Blog

EXCLUSIVE REPORT: The 10 NBA People Most Likely to…

Baseball is reeling from its latest performance enhancing drug (PED) scandal, but if there is a silver lining to it is that baseball gets to use Alex Rodriguez as a scapegoat and effectively try to punish him for his own failings as well as those of Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and everyone else they failed to catch because baseball was awesome when those guys were killing the ball.  Also, a bunch of people who cheat on their significant others, their taxes and are generally of mediocre character – AKA the American people – get to crucify Alex Rodriguez for a deluxe serving of schadenfreude.  But this seems useless on so many levels.  A-Rod is clearly not a great player anymore anyway and baseball is a sport no longer suited for our times – it is long, boring and thanks to a crackdown on PEDs, not exciting anymore, except when the latest fraud is exposed.  However, my favorite sport, basketball,  is at Jordan era-level popularity, so it should come as no shock that an unnamed NBA player has been linked to the Biogenesis clinic in Coral Gables, FL.  After racking my brain I have come up with 10 NBA people who are most likely to be the unnamed player.  Some of these names hurt me to put on the list; some delighted me, but this is it:

10. JJ Reddick – any guy with a contract with a woman to get an abortion is of suspect moral character.  Combine that with a Duke pedigree and you have a certified piece of sh*t.  As baseball taught us – it is not always the star who becomes great through PED usage, but rather the marginal player who secures his marginal place through drugs.  He also played for the Orlando Magic who had both Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu who were busted for PED.

 

9. Tony Parker – any guy who bangs his teammate’s wife is always on my list for bad stuff. Sure, he is not buff, but he is an Energizer bunny of energy and facing increasing pressure to carry the load for the Spurs.

 

8. Amar’e Stoudemire – constant injuries, a big contract to live up to and most likely Jewish relatives in Miami all give Amar’e a reason to go down to Coral Cables for some anti-aging medications.

7. Lebron James – The man plays in Miami, is a physical freak and is the greatest athlete on the planet not named Usain Bolt.  As much as it pains me to have him on the list he has to be considered a suspect.  However, even if he is linked to the clinic he may very well have been picking up anti-aging materials for his long lost father Greg Oden, who recently joined the Heat as part of a Father-Son program.

 

6. Serge Ibaka – look at the picture.  No further discussion.

 

5. Derek Fisher – a man who duped two cities so he could join championship contenders cannot be trusted.  Plus he is old.  Plus an ex girlfriend of mine once referred to him simply as “arms.”

 

4. Dwyane Wade – plays in Miami like Lebron, but a friend of mine whose cousin is a starting small forward in the NBA told me that Wade was an HGH user.  Gave his wife an STD.  The only reason he is not higher on the list or #1 is because of the incredible cases to be made for the top 3.

3. Dwight Howard – the greatest shoulders in the NBA may be fake.  Dwight is sort of a petulant bitch, vain (wanted to be a Hollywood star more than the Lakers center) and, like Reddick, was a member of the PED tainted Orlando Magic.

 

2. Kobe Bryant – the Mamba. Played some of his best basketball in his 17th season, has offered A-Rod advice in the past, goes to Germany for magical knee treatments in the off season and is saying he may be ready many months ahead of schedule from an achilles tear.  The only thing Kobe is missing is a Dominican cousin carrying his luggage to be guilty of PED usage.  But like many things about Kobe, he cannot surpass his master.

 

1. Michael Jordan – He is 50 years old, bitter and angry about his failings as a GM and is always fueling rumors that he could still play in the NBA at 50.  MJ would take PEDs to win a shooting drill against players on his Charlotte franchise and he would never let Kobe be more famous or successful than him, even if it was for a sports scandal.

 

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!  This week’s episode is all BREAKING BAD so subscribe or follow today.

Blog

A-Rod vs. Wolverine: PEDs, America’s Children and the Specter…

Several years ago, during one of our bi-annual, soul-searching discussions of performance enhancing drugs in baseball and their influence on children I wrote this blog about the obvious usage of performance enhancing drugs among hip hop stars.  Around a year later, big revelations abounded about hip hop stars using substances that were banned among professional athletes.  Of course one friend of mine commented on my small bit of muckraking blogging, but no one else noticed (or cared, or remembered, take your pick).  But now, amidst another attempt of baseball to purge itself of the scourge of PED, baseball is going after big names like former NL MVP Ryan Braun and Alex Rodriguez (I assume at this point Bud Selig will attempt to crucify Alex Rodriguez or burn him at the stake – like or hate A-Rod but baseball is probably sad they never got Barry Bonds and now they want A-Rod to pay for both his and Bonds’ sins.  He is an easy target of derision, but that still does not justify a potential lifetime ban from the sport).  What baseball fails to realize is that this sport is dying.  It represents all the things that are either wrong with our culture or stands in opposition to more popular trends.

Teams like the NY Yankees and Los Angeles Angels represent financial recklessness without consequences as they continue to barely compete with absurd payrolls presenting a joyless experience to all but their most hardened fans, while increasing an already cynical view of the sport amongst many smaller market teams (A/K/A the small businesses that both politicians and MLB pretend to care about).  Also, the sport is long and tedious in a culture that has shorter attention spans and increasingly enjoys the instant force and gratification of MMA and NFL.

But yet we keep pursuing “cheats” in baseball, as if it will correct the impurities of the past, like 1998 or 2003 when people actually cared about baseball.  Why?  Because the players were on all sorts of drugs which made a boring sport exciting.  The best Summer of baseball in my lifetime is still the McGwire-Sosa chase in 1998.  Nothing else has compared since.  But the argument has always been about kids.  Like if teens find out their favorite athlete got big and successful from PED then they will take them too and potentially harm themselves.  The problem with this is that baseball is not as popular as it once was.  Instead, if you want to worry about kids and PED, perhaps policing Hollywood and bringing guys like The Rock and Hugh Jackman in front of Congress would be better.

 

Anyone who has seen a recent The Rock movie or especially Jackman’s homage to veins, The Wolverine, knows that these guys, both in their forties (which Science has always said is when men peak athletically and physically, right?), are not just eating raw eggs and steak.  In fact in interviews, Jackman credits The Rock  for his diet and exercise plan, maybe making The Rock the Jose Canseco to Jackman’s McGwire (calories – check, exercise – check, syringe and creams – check).  The point of this is that these guys, just like hip hop stars, are selling their bodies as engines of wealth and fame and sex and yet they are not subject to the scrutiny of athletes, who at least are actually using their bodies for actual healthy activity and achievement, not just the impression of it.  And now, more than ever, in the midst of a vain, superficial and nerd-obsessed culture with more Comic-Con attendees and theater arts majors than ever before, we owe it to our society to stop guys like The Rock and Hugh Jackman from endangering our youth and our society.  Here are just a few of the potentially devastating effects on our youth and culture from their example, all of which far exceed the influence of modern baseball players:

1) Nerds have taken over.  Do we really want buff nerds?  Imagine if that kid that cannot stop seriously debating comic books and dungeons and dragons could bench press 400 lbs.  He never had the stomach for heavy bouts of exercise and could not choke down protein shakes because of his lactose intolerance, but now thanks to Wolverine he can do it!

2) Kids do not want to be baseball players. They want to major in dramatic arts and go to Comic Cons.  Perhaps 15 years ago sports were the main form of youth entertainment, but now kids dress up for movies, go to conventions and major in theater (even if they like comic book science they would rather pretend to be a comic book character that knows science than actually major in a Science).  So now, any theater geek not doing PEDs to fit in or stand out within the gay community will be roiding it up just for a chance to be in the next action movie.

3) Seriously, just Google some recent images of Hugh Jackman and The Rock, then Google “Sammy Sosa – new skin”.  Apparently if you do the stuff that Hugh Jackman does, your veins will be nominated for Golden Globes. You do that ancient stuff baseball players do you turn into a Wayans Brother in White Girls.

So unlike baseball PED scandals, which only had the potential to endanger some youth, the Hollywood PED usage has the chance to make life worse for all Americans.  Save our children and save us from the nerds.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!

Blog

Top 10 Teams Likely to Frame Players for Murder

The Aaron Hernandez saga has gripped the sports world and has almost made some people realize that, even if Lebron James is still the worst human being alive for leaving Cleveland, there are other athletes who are almost as bad.  Aaron “Not one murder, not two murders, not three murders…” Hernandez has raised the football player/murderer game to a whole new level.  Rae Carruth and Ray Lewis were merely Magic and Bird to Hernandez’ Jordan (for this analogy OJ will be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar).  As the stories and details roll in, let us not forget that the Patriots cut Aaron Hernandez, which I am sure sent shock waves through the fantasy football community.  This got me thinking, what other teams might see the murder-charge-as-way-to-cut-player way out of some bad situations?  So here are my (relatively East Coast centric, I don’t know much about hockey contracts, etc.) top ten teams likely to frame a player for murder list.  Enjoy!

1. NY Yankees – A-Rod.  At this point the Yankee fan base and organization has turned on him so hard that they would be willing to believe this.  Plus his contract might come up in the 2016 Presidential Election ahead of social security in terms of saddling the nation with long term debt.  Good news is Yankee Stadium is just a few blocks from my old stomping ground – the Bronx Criminal Court (or the Bronx Hall of Justice as it is actually called-  not sure which 9 year old or NYC comic book-loving comedian won the naming rights).

2. NY Knicks – Amar’e Stoudemire.  His contract sucks. His knees suck.  And he is a nice guy which means Carmelo Anthony is constantly fearful that teammates will pass him the ball for shots.  Those three factors make Amar’e a prime candidate for set-up.  Now his recently discovered Jewish roots might get him a family discount on some top notch legal defense work, but by the end of a trial he might be in a wheelchair anyway.

3. Cleveland Cavaliers – Delonte West.  Watching Lebron James win a second title reminds the Cavs of 2010 when Lebron magically forgot how to play basketball.  The big rumor was that Delonte West banged Lebron’s mother.  So instead of blaming “The Decision” blame “The Ejaculation.” Besides, as a tattooed, shotgun-wielding, bi-polar pro athlete, Delonte West makes the perfect target.  Hell, if you prove he is mentally retarded and in Texas or in Georgia they might execute him!

4. Boston Bruins -Tuukka Rask and Zdeno Chara .  A disappointing Finals for Chara and a crushing 17 seconds by Rask make these two the Bill Buckners of their time.  So expect a murder of Chara to be pinned on Rask or they may just go the murder -suicide route.  Rask, disappointed by Chara’s defense offs Chara, but then feels guilty and offs himself.

5. Dallas Cowboys – Tony Romo.  Secretly Jerry Jones knows he messed up putting so much faith in Romo, but he cannot admit failure.  Instead, pin a murder on him and cut him right away. Simple.  Save face (not literally – all the plastic surgery has ruined that for Jones) and get rid of Romo at the same time.

6. Los Angeles Angels – Josh Hamilton.  I’m thinking a vehicular manslaughter (try to get Hamilton behind the wheel and claim a relapse to substance abuse) or you just throw a criminally negligent homicide at him next time he throws a ball to a fan who dives for it and dies.  Otherwise Rangers will be stuck with his horrible contract and the next A-Rod.

7. Phoenix Mercury – Britney Griner.  Forbes lists a WNBA franchise as slightly less valuable than a Subway franchise, but assuming the Mercury have insurance on Griner, pinning a murder charge on her might trigger a provision that yields far better financial results than a giving a bunch of day camps free tickets to WNBA games.

8. NY Mets – Jason Bay. Sure he is off the team, but the Mets are a sad franchise and probably still harbor ill will against Bay who stunk up Queens.  Besides Bay is Canadian I believe so maybe you can mix in some enemy combatant charges along with a murder charge and just know that he will disappear forever.

9.  Brooklyn Nets – Joe Johnson.  With a Russian owner I would simply call this move Eastern Conference Promises.  Nets Owner, Mikhail Prokhorov, knows where the bodies are buried and to free up cap space to get the Nets into a top 3 seed to challenge Miami he will need to pin one of those bodies on Joe Johnson.

10. Charlotte Bobcats – Entire Team.  Michael Jordan is the meanest man in sports and probably looks at Aaron Hernandez’s growing body count the way he watches Lebron collect Finals trophies: “Nice start, but not close.”  So with a horrible team what is stopping Jordan from pulling a move out of Unbreakable and sending the whole team plane down.  “They used to call me Air Jordan…”

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!

Blog

Movie of the Week Part 2: Bad Teacher

Bad Teacher is like an almost really good comedy that didn’t put in all the work to be really good.  As the title suggest, perhaps by accident, the movie is about 50% School of Rock and 50% Bad Santa.  It is largely enjoyable, but never feels much better than decent.

 

There is some great news about the movie though, at least for Alex Rodriguez.  There had been rumors that he and Bad Teacher star Cameron Diaz were breaking up, but they have actually been home shopping together.  My guess is that A-Rod, who is a star-fu*ker because deep down I think he wishes he was a Hollywood actress, realized that Diaz is likely to be nominated for a Golden Globe for this role and he could at least hold on until February for a chance to walk down an A-list red carpet.

Diaz is very funny, channelling her inner-Billy Bob Thornton and Jason Segel is good at doing his cool loser routine, but Justin Timberlake was not up to what could have been a funnier character.  Besides shouldn’t he record another album already?  Future Sex/Love Sound was damn good.

The plot, if you have not seen the previews, is about a teacher, whose engagement falls apart when her spouse-to-be realizes she is a gold digger and is forced to return to teaching.  Because she hates teaching she makes it her goal to bed the new substitute teacher (Timberlake), who is independently wealthy.  But to do that she feels she needs breast implants.  Various financial, incentive-based opportunities present themselves to our educating anti-hero and hilarity ensues.

The movie was only 90 minutes, but it actually felt longer than that (not Apatow long, but still a little too long).  Like many comedies, even decent ones, the movie is long on jokes, but short on a satisfying, somewhat realistic conclusion.  Movies like this feel more like expanded sitcoms, where you laugh along the way, but the conclusion wraps up far more tidy than any form of reality would allow.   But it is a comedy so it mainly accomplishes its goal, but more by making me smile a lot rather than laugh a lot.  For only $6 I am happy I saw it, but I don’t think it is worth much more than that.

Grade: B-

Blog

Are Black Men The New White Girls?

For every sports fan or fan of athletic black men, for whatever reason, the LeBron James Reality Show is set to end tomorrow night when he announces on ESPN at 9pm where he will play next year.  I’m just surprised he did not select the Bravo Network to make his announcement.

Thanks to magazines like Maxim, men began slowly creeping into women’s dominion over fashion, grooming and sexual insecurity over a decade ago.  In the interest of full disclosure I occasionally get manicures and do tear up at the movie Dead Poets’ Society, but it is starting to feel like there are no differences between women and men.  I think in work and other areas where equality is needed that is great, but in general society I think it is important to have differences and embrace and enjoy them.  But thanks to LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and the impressively annoying Chris Bosh, the differences have been obliterated.  LeBron, Wade and Bosh are supposed to be alpha males and caricatures of male virility as elite professional athletes; so why have they become The Real Housewives of Miami?

First let’s start with Bosh.  Has a man ever sent more mixed messages?  His hair and imposing presence make me think he is hunting Arnold Schwarzenegger in a jungle, but his Tweets make me think he is one Cosmo from tweeting, “Miami is totes fab, having a quick vacay before heading to training camp with the ladies!”  Thank you Twitter for taking the position made famous by Kevin McHale, Karl Malone and Kevin Garnett and turning it into something Joel McHale can discuss on The Soup!  And if you think this is overblown, Bosh does have a documentary crew following him around.  I guess so future generations can actually witness the moment when a guy who looked like Predator became Bethany Frankel (even that I know who Bethany Frankel is is a personal crisis for me).  And all this for a player who has no business being considered a top 3 free agent.

Then there is Dwyane Wade, who has the man street cred of having given a woman VD (not his ex-wife), but who also has a documentary crew following him.  Seriously is Oxygen or Bravo going to pick this up?  This has been like a bizarre romance between D-Wade and Bosh.  I can see them doing Real World confessionals with Wade saying, “If Chris wants me he can come to me,” and Bosh tearing up, “I just want him to want me.”  Oh wait, they may have already done that in their respective documentaries.

Then there is LeBron.  The alpha male of alpha males.  He is announcing his decision tomorrow night on ESPN.  I’m pretty sure that gay guy that does the Housewives reunion shows will be hosting it.  Where is Simon Cowell to call this “incredibly self-indulgent?”  Even Alex Rodriguez had a standard press conference when he came to the Yankees (Derek Jeter probably required it) and that guy is a cologne ad and a Men’s Health cover all in one (as in Metrosexual to the point of occasional exploration).  And A-Rod fu*ked Bethany Frankel, he did not become her.  But LeBron (and the media circus which have been willing co-conspirators) have turned this into drama that only reality show dregs can match.

And what reality show would be complete without tears and tomorrow night I expect them to be flowing from LeBron.  He can stay in Cleveland, which is his home, where he is the favorite son or he can go to one of the bigger glamorous cities.  Wait, wasn’t that the “plot” of The Hills?  See, I hate these shows and yet I am so inundated with the crap that I think I know what they are.  But I never expected the NBA to be this.  Now I may have to watch the WNBA for a more masculine version of the NBA, albeit, one with lots of layups.

But LeBron’s other options are New York, Chicago and Miami, all great cities.  If he goes to Miami I hear that Natasha Bedingfield has been commissioned to write a theme song.

I hope he stays in Cleveland because I don’t think those other cities deserve him or will genuinely appreciate him the way that Cleveland will.  But this process has already done it’s damage.  Not just because it has turned NBA stars into trite starlets, but because it has forced me to further respect a player I do not particularly like: Kobe Bryant.  Hey, at least he’s still a man.  And if LeBron leaves Cleveland to form the Spice Girls in Miami I will do something I have never done – I’ll be rooting for Kobe in the Finals.

Blog

Good Week vs Bad Week

Last week started out terribly with the sweeping of the Utah Jazz at the hands of the Los Angeles Lakers.  If you missed it I tweeted incessantly, which just compounded my sadness (but I still feel I am less sad than the people who tweet about the weather, their meals, and other mundane things – namely a majority of people on Facebook and Twitter).  But that was just the beginning of the week.  I then had to cancel my show Always Be Funny that Thursday because we had 6 comics, 1 bartender and three people sitting at the bar, two of which were openly against the show and one who is a regular at the bar and is usually a decent audience member, except the time she heckled Jon Fisch.

This would not have been so bad if the show I was scheduled to be on earlier that evening was not also cancelled.

So feeling like The Nothing from The Neverending Story, as shows were destroyed in my path, I took Friday off from comedy to go to the Bronx DA’s Office for my former bureau’s annual Yankee Game party.  It was a good event, especially since A-Rod hit a Grand Slam to put the Yankees ahead in the game late (let’s look at the two live sporting events I have attended this year – the game of the year so far in the NBA in Utah and a clutch grand slam from A-Rod against the Twins – it is as if God is telling me that I should quit comedy and just go to sporting events professionally).

Well, it was time to get back to the grind of comedy on Saturday – I had a show at O’Hanlon’s on 14th and 1st, which I learned upon arriving, was… you guessed it – cancelled!  Fortunately I was able to observe 4 white guys threatening to beat up a black guy so that was entertaining.  The four white guys looked like they might have been firefighters – not the heroes that women want to have sex with of course. No, these guys looked more like the crew-cut, Irish, raised in effectively all-white neighborhoods, voting Republican their whole lives, racist type of civil servants.  Those guys, not the heroes.  Now I have to allow for the possibility that they weren’t, but they looked the part anyway.  The black guy was a black Israelite, who are known for their congeniality and open mindedness, but this guys was quadruple teamed and they were throwing his property in the middle of the street, hitting cars and cyclists while doing it.  So I did what any former DA would do – I called the police.  I offered a very detailed description, but I made two mistakes – one – i Said I did not see a weapon.  Two – I said it was four white males attacking a black man (I was not dumb enough to say he was a black Israelite).  I waited 20 minutes, which the four Klansmen did as well, but the police never showed up.

A more effective call on my part might have been:

“Yes, I see four black men attacking a white woman!”

“Do they have weapons?”

“Yes, if you consider their large, angry black cocks weapons!  Hurry quick!”

I think the police would have been there quicker.

So that was the end of my bad week.  But with Sunday comes renewed optimism.

First I was shooting my new video.  The story is about black guy wants to date a daughter of a rabid Tea Party member and the agency that helps acclimate Tea Party members to ethnic boyfriends.  Of course, it started out poorly because one of the actors backed out at 10:07 am via text for an 11 am call time because he had to wait for furniture for his move with his girlfriend.  Sounds like a valid excuse, assuming people  move on 30 minutes notice and lack a nervous system.  So after setting a new volume record for how loudly I could yell fu*k, comedian Matt Maragno came to the rescue at the last minute and delivered laughs.  The shoot went well and it looked like the week was off to a great start.

It got even better when I got an offer yesterday to open for Jo Koy in Cleveland starting this Thursday and running through Sunday.  That means big crowds and payment of money for my jokes.  Of course, without eating for the 4 days I will only net a little over $100 for my efforts.

Tomorrow night I am making my tape for college submissions and I am confident that will go well.

So, in sum a bad week in my comedy life is witnessing a hate crime and going 3 for 3 in having shows get cancelled.  A good week, by contrast, is doing a YouTube video, netting $100 for half a week’s work and doing a bringer so I can one day entertain college kids, with diminishing social skills and emotional connections.  Like I have told friends – if you have a choice between your son or daughter being in gay snuff films or being a comedian, go with the snuff.

Sunday will be the start of a new week, but it begins with the season finale of Lost (a show that proves that like Dane Cook comedy, as long as you have a premise with no logical conclusion you can actually make millions, even if everything following the premise ranges between nonsense and stupidity) so I am not too confident in the prospects for a good week.

Blog

Some Thoughts & Questions on Derek Jeter’s Wedding

Since I have nothing substantive or critical to say today (to quote Curly from City Slickers, “Day ain’t over yet.”) I began the day ruminating on the announced nuptials of Derek Jeter and Minka Kelly (formerly of Friday Night Lights, now will be know as “wife of Derek Jeter”).

First question, is A Rod going to be invited?  And will he attempt to either interrupt the vows, the first dance or give an unrequested toast?  Or will A Rod, a la the 1985 HBO daytime classic Just One Of The Guys, reveal before the wedding that he is a woman and is in love with Jeter, prompting Jeter to cry out,”Where the hell do you come off having tits?”

Second, is Tim Riggins going to show up to the wedding drunk?

Third, along the Friday Night Lights theme again, are the going t have W. G. Snuffy Walden do  the music for the wedding?  He has penned the scores to Friday Night Lights and the West Wing and he has a funny name so I thought it would be cool.

Fourth, I assume Jeter has undergone significant STD testing.  If only for the bacteria carried by Rachel Uchitel.  Don’t want to write out Lyla Garrrity because she has gonnorhea (write her out because she is annoying, but not because of sexually transmitted diseases).

Fifth will they finally stop showing Jeter’s parents on television during games like he is some bright eyed 19 year old new to the city and start showing the roster of all the metaphorical soil he has tilled since coming to NYC?

Sixth, does this also mean that Jeter can no longer be our society’s new standard for moral leadership since he banged hundreds of women while not being married (seriously this is the bar we’ve been left with)?  Now that he is married I assume the Tiger watch will be on and the TMZ mentality of our culture will be waiting to see him slip up.  Which will once again leave Obama as my girlfriend’s only reassurance that half black dudes can be trusted in relationships.

Seventh, does Joe Torre sit with the Steinbrenners at the wedding?  Awkward.

Eighth – title for Minka Kelly’s memoir -“Right Place, Right Time: How To Marry A Millionaire Athlete  When You Look Pretty And His Dick Is Tired Of Fu-king Everyone.”  The foreword could be written by Khloe Kardashian’s ass.

Good luck Derek and Minka, in all seriousness I am pretty confident you will make it.*

*Make it = 5 years of marriage.

Blog

Sports Tragedies

This week I was treated to not one, but two great cinematic experiences.  Up, the new film from Pixar, is incredibly touching and fun and, in my opinion, is only second to Finding Nemo in the Pixar universe.  I then, bolstered with confidence form strong reviews, went to see Drag Me To Hell, which like Crank 2, is a deceptively, but completely intentionally funny film, while at the same time delivering creepy and scary moments.  But apparently the entertainment gods believed me greedy because what the Movie Lord giveth, the Sports Lord taketh away.

First was the elimination of the Denver Nuggets Saturday.  I need to give the devil his due.  Kobe is immensely talented and clutch and he demonstrated both characteristics during the Denver series.   However, I cannot ever be a fan.  He and the Lakers are like Alex Rodriguez and the Yankees are in baseball – an obssessively and obviously media-savvy star on an unlikeable franchise.  The talent is great, but it is overshadowed, to anyone who is not a fan, by the need to look and act the part of the star.  And the way Kobe speaks sounds like he bought the Rosetta Stone “Michael Jordan” immersion program because his speech, along with his fadeaway jumpshot, have become more and more Jordan-esque as his career has gone on.   Kobe is the most Jordan-esque player since Jordan, which is one of the non-rape reasons why some people don’t like Kobe.  Dwayne Wade has adopted a more quiet persona that seems unique to him, while LeBron has been the more engaging superstar, Magic-esque, but clearly free of plagiarism of Magic.  Kobe seems to have attempted a re-make of Jordan, and like someone who dares re-make a classic (think Sheryl Crow doing Sweet Child O’ Mine for the Big Daddy soundtrack) it ends up being less likeable than it might have been if it was at least original.  So now I am forced to root for the Orlando Magic.   I actually think the Magic can win, but would not bet on it.  Here’s my matchup breakdown:

  1. Battle of Superstars – Kobe vs. Dwight.  Dwight Howard has proven to be unstoppable in these playoffs, due almost entirely because of his size 72 shoulders and sick vertical leap, because he still does not seem to have a discernible vertical leap.  Kobe has been better.  Edge – Kobe
  2. Eurotrash matchup – Hedo Turkoglu vs. Pau Gasol and Sasha Vujacic.  Because Pau will be marginalized by Dwight Howard and because Vujacic sucks the edge goes to Hedo “I push off every single time I dribble” Turkoglu.
  3. Tall, underachieving black guys who randomly show up and disappear: Lamar Odom vs. Rashard Lewis.  Odom tends to disappear like a pit bull at Michael Vick’s house.  Rashard Lewis can do the same thing, but has been playing with more and more confidence.  However, in his first trip to the finals I expect to see him piss down his leg at least once.  Edge – Odom.
  4. Coaches: Lurch versus Ron Jeremy.  Phil Jackson is “the Zen master,” which is enough of a reason to root against him, but Stan Van Gundy was screwed out of a title by Pat Riley and Shaq, but has still managed to come back with a vengeance with a new team, all while looking like a less athletic Ron Jeremy.  So in this one I have to give the edge to Stan.

So it looks like a draw, which means if the Lakers win I believe it will be because of a great effort by Kobe and I will have to acknowledge that.  But hopefully the Magic win.

But as if the Lakers win was not enough of a reason to step in front of a bus, Rafa Nadal lost yesterday in tennis.  Nadal-Federer has become my 2nd favorite sporting event after a Utah Jazz hoops game.  Mainly because I watch their matches in awe and I probably change who I am rooting for 3 or 4 times during the match.  Insult to injury for Nadal: the French were cheering on the challenger during the match which seemed a little doucheconsidering Nadal is one of the two greatest champions they’ve ever had.   I think I just heard Nadal order some Freedom Fries.

Well this week I have two more movies to consider and two NBA finals games.  The Hangover (sneak preview tonight), which along with Transformers 2 is my most anticipated film of the Summer, and Land of The Lost, which looks potentially funny, but also potentially awful.  Looks like odds are that The Finals will be 1-1 headed to Orlando by the end of this week.

Blog

Weekend Recommendations

It’s been a slow week for me writing, but I have some recommendations for you this weekend:

Read A-Rod.  It’s a 2 day read and very entertaining.  Tall, tan, attention-craving, insecure, talented and an attraction to older women.  Replace strippers with movies, steroids with donuts and baseball with comedy and you have as close to an unauthorized biography of my life as may ever be printed.  Sports and gossip fans will enjoy the book and hopefully feel bad for the both of us after reading it.  But probably not.

Watch Star Trek.  This is not a great movie, but it is a really good Summer movie (fun, sexual suggestiveness, explosions).  It updates the franchise and makes it fun while not being disrespectful or spoofing the original.  Furthermore it features Tyler Perry, which for racists and/or people with a modicum of artistic sense will mark their first experience seeing a Tyler Perry movie.  So let me be the first to re-name the movie Tyler Perry’s Star Trek.

Magooby’s.  If you are in Baltimore or nearby come see me feature this weekend at Magooby’s Joke House.   9 pm tonight, 8 and 1015 tomorrow night.   The Yankees are also in Baltimore this weekend for A-rod’s first game of the season.  Coincidence?   Well, if we end up at the same swingers club tonight I will be pissed.

You are welcome for a fun weekend in advance.

Blog

Wolverine and A-Rod Must Pull a “McGreevey” To Save…

In case gay men were still fuming (flaming?) over Proposition 8 in California they were just dealt two more blows (can the unintentional gay puns ever stop?) in the form of Wolverine and Alex Rodriguez’s latest scandals.

Although I have already blasted it on Facebook – if you can help it do not go see Wolverine.  I am more guilty than most with going to see blockbusters.  After Batman Forever I swore that I would not see another Batman (the new franchise does not count), but there I was a couple of years later watching Batman and Robin, one of the 10 worst films I have ever seen.

Well last night, since I did not have to be up until 4 pm today for work, I went to see a midnight show of Wolverine.  This is a really really bad movie.  So many cliche moments (did he really just scream up at the sky at the death of someone?, is he really walking with CGI fire behind him? – what a badass!), such bad acting and writing have not been crammed into one film since Sophia Coppola starred in a re-make of Castaway (not true, but wanted to show how easy it is to write Family Guy-style jokes).  Now Hugh Jackman shows up jacked as ever (I question the legality of his training methods at this point), but this steroided up Rupert Everett is not enough to carry the movie beyond a rating or “piece of crap,” which is the only rating before “a Paul Blart.”

And faster than you can say gay man on steroids, here comes repressed Alex Rodriguez back into the news, with more revelations about his “doth protest too much” womanizing and his playing the Matt Damon to Derek Jeter’s Jude law in his baseball version of The Talented Mr. Ripley (does that make Joba Chamberlain the Phillip Seymour Hoffman of the Yankees?).  I have defended A-Rod, not because I think his womanizing or cheating or annoyingly overdone PR image are good, but because I am starting to think this guy is really repressing something.  I mean the guy is a pretty, tan, well-groomed Latin guy from South Beach with a taste for muscular pop singers – I am not sure if Perez Hilton is that gay?  Throw in his alleged obsession with Derek Jeter and his alleged cheesy pick up lines and you might as well not as look at his iPod because I am sure Freedom by George Michael is playing on repeat.

So I have the same advice for both Hugh Jackman and Alex Rodriguez to stem the criticism for atrocious behavior (making a bad movie, cheating on everything, respectively).  Pull a McGreevey.  This move, named after former New jersey governor and truck stop enthusiast Jim McGreevey, is when you make a shocking announcement about your sexuality to distract from terrible professional activities.

So my solution for them is that they both should come out and announce that they are gay Americans in the next week.  Sure, Hugh Jackman is not American, he’s Australian, but no one will be listening after he says gay.  And A-Rod could spice it up (Latin pun) and say he is a gay Latino-American thus adding an extra layer of minority protection to his announcement.  I think this is the only thing that can save their respective credibility.  My guess is that the entire cast of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek will have to announce that they are a gay star fleet next week.