- Now-retired from the NFL, former New England Patriots linebacker Ted Johnson made some disconcerting allegations this week that his old coach, the surly, gruff and brutish Bill Belichick would force him into practice and heavy hitting drills even though Johnson was not medically cleared to play after suffering concussions. It’s not a state secret that athletes play hurt, and the NFL is among the biggest culprits when it comes to pushing guys back into action when they’re hurt. It makes sense on some level; the NFL is a 16-game season, one game per week, whereas the other sports are 82 or 84 games (NBA and NHL) or 162 games (MLB). Missing a game in those sports is less significant, simply based on the drastically higher number that a team plays. But the NFL has to draw a line somewhere, and in a league where the final verdict on a player’s fitness to play is supposed to rest with a team’s medical staff, guys are still out there who shouldn’t be. Guys like Ted Johnson are pushed to play by coaches who tell them, “We need you, you have to get out there, don’t let your team down.” They’re pushed by the prospect of another player filling in and taking away their job while they sit out injured. Additionally, the sheer competitive drive that all competitors possess compels these wounded warriors to go back on the field before they’re truly ready. Then an illustration like Ted Johnson’s story comes along and none of that other stuff matters. Here’s a guy suffering from depression and serious mental and neurological issues, all because he was forced to play before healing from concussions, one of the most serious injuries an athlete can have. It was tremendously troubling to hear NFL commish Roger Goodell say that the league had no idea about Johnson’s story until it was reported this week. The league should know - it needs to know. The long-term well-being of its players should be something the league is knowledgeable about, and any practices by teams that are endangering that well-being need to be addressed. This isn't just a story about Belichick and the horse’s hindquarters that he is (as much as I’d love that), it’s about a bigger issue that the NFL had better get a handle on quickly.
- Update time: I was disturbed when I learned that one of my favorite TV shows, the CW’s Veronica Mars, would be taking a lengthy break beginning in March so that the network could have a time slot for a new reality show about the Pussycat Dolls. The crap these chicks pass off as music is offensive enough, but nudging a personal favorite show off the air for weeks is a new low. Well, now that I know the premise of the show, I have to reconsider my position. No longer do I believe this show is a bad idea and a waste of time. No, now I believe it’s an abominable idea and a gigantic waste of time. The concept is simply to find another member for the group, a concept that was shown to be a terrible premise for a show by the group INXS in the ill-fated Rock Star series. Now I’m pissed on several levels: first, it further illustrates how pathetic an excuse the Dolls are for a group, that they can arbitrarily add in an extra skank for the sake of the publicity generated by a reality show. Really, does it matter how many scantily dress ho’s you have in a group when all you do is wear skanky outfits and create videos where you lip sync and writhe around like strippers? It really can't be too much of a challenge for the studio engineers on your album to work around the lacking vocal talents of another stripper/group member and use a synthesizer and computer-generated beats to beef up tracks that are equivalent in musical quality to something you’d find on the Barney soundtrack (yes, the big purple dinosaur puppet for kids). And yes, this is an extraordinarily long rant, but as someone who likes actual quality music and good TV, I’m pissed at something that is a smack in the face to both of those things.
- There’s just no debating the best part of international soccer: the riots. Americans, by and large, don’t give a rat’s ass about the sport, and it’s not just because the rest of the world insists on calling the game by the wrong name (football, which we all know is the name for American football), nor is it the long haired Euros to mostly play the game. It’s a combination of many factors, but what can overcome all of those factors is rioting, an activity Americans fans love and take great pride in doing when their own team wins a championship in a major sport. Euro soccer riots feature great action, things like fans throwing lit flares onto the field and hitting players, fighting in the stands, fighting in the streets outside the stadium, fans throwing urine bombs, looting, rioting and lighting things on fire. This time, though, the mayhem went too far, and the premier soccer league in Italy has been temporarily shut down following the death of a security officer/policeman in a riot at a game in Sicily. Italian soccer is on hold now and could resume in a week or two, but there’s no way you start things back up until you can be sure no one’s life is in danger.
- Random musical thought: I saw somewhere that Justin Timberlake is up for an album of the year award from a show that I wasn’t inclined to learn the name of. Simply knowing that the weasel-voiced former man bander is nominated for album of the year by this show establishes its credibility and validity at sub-zero. The more music I hear from this album and the more of the videos I see from it, the more I wonder if JT’s entire musical career is some sort of sick joke that I just don’t get. The videos are awful; just mimicking of Michael Jackson’s dancing, cheesy graphics, JT lip-syncing to his ear-assaulting vocals and trying to pull off some sort of tough/cool persona. His songs combine the whiny, whimpering sissy-fication of his N’Sync career with the shameless copying of Jack-O’s image and the aforementioned voice that sounds like someone is strangling a weasel that has ingested a substantial amount of helium. This man hasn’t made a single song that’s good enough to end up anywhere other than my trash can, let alone make an album good enough to be considered for album of the year in any universe, even if the only other options for the award are ABBA, David Hasselhoff and Milli Vanilli. Go away, JT, you suck and so does your music.
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