Bill Walton in Iowa

[opi@unesco.org]

This is only mildly Celts related. According to the news clip below,
Bill Walton is picking up where Phil Jackson left off in support of US
prez candidate Bill Bradley. Walton got a little tipsy apparently.

I remember years ago seeing Walton with his kids in Three Aces Pizza
near the law school, and his kids (surely not older than 11 or 12 years
old but very tall) were drinking beers with their hippie-dippie dad.

Joe

p.s. All this drama the Boston Red Sox have provided since this weekend
(dare I say Red Sox Pride?) reminds me of all the thrilling and
half-nauseaus feeling I used to have in my stomach back when the Celtics
were a playoff team. There's no feeling quite like playoff game days for
a sports fan, especially on a early summer or late fall day in New
England. :-) I'm just so happy for all the cerebral Red Sox fans spread
out everywhere in the world, and I hope the Celts are also back in
business this year.

----------------------------

In a joint appearance with Sen. Bill Bradley in Iowa, Al Gore comes out
swinging.
BY JAKE TAPPER Salon
(.....) the Bradley camp has a secret weapon: Bradley buddy and NBA Hall
of Famer Bill Walton, the former Portland Trailblazer who blazed his own
unique trail alongside Bradley in Iowa.

On Friday, one voter asked Walton what it was like to have been taught
the game by legendary UCLA coach John Wooden. Walton picked up his cell
phone, punched in Wooden's phone number, and put the voter on the phone
with the Bruin folk hero -- reportedly winning a Bradley convert in the
process.

At the Jeff-Jack dinner, Walton walked up to Gore and told him to get
out of the race. "I'm with the winner," he told Gore.

When a dinner attendee asked Walton for his autograph, handing him Gore
poster on the back of which he was to sign his name, Walton threw it on
the ground and stomped on it.

At the Bradley post-dinner reception, which was every bit the
brie-and-chablis PBS pledge-a-thon, I caught up with Walton, who seemed
more than slightly lit. He was with Grammy winner Bruce Hornsby, who had
his piano shipped in from Virginia, to play at the Bradley event.

"What'd you think of your man?" I asked.

"Tonight was the greatest night of Bill Bradley's life!" Walton said
kind of menacingly, as he and Hornsby made their way to the elevator.
"He was never hotter than he was tonight," Walton added.

Bradley's Olympic gold medal and two NBA championship rings speak
otherwise, and I guess that showed on my face.

 "Oh, you're not with that?" Hornsby said.

"He was great tonight!" Walton continued. "He was never hotter than he
was tonight!" Walton said, pointing at me as the elevator doors slammed
shut between us.

Less drunk Bradleyites conceded that Walton's analysis wasn't entirely
on the mark.