Have You Seen This Man's Carrier Pigeon?

By now, you’ve probably heard the rather disappointing news that Gilbert Arenas is out for the remainder of the season with a knee injury.

But have you heard the news that Jerry Colangelo of USA Basketball has been having major problems getting Gilbert on the phone? From a recent story on ESPN.com (special thanks to our associate AC for passing this along):

“Colangelo also said he wants to have a clear-the-air meeting with Gilbert Arenas, whose departure from the team during an exhibition tour of South Korea was less than amicable. Colangelo said he unsuccessfully tried to contact Arenas when he was in Washington last weekend, getting a message that Arenas' voice mailbox was full.”

This is of course noteworthy because as you may recall from the classic Esquire magazine piece on Arenas from last fall (a piece of journalism that regrettably appears to be no longer available online), whenever the Wizards point guard gets a new cell phone, he dials it up from a land line and leaves meaningless messages like “It’s me,” and “This is Gilbert” to fill up his voicemail so that no one can leave him messages.

Apparently Jerry Colangelo doesn’t read Esquire, or The Off-Color Commentator, or any other written publication that wrote about Arenas’ unusual phone habits. And apparently ESPN’s Chris Sheridan (who wrote the above-quoted story) is similarly in the dark, because there’s no mention of Arenas’ voice mail-flooding tactics in that article either.

Since there’s clearly tension between Colangelo and Arenas, and since we’d hate to see the disagreement carry on – or even worse, grow more severe – just because there’s a clear mechanical obstacle to Arenas even knowing that Colangelo called (namely, that he doesn’t want to know that anyone called), we’re going to intervene.

Mr. Colangelo, Gilbert isn’t going to return your call. Not now, not ever. For all intents and purposes, he does not have voicemail. How would you know this? Well, you wouldn’t. That just goes with the territory of dealing with someone who doesn’t exactly adhere to the established conventions of everyday interaction.

Though in Gilbert’s defense, voicemails really are kind of lame. Should you truly wish to speak to Arenas and clear the air, might we recommend a text message? It’s kind of the preferred way of communicating among people under the age of 30 these days. (It’s better because this way we don’t have to talk to one another.)

Anyhow, since this advice will clearly solve your little communication problem almost instantaneously, and furthermore will likely help forge a lasting friendship between yourself and Gilbert, you’re probably wondering what we want in return. And we appreciate you asking, but the truth of the matter is we actually don’t want a reward.

Instead, all we ask is that you bring us on board as a special consultant (at a very nominal fee). Because clearly, whoever you’ve got advising you doesn’t have the foggiest clue what’s going on.

The first thing we’re going to do is eliminate these “phone calls” you keep making. In fact, any phone that you have connected to a land line in your office will be promptly jettisoned out the window.

It’s time to embrace the future, Jerry Colangelo. The future is now.