Schmoozers and Shakers Cheer On the Lakers

I have a beer in hand. A Staples Center beer, 30 cents a sip. Nonetheless, I am content. At 30 cents a sip, you’d better savor every stinkin’ bubble. I settle in my overpriced seat and lick mustard from my thumb.

“I am,” I tell the boy, “officially happy.”

“Look how big Tim Duncan is,” the boy says.

“Maybe later,” I say.

We get to Staples early because, well, we don’t get here very often, the way Jack and Dustin do. The way Dyan Cannon does, an actress/milkshake straw who evidently eats only birdseed and nuts, and not too much of that.

No, we’re relative newcomers here to Staples, and it shows. The boy and I are like two farmers visiting the White House for the first time, necks craning, heads always tilted up as we mutter “Jeeesh, it’s big.” Or “Hey, how ‘bout them ceilings?” Stuff like that.

“This,” the boy says holding up his sandwich, “is the best sandwich I’ve ever eaten.”

“This,” I say, holding up the beer, “is the best beer I’ve ever had.”

Let the game begin.

Oh, right, there’s a game here. Staples is, after all, just a giant gymnasium, though it has no discernible musk the way a good gym should--sweat, Pepsi and shellac.

Maybe it’s all these sweet-scented Laker Girls, doing moves that would’ve made Elvis blush.

Or maybe it’s all these schmoozers and shakers. Penny Marshall over here. Jeffrey Katzenberg over there. What does a celebrity smell like? I don’t know, but it’s got to be better than a gym.

In fact, near as we can tell, the boy and I are the only two non-celebrities at Staples on this fine Sunday.

Which works out OK for us, being the last two unfamous people in L.A., though in this lovely and odd little town, that’s bound to attract attention on its own.

“What did you do,” some interviewer is bound to ask, “to attract so little attention?”

“Nothing,” I’ll answer.

“That’s for sure,” the boy will say.

“How ‘bout them ceilings?” I’ll marvel, and the poor interviewer will move on.

We came here in a hurry, left the house two hours before game time with plans to stop at Philippe’s for lunch then move on to Staples for dessert.

But that didn’t work out so well, since it was Cinco de Mayo and Chinatown was clogged. We inched toward Philippe’s, then stopped cold. Only in L.A. does Chinatown clog up on Cinco de Mayo, near a restaurant named Philippe’s.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said, and spun the wheel, which put us on Broadway, then 8th Street, then Hope. Just when traffic looks bleakest, there’s always Hope, itself clogged for some movie shoot.

“We’ll never get there,” said the boy.

“We’re three blocks away,” I said.

It’s the boy’s first Laker game--a playoff game, no less--and he’s anxious to get there early. Wants to watch warmups. Wants to study Shaq’s smile.

Talk about smiles. Before the game, the camera zooms in and Shaq’s face lights up the place, the face of basketball’s reigning court jester, master of the slam funk.

In fact, Shaq is the only sports millionaire who seems able to crack a joke anymore. The only athlete having a good time.

Of course, the joking ends with the opening tip-off. The Lakers, rusty from a long layoff, slog through the first quarter.

“Shaq, you’re not a forward,” a fan shouts after he dares an 8-footer.

“Hey, Robert, shut up!” says another, after Horry gets a technical.

Fickle, these Laker fans. And shy, too. For the first five minutes, it’s as if Laker fans have taken some group Botox injection that has deadened them, removed their wrinkles and soothed their high-priced cares.

“Three-peat!” screams the boy, and I swear there was an echo.

For the Lakers’ woes continue. They dribble the ball off their shoes and seem to gang up on one side of the basket, look across court to find no one they know, then desperately ricochet a shot off the rim, where it clangs like a horseshoe.

It is basketball so awkward and ugly that actual boos finally ring out across Staples.

At courtside, Nicholson--possibly the Lakers’ most ardent fan--grabs the sides of his silvered head and twirls, spins like that McMurphy character he played in “Cuckoo’s Nest.” Spins like a madman.

“Look at Nicholson,” I tell the boy.

“Where?”

And I point out Nicholson in his regular seat along the Spurs’ bench, a home-court advantage if there ever was one.

Imagine coming in from Cleveland or Memphis and looking over to see Nicholson three seats away, hair jutting out from the sides of his head like crab grass? Imagine what that does to your game?

In the second period, Heather Locklear arrives, and the Lakers respond with new ferocity, though it might’ve been a mere coincidence.

At one point, Kobe Bryant, the original Spider-Man, grabs Duncan’s head like a bus strap, then soars over the Spurs’ star for a slam dunk.

The third quarter is when most of the bloodshed occurs. Shaq gashes his finger, leaves the game to visit his tailor, then returns, darned like a sock.

In the fourth, Kobe leaves. Then Kobe returns. It’s like one of Shakespeare’s farces, where every 30 seconds someone leaves and two new guys show up.

“You stink, Parker!” a fan yells at the Spurs’ Paris-born guard. “You stink, you French poodle!”

I am standing. The boy is standing. Jack is standing. Best of all, the Lakers are still standing, on bruised knees, the defending champs.

“Three-peat!” yells the now lively crowd, on its feet and screaming for yet another NBA title.

“Three-peat!” yells the boy, officially happy at his first Laker game, here at Staples Center, gymnasium to the stars.

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Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.