Fakin Da Funk IV: Baron on AK-47 (FROM AMERICA, WITH LOVE)

After putting the Monster Mash on AK-47 in the Playoffs, a guard with mad hops gets to Mash something else.  It’s all part of “The Deal…”

DATELINE – Saturday, May 12, 2007, 5:19 AM PST

Hilton Oakland Airport Hotel - Oakland, California

It’s five a.m., and no, there was no good night’s sleep for Mr. Andrei Kirilenko.  Tossing and turning on the bed at his grungy Oakland hotel, he couldn’t get any winks.  Just hours removed from a grueling playoff loss to the Warriors, Andrei is flipping disdainfully through the meager porn offerings on the hotel’s on-demand TV network, doing his best to avoid SportsCenter.  At a ridiculously long postgame press conference, he was pretty coy with reporters who were seemingly more interested in the details of a meaningless garbage-time play than the game itself.

"I think I was late on the help. That's why I got dunked on. At least I got on the poster."

Would’ve been nice had he gotten back to the room and had his lovely wife waiting for him.  Alas, Mrs. K wasn’t having it on this night.  She wasn’t giving it, either.

His better half, Masha, stumbles through the door.  She’s sauntering gingerly into the hotel room, hair disheveled, lipstick smudged and, as best as Andrei could tell, a tad bowlegged.  What in blazes was so exciting about Oaktown nightlife that had Mrs. Kirilenko running the streets until five in the morning?

“You’ve got some explaining to do, Miss Lopatova,” he bellows to Masha, rubbing the back of her head as if someone’s been tugging at her hair.

“Andrei, sweetie… you remember we made that Deal, right?”

Up to now, The Deal always seemed to work out quite nicely for AK-47.  At a time when fellow NBA young bucks are saddled with alimony payments, baby-daddy paternity suits and DNA tests, tempestuous underage babysitters, strip-club fight wounds, money-grubbing rape accusations, and smoldering spouses with ridiculously short leashes, Andrei Kirilenko has himself a Deal.  One ensuring wedded bliss for he and wifey for as long as they both shall live.  It seems that the prenup arrangement includes a clause that allows AK a little, shall we say, wiggle room in the bedroom.  Specifically, once a calendar year at any time, Andrei is allowed to cheat.  With whomever, whenever.  No pre-approval, no questions asked, no guilt trips.

“What’s forbidden is always desirable,” Masha explained when The Deal got leaked to a reporter.  “And athletes, particularly men, are susceptible to all the things they are offered.  It’s the same way raising children.  If I tell my child. ‘No pizza, no pizza,’ what does he want more than anything? Pizza.”  So, she figures, what’s wrong with her hubby coveting an occasional pizza pie, or a piece o’ tail, every once in awhile?

It is an agreement that causes almost every red-blooded American male to pause and bow, to bestow praise to the Russian supermodel for this noble and flexible approach to lifelong fidelity… and every red-faced American woman to roll her eyes in disgust. Masha, Masha, Masha!

But with all the media hype over the leaking of this clause, there’s another half of The Deal that no one bothered to ask about.  One that only Masha knows quite well.  In return for being so flexible, The Missus gets one lifetime chance to find a man who’ll do her right… for one night only.

Just weeks ago, it was at the grand opening of her new fashion shop in The Gateway shopping plaza in downtown Salt Lake when Masha had a notion to cash in on her end of The Deal.  She had just opened a boutique for tall men and women to find stylish yet casual clothing, not an easy find outside of L.A. or Vegas.  Part of her business strategy was particularly to cater to NBA players passing through, a public relations ploy sure to attract other well-heeled customers in turn.  Well, one particular pro-baller who stopped by, got a pair of customized and perfectly-tailored jeans, and bought a fedora with bullets in it, offered the voluptuous shopkeeper and part-time pin-up model quite a tip.  Oh, and a phone number.  The note with the number read, “You’ll Know When to Call Me.  I’ll Send You a Signal.”

Now, while at the hotel peeking at the conference semis Game 3, between episodes of "Martha Stewart Living," Masha fixes her eyes on Fedora Man.  Up by a comfortable 20 points with just minutes to spare, almost as though he knew she was watching, he decided the time was ripe to send out The Signal.  He blew past the flailing Jazz guard Deron Williams on the left wing, drove to the hoop and illustriously sacked her Russian husband as if he was getting revenge for Apollo Creed in Rocky IV.  Game Over.

Photographers and cameramen around the arena must have sensed the tremors before the Quake, because they caught shots of this utter destruction, in progress, from every conceivable angle.

As the Oracle Arena erupted in joy, he inexplicably pulled out his jersey, “poppin’ the collar” from the waist up. 

With the momentum of Game 3 now decidedly in the Warriors hands, the crowd thought it meant the night was over for their superstar.  But Fedora Man suspected his night was just beginning.  As Stephen Jackson dusts off the Bay Area’s Man of the Hour, Masha scrambles to find her cellphone... and her little black dress.

“Is that a… a… how do they say… a hickey?”  Andrei is standing there dumbfounded, mouth agape, trying to find the words as Masha persistently realigned her bra straps.  “I can’t believe you cashed in already.  But with who?”

“Now remember the rules, dahling, no questions asked!” reminded Masha, now realigning her jaw.  “But, if you really wanna know… that’s his car revving up outside.”  With his curiosity killing him, Andrei makes a dash to the drapes and peers down to the street.  Sputtering off into the dawn was a golden Mercedes. Twenty-two-inch rims.  And a California custom tag that appeared to read, “BDIDDY5.”

Fedora Man strikes again. Hey, Fedora Man, how many times did you hit that last night?

Wow. Impressive!

“You were with HIM?” Andrei didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at this latest cruel twist of fate.  “That’s like, how they say, ‘Sleeping With The Enemy!’… Nyet, I don’t want to hear anything more – no wait, I do wanna know why!”

“I was watching the game tonight, and, well, you know how I value honesty,” Masha said, taking a deep breath after rubbing the sides of her mouth clean with her thumb.  “Now I know you won’t take offense, but quite frankly, I suspected… and now know for sure… that Baron can take me higher… farther… to places you’ve never been, Andrei.”  For a minute, he thought she was referring to the square atop the rim.  “Plus, you know us Russian women like a man with big, scruffy beard.”  Now that he could acknowledge.  Indeed, compared to his furless chin, Baron indeed had quite a Flavor Saver on him.

“Now, all the ladies you’ve been with over the years,” Masha queries, her attempt to brush through Andrei’s hedgehog hairdo causing him to recoil, “has anyone popped them in the nose, keyed their car, or tried to go after them?”  Andrei sighed, rolled his eyes, then nodded his head in the negative.  “So I can expect you and your friends won’t do anything to harm my high-flying American baboushka, nyet?”

Andrei rubbed his chin, and pondered aloud, in his best Drago impersonation, “I MUST BREAK HIM.”  Then he laughed.  “Well, I do have connections.  Us Russian men do know how to make people disappear, you know!  At least let me get him a little sick, like my man Nikolay does it!”

Before she got nervous, he grinned and said, “Nah, I’ll get your little baboushka back on basketball terms when we get back to SLC for Game 5.”

“But look, I have a proposal to modify The Deal a little.  Last night I was watching… well, never mind that… but anyways there was a commercial for a product called Elongawoodie…”

“I know about that, I almost bought you a case.”

“Oh, yes, thanks a lot, lovey!  Well, I’ll buy it myself, a lifetime supply, IF you allow me to cash in one extra time this year, just this once.  You see, Anna Kournikova was on the sideline at the Laker game, and…”

“Deal!”

Drei would eventually have his day, after dispatching Golden State from the conference semis and eventually getting the tennis-star hookup he desired in the offseason.  But Masha is always quick to remind him, pills or no pills, who can take her higher.  She blogged recently about her ongoing friendship with another Warrior who scores occasionally, albeit in the traditional sense. 

“I was so happy for my friend Al Harrington who scored 38 last night!  Al is a great guy.  We were on vacation in France this summer.  We were playing Charades on the boat and he was supposed to show the word ‘cucumber.’  He had no luck expressing or acting out the word ‘cucumber.’”

As Al held his forefingers out about a foot apart in a lame attempt to depict the vegetable, a vodka-influenced Masha absorbed a bony elbow in her side from her significant other after blurting out,”

“BARON DAVIS!”

The awkward thing is both Kirilenkos knew she deserved at least partial credit for her answer.

~iyf

White Boys Can’t WHAT? III: Is There a Docter in the Face?

Looks can be deceiving, ‘tis true.  Which of the guys on the stage above looks like the type who can throw it down in your mug at will?  No, there are no “None of the above” options.  Take your time.

So, did ya guess the shaggy-haired cat with the guitar?  Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Brent Docter.  Hmmm.  Seems like a pretty swell guy, a sports and fitness director at a Boys and Girls Club in Lincoln, Nebraska.  When he’s not out cornhusking in his free time (I dunno what the heck they do out there in Nebraska!  He tells Boys and Girls he likes gardening, art, and bowling… a stone-cold thug fo' sho'), he’s blasting speakers on stage with his progressive-rock band, Defunct Generation.

Forgiving Sunday

Under all that grunge-meets-Lennon exterior, though, belies a former high school state hoops champ, who took his game to junior college and wrecked shop on the hardwood.

Less than a decade ago homeboy looked like this: 

Hell, didn’t we all look like that a decade ago, before we, like, started eating?  At first glance, though, Baby Doc was not exactly somebody pre-destined to post YouTubes like “White Boy Nasty Dunks” or “Bus Driver 4-Man Poster Dunk.”

By the time he was a 6’2” senior (heading first to Lincoln School of Commerce, then to Doane College, snaring Business and Sports Management degrees), Doc had sick hops and no longer needed somebody’s ladder to grab the nets.  If you weren’t careful under the rim, he’d happily do to you with the basketball, ironically, what Jeff Jarrett enjoys doing with his guitars. El Kabong, biyatches!

Here’s some House Call highlights of the Good Docter, rocking myriad High School and College opponents on courts the way he now rocks the house on stage.

~iyf