I Should Be Dead By Now

by Dennis Rodman

  Since I was late, there wasn’t exactly a traffic jam on the red carpet, and I was like a one-man show, although I did see San Francisco Forty-Niner great Jerry Rice—one of the night’s honorees—down at the other end of the line about 50 yards away. He looked shorter than I remembered.

  As I was talking to, I think it was the Best Damn Sports Show Period, the still photographers at the next “media station” were just hanging out, waiting for me to come their way. Then they spotted Symone in the shadows behind me. They were like, “Damn! Who’s the blonde?” Now Symone always looks good, but on that night, she was the pride of her home country, Australia, looking particularly take-your-breath-away spectacular in this low-cut, pink, corsetlooking thing and fitted white pants.

  Now most photographers are men, and at first, they were like, “Is that somebody?” Then they were like, “Who the fuck cares!” So they started waving her over, like, “Come on down! Come on down!”

  Symone has done a lot of spokesmodel work, and so she knew the drill. She walked over and started posing for maybe a dozen photographers, and there was an explosion of flashbulbs like fireworks on the Fourth of July, enough to make you see orange spots for a week. She was smiling, just eating it up. The woman is photogenic, like me, but for entirely different reasons. She’s beautiful.

  Me? A photographer once told me, “If you’ve got a choice between shooting 50 guys in pinstripe suits and a six-foot-eight black man wearing a feather boa, who are you going to photograph? Who do you think is going to make the more eye-grabbing picture?”

  I moved on through the media gauntlet to the next reporter, a camera-mounted light blinding me. A pretty woman from FOX Sports Net stuck a wireless mike in my face—looked like a black vibrator—and a guy from Xtra Sports 570 AM, “Southern California’s Sports Superstation” followed suit. I was wearing my lips out talking. Way in the back, behind the media, several rows of “civilian” gawkers looked on, trying to get a glimpse of me.

  Other celebs walked by on the red carpet as I was talking, and I recognized faces, but I couldn’t tell you their names. Must have been the same deal for the media, which showed no interest whatever and just let those faces cruise on through. It has been a long time since I could get away with that. So long ago that I think of it as the “good old days,” days when Dennis Rodman could be anonymous, y’know, walk the street, work out, take my daughter Alexis to the park without feeling like I was center stage.

  Reality Check: Fame is a bitch.

  If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably already figured out that I have this love-hate relationship with fame. If not, you can sure tell it by listening to the people who know me best.

  “He needs to be out there,” Michelle told a reporter. “He needs to be seen.”

  “He does not want to be famous, but yet that’s how he feeds himself,” said Wendell. “That’s how he lives his extraordinary life.”

  “He eats it up. I watch him,” said Michelle.

  “He loves the attention?” the reporter asked.

  “Oh, yeah. … He plays like he doesn’t,” said Michelle. “But I know he loves it. And how can you not?”

  “There were points where he cried to me about killing himself,” said Darren. “He just didn’t want to live anymore. And the last thing he wanted was the fame. He hated the fame.”

  So who’s right?

  Everybody.

  Where I rank in the celebrity pecking order is something that matters to me. I’m proud that, while other basketball players of my era have mostly disappeared, I’m still a household name. I have staying power. I still matter to people. If I were not so important to society, they wouldn’t still be talking about me. I see fame as one way to measure that importance.

  When I first became famous in the late 1990s, it didn’t mean shit. I was just having a good time, living the life of a rock star. I wasn’t saying, “Oh, I gotta go make this move, I gotta do this, I gotta do that.” It was more like, “I’m gonna play the game, go to practice, then go out and have a good time.”That was my whole thing right there.

  Famous or not famous? I didn’t care.

  Things are different now. Now fame does mean something to me. Now it’s a part of who I am, and I don’t want to lose it. Michelle hit it right on the nose.

  “If you’ve been used to that for so long, if it were to go away,” she said. “I mean, it would be hard. I couldn’t even imagine to be so big and then to not have anyone care. I’m sure that’s what he holds onto.”

  People have asked me if I see fame as a “measuring stick” of my worth. Yeah, I’m proud of my fame because of why I’m famous. I’m not famous because of some corporate image-making machine. “Dennis Rodman” wasn’t dreamed up in the bowels of some ad agency. I’m famous, one because I’m one of the best basketball players who ever played the game; and two, because as I went about living my life—“just being Dennis”—I struck a nerve with the people outside of basketball, people who don’t know a basketball from a billiard ball. I’ve lasted because my fame has meaning, substance, I stand for something rock solid. As I said before, I’ve freed people up, made it okay to say, “Fuck it!” and be your freaky self. I’m proud of that. I’m not somebody like Paris Hilton who is famous for being famous. So yeah, I do see my fame as a “measuring stick.” It shows I still matter to people. But being proud of my fame, even needing it, and living with it are two different things.

  Fame is cool for about the first five minutes that you’re out in public. I’m like, “They still care. I still matter,” and then I wish I could be left alone to just go about my business. But you’re either famous, or you’re not. If you are, you get the whole package—the good, the bad, the ugly. Here’s some “good, bad, and ugly,” all in the same package.

  For the past two years, I’ve run with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain for GoldenPalace.com. The “Running of the Bulls” is this centuries-old, coming-of-age ritual that Ernest Hemingway made famous in his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises.The run is a part of the Fiesta of San Fermin, which honors the city’s patron saint. Beginning at 8:00 a.m. every day for a week in July, hundreds of mostly young men run ahead of six, bred-to-be-nasty bulls, that weigh in at about 1,000 pounds each, leading them from their pens through narrow cobblestone streets to the bullring about a half-mile away.

  That’s the plan anyway. I don’t really get to do much running because people won’t let me. I get rushed by fans who want to get a piece of Dennis Rodman. Five feet away, runners are falling down, getting trampled, gored, run over—in the past people have even been killed—and these fools are like, “Fuck the bulls! We want a picture with Dennis Rodman.” This year, when it was over—it takes about three minutes—Thaer was like, “What the hell is wrong with these people? You got a pissed off, half-ton bull with these huge horns chasing your ass, and you’re trying to get a fucking autograph from Dennis Rodman? It’s nuts.” So I ended up running from the people, not the bulls. But still, it’s a really cool thing—a “Dennis Rodman” thing. Too bad I can’t enjoy it the way other people do. But the fans won’t let me. They won’t let me. Like Thaer says, when you’re famous, “You can’t do shit.”

  Meanwhile that same fame means the wire services are beaming a picture of Dennis Rodman in a white T-shirt with a foot-high, red GoldenPalace.com logo on the chest all over the world. The same fame that made it impossible for me to enjoy the event like a normal person is what made it possible for me to be there in the first place, what makes it possible for me to make a living. So you can see why when it comes to fame, I have mixed emotions.

  Love it, hate it, can’t get away from it. No wonder I’m nuts.

  Remember that reality check from earlier: “Fame warps everything?” Well, that’s no exaggeration, and it goes far beyond my ability to enjoy simple human pleasures that “nobodies” take for granted. Fame warps every human relationship—every human relationship.

  Ever since I became famous, my relationships with my mother, my
sisters, my friends, my wives, my girlfriends, even my children have all been warped. People I do business with, people on the street, total strangers treat me differently than they treat you.

  Michelle summed it up for a reporter. “He can’t possibly trust or know that anyone loves him for him,” she said. “Since he became famous, [the love] has always been because he’s ‘Dennis Rodman.’ I don’t think it’s ever been because of who he is as a person.”

  That same poison spreads to the people around me.

  “Do you get people sucking up to you because you’re Dennis Rodman’s wife?” a reporter asked Michelle.

  “Hell, yes! Yeah. It’s amazing,” she said. “Are you trying to be my friend, or are you friends with me because I’m Dennis Rodman’s wife? It happens all the time.”

  Everything a famous person does begins and ends with fame. Nothing a normal person does is like what I do. The whole context is different. I am literally living in a different world, a parallel universe. We could be walking side by side through the same restaurant, and an entirely different set of rules apply. I’m always being watched. I’m always accountable. I can’t have a bad day, make some smartass remark, raise an eyebrow. If I do, it’s a huge deal. If I offend some guy, he won’t just let it go, say, “What-fuckingever,” and move on. It’s a turning point in his life. How did he react when dissed by the bad boy, when Dennis Rodman challenged his manhood? I’m just trying to eat my sushi in peace, and this guy has shifted into holy war mode. In the past, wild-boy Rodman, most likely drunk, reacted like a normal human being, and got his ass sued. Today’s sober “Dennis Rodman” acts like a veteran famous guy and backs off, way off, gives Mr. Intifada a wide berth, and serves up a character-defining war story the guy will be telling his grandchildren.

  “Yeah, I called the son of a bitch on it, and he hid behind his bodyguard.”

  These are not lessons you read in some guidebook or learn at your mother’s knee. This is stuff you learn the hard way, making it up as you go along. And as the lessons learned pile up, they lead to a set of rules. Rules that say exactly what “a famous person” can and cannot do. Then you wake up one day and realize you’re hog-tied by your own rules—that your fame has become a trap.

  I made my last stop on the red carpet, autographing this and that for the non-media “civilians” at the end of the line. Then the secret service dudes led me into this adjoining room—or maybe it was a blocked-off hallway, I don’t remember—where the Cedars-Sinai folk had me autograph some basketballs. Thaer was by my side checking everybody out. I don’t know if they auctioned the balls off, sold them—whatever. A kid about 12 in a blue blazer showed up and had me sign his program. I still hadn’t escaped the cameras.

  Now the reporter was popping flashbulbs in my face. It’s a wonder my ass hasn’t gone blind.

  I signed an official NBA Spalding basketball, with my distinctive, looping, totally illegible scrawl. I didn’t know if this guy was a fan or somebody from Cedars-Sinai. Want to know what fame smells like? A Sharpie. The airplane-cement-on-downers smell of those felt-tip pens—corporate sponsorship anyone?—has been a part of my everyday life for decades.

  That and the fucking flashbulbs.

  I used to think of myself as an “accidental celebrity.” Not anymore. These days there is nothing accidental about it. I go out of my way to get attention. I was at the Cedars-Sinai benefit not only to promote a worthy cause, but to get in front of those cameras and microphones on the red carpet. “Why” is no mystery. Darren and I work at keeping me famous because that’s how I make a living.

  I started out being totally free, playing basketball with reckless abandon, screwing with my hair, dating Madonna—just being Dennis. That turned out to be newsworthy. I kept on doing what I was doing, dressing up in women’s clothes, pulling down rebounds, winning championships, partying, gambling—free as a bird. That led to more coverage, fame, lawsuits, and the first appearance of those rules I was talking about. Now the book of “Rodman’s Rules” is so long and involved that it makes the NCAA rulebook look simple; and my days of total freedom are long gone. To put it in Biblical terms: total freedom begat media coverage begat fame begat a list of freedom-sapping “no-nos.” I’m caged by my own rules—the rules of fame. How do I fix it? I could drop out of sight, of course, give up my fame; but then how do I make a living? And I don’t want to stop being that symbol of freedom, either. It’s like anything else: I have to find a way to strike a balance.

  Reality Check: You can’t be both free and famous.

  I can’t have all the benefits of fame—the good—without living with the bad and the ugly. The bad and the ugly? Seems like we’ve been through that. I can’t live a normal life. I have no privacy. Everything I do is “news.” I’m no longer free. All human relationships are warped. The good? Fame makes me a lot of money, proves to me I still matter, feeds my ego, and, on good days, is a hell of a lot of fun.

  A hell of a lot of fun.

  So just like just about everything else in life, fame has its upside and its downside. It’s like having a dog. He gives you all the love, but he’s got to be fed and he’s got to be walked—he’s got to be cared for. Sooner or later, no matter what you do, he’s going to crap on the carpet. Count on it. That’s part of what having a dog means. Every single time. If you want a dog—I hate to trot this one out, but it fits—you got to take the good with the bad. Same goes with fame. Just as there ain’t no dog without dog shit, there ain’t no fame without people shit. People are going to disappoint you. Count on it.

  So you just learn to live with it.

  Here’s one final reality check to balance out all my bitching about fame, to put things in perspective. It isn’t true, but let’s just say Carmen Electra only wanted to sleep with me because I was famous. She was using my ass to advance her career. Is this supposed to be some kind of big problem? I mean, I’m a guy, and Carmen Electra, one of the most beautiful women in the world, wants to sleep with me.

  Am I asking, “Why?”

  No. No. No. No. …

  Repeat after me, bro: “Who gives a shit?”

  Again, “Who gives a shit?”

  One last time: “Who gives a shit?”

  Reality Check: When it comes to the good, bad, and ugly of fame, sometimes even the ugly is good.

  Very, very, very good.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  NOT YET UNDERRATED

  We were backstage at the Century Plaza Hotel, following the men in black suits down a narrow, institutional hall. No red carpet here. We pass a head-high rack filled with dozens of silver candelabra and arrive at what looks like a kitchen staging area. There was a pause, and then the suits pushed through the door; and we walked out into a huge banquet hall filled with round, linen-draped tables for ten: must’ve been 100 of them. There was a stage on the right with a backdrop of billboard-sized video screens showing the Cedars-Sinai “Sports Spectacular 2005” logo. The five of us—Darren and Symone, Thaer, the reporter and I—were led single-file through the crowd, weaving our way to a back table.

  We got to our table and a bunch of fresh-faced little white boys lined up for autographs. I signed a program, this ugly purple-and-green basketball, another program, another ugly basketball—where did they get these things?—and the boys disappeared. Later, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar stopped by, and I stood up to say hello. We talked a little bit, and then the reporter spotted Kareem. I could tell he was about to piss in his pants. He was trying to get up, I guess to introduce himself, knees hitting the bottom of the table, fumbling around, but before he could get on his feet, Kareem was gone. For the rest of his life, he’ll be telling people, “I almost met Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.”

  John Salley, my old Detroit teammate, swung by. He would be co-hosting this thing with his Best Damn Sports Show Period buddy, Tom Arnold. Then Ron Artest, David Stern’s latest headache, came over to say hello. He’s the guy from the Pacers who waded into the stands during the brawl at Detroit last season. Before it
was over he had cold-cocked some fan. Artest ended up sitting out the rest of the season. ESPN.com reported that the suspension cost him about five million big ones.

  “We have to make a point that there are boundaries in our games,” David Stern told ESPN. “One of our boundaries, that has always been immutable, is the boundary that separates the fans from the court. Players cannot lose control and move into the stands.”

  Artest’s antics have led some people to start mentioning him and Dennis Rodman in the same breath. Nah. Artest’s 73-game suspension ranks number one all time. The best I could ever do was 11 games (for kicking the TV photographer), bringing me in at number six. Latrell Sprewell ranks second, suspended for 68 games in 1997 after choking coach P.J. Carlesimo. Let’s see, cold-cocking an asshole fan, choking a coach? Add clothes-lining David Stern to the list, and for some folk (not Dennis Rodman, mind you), you’d have three of an NBA player’s top-five basketball fantasies.

  I spotted Kobe Bryant on the other side of the banquet hall and started to think everybody who was anybody in California sports was at the Cedars-Sinai benefit. And as folks started digging into their salads, I checked out the people at our table. Paul Westphal, an All-Star NBA player from the seventies was sitting a couple of seats to the right with his wife. He grew up in California, was a two-time All-American at USC before being drafted by the Celtics in 1972. Drew Gooden, now with the Cleveland Cavaliers, was on my left, the other side of Thaer, with a beautiful Asian girl—could have been his wife. I don’t know. Gooden played his high school ball at El Cerrito, California (near Oakland). Another black guy I didn’t recognize and a black girl filled out the table. Gooden probably doesn’t know there was a fleeting moment last spring when it looked like we’d be teammates. It was hard to believe this freshfaced kid was in the league. He looked like a baby to me.