We somehow missed this, or more like didn't care, but Charles Barkley has now become Public Enemy #1 here in the Bay Area. This is because during the NBA Playoffs, Barkley has said a number of bad, bad things about the area. Among other things, he's said this about the Bay Area: "It's the dumping ground of people who can't afford to live in L.A." And this: "You know, we should take the show on the road. For the next game, we should go to hell - I mean, go to Golden State." And then there's this: "I would rather stay on Alcatraz than San Francisco or Oakland.'' He also talked trash about Sausalito . Sausalito!

Cue outrage. Apparently, signs making fun of the ex-Mound of Rebound have been all the rage at the Oracle.

Now we know this whole basketball thing is new to most people here, but here's the thing about Barkley: never take anything he says seriously. Ever. He's always joking around, which is why everyone loves him. He's one of the few people on the planet that has made it so they could pretty much say anything and get away with it. So if he's busting on the Bay Area, he's just kidding around. It's with love, as they say.

Which hasn't stopped people from sending in nasty letters or writing columns about it. Over on the Chron, C.W. Nevius has been having fun with it, getting quotes from Ignacio De La Fuente, president of the Oakland City Council and Will Durst. Nevius (who seems to understand exactly that all of this is silly) even called for a photoshop contest for people to put Charles in photos that tweak him a bit. Some of them are funny, some of them definitely not, but most of them don't even come close to the brilliance that is Fark.com's Photoshop contest.

We would actually show some of the Photoshop entries, but instead, we're going to use all of this as an excuse to play one of our favorite SNL bits ever, of Barkley playing Barney in a 1 on 1 basketball game.