Don't Hate the Playas, Players

After they excoriated us in The Chronicle's editorial pages yesterday for our failure to cover their performance of Rita Dove's The Darker Face of the Earth, Recess felt we owed the dubiously named Duke Players Council an apology. While they garnered big accolades from our worthy competition, including The Independent and The News and Observer, apparently the Players felt the much-coveted Recess endorsement would be the most important punch of their critical ticket. Though we had already planned to cover their performance in this week's issue (see page 7), we're no strangers to the frustrations of delayed gratification, and we hate to keep true artistes at bay. And as The Chronicle's entertainment weekly, we know true "players" when we see them-and given the dramatic dissing we've taken from the DP, we know they roll deep.

We admit it-being attacked by a whole council of Players in tights has forced us to reassess our attention to the arts relative to the rest of the entertainment universe. So, to help avoid further misunderstandings and enhance our intellectual gravitas, we thought we'd start our own council of Playas to help us set the record straight.

Chalk-Man. With no space in The Chronicle's pages to air his radical anarchist propaganda, this guy's had to turn to the University's hallowed walls to get the word out. But despite all his rage, he's still just a... well, a jimmy holding some colored chalk. We're sure the Duke Players empathize with his under-covered plight.

Juvenile. Though he's really one of last year's big Sandbox favorites, this Cash Money millionaire was hearing the bling-blings long before his first mention in Rolling Stone.

Pat Buchanan. OK, Pat's actually just a mean-spirited, neo-fascist bum-not a playa of any kind. But if anyone knows the kind of pain the liberal media can cause, it's this guy.

Elian Gonzalez. He doesn't even speak the English language, but he might hate the media more than Pat Buchanan or the Players. Plus, he's cuter than all of us combined.

David Lee Roth. Anyone who can wear hot pants for that many years in the spotlight deserves the Recess nod.

OJ Simpson. An artist at so many things-football, acting and the butchery of innocent people-he's garnered enough coverage to share.