ALEX COOLMAN -- Reporter’s Notebook

Dennis Rodman is not a product for sale.

That’s the message Rodman has posted on the splash page of his new Web

site, o7 Rodmantv.comf7 , which debuted Wednesday.

“I realized I could turn my back on everything society says,” the

Newport Beach resident notes, sounding rather like Kierkegaard. “I felt

free. It was like I came out from under the water and took a deep

breath.”

So fierce is Rodman’s commitment to turning his back on society and

avoiding the commercialism of mainstream life that he is now offering,

for the low price of $29.95 per month, to sell Web viewers a look at his

extraordinarily rebellious existence at his West Newport Beach house.

“Do you think you can handle being part of the wildest road trip in

history?” the Web site asks its visitors. “Rage with the worlds (sic)

most most controversial celebrity in a place where there are no

boundaries.”

Merely behaving outlandishly is apparently no longer satisfying for

the former Chicago Bulls and Lakers rebounding expert. Tattoos and hair

dye, “late nights, sizzling beach BBQ’s” and “celebrity functions” seem

to have lost some of their zing.

The only thrill that remains compelling for this man, who is so

outspoken in his rejection of the conventions of the masses, is to be

watched -- by somebody or other, it doesn’t really matter -- in the act

of being “bad.”

“Ever wonder what it’s like to have an all-access backstage pass to

the hottest events in the world?” the breathless Web site copy asks.

Well, no. I never have wondered that.

But I have wondered what it would be like to be a man so driven to be

“shocking” and so isolated by wealth that the only meaningful way to

interact with other humans would be “jammin on stage or hosting wild

parties.”

I have wondered what it would be like to be a man who desperately

craves the attention of the petty authority figures -- police and city

governments and homeowners associations -- he claims to despise.

For $29.95, I now have the answer.

On o7 Rodmantv.comf7 , Rodman chills with Woody Harrelson, towers

over Winona Ryder, frolics with bare-chested babes and lets you know that

his agenda for Oct. 7 involves a “party with Pearl Jam.”

The section of the Web site that has the greatest potential to be

titillating -- the live feed from eight video cameras posted throughout

“Club 4809” -- didn’t seem to be working Wednesday. Instead of salacious

glimpses of the “Chillin’ Section” and the “Patio/BBQ,” the Web site was

serving up only a monotonous loop of an animated Windows Media logo.

But there are also still photos of drunk people and a bland bio of

Rodman the basketball player, noting the tremendous acclaim he’s won for

his “enigmatic and individualistic” lifestyle.

Never before has narcissism involved so much technology.

o7 Rodmantv.comf7 manages, in one triumphant gesture, to combine

the self-absorption that characterizes Web sites in general with with the

kind of lame, skin-deep rebellion that Rodman has made his personal

trademark.

It is, when the final mouse is clicked, totally boring. Rodman is

fortunate that he has his basketball earnings to finance such a venture,

because the product -- and that’s exactly what it is, even if he thinks

of it as some gesture of liberation -- isn’t worth 30 minutes of

browsing, much less $30 a month.