1st and Ten: The Weekly Tendown: Dec 27 2009-Jan 2 2010

Hi.

This is Issue 8 of the Weekly Tendown, my weekly wrapup of all the best cultural achievements from the past 7 days.  Last Week, I talked about Dwight Clark, the war on Christmas, John Peter Zenger and the Bad Girls Club.  What....what do you suppose we'll cover this week?

First:  Helicopter Dads and the Hot/Crazy Scale.

The year ended with two great sports stories - Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittendon apparently pulled guns on each other in the Washington Wizards locker room; which is a great old-school NBA move.  Somewhere, Quintin Dailey is complaining that there was no tmzsports when he was in the league, "There was this one time that me and Ennis Whatley pulled a train on this bartender from Princess Cruises.  Dude didn't know what hit him."  That's the thing about the new media trafficking in sports gossip; for years, we used to say "How could Babe Ruth (for example) play now?"  Hard to spend as much hooker time as the Babe did in full view of the writers and still be framed in heroic terms.  But what the Tiger Woods coverage forces us to ask is "How could Michael Jordan (for example) play now?"  Tiger didn't invent big league philandering; the best thing that ever happened to #23 is he had Bonds/Woods to take all the juice/strange flak.  If Jordan were two decades younger with the same "If I could be like Mike" heat, the gambling and the women and the (come on, let's get serious) PED use would have turned his life into Lindsay Lohan's.  The coke and upskirt pics and lesbianism would have been a curious addition to MJ's wikipedia entry. 

And - now former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach (who you can see here giving advice on where a young college man should go on a first date) locked Craig James's kid in a shed. 

Craig James, if you're unaware, was Eric Dickerson's other half at SMU a quarter-century ago (their nickname, DickerJames, didn't exactly have the staying power of Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside) and has spent the bulk of his adult life talking about college football on TV.  I don't know, in 2009, how many college football players are locked in sheds, but probably picking the kid of a guy who works for ESPN to so discipline was error.  It's been fun watching the ESPN heads go after Leach, a rare (maybe singular) case of their siding with a college football player over a coach in a he said/he said dispute (the Michigan players offseason Rich Rodriguez complaints come to mind). Those gymnastics aren't what puts this on the Tendown though - the unfurling of my favorite phrase of the week - helicopter dad - to refer to James, is why this is on Tendown (a helicopter dad is a father of a college athlete who flies in for practice to give his unwanted advice to the coaches). 

Mike Leach has always been a bit of a whack job (a few months ago he blamed his players "fat girlfriends" for their lethargic play) but that's what you like from your sports figures, a little color.  Give me Mike Leach over Bob Stoops any day.  Give me Agent Zero jacking Javaris Crittendon during a TV timeout over an unpaid dominoes bet over Jordan Farmar passing to Kobe any day. 

(Kobe's a good guy to remember if you've decided Tiger can't ever get past this bimbo eruption.  A checkbook can get your good name back.)

But Leach was successful, certainly in the context of Texas Tech history - and if you're successful, you get to be a whack job. 

There was an episode of How I Met Your Mother where Barney unveiled the hot/crazy scale.  To wit:

You can date a crazy girl, if she's hot enough. 
If she's just a little crazy, she just has to be an ordinary level of hot.
The crazier she gets, the hotter she has to be to compensate. 
If she's off the chart crazy, she needs to be Scarlett Johansson. 
But even then, some girls are too crazy to date.  You'll put up with Britney until she shaves her head and attacks your car with the umbrella.  Then you move on down the road. 

You knew that already, of course - and you also know you can plug in other variables into the hot/crazy scale and run a similar cost/benefit analysis.  HIMYM is good like that; in a Yadda Yadda Yadda or "not that there's anything wrong with that"  type of way, they've done bits which would catch the cultural zeitgeist if it were a more popular show (and, like Tiger, HIMYM is a victim of the Aughts, in HIMYMs case, it's the fragmentation of the culture - if it's 15 years ago, it gets to be Friends and Cobie Smulders becomes Jennifer Aniston {why can't she find love?  So sad.} but it's not then, it's now, and you don't need to watch a funny enough sitcom with pretty people, you've got eleven hundred channels and can download three different versions of Avatar to your phone). 

One way to apply the hot/crazy scale is at work.  You can be a pain in the ass and get away with it if you're good enough - whereas the guy next to you might only occasionally step out of line but still winds up in the crosshairs because he isn't worth putting up with.  Leach clearly rubbed up against Administration in a weird way for a few years, but he was hot enough that they put up with it.  He has a salary dispute, says a few weird things - that's okay, you're not thrilled with it but check out his ass! 

Then he locks Craig James's kid in a shed.  And now you tell him you think you should take a little break.  You're really focused on your career right now.  It's not him, it's you.  (We're about to find out how hot CBS and Hanes underwear finds Charlie Sheen, 'cause if Tiger Woods, one of the most famous men in the world, bleeds away endorsements for sex - what will happen to Charlie after threatening to kill another woman?)

That's the best thing that happened this week.  After the Jump - the rest of the Tendown!

I Pick Every NFL Game - Week 17

Overall: 117-120-3

Last chance to get to .500.  The drive for mediocrity will not be televised!

Jags +1 Browns (loss)
Bears -3 Lions (win)
NE +8 Houston (win)
NYG +9 Minn (loss)
Niners -7 Rams (win)
Atl -2.5 TB (win)
Dallas -3 Philly (win)
GB +3.5 Ariz (win)
Balt -10.5 Oak (loss)
SD -4 Wash (loss)
Tenn -4 Sea (push)
KC +13 Den (win)
Bengals +10 Jets (loss)
Indy -2.5 Buff (loss)
Steelers -2 Miami (win)
Carol -2.5 NO (win)

9-6-1
126-126-4

A full season, picking every NFL game, and I go .500.  There you are.  Me and a coin. 

Karl Rove - Divorce Number 2

Karl Rove has been on the front lines in the fight to stop gay marriage:

Marriage is a very important part of our culture and our society. If we want to have a hopeful and decent society, we ought to aim for the ideal. And the ideal is that marriage ought to be and should be a union of a man and a woman. And we cannot allow activist judges to overturn that. We cannot allow activist local elected officials to thumb their nose at 5,000 years of human history and determine that marriage is something else.

Last week, Karl Rove got his second divorce. 

Here's my question - for how many of those "5,000 years of human history" has it been acceptable to be twice divorced?

The longstanding claim by conservatives has been that gay marriage would undermine (as homemade porn star/conservative icon Carrie Prejean said) "opposite" marriage.  That straight marriage is devalued by gay marriage. 

2 divorces from Rove.  Imagine how many he'd have if gays were undermining him?

The Weekly Tendown: December 20-26 2009

Hi.

This is Issue 7 of the Tendown, my weekly look at the very best things that happened in the past week; Last Week, we discussed Bill Moyers, Howard Zinn, gooey butter bars and Snooki getting punched dead in the face on Jersey Shore.  What...what...what do you suppose we'll talk about this week?

First - Putting the Holla! Back in Happy Holidays

I got no gods and ain't no gods coming.  Not yours, not your neighbor's; I am thoroughly disinterested in magic however it's packaged.  O'Reilly would call me a secular progressive; a term which I'm willing to wholly embrace but which he uses to describe all that is wrong with western civilization.

He particularly likes to go on this tear around Christmas, upon which, perhaps you haven't heard, people like me have been fighting a war. 

It's a poorly coordinated war, as the first time I ever heard about it was when Bill O'Reilly told me I was fighting.  One would think I'd start a little lower on the holiday scale; pick on, say Arbor Day, get a couple of wins under my belt, before challenging the big dog.  I'd be a good homecoming opponent for Christmas U.- I pick up good paycheck to refurbish the weight room, Christmas rolls me up like 72-3, standing over my prone defensive backs after another big play taunting "Say my name!  Jesus is the reason for the season!"

It's just not a game I particularly want on my schedule.  Me, I like Christmas.  And had a very nice one this year, which is why it's the very best thing that happened this week.

See?  What's more Christmas than that?  A tree and presents and a dog to keep me away from all of it? 

I am not the enemy of Christmas!  I'm just a guy with a car that still isn't working. 

Look, how is this for terms of a truce - anytime we ever say Happy Holidays, we are implicitly acknowledging that Christmas is, in fact, one of those holidays that we are wishing bring people happiness.  Maybe we don't literally say the word "Christmas" - because to then rattle off a list of holidays (Chanukah, Saturnalia, Freaknik) just isn't very efficient.  But really - Happy Holidays isn't code for "Happy Holidays - unless you're talking about Christmas - then I hope you get hepatitis c" - it really just means, "Happy Holidays." 

And if you'd like to say "Merry Christmas" without it sounding like "You'd Better Bow Down Before My Savior on His Birthday, Bitch." - that'be great too. 

Really, no one's trying to take your religion away.  That's a good thing about having secular progressives as an opponent, we just don't care what you do with your own life.  No - seriously.  Marry ANYBODY YOU WANT.  Go ahead.  It's not a trick.  See?  It's good times.  Have sex with whomever you want, read whatever books you want, sing whatever songs you want - say Merry Christmas all year around.  It's cool. 

Sure, Christmas is really just an alliance of on-your-sleeve religion and conspicuous consumption; the two halves of the Republican Party.  Sometimes that's meant GOP=Abolitionists+Whigs, now that means GOP="climate change deniers" + "CEOs" or GOP="keep Obama's Nazi death panels from killing my Down's Syndrome baby" + "repeal the estate tax forever".  Either way I'm not down, but the State has to worm its way in your head somehow, comrades, and I don't have gods and don't care about our national chants, but I do believe the only way to be worthy of love is to buy presents, so I am sort of stuck with Christmas.  But if there's a war, honest, I didn't start it. 

Good talk.  After the jump - lets see the rest of the best things to happen this holiday week.

The Serial Killer and the Hero.

There's a photo coming up a little bit later that you may not want to see.  I've written about Michael Vick before but have intentionally avoided putting up any of the photographs introduced into evidence against him.  One of those, just one, is in the middle of this post.  Consider that before going forward.  I'll give you another warning before we get there. 

Each year, every NFL Team selects a recipient of a "courage" award and then from those representatives the NFL picks one player as its good samaritan of the year.

The Philadelphia Eagles, by a unanimous vote of the players, picked Michael Vick this year.

Vick, humbled by this show of appreciation, said this:

I've overcome a lot, more than probably one single individual can handle or bear.

It's too bad all the year end, decade end compilations are in the can - because that's one of the most amazing things I've ever heard an athlete say. 

Meanwhile...criminal profiler Pat Brown, who gets a lot of run on cable news shows I do not watch, said the following about Tiger Woods:

It hasn't been a hidden thing. He got careless.


We see that with serial killers. In the beginning of their serial killing they are careless because they don't know any better. Then they get smart and they're careful. And then they get so arrogant, so used to doing it, they stop paying attention to what they're doing.


I think Tiger's the same way. He got to the point he was doing it so much, he just got more and more careless. He thought he was completely untouchable.

So, there you go.  Mike Vick tortured dogs for years.  He didn't make a mistake.  He didn't get careless one night.  And he wasn't just a bankroll.  He personally, multi-millionaire Michael Vick, tortured dogs at his own hands - over and over and over again.  Here comes the picture.
 
 

 


Mike Vick went to prison.  And after Mike Vick went to prison, he returned to his multi-million dollar job.

Now, that's fine.  I don't need Mike Vick to go back to jail.  And if the Philadelphia Eagles want to pay Mike Vick 1.6 million dollars a year to hold a clipboard, I don't think they should be stopped.  It isn't the world the way I'd draw it up, but I understand the world that is.  If it were me, a college professor with a Bar membership and two graduate degrees and a negative net worth - my career ends with that conviction.  That conviction means I'm an hourly wage earner the rest of my life.  But I understand the world that is.  And although even very smart people like Dave Zirin, people who I would normally agree with, wrote that everyone would get a second chance - the truth is that if Mike Vick had, say, been caught in a compromising position with a 15 year old boy - you would never see him on a football field again and no one would complain he was being persecuted.   

But as we get to 2010, here's where things stand.  Michael Vick has been named the most courageous member of the Philadelphia Eagles.  Michael Vick is able to talk about how much he's overcome, how he's overcome more than "95%" of the population could bear.  It's not just that he's served his time; it's not just that he returns to his multi-million dollar profession - it's that he is officially stamped as a good guy.  It's one thing to say "he's served his time" - it's another thing to say "because he served his time, now he is a hero."  This is a league which bans end zone celebration dances as not consistent with the image it wants to present to the public - but the official personification of courage of the Philadelphia Eagles is a man named such because he no longer tortures dogs.  Those employed to comment on football have historically shown outrage whenever some degree of "sportsmanship" which exists in their minds hasn't been displayed on the field.  There is no invective too strong to be hurled at someone overly gyrating after a touchdown.  And god forbid a prop is used - because that really is what tears at the fabric of civil society.  Ask any NFL fan if TO or Chad Ochocino should ever win his team's good guy award.  Show offs.  Selfish "look at me" show offs. 

T.O. ran to the Cowboy star after all.  Remember?  And that one time he pulled a Sharpie out of his sock!  Outrageous!  And Randy Moss fake mooned the Packer fans!  Joe Buck really let him have it.  Good for you Joe Buck!  Some things are unforgiveable.  Why can't the players today just turn and hand the carcasses of their tortured dogs to the referee after they score like good ole' Barry Sanders?  Now that was a classy dude. 

And Tiger Woods - Tiger Woods is said to share the personally traits with serial killers.

If Tiger Woods were to go away for a year and a half, come back to the tour, not play very much or very well - but at the end of the year win some sort of sportsmanship award, what would be the reaction?  Plug Barry Bonds into that equation too while you're at it.  But Mike Vick said, and I can't re-write it enough:

I've overcome a lot, more than probably one single individual can handle or bear.

That's where we stand at the end of 2009.