- Pacman Jones – defensive back, kick returner, pool-cue-on-head smasher, woman-assaulter, rain-maker, strip-club-buffet-patronizer and now, rat. Jones, the NFL player currently serving a one-year suspension from the league and his current team, the Tennessee Titans, for violating the NFL’s player conduct policy, has reached a plea deal with prosecutors to avoid jail time in the shooting incident at a Las Vegas strip club this past February. Under the terms of the deal, Jones will testify against his co-defendants in the case and in exchange, he will receive probation instead of the jail time he could have received if he had gone to trial and been convicted. It was probably a difficult decision for Pacman, rolling on his boys and turning rat, but for once he made a smart decision and one that will benefit him in the long term. Instead of looking first and foremost to preserve his street cred and stay true to his boys, he did something to distance himself from the thugs who are dragging him down. Yeah, these guys will resent him for what he’s about to do and maybe he’ll lose a few friends, but they’re friends he needed to lose anyhow. Guys like Pacman need to break free from the hangers-on and bad elements who keep them in trouble. Also, avoiding jail time will look a whole lot better to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell when Pacman’s suspension ends and the commish is deciding whether or not to reinstate the troubled defensive back to the NFL. If you want to boost your case even further, Pac, maybe consider dropping the whole pro wrestling career and you’ll really be onto something.
- You never cease to amaze me, insanely devoted fans of TV shows past and present. Even as someone who follows his favorite shows closely, watching every week and having many of those shows on DVD, I can’t imagine going to the lengths that the fans of many shows go to by building huge websites to their fave shows and spending ridiculous amounts of money to get a small piece of those shows for their very own. Fans of the now-defunct Sopranos are paying up to $50 to own a small chunk of the building that housed the fictional Satriele’s pork shop on the popular HBO show. The shop was where Tony Soprano and his pals often hung out and conducted business, so Manny Costeira, owner of the structure, kept chunks of the wreckage when he had the building demolished and is now selling those pieces to hardcore Sopranos fans for either $25 or $50, depending on what size piece you want. Nine condo units will be built in place of the demolished building, and don’t think that a few whacked-out fans of the show will be willing to pay top dollar to say they live on the very spot where their favorite show once filmed. Heck, if fans from as far away as Ireland and New Zealand are ponying up for small pieces of the building where the show shot some scenes, buying a condo isn’t that much of a leap.
- The New York Knicks may not be a good basketball team, but at least they’re interesting. By interesting, of course, I mean they’re a freaking soap opera and a total joke, starting at the top and reaching all the way down to the players. Coach and GM Isaiah Thomas, a man who single-handedly bankrupted the CBA, bombed out as coach of the Indiana Pacers and then was recently the cause of a massive sexual harassment scandal that led to a lawsuit against both he and Madison Square Garden while running the Knicks into the ground against, is now under the threat of blackmail from his own point guard, Stephon Marbury. Marbury, who took a leave from team after Thomas expressed a desire to bring him off the bench instead of having him in the starting lineup, had a little something for his coach on the way out the door. “Isaiah has to start me," Marbury fumed. "I've got so much (stuff) on Isaiah and he knows it. He thinks he can (get) me. But I'll (get) him first. You have no idea what I know.” In case you’re wondering the genesis of that, remember that Marbury was a witness in Thomas’ sexual harassment trial and in that role said some of the most moronic and idiotic things ever said in the course of a trial. Well apparently Star-bury feels like he has the inside scoop on more of Zeke’s alleged misdeeds, because going public with that kind of smack is basically elevating the situation to Defcon-4. Now I’m sure Marbury will come around with some lame apology soon, saying he was just upset, that he’s a competitor and just wants to win and that’s where this all came from. The team isn’t saying whether he even had permission to take that leave of absence, so he’s’ going to have to make amends big time when he comes back. Personally, though, I like this move, because any time a player wants to threaten to blackmail his coach and go nuclear on his own team, I’m down. Way to show that you’re a team player, a class guy and an all-around good guy, Steph. Keep up your act because if you stop, people are going to have to start paying attention to what the Knicks are doing on the court, and that won’t be good for anybody.
- In all my analysis of the ongoing writers’ strike that threatens to pull the plug on pretty much every single show on network TV by February or March (when the new episodes already filmed but not yet aired run out), I neglected to mention that there’s actually one night of TV that might be helped by this development. Tuesday nights looked like a ginormous weak spot in the TV schedule before the season began, and sure enough they’ve proven to be all of that and more (or less, depending on how you look at it). Just take a look at the offering from last night, where the CW had it’s “social experiment” that’s more of a running practical joke on dorks brainless bimbos everywhere and more of an excuse to show off a few chicks with fake racks and aren’t really that hot otherwise, followed by the lamest, most moronic new comedy of the fall, Reaper. This show started bad and has gotten worse. It tries to have human drama, humor and a dash of emotion and fails at all three. It’s not clever, it’s not funny and although it appears to be trying very hard, it’s just not a good show. Of course, with that said, it’s still better than a show it’s competing with for at least half of its weekly air time, ABC’s Cavemen. While Reaper is the most moronic new comedy, Cavemen is just the worst new comedy by a wide margin. How this show, in its attempt to stretch humor that wasn’t even enough to carry a 30-second TV ad for car insurance into a full half-hour comedy, is still on the air is astounding. It literally pains me to even watch a promo for this show if I’m watching ABC on another night and they mix in a spot for Cavemorons. Yeah, it’s really not a good night of television when the orca-fat contestants on NBC’s Biggest Loser provide the most compelling viewing on network TV. Thankfully, college basketball is getting going, so there’s actually something decent to watch most Tuesday nights….
- Roll one for me and smoke it to celebrate, Ricky Williams….oops, I forgot, you can't really do that anymore, can you? Williams, the pot-loving, herbal-medicine-practicing, mellow, Zen-meditating, on again, off again running back for the Miami Dolphins is back…..for now. After serving a one-year ban from the NFL that ended up being a little longer than a year, the Rick-ster is back, having been reinstated by the league. That means he can now return to the Dolphins, assuming they still want him. After his fourth drug suspension, Williams is clearly a risky proposition, because if he tests positive one more time, he’s going to be banned for life from the NFL. But the team has a two-week window in which to decide whether they want to add him to the active roster, meaning he could return to the field as early as Nov. 26 against Pittsburgh. Looing strictly at need, Miami could definitely use a back of Williams’ caliber. When healthy and not high, he’s an elite back, one capable of carrying the ball 25 times a game. The Dolphins’ feature back, Ronnie Brown, is out for the year with a torn ACL, so they could use the help a healthy Ricky Williams would provide. Even if the team doesn’t want him long-term, they could use the last six games of the season as a showcase for him and then try to trade him this off-season. If he screws up, tests positive and gets that lifetime ban, then you’re done with him anyhow, and even if you play him this season, you’re already 0-9 and headed for the worst record in the league, so you haven’t lost much by giving him a shot. Personally I’ve always been a fan of Williams because he’s a free spirit, he does his own thing and he’s just a different cat. I hope he can manage to stay away from weed for a while, though, so he can at least play a few years in the NFL. Then he can retire, take his earnings and go get baked on some beach in the middle of nowhere, grow long dreadlocks and play hackey sack all day long……
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