- You can come down hard on player misconduct in the NFL, but you can’t take the spirit of a felon out of the Cincinnati Bengals. Just when you thought that maybe Commissioner Roger Goodell’s strict player conduct policies might have taken the criminal element out of the league’s most prolific law-breaking squad, the Bengals fire back. Cornerback Jonathan Joseph, a member of the league’s most porous defense, has stepped up big and earned himself a one-game suspension for this Sunday’s game against Kansas City as a result of a marijuana-possession charge stemming from a January arrest. The case has wound its way through the legal system and so Goodell has decided that the appropriate discipline for Joseph is to miss this week’s game. You could argue that as bad as Bengal defensive players have been that losing one of them could be considered a plus, but that’s neither here nor there. What truly matters is that the tradition of law-breakers like Chris Henry, Eric Steinbach and Odell Thurman does not die and that the Bengals keep tallying those arrests, criminal charges, convictions and suspensions. Well done, Jonathan, and don’t you let anyone tell you any differently. People might try to convince you that you let yourself and your team down and that you’ve done something wrong here, but you hold your head high and be proud of your effort.
- Memo to all Democrats, talking heads and political pundits out there who are OUTRAGED that Barack Obama refuses to wear an American flag pin on his lapel: Get over it! It’s an f’ing pin, people. He’s not openly advocating shooting our troops in the head, forcing them to jump out of planes without parachutes or saying that were deserved the attacks of 9/11. To hear most of the ass hats on MSNBC, CNBC, Fox News and other news channels, Obama is guilty of a personal affront to every American, living, dead or yet to be born, because he refuses to wear the flag pin on his lapel. Obama sees it as a statement against the war in Iraq and also has stated that he will continue to show his support for America through the message he sends out to the American people. I’m behind him on this one, and quite frankly I think everyone needs to be more concerned with a far bigger issue of concern to our nation: Sen. Hank Clinton and the lead that dude has in the early polls for the Democratic presidential nomination. Aside from four more years of W., which isn't possible (unless that tool and his stool pigeon Cheney have found a way to subvert the Constitution once again to allow themselves four more years), Hank Clinton as our country’s leader is the biggest political nightmare our country has ever faced. Sporting the worst angry-lesbian haircut (it’s true, the ‘do is disturbingly similar to the one Rosie O’Donnell is rocking), with a frightening, man-hating persona and all the warmth and personable-ness of a giant ball of rusty steak knives, Hank would have a real shot at surpassing W. as the worst leader in our nation’s history. I’m not saying this because I’m against us having a female president; I’d have no problem with that, just as long as that female president isn't Hank Clinton. Yet here we are, subjected to hours of debate about the great calamity that is Barack Obama and his decision not to wear an f’ing flag pin on his lapel. Yes, this election is off on the right foot already, this should be great…..
- Ah, you have to love the poetic justice of athletes having to give back money instead of extorting teams and organizations for it. First Marion Jones has to give back all of her winnings from races dating back to Sept. 2001, now an arbitrator has sided with the Atlanta Falcons and ruled that mediocre quarterback and skilled dog murderer Michael Vick must give back $19.9 million in contract bonuses to the team because he violated his contract by establishing, funding and operating the dogfighting ring and the gambling that went along with it. Special Master Stephen B. Burbank, arbitrating the case and clearly no fan of Ron Mexico, ruled that the Falcons are entitled to recoup $19.9 million in bonuses paid to Vick even as Vick is in the midst of fighting legal battles on both the state and federal levels. Of course, good luck trying to get that money back if you’re the Falcons, because I have a strong suspicion that my boy Mike Vick isn't the kind of guy who socked all of his earnings away in a nice mutual fund, 401(k) or passbook savings account. How do I know this? Well for one, dude founded and ran a dogfighting ring and readily admits (ok, so he admits under threat of a federal conviction) that he put up money to finance bets on those dogfights. That $19.9 million is probably gone or nearly gone, blown on bets, those designer marijuana carriers, er, designer water bottles that Vick likes to rock and gone up in smoke, literally, with the weed that Vick feels the need to smoke even when he knows he’s going to be drug tested by the feds. I’d also say that this officially ends Vick’s career with the Falcons, not that they wanted him back anyhow, but awfully hard to go and play for a team where everyone resents you and where the owner ripped $20 million of your signing bonus. At this point, I would say that things can’t get much worse for Vick, but I’ve said that before and things have done nothing but get worse for him ever since those federal charges were levied against him. Nice knowing you, Mike, but life as you know it is now over with an exclamation point.
- Y’know what’s been missing from the whole Michael Vick case? Some good old-fashioned jokes about animal cruelty and murder. I mean, Mike Vick and two of his co-defendants brutally murdered dogs that wouldn’t fight by strangling them, drowning them, electrocuting them or slamming them to the pavement repeatedly, so why hasn’t anyone capitalized on the obvious comedic value of these dog murders yet? Thankfully, someone has stepped up to fill that void, and that someone is Texas Tech University student Geoffrey Candia. Candia seized on his school’s upcoming game with rival Texas A&M to make a rather unique t-shirt that combines crass humor, a lack of class, a total lack of dignity, a dearth of sensitivity and a healthy dash of ass-hatted-ness to mark the occasion. The red and black shirt has text that says, "VICK 'EM" in an apparent reference to the Texas A&M Aggies slogan "Gig 'em.” The back of the shirt shows a football player wearing the number seven Vick jersey holding a rope with an image of the Texas A&M mascot "Reveille" at the end of a noose. Officials say Candia was attempting to sell the shirts, although anyone who would buy one would be just as big a tool as Candia is.
- I’ve run multiple marathons, I’ve seen elite marathon runners in action and you, Roberto Madrazo, are no elite marathon runner. Of course, to pull off what Madrazo tried to pull off at the Berlin Marathon a couple of weeks ago, you wouldn’t have to be an elite runner, you would have to be a supernatural freak on steroids. Competing in the same marathon where Haile Gebrselassie set a new world marathon record of 2 hours, 4 minutes and 26 seconds, Madrazo, a former Mexican politician decided that it would be a good idea to cheat and allegedly run nine mines in 21 minutes. Predictably, he was busted for cheating after race officials, for some odd reason, suspected something wasn’t right when a guy ran nine consecutive miles at a pace of 2:20 per mile. Hmm, think that might draw some suspicion, Roberto? When your pace is less than half that of a guy who set the world record in the same race, people are going to start asking questions. Apparently ol’ Robby took a shortcut to the finish line, shaving substantial time off the end of his race and crossing the finish line with a final time of 2 hours, 40 minutes, which was good enough for a first-place finish in the age division for the 55-year-old runner. Photos and video showed him crossing the finish line in a jacket and long running tights but barely sweating, which was the first giveaway. In every marathon I’ve ever run in, I’ve produced enough sweat to fill a small lake, so someone who is hardly sweating at all is someone who just might have cheated. The lie Madrazo is selling to cover his tracks is that he never intended to finish the race and was only going to the finish line to pick up his belongings. Yeah, that’s exactly what it looked like to me, Roberto. You just thought that while you were picking up your gear, why not go ahead and cross the finish line, celebrating like you had won and having your timing chip register your winning time. Good joke, Robby, I got a kick out of it – or I would if you weren’t clearly lying and trying to cover your own a**. Finishing in third place in the 2006 presidential election in Mexico as the candidate for the Institutional Revolutionary Party might be embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as cheating to win your age group at a major international marathon and then trying to pretend that’s not what you did. Rosie Ruiz and her cab ride to win the XXXXXXX Boston Marathon think you’re a lowlife, Roberto. You may claim that you stopped running after the 21st kilometer because of an injury and headed to the start/finish line to pick up your clothing and participatory medal, but let’s just call it what it is, cheating to try and win. The website for the Berlin Marathon says all runners receive participatory medals, and that certificates with time and placing are sent out automatically by mail but race director Mark Milde said Madrazo would be receiving a disqualification letter instead. Oh, and next time you’re “injured” during a race, Roberto, go along the outside of the course to pick up your participatory medal and your gear, not onto the course itself and across the finish line.
- I have no doubt that you, like me, are flat-out stunned that the new Ben Stiller romantic “comedy” The Heartbreak Kid had a flop of an opening weekend at the box office. The film only brought in $14 million despite being in 3,200 theaters, the most of any current film, and even though the overzealous, overboard advertising campaign was about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the forehead. It wasn’t even the top-earning film of the weekend, because that honor went to a movie that had already been out a week, The Game Plan, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. So yes, Ben Stiller, your movie couldn’t beat out a week-old movie on your opening weekend, a Disney family comedy to boot. This might be a good indicator that people no longer have an interest in seeing you make and remake the same lame romantic comedy with the same gags and jokes over and over again, with slight changes in setting and plot to try and spice things up. Maybe you want to try extending yourself a bit and trying a drama, an action film or even a silent film, because even going back to the black and white, no-dialogue style of the 1920s couldn’t be any worse than the absolute crap-ola you’re churning out these days.
- One of the pitfalls of being famous is that if you’re wanted for a crime, it’s a whole lot easier for the police to find you. Tracking down someone like rapper Lil Wayne and arresting him because of an outstanding drug possession warrant in Georgia is substantially easier than trying to find John Q. Public, an anonymous everyman who could disappear in plain sight and show up most anywhere in the country without anyone recognizing him. Lil Wayne, on the other hand, is currently on a tour and is playing shows across the U.S., which helped police in Idaho know exactly where he was so they could track him down and arrest him after a show in their fine state. Why Wayne was in Idaho, I don’t know, because I didn’t know Idaho was a hotbed of hip hop, but nonetheless, Wayne was there and after a concert last week, the cops were there backstage to meet and arrest him. There’s a long history of rappers trying to avoid arrests at shows, a la Snoop Dogg ducking the cops at the MTV Music Awards a few years back, but Lil Wayne wasn’t able to evade the law and so off to jail he went. When news of his arrest spread, people were obviously happy that a person wanted for a drug-related crime had been apprehended – wait, no they weren’t. The jail where Lil Wayne was taken was subsequently flooded with calls from concerned fans, wanting to know if the rapper would make it to his next concert. Glad for your concern, Lil Wayne fans, way to keep your eyes on the prize. At least we can take solace in the fact that Lil Wayne fans, unlike University of Florida football fans, don’t call and issue bomb threats if the charges against their boy aren’t dropped. Next time, Wayne, go ahead and cross Idaho off your list of tour stops and you can avoid this kind of trouble. Either that or you need to stop smoking weed, although I’m guessing that’s a much less appealing alternative for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment