Aaron Phillips and the Westfield Nair-ing Center

If you linger around Los Angeles long enough, you inevitably wonder, what exactly IS the phenomenon known as “Century City”? We obviously know it’s an outdoor shopping center whose bathrooms hosted the first hand-jobs of countless Beverly Hills teens and until recently, bristled as the finest example of late-70’s social engineering (like a disco-era Twitter). But beyond the mall, “Century City” has a business district that houses the majority of Los Angeles’ high earners who weren’t clever enough to figure out how to get rich without being in an office all day and a couple condo communities of Beverly Hills empty-nesters. But it’s not a really a “city”, now, is it? It’s kinda like Monaco. I mean, what really is Monaco? A city in France? It’s own country? A sanctuary of French prostitutes named Chloe with webbed feet? A summation of its parts, but hard to get a handle on really.

Now if Century City is Monaco, my friend and former broadcast partner Aaron Phillips (pictured below) is the Prince Rainier. If you have ever been driving down Avenue of the Stars and wondered, “who the hell is that guy in a wife beater and sweat pants and….wait, is that a puka shell necklace? What the fuck?”, then you’ve definitely seen him. The man lords over the principality of Century City like Sam Ronson lords over the vulnerable clitoris of a girl with major daddy issues. In the Fall of 1998 he formed one half of the greatest teenage broadcast team in the history of mass media, Bilinsky & Phillips. Like a Madden & Summerall for the dirty Jew crowd. As he and I sat perched atop the stands overlooking the armpit of civilization known as the “South Bay” we gave the play by play and color commentary for KBEV channel 6 as our beloved Beverly Hills Normans blew a 3 touchdown lead to the genetically superior goyim from Palos Verdes Penninsula. Since then Phillips has made a career of sun-bathing, Nair-ing his chest, and proving that vain Beverly Hills brats can still workout at the 24 Hour Fitness on Pico well into their 20’s.

Now given our adled history, I feel obligated to give Phillips some space to vent about our chronically under-achieving 2009 Los Angeles Lakers. I’ll leave Phillips’ analysis unfiltered as he breaks down why our starting Point Guard and Head Coach are sorely out of their league right now. Here it is.

 

Heading into the playoffs the Lakers knew two things… They have the best team in the nba if you only count their shooting guard, small forward, power forward, center, and their back up forward. And they have the worst starting point guard in the NBA. And their isn’t a close 2nd in either of those categories. As an nba head coach your job is to know your teams strengths and their weakness’. Phil Jackson is a great NBA front man when it comes to basketball philosophy, motivation, patience, and leadership. But every super hero has his kriptinite. For Shaq it was his free throw shooting, for Coach Jackson…. Its basic basketball match up logic. His in game coaching forever questioned by scouts and fellow basketball smart men aside, what I have seen the last several postseasons is an inability to even prepare effectively before a series or even a game. Forget about playing Luke Walton ahead of Ariza in last years finals… Even though the one game Jackson played Ariza extended minutes in one half the Lakers had a 20 plus point lead largely due to Trevor’s great all around play against the Celtics in the first half of Game 4. As you know Ariza didn’t get off the bench in the 2nd half as the Lakers blew the lead, the game, and the series. But that you can understand… After all, Luke Walton is the NBA’s version of Paris Hilton… As in “What are you good at again besides being born into a Famous family and being above average looking?”. If you watch this years playoffs you will really be left scratching your head.

Point Guards in the NBA have always been bothered by taller longer players. Remember Pippen on Magic in the 91 finals. Or Bowen on every PG in the NBA for the past 7 years. The only problem in implementing such a strategy is who does that leave your PG defending?  The Lakers have the classic long, athletic wing player inTrevor Ariza that traditionally gives PG’s fits. So before you just throw up your hands in disbelief as you watch Williams breeze by Fisher and shoot over Odom again let’s take jackson’s idiocy to the next appropriate and we’ll deserving level. Derek fisher should never and shouldn’t have to… ever… ever… ever guard Deron Williams. Not for one minute…. Not for one play…. And not for one acid flashback nano second in Phil Jackson’s hippie head. Not when the Jazz start offensive midget Corey Brewer at Shooting Guard. Ariza can guard Williams and Fisher can stop being picked on over and over again.  He can sit on the perimeter and do what he does best…. Leave his man wide open as he needlessly sinks to the paint to double team on every possession. And when Ariza takes a rest on the bench the Lakers have fast, explosive, and physical Shannon Brown to attempt to guard Williams. Not only would that help slow down D Will…. But it would stop the Lakers from having to trap Williams on every possession helping let Carlos Boozer look like Karl Malone this whole series. Their is one more reason Boozer looks like the hulk in this 1st round match up.

With all the attention the Lakers defense gets about not being “tough enough” there is not enough attention as to why that is. When the Lakers play Gasol at 5 and Odom at 4 they are small, weak, and frail. No wonder the only team (Celtics) they played in the playoffs last year with a big front line pounded them out of the finals. This is another giant Jackson goof. At the beginging of the season he finshed games with Andrew Bynum off the floor and the Lakers struggled to win close games because of a lack of defense and rebounding. As we watch Jackson do the same thing in the 2009 playoffs… We see the Lakers continue to get pounded and pushed around inside, struggling to close out close games. The last 5 min of playoff games slow to a crawl and an extra emphises is placed on rebounding, defense, and size down low. With Bynum and Gasol on the floor together the Lakers are a dominant defensive and rebounding team, with Bynum on the bench they simply are not.

So please… Stop blaming Fisher for being old and slow.  Please let Walton off the hook… Its not his fault the coaches play him even 2 minutes a game. And stop calling the Lakers soft.  Let’s start holding the Coach accountable in the media like he holds his players accountable via tell all books, sound bites, and newspaper clippings. After all, sometimes a coach needs to know when to let his assistants do some work that an aging hipster just can’t fit into his pipe and smoke anymore.

How do I know where that finger has been?

Consider this the modern Siege of Antioch. I am on a crusade to get YOU to stop throwing up peace signs in photographs. Had I been Richard the Lionheart during the latter part of the 12th century, I would have chopped your fingers off with a cigar cutter and fed you to  ill-tempered sea bass. Anachronisms aside, due to that pesky old contrivance known as the advancement of civization, instead I will only thumb my nose at you and compare you to the guy in this picture. So by the powers of Greyskull, I demand you join my anti-Peace Sign in Pictures Crusdade.

Tax Day Perspective

Perspective seems like a particularly worthy cause on Tax Day 2009. Staring in the face of record-shattering deficits and with a vocal grass-roots anti-tax Tea Party movement not exactly sweeping the country, it would behoove us to seek a deeper understanding of our current tax situation. Now this is not a cheap trick to take pot shots at the Tea Party movement, despite the fact that it’s asinine, ill conceived, has little to no nexus to the actual problems that its members encounter in their day to day lives, and has been co-opted as a venal partisan smear campaign by members of a political party that didn’t mind building up insurmountable debt when it was on their watch, but that’s a story for another time.

This month in Fortune Magazine, tax historian Bruce Bartlett points out that for all the noise and hysterics, we are actually paying less taxes now than any time in the past half-century. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Federal Government’s intake of income tax as a percentage of GDP is the lowest it has been since 1950. Federal income taxes will equal roughly 15% of GDP this year, as compared to 17% for last year, and nearly 21% in 2000. After acknowledging the numbers, Mr. Bartlett points out the irony and misguided nature of the anti-tax protests. Who is Bruce Bartlett exactly? Bruce Bartlett is a supply-side economics historian and was a domestic policy advisor to Ronald Reagan.

Were the 12-figure bank bailouts necessary? Will we get tangible benefit and growth from the Stimulus Package and the prospective Budget? Is the President keeping mum on a major tax hike during his hypothetical 2nd term in order to pay off debt? Do top earners bear an egregious share of the tax burden, or are they paying as a matter of necessity due to their wherewithal and stagnant middle class wages?

These are complex questions, most of which probably will not be answered for years to come. But for the moment, let’s at least approach this with some perspective.

Did he begin eating paint chips all of a sudden?

I do recall watching former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele on various talk shows over the years and although he came off like just another faux-conservative putz, I at least thought he had some modicum of intelligence. But his actions since ascending to the Chairmanship of the Republican Party are so obscenely devoid of any brain activity that I am surprised he is able to feed himself. This week Steele guest-hosted conservative talk show host Bill Bennett’s show and when embroiled in a discussion with a caller about the state of the economy, declared that the Recession was really not that bad because, and I quote “The malls are just as packed on Saturday.”

Seriously? Is that what you’ve got? Throw unemployment, GDP, home values, consumer spending figures, national debt, credit markets, and global trade out the window. Who cares what those things say when there’s still foot traffic over at the Westside Pavillion. What in the world is it with the Republican Party these days? It’s like being a member of their hierarchy automatically makes you dumber. Just as John McCain all of sudden experienced an 8 month brain fart after winning the GOP nomination, Steele has regressed mentally in order to align with party orthodoxy.

You claim Obama is overreaching? You think the Recession has been used as a convenient excuse for wasteful spending and an impractical liberal agenda? You’ve got a better solution to our problems? Ok, let’s hear it. But jesus lord, give us something better than this garbage.

Bosom Buddies

As it turns out, Burt Reynolds and Sinbad have more in common than just immeasurable talent. Who knew? As fate would have it, the guy who defined hairy-chested masculinity during the heyday of hairy-chested masculinity (otherwise known as the 1970’s) and the Bill Cosby of the fully-buttoned silk shirt generation (otherwise known as the African-American community of the early-90’s) both made the State of California’s list of Most Delinquent Tax Payers 2008 Edition. Turns out the “Bad”-man owes $2.5 mil in back taxes. Looks like the casting will begin to find Phil Hartman’s replacement for Houseguest 2 immediately. But on second thought, why don’t we just kill two birds with one stone? Someone get Brett Ratner’s non-union Mexican counterpart on the phone ASAP and let’s get going on a collabo buddy cop movie with these two. It’s just what the nation needs to lift its spirits during these troublesome times.

Oh who am I kidding? This post is just convenient ploy to recount my Sinbad anectdote. So December ‘08 I’m feeling nostalgic and decide to take my date to Sushi Roku. From the moment I crossed the threshhold I could sense an aura of excellence. It then came as no surprise that I was seated next to none other than Sinbad himself. When my date went to the bathroom to hopefully not puke out her rock shrimp tempura (wishful thinking), I finally got the opening I needed to live a childhood dream and eavesdrop on Sinbad’s convo. While I was wistfully expecting a recounting of his runner-up finish on Star Search in 1983, I was instead blessed with this startling piece of information [said in non-threatening jive, Sinbad voice]: “Man, whenever I was on a movie set, when we finished there were two wrap parties. The real wrap party…and the Sinbaaaaaaadddd wrap party.”

In other news, Sinbad will be auctioning off a re-enactment of the “Jingle All the Way” Sinbad Wrap Party at the upcoming Make-A-Wish Foundation silent auction.

Shine, Diamond. Shine.

This week Time Magazine ran a cover story entitled “The End of Excess: why this crisis is good for America” bluntly suggesting that our economic implosion signals an end to the celebration of materialism, frivolity, celebrity, and narcissism that our culture has become. In other words, the end of the Era of the Douchebag. Well thank the Lord that Ocean Drive magazine is around to prove them wrong! Ocean Drive is one of numerous “lifestyle” publications featuring the finer aspects of local culture. Basically a place where your hairdresser, gym trainer, or club door guy gets his moment in the sun and where some professional photography and a glossy canvas transform every clubgoer into a member of the West Palm Beach Debutante Registry.

And just to hammer the point home, this month Ocean Drive has been kind enough to document and profile Miami’s Hottest Bachelors. Hottest bachelors, you say? Yes, the hottest ones. The list includes such gems as a waste recycling heir who believes that the best way to keep a relationship fresh is to “avoid falling into a routine”. He also seems to believe that circular reasoning is the best way to respond to a question about how to keep a relationship fresh. We also got a guy whose favorite word is “saucy” and a dude who claims to be “obsessed with the pursuit of excellence” and considers “obsessive perfectionism” to be the trait he most deplores in himself. I guess his existence is more of a love/hate relationship.

I’d have to say both of those gents take a back seat to the guy who likes to hook-up to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. But even he cannot match the studliness of Ocean Drive’s other leading bachelor and my buddy, Diamond Dave Gorson (pictured above). Even those intimately familiar with Diamante’s prowess figured his ceiling was recognition as the The Guy Most Likely To Be Caught Dancing With His Shirt Off At Rock Bar, but much like a Harrison Ford character, he’s shown that underestimating him is a dangerous proposition. Where others saw boundaries, Dave set his sights to prove, once and for all, that lanky redheads with allergies and an intolerance for lactose can still make a “Hottest Bachelor’s” list in a cheeseball tropical climate local lifestyle mag.

Dave very astutely identifies the key to his success as “finding the extraordinary in the ordinary”. So there we have it. Time Magazine can go bitch and moan about excess all it wants, but it ain’t gonna stop this guy from putting the “extra” in “extraordinary”. His namesake and predecessor “Diamond” David Lee Roth would be proud.