- Few things are sadder in the sports and entertainment worlds than when an aging, past their prime superstar tries to hang on when they should hang it up. A boxer like Evander Holyfield is a prime example, a man who has been bruised, battered, beaten and has suffered substantial brain damage from fighting, yet won't quit even though every fight he’s in, you fear he’s going to die in the ring. What I never thought I’d see, though, is an aging Barry Bonds having to fly to Major League Baseball’s winter meetings to campaign for a job with a team, any team. Bonds’ former team, the San Francisco Giants, has been lukewarm at best about resigning the steroid fueled slugger, and so far this off season, other teams have shown nothing beyond a tepid interest in him. So the Barry Road Show is in Florida at baseball’s annual meetings, seeking desperately to drum up some interest in signing him. It’s bizarre, sad, depressing sight to see him rolling through the hotel lobby, on the prowl for the execs of some unsuspecting team. I would say it’s akin to watching the Rolling Stones at an awards show, pleading with record execs to give them a new record deal. Bizarre, right? After all, they are among the most famous and most successful music acts of all time. Well, Barry is one of the most famous and successful baseball players ever, and now he’s openly pleading for a team to sign him, only no one wants to. The Stones and Barry do actually have a lot in common, too. Both are aging, past their prime, have relied heavily on drugs for their success and will end their careers in their respective Halls of Fame. Biggest difference right now is that the Stones are the only one of the two that will be going out with some dignity. If Keith Richards can stop falling out of coconut trees, that is…….
- Let me start by saying I love football. College especially, but pro and even high school football are among my favorite sports. I watch dozens of games every week during the season, often bending the rest of my schedule around the games. So when I say that the NFL’s new concept of Thursday Night Football sucks, you know I mean it. For the final five weeks of this NFL season, the league, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to slap one game a week on Thursday nights on its own NFL Network. Forget that nearly all cable providers aren't airing NFL-N due to a financial dispute with the network. It’s just dumb to string the games out to one more night when they’re already on Sunday all day and Monday night too. Quit diluting your product, NFL. Also, if your local team happens to be playing one of these Thursday night contests, as I have found out with this week’s game, whatever mainstream network has TV rights will also get to show the game, which means………yes, your favorite shows on that network are preempted! This week, that means FOX will not be showing my beloved The O.C. in its regular time slot, but will instead broadcast it at one freakin’ o’clock in the morning. Super….I not only get to have a terrible football game between two bottom feeding teams jammed down my throat, but the show I actually want to see will air at 1 a.m.? Awesome, way to go NFL.
- People love money, that much is obvious. The fact that they are willing to do things that are 1) humiliating, 2) degrading, 3) illegal, 4) unethical, 5) revolting, 6) most any other adjective you can think of is evidence enough. Clearly, that love of money that is the root of all evil doesn’t decrease or diminish the older you get. Take as Exhibit A 81-year-old Ruby Carter of Texas, who had a brilliant idea to get her hands on $2 million. No, she didn’t plan to play bingo or hit the lottery, ol’ Ruby had something much more sinister on her mind. She wrote a letter to NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Bart Starr, formerly of the Green Bay Packers, and threatened to ruin his reputation by exposing a secret relationship between the two of them back in 1960. The only problem? No such relationship ever existed, and thus Starr refused to pay and turned the matter over to police. Ruby was arrested and will be charged in the case, and you really could see this one coming. What, you think that just because you say you are going to expose a fake relationship with a famous athlete, that means it actually happened or that the athlete will pay up? Why? If he doesn’t even know you, why would he pay? I know you can become senile as you get older, but what kind of ass hat doesn’t realize that when you write a letter with a return address on it, people can figure out who you are easily? Putting an octogenarian in jail might seem a little harsh, but I hope Ruby gets to spend a couple years behind bars just on the basis of sheer stupidity.
- I can't be the only one who laughed out loud and laughed for a prolonged period of time when I saw the first video off of and commercial for the new Gwen Stefani album, can I? After all, this is the same woman who once bristled at criticism that she didn’t truly know how to rock, claiming that her band, No Doubt, had once toured with U2. Yet here she is, after a hiatus, coming back at us with more glammed up, sparkly, glittery, slickly produced pop crap. Every one of her videos is like a giant celebration of excess, but not in the rock n’ roll, sex, drugs and rock type of excess. This is more along the lines of a female version of Elton John, outrageous, flashy costumes, lots of dancers, heavy reliance on synthesizers and not an ounce of rock to be found. Gwen has her market, namely teenage girls, but last time I checked, that demographic is all about pop, the Britney and Christina set of the population, not about rock. Gwen needs to make up her mind, because if she ever tries to make the claim to know how to rock with the music she keeps putting out, I’ll be laughing even harder and longer than I did initially.
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