!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009 NBA Champions! We love it!

Much respect to the Magic, the first playoff team to have to face three 60+ win teams, but boy did the Lake Show finish this in style.

Lakers' fifteenth. Kobe and DFish's fourth. Phil's fourth Laker and 10th overall (that "X" hat is hard as nails. I already have my man DDubs keeping his eyes peeled for one for me).

Point of emphasis: Doug Collins' didn't do shit with MJ and Del Harris didn't do shit with Shaq AND Kobe, so yes, Phil Jackson is god. I mean, just look at him. Listen to him. You're enraptured by the beatific glow he omits. You know it's true. Man, if I were still in L.A. I'd go to the parade with my homemade Red Auerbach effigy, whereupon I'd stick a cigar up its ass and light it on fire. Smoke that ya crusty bum! Phil beat you and he did it with the Lakers--that's gotta sting. May he continue to dance on your grave!

Point of emphasis: Derek Fisher will never be in the Hall of Fame. But he will be the first non-member to have his jersey hang in the rafters at Staples, mark my words.

So nice to see the 'Show finish things off with a fully committed defensive performance. Four blocks from both Pau and Kobe. Dwight Howard, 11 pts.

Though they weren't always a delight to watch this season (which still sounds crazy to say about a team that won 65 games, but it's true), when they were on, they were molten magma. The fast break transition game. Pau's silky inside-out side post consistency. Kobe from any spot on the floor with an "I'm not touching you!" hand in his face. Coast-to-coast L.O., yo. BurglAriza swooping into passing lanes and sparking runs. Derek Fisher slinging those from-the-hip, rainmaking threes (and delivering titanic forearm shivers!). Luke Walton refusing to stop pointing at a teammate after he scores, regardless whether that player was involved in the play (a trademark gesture used by the Threepeat team that Kobe and Fish appear to have left in the past). Josh Powell eating up regular season minutes with 15-foot jumpers. Shannon Brown emerging from the bench to drain threes and suck the air out of the Staples Center crowd with fast-forward-like dunksplosions. Andrew Bynum showing flashes of future freshness right now. Sasha slinging bricks from start to finish, whining and flopping about in the process. Vlad Rad digging a hole that led straight to Charlotte. Jordan Farmar carrying the mercurial Bench Mob on his shoulders and surviving a mid-playoff loss of mojo.

This team's got the talent, the coach, the GM and the owner to catch and overtake Boston's 17 banners. That is a tall, TALL task. But such are the trials of the Los Angeles Lakers, for they are sporting royalty, the avatar of the city they represent. They are a repository of goodwill, a tie that binds the far reaches of Southern California to its center, stretching back into our youth and out into our lives.

We love it.








........so, is Chad Billingsley gonna be the Senior Circuit's All-Star starter? Can't wait to see the Blue Crew take on the Mets out at Flushing Meadows July 7-8-9.

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Depression Is A Tough Bitch

Depression's been hounding me since my early twenties; clinically diagnosed (the result of Jennifer finally forcing me to deal with it) at 27. I've spent long stretches pursuing the talking cure and long stretches taking different medications. I've had short stretches of progress followed by long stretches of frustration and setbacks.

I don't make this post so I can work anything out for myself--though who knows, maybe I will. At this point I have a pretty clear-headed understanding of my situation. That said, it's still with me and, to varying degrees, may always be. I'm writing about this to give people I know some insight into my actions and behavior over, well, the past decade. Perhaps readers who don't know me might gain insight into someone they know who's in the same boat.

What compels me to do this, and to do it now? Distance, for one. Both geographically and emotionally. I never really let anyone know how much trouble I was in, or how much pain I was in. As close as I ever was to anybody back in Los Angeles, I never discussed my "problems." I wasn't going to burden anybody else, or waste anybody else's time with my bullshit. Everybody's got problems, who cares about mine? I certainly wasn't going to ask anybody for help--I was perfecting my own fucked up strain of martyrdom that was undetectable to anybody but me. And as my time in Los Angeles grew shorter and shorter there was no way I was going to start opening up--Johnny Funtime had to be the life of the party and keep the lights turned on and the stereo cranked to 11. And now I'm gone, and finding it way easier to express myself with the written word. A chickenshit approach, perhaps, but they do use that for fertilizer, don't they? Let's see if something sprouts up, shall we?

I always thought my tight-lipp-edness was for everybody's else's benefit. Not true. That was just me building a wall, brick by brick, to keep everybody out, or at least at a distance I could handle. I still haven't nailed down what it is I'm protecting myself from, and why (though I have some ideas, of course). But I'm starting to realize that the "what" and "why" don't really matter. I have to at least stop with the masonry. Then maybe I can move on to demolition. That makes metaphorical sense, but what do I really mean?

To start with, I've got engage with the people I care about. Now that I'm so far away it would be really easy to let the walls climb higher. Man, I can it feel happening even as I write this...hell, I can feel it happening despite the fact that I'm writing this.

Them: "How're things going out there?"
Me: "Fine. You know...[dissembling, noncommittal, mealy-mouthed nonsense].
The Me Trapped Inside My Head: "Actually, I'm feeling [REDACTED]."

I owe the people I care about more than that. And since I'm unable/unwilling to give it to them, I just avoid contact altogether, because I know how easy it is to retreat: into my head, into my marriage, into the apartment--places that are safe, places where the demands are familiar and so are the results. I almost looked forward to that upon arrival here, and pretty much announced it when I started this blog and jokingly said "now I can keep everybody in the loop and I don't have to talk to anybody." It's been six weeks and I still feel that way even though I know I shouldn't.

Grrrr....frustration's setting in. The more I write the further away I'm getting--I can't get the thoughts to come out in the effortlessly tossed-off, diamond-cut prose that you're used to.

I've strayed from the purpose of today's post--a bit of insight into clinical depression. Even now, this many years down the line, even while I'm on a combination of medications that are working very well for me, I still am susceptible to its vague but vice-like grip. Having been through the ringer so many times, I notice the onset more quickly, and I'm more quickly aware of being lost in its fog. So I've got that going for me, which is nice. And I even kinda sorta know how to break out of it now. But what's it like being "in it"?

sigh....

I imagine it's like an aging world class athlete's frustration: the brain knows what to do but the body just won't respond. It's paralyzing. The dark thoughts flex their considerable muscles and crowd out and choke the pencil-necked confident thoughts (those confident thoughts sure do have moxie, and, truth be told, they have an undefeated record. How do I know? The worms would be playing pinochle on my snout.) Can I pile on another metaphor? It's like stepping on the gas and the brake at the same time. If I merely sat in the car and did nothing, there'd be no frustration or confusion at going nowhere.

I know I need to get out of bed, shower, and get on with the day. I have a list of things that I need to do today, tomorrow, next week. But I don't. I can't? I won't? Which is it? Why is it? I guess it feels like a horrible admixture of the two--definitely worse than either alone. But it's often something that people not suffering from depression want to focus on, as if the answers would release its grip. But I've found that's mostly beside the point.

Why? Because I know if I just string together a few tiny, tiny "accomplishments" I can break its grip. I know it because that is how it always happens. This current bout started yesterday in the morning (note: I started this post about a week ago and let it marinate), I recognized it about mid-day, and, in the evening, discussed it with Jennifer. And it's in those discussions that the frustrations arise, for me and for her. She reiterates what I need to do, I respond with "I know, I know" and she says "you say 'I know' but you need to hear it because you're not doing it." Knowing what I need to do and failing to do it just makes the fog...foggier.

Lord, do I want to spare us both from this stupid dance. The exchange above is a sweet, sweet gift compared to what I've subjected her to over the course of our relationship. It's taken hard work on both our parts and a colossal amount of patience and love from her.

But even though I know, and she knows, what I need to do, it still took until well into the afternoon today (the day after I started writing this post) to bust through it. And I have to keep at it, gotta string together the small victories.

Maybe turn it into a winning streak.
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That's Some Weak Faux-Outrage If You Ask Me

To which David Letterman responds brilliantly:



It's a longish clip but stick with it.

In moments like this, I think back to that great Simpsons Halloween segment where all the billboards and giant store mascots come to life and go on a rampage. The only way to stop them? Ignore them. Jon & Kate, Octomom, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Heidi & Spencer, the current incarnation of the Republican Party. Fucking opium for our masses, man. So many bigger fish to fry and this is what's clogging up our rapidly atrophying attention spans?

It's enough to make a man consider moving off the grid to stockpile weapons and ammunition while simultaneously recruiting and indoctrinating like-minded people in preparation for a bloody and suicidal attack on a select group of assholes who've got it coming (the above-named people or groups are way too small-time for consideration on said list, for the record...well, Sean Hannity might be on it just to make me smile).
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Thought for the Day

We're coming up on the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing, July 20, 1969. This impending anniversary prompts today's Thought for the Day:

We got to the moon with analog technology.

This will never cease to blow my mind. More important, though, is that it's beginning to make me sad in a way that I'm not yet able to articulate.

If I try to make my point with specific examples I'll get thrown off track trying to explain and justify them. If I try to distill my point I'll end up making a watery generalization. Perhaps I can come at this from another direction.

I can describe how it makes me feel. As I said above, sad. But it's more specific than that. Hurt, let down. Abandoned, betrayed. Confused, too.

I grew up very aware of our space program. My grandfather was vice president and general counsel for Rockwell International, which, in an earlier incarnation, was North American Aviation (Rockwell's constituent parts were sold off in the '90s, and its aerospace arm is now part of Boeing). North American built the Apollo lunar module, and Rockwell built the engines for the Space Shuttle. Hell, Rockwell was the largest NASA contractor (not to mention the largest defense contractor) when I was a kid. Needless to say, the space program was a BIG fucking deal in my house.

So, these men, these titans of industry, these members of the greatest generation, trim and confident in their Brooks Brothers suits, knowing nothing in life but to be legit, perched a few exceptional men (an inordinate amount of whom were left handed, let's not forget) at the very tip-top of unfathomable tons of newly conjured alloys and ludicrously volatile fuel in order to beat gravity and beat the godless communists to the moon.

Romantic as hell, ain't it? A nation's ambition writ large, symbolized by its flag planted firmly in that eerie pale grey dust, the result of hard work by its best and brightest.

These days, what have we got to show for our countless billions of military-industrial complex dollars? Not to put too fine a point on it, but a giant fucked-up shit-hole breeding ground for terrorists nestled right next to an ancient conflict involving a country we've got to support and sitting on top of the bulk of the world's most precious resource. Pretty much the opposite of romantic.

So what do we have to show from this glorious digital age? A ton of shit that occupies us, entertains us, distracts us, fragments us, allows us to hole up and distance ourselves from any and all realities, gives us access to so much information that none of it matters.

I can only imagine what it must have been like to have seen for the first time those images of the Earth from the Moon. I know in my life I've seen nothing so revelatory.

_________________________

I know landing on the Moon was pretty awesome, but here's another perspective that I quite enjoy:




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The Search for Inspirato

"Warning: If you want your asses blown out, stay in the room."

(Language NSFW.)



So, ten days off. WTF is up? I foolishly thought if I wasn't compelled to write something, I should wait until I was. Bzzzt! Wrong answer. That just made it easy to fall into a non-writing habit. I could tell myself I held back because I want to bring you nothing less than my best. "I could 23-skiddoo you a song. I could zipadeedoodah you a song. But that would be false. It would be wrong."

Wrong again! "You've got to manufacture inspirato!"
Translation: Push yourself to keep working. But don't force it.
Application: My overall mental state

After several years of pursuing the "talking cure," aka psychotherapy, I came to understand that even if I dug and dug into my past to try to figure out root causes for my fucked-upedness, there was no brass ring to reach for which, if grabbed, would release me from...well, [REDACTED]. Instead, I wasn't going to feel any better unless I started acting and thinking differently.

Ok, but what about the "don't force it" part? Yeah, I guess I was leaning far too heavily on that part since I last posted. But it's only part of the equation, and I'm responsible for balancing said equation. How? Confidence in my skillz, such that if I just sit down and start slamming the keys I can guide this thing home to awesomeville--every fucking time. Of course this is by no means my default setting. And like I said above, why that's the case is--for now--beside the point.

So, how does this navel-gazing affect you, dear reader? Good question! More posts, more frequently. Everybody wins.
________________________

Finally, apropos of nothing: one day I hope to be enough of a cool customer to engage with a dangerous stranger on horseback in the desert in the following manner:

Sherif Ali: What is your name?
T.E. Lawrence: My name is for my friends.

Consider this my recommendation that you watch Lawrence of Arabia. An absolute fucking masterpiece. There would be no John Williams without Maurice Jarre's stunning score. There would be no awesome scenes in the desert in Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark without David Lean's ambition and vision. And I wish I could continue this "and there would be no...." construction with regard to Peter O'Toole's performance, but I don't think anybody's ever been as good as he was in the action/adventure/gentleman/scholar/statesman/iconoclast role of a lifetime. Maybe that's because there's never been a role as good as that one!



Start it raunchy, finish it classy, that's what I always say.
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