Friday, February 23, 2007

Remembering DJ



I felt a punch to the gut when Fish delivered the news yesterday morning; DJ, Dennis Johnson, died suddenly yesterday at 52.

Even though DJ made his bones with the hated Celts during their epic wars with the Lakes in the 80's, he actually preceded that with the Sonics, playing with Gus Williams, Jack Sikma, and "Downtown" Freddie Brown and winning a ring in '79.

But leave it to Red Auerbach to snatch DJ for the Celts (in one of those "Huh?" moments, DJ was traded to Phoenix for a brief stint before Auerbach's theft), and the rest is history. Everyone remembers the play against the Pistons in the playoffs; Bird steals Zeke's inbound pass, dishes to a head's up streaking DJ - a smart thinking player if ever there was one - who makes a difficult layup, and the Garden explodes while the legendary Johnny Most loses his mind. Of course, being in LA, I listened to our legend, Chicky Baby, during Laker games, but I don't know who called for the Pistons. At any rate, ESPN and others will always roll that clip with the Johnny Most cigarette-stained voice. I can still hear the old crow squawking: "BIRD STOLE THE BALL!!! BIRD STOLE THE BALL!!! OMIGOD, THE PLACE IS GOING CRAZY!!!!" as pandemonium erupts.

As much as I hated the Celts, this is why I love sports, probably more than anything else creative. In the case of the NBA, you get a bunch of highly skilled and talented athletes - with a few exceptions, the best athletes in the world, in my opinion - and put them in pressure cookers and watch what happens. It's endlessly interesting.

Anyone who plays sports, games or is an artist has experienced the feeling of being in the zone, where things just seem to fall into place. For me, those moments are indescribable. In tennis it's when you're always in correct position, on balance and the ball always strikes the sweet spot. In poker, it's making the correct plays - time after time after time.

But for me, playing basketball is above everything - even those times creating art. There's something about synergy, creating with teammates that, when it clicks, is unique. It's the most beautiful game. There's a feeling of connecting to your teammates that, at its best, is like you're plugged in to the universe in a very direct way; it's a transcendent experience far beyond words. Filmmaking comes close.

Another point is that very few play on the level where they make everyone around them better players. Magic was the greatest I've ever seen at that, but DJ is in that club.

And despite playing for the hated Celts, DJ is also special to LA, a Compton brotha. Played up the street for Pepperdine.

His death - at 52 - kinda shook me because he was so young and it was just so sudden.

I remember you DJ.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

"What's troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics," Barack Obama said.

Since Barack is now gathering heat, I thought it was interesting that he's still way behind Hilary amongst blacks. So during poker last night I took an informal poll of my black brothas and sistas. Here're some of their distilled remarks.

Marie: Why is it that the media thinks blacks just blindly follow someone based upon their color?

Lisa: The Clintons are already black, they just have white skin.
jp: So you're getting two for one?
Lisa: Exactly.

Dave: I think he's just not as well-known.
jp: Even with all of the media hype going on now?
Dave: Probably.

Les: zzzzz...

Beth: zzzzz...

Lillard: zzzzz...

For those who saw the Obama 60 Minutes interview last week, I thought the most poignant moment came when Steve Kroft posed the uncomfortable question to Barack's wife, Michelle, asking if she fretted about the possibility of some wacko shooting Barack.

Michelle: (paraphrased) Barack's a black man in America... he can get shot just walking to the store.

Aside from her poise, what immediately struck me was how, to some, namely the privileged white masses and their colonized clones, that can be an enormously inflammatory statement, but I think it succinctly illustrates the differing American world views.

This is something I believe I touched upon in an earlier post about the recent superbowl being coached by two black brothas. Before the game, this fact was a main talking point amongst the sports journalism cognoscenti, and Dave asked me if I'd heard local sports jock Tony Bruno's take on it.

jp: No, what'd he say, something stupid?
Dave: He said that until someone mentioned the fact that two black coaches (Lovee Smith and Tony Dungy) were in the Super Bowl, he hadn't thought of it. He then said that that must be a sign of progress. You know, "I'm color blind," blah blah blah.
jp: Well, he said that because he's not a mud peep.
Dave: EXACTLY.

Honestly, white liberals are some of the biggest pains in the scrotum, surpassed only by the evil white devils. In some ways, their world views are the most insidious because their modus operandi is goodwill.

That's twisted.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

"I sunk the fingers of one hand into his eye socket and gripped the spear shaft protruding from his head with the other," Rell Sunn said.

Like many APAs and particularly Japanese Ams, Hawaii is an ancestral docking. Although I'm a city boy through and through, I feel great when I'm there, at least in part because there're so many Asians. One funny dynamic is when I go to restaurants; the waitresses in particular will start jabbering away to me in patois/pigeon, then I'll open my mouth and their entire countenance changes - I'm a "katonk." (Mainlander, outsider. As it was told to me, if mainlanders take their knuckles and rap their heads, the sound that's emitted is akin to a "katonk" sound).

It can get to be a bit slooooow after a while on the islands. My dad was born there and to the day he died he was dark, and often mistaken for native American. To this day I've relatives there. Still, there's a romantic simplicity to the islands, no better expressed than in local legend Rell Sunn. A true warrior and ardent feminist, she left this earth too soon... Following is a great piece she wrote that displays the intimate communion with the sea she had, her fierce warrior ways, and that island spirit. What a beauty my sista is...


The Woman Who Shot Ulua Valance
by Rell Sunn

Reaction time is faster when you see bigger fish. At the instant I saw the 45-pound ulua munching on a tiny snowflake eel my Hawaiian sling hand-spear was already cranked and flying. The three prongs lodged in the back of his blunt head, and he spun once, eyeing me with reproach. But instead of screeching for the channel, he turned and went back to work on the eel.

I was faster and luckier with my back-up spear, as it found its mark between his eyes. The ulua bolted for the deep blue of the drop-off, the two spears poking like antennae from his brow and humming through the water with his furious rush.

It had been an easy, almost effortless dive day. The usually temperamental waters off of Oahu's Kaena Point were placid, seemingly beaten into laziness by the summer heat. The ocean there is full of fish, outrageous holes, and Hawaiian myth and lore. I had paddled out on my longboard, which was both my partner and diving platform, with two Hawaiian sling spears, a mask, snorkel, fins and a dive bag...all weighing no more than 15 pounds, board included.

Within an hour the 9-foot, 6-inch longboard was awash under the weight of 65 pounds of octopus, giant uhus (parrotfish), a couple of seven-pound kumus (highly prized goatfish...red, good, delicious).

I was already headed in and skipping over a mental shopping list for ingredients needed for steaming the kumu and stuffing and baking the uhu when I spotted my dream fish.

The ulua had put some distance between us despite the two spears stuck into him. I was already three-quarters of a mile out and swimming with burning lungs and muscles against the current. My board had drifted down current; it was a gamble to let it go and swim after the fish, but I couldn't afford to lose sight of my quarry for even a second. I was committed to the gamble of sticking with my fish.

The wobbling of the spear soon wore the ulua down enough so that I could use the best of my energy to surge ahead of him and herd him back toward the shallows. As my calves began to cramp I was relieved to see the fish doing flips and violent spirals... he was dying.

Uluas are beautiful fish. They're smart, good hunters and are incredibly strong. I've seen them turn vicious when injured. As this ulua fluttered to a ledge 35 feet below, I realized that he didn't know that particular crevice as well (it was a dead end) as I did. It was the stroke of luck I needed to take a chance on retrieving my board. Three minutes later I was back with my board, hovering over the crevice, and relaxing my breathing to get a good gulp of air for the descent.

The ulua was scraping the spears against the ceiling of the ledge when I reached the opening. I sunk the fingers of one hand into his eye socket and gripped the spear shaft protruding from his head with the other, and began to guide him out and up toward the surface.

He fought hardest two feet from the surface. My legs were starting to cramp and I was on the verge of blacking out. I shot out into the air, blasting the snorkel free of water, and for the first time felt the true heft of the fish, which felt like a leaden umbrella held overhead.

As I wrestled the ulua up onto the deck of my board, I heard what sounded like wind blowing through reel lines, or dogs barking. I pulled my mask off and followed the noise to a spot on the shoreline where four fishermen were jumping, yelling and pointing at me.

I grinned and raised the 45-pound trophy in a victory salute.

Then, I turned my head seaward just in time to see a 14-foot tiger shark sliding under the surface barely 50 feet away, knifing toward my board, my 65 pounds of octopus and fish, my ulua and my legs, not necessarily in that order.

A million heartbreaking thoughts and possibilities flashed into my mind, yet I had but two solutions to them all: pulling myself into the less-exposed knee-paddling position, and scuttling the ulua off the side.

I took a few pulls toward shore and said, "I'll be back...next time catch your own dinner!" I didn't have the heart to do the "panic-paddle" in, and so from a safe distance I watched my dream fish begin to sink. He wasn't even a foot under when the tiger grabbed him and tore into the midsection. My lungs, my arms and the fishermen were screaming as I paddled away from the snapping, churning orgy.

From shore the fishermen and I watched the shark finish up what could have been a mini-luau for my neighbors and me. We traded fish recipes, shark stories and other spooky stuff about Kaena. They helped clean (and eat!) the fish. Other than that 14-foot tiger shark, my day couldn't have been nicer; sharing a day's catch and making new friends.

My new friends helped me lift my VW bug and turn it toward Makaha (it had no reverse gear). I headed off to my hula class, late again.

I drove along the dirt road back to Mahaka, the sparkling afternoon sea smoldering against the rock-bound shore. In less than 30 minutes I would be back in my more land-locked world, full of Hawaiian music, dancing, and "talking story" with the girls.

But out there, under the deceptively placid surface, was a world blind to gender. Though I was taught by men, I was formed by and subjected to the rigid laws of a seemingly lawless realm that treated me and every grazing ulua or marauding shark with the same utter equanimity.

Though I was running late, I stopped along the way and picked some hinahina for my hula sisters' leis. The succulent flowers grow along the arid Kaena coast road, living on the thick sea spray. Not exactly ulua steaks, but Pua and Sweets and the girls would be stoked.

Monday, February 12, 2007

The Hollywood Lottery Files: Confederacy of Dunces

"You fail upward here," an agent said.

=========================================

Some of you are familiar with the work I do with indie filmmakers, both would-be and working. In line with that work every once in a while I'm going to post tasty treats straight from the mouths of the oligarchs down to the outsiders.

I figure if you're famliar with my work then it'll (hopefully) make sense, and if not then at least it'll be amusing.

So without further ado, here's someone that's only id'd as "young agent," replete with my comments in [brackets] and "updated" to fit:

The time to hit this town is before your first picture comes out. You get the word of mouth going. [ie: circulate the bullshit hype that's borne strictly from one's own economic imperative] Nobody's seen the picture. [smoke and mirrors] It can be a piece of shit, but who knows? [DUH] You get the word-of-mouth going, you can start making deals all over town. We handle X who just finished a picture over at Paramount. Nobody's seen it, but you spread the word that Tarantino loved it and pretty soon you're not in if you haven't seen it and said it was sensational. Uma Thurman, Johnnie Depp, they all loved it. Who cares if they've seen it? It's the names that count. [Unlike yours, agents being as interchangeable as, say, socks. Or critics. Or Asian American websites.] Once the word-of-mouth momentum gets going, you move in. X is now locked in for six pictures all over town. If the picture's good, fine, but if it stinks, he's still set up for a ton." [And so's yer lil' leechy rat bastard ass for it's agency %] You fail upward here. A guy makes a multi-million dollar bomb, the big thing is not that he's made a bomb, but that he put together a multi-million dollar picture. It's crazy, but that's how it works. [Someone throw him a hot towel] The worst that can happen to you is to have a small success. You make a picture for a few mil, it's a nice picture it makes a little money, but you're dead. They aren't interested in pictures that make a little money. Everybody's looking for the killing. So you bomb out at multi-millions. Well, you put together a big one, and the next time out, you might hit with one.