Good Ron? Bad Ron? Obi-Ron? Just wait for next Episode

Ron Artest is on a cell phone from Africa and there is a great deal of confusing background noise. Not from the static-filled line. From the mouth of Artest himself.

Noise might not be the right word. During our brief conversation he was both brilliantly eloquent and semi-coherent. Sometimes in the same sentence. Sometimes in the same breath. When he speaks, Artest's words sound like a combination of riddles, nonsense, parables and genius.

Artest in Kenya with Maurice Evans; Etan Thomas; Feed the Children's Larry Jones; Theo and Kristina Ratliff. (Gabriel Mungai)

What do you make of a man who in one moment passionately and sincerely talks of helping the impoverished and in the next giggles over his videotaping of lions humping? (By the way Ron, you don't have to travel to Africa to see animals having sex. You can watch that on South Beach.)

Artest and a group of NBA players are doing something incredibly good, engaging in the kind of life-changing adventure and administering of hope we rarely read about our athletes providing.

Artest, the players union, a charity group called Feed the Children, and the former Secretary of Agriculture are teaming to provide one million pounds of rice and 44 million meals to more than one million residents in and around Nairobi, Kenya. They should be commended for possibly saving thousands of lives and keeping even more people from feeling the sting of starvation.

Artest has been in Kenya for much of this week and there are no reports of riots among Africa's sporting fans. See, Artest is making progress, people.

But this is Ron Artest we're talking about; a man I have come to nickname Episode -- because he walks through life plopping from one interesting, at times disastrous, episode to the next. The catalyst of a riot one day, a domestic violence charge the next, a charitable act in another moment, an NBA suspension soon after.

Episode.

The conversation with Artest alternates between touching, bizarre, intellectual, emotional and bizarre. And did I mention bizarre?

"I taped a cheetah killing a zebra!" Artest exclaims at one point. "Unbelievable. I watched lions mating. It was wild."

Apparently lions don't check into motels in Africa.

He talked about Africa as only Artest can. He remarked about seeing "kids with no shoes on in the middle of the jungle." There was more about lions and their sex lives. He repeated the phrase "you show love, you get love" several times. I'm not sure why. He was clearly startled and humbled by the poverty he witnessed, then displayed some typical athlete aloofness by talking of how everyone in this country needs to visit Africa at least once and how it can "only cost maybe not much, a few thousand dollars, if you want to fly first class." Failing to realize that kind of money is a great deal to the average person.

Then he said this: "Everyone should come here once in their lives. Go to the slums and it will change how you view your life and the world." You could tell that the hard-ass, troubled man was, for the moment, appreciating the life-altering experiences on a continent far away.