According to a bunch of odd internet reports, I’m about to release a biography on Jerry West. One website even ran a brief excerpt from the book. It reads thusly:
That November, as a new season was set to open, Magic Johnson announced to the world that he was HIV positive, a stunning event that brought revelations about the climate of sexual frivolity around the Lakers. Johnson admitted he had been sleeping with 300-500 people a year.
The team’s locker room, and its sauna, had been a place where the star and other players had entertained women, even right after games. Johnson would retire to the sauna after a game, have sex, then put on a robe and return to the locker room for his post-game media interviews. How far had the team gone in condoning such questionable behavior? ‘I cared,’ West said in his interviews for this book. ‘I did things for those guys. It was ridiculous, some of the things I did for those guys. If the public knew they’d be outraged. It was a pretty crazy period for us.
•••
This is a strange one for me, because:
A. I’m not writing a book about Jerry West.
B. I’ve never thought about writing a book about Jerry West.
C. The excerpt sucks.
PS: That being said, today was my son’s 4th birthday party. He wanted the theme to be Batman. Hence, the wife dressed as Superman and I was Robin. Good times.
