BORING IS HOW I REMEMBER ALAMO.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

SAN ANTONIO - Absolutely biased. Got that? I will not pretend otherwise for a moment. I have a closed mind.

It's San Antonio. No, it's probably more than that. It's Texas, though specifically San Antonio.

I'd call it indifference, except everyone who does like it goes so ridiculously overboard it almost pushes you to genuine dislike.

Which is why it's hard to get too excited over Lakers coach Phil Jackson's tweaks at San Antonio - mild stuff that has the local populace acting like their Stetsons are on too tight.

He called it overflowing with conventioneers and a tourist trap. Is there really an argument here? He said the water in the San Antonio River was green, which was actually being kind.

It's more a dull gray-green. Most frightening water you've ever seen. Things fall in there that are never seen again.

The Riverwalk has its charms, with the tree-lined, meandering river, tightly bordered by restaurants and shops.

It's a nice place to visit. Once about does it.

Outside of the Riverwalk, the only real tourist attraction in San Antonio is the Alamo. Which goes to the heart of my problem with this city.

As a youngster, Disney's Fess Parker was Davy Crockett. I wore the coonskin cap and the whole bit. Can still sing the theme song.

Then as a 10-year-old, my father, Ray Dilbeck, decided it was time to expose his son to his roots. See, Dad was born in Seguin, Texas, a small city about 30 miles east of San Antonio.

Dad loved Texas. It was bigger, better, more pure, more beautiful, more everything. He loved anything to do with Texas, which partly explained his life-long love affair with horses.

And not only did I get to spend some quality time with Dad as we drove across half the country, I was going to see the real Alamo. At that time, John Wayne's ``The Alamo'' had been out. Could never embrace the Duke as Davy Crockett.

So after driving across flat, dull, dusty, lifeless Texas plains until I was old enough to shave, we finally arrived at the Alamo.

Biggest disappointment of my young life.

Naturally, it was much smaller than I'd imagined. Just a tiny mission. And they'd gone and put a concrete roof on it, which even at 10, I found unfaithful. They'd also cleaned it all up. Was so sure I'd brush a few bricks away and find Bowie's knife.

Worst of all, as you entered the chapel, right in the center of the room, was what seemed like a 16-foot painting of ... John Wayne as Davy Crockett.

All that driving, get to the real Alamo, and you find the Duke as the center of attraction? Have never forgiven San Antonio.

So I'm with Phil all the way on this one.

Cities like San Antonio, Sacramento, Portland, Ore., and Salt Lake City, all have serious inferiority complexes, anyway. Maybe it's because they don't have any other professional team. Maybe they are just insecure, doomed to go through life without being able to laugh at themselves.

There is no doubt they are extremely attached to their teams, though the ``Go Spurs Go'' banners in San Antonio appear to have waned. Perhaps the novelty wore off after beating the Lakers last season.

But outrage over a couple of harmless Phil comments? Don't they have the back 90 to worry about?

Michelle, a waitress at the County Line barbecue on the Riverwalk, said Phil's comments have been a hot topic.

``Honestly, I don't know what he said,'' she said. ``I just hear people talking about how upset they are about it.''

Yeah, they have tourists in downtown San Antonio. Pretty rough stuff. That'll rile 'em up every time. Michelle, by the way, estimated that 75 percent of her customers Monday were tourists.

``We have a convention in town this week with 4,500,'' she said, like it was knowing the local weather report.

The guy over at Justin's Ice Cream said it was closer to 90 percent. And the percentage of tourists rises in the summer.

The ice cream guy said people from San Antonio largely stay off the Riverwalk to avoid the tourists, so I asked him where the locals went. There must be a hidden San Antonio. He said they got out of town and went to Austin or some other city.

``There's not a lot to do in San Antonio,'' he said.

No kidding. Monday was a pleasant day, but more often than not, May in San Antonio is already humid and hot. A good sticky reason to get out of town and state.

The area surrounding downtown looks pretty familiar. Lots of strip malls and commercial-industrial usage that would look at home in L.A. Just not bordered by mountains and an ocean.

Outside of sweating, I don't know what you do here in the summer, besides fight L.A. envy.

Will give San Antonio this, though. Went back to see the Alamo on Monday, and I'm happy to report that when I opened the doors to the chapel, there was not a single painting of Billy Bob Thornton to be found.