Why haven’t I watched this yet!?

When the Lakers traded Trevor Ariza for Ron Artest, I was with Bill Plaschke - against it.  My argument: the Lakers had finally won a championship and Trevor played a pretty significant role in it.  Numbers aside (though they were effective), he fit into his role and meshed with the team’s chemistry.  He was younger.  Ron was old.  Basically, why try to fix something that wasn’t broke?

Since then, Ron-Ron has made me yell at my television, throw my fists in the air and pull my hair out, both with frustration and absolute joy (“Kobe passed me the ball!  He passed me the ball!”).  But he’s also made me laugh hysterically with his every stunt.  Remember when he showed up to Jimmy Kimmel in just his boxers?  And when he went clubbing in his uniform all weekend after winning the championship?  If that isn’t style, I don’t know what is.

When Mr. Metta World Peace is nationally official, I hope that people can forget that at one point in his career, he was an angry man who went after a fan that threw a drink at him on the court.  But I hope people remember that all he wants is his jersey to say “World Peace,” that he comes from a messed up place and consistently tries to fix himself, that he’s donated his money and time and heart to helping kids realize that where they come from doesn’t mean that’s where they’re going, and that it’s okay to laugh at the mistakes you’ve made.

While Artest is actually only onstage for a few minutes each set while introducing the three comedians in his tour, he begins the show by taking uncensored audience questions that end in self-deprecating answers.

Question: Can you teach a white dude to dunk?

Artest: “I can’t dunk anymore; I missed a layup in the playoffs.”

latimes:

A funny thing happened to Ron Artest, columnist Bill Plaschke writes. First he changed his name, now he’s hosting a comedy tour.

“I changed my name because I got tired of Ron Artest, he’s a [expletive],” said Metta World Peace. “And when fans get mad at me, they can’t say, ‘I hate World Peace.’ “

Wanting to give World Peace a chance, I met the Lakers forward in his first public appearance since he petitioned to legally change his name earlier this summer. We shook hands and I called him Ron. I didn’t use his new first name because, frankly, I had no idea which part was his first name.

“World Peace is going on the back of my jersey, so Metta is my first name,” he said. “It’s Buddhist, but I’m Baptist.”

Photo: Artest made his comedy debut Friday night at the Improv Hollywood. Credit: Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times

(Source: Los Angeles Times)

When our show got cancelled, I had to clean out my fashion closet (which wasn’t really a closet, just clothing racks and drawers and my entire desk surrounded by clothes and accessories) and I had to figure out what documents I needed to take off my computer.  But the last thing you want to do when your show gets cancelled and you get laid off from work is actually sit still and click through computer files (that I had accumulated over three-plus years at MTV).  So I dumped everything onto my jump drive.  Going through it this morning to prepare for back-to-work Monday, here are a few things I found:

1. my desktop picture via Confetti System
2. the final doodling incarnation of my ID while working on MTV’s The Seven - all, including one of my bosses, have doodled me into a pirate, a man, a Quaker, etc
3. Jake, me, Jessica at Jake’s going-away gathering (which as it turned out was also the end of Jessica’s days at MTV) - taken summer ‘09
4. a photo of me with coworkers and the Pratt’s that my boyfriend photoshopped and sent to me as a birthday card - taken spring ‘09
5. a picture by Adam when Jason played Webster Hall in the spring of ‘10
6. a photo from Pharrell’s interview I swiped while working on When I Was 17 in the spring of ‘10
7. Dave and Tishawn at the crazy MTV holiday party comeback in 2010