fail, so as to protect myself against the whims of English teachers, which served only to deprive me of good grades in my best subject.
I told Weinberg he would just have to shake off his F in Newmont Mining. It was their way of telling him he was an idiot for not selling it two months ago, not that they had warned him then. It was no reason to panic. If he wanted to take the occasion to reevaluate his positions, then the F would serve some purpose. If he wants to wait a year and compare the stock price of Newmont Mining with the stock price of his Internet brokerage, he could do that, too. Pays yer money, takes yer chances.
It’s always fun to catch up with Christina Murphy, co-star of our dark comedy, “Remembering Phil.” Making a low-budget indie is a singular experience. It’s a bunch of people thrown together for a short period of time, working long hours in barely controlled chaos, then going their separate ways. Try to imagine a year of school condensed into a few weeks of principal filming (longer if you were in the production core). The performers hope the film will be a surprise hit and catapult them to fame and fortune. The producers hope that the actors will go on to become stars, and catapult the film to fame and fortune.
Director Brian Smith and I first met Christina at a casting session. She did a terrific read in our bar scene, where, as the mysterious Debbie, she is the only person left in the world who recognizes writer Phil Winters’s existence. Check out the trailer: http://www.prevalentfilms.com/Trailer.html Then there was the additional note she put on her resume: Christina is a fly fisherman. Boy, did she find the right guy to audition before! Now I don’t want to suggest that identifying herself as a fly fishermen was sufficient to land a starring role. Okay, maybe a callback. Christina, as it happened, did a terrific job in the film. But really, finding a beautiful actress who will listen to your fishing stories (and actually be interested in them) is as good a reason to be a producer as any.
These days, Christina is working as both a model and an actress. She just did a new Subway commercial, starred in a music video called “A Buncha Girls” last year and has been working on some web series – here is a peek at one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ1V0roWzUw
We’re all cheering for Christina to break out big time, so she can treat her writer/producer to a fly fishing trip in Belize or New Zealand. (If that’s not incentive, I don’t know what is.)
Meanwhile. if you haven’t seen Christina’s performance in “Remembering Phil” yet, don’t forget our special DVD offer on the right. We’re on iTunes, too.
Watching Gerald Wilson, at 93 years of age, leading an 18 piece big band for nearly two hours last week at Catalina’s in Hollywood, was inspiring, to say the least. It does recall one of my favorite nights of music, at the 40th Monterey Jazz Festival in 1997, when Wilson debuted his “Theme For Monterey,” as the middle act of MJF’s Saturday night lineup. The opener? Diana Krall in her Monterey debut, bringing the raucous crowd to pindrop silence with “Ghost of a Chance.” Gerald Wilson followed with “Theme,” still my favorite commissioned piece from the festival. Closing the night was Sonny Rollins, giving a typical knock-em-dead live performance.
So here’s my review of Gerald Wilson, from International Review of Music:
Live Jazz: The Gerald Wilson Big Band at Catalina Bar & Grill
By Michael Katz
Gerald Wilson took a near-capacity crowd at Catalina’s on a Tour De Jazz Thursday night. The 93 year old composer/arranger/leader, possessed of undiminished enthusiasm, spun musical and verbal tales that began with his days in the Jimmie Lunceford Band and included Basie and Ellington, with deft nods to Stravinsky, Puccini and Miles Davis, not to mention two more generations of his own family.
Gerald Wilson
The opening number, “Blues For The Count,” mixed in tributes to Basie and Lunceford, starting with Brian O’Rourke’s bouncy piano intro and opening splashes by Randall Willis on alto sax and Jeff Kaye, the first of three trumpeters to solo during the evening. Anthony Wilson kept up the rhythm, Freddie Green-like, and the band featured a new wrinkle with violinist Yvette Devereaux. Amplifying a violinist to stand up to an 18 piece band is a challenge; while the first go around was a bit strident, Devereaux adapted as the show progressed, with some splendid work later in the evening.
Wilson’s 18 piece band has a rhythm backbone that features his son, Anthony, well-established on the national scene by now as guitarist for Diana Krall, and O’Rourke, for two decades his regular pianist. The dominant section of the band, though, is the saxophones, a Wilson trademark, blending harmonies over a six man group. Kamasi Washington was the lead voice on tenor with Carl Randall close behind; Willis and Mike Nelson split up the alto duties, with Nelson doubling on flute; and Louis Taylor and Terry Landry filled out the bottom on baritones.
Anthony Wilson took over the band’s direction for his composition, “Virgo,” written for his father’s 90th birthday. It began with a lovely intro by O’Rourke, backed by muted trumpets, then gave way to Wilson’s upbeat soloing. The sax front line took over from there, featuring dueling altoists Nelson and Willis.
Gerald Wilson’s latest album, Legacy (Mack Avenue), features several adaptations of classical works. “Variations on a Theme by Stravinsky” is based on “Firebird.” The performance had an intense, urban feel to it, reminiscent of some of the film scores of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Kamasi Washington provided the fire on tenor sax and Ron Barrows contributed a piercing trumpet solo.
Wilson then handed the baton over to the third generation of his family, grandson Eric Otis, whose paternal grandfather was R&B great Johnny Otis. Eric led his composition, “September Sky,” a soft-toned elegy that featured Mike Nelson on flute, as well as the third trumpet soloist Harry Kim.
Wilson, weaving stories from his days with Basie and Ellington, held forth for nearly two hours, only stepping aside the two aforementioned times. The breadth of his work is enormous. There was another classical piece, “Variations on a Theme by Puccini,” which featured violinist Devereaux, now comfortably adapted into the sound mix, as well as the two bari sax players, Taylor and Landry. There were a couple of standards, brought to life by Wilson’s arrangements. “Perdido,” by Ellington and Juan Tizol, was ushered in by O’Rourke and the sax section, with some rousing solos by Nelson and Carl Randall. The trombone section, led by Les Benedict, didn’t get a lot of soloing this evening, but provided stout section playing throughout. Then there was “Milestones,” another Wilson arrangement which turned the Miles Davis tune into a terrific big band piece, featuring some great give and take with tenors Washington and Randall, and Anthony Wilson breaking loose on guitar.
Wilson closed with “Viva Tirado,” which he wrote in 1962 and was turned into a top forty hit by El Chicano in 1970. For the Wilson band it remains a signature, blow-the-roof-off –the-joint finale. It started with the familiar theme, then Jeff Kaye delivered a trumpet burst and Kamasi Washington belted out another funky tenor solo. Anthony Wilson and Yvette Devereaux took over from there with a down and dirty string duel that had the audience howling. By the end, all the horns were standing, drummer Mel Lee was maintaining some type of order in the back, and the crowd was on their feet as well.
Gerald Wilson presided over it all, a living testament to the vibrancy of Jazz Past, Present and Future.
Ever since I picked up a clarinet in the Central School band, I’ve had a soft spot for great big jazz bands. While my friends were lining up for the Stones and the Dead and some others we’ve blissfully forgotten by now, I was heading off to see Woody Herman, Maynard Ferguson and Buddy Rich. And I couldn’t figure out why everybody else wasn’t doing the same.
Woody Herman Band, circa 1972
Let me say right off that the term “Big Band” was much misunderstood, then and now. The general public still associates it with the Swing Era, and nine hours of “Ken Burns Jazz” didn’t do much to dissuade them. But the truth is, by the seventies most of the big bands had evolved from dance to performance bands, featuring textured compositions by the likes of Basie, Ellington and Kenton, dynamic originals and arrangements by Thad Jones, Herman and jazz covers of everyone from the Beatles to Frank Zappa. All that, plus knock-em-dead fireworks from the horn sections. If you have ever picked up a horn at any level, nothing beats the excitement of sitting in the middle of a sax or trumpet section, whaling away.
Over the next six weeks here in LA we’ve got a bunch of terrific big bands coming through town, including Arturo Sandoval, Gerald Wilson, Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band and Christian McBride’s Big Band. Here’s my review of Cuban trumpeter Sandoval, from International Review of Music:
Live Jazz: The Arturo Sandoval Big Band at The Federal
By Michael Katz
The spirit of Dizzy Gillespie was much in evidence Wednesday night when trumpeter Arturo Sandoval brought a distinctly L.A.-flavored big band to The Federal in NoHo. It wasn’t just the fact that Sandoval’s new CD, Dear Diz, is a love letter to his late mentor. It was the combination of virtuosity, humor and generosity of spirit that made Gillespie beloved among musicians and audiences.
Sandoval can still reach the stratosphere with his piercing solos, but during the evening he explored the full range of the trumpet, reaching down deep on occasion, growling in the lower registers before leaping upward with startling cadenzas. He began with one of his older compositions, “Funky Cha Cha,” which allowed the band, comfortably ensconced on The Federal’s stage, to stretch out. That included the redoubtable Bob Sheppard on tenor, Andy Martin on trombone and a young pianist from Sri Lanka (by way of USC), Mahesh Balasooriya. Balasooriya sparkled throughout the set, providing a nuanced counterpoint to Sandoval’s performance.
Arturo SandovalFrom that point on the spotlight was on Gillespiana. Sandoval began with a sometimes hilarious explanation of be-bop, which featured him scat-o-lizing (patent pending) through the self-named tune, covering every instrument in Diz’s band. The actual performance of “Be-Bop” was a revelation. Gordon Goodwin’s arrangement started with a gently swinging presentation of the theme, Sandoval’s trumpet muted, exhibiting the in-the-pocket feel we’ve come to know from the Big Phat Band (several of whose members were in this group). Then the tempo picked up, with the saxophone section taking over and Arturo out front with a fiery riff. The band then backed down into a swinging groove, with Sandoval closing it out — not satisfied with the final cadenza, he took a mulligan and nailed it the second time, to the delight of the crowd.
As the set progressed, Sandoval shared the stage with terrific soloists. Trumpeter Gary Grant joined him out front for “And Then She Stopped,” taking Sandoval’s part from his recording with Diz, while Arturo echoed Gillespie’s solos. Then singer Becky Martin joined the band for a lush tune entitled “Sway,” which brought to mind the Cuban mambo bands.
The evening’s most poignant moments were provided by Sandoval’s vocals, as he performed his composition “Every Day I Think Of You.” His voice a tad raspy, his lyrics heartfelt, he conveyed his love for Gillespie, who brought him to the international stage and helped him escape the Castro regime in 1990. Pianist Balasooriya provided a perfectly understated accompaniment. There was even a moment of pathos as Sandoval’s trumpet solo was interrupted by a car alarm. Sandoval took it in stride, as if the alarm was just a slightly out of tune student.
Sandoval then invited another dynamic young LA musician, saxophonist Zane Musa, to the stage. Musa unwrapped his soprano and what followed was a whirlwind rendition of “Cherokee.” Watching Musa’s fingers flying over the soprano’s keys was a wonderment, and he did it with complete tonal control over the sometimes challenging instrument. Sandoval, meanwhile, took advantage of the old be-bop favorite to rip off some of the cadenzas the audience had been waiting for.
The set ended with the Diz classic “Woody’N You,” which Sandoval identified by its original title, “Algo Bueno.” The arrangement by saxophonist Dan Higgins was reminiscent of Goodwin’s earlier work – solid, swinging, in-the-pocket. It featured solos by Higgins and LA trombone stalwart Scott Martin. Sandoval, closing out the show, brought his trumpet down to an almost guttural lower register, then soared upwards for the finish.
The crowd, which filled the upstairs room at the Federal, was on its feet, boding well for the future of the venue as a jazz magnet.
* * * * * *
Once upon a Sunday bleary,
As I pondered weak and beery,
Over many a volume of forgotten baseball scores
Suddenly I heard a rapping,
Brubeck’s drummer gently tapping,
Tapping past the CD’s capping,
Tapping, tapping, evermore!
Okay, okay…No mo’ faux Poe…
And yet…slightly frazzled by what sounded like an extended snare drum solo long after Take Five had ended, I investigated the tapping, which was coming from my fireplace, or more accurately the closed flue above it. The dreaded spectre became evident….there was a squirrel in my chimney! Maybe, I thought, it was the Birthday Squirrel, which as we all know comes down your chimney bearing gift certificates from Apple and Amazon (they don’t make chimneys like they used to.) But alas, my birthday had been the day before.
I had lived through wild squirrel invasions previously. Returning home from a weekend excursion to Yosemite, I’d found a trail of Honey Nut Cheerios leading out of the kitchen. The diabolical rodent had invaded the pantry and solved the intricacies of the cereal box tab – more than I can usually do. It had then scampered upstairs, where it had augmented my photography portfolios with some Jackson Pollack-like squigglings of its own. I had spent several hours chasing it around my condo before calling the authorities.
Haunted, I tried to put the horrors out of my mind by running off to play softball. When I returned, all was quiet. I called the local Animal Control unit. They suggested that if the squirrel could get in the chimney it could get out of it, a concept that I had reason to doubt. Our building has what some of us consider design quirks, in the way that, say, Jack Nicholson’s house in The Shining had design quirks. Rain, no matter what direction it comes from, flows up against the building. Interior TV wiring goes pfft in the waning moments of close basketball games, or whenever I turn on The Daily Show. Something deep inside told me that, as far as squirrels were concerned, I was looking at The Chimney of No Return.
I waited a day, then on the advice of the Animal Control guy, rapped the bottom of the flue with a broomstick. Nothing. I took a plastic bucket and placed it on the fireplace grate, then, my hands covered by oven mitts, opened the flue, gently, gently, and then…there it was…A FURRY TAIL! I slammed the flue shut. I heard a chittering from above, not quite as spirited as the day before, but evil in tone nonetheless.
I summoned Animal Control again and this time the agent came right out, bringing with him a steel cage – the kind used to contain professional wrestlers, only smaller – and a long metal pincher claw. He stationed himself supine beneath the flue and opened it. I braced myself, fearing the worst.
The squirrel did not seem convinced that leaving the barren chimney was in its best interest. The AC guy groped with the pincher claw. I tried some more subtler assistance but, truth was, I didn’t know whether the squirrel would be more responsive to the voice of Bullwinkle (Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!) or Rocky (But that trick never works.)
Eventually the squirrel caught on and darted out the flue. It headed straight for the bookshelf, unlike most of my guests. We had opened the patio door and exhorted the squirrel to freedom, but, hungry and confused, it sought refuge in the plantation shutters. Fortunately, it was only a short scamper from the shutters to the patio, and off went the squirrel, to freedom and hopefully forage.
The Animal Control man shrugged off any accolades of heroism. It was, he said, all in a day’s work.
I closed the flue. I vowed to put a metal screen over the chimney top.
Just like I did the last time.
I poured myself a scotch and went back to work.
One of the things people want to know when they purchase my fine art landscape photographs is, “Will these stunningly beautiful prints increase in value over time?” I’d like to think so. Why else would I own so many of them?
Who doesn’t dream, after all, of finding that dusty old picture in the attic that turns out to be an original Ansel Adams print, or plucking the work of an unknown artist from a street fair who becomes the darling of international critics and buyers? On a practical level, there are a number of ways in which a photographer’s work could escalate dramatically in value, so let’s explore a few of them.
- The artist has a sudden burst of fecundity. He takes advantage of the new digital technology and creates a startling new portfolio. He becomes a cause célèbre in New York, Los Angeles and Miami. His photographs become sought out by museums, galleries, chi chi restaurants and international conference centers. Okay, next…
- The artist re-introduces a much-praised trilogy of mystery novels. The books become an e-book phenomenon, bringing long overdue attention to the artist. The artist/author then releases heretofore unpublished work, much of which is set in the same beautiful settings as his landscape photography. The photographs begin to garner international attention as the author’s fame spreads like wildfire. HELPFUL HINT: You, as an art collector, could accelerate this process by acquiring the trilogy and spreading the word to friends both actual and cyber, thus helping to build the clamor for the artist’s upcoming fiction.
- The artist’s independent film, Remembering Phil, becomes an international underground cult classic. The sudden surge in publicity brings attention to the film’s writer/producer. The world soon discovers his stunningly original work in fine art landscape photography. HELPFUL HINT: You, as an art collector, could help stoke this worldwide phenomenon by acquiring the DVD and soundtrack to Remembering Phil and extolling it to friends. That is the great thing about the artist’s Omni-cultural Experience. There are so many ways to win!
- The artist could suddenly and unexpectedly die. This is, of course, a mixed blessing, depending on whether you are the artist or the collector. But it would create what we MBA’s call a market scarcity. HELPFUL HINT: As a general rule, in order to take advantage of this value technique it is a good idea to invest in the work of artists who are older than you. Other than that, I would suggest maintaining a hands-off policy in this regard.
Mark Twain famously wrote a short story, later turned into a play, called Is He Living or Is He Dead? It was about a trio of starving artists who decided that one of them should tragically die. They feverishly spent months turning out canvases, then drew straws to see who would expire. The unlucky one signed all the paintings and then retired to the French countryside, while the other two spread word of his heroic battle with illness and subsequent death. In the story, all three became spectacularly wealthy.
I’m not sure if this would work in real life. Though I am willing to spend a couple of months in the French countryside trying.
I know a lot of your are thinking, Mike, you wrote an NBA murder mystery (Murder Off The Glass, now available as an E-book –thanks for asking!), so what do you make of the Lakers’ Metta World Peace and his flying elbow? For those of you non-hoops heads (you’re still reading?) the Lakers’ forward, formally known as Ron Artest, flung a vicious elbow while preening after a dunk shot, just missing the temple of Oklahoma City Thunder forward James Harden. Harden left the game with a concussion and hasn’t been cleared to play again as of this writing. MWP was ejected and was just handed a seven game suspension by NBA commissioner David Stern.
Once the ugliness of the episode was visible to everyone on the planet, MWP was apologetic in his own narcissistic way. He professed regret that Harden was injured. He didn’t mean to do it. The idea that a 33 year-old celebrating a basket by beating his chest and violently flinging his elbows might be considered aberrant behavior is surely contained in a thought bubble floating far, far above his level of comprehension.
Basketball fans’ condemnation of such behavior depends, of course, on our distance from it. We Chicago folk ought to know. Dennis Rodman was Public Enemy #1 when he was leading the Piston’s Bad Boys to their annual mugging of the Bulls, more so when he joined his teammates in the unsportsmanlike refusal to shake hands after the Bulls finally vanquished them in 1991. Once he joined the Bulls, it was a different story. Oh, sure, he took the occasional cheap shot, or kicked a cameraman in the head. But he was mostly an adorable nut case, embraced by Bulls fans as long as he didn’t get himself kicked out of anything important. The eventuality that his life would spiral downward when there was no more basketball to be played wasn’t much of a worry to anyone then, and doesn’t seem to be much on anyone’s mind now.
The NBA has a different perspective, and you can’t blame them. If the current players can’t remember when the league played its championship games on tape delay opposite Johnny Carson, David Stern certainly can. That’s where he came in. The public perception of the NBA then was too black, too drug-infested, too violent. Then came Magic and Bird and Michael Jordan, the Dream Team, Kobe and Shaq. Stern was a marketing genius, but even as his league attained rock star status, memories remained long. MWP’s elbow to the head of Harden brought vivid reminders of the punch from Kermit Washington that shattered Rudy Tomjanovich’s face during an on-court fracas in 1977. And MWP’s participation in the “Malice in the Palace” near-riot in 2004, which found him brawling in the stands and led to an 86 game suspension, hasn’t been erased by his name change.
The NBA takes some flack from sportswriters for wanting its players to get a couple of years of college under their belts before entering the league. The NCAA, of course, is rife with hypocrisy and the NBA surely benefits from the training and publicity the players get as college participants. But the NBA would also like to see some level of maturity from its incipient stars before they are immersed in the media fishbowl. They’d like to see some semblance of discipline and dedication to team play before the kids come in with guaranteed money and big shoe contracts.
Would any of that have made the slightest different to Metta World Peace? He played two years at St. Johns, so clearly not. He undoubtedly has some psychological problems – he famously thanked his therapist after helping the Lakers win the NBA crown two years ago and auctioned off his ring to support mental health. He’s capable of being charming and generous. As Phil Jackson pointed out, his personality is far different from Dennis Rodman. But he seems to function in a world oblivious to consequences.
Is seven games enough of a consequence? What if the Lakers, who had come to depend on his recent improved play, stumble in the first round? Might they take advantage of a new league salary cap “amnesty” and release him? Of course, he would still get all his money. He just wouldn’t be playing for the Lakers anymore.
Out of sight, out of mind.
