- Entry
#2006
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- 11:45 PM - January
26th, 2020
-
- Will I ever
sleep again? Jesus. I have been crying on and off all
day. I fell asleep at 8pm out of emotional
exahaustion and just woke up again and have to write
to get back to sleep. I've had so much to say but I
almost feel like it's not my place. I shouldn't
be weeping about someone I only briefly met once and
it feels like my reaction is somehow overdramatic. If
I have personal crisis moments, The Journey is my
safe space to write and give my feelings... but the
death of a celebrity almost feels like you're trying
to ride a sympathy wave and put the attention on you.
I've written of celebrity deaths before of course.
John Ritter and George Carlin hit me particularly
hard. Robin Williams truly knocked me out because I've
dealt with suicidal periods within these 20 years and
the idea of him never getting over his demons (this
was before we knew of his disease) scared the shit out
of me. But I can honestly say no death of a
famous figure has hit me this, freaking, hard. I feel
like something was stolen from me and I need to
continue to read the reports so I can even
process it. To anyone wondering why, it's long and
complicated, but I'll start from the
beginning.
-
- As many know, I
was a massive MJ fan and will be releasing a
documentary about meeting him later this year.
However, unlike most fans nowadays: I loved greatness.
I didn't play the GOAT game. I didn't hate
on other players. When Kobe came along as the heir
apparent I adored him. I cheered him on. He had that
work ethic crazinees MJ had and I loved
everything about him. When I moved to LA in 2000
I was thrilled to finally live in an
NBA city and was a die-hard Kobe/Shaq fan. When
the split happened, of course I sided with Kobe
because he was such a hard-working zealot for the game
and I saw Shaq as simply not as serious. I hate
that. It doesn't matter how tiny the task in life, I
work at it like Kobe. Like Jordan. I push myself
beyond most everyone I know. Watching Shaq come
in out-of-shape pissed me the fuck off like I knew it
pissed Kobe off. I have since lightened up on
Shaq because he's hard not to love, but as a teammate
he would've driven me nuts. You notice I often
work alone, not out of needing to control things as
much as I rarely find people who can keep up. Sounds
arrogant, I guess, but I'm 44 so I don't care
anymore how it sounds. LOL. I produce a lot of shit
and it's because I don't wait for others to
accomplish my goals.
-
- The rape
allegation in '03 broke my heart. The more information
I got however, the more things seemed a bit "off". Her
bragging to friends about their encounter 3 days
before the assault charges (people seem to leave that
out) really upset me and I was ready to watch
that trial to see everything come to light. Then she
sued him in civil court BEFORE the criminal trial and
it fucked their entire case so badly they had to drop
all the charges. WHAT? I was so insanely
disappointed he settled. I get it, he cheated on
his wife and putting his family through that civil
trial (which was for $75,000? No wonder the criminal
prosecuters had to drop the charges!) would have been
devastating. But I absolutely hate that there's
this he said/she said thing forever. In nearly every
public case I have believed the woman because there's
very little to gain from making false statements, but
her story always seemed off and looking at a quarter
century now of Kobe's life? It's very hard for me to
believe that man was a rapist yet was only accused
one-time. I don't know of any sexual assaulters that
did it ONCE. The #metoo movement would've rocked him
otherwise. It defies belief that a man with that much
money and power just randomly raped one person and
never did it before or after. You're all welcome to
hate me for that sentence but it did indeed remind me
of an episode in my own life where I was wrongly
accused of "forcing" someone and it was 100%
consensual. I think my next entry is going to need to
be about that event and why I actually have
defended the girl I went to high school for the
pressure she felt to make excuses for her own
sexuality. Patriarchy in Catholic Schools is INTENSE.
Making girls feel guilty for being sexual might as
well be part of their holy trinity. I'm obviously not
thrilled I was lied about, but I understand and
strangely have maintained a friendship with her since.
-
- ANYWAY, I bring
that up because it's one of the spokes of the Kobe
wheel for how he is entrenched in my life. Then he
scores 81 and I had to admit something
I really wasn't ready to admit:
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-
![](../../yearseven/pics/491.jpg)
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- Jordan said it
himself: there will be someone better than me.
Kobe built on what Jordan showed to everyone and he,
yes, did it just a bit better. To the die-hard
MJ fans out there: don't act like Jordan didn't
try to score 100 several times. MJ's 55 in his return
to the garden in '95 was hailed as a "classic" and
Kobe scored 55 in one, fucking, half. His team down by
18 he just brings them back and cannot be stopped. To
give you some comparison, MJ needed overtime to
score his personal best of 69. MJ never had a
night like Kobe and although comparisons are stupid,
I had to tip my hat to Kobe and say he's the best
scorer I've ever seen.
-
- Of course he won
two more titles and I meanwhile went from driven
performer to family man and a sudden "second life"
building GolfKon, the Delorean and it lead me to a
Starbucks in Newport Beach for a shoot early in the
morning. And wouldn't you know...
-
-
![](../../2015/pics/bars/1518.jpg)
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And this is where
the story starts to get more personal. At this point
"Hats & Minigolf" (an interview show I was
doing in my backyard) was, remarkably, attracting
actual celebrities to show up. There was something
about the insanity of one man building this in his
backyard that worked really well in an opening email.
Celebrities are hounded about interviews constantly
but nearly everyone who has seen my reel
goes "ok, that's pretty awesome, I'm interested."
It was in that light, as I said in the entry,
I couldn't really fan-boy with Kobe. I would
burn a bridge if I tried to hit him up for an
interview at a fucking Starbucks. That's not how you
do that. So I decided to plant a seed:
-
- ***
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- I walk up to
him about to grab his drink.
-
- "Sir?"
-
- He
looks.
-
- "Did you see
the Delorean Time Machine out
there?"
-
- "I
did"
-
- "That's
mine. I just wanted to tell you that, smile and
shake my head knowingly."
-
- He does the
Kobe smile and chuckles.
-
- For whatever
reason, I realized that the only thing I could
really compare to all he represents in those short
few seconds? Was that car. I mean he has to
understand the audacity of the situation. He knew
there was a 10 year old kid inside me just wanting
to impress him. It's like the moment Butthead tells
the Flight Attendant he has a beer in their movie.
"Uhm, do you think this is awesome? Because, I
really want you to think this is
awesome."
-
- Thankfully
he did. In fact as he walks out, he says just
that:
-
- "Wow, that's
really awesome man. Nice job"
-
- He wisely
used the attention of the car to allow him to zip
away unnoticed to his SUV. I will make every effort
to contact his agent/publicist and see if I can at
least get a note to him about "Hats &
Minigolf". I mean, he's injured. He has a little
downtime... you never know. But he has to respect
that I didn't pull the normal fan
shit.
- ***
I never made
"every effort" like I should have because this
was March 2015 and my life would be upended by the
Delorean adventures which would then lead to Fastest
Delorean and the interview show would take a backseat.
To say not grabbing that opportunity is stabbing my
heart at the moment is to say the least... but we're
still not to what connected me so deeply to him.
-
- He announces his
retirement and does so in such a compassionate,
intelligent, self-aware, and Zen-like way... it was
clear that he was just starting a journey. "Dear
Basketball" (which ended up getting him a freaking
Academy Award) showed he was a storyteller. I am
storyteller. His intelligence and self-awareness felt
like he and I were far more alike than different. This
short white-dude and a towering basketball legend
somehow had the same DNA? It sounds insane, but I knew
I wanted to talk to him about JUST THAT.
Commonalities. I would often talk to myself
knowing that interview was going to happen. But
I had some things to attend to. There was
time.
-
- Then of course he
ends it... like that? 60? Another entry...
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![](../../2016/pics/bars/1628.jpg)
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- Then his life
after basketball? He was a dad. His relationship with
Gianna and the attention he was bringing onto women's
basketball was incredible. You knew she was going to
play college ball and just maybe she would be what
finally made people pay close attention to the WNBA.
That mixed with his sudden embrace of storytelling? We
were starting to have commonalities that were
overwhelming. Our two main focuses were the same. Not
comparing success of course, that's not the point of
commonalities. The point is how your brain works. The
obsessive caring about working hard, family, crafting
stories in your 40s... suddenly you don't know who I'm
talking about. I had cemented a memory with him at
Starbucks with the Delorean that I knew he would
remember when I did finally approach him about an
interview. This was going to happen.
-
- And then today
happened.
-
- Ya know what I
thought about most in the hour before I knew Kobe
was gone and Gianna wasn't? How awful it's going to be
for that poor girl to have to answer for him in the
coming years. She's only 1 and they had just
trademarked "Mambacita" for her. Now she's gonna have
to answer these questions about her dad without his
support? I was so heartbroken for her. And then
the 2x4 to my heart as I left the house before my
family could hear me weeping. Oh the pain is so acute
right now. It feels crazy to say this but it may be
the most difficult death I've experienced aside from
my own grandmothers.
Alright, I need to get to sleep, but there will
obviously be far more on this because it's wrecking
me.
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- Adam
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