He Meets Being Down in the Dumps Head-On

THE DUMP -- Dr. Renee Cobos, who recently took a chunk out of my head, came to the telephone with test results, said I was fine and I wouldn’t have to come home from The Dump right away for treatment.

I told her to check those test results again -- there had to be something there.

“Enjoy yourself in Detroit,” she said, and for a doctor, she sure knows how to hurt a guy.

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I CHECKED with the wife. “Stay in Detroit as long as you want,” she said, and I think she meant it. I said I was ready to leave now, and by the looks of the down-and-out Lakers at Saturday afternoon’s practice, so were they.

“Give the place a chance,” the wife said, “maybe it will grow on you,” which, of course, means Dr. Cobos will have to take another chunk out of me.

Hard to give a chance to a place that runs a huge headline across the front of its sports page that reads: “Kobe Who?” I guess they don’t get Court TV here.

The newspapers here are billing this basketball series as “Motown vs. Tinseltown,” which tells you just how down on their luck these people are. Motown moved out of Detroit in 1972, and they tell me the Motown building here has remained unoccupied all these years. By the way, Motown moved to L.A.

Saturday’s big sports headline here read: “Don’t drop the ball.” Can you imagine the Dodgers playing in the World Series and The Times running the headline: “Don’t drop the ball?” No, I can’t imagine the Dodgers being in the World Series either.

The real shock, though, came in opening The Dump’s Saturday newspaper, turning to Page 2 and finding my picture. The Times doesn’t even use my picture on Page 2 -- something about not wanting to upset people while they eat breakfast.

But there I was -- smiling and disguised as a young man, which told me the picture they used was taken years ago before the Grocery Store Bagger met the daughter, and when life was really good.

Next to the picture on Page 2, it read: “Quote Du Jour,” and how many people living here do you think are going to know what “Du Jour” means?

Well, the “Quote of the day,” was mine. (Wait until you see the e-mail I get on this one; might even top the number I got from people in The Dump who think I don’t know who M&M; is.) Anyway, the newspaper took a paragraph from Friday’s column on Jimmy Kimmel and repeated it for the folks here, the one in which I suggested “this place is a dump,” as if that’s news.

The newspaper provided my e-mail address, “so if you’re upset,” readers were told, they could e-mail. I would imagine everyone living in a dump would be upset, but why would I care?

But then I got to thinking about my picture being in the paper and that Piston fan the other night who had courtside seats, but got hauled off by the police for getting into Karl Malone’s face.

Malone said he felt spit on his face. The ejected fan asked that charges be filed against Malone for allegedly poking the guy to make him stop spitting. The fan, who got the boot, reportedly said he’d drop all charges if Malone paid for the courtside seats he was unable to use. He said $25,000 would cover it.

I wouldn’t pay $25,000 to be next to Jack Nicholson at courtside while sitting on Pamela Anderson’s lap. Salma Hayek, of course, makes it a tougher decision.

It’s one thing to spend $25,000 to sit courtside, and quite another to get tossed from the arena before the game even starts, which gives you an IQ reading on the kind of people who are rooting for the Pistons.

In fact, I was watching Channel 7 here, and the sports guy was advising “the Palace crazies to get their rest,” so they’d be ready to go crazy for the game. Can you picture Jack Haley trying to incite Fox viewers ... never mind.

Throw in Kid Rock singing the national anthem tonight, the punk who seems to be the only celebrity who likes the Pistons (M&M; was sitting behind the Laker bench), and I’m not sure I like the idea of leaving the hotel today and mixing with the unwashed in the Palace of Auburn Hills.

I’m sure CBS’ Jim Hill, who is always telling me what a big, rough and tough football player he was when he was a young man, will be glad to provide protection. I thought about asking Fox’s Van Earl Wright, but I got the impression he won’t do anything that might mess up his hair.

“Yeah, I got your back,” Kobe Bryant said with a sarcastic laugh. “I’ll be there, but I’ll be way back.”

At least it’s nice to know he’s going to show up for Game 4. I wonder if he can convince his teammates to do the same.

When it came time to start practice, there were only six Lakers running up and down the court, prompting Bryant to say to Bryon Russell, “Is this all we got?”

It’s a very good question: Is this all we got from the Lakers so far, a one-sided defensive series, which now has them looking old and out of place in something so significant as the NBA Finals?

“I can’t imagine that would possibly be true,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said when asked if the upstart Pistons might be hungrier pursuing a championship, which suggests to date that the Pistons are just better than the Lakers.

That’s not good, because two more wins here by the Pistons, and I can only imagine the chaotic “I told you so” scene Tuesday night with a championship-clinching victory, and the Palace crazies going bonkers.

The poor fans in L.A., of course, would be left down in the dumps, but then the next day they’d wake up, and find themselves living in L.A.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.