Old School Love: The Great Western Forum

From 1967 until 1999, the Lakers and Kings made the LA Forum their home. Brainchild of the famous owner Jack Kent Cook, the Forum was the seat of stardom, the place for celebrities and royalty alike.

Like a precipice of success, it rose suddenly out of the Inglewood asphalt, lunging immediately upwards like so many LA careers, and upon a foundation of ivory columns, cool shades and blonde hair, it crested skyward to plateau somewhere high overhead. It was the "Wailing Wall" of sports venues, a holy place of fan-dom, an arena where the Gods performed and partied together.

Hey, man, it was the Eighties in LA. It was electric. You have to trust me on this.

The journey to the Forum was much like the descent into a deep dream. From the sullied Inglewood streets, you made your way past the neon beer signs and Spanish billboards, keeping the car doors locked (unfairly) until the tight city walls opened up Hollywood Park. Though it was dark out, the lights gleaned and music was blaring, but never a tune you had heard before.

Suddenly, a barrage of unexpected imagery flashes before you. Amidst a Chevy Nova rolls an unsuspecting Bently, so dark and smooth you almost missed it. The street you were driving on changes from South Prairie to the Avenue of the Champions, and yet you never changed direction. A vendor rushes your window, selling t-shirts of athletes with gigantic heads.

Most of the shirts have "Champs" written on them. In purple.

Planes rumble past you, but you can never tell which direction they're coming from. Then, as you merge through traffic, you can suddenly see the sky. No stars. They're all inside already.

As you pull out of traffic, you see it. The Great Western Forum, a ridiculous round toadstool of a place, with white columns that crest off of the structure like a breaking wave.

And it is massive. Not only that, but there's absolutely nothing around it. A pure anomaly on the LA skyline.

As you walk in, everyone is shouting, hooting, making noise. It's like a tribal ritual, or a school field trip…with 30-year-olds. Security was always jovial in those pre-9/11 days, acting less like the gatekeepers and more like a friendly smack on the ass to get you inside.

The first thing that hits you is the noise. Man, it is loud in here. The place is pure acoustics, the food area all stone and tile, and everyone is shouting something. Plus, the Laker Band can be heard from everywhere.

And they're playing the theme to Rocky. You hear it once, it will never leave you.

Get to your seats, with your assortment of hot dogs and beer, and even in this time of pre-fluorescent lighting, the place is alive with colors. Everything pops, from the orange and yellow seats, to the crazy hair colors, and of course to the Purple and Gold on the floor below.

Every game is a red carpet, with the usual suspect celebrities strolling, nonchalant, past their likewise nonchalant counterparts. This, plus the basketball, was the game. It was a celebration of fame, of success, of enjoyment in gathering to watch the best basketball ever be played. The players, well, they were part of the action.

Not to say that it wasn't a basketball crowd. It's just that everything in the Forum was to excess. When we supported the Lakers, it was a life-consuming ordeal. To cheer was to scream until it was suffocation, and we knew just when to do it. The Forum fans not only knew their rules, they knew their surges, and saw plays develop way before they actually happened.

We were clairvoyant. It makes the actual happening all the more enjoyable.

Leaving the Forum was to leave happy, fulfilled, accomplished. There was a lot of success going on under that roof, and everyone was involved. We were ready for anything, but then again, living with earthquakes will do that to you.

When the LA franchises moved out of the Forum, it was understood. It was an economic inevitability, the next level in a city that was desperate for what's new. What we lost in intimacy we gained in skyboxes and California Pizza Kitchen. The experience was different; we were now coddled, but the love was still there.

Today, the Forum stands more as a monument to those days in the Eighties. Commercials are shot there, and rock bands still perform. (Not new bands, mind you.) And like the Devil's Tower in Wyoming, it stands, ageless yet aging, a symbolic plateau for an elevated and spiritual time.

Maybe, before it decays like its inspiration in Rome, the Lakers can run through that narrow corridor one last time, to beat those hollow walls with the aura of sweat and success, to spank some hapless opponent till they get stars in their eyes. Let the Great Western Forum breathe success again.

In this time of national turmoil, maybe a little Eighties LA is called for. Besides, we could all use another holy experience.