Take that headline whatever way you like. Kobe Bryant did say yesterday, at his youth basketball camp in L.A., that he spoke in person two weeks ago to the G.M. he had previously ridiculed, Mitch Kupchak, and apologized for - well, for having ridiculed him to a couple of total strangers in a parking lot while they recorded it on their cell phone.

Said Kobe: " 'I went in just to tell [Kupchak], "You know what, man? I'm sorry that thing came out like that. You never want that to happen." I just felt like as a man, that was important to say that to him. I could have easily picked up the phone and called him, but that's not something that I wanted to do. I wanted to go down and see him face-to-face and tell him that face-to-face.'"

As opposed to face-to-cell phone, or face-to-YouTube. Or, as in the case of the original trade-me, don't-trade-me, yeah-trade-me of last month, face-to-radio-host's-face.

By the way, we're talking about this video, if you haven't seen the clip yet (warning: adult language).

Speaking of video: alert Twilight Zone fans caught the episode that I referenced in this posting in late May, and in this column, earlier this week on the annual SciFi network marathon. Unfortunately, I missed it, but I got an excited phone call asking me if I had seen "the Kobe episode.''

Calling the episode by that name would probably work better than my original suggestion: that we call Kobe by the name of the kid in the episode - who, if you haven't seen it, completely destroys the town he lives in because when somebody does something that doesn't make him happy, or if they don't think good thoughts about him, he makes them pay in the worst way. (To answer the questions asked in that posting: his name is Anthony, and he's played by Billy Mumy, who also played Will Robinson in Lost in Space.)

Which is why you can imagine, in that meeting two weeks ago, Kupchak starting the conversation by saying: "It's good that you made fun of me to those two guys in the parking lot! That was real good, Kobe, it's good that you did that! It's good that you cursed and demanded that we trade Andrew Bynum! That's a good suggestion, real good! Isn't it good that he did that, Mr. Buss?''

Of course, the G.M. of the Lakers probably didn't actually say that. But it doesn't matter because, as Milton Kent pointed out in yesterday's O, By the Way, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers did it for him.

Between Kobe, Paris Hilton and the mayor messing with a TV anchor without the TV anchor telling her station, don't you wish you were spending this summer in La-La land? It's a lot less humid there, too.