Iverson -- Flawed, but not hopeless

On this earth.....

Sunday night I escaped by my lonesome to the great Parkway Speakeasy Theater in Oakland and saw a movie called "Brown Sugar." It had a chewy middle that resembled a love story, but on the outside were the layers named Hip-Hop and Now-and-Then.

Earlier in the week, before deciding whether I was going to stay in the Bay Area or fly down to Miami, I read up on a lot of the "Allen Iverson 'I'm scared of the Philly police' stuff." As people, we always seem to have the need to put others in boxes or categories, and Iverson has been thrown into the hip-hop carton.

He talks about trust and perception, and that's a toughie because, as I'm beginning to learn about it more and more every day, it's either there, or it's not. A couple of mistakes, his overturned conviction dealing with that bowling alley incident in high school, which he served five months in jail, and a weapons charge in 1997, has got him branded by Joe Public.

These are the influential days where a simple mistake could cost you for a lifetime if you let it. There are two ways that those with trust issues should handle it: 1) Either pack up your horse and go and make the world better for yourself, or 2) Begin to build that trust, because you're making the un-trusted feel faithless about the world he encompasses.

Iverson has been called every name in the book, but after a while, you snap, and you have to find some space on your own to settle the demons who continue to giggle in your head, telling you that your mistake, or mistakes, will never be exonerated. Not to say that the Philly police don't have a Jones for him, but his branding by others and perception of himself through the eyes of the rest of the world, has officially made him paranoid.

For him, it's "you're either for me, or against me," and who could blame him? If you have people around who aren't 100 percent on your side, and are with you one way face-to-face, then another way when your back is turned, you can't help but to keep your guard up on a continual basis.

No large amount of money or big house can keep away the scrutiny of feeling watched.

I live in the land of alleged tolerance, and I'm dealt with a one-way battle almost every time I take Bay Area transportation. My invisible friend and I ride the BART or MUNI to wherever we need to go, and the seat next to me is, like clockwork, the last to be inhabited. Hence, my "invisible friend" analogy, because there has to be a better reason than ignorance to explain why I've been on crowded buses or trains at times, and people would rather stand.

I thought about changing the mouthwash, maybe going to a different deodorant, but I'm pretty sure it's ignorance that keeps me second-guessing the thoughts of others about me. I don't have cornrows or tattoos, but in a strange way, I know how Iverson is living right now.

I go back to my old neighborhood in the Bronx, and after checking out who's got himself or herself spray-painted on the "tribute wall," surrounded by a scripture from the bible and a little anecdote about when they were around, I hunt down my old friends. Most are still there, and I didn't exactly grow up with those kids from old "Brady Bunch" episodes.

Some of these dudes were just as rough as the kids Iverson grew up with, and we've seen people shot, stabbed, beaten up, and die. My first up close death came on New Year's Eve when I was 10, and a kid was stealing a bag of potato chips, and the store owners riddled his body with bullets, and the kid laid on the ground for about 25 minutes before a cop or ambulance came to bag him.

Your friends are your friends, and it's up to you to choose to do silly with them or not.

Larry Platt, who wrote "Only The Strong Survive: The Odyssey of Allen Iverson" brought out all of the ball player's truths, faults, etc., with unlimited access to Iverson. He said in an interview on ESPN.com, "For me, this guy is proof that traditional values can come in different-looking packages. If I was walking down a dark street in inner city Philly and I saw somebody who looked like Iverson, I'm ashamed to say, I might cross to the other side of the street. But here is that same looking guy on the court, diving for loose balls in the laps of white guys in suits, and they're giving him standing ovations, and then he's hugging his mom. I think there is something to be learned from that. Without sounding too trite, it's the whole book-cover thing."

I can't really choose sides in this particular situation because: 1) I don't know Iverson personally, and 2) sometimes the cover makes the book, and vice versa. In the second, though, we go back to Hip-Hop, which has morphed from lyrics and fun, to lyrics, violence, tattoos and cornrows.

A man's got tattoos and cornrows, so he's got to be a thug, right?

Two of the NBA's biggest torch carriers of all-time, Dr. J and Michael Jordan, have been caught, literally, with their pants down because of dalliances out of wedlock. Jordan more than once. I, and most of the ladies of the world, will take the "thug" who's shown a manic loyalty to his own family, than two superstars whose lack of control have caused worlds of embarrassment for their families.

But first let's find a thug, because with Iverson, we're barking up the wrong tree.

You want to go to this summer's blowup with his wife and a "suggested" other man, and whether or not he did blast into someone's home with a pistol by his side like Froggy or "Froggy went a courtin,'" I've seen crazy done by people 180 degrees of Iverson in the name of love. However, it's written off as "just something that anybody in that situation would do," while Iverson was doing his "thug" thing again.

Apples and oranges disguised like apples, are apples, and the behavior is wrong and shouldn't be justified, but emotions run amuck sometimes.

That's when we come to forgiving, or relieving oneself from the fray. There is a time limit to having an error, mistake, etc. fully forgiven, and if that's not possible, then whoever in question should do what's best for them to make their environment a little more mentally healthy.

Athletes, celebrities are judged on appearances for the most part, but it's journalism's job to entertain. A book about Keith Van Horn will never come out before five more about Iverson are written. The writers in Philly barely have anything favorable to say about Iverson, and that's a little of the cover making the book, and vice versa.

In his wanting to build Iverson his way, he sometimes goes about it in a way that no one understands where he's coming from, and in return, he doesn't really spare the time for explanations. You figure it out, he says. Then there comes the other side of the coin who says, well if he doesn't tell us what it is, then we'll create it -- and it usually gets really bad from there.

And it has between Iverson and that other world.

Hip-hop was once a great showcase where rappers who had a flair for the game just did their thing. Today it's all about imagery, and where Brown Sugar took it, gimmicks and a lot of mediocre products collecting dust on a discount bin at your local music salon. That was the film's Now-and-Then theme.

They also made one other good point, in that it comes a time to choose a "way." Eliminate all the excuses, and go into whatever it is with 100 percent with your heart because we all have the ability to do so. If you can't, then as the song says, "Move aside and let the man go through."

I don't think Iverson will ever stop trying to impress, because if you watch him play on television, you know there's no quit in him.

All warriors take Eliot Ness' advice to never stop fighting until the fighting's done. It might just be time for writers to get over themselves, and the world to meet Allen Iverson, and those other flawed souls like him, half way.