Metta World Peace: I just amnestied my iPhone 3
Since being amnestied by the Los Angeles Lakers, the former Ron Artest's Twitter feed has taken on a quality that few absurdists could match.
It can't be easy being Metta World Peace.
You change your name from Ron Artest, people mock you for not always being the most peaceful of characters, and they don't realize you're doing it all for them.
However, now that the Los Angeles Lakers have dispensed with his services, his Twitter feed has taken on meta meanings that few could have predicted.
Technically, he was "amnestied" by the Lakers. This means they thought he was making too much money for his worth, so they bade him farewell. The team saved around $15 million in luxury tax.
While my own Twitter feed was filled with wags offering the tiresome "Peace Out," the man himself was rising above.
I am grateful to the Los Angeles Times for putting me closer to his every pithy self-expression.
The highlight, surely for all who read these pages, was: "I just amnestied my iPhone 3. I had it way too long. What should I get?"
It can't have become too expensive for its worth, can it? Still, some of his more than 700,000 followers immediately swooped into suggest he get an iPhone 5.
Wait, Metta World Peace still has an iPhone 3?
Peace, though, had many other things to consider. His iPhone 3 wasn't even the first thing he'd amnestied. That was something even more intimate: "Ok. I have to amnesty my jeans. Their too tight. I think I might waive my tooth brush also. I need a new one."
He also decided to expose his sadness on quite another front: "Ok. My breaking news is my oranges that I love will not be on sale at whole foods. Worst day ever!!"
And then there was: "I'm retiring !!!!! Ask me why!!!! Hurry before I forget why I am retiring !!!"
Peace is a touch inflamed that he has never had the opportunity to offer his views about basketball on TV. He feels Twitter might offer a grand opportunity.
So he tweeted: "The only reason I tweet is so that ESPN or TNT give me some air time. They never let me commentate. So maybe I can Tweetentate from Twittr:)"
If ever a man was created to be a tweetentate, it is Metta World Peace.
Indeed, he continued to tap at his no-doubt worn keyboard to offer that he was going to play hockey for the Kings and basketball for Yao Ming's team in China.
Many were surely fascinated when he tweeted: "Most of my boxer briefs are inspired by the Magic Bullet."
I am guessing that the Magic Bullet he is referring to has nothing to do with Orlando, nor a 1940s movie about a syphilis researcher.
I am also guessing he may be referencing the very interestingly shaped blender of the same name.
Given Peace's excursions into fantasy of one kind or another over the years -- the 2006 Pacers-Pistons Brawl being just one -- many have enjoyed laughing at him.
I have a feeling, though, that he has often been laughing first.
He is a man with a rich affection for and knowledge of the silly, the empty, the meaningless, and the very, very loud.
How can he not end up in New York?
