Brightest Young Things

Every once in a while, though, there's a crossroads in the District, where guns and sports and celebrity collide in a figurative 32-car pileup. And it all comes crashing together today. Here's Peter with the details:

Shaq: Where r u?

Laura: In the hotel… About to go to sleep! u?

Shaq: What hotel and what room?

Laura: The Four Seasons, where r u?

Shaq: I just left goin to a party can I come put it in when I get back? What room u n?

Laura: Is Shaunie going with u? N how late?

Shaq: Hell no. I’m back by 1:30. Can I do it tonite and tomorrow after lunch? What floor u on?

Laura: LOL ur crazy! As long as u taste me n make me cum LOL

Shaq: What room?

Laura: So I’ll see you at 1:30 :~) erase all these messages plz.

That's right, readers, Shaq texted 'Can I come put it in when I get back?'.  If that's not romance, then I don't know what is.  How could she NOT cheat on Arenas when Shaq's wooing her with that kind of pillow talk?  Seriously, if I were Agent Zero, I would definitely have gone after Shaq with guns blazin'.

So at the end of this crazy year, with all of the Shaq business, the knee blowouts, the lousy seasons and other assorted troubles,  just last week, on Christmas Day, the incredible Agent Zero blew his cover pretty terribly.  Whether it was a joke as he claims or an actual threat, on new years day (his birthday) he brought three guns to the locker room to cajole his team-mate Javaris Crittenton (who?) to pay up on a poker debt.  Kind of reminds us of that scene in Menace II Society when Tat (Samuel L. Jackson) blows away some dude over poker debts:

It's been reported that they each had guns and pointed them at each-other, but other reports say just that Arenas tried to jokingly threaten Crttenton (the III? Esq?) and tempers flared since its hard to tell by looking at a gun whether it is in fact loaded.  Now folks are talking suspension, investigation, fines, trades, and posse comitatus.  Dark times for fans of the gentleman Jester.

But we still love Gilbert. Because of his indecipherable playing style, his clever writing skills on blogs and twitter and in book intros, and for his all around good-natured insistence that basketball is an art rather than a science.

Truthfully, when fans go to a game all they want is entertainment. They want to see somebody playing their heart out, and for the guy who's playing his heart out to have fun doing it. All it takes is for him to throw a smile, raise the roof, do something. That's all they're waiting for. You pay all this money to sit up close, believe it or not, you want to get hit with a ball and get your drink knocked over. You want to leave with something to talk about. You want Shaw Shaq to fall on you and get drenched in his sweaty-sweat-sweat. That's all part of the game. It's just a big show.

We even love him for being so goofy as to try to pull a prank on someone with a real pistol. He's like an urban Doc Holliday with oppositional disorder instead of tuberculosis. If you want someone to score 40 points, work tirelessly for charity and represent an entire city in the most infuriating and endearing way possible-- he is your Huckleberry.

I always wanted a pool and then I also have the shark tanks in there. When I saw that part in the story, I knew who took the picture.

I’ve been in love with fish tanks and sharks for a while. (And not just shark jokes.) I actually bough Ken Griffey Jr.’s old tank online and have that in my living room. I knew somebody who was selling it in Orlando. Actually, the company ended up buying it back from me and building me another one for the same price because the old one was too tall. It was like 10 feet tall and there was too much water pressure to have it in my living room, or whatever, so they build me one that was rounder and shorter. I’m going to have exotic fish in there, a couple sharks, some black tips, some bonnet heads … that’s my mild tank.

Then I have the tank in the grotto that’s going to have semi-aggressive fish like lemon and leopard and puffer fish and the fish with poisonous spikes that’s in Deuce Bigalow.

Then I’ll have my personal shark tank that’s going to be in my basement. My basement used to be my weight room but I’m converting it to a shark tank. I cut a whole wall out down there and replaced it with a 10,000 gallon shark tank. That’s going to be my aggressive tank, only filled with bullhead sharks. If anybody knows what a bullhead shark is, it’s the No. 1 killing shark in America. It can go in salt water and it can go in fresh water. I’m going to have a salt water tank so I can have my eels and my stingrays too.

I’m going to have three bullheads in there. I originally wanted six, but the guy who has to clean it once a week said that he’s not going to get in the tank with six of them, he’ll get in with three. Once they get big enough, I’ll have to get rid of them. The guy who cleans the tank actually goes and catches the sharks himself, because you know, these sharks you can’t just go buy, they’re illegal.

Ever since Jaws there’s been something about fish and sharks that I’ve always liked. Also when I saw Cribs and Ice T had a shark tank in the back of his place, I was like, “Oh man! That’s what it is!!” I’ve been trying to plan this shark tank for the last seven years of my career I’ve been talked out of it by my mentor, Otis Smith. He first talked me out of it when I was a rookie and I was going to spend my whole paycheck on a fish tank. I was like “Man, I want a fish tank, that’s all I want to leave with, if I don’t get another dime I can know I got a fish tank,” and Otis shut that down. So this has been years in the making.

So to cheer him up, and to offer all you Thievery Corporation fans out there a chance to win tickets to the totally Sold Out show of theirs at the 930 Club,  we want you to make Gilbert a present celebrating his life, his troubles, or his skills as a player/gunslinger. Here are the rules:

• Send an original piece of art or photos thereof (cartoon, sculpture, video, painting, etc) to jeff@brightestyoungthings.com.
• Send it by January 15th 2010
• Celebrity Judges to be announced later will judge your work and announce a winner, but all entries that don't suck will be posted online.
• Thievery Corporation show is on January 24th. Tickets will be part of a package deal that may or may not include hotel rooms, signed liquor bottles, and toy guns.
• As per GA's on-court choices, anyone who radically breaks the rules of the contest in a creative way will be bumped up in our estimation massively.

Use inspiration!  Pictures of guns and Gil have been included, but there's many more out there on Google images.  We also would love to have art with shark tanks and Shaq.  The more guns the better, though.  Get out your charcoal set or your crayons and reenact that Locker Room Mexican Standoff:

Or work in clay and make a pot pipe shaped like a sleeping Arenas: 

Hell, if you're a photoshop master, do something with this:

The bottom line is, be creative.  Stakes are high, we're going to have a sweet Thievery Corporation package, most likely with a hotel room to boot and some ESL gear and booze to get your party started.  Show us what you've got, DC.  AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GILBERT ARENAS!!!!

Previously in Misc/Awesome:

• 12/28: Terrible Boyfriend/ Girlfriend Generator.
• 12/1: The John Waters Advent Calendar-it starts today
• 11/28: It Chooses You: All I Want for Christmas is Everything from Miranda July's Pop-Up Shop
• 11/3: Things I'd Move to Minnesota For
• 9/6: PHOTOS: Maloof $$ Money Cup
• 9/2: PHOTOS: Chantilly Model Train Show
• 9/1: Libby's List: 5 Things I Want Right Now...
• 8/22: PHOTOS: Best Friends Day
• 8/10: PHOTOS: Lawn Mover Racing, Eastern Seaboard Regionals @ Bowles Farm
• 7/26: Special List: Things the BYGays Want Now That We Can Marry In DC (and NY!)