Hey Ron Ron,

Hope things are good with you. Same old with me. Take the Mazda to get some cereal, then I'm back on my grind.

I'm writing because I'm worried about you, my man. Well, also worried about what you might do to me. I don't want to be hurt again.

Nah, just playing. You know I've had your back since before Auburn Hills, and couldn't be more stoked about you joining the Lakers. Maybe you won't replace Trevor Ariza move for spindly move, but man alive, you're Ron Artest. And you're playing for peanuts.

It's a drag, though, that everyone's already wondering about your head. Will you listen to Phil, fall in line, talk with your defense and not your fists, do the right thing, be a good boy, not let down all those new fans who hated you last year, you know, real stuff. I guess I see where they're coming from — well, if I hadn't really paid attention to your career, and went on wire reports alone, I would — since you've done some weird stuff. But above all, you play when it matters. A lot of your failure is cosmetic.

OK, so you're not perfect. No player is. In your case, though, all flaws or weirdness, no matter what the flavor, get put in the big pool of Ron Artest Screw-Ups, like a cardboard thermometer the marching band car wash uses. When it hits the top, you wile out. Or it might not even have to get there. Halfway up, and you could quit on the team and join the Marines. You're the human doomsday clock.

I'll say it again, and this is what gets me: Anything you do that's the slightest bit out of the ordinary gets shoved in there. They talk about "Ron Artest's head" like you've got no scrap of sanity remaining, or are in a perpetual state of mental crisis. That's why your new fans are so worried. It doesn't occur to them that, unless you're on Stephon Marbury's level of dysfunction, there's a lot of middle ground between telling a bad joke at the wrong time and robbing a liquor store.

The slippery slope, the earthquake warning machine, the Dewey Decimal-less public library ... these are terrible metaphors for the human mind. Painting personality with such a broad brush is insulting to everyone but the very young or very sick.

All that said, I did want to talk to you about this new media stuff you've been doing. You've got the Twitter, the video log, and the answering fan email thing going. I can tell you see the future like the rest of us, and you're having a good time with it. The problem is, it's not working for you. Yes, it's fuelling the "is he sane" speculation, which is never good for you in the long run. But more to the point, it's alienating old fans.

Clowning around is cool, and we get it, you're a first-rate ham. At some point, though, we get numb to it. I never thought I'd say this, but Ron Artest is trying too hard to be interesting, or least impress upon us how interesting he is. And it's not a good look. OK, so I don't know you well enough to know if, just maybe, you've always been this corny all the time, and were forced by the powers that be to keep it from us. If so, I stand corrected, but it's still overkill.

What really upsets me, and what I'd like to speak with you about in person, is how insincere it's started to feel. If one thing has sustained your fans through all the ups and downs, it's been your sincerity. At least at the moment, you mean everything you say. I don't want to turn this into "RON ARTEST SO REAL OMG", but through it all, we could always count on you to say what you felt. Not act the fool on Twitter all day long to get traffic. It's a cheapening of all that's made us stick up for you over the years.

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I am your fan, so I can say stuff like this and make assumptions about your motives. I can even call you names and wonder how you'll affect my marriage, but time is tight, so I'll wrap this up. Let's leave it like this: Ron Ron, you've got to get focused, or I'm giving up on you. Not on the court. That doesn't worry me so much. You need to get your image in order, or I won't believe we have anything special this season.

Best,

"Gary Shandling"

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