He’s Willing to Stick His Neck Out to Be Like Phil

I just want to be like Phil, so I’m typing Page 2 today while wearing my “perspective” necklace. I’m sure you’ll notice the obvious difference.

I think I look real pretty too.

Kirsten Dallenbach, marketing director for Energy Muse, the jewelry maker, said Phil Jackson owns several necklaces, including “protection,” which she noticed he was wearing at the Laker news conference the other day.

“It made good sense,” she said, “because he was going to be opening himself to media critics and criticism and needed a barrier to stop the negative energy.”

I would’ve just asked Vic the Brick to take all questions for him.

Of course, if I’m the Boston Parking Lot Attendant -- which means I’m married to the Screaming Meanie, and that would certainly give her something to scream about -- I’m buying protection necklaces for everyone on my team who deals with Page 2 and wearing two or three around my own neck.

“He’d probably want a ‘prosperity’ necklace first,” Dallenbach said, so he could find the money to buy the protection necklaces.

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MY PERSPECTIVE necklace cost $110. As soon as everyone notices the marked improvement in my writing, I’m sure all the columnists at the paper will include a $110 necklace on their expense accounts, just as I have. That reminds me, I better buy a “compassion” necklace for Dwyre.

My necklace arrived in a white satin-like pouch with directions: “To activate your Energy Muse piece, sit quietly holding the stones in both hands, breathe in the highest white light and then visualize your intention for the jewelry. The stones are listening.”

I just want to be like Phil, the big weirdo, so I sat there holding my stones when the wife walked in and said, “I’ll turn out the lights so you can be alone.”

Now I know why Phil isn’t married. (I sure hope the stones didn’t hear that.)

A note inside the pouch said, “This has been created to release old, damaging thought patterns and to activate a shift into a more optimistic perspective on life.” My first thought was maybe Karl Dullard will say something exciting this year. I think it’s working.

The necklace, which resembles the rosary beads Sister Lavina used to smack me on the back of the hand, is kind of purple with light green beads intertwined and attached to a Chinese coin that looks like an old washer. I know one thing, you need a pretty good perspective on life to put the darn thing on and ignore everyone in the family who is laughing at you.

I’ve always been kind of strait-laced. Button-down collars. Solid-colored shirts. Khaki pants. Pretty much every day.

I see Plaschke has gone to the T-shirt-under-the-sport coat look trying to be hip, and then I read in the paper he’s beating himself up for not saying something to Eric Gagne about how he looked in spring training, so let me be the first to tell Plaschke it’s not working.

Jackson is different, of course. He wears sandals to a news conference with suit pants and coat, no socks, and everyone knows he’s got a younger babe drooling all over him at a time in his life when he should be thinking about hiring someone to wipe the drool off.

I still want to be just like Phil, but it’s not going to be easy. You wear a soul patch in our family, and everybody thinks you missed a spot while shaving. Someone burns incense, and it’s only because no one wants to clean the cat box. You want to begin your day meditating and chanting like Jackson, you’re going to have to do it over the sound of Regis and Kelly arguing in the background.

Look at your own dad or grandfather right now, and picture the old man leaving the house wearing beads around his neck while mumbling some hooey that has someone insisting he undergo a drug test later in the day.

“We’re not selling magic beans,” Dallenbach said. “We have people who truly believe in them.” Like Phil, the big weirdo.

Dallenbach said Jackson has a “luck” necklace, and when he made appearances signing the book, in which he trashed Kobe Bryant, he was wearing an “earth” necklace, because it promotes self-confidence and allows you to go back to your natural state, of apparently trashing people.

I would imagine he also owns a “prosperity” necklace, which would be the only way to explain why the Lakers gave him a $4-million raise after firing him.

I found it interesting, though, that he has yet to purchase the “soul mate” necklace. I’m sure the same thought has crossed Jeanie’s mind. It might explain, though, why he likes his “protection” necklace so much.

“We have three groups of people who buy the bracelets or necklaces [which range in price from $30 to $700],” Dallenbach said. “Some people think they just look cool, others like to look at them and use them as a reminder for something they want in life, while a third group studies crystals and knows what they want.

“For example, I would think you might want a ‘manifestation’ necklace, which is all citrine, and it allows you to be inspired and leave old baggage behind.”

The wife insists she goes where I go, so that won’t work.

I might suggest, though, the “performance” necklace for Devean George, which would certainly be the acid test to see if these things really work.

“A performance necklace was purchased for Shaq,” Dallenbach said, and it would be interesting to know if Jackson bought a necklace for Shaq but then didn’t give one to Kobe.

Anna Nicole Smith, Britney Spears, Nicole Richie, Courtney Love, Ryan Seacrest and Melissa Rivers, like Jackson, all wear Energy Muse necklaces, which makes you wonder if the company caters only to head cases.

There was no mention of Jason Phillips, so it shoots down that theory, unless he just couldn’t afford one on his annual salary of $339,000.

T.J. Simers can be reached at

t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.