Posts: 106

1. 

   Manny, Barry and Belle

   14.Jul.08, 11:06 EDT
   
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   Wonder if that 10th grade history teacher remembers my essay on Pete Rose. Not to stroke myself, but I totally anticipated the baseball legend's fall from grace. Back then Rose was the admired “Charlie Hustle” of the Cincy Reds, and my essay premise was that it wasn’t for baseball’s peculiar code of ethics, Pete Rose might be a considered a criminal. A hustle is a hustle, I wrote. (More or less.)
   
   To this day it’s true. Manny Ramirez is on TV, being called the greatest right-handed hitter of all time. Good thing dude can hit, because he's deep down wild child. For the longest time, it wasn't so accepted to love Manny. Now his hijinks are considered the "Manny being Manny" thing. He can backhand teammates, answer cell phones during pitching changes, can demand that stoner classics be blasted from the Fenway Park soundsystem whenhe steps to the plate. And I’m cool with that. My eldest child has the middle name “Belle”, so you know that that I’m not mad at bad boys in baseball. (Note: The Man Ram is my favorite player, possibly in of sports.)

   Which brings us to Barry Bonds. Allegedly hanging around LA in very good shape, the dormant left-handed slugger reminds MLB of too many issues it wants to forget. Plus, he shat on too many people. So, the consensus among baseball’s consortium of owners is that there’s no place for him in the game, despite the fact that the Yankees — among a handful of contenders — could use a left-handed power hitter. (The Sporting News 1990s Player of the Decade can’t do the NL thing, as its lack of designated hitter would put him on the field, and Bonds’ knees won’t allow him to trot well anymore.)
   
   Listen, Barry’s a stupid, short-sighted twerp, but that doesn’t mean there’s no place for him in baseball. I feel like Barry’s being punished for cheating better than a large percentage of players in the majors. But the truth is that a whole buncha muthafuckas cheated — and do cheat — and Peter MacGowan ain’t volunteering to give back the cheddar the Bonds-driven Giants made. He’s got a phenom to pay for.
   
   Baseball’s funny, in terms of how its villains are defined. No matter middling numbers, a Boston bad guy or a Yankees villain is always within range of becoming an American icon, baseball being largely a regional game projected by Northeast media powers. And things can go either way. Ask Jason Giambi. But Barry’s prolly not coming back. And I actually wish he was. That banned fool can still hit. He’d be a tangible boon to the game and a draw beyond all reason. Baseball, on this most lucrative of occasions, I beseech you.
   

2. 

   E's True Hollywood Story

   10.Jul.08, 15:39 EDT
   
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   Out in L.A., they are calling Elton Brand "Anakin Skywalker". Since the Clippers’ charismatic power forward walked out on a deal everyone in the city press thought he and the Clips were gonna make — and signing with Philadelphia — the locals have assigned truly evil motives to the one-time golden boy. Los Angeles is in a hissing mood. Which is encouraging, in a way. At least we now know there's something that might get these punk-ass fans out of their seats.
   
   But this is not about evil. This is about a deal. To be precise, it's about Brand's agent David Falk being an East Coast guy who knows the world's not seeing nearly enough of Brand. The Clips are more local than Tommy's and the media centers of New York, Boston, and Philly would be sleeping through through his late-starting games — even if the the Clips were worth a shit. Although EB has inroads in the film biz, he lost tens of millions in easy money endorsements. Nobody saw Elton Brand in Kobe-focused L.A.
   
   Plus, more significantly, the Clippers suck. Owner Donald Stirling is an empty suit. His second, Elgin Baylor, is asleep. Anytime something good happens for the Clips, it’s an accident of fate. The Clippers suck, and Elton’s an operator. A player, if you will. Philly’s gonna eat him up.
   
   Working in the his side hustle of movie production improved EB’s savvy, but Brand had for a long time stopped being some innocent kid. EB's cool, but he's not the sort of rube who gives up $20 million dollars in salary for quaint notions of teammate bonding.
   

   While I scribbled for a sports magazine in 1999, someone shipped me an e-mail containing what proported to be an Elton Brand e-mail. It was very hot shit. Here was the Peekskills kid delivering real, unmediated talk about how he felt at his elite athletic program. Clearly, this first Duke baller to exit early had chafed at his classmates' put-down attitudes. (The email came across  kinda edgy. And its voice made me wanna follow up. (The mag that employed me? Not so much.)
   

   I love both EB and his game, Regardless, I'm not naive enough to think that, like other Angeleno imported from somewhere else, his roots only crazy deep. Baron Davis (of Compton/Santa Monica) doesn't deserve to be abandoned here; he's a swell guy. I hope Davis gets Josh Smith. If so, circle the Sixers-Clippers game on your calendar. And Brand will get booed like Darth Vader.
   
   One other thing: I'm working on a blog about women's bodies, for next week. As a means of pre-empting outraged posts, I'd like you to please see this article on what naked girls used to look like.

3. Past Time, Too Soon?

   03.Jul.08, 14:09 EDT
   
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   It might not be obvious, based on my ongoing critique, but I'm actually kinda into American life.
   

   Don’t think me a player hater for revisiting this. Listen: baseball’s awesome. I can remember chilling with Prince Fielder, Johnny Damon, and rising Milwaukee Brewers star

   Seth McClung in South Beach on Super Bowl Weekend ’07 and thinking: These cats are living the life. They’re among the world’s best at the game most men would die to play for a living.
   
   But would every kid want to play it? Today’s kids? Ya gotta wonder if tomorrow’s youngsters will be into baseball at a level that matches 20th century interest. Never mind that baseball plays out as challengingly deliberate for anyone under 20, the sport has become perversely expensive.
   
   My last Dodger game played out as the same amazing live event I’ve dug almost all of my life. Cliff Lee was the same beastly hurler he’s been all season. Closer Takashi Saito displayed the unpredictability that’s given Joe Torre headaches all season. It’s a nutty, up-and-down game, and the fans still feel it.
   
   But the expense of going to the ballpark has become damn-near prohibitive. My crew’s four seats were worth $160. Parking another $15. Unremarkable food ran $60 and my single large, domestic beer ran $11.50. A bottle of water was $5.75. A week later, I saw Gilberto Gil and Devendra Banhart at the Hollywood Bowl. It unnerved me that beer was relatively cheap at $7.50 and water $3.
   
   Now, MLB apologists will at this point say that  the Hollywood Bowl gets help in keeping its prices down. But owners get corporate welfare and that all-important anti-trust exemption is nothing like a burden, either. Still, baseball’s overlords can’t figure a way to get a family of four in and out of their entertainment product for under two-and-a-half bills? Are you shitting me?
   
   Pardon me if I think of baseball as an enterprise that targets elites. As Reagan McMahon pointed out in her innovative book Revolution in the Bleachers, the cost of all-important camps and club teams has risen so that the best American can’t even consider the game a realistic option.
   
   Anyone who watched the College Baseball World Series saw how the the diamond's throwback exclusive ways are playing out. Anyone who’s watched how the Dodgers’ “bargain” plan, its $35 all-you-can-eat bleachers ticket, knows that it amounts to a bunch of poor Mexicans penned up just beyond the outfield. On this fourth of July weekend, while MLB prepares for Mark McGuire’s dodgy return to the game, maybe you should consider just how far the national pastime has gotten from its origins in the hardscrabble fields of an America the game hardly seems to recognize anymore.
   

4. 

   Buggin' Out

   30.Jun.08, 12:36 EDT
   
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   It was just hours before the strangest Dodgers game I’m likely to watch — and a day before as typically impotent an offensive display as that team is likely to put on). It was not even 24 hours before the world celebrated with Spain that found my final fury with Pau Gasol.
   
   Finally, it was happening: In moments I'd deliver on my promise to ingest an insect.
   
   I fortified myself by saying, “Self, at least your helping to save the planet. It was that self-satisfied illusion, plus an opportunity to provide my seeds a lesson on the
   importance of keeping one’s word is. (The ceremonial bug eating also worked as a lesson in why one shouldn’t make rash promises, but let’s focus on one thing at a time.)
   
   I’d really had a ladybug in mind, or nothing with separate thorax and head, at least. But while Wyatt and Forest and I foraged through the front yard for an appetizer and my girl grilled the main course on the grill in back, the option for a simple critter went out the window. No ladybugs were found in the grass. And when I found a roly-poly Wyatt objected, going to the brink of tears with his objections. “But they’re so cute, Dad! Don’t!" So that species was out.
   
   (Wyatt’s a great kid, but, C’mon! What’s with the immaturity? He should be eating bugs at a third-grade level by now…)
   
   “What about a bee?” asked Forrest, who was standing near a yellow curb-side flower.
   
   And I was like, Yeah! ‘Cuz I damn sure wasn’t gobblin’ no fuckin’ cricket.
   
   Last week, after a spectacular meal at Gonpachi, I asked Katsuo Nagasawa fo advice on eating an insect, just because online I'd some images of food with something like larvae atop it. Raw like sushi. So it seemed good to ask. He just sat there mute though. This guy had seemed to me a little like a genius, so if he ain’t have no answers? Well, following through just got a notch harder. In need of a motivation,
   I went with the one that had worked so well in the past: Revenge.
   
   A bee stung me in the foot last month. So I stepped on its cousin, scraped
   him — gotta be a guy; I’d never kill a girl — off my flip-flop and carried
   him to the kitchen.
   
   “Oh my god, this is so exciting! It’s better than Disneyland!” squawked
   Wyatt. Christ. When is this kid gonna grow up? asked the man who was about
   to eat a bug, for the entertainment of his children.

   (Don't you envy the teams that don't even get past the first round of a post-season? Those folks don't expose themselves to the desperation and disappointment that's the natural fallout of failed title contention. Ask the folks in Germany. The difference between a celebratory parade and an unofficial national day of morning is the difference between lighting and, um, a lightning bug.)

   I had been asking myself whether it would be best to wrap my “food” in
   cheese or douse it with with maple syrup, washing dirt down the drain all
   of the while, when I noticed a stream of guts streaming out of the bug’s
   butt. OMG, I am just too squeamish. This was not gonna happen.
   
   Oh yes it was. Wyatt had just been led off to the bathroom to wash his
   filthy hands when surge came over me like, “Aiight, fuck it.” And I ripped
   a strip of American cheese from an individually-wrapped slice and rolled
   it ‘round the bee so that it looked like a mini-taquito. The just chomped
   down. Forrest jumped up and down, Wyatt moped like Disneyland had burned to the ground, and I simply survived.
   
   I'm here to tell ya: that shit was mad nasty yo. Like American cheese with a big bug in the middle of it, actually. As Wendy Case accurately predicted, the whole transaction was a bit like crunch, crunch squish. Not the end of the world, but not at all pleasant, either. There it is. I like the Lakers to contend for the title next June. But don’t look for a promise or anything like one.

5. 

   Beneath the Underdog

   26.Jun.08, 14:11 EDT
   
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   This week's new ESPN slow summer buzz-phrase, right on the heels of “Tell me how my ass taste,” turned to “Fresno State is the Turkey of the College World Series.” And deep in the second half of Wednesday's Euro Cup semi-final match I hoped not. The college that unleashed me and the birthplace of my fiancée, seemed tethered. Even though Turkey had not surrendered the goal that would take it out of the running for Euro Cup Title contention I sensed the worst was coming. Germany’s aggressive offense and the Turks’ shortage of players due to injury and suspension gave every reason to believe that.
   
   With the final game of the Fresno State-Georgia College World Series Final only hours away, my future and past felt inextricably connected. “Respiration” played over an eclectic mix tape while Germans on TV celebrated in a circumspect fashion.
   
   I know from both literature and personal experience that the Turkish are something like comfortable with melancholy, so I didn’t trip a bunch off the loss. I felt grateful, actually. The Cup has finally made me something like comfortable with international football. As a child I played a little, and I had a wormhole experience with the game in college, working as a sports correspondent for the Fresno Bee: A girls playoff game, in Bakersfield, ran late. This was in, like, the winter of 1988, before cell phones and laptops and all that good shit. The game ran late, I phoned my editor from a Carl’s Jr. along Highway 99. “You got 20 minutes!” said Jerry, my editor, and I scribbled out a story in my Reporter’s Notebook before dictating it back to the sports desk. The resulting narrative ended up being one of my better clips from the school years. That was great, but it's not the same as having a visceral connection to the sport. Now I got that. Gimme Germany to take the whole thing.

   Thank you, Turkey for delivering the good hurt.
   My Fresno experience was, overall, something liberation through pain. And if you were going to buy into this great moment in amateur athletics, you were gonna have to accept that part of it sucked. The ping of aluminum bats in college baseball can be hella unnerving, at first. The its pitching is so erratic that no game is ever over until the last out is rung up. (Take it easy and you can roll with that; it can work.) And if you’re like me, being champion of a conference that’s called the WAC is a mixed blessing.
   
   It’s fitting then that the Bulldogs’ unlikely run was came from such a flawed place. Fresno, invited to the tourney like the wallflower you invite to a party only because he has a great punch bowl, turned out the show as if that punch bowl wallflower rocked the mic and mthen ade all the ladies orgasm. Total leftfield hit.
   
   Like Turkey, Fresno State had been wracked by injury. But on the 10th anniversary of the school’s only other national championship, in women’s softball, its baseball team perservered. And I loved it. These Bulldogs are so white as to serve as tangible evidence that MLB has done little to foment interest in the game among people of color. But so what, for now. I know Terry Pendleton was amped.
   
   Truth is, I always regretted going to Fresno State, chalked up my attendance there to self-esteem so poor that I wouldn’t give UC Berkeley a chance. But on Wednesday, listening to all those crappy little towns like Clovis and Visalia, burgs I spent way too much time tooling around in search of sex and fast food, I felt great for my old school. In Fresno State’s fervent search for recognition in athletics, it had found mostly off-the-charts shame, especially in the well-funded basketball department. That one of the money-losing sports finally brought the university glory was fitting. So, When Clayton Allison got the last Georgia hitter to line out to right, I was as proud as if my old school and I were a tight and friendly fit. Proud as if I had actually graduated.
   
   Steve Detwiler, Fatih Terim — hats off to you. Thanks for the awesome memories on a slow summer day. Here's hoping Turkey gets into the EU and Fresno escapes the clutches of the anti-immigrant, God-obsessed, guided-by-talk radio right.

6. More Than a Game

   23.Jun.08, 13:02 EDT
   
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   I love baseball like I love George Carlin. But only at the start of the weekend,  when I found myself in Row A down the Dodger Stadium left-field line Dodger Stadium  shouting, “Cleveland rocks!” at the top of my lungs did I feel as though I’m sometimes too hard on the game.
   
   Extra innings were over. My beloved Cleveland Indians had beaten my almost as beloved Senior Circuit franchise 6-4. I’d gone crazy with the screamin’ and the hollerin' and whatnot, all but physically sparring with my boys — who live and die with Ye Olde Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers. And when the Tribe of my youth beat L.A. in its first-ever trip to Chavez Ravine I let out something — but only something — like a war cry. It felt awesome, like clowning Giants’ fans did last year when my Dodgers swept them in SF.
   
   That’s why I felt a little sad about what was said early that day. I’d mocked Major League Baseball a bit because of its creeping irrelevance among young Americans. It's sort of offensive to me the sports administrators and marketers are content to narrow its audience and feast off the disposable income of aging boomers. Isn't baseball supposed to be the national pastime?

   Here’s is where explanation is needed: It’s not like I haven’t been critical of MLB in the past. I got a lotta beef with Bud Selig and he crew. (Really. You are not even knowing.) But the spirit of my Friday morning public radio comments did not sit well with me on the sojourn out of Dodger Stadium.

   Now, I wasn’t regretting the floating of a notion about the game developing a 24-second clock; no, that shit was mad funny.
   
   My contextualization just could have been better. No doubt, demographic studies show MLB to be on a steady wane of popularity among kids. And the World Series ratings are low outside of major East Coast cities and participating teams’ markets. But MLB actually has a much greater viewership than traditional Neilsen ratings suggest. Its hardcore fan base — mature earners — follows its teams on cable and, increasingly, online. Measuring the game’s popularity from Game of the Week ratings went out with Joe Garagiola.
   
   Most importantly, there’s the baseball itself. Awesome in its leisurely spectacle. (Dodgers fans, who now leave early, as though Eric Gagne never happened, are surprisingly idiotic.  Remember when they had that cartoonish Padres comeback that ended with Nomar’s game-winner? If I wanna be critical of the Dodgers, please let me. I’m a fan, and sometimes what you need to hear isn’t what you want to hear.)
   
   Friday’s game didn’t even really start until the 7th inning, when a good third of the stadium was on its way to I-5. I know inter-league play leaves Dodgers fans at an information disadvantage, but aren’t they aware that any game in which Cleveland closer Joe Borowski is likely to pitch is a game the opponent can win? That’s when things got fun, in those putative closing innings. Baseball’s amazing in the sense that time can’t bail you out. (See, that thing about a 24-second clock really was a joke.) You’ve got to finish. Finish strong. Just like my beloved Fresno State baseball team.

   Just like me. With this blog I am done.

7. 

   Bike Blog

   19.Jun.08, 09:06 EDT
   
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   For now, forget the bug. I’ll be dealing with that in the next week or so. Stay tuned.
   
   Let’s talk about  the bike, my speedy slightly used cycle machine.  ‘Cuz now that L.A.’s baskeball playoff run is done, I can stop eating badly and drinking heedlessly three nights a week and, finally, get my exercise on.
   
   Last weekend I got some great Father’s Day gifts. (Dodgers tix from my sons? Against no less than beloved Cleveland Indians? Barack Obama mos def wasn’t talking about my black ass!) The one bound to give the most tangible benefit is the used bicycle my girl picked up from an Altadena retiree who specializes in fixing up broke-down bikes. If rising gas prices, weren’t an issue, I’d still dig the gift. But they are, so my love for the thing is practically familial. This week I’ve ridden everywhere that's bike-able. Maybe you should co the same.
   
   My treks in and around Culver City have supplemented a re-thought workout plan. Now it's clear that I’ve put too much time and effort into weight training. About a half-hour of each thrice-weekly workout session was devoted to lifting. Ninety minutes is just too much for a busy guy who’s trying to lose 10 pounds. Now I do 60 minutes a week, and the lifting is intense and heavy.
   
   I first figured out the approach about seven days ago, when I whimsically throw 225 on the bench press. Not only could I lift it, but I could get it up repeatedly. Ordinarily I had been working with as much as 70 pounds less, thinking less weight and more reps was a good way to burn calories. But fewer and smaller barbells weren’t making me lose weight, no matter how frequently I pushed them up in the air. All I burned were minutes; cardio is my thing.
   
   Even after dropping down to a more reasonable working bench press of 190 pounds, I’ve cut a third of my time in the weight room.  The sessions on that rowing machine, etc. are equally compact and dense. On the way to my gym, I meander through the neighborhood and town that surrounds it. (Ballona Creek isn’t much to look at, but the environs around that water body are at least quiet and without car traffic.)
   
   And perhaps more importantly — well, at least as important what I put into my body — is the incidental riding that has infiltrated my week. The grocery store is a regular destination. Plans are to ride my bike to the Red Line train stop in Koreatown, then have mass transit get my ass to Pasadena for time with my kids. And of course there’s that dispensary up in Hollywood…
   
   Fact is, deadlines and utility drives us in these busy, busy times. As much as I can multi-task by burning calories while getting places — as opposed to burning them on a stationary machine — my life is better, more practical. And as for those gas prices? That’s one tax on my quality of life that I refuse to pay.
   
   Thank you, baby.

   
   

8. 

   Lakers Lose? I'll Eat a Bug

   16.Jun.08, 13:07 EDT
   
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   On Tuesday the Lakers put it all on the line. And I am not even specifically addressing the season that ends if Los Angeles loses to Boston at the Garden. No, the stakes I'm talking are even bigger: If the L.A. doesn’t get the upset win in Game Six, I’ll eat a bug.
   
   The Cal Worthington-esque vow came about Sunday in Venice, after watching Turkey’s thrilling comeback win over the Czech Republic in Euro football action. The fam was all gathered ‘round, and I just blurted it out. No one, excepting my older son, had been feeling my assurances that the Lakers weren’t finished in the wake of  Thursday’s historic meltdown. And I really needed to be heard.
   
   I will keep my word, but I really don’t see myself snacking on an insect tomorrow night. And, oddly enough, none of my confidence has to do with the prospect of game fixing. No. I simply believe the Lakers have outplayed the Celtics throughout the series. My take on L.A., based on watching about three-quarters of the team’s games this season, is that they are intellectual and finesse oriented, as opposed to tenacious and tough. The Lakers, the NBA's second-youngest team and most experts’ championship favorite for 2009, tend to watch a bit of basketball before dissecting their opponents. And that’s what had been happening in this series, before letting up on the gas upended my guys on Thursday night.
   
   In the process, Kobe’s teammates have done a lot of growing up. Pau Gasol, a paragon of European wimpiness throughout this series, showed his nuggets late in the second half of Sunday night's win. He began aggressively attacking the basket, punishing a foul-plagued and injury-depleted Boston front line. Up until that point, the much-heralded center had been a blemish on his home country Spain’s name. Chickenshit. Chickenshit. Chickenshit. (To be fair, as a member of the woeful Memphis Grizzlies Gasol had little idea what a meaningful game looked or felt like.)
   
   As on Thursday, Phil Jackson’s charges took a big first-half league, then lost it. Again much of the responsibility for the evaporation of points fell to Phil himself: He added in the mix infrequent performers Trevor Ariza and Chris Mihm, who fouled and missed shots and generally appeared confused. I think Jackson played these cats as preparation for the upcoming Boston contest(s). (Boston leads 3-2. No team has ever come back from a 3-1 deficit, which LA faced going in to Sunday's contest.  And no vistor has ever won the last two games of a Finals played in the 2-3-2 format.) Kendrick Perkins — who would return to the line-up for Game Seven — has intimidated Gasol and Ronny Turiaf. Mihm is the only player on L.A.’s bench with a skill set approximating the defensive-minded Perkins or even ancient mudder P.J. Brown. And Ariza is a stopper of the sort that’s in small supply in La-La Land.
   
   So, no, I am not looking up recipes for insects, either chocolate covered or sautéed. And I’m not trying to find out what bugs go down best. After all, I never said the crawler gets chomped on if the Lakers win the whole thing in Boston, which I feel in my gut they will. I only need Tuesday.

9. 

   Don't Bet on the NBA

   12.Jun.08, 13:52 EDT
   
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   For reasons unrelated to Buzz Bissinger-style  hateration, I can't easily read Simmons right now. Still I try, because he’s my favorite blogging guy. Simmons is on about the burning questions of the 2008 NBA Finals, but a lot of us are right now ruminating on the Western Conference Finals of 2002.
   
   I am a fan of the LA Lakers, but I’m the rarest kind: the one who also roots for the Sacramento Kings. (Yeah, yeah. Don’t pillory me; I know the deal. Literally, friendships in my life have disappeared because of my split affinity. But what can I say? The Kings moved from Kansas City to Sacramento the same week I moved from Sandusky, Ohio to Sactown. They had me at hellow. Yet, I do love me some Showtime, now. Rooting for the Cali teams while living in NYC will twist a man up real good.)
   
   In June of 2002, completely down with Webber, Divac, Bibby, Turgulu, Stoyokovic, etc, I sat in The Colorado of Pasadena, just certain my Kings were headed to the Finals. They were up big in the fourth quarter of the clinching game, then the NBA took the Conference Championship from my Kings. Shaq shot free throws like they were his birthright because the NBA wanted LA — not Sactown — in its match-up with New Jersey.
   
   I saw what I saw and no one can make me believe anything else happened. Apologist for the NBA such as Michael Wilbon saw it as a horribly officiated game. I say it was, like Porky’s or a Michael Bay film, expertly officiated in that the refs achieved everything they set out to do.
   
   My whole way of seeing sports has changed. The Patriots cheated — from the ground — floor I was in on that one. Steroids? Yeah they were an enormous scam. And even as an advocate of better living through chemistry I could not abide by their presence in baseball’s un-leveled playing field. But what to make of Dongaghy‘s allegations that the 2002 Sac v. L.A. series and others were fixed? There’s no denying that the former ref is in a desperate situation, facing a quarter century of incarceration for his misdeeds. How should one weigh his words’ downside with the Laker-centric vision that’s forever burned on my retina. Unless you live in Sacramento, it’s a tough call.
   
   Not trusting ESPN — which might stand for Entertainment leagues’ Spin — I
   took a look at FoxSports coverage: They've put out day one graphics that
   question the fax of that contest. Fuck Bill O'Reilly, but there's no spin
   here.
   
   I think he’s trying to bring the whole league down, and he might just do that. Fans like me, who can watch pro sports as theater and accept that a lot of the abiding frame work is manipulated by market forces, refs and whatever are the exception. Most folks want to believe. If they’re led to believe that the hoop they’re watching is being conducted — not contested — then the NBA may well be on the way to the NHL’s brand of marginality. Commissioner David Stern must act quickly, or his alleged one bad actor’s work will metastasize into a thespian disease that will bleed his league.
   
   Donnell Alexander is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Sports & Fitness. He posts Mondays and Thursdays.

10. When the Drinking Stops

    02.Jun.08, 11:34 EDT
    
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    If all that kept me from working out this week was the edit of my Ira Newble radion piece set to run on Boston's Only a Game, I'd have had a perfectly reasonable excuse — Soundtrack Pro can overwhelm a brotha at first. But I was also doing the whirlwind New York thing, and the closest thing to exercise was brisk walks from bar to restaurant to bar to home. (Coming out of Wenner Media, I did spot that David cat who won American Idol; absolute shrimp that guy.) I'd count the brilliant sex (not with David) but sometimes one must just lay back and enjoy the ride.
    
    So, by the time my flight landed at LAX on Wednesday night, my body resembled a brownie about 15 minutes before being fully cooked; soft and vulnerable. Disgusted, I forced myself out of bed and into the gym before sunrise with the aim of getting my shit together. The trick would be doing so in such a way that would not turn me off from hitting the gym again in the following days. Any schmuck can have one strong session; I want to re-establish a pattern of productive exercise.
    
    The brain plays as big a role in pulling this off as anything below the neck. Like, if I feel like I'm getting away with watching TV, I'll work the LifeFitness machine toward eternity. Toward this end, I made a point of exiting the locker room at exactly 5:30 a.m. SportsCenter stacks its broadcasts so that the top of the hour portions contain fewer commercials. Combine that with inherently more interesting stories that then appear on the channel's sports news loop and you have a recipe for boosting performance when your workout most needs it.
    
    I didn't even set a target time for my cardio. Rather, I told myself: 600 calories burned and yer done, Donnell. My performance level, 15, was moderate enough that when highlights from last night's Detroit-Boston basketball match-up ran, I was just winded enough to make things interesting. By the time Disney failed to sell me on Big Brown — about the only thing less interesting than animals forced to work out hard for humans' entertainment was one dominant animal forced to work out against lesser animals for humans' entertainment — I had made my numbers and was off to do some work on my big belly.
    
    My gut really isn't what it used to be. Thing is, as I've dropped tonnage over the past nine months or so, my midsection lagged proportionally. Sure, I could stop swilling beer. (At least I tell myself I could.) Sit-ups though are bound to disturb my friends' expectation for top-notch barroom shit-talking. I did 150, then moved on to my routine of upper-body work. This component of my regimen is down from the past as it's finally become clear that whatever weight-loss benefits lifting, curling, and benching might bring, I haven't mastered the proper technique. Now my only goal is a rippling back. Stay tuned.
    
    Two hours later, I'm out of the gym and feeling like I could do more. Tomorrow I'll do another easy session, concentrating again on aerobics and doing the arm and chest work that consistently gets me laid. On Saturday maybe I'll have the storied hoops contest that pits my girl and my sixth-grade boy against me and my first grader. (That little boy better play to win, man!) And if I'm smart I'll trade in the beer for wine. Simple as that, it will be like New York never happened.