Politics and putts

See, I told you guys about Bill Self! He is evil incarnate with a toupee. He made fans of Kansas cry. He made people in Iowa happy. What can be more evil than that?

(I’ll be honest, I wasn’t even watching that game. Kim and I decided to watch several episodes of Hoarders, which made us both decide that we really, really need to clean out our closets. Seriously, if you need to get motivated to clean up your house watch that show.)

I’ve only caught bits of the Tiger Woods interview but here is the most interesting part of the transcript I saw. When asked why did he marry Elin he answered “I loved Elin with everything I have.” Look at the verb tense there. True, the question is about why did he get married, which is technically a past event, but nowhere in his extended answer does he say that he currently loves his wife. I’m someone who takes those little things very seriously.

Also interesting was how the networks handled it. Tiger offered a five minute interview. The Golf Network jumped at it, which is not surprising as otherwise they would have been forced to show the Best of Lee Cordova’s Putting Challenge. CBS turned it down because they felt that five minutes was not nearly enough time to do a true interview on the subject. ESPN jumped at it though and sent a B team reporter (basically someone not named Bob Ley). Here is what I find interesting. ESPN took the interview and not ABC. They’re the same company but they decided to treat it as sports instead of news. I still argue this is a news story. Tiger is a billion dollar brand, one of the biggest athletes on the planet and his actions will move stock prices. Yes this is a tawdry scandal but it is also news.

Then you had the health care bill passing. Now I’ve stated this before and I’ll state it again: I am for the idea of health care reform but feel that this is simply a bad bill that shouldn’t have been passed. It costs too much at a time when we simply do not have the money for it (we still haven’t funded the wars that we are fighting) and while the health care system is greatly flawed the main focus of the government for the past year plus should have been the economy. Even worse, this bill doesn’t put us on a slippery slope to universal health care it puts on a frictionless plane towards it. I’ve been in an emergency room in Britain. I really would not want a repeat of that experience.

That said, please keep this in mind when complaining about the bill. I’ve heard a few of these tossed out there in the blogosphere and it just makes the debate meaningless when there are so many concrete examples to discuss. The passage of the bill is not an example of tyranny as a collection of elected officials, who are up for reelection this year, passed it after a year’s worth of discussion. Its passage also doesn’t mean that the will of the people has been violated. We are talking about the House here, the government body that exists to best represent the will of the people. Again, if you disagree vote out your congressmen in November.

What the bill is, and this is a much better point for argument than words like tyranny, is an example of just horrible politics. This was a pure party line vote. All of the republicans voted no and 90% of the democrats voted yes. In reality, nothing is ever that clean cut along party lines. There were republicans who voted against the Iraq war and democrats who supported it. I cannot believe that, if given truth serum and placed in a dark room, that the votes would be the same. In the end you have politicians opposing or supporting the bill not because of their belief in it, or even what they feel is best for their district, but because of their desire to get reelected. On a bill as important as this that is just horrendous.

(For those wondering, my Delaware rep voted no and the rep in Chicago I kind of know is the only Illinois democrat to vote no.)

There are some good parts to the bill to be sure. I just don’t think it is the solution. I think it will turn into a beauracratic nightmare if ever really sees the light of day. The proof is in the pudding, though.

The five random CDs for the week:
1) Immaculate Machine “High on Jackson Hill”
2) Paul Burch “Last of My Kind”
3) Jimmy Buffett “Off to See the Lizard”
4) Wilco “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”
5) Freakwater “Old Paint”

Sports and gossip and the intermingling of the two

With the sounds of Bill Raferty waxing in the air (I swear if I was a coach I would start the game playing zone in any game of mine that he called) I’ll probably try to make a quick post of it tonight. Yes, I know that Notre Dame lost. Yes, I know that most of my picks were wrong. What is worse is that I couldn’t even watch the Notre Dame game until the end as we were getting Villanova almost losing to Robert Morris, a game in which we spent much of the time arguing what state Robert Morris was located in. I told you that I was scared to death of Old Dominion though and if I would have realized that it was a Thursday morning game I would have picked the upset. Those games are always upset specials.

Anyway, I figure that I will talk about the latest victim of the Oscar curse. Apparently it has become a tradition for the winner of Best Actress to have their marriage implode much like the career of the winner of Best New Artist at the Grammies to never be heard from again. Sandra Bullock joins the list of Halle Berry, Hillary Swank, Reese Witherspoon and Kate Winslet who have all gotten divorced following their Oscar win. In this case, Jesse James, the guy from Monster Garage who sits around and watches other people build stuff and then gives them tools after they’re done, was found to have cheated on Sandra with, well, let me try to explain this. It might be a little surprising that I don’t mind women having tattoos. If the art is good it can really be attractive. Well, Jesse was with someone who was covered with tattoos and they just weren’t very good. You have to question the judgment of someone who gives up on Sandra Bullock in the first place but with this one you want to check if he has enhaled to much exhaust over the years.

(Also, how the hell do you break up with Kate Winslet? She is simply one of the most incredible women on the planet. I still haven’t heard any details on that one but it simply doesn’t make much sense to me.)

We did also have the release of Tiger Woods’ text messages to his booty call today in which we learned just how stupid text messages read when they are not on a phone. We also learned the important lesson that text messages can be saved just in case anyone out there was wondering about that. At this point though, it really doesn’t matter for Tiger. It doesn’t surprise me that he is going to be back at the Masters. I know that some people are complaining that he is coming back too quickly but really, do you think he cares anymore if people view him as insensitive? It is not like his public persona can get any worse short of footage of him torturing kittens in his spare time becomes public. The Masters has the tightest control on the crowd and the press of any tournament so from an image management point of view it is the best place. He’s only missed two tournaments so far so it is not like he’s even missed much golf. It is a sad story still but a rather inevitable one.

That is it for tonight. I’ll go back to gorging on basketball.

Have some maple syrup with that defeat

USA! USA! USA! We beat the Canadians on the anniversary of the Miracle on Ice (or near it, I’m trusting Wikipedia for this information.) It’s nice to see us perform well in sports that were always Olympic sports as opposed to the ones that were created for Americans to win. Think about all of the sports that are in the games now that weren’t fifteen or twenty years ago. All of the snowboard events, the freestyle skiing, skeleton, short track speed skating, those are all new additions to the games. Makes you wonder just how Jim McKay filled the broadcast when a day may have consisted entirely of biathlon. Incredibly that coverage was a thousand times better than what we have now.

It’s been a rather quiet weekend for me. Sometimes there are weekends when you just want to take on the world and spend every possible moment maxing out your excitement meter. Other weekends all you want to do is fall asleep on your couch while waiting for your dryer to finish its latest batch of laundry. This was one of those weekends. I did laundry and cleaned and ran a few errands but for the most part my main accomplishment was repeatedly falling asleep on my couch during the afternoon. I guess that shows how sleep deprived I’ve been recently. I know that napping isn’t entirely the best thing for me but when my body yells stop I try to listen to it. That and my couch is really, really comfy.

Also, it warmed up enough that some of the snow has melted and I can actually see grass again. Haven’t seen that around here for a couple of weeks. I’ll be happy when winter ends and we get out of this snow cycle. I like snow, I really do, but at this time of year I tend to just get tired of winter and reach a point where all I want to do is go outside and be in the sun for a little while and not worry about if my ice scraper is going to last another storm.

I guess I will add in my thoughts on the whole Tiger Woods apology. Personally I was hoping for him to either a) deny everything and say that he has never cheated on his wife or b) fully own up to everything with what could only be described as a sense of arrogant pride. Not that I think that either of those choices would be the wisest; I just think that they would have been really, really funny. Instead we get a press conference that wasn’t a press conference in that there were no press there and no one could ask any questions. We had Tiger read a scripted statement, awkwardly hug his mom and that was it.

I’ll at least say that I feel that Tiger is sincere in his apology. He knows that he was wrong and hates what he has put Elin and his family through. In fact, the only times he became emotional was when he was talking about them: either in terms of the press hounding them or the allegations of spousal abuse. As for his own actions, and the overall reaction to them, he was calmly detached. Again, not that he doesn’t feel remorse but I think he truly views himself as two different personas. There is the private person who screwed up relationships and then there is Tiger Inc. the golfing and marketing machine. He wants the public to see Tiger Inc. and only Tiger Inc. while completely ignoring his private life.

The problem is he is too big of a celebrity for that. You can’t be a billion dollar brand and not have your personal actions be put on display. I understand his plea for privacy and his desire to put this behind him but it will not happen. It is too much of a story, too much of a mark on his personal brand, for that to happen.

The five random CDs for the week:
1) Kelly Hogan “Because It Feel Good”
2) Paul Burch “Fool for Love”
3) Cat Power “The Covers Record”
4) Charlie Parker “Charlie Parker Plays Standards”
5) Kelly Willis “Well Traveled Love”

Gary Gnu We Need You!

News stories that I have seen this week that make me question the very idea of news….

Story # 1: Critics complain about the actions of Sanjay Gupta and others in Haiti: This one drives me insane. The argument is this: Sanjay Gupta is hired by CNN to act as a reporter but by his actions to work in a hospital after Belgian doctors left due to security concerns he loses his credibility as a reporter by losing his objectivity. While he might lose some of that credibility what he gains by being an outstanding human being so outweighs it that this entire argument is ludicrous. This is not a reporter openly campaigning for a candidate on the air, which is happening much too regularly on both sides. This is someone reporting from a humanitarian crisis who when faced with a situation in which they can provide immediate aid vacates their reporting duties and performs heroic action. Anderson Cooper moving an injured child away from an angry mob is in a similar vein. The fact that anyone can criticize these sorts of actions by claiming that it is some sort of media bias really sickens me.

Story # 2: Cruise ships continue to dock in Haiti: This is one of those cases in which a good intention has gone terribly wrong. One of the major cruise lines (I forget which one and don’t want to blame one needlessly) regularly visits a Haitian port city that was relatively unaffected by the earthquake. They have decided to continue to stop there where they drop off needed supplies as well as have the passengers disembark and spend money, supporting the local economy. All of that is very well and good except for the fact that you therefore have tourists lounging around in hammocks enjoying drinks with colorful umbrellas while a hundred miles away over 100,000 people have died and the rest are homeless and would kill for a bottle of water. If you want to help support the local economy make a large donation to that city but don’t create a tourist trap in the middle of a catastrophe.

Story # 3: Massachusetts senatorial candidate calls Curt Schilling a Yankees fan: Sigh. For a moment there I was able to say that I was proud to be a supporter of the Democratic party. I mean, typically it is something that you say under your breath when in polite company but a year ago it was the cool thing to be. Now the party seems to be a spinning mess of disaster focused on a health care plan that does nothing other than increase the debt while making the health care system even less efficient than it already is. Even in the simplest of races the Democrats screw up. How could you lose the Kennedy’s seat? I can’t even blame the people who voted based on the Schilling comment. I wouldn’t vote for someone who had no idea who one of the most famous athletes in my state was. If you can’t read the sports pages how the hell are you going to be able to read a bill.

Story # 4: Tiger Woods is in a sex rehab clinic in Mississippi: I completely understand the sex rehab thing. After seeing the women he hooked up with and who he left in the process the guy seriously needs help. It’s the whole Mississippi thing that confuses me. I really don’t want to know what sex rehab entails in that state or what you would need to do to merit it. I assume farm animals are involved in both respects.

3rd Best Album of the Decade: Sufjan Stevens “Illinois” (2005): As I’ve mentioned a few times in this countdown one of the things that I have loved about this decade is that I have found a number of artists who have done things so differently that it changes the way I view music. Sufjan Stevens is one of those people. An album that consists solely of songs about the state of Illinois. Every instrument in the world being used. A song about John Wayne Gacy that makes your heart stop. It took me about three hours to listen to this album the first time because I kept hitting replay after every song because I just had to hear it again. Seriously, I have never in my life heard an album quite like this.

The Oughts: A look back in anger

On the comments from the last post, obviously I have heard the song “I Can See Clearly Now.” I think everyone has heard the song. The thing is if you asked me who sang it I would have drawn a complete blank and I think that would be true for most people. Now if you asked me who Jimmy Cliff is I would say things like “the father of reggae” and “the harder they come” and would support him in the hall. I just found it odd that I couldn’t make a connection between the man and his music.

On ABBA the point that Klosterman makes and that I did a poor job in summarizing is that ABBA is a genre unto themselves. In that you don’t say “Mamma Mia is filled with ABBA songs” you say “Mamma Mia is filled with ABBA Music.” There is a difference between the two. Yes, there are bands like Ace of Base that try to make the same point musically but they just aren’t the same. The best example Klosterman could give is the Grateful Dead where no matter how many jam bands you see they a) aren’t the Dead and b) really can’t match up to them no matter what they try.

Oh and if you want to get a sense of who will be inducted into the Hall twenty years from now just look at who Billboard has named the group of the decade: Nickelback. Yes, the band that gives douchebags a bad name. Brittney Spears was also named one of the top artists of the decade as were the Black Eyed Peas and Creed. It was a sad decade to be a music fan at least of albums that sold.

(That is not entirely true though. Next week I will do my albums of the decade and several match up with what Billboard and Paste have listed. They might not all be bestsellers but they are great listens.)

I’ll end with some more Best of the Decade notes as Tiger Woods was named athlete of the decade. His interactions with porn stars aside I’m pretty sure that this is a safe bet as the proper choice. He was the top golfer year in and year out for the entire decade and no one ever really challenged his position as the best. The other arguments that I have heard are for Roger Federer (amazing performance made slightly less so because no one watches tennis), Lance Armstrong (inspirational cyclist who may or may not be chemically enhanced) and Michael Phelps (though being the best swimmer may also be defined as being the best at avoiding drowning.) That would really be your top of the class. There is no Jordan equivalent this decade in terms of top athlete in a main sport who rewrote the entire nature of the sport. You can hate his personal life but Tiger was the best athlete of the decade.

Best videos of the decade: I know this is a video made up of movie clips but we really need to give a big shout out to O Brother Where Art Thou? It really did bring back an interest in old timey country music. True, the charts are still filled with Carrie Underwood songs but for a moment at least country music actually topped the country charts.

Hoth Leia costume not included

All I want for Christmas is a Millennium Falcon bed. And the Taunton sleeping bag. But more importantly the Millennium Falcon bed just so I could make the Kessel Run in under twelve parsecs. And yes, that does sound a little dirtier than it should.

Now that I am done with the bowl game preview (and yes, that did take a lot longer than I had originally anticipated) I can get back to everyone’s favorite topic: Tiger Woods. Oh stop groaning. I might as well write about this now because in about three days this is going to become a non-story until he plays golf again and then it will be a minor story and disappear.

We are nearing the end of this in terms of the news cycle. There is very little else we could find out that will change the way we view the situation. We have already been introduced to a gaggle of skanks and whether the final number is ten or a hundred we have reached the point where it doesn’t really matter. Tiger’s image as a perfect person has been irreparably damaged and his marriage has been shattered but all in all that is the end of the story.

As opposed to a lot of these stories there is no next step. There are no criminal charges pending as it is not a crime to be an adulterer or a tool or a prick. If there were any charges they would be on Elin due to domestic abuse, which is why Tiger is lying low. If he showed his face to the media giving the impression that Elin beat him with a golf club she would be facing serious jail time under Florida law. When politicians cheat there is the question of resignation but that isn’t applicable here. At the end of the day he is just a golfer who cheated on his wife. Except that he happens to be a billion dollar brand.

That is what is of most interest as we watch the fallout from his advertisers. Accenture has dropped him, which makes sense because duplicity and consulting are not two images you would like to mix. Gillette, Gatorade and Nike are all pulling back from using him in their advertisements but are not dropping him as a spokesperson, which is the absolute right thing to do. Because at the end of the day Tiger is going to rebound back into the good graces of society. This always happens, especially in sports.

Remember people paid to watch Mike Tyson, a convicted rapist, box. When the Lakers won the title last year they weren’t describing Kobe Bryant as “known adulterer and accused though acquitted rapist.” It didn’t even get mentioned. Sure that first year back Kobe was heckled but you would be amazed by how soon that ended. Tiger won’t even have that to face because you can’t heckle on a golf course. For some reason, the public is really forgiving of these things.

No he won’t be a hero to all anymore. The talk of him being a savior for sports and society is gone and lost forever. He won’t be the focus of as much ad time and it will be weird seeing him in a commercial that first time back. But he will be back because the only thing Americans love more than tearing down their heroes is watching them be reborn.

My kingdom for a coach

For those of you scoring at home, the Tiger Woods Skank-O-Meter is now up to 10 including our first porn star. I’m surprised that it has taken this long for someone from the, uh, “entertainment” industry to appear on the list. This does make it easier to cast the porn version of the story, though.

Also, for those people who are up in arms about the Tiger Wood sketch on Saturday Night Live you are missing the point. If you are going to complain, complain about the fact that given the best setup ever they still wrote an unfunny sketch. People are making a big deal that the sketch made life of spousal abuse (implying that Elin beat up Tiger, which is most likely true.) Ok, in a land of political correctness that is probably not a proper topic but since when is comedy supposed to be politically correct? The vengeful Swedish supermodel wrapping a golf club around his skull isn’t in bad taste; it is freaking hysterical.

What is striking me more now given the fact that Elin is being rumored to be moving out is that this all seems to have come as a complete surprise to her. I find it interesting in that I know that in some celebrity / athlete relationships that there is at least some degree of acceptance that cheating will occur. I in no way condone this but often it is the case. But on this one Tiger seemed to try to have his perfect marriage with everything else on the side and if that is the case I can’t say that I am sorry to see it all blow up in his face.

Random Thought of the Day: Why don’t we see any Gallagher specials anymore? Have we reached the point where destroying watermelons with a hammer is no longer funny? It is a sad day for society if that is the case.

I’ll end it tonight by speaking on some of the Notre Dame rumors. I’m still silently pulling for Bob Stoops though I doubt it will happen. I feel that in order to get a coach from a top program that coach will have to be a big enough prick to want to be able to have “rebuilt Notre Dame” on his resume for pride’s sake alone and Stoops seems to be a big enough douche to want that. Still don’t think it will happen. We might get Kelly from Cincy though I’ve watched that team the last two weeks and haven’t seen anything special yet. I’d rather get Harbaugh just because I like the guy.

Tate and Claussen are going pro and I can’t really blame either of them. After seeing Sam Bradford lose this entire year, and a few million, to injuries I can see why Claussen should get going while the going is good. The biggest knock on Tate’s game is his height and unless the new coach has some way of improving that I would test the draft as well.

Finally, on Weis’ comments on Pete Carroll. I mean, I don’t like the guy but I wouldn’t just toss allegations of him cheating on his wife out there. I mean, you should walk in his shoes first, which Charlie will be able to do once he wins a national championship and coaches a few Heisman winners.

Coming tomorrow: The bowl preview begins!!!

Frosty is Legendary

Ok, if this isn’t the most awesome thing you see all day then that means either a) you are having a really awesome day or b) you are Neil Patrick Harris. This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything, and I mean everything, is made better by the inclusion of Neil Patrick Harris.

Also, congrats to long time blog fave and vague acquaintance Neko Case on her two Grammy nominations today. Middle Cyclone was a killer album and she deserved the recognition for it. She gets added to a surprisingly decent sized list of people I’ve met who have gone on to some actual fame. Ok, not cover of US Weekly fame but at least famous enough to be nominated for shiny award statues.

I’m still following the Tiger Woods story if only to see what other reality stars are caught up in the mix. Oh what I would give for a way to get Tila Tequila involved in this. It would be the ultimate connection between my love of sports and my love of really bad reality shows. Anyway, the focus now is on the prenup agreement (see, always listen to Kanye) and what additional money may be headed Elin’s way. Apparently cheating sets up some sort of incentive bonus structure where simply not getting divorced will earn her tens of millions of dollars. So at this point she is being paid to be an actress, which actually ties to a point that I wanted to make.

Again people are still raising this issue as to whether this should be news or is it a private matter. I still point to the fact that Tiger is a billion dollar brand for being a man who can hit a small ball better than other people. Hitting a small ball does not equate to a billion dollars of income. That money is the cost of fame for the loss of privacy. Here is my example.

The cast of Friends each received roughly a million dollars an episode at one point. 6 friends times 25 episodes gives us $150 million dollars to do a job that isn’t technically that difficult. Yes, acting is challenging I know but I bet you could walk down the street in LA and find six other attractive people who would do the show for a thousand dollars a week and would not get incredibly fat over the course of a season like Matthew Perry. So here is my question, if I told you I was going to replace the cast of Friends with random actors who would work for a grand a week what would you contribute to the cause to keep the original cast?

At its peak, Friends averaged 25 million viewers a week. Every single one of those would need to donate $600 to keep the cast members on the air. The math just doesn’t add up. You can’t justify what you are paying the actors for what they are versus a cheaper equivalent. So what are you paying them for?

You’re paying them to deal with being famous. You are paying Matthew Perry to deal with the fact that pricks like me are going to spend a decade cracking jokes about him getting fat and having an issue with prescription meds. You are paying Courtney Cox to accept the fact that for some reason people will care about what clothes she is wearing to the mall. This fame and attention is all tied to the show. Since Friends has gone off the air have you seen any tabloid articles on Lisa Kudrow? Yes, Jennifer Aniston gets media play still but that is due to her former marriage to Brad Pitt. She is still caught up in Brad’s price of fame, made even worse because she isn’t getting anything for it.

When you become a celebrity you lose your privacy. It is part of the deal. That is what you are being paid for. I’m not saying that it is fair or even ethical but those are the rules of the game and you have to learn to live by them.

Tiger and the Tool Academy

People ask me all the time for relationship advice. I have one and only one rule. If you are going to cheat on your significant other do not do so with someone who has appeared on VH-1’s Tool Academy. If you have decided to hook up with someone who couldn’t even make the Rock of Love Bus then you have significant issues.

(Actually my only rule is don’t cheat. Ever.)

So in a story that I predicted days ago we finally get confirmation that Tiger Woods cheated on his Swedish model wife with various castoffs from reality shows. There are so many angles to this story that I am not sure I even know where to begin. I’m just going to hit on certain points as I see fit.

First off, did Tiger’s statement read a little stand offish to you? It was nice to see that he came forward regarding the allegations even though he never stated what those allegations were. Even more so, while he publically apologized to his family and his fans he stated that he felt that this was a private matter that did not require a public apology, which is a rather strange sentiment to take in a public apology. I have no doubt that his apology is sincere in the sense that he is admitting his wrongdoing. He just feels that it does not need to be in the court of public opinion.

This brings up the point about privacy and whether or not this should be a news story to which my response is: of course it is a news story. I know that people are viewing Tiger as a golfer and a celebrity and that marital infidelities do not warrant full media coverage. Except that Tiger is not a celebrity, he is a billion dollar brand. That is not hyperbole, Tiger is expected to be the first athlete to earn a billion dollars and it is not going to be from golf tournaments. It is from endorsements and sponsorships that all stem from the Tiger Woods image of excellence and perfection and a clean cut, family man image. This isn’t Fred Funk we are talking about, who no one would recognize on the street. This is one of the ten most famous people in the world. His entire life is fair game. That is what the money for endorsements is for. You are trading your privacy for cash.

(And for at least a little perspective, Phil Mickelson’s wife being diagnosed with breast cancer was also a news story. Not as much coverage of course but it shows a precedent for a private matter becoming public record.)

Tiger’s image is going to take a significant hit. It won’t ruin his advertising career (if Kobe Bryant can have a best selling jersey then I think Tiger can recover) but it will definitely make him much more human and maybe not in a good way. The stories just seem to remove the nice guy image. Having an affair when your wife is seven months pregnant just makes you a complete jerk and that is the nicest language one can use. I’m sure many people would have much more colorful sentiments to add. His voice mail cover up message to the Tool Academy alumni doesn’t help his cause either. It all just makes him look like a douche and a prick.

Why did he do it? I bet he just wanted to see if he can. I don’t think he cared about consequences at all. At some point when you have so much money, so much fame you begin to think that you live under a different set of rules. Sometimes you do things just because you can without thinking about the result. It happens all the time and when it does, well, someone ends up with half your stuff.

(Also, in the biggest story that got overlooked today Meredith Baxter announced that she is a lesbian. I have been awaiting Skippy’s response on the matter, or at a minimum a Tina Yothers sighting, but so far the blogosphere has been rather quiet. I don’t know if Meredith is happy or pissed as hell about the Tiger story. For years you are holding this secret and when you finally let it be known to the world who you truly are in two hours the story is forgotten because of a golfer. Just doesn’t seem fair, does it?

Oh, and we’re invading Afghanistan or something. It’s probably not important.)

Best Videos of the Decade: One of the nice things about living in the YouTube age is that killer videos no longer need to be million dollar spectacles. We have finally gotten past the age of the mini-movie especially now that Mr. Jackson is no longer with us. Now all you need to be popular is a video camera and a cute idea. Enter Ok Go, a band that is only known because they are quirky. Here is where simplicity and popularity meet.

Life's little annoyances

When you have the same commute every day little things take on a great deal of significance and annoyance. I had a great example of one of these today. I found myself behind a loaner Lexus on a two lane road. This isn’t too big of a deal, it’s nice to know that a dealership will still lend out loaner vehicles, but I noticed that the car had its window wipers on when it wasn’t raining. And continued to have the window wipers on for the entire fifteen minutes that I followed it.

You would not believe how much this upset me. It was even worse than when you follow someone with their turn signal on. Sure, that drives you up the wall but at least you understand how it could happen. We all have left a turn signal on only to notice twenty or thirty seconds later. It is easy to miss. But how the hell can you not notice that your windshield wipers are on? Even in an unfamiliar car it shouldn’t be that difficult to figure out how to turn them off. Given that it is a loaner car it is not as though it should be in bad condition. I just got more pissed off every time I looked through the windshield and saw those blades flip across. Made me wonder how they got their hands on a Lexus in the first place.

Anyway, so we fired Charlie Weis today. That means we won’t have him to kick around anymore, which is kind of a shame since he was a rather large target. My choice to fill his sweatshirt is Mark Mangino. I think we can all agree that our hope of having a talented, inspiring coach on the Notre Dame sideline is pretty much a pipe dream. Instead I think we should just focus on hiring fatter and fatter coaches until TLC dedicates a camera crew to the team to film their “800 pound coach” special. If anyone can explain to me what those shows on hyper-obese people have to do with learning I am all ears. All it teaches me to do is put down the sandwich.

Tiger Woods Update: He will not play in his own tournament and is likely out until the start of next year. Also, one of his friends has stated that he is in the market for a “Kobe special.” I’m guessing that he is going to go shopping at Jared’s. Because what is the 13 letter answer to “What does a guy do after hooking up with a skank in Australia who then brags about it to all of her friends in New York?”

It is interesting to see that other people are picking up on whether or not this should be a story or not. If this is indicative of an affair or spousal abuse does not at the moment impact whether he makes a 20 foot putt. But since Tiger Woods is a billion dollar brand built upon being a squeaky clean image this is a huge story. If John Mallinger had this happen to him it would not even have made the ESPN ticker. Who is John Mallinger? He was the 50th best golfer in the world last year bringing in $1.7 million. Tiger Woods is paid for being a celebrity that is what endorsement dollars are for. In return for those payments you lose the right to privacy. Yes, in a perfect world we would let Tiger sort this out on his own but we all want to see our heroes get dirty. It makes them human.

Tiger Woods: Threat or Menace?

Time for me to play my favorite pastime: Speculating on events that I know nothing about and in all reality have no impact on my day to day existence. Today’s topic: Tiger Woods.

Let’s start with what we can actually state as facts. On Wednesday the National Enquirer reported a rumor that Tiger Woods had known a 34 year old NYC woman who was not his wife in the biblical sense. Said woman is also well known for spending much of her time pursuing famous people and uh, looking vaguely plastic based on the pictures. (Seriously, she looks like someone who works the afternoon shift at a strip club.) At 2 in the morning on Thanksgiving night Tiger Woods ran his Escalade into a fire hydrant and a tree on his property resulting in a) his wife needing an eight iron to remove him from the car and b) a trip to the hospital for Tiger. Everything else is officially speculation at this point.

Now I will be breaking this down from various angles over the next couple of days as more information comes out. So far our theories are a) this was a simple car accident, b) he was caught cheating on his wife who responded by beating him up, running him out of the house and knocking the back window out of his car causing the accident or c) which is basically b except that he didn’t cheat on his wife. But right now I want to focus on two aspects of what makes this a story because in reality the entire event should be a non-story.

The reason this caught everyone’s attention is because the story broke as “Tiger Woods in car accident and is hospitalized in serious condition.” I mean, they went to John Saunders in the studio during my Illinois – Cincy game to make this known. This made everyone stop and wonder how badly was he injured or how this would impact his golf game. Those words “serious conditions” indicate to most people that while he wasn’t about to die there was a good chance that he was in surgery at the moment, which wasn’t the case at all. When the story broke he was already out of the hospital. If the story was “Tiger Woods in minor car accident, taken to the hospital for facial lacerations and released” no one would really care. If there really is a cover up at play in the background then Tiger should fire his PR person for making this sound much more serious than it actually is.

But this leads us into the other point, which is why do we care about this in the first place? Again, very few people are directly tied to Tiger Woods so his health and safety, while meaningful on a personal level, has no impact on day to day existence. Tiger falls into a rather interesting category though as he has been for around fifteen years now a constant in the media landscape. He is the pinnacle of his sport made even more of a spotlight as in it is a purely solo sport. The camera is always on him during a tournament. Watching the final round of the Masters is essentially like walking the course for four hours with Tiger. Even Jordan did not have that level of detail as there were always other stars on the court at the same time.

Adding to this are his endorsements, which have made him the first billion dollar athlete. The image has always been one of a clean cut, driven and determined athlete. The only flaws to him are that he is too much of a perfectionist but that is played off via his natural humor. He is the perfect pitchman, excellent in his field and on the screen with no baggage looming in the background. So even a minor accident becomes news and tie that with the possibility that our hero may be flawed and this becomes a feeding frenzy. There is nothing we like to do more as a culture than build up our idols and then tear them down when they fail us even if their failures have no impact on our lives.

I’ll keep an eye on the media circus this week. This story has some definite legs to it.

Best Videos of the Decade: For this last month of the year (ok, we aren’t into December yet but the Christmas season is in full swing so go with me) I will be taking some time to highlight some of the best music videos of the decade. Given that this has been the decade that marked the end of MTV as having anything to do with music this may be a little easier than one would think. There still were some excellent examples of art with first and foremost being the video for Johnny Cash’s “Hurt.” If this doesn’t give you chills you officially have no soul.



The five random CDs for the week:
1) The Blake Babies “God Bless the Blake Babies”
2) Keb Mo’ “Keb Mo’”
3) Guster “Lost and Gone Forever”
4) Old Crow Medicine Show “Big Iron World”
5) Pearl Jam “Ten”