The Goldstein and Gasol Coronavirus Hiatus Update!
COVID-19 Hiatus Update or Remember When We All Thought Kobe Bryant Dying In A Horrific Helicopter Crash Was the Craziest Thing That Would Happen During the 2019-2020 NBA Season?
Since October 1st, 2019 -- the day that I launched Goldstein and Gasol with an introductory post and started writing essays and cooking dishes in advance -- my life has been consumed by this project. Researching, writing, cooking, editing, photographing, reading books and essays and old newspaper articles, watching game footage, shopping… all that damn shopping, all of it out of pocket. So much grocery shopping that I changed my lifelong allegiance from Vons to Albertsons (both subsidiaries of The Kroger Company) because of proximity. I once wrote a pilot about a Vons bag boy. I regularly, earnestly retweet Vons. I once started an extremely dumb argument with my girlfriend about shopping at the East Hollywood Ralphs because it lacks natural lighting. I fucking love Vons.
From Oct. 1 to the season tip-off on Oct. 22 against the Clippers, I built a three week lead in completed blogs. I work in TV production, so long stretches where I write and collect unemployment are normal for me. And October just happened to be one of those months. As the season really got going, I kept my lead steadily in front of me. Like a veteran team up 13 points to start the 4th quarter, I refused to step off the gas pedal. I always made sure that I had 2 to 3 weeks worth of completed blogs ready to go. The last thing I wanted while doing G&G was for me to be scrambling to write and cook just before tip off. It was very important to me that I never posted a late entry. Every blog would go up several hours before the corresponding game, no matter what. To date, I never missed. It didn’t matter to anyone else but it mattered to me.
In the 5 ½ months I worked on Goldstein and Gasol, I was blessed with a Jerry Buss-esque run of good luck. When my bank account started running dry around Thanksgiving, I found a new job. When I found that new job, it was lax enough to let me write on the clock. When I found myself again without a job, it was just before All-Star Break, giving me valuable time to rebuild my lead. But a few weeks ago, I saw my lead dwindling before my eyes just as the regular season hit its final stretch.
I started a new job in March, an office job with casual hours. But a week in, both writers quit days before we started taping. My chill gig suddenly became a hectic on-set one with 12-14 hour days. For the first time all season, I went a week without cooking a dish or writing an entry. I also missed the Lakers’ highly anticipated match-up on March 6th against the East’s best team, the Bucks, and the March 8th rematch against the Clippers. On March 10th, I came home exhausted during the 3rd period of the Lakers vs Nets game. If you’re an NBA fan, you know how grueling the regular season can be… and I’m just talking about the viewers! The Lakers had clinched the playoffs before they played the Bucks -- their first time since 2013 -- so I felt I could skip this game. It’s not like watching all 82 games was part of Goldstein and Gasol. It wasn’t like this was the last game of the season. Besides, when I was finally done with this project on April 15th, my reward would be planting my ass on my couch and watching two solid months of Lakers playoff basketball without a writing or cooking-related worry in my head.
Then Rudy Gobert happened.
On Wednesday March 11, 2020, the NBA announced that the Golden State Warriors, starting with their upcoming game on Thursday, would play home games without fans for an indefinite period to prevent spreading COVID-19. At the time, the Bay Area had the highest spread of coronavirus outside of Seattle. Most Americans had not yet taken the virus seriously. Just days before, LeBron James told the media that he wasn’t going to play games in empty stadiums, before later walking back the statement. Even though we had full viewing access to the nightmarish conditions playing out in China and Italy, we didn’t take it seriously. As I write this on day 16 of my self-imposed quarantine and day 10 of L.A. County’s government-mandated stay at home order, thinking about the NBA putting on games in packed 18,000 seat arenas is akin to imagining NFL players strapping on leather helmets before they hit the field. The past is usually the present, but not here. The medical staff at Chesapeake Energy Arena rushing onto the court minutes before the tip-off of the Utah Jazz - Oklahoma City Thunder game feels like decades ago.
Some have called Rudy Gobert, the player who tested positive for COVID-19 moments before that game began, an “accidental hero”. And I’d have to agree. We all laughed at his “touching the microphones” bit, but he was in the same mindset as 99% of us. On my first day at my new job on Feb. 28, I reluctantly shook hands with around a dozen people. Some of my new coworkers joked about getting coronavirus from this. I smiled and politely laughed and washed my hands The Aviator style for the rest of the week. I didn’t know that within a couple weeks, the majority of people in my life would be without jobs, many of them unable to collect unemployment due to the freelance nature of working in the entertainment industry or entertainment-adjacent jobs. My Jerry Bussian luck has continued. My two week gig has turned into a five week gig that’s doable from home. I’m pulling this number out of my ass, but I’d estimate that more than 90% of jobs in TV and film are done. The only people working seem to be in development. I have no idea where I’m getting my next job. But I’m one of the lucky ones. I have a roof over my head and some money saved and an unemployment claim that I opened before the madness went down. I can quarantine in safety without want, at least for a few months.
But where does that leave Goldstein and Gasol? Well, as you readers know, I’ve been writing a blog for all 82 games of the regular season… a regular season that went on indefinite hiatus after the 1st place Lakers were preparing to play their 65th game of the season. When Commissioner Adam Silver halted the season two weeks ago, it seemed like early May would’ve been an optimistic return date. Now that we’re hunkered down in California expecting the peak of Coronavirus cases to occur in mid-late April, that date is nothing but a pipedream. NBA officials are hard at work coming up with contingency plans to salvage the season and/or the playoffs, but they can’t implement it until our patchwork of state and local government workers, who are doing the job of the federal government, deem it safe enough. I’ve seen predictions that the season will restart on July 1st… or is cancelled entirely. Nobody knows anything at this point. It’s unprecedented: a labor stoppage in professional sports that was caused not by contracts or war, but as microscopic virus.
So, like the NBA, Goldstein and Gasol is currently on hiatus. But what happens once the NBA decides their course of action? What if the NBA cancels its season or goes straight into the playoffs? Does that mean this project ends on Game 64 with Kenneth J. Cory’s Apple Nut Cake? Hell nah! This is a DEFINITE hiatus, not an indefinite one. When I started Goldstein and Gasol, I told you all that I was writing 82 entries and cooking 82 recipes and that remains the plan. The cooking might take a little longer since I’m not trying to go to the supermarket 3 or 4 times a week like I used to before Coronavirus upended our country, but the writing will continue.
I have several blogs in the can, so those will be released over the next few weeks to give you basketball-starved readers something to consume. Some of the pieces include
Game 65: Franky Brady - Marinated Chicken Strips. A look at how coach Jack McKinney got his opportunity to create Showtime basketball thanks to an unsolved murder… and how a freak bicycle accident took it all away.
Game 66: Kurt Rambis - Italian Chopped Salad. Kurt Rambis spent 25 years trying to become head coach of the Lakers, but found out that true power within the familial Lakers organization comes from who you marry.
Game 67: Jerry West’s Mom - Sweet Apple Saute. In the 5th of 6 Jerry West entries, I examined the fractured relationship between the Lakers legend and his mother caused by his father’s abuse and the death of his older brother in the Korean War.
Game 68: Lou Baumeister - Meltaways. An interview with Tony Baumeister, son of the man who started out running Jerry Buss’ real estate empire and ended up in charge of day-to-day operations of the hottest franchise in American professional sports. We talked about what it was like to literally grow up in the Lakers family at the height of Showtime.
And as I get back into the habit of regularly cooking and writing about the 1985 World Champion Lakers Are Cookin’ Family Cookbook, I’ll start publishing posts with the same regularity you got from Oct. 1st through Mar. 13th. All 82 games will be done, whether or not LeBron and co. play all 82 games. If all goes according to plan, we’ll still be watching the team raise the Larry O’Brien trophy at the end of the season. Only this time, it might happen around the same time the Dodgers finally win the World Series. If both happen, I promise to do a 162 exploration of Dodgers baseball. I’ll call it Pablo and Puig.
Thank you. Love you all. Stay inside. Wash your hands. Support local businesses and tip delivery drivers extra if you can. Go Lakers.
Pablo Goldstein
Commissioner, Goldstein and Gasol
