“I really liked it when you related things going on around the Palace with other pop culture stuff happening,” he said. “That was really clever. You haven’t had a ‘Superman is a Wuss’ blog in a while.”

“Yeah, you’re really getting corporate on us,” his wife says as my active fetus of a nephew kicks me in the hand I have resting on her belly, obviously expressing his displeasure with me as well. “All you talk about is stuff going on with promotions and crap like that. You’ve become such a suit.”

Ouch. There’s a shot in the mouth.

I went back and looked this morning and I’ll be damned if they weren’t right. Last blog was the Career Fair and the blog before that was about the Rasheed bobblehead night. Even when I tried, the promotion of nights during the season was only thinly veiled in Mars Blackmon and Michael Jordan. Honestly, I had more fun watching the old commercials than writing the blog.

I’m pathetic…truly and utterly pathetic. What has happened to me? Have I become a suit?

Instead of asking the suits around me in my offices, I instead have resigned myself to Tyler’s Words of Wisdom. Tyler Durden. Fight Club.

Watch the movie, read the quotes, understand the premise. Tyler Durden should be everyone’s hero. He should be the wake-up call to our nation. He should be president of the stop-worshipping-people-who-have-done-nothing-in-their-lives contingency. I’m not saying we fight everyone, all the time. But Tyler Durden should be in charge of giving every single one of us our edge back. Including me.

This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time.

The movie lays it out. We are sleepwalkers. Moving through life without seeing, without knowing, without questioning. Being told what to do, what to buy, what to think. And only when we break out of that mold, when we are stripped down to the bare minimum, when we wake up…that’s when we are truly alive. And the point of the movie is that it takes a punch in the mouth, a kick in the chest, the taste of our own blood, to shake us from our slumber.

We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war…our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve been raised by television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very p*&&$# off.

So, here’s where me, the anti-suit is going…All-Star Weekend. The epitome of sleepwalking…being told what to buy, what to watch, what to do, what to say, how to dress, how to dunk, how to shoot, how to act. Being told what is cool and what isn’t. Taking something that was underground and raw (remember Dr. J in the ABA Dunk Contest taking off from the free throw line, but most of you haven’t seen it because it wasn’t nationally televised) and turning into a total show, hype-fest.

Being shown how (supposedly) great other people’s lives are and constantly being bombarded with how our lives suck.

I heard that in every scene of Fight Club, there is a Starbucks Coffee visible. Step right up, folks! See it all at the T-Mobile Rookie Challenge, the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest, the Foot Locker Three-Point Shootout, the PlayStation Skills Challenge, the Haier Shooting Stars, the McDonald’s NBA All-Star Celebrity Game presented by 2K Sports, and the Gillette D-League All-Star in association with 24-Hour Fitness.

I flipped through the catalogs and wondered: What kind of dining set defines me as a person?

Raised by television…that’s the first problem because it caters to the voyeuristic, sit-on-your-butt, let the world come to you, show me the experience versus going out and actually experiencing it lifestyle that is so popular these days…to believe one day we’d be millionaires (like the players we see on TV) and movie gods (like the ones we see on TV in Vegas who are trying to be like players) and rock stars (ditto Vegas and TV and did Wayne Newton look like a cut-out of himself?).

But we won’t (we truly won’t EVER be these things) and television slows that realization. It puts us into a trance, seeing it on TV and believing (although it never will because we are stuck in front of the TV) it can happen to us.

I am Jack’s cold sweat.

Vegas is a total orgy of the beautiful-people-who-go-to-see-and-be-seen-to-be-seen-again-and-get-totally-overexposed-and-yet-be-seen-again festival. Having an All-Star game there triples the see-and-be-seen level. Honestly, the E-entertainment Channel should host the festivities, not TNT. Here’s the bottom line: players want to be movie stars/rock stars and movie stars/rock stars want to be players. And we hype that to the max because, as the “common folk”, we would give our left eye teeth to be either. Vegas is perfect, because in Vegas, you can be anything you want.

I am Jack’s raging bile duct.

I’m tired of it and I’m tired of them…celebrities. Not all celebrities, but celebrities that are celebrities for absolutely no reason at all. And at the center of my raging bile duct is one Paris Hilton. If she doesn’t epitomize the sleepwalking of our nation and the want-to-be-famous-for-any-reason-at-all attitude we have in this country, I don’t know who does. She’s a joke.

What is she famous for? Is it: a.) Her last name b.) The amateur “video” she made c.) Her “acting” and “singing” career d.) Getting wasted at bars and clubs e.) Having her picture taken in compromising positions and states of undress f.) Nothing…absolutely nothing g.) All of the above

What if this was your daughter’s resume? What if your sister was known for these things? How proud would you be? And yet, there she was in Vegas this weekend…being “famous”.

We’re consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don’t concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy’s name on my underwear.

Three days of coverage. Three days of red carpets and parties you weren’t invited to and exorbitant displays of each and every one of the Seven Deadlies. Sin city, baby and it’s in your face…all day and all night. Three days of what’s going on in what hotel and who’s gambling away millions of dollars, because they can. Three days of what celebrity is where and who is performing what and how big a spectacle one, or two, or a bunch of individuals can make of themselves. Three days of events that have absolutely NO CHANCE of living up to the hype.

A house full of condiments and no food.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it, I’m just saying be aware of what those three days are and what purpose they serve. These three days are all about entertainment, not reality. These three days are about face time, not basketball. These three days are about sponsors and splash and suits. Don’t base your lives on any of this…you can’t have it…you won’t have it. Get on with your life.

Why do you think Charles Barkley is the most popular commentator on the TNT broadcasts? He is real in a sea of suits. He’s not caught up in it all and he knows what he is and who he is. He tells people the real deal. His honesty scares some people, because it wakes a lot of people up. Intelligent people seek out the truth…I hope.

Why did Tyrus Thomas get chastised so much for what he said about the Dunk Contest? Must have been some truth in what he said or people wouldn’t get so bent out of shape. Must have shook some people awake. Maybe some players do it for the love of the game, but I suspect not as many as we’d like to believe.

Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions.

I used to love the All-Star Game. I used to host a party every All-Star Sunday and have my friends over to watch Dr. J and Magic and Bird and Isiah and Kareem and Michael. And it was good. It was really good.

But I’ve sleepwalked into this point in my life. Maybe I’m just tired of buying into it. Maybe I see through the fairy tale and don’t listen to the little man behind the curtain. Maybe it’s because I have seen myself in the mirror and I’m wearing a suit. Or maybe I’m just jealous.

Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic.

Whatever it is, I’m starting a fight and reclaiming my humanity.

I WANT YOU, DICK BAVETTA!!