RONNY TURIAF'S HAIR

I admit that I've soured on the Lakers in recent years. Once a season ticket holder (during the Sedale Threat years), I finally gave up on the Lakes during the abortion that was the Rudy Tomjanavich era. The penetrate-and-kick-it-out-for-the-three offense was painful to watch, and made one long for the thrill of Phil's triangle. Besides, any team that started less-than-mediocre Chucky Atkins as a point guard deserved to rot in hell.

And it wasn't like I hated the Shaq trade. I liked Lamar Odom from his Clips days, and thought Caron Butler played with heart. This season, however, there's little not to like. Kobe's really become a beautiful thing to watch. The gunner has given way to a guy who understands how to make his "teammates better" (a sportstalk radio cliche, sorry). Tonight in their win over Golden State, I decided that this is a team of destiny. All because of Ronny Turiaf's hair. The dreads were cool, but now that he's returned to a style he was frontin' in his Gonzaga glory days, the Lakers will not be denied.

PERFECT DAY

We went to see Gwendolyn and the Good Time Gang last weekend at the Geffen Playhouse. It was a matinee show, lasting about 40 minutes. It started on time, and when it was over, I didn’t feel like I should have put myself to bed hours earlier. It was just another reminder of how my life has changed.

When I moved back to L.A. from New York at the tail end of 1997, I’d grown accustomed to eating out and watching bands almost every night a week. That was my world. I worked as an editor for a large, national music publication (rhymes with shin) and going to gigs was an unquestioned recreational activity. Didn’t matter how late, because people didn’t roll into the office until around noon anyway. The first night I hung with the editorial crew, they were all geeked out on Ecstasy at a Chemical Brothers show at Roseland. I dated a woman in the music business whose job, essentially, was to hang out in clubs all night.

That was my mindset when I moved back to the exact same Los Feliz bungalow I had vacated when I moved to New York without a job nine months earlier (thanks, Bob and Stacy!). Short version: I wound up dating another music business person and she covered gigs constantly. I was out all the times, and as a function of the blind lust I had at the time, I saw bands you couldn’t pay me enough to see today: Sunny Day Real Estate, the Promise Ring.

I’ve since my given up the really late nights; in fact they’re so infrequent that they’ve become legendary – Carrie and I will never forget the Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci gig at Spaceland that didn’t start until 1:45. And we got there at ll:30, thinking we were late.

As recently as last week, though, I ventured into the night to hear music. Stupid me. Got word about a Sloan record release party at some too-cool bar on Hollywood and Las Palmas. The info said 10. And when I saw 10, it registered as 10. Somehow it’d slipped my mind that 10 really means the time you should think about leaving your house for the gig. Don’t forget the inevitable line to get in and the opening band. So when I saw 10, I should have said, “oh, yeah, midnight.” Then, of course, I wouldn’t have gone. I wound up not staying for Sloan. Past my bedtime.

But Gwendolyn and the Good Time Gang? Well, they rock, as always. The new material kicks serious ass, and I can’t wait to hear the record. Funny thing, though: I was bopping around to the punk rock version of “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and my five year old son Emmett was in a bit of a daze. He never really shows obvious signs of “rocking” when he’s watching a band, preferring to gaze studiously. But long after we’ve gone home, he’ll dance around and sing the music he heard, then talk about it for weeks.

The best part: Gwendolyn was done by 12:30. We chowed down at Mishima, headed back over the hill, and our perfect day was over.

BROKEN RINGS

A few years ago, my uncle was asking me about a set of rings that my grandmother had passed down to my mom. I told him that I remembered Mom wearing the rings on ocassion, but didn't know what had become of them. After she died in 1994, there wasn't much in the way of heirlooms, and I was more concerned with procuring photos, to be honest. But to answer his question, I had no idea what had become of the rings.

Over the past several months I've made amends (or the other way around, more accurately) with Mom's third and final husband, Doobie, with whom she was married when she died. I asked him a while back if he knew what had become of the rings. At the time, Doobie said he had no idea about them. But a few days ago, I got a very moving call from him. He had heard that me and Carrie and Emmett and Olivia are planning to move to a new house, and he wanted to give me the oil painting (two feet by three feet) of Mom that he'd been working on for the past several years.

It was a wonderful gesture, but also very sad, because his gift was prefaced with comments like "I'm gonna die soon." Since my mom's death, he has been a very lonely man, and I know that he thinks of her constantly. There is a shrine devoted to her memory in the front yard of his Frazier Park cabin, and he often breaks into uncontrollable tears when we're on the phone. She's been dad almost 13 years, yet he leaves her name on the title to their house (which, incidentally, has been a point of contention with his obviously greed-driven brother; he's been trying to get her name off the note, igorantly thinking that I'd have a claim to it upon Doobie's death. Nice.).

During this conversation, he admitted that he believes his oldest daughter stole the rings (probably to sell for drug money) two decades ago when she was struggling with heroin (she'd done time in Sybil Brand for possession and prostitution). She was staying near to their home at the time. One day, she was gone, as was the jewelry. At the time, Mom took the high road. Let it go, she said. And it was their secret until he told me.

When I heard this, I was overcome with anger and sadness. What do i do? It's just a material thing, but at the same time it's something that's been in my family for who knows how long? It just seems evil to me that someone outside the family could just so callously steal something that means so much. I objectively understand the desperation that accompanies addiction, but, you know, in this case, fuck that. You know? I think I feel sad because it was something I could show and eventually give to my kids. They never got to meet their grandmother and having the rings would just be a small connection to their past.

Part of me wants to track this woman down and try to make her understand the significance of her actions. I know she probably never thought twice about it, but I feel it's important that she knows there are those who do. Am I wrong? Part of me thinks I should just drop a letter in the mail and be done with it. I will have had my say, my screaming in the forest, as it were, and be done with it. Or, Is this just vindictive Jewish guilt? Should I just let it go? Man, this is a tough one. I could use some help here, folks.

PICTURES OF LILLY

There's something about writing about music as a means of making a living that really sucks all the fanboy-dom right outta you. For nearly a decade, it seems, it was my job to stay on top of what was going in the pop music world. Admittedly, it was fun while I was in that vortex. I discovered lots of cool staff, did the pilgrimage to Austin for SXSW four straight years (Wreckless Eric, '95, forget the club; fucking godhead, I swear). Got to work at Spin for a while (actually, that sounds cooler than it actually was; I hated that job). Went to lots of great gigs, hung with some really great people.

I've kept my little toe in that world over the last few years, but I've become just a periodic dabbler. I tend to write about artists I know and love, rather than those discovered by accident. And if I'm doing a TV script, it's often a show about an artist I would otherwise care less about (Alicia Keys, Pantera, Ratt). Sometimes I feel hopelessly out of touch. I just like what I like and that's it. My stopping point seems to be the lo-fi/indy pop scene of the late '90s. My wife laughs at me for falling into a classic rock rut -- what can I say, darling, I don't think the Killers have much to offer. Yet I see friends, particularly older ones in the upper reaches of their 30s, who don't write about music, yet try desparately to chase that dragon down, to stay relevant and ensure they're at the coolest gig featuring the latest Kinks/Who/Zombies-derived pretty boy band from England. So much energy, and for what? At this point of my life, waiting in a club until some ungodly hour waiting for band du jour to play is a slow, painful form of torture. Besides, you just move from one to the next without falling in love -- it's the sonic equivalent of a one-night stand.

I suppose that's the nature of the fragmented beast these days. I understand the record business as I once knew it is no more. I certainly understand the importance of MySpace. I download music. In fact, it was MySpace that got a buddy of mine talking about the artist who's since become my latest crush. He explained that Lilly Allen had become all the rage in England, helped along by a dubious explosion of MySpace "friends" who may or may not have been professional music hypers. Knowing my predilection for poppy female singers, I checked her out via a video on YouTube. Cool enough, so I bought her album, Alright, Still.

When I popped it into the car, I immediately got one of those indescribable feelings; I couldn't wait to hear all the songs, and then hear them again. It was a feeling I hadn't had since I heard Nellie McKay's Get Away From Me a couple years ago (yeah, I know, no accounting for taste blahblahblah). Objectively, I know it's not instantly classic, but I do hear a mish-mash of artists I love (McKay, the Cardigans, Ms. Dynamite). She's certainly a (probably calculatingly) dirty girl, which is good for some laughs, (and I do love "Knock 'Em Out") but ultimately may hurt her cred if she wants to be taken seriously.

I sense Lilly Allen may be one-and-out in terms of her It-ness. It's hard sometimes to be a fan without thinking like a critical journalist, but ultimately I'm still in the giddy early stages of loving Lilly. I hope it lasts.

IF IT SOUNDS LIKE A DUCK...

I was blasting a Four Seasons compilation the other day to prep for a possible Frankie Valli Bio show I might soon be producing. At the time, my son Emmett was in the car. For most of the ride he had little reaction to the Frankie's pained castrato, but when their cover of Dylan's "Don't Think Twice Is Alright" came on, Emmett perked up. The Seasons recorded the track in 1967 as The Wonder Who, and Valli "disguised" his voice by singing at an even higher pitch. The Jersey streetcorner doo-wop arrangment didn't fool anyone, and The Wonder Who were quickly unmasked. Of course Emmett had a different perspective. When he heard Valli's testacle-squeezing high notes, he said, "Papa, a mouse is singing this song."