JORDAN FARMAR: Member of the Tribe

When I'm in a funk -- and I've been in a horrific career funk lately -- I find an obsession to wrap myself around and forget about real life. For the past few months, it's been the Lakers. Sure, it's an exciting race, but I actually TiVo the games. I've been a fairly hardcore NBA fan since the 1979-1980 season, when Magic Johnson joined the team. And though I'll admit that I've lapsed into fair-weather Clippers fandom, I've been solidly loyal to the purple and gold. I was even a season ticket holder at the Forum during the first two post-Magic Johnson years.

It was tough to really love the Shaquille O'Neal-era team. Particularly after Phil Jackson took over, it was almost too easy. Devoid of drama (save the incredible Western Conference Finals vs. Portland in 2000 and the 2002 series vs. Sacramento), the team was just too good. And the Kobe vs. Shaq stuff got old and stupic pretty quick. Strangely, though, I was really into the 2003-04 team, primarily because I really began to appreciate the play of Karl Malone, and understood what a great teammate he was, particularly amid the Kobe rape stuff, Shaq's pay-me bullshit, and the unraveling of Gary Payton.

This season, of course, was a car crash waiting to happen, thanks to Kobe's offseason remarks. Yet as hard as it's been to truly embrace Kobe (aside from his pure greatness as a basketball player), I've seen in the years since Phil Jackson's returned, a guy who really wants to lead, a guy who wants his teammates to succeed. Unfortunately, they've basically sucked. I mean, how does a team that starts Kwame Brown, Smush Parker and Luke Walton make the playoffs (the 05-06 team). It was a miracle.

I'm not sure what makes this season's Lakers so compelling. Obviously, the maturation of Andrew Bynum and the Pao Gasol trade have been real blessings, but maybe it's the whole spiting of Kobe. He cries to the media, and the next thing you know, the Lakers are title contenders.

But I think the real reason is that the Lakers roster features superJew (and former Bruin) Jordan Farmar. Now, I'm not a fan of UCLA (I'm a Cal grad, after all; Twenty years later, I still talk about seeing former NBA star Kevin Johnson actually studying in the library while he was a Cal student). But for crying out loud, the guy was bar mitzvahed. How many current or former Lakers can say that? The icing on the cake, of course, is that Farmar's a Valley guy, a graduate of Taft.

Thank G-d, he's willing to roll on Shabbos.

SAD TIMES

My affiliation with the Los Angeles Times dates to (gulp) 1982, when, just out of high school, I worked in the sports department. I spent my weekend evenings taking prep sports scores, gathering fish reports and race results, and covering an occasional high school playoff game. I left the paper in 1984, just after the Summer Olympics in L.A., to attend college at UC Berkeley. I began writing again for the paper sporadically in 1993, for various sections. Most recently, I've been writing book reviews fairly regularly.

Having grown up with the Times, it's pretty clear it's not what it once was -- a paper so cushy and well-staffed it was known as the Velvet Coffin. Back then, the paper had national aspirations, and held its own with any daily that wasn't the Washington Post or the New York Times. I still have a soft spot for the paper and it's been an unrealized dream to land a steady gig there, but now I'm not so sure: After all these years and countless bylines, The Times actually misspelled my name in today's paper. It doesn't show up on this link (mainly because I bitched about it and it was changed), but it's there for readers to see in the print edition. I don't really know what to think. I was angry at first, particularly because the piece was edited by people I've worked with countless times. Now, I'm just sad.

Don't let the misspelling deter you from reading the piece, though -- it's a review of Instamatic Karma, May Pang's collection of photos of her one-time lover John Lennon.



In other personal hype, I also have a fairly extensive article on Harry Nilsson in this month's issue of Mojo, which you should buy on the newsstand, but can also see right here. There's another long story that goes with the publication of this piece, but the short version is that I turned it in to the Mojo editors in August of 2004, nearly four years ago. But I guess stories about dead guys are evergreen.