I am going to borrow a tactic from my favorite NBA color commentator Hubie Brown and write this post from the second person perspective. You’re Tiger Woods. You crashed your Cadillac Escalade into a fire hydrant and neighbor’s tree at 2:45 AM on Thanksgiving Night. You say your beautiful Swedish model wife heroically saved you by smashing the back windows and pulled your unconscious body out of the car. You are the world’s most recognizable athlete and have a net worth of a billion dollars. You assembled an elite team of agents, managers, pr people, and high price lawyers to create and protect your heavily guarded image. Why wouldn’t you spin the story immediately that your wife is a courageous hero that rescued from disaster while you lost control of the car while in a rush to medicine for a sick child? It would be the feel good story of the holiday season. When you host your tournament this week to benefit your charity, people would have praised your wife endlessly and the media would have written hosannas about how grateful they are for you to survive such a scary ordeal.
Instead, you choose to remain silent on the matter by refusing to talk to the police and release a terse statement on your own website that raises more questions than answers. The silence allows to media circus to run amok with stories of alleged affairs that were trumped up by lascivious tabloid mags, TMZ and National Enquirer. Your supposed mistressm You say you acted stupid when you committed your accident, but you and your team of advisers and handlers acted more foolish when you failed to learn from the mistakes of star athletes gone bad, Plaxico Burress and Michael Vick. The cover-up is worse than the crime.
The whole ordeal probably won’t cost you anything in your wallet as your global icon status makes it hard for sponsors to leave you. But it’s incredible that an athlete who goes to such Herculean lengths to protect your image would let the media circus deliver a Pacquiao-esque beatdown to your public perception. Of course, when you are winning majors and putting on green jackets next year, all will be forgotten. Everyone loves redemption stories and when you win future majors, I imagine it will be written how this accident transformed you. Maybe you become more crowd-friendly, you show off the sense of humor that is frequently said, but rarely seen, and you reveal more public images of being a great father to your beautiful wife and young children. It will hammer home a message that pops up time and time again, most recent with Alex Rodriguez and the Yankees 27th World Championship and Kobe winning his first NBA Championship without Shaq. Winning trumps everything.
The Avett Brothers get help from The American Budget Network for their hilarious music video for their sweet single, “Slight Figure of Speech”. This is the best music video I have seen all year from my favorite band of the year. The music video stars Andy Daly best known as Principal Terrence Cutler from the amazing HBO series,Eastbound and Down, and was directed by Jody Hill, creator of Eastbound and Down and directed Observe and Report. You can watch more infomercials for The American Budget Network at Funny or Die. Please check out I and Love and You by The Avett Brothers.
Muscle Milk is hoping to expand its brand by making the Thanksgiving story sexy with its viral video, “Sexy Pilgrim”. The protein drink company have even sent Sexy Pilgrims to roam NYC streets and have a website where you can download the song at sexypilgrim.com. That sexy pilgrim is Jason Reed of Tenacious D fame.
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, here is my list of what I am thankful for this year:
1) Yankees 27th World Championship
2) Dirty Projectors “Bitte Orca”
3) Modern Family
4) The Hangover
5) Roger Sterling from Mad Men
6) Kobe Bryant
7) Taylor Swift
8 ) John Wall
9) Glee
10) Zach Galifianakis “Between Two Ferns”
Guarantees in life are death, taxes, and a 50 Cent feud. The laundry list of 50 Cent feuds include Young Buck, The Game, Cam’ron, Ja Rule, but the latest name is the most shocking:Marv Albert. During an appearance of ‘The Jimmy Kimmel Show’ last night, members of 50 Cent’s entourage yelled obscenities and scuffled with legendary broadcaster Marv Albert after failing to recognize him. Usually I would support 50 Cent in his feuds because of I’m always in favor of the guy who’s been shot more times, but not this case. How do you not recognize Marv Albert, the world’s greatest sportscaster? The only sportscaster who can make any great basketball play transcendent with his memorable calls, “YESSSSS!”, “TOTAL FACIAL”, and “TENACIOUS D” (inspired Jack Black and Kyle Gass’ amazing band). If I were a rapper, I would designate at least one member (3-5 to do my fantasy teams) of my entourage to watch sports and keep me up to date and know basic things like Marv Albert is absolutely amazing and Joe Buck sucks. Check out Albert’s latest memorable call above.
DJ Steve Porter is the first to Remix a video infomercial! “I was bored” Porter claims, and “Vince is a character”. Well Porter, yah did good. Since the remix was posted on Youtube it’s received nearly 7,000,000 hits, and has rocketed Porter to remix stardum. Since Slap Chop Rap Chop, Porter has remixed the ShamWow! Infomercial dubbing it “Jam Wow” and has been hired by FedEx to do offical remix’s for them as well. Nice work DJ, we can’t wait to see what you come up with next.
Because the local NBA teams, the Knicks and the Nets, are a combined 1-20 and terribly unwatchable, I have become more excited about this college basketball season than a tween for the Twilight movie and it has already proved rewarding. Freshman sensation and potential #1 draft pick in the 2010 NBA Draft John Wall led Kentucky back from a 16-point deficit and hit a game-winner in his first collegiate game. Both preseason #1 Kansas and #2 Michigan State played nailbiters against rebuilding mid-majors Memphis and Gonzaga. North Carolina looks reloaded despite losing 4 starters and Duke is extremely overrated. Being a Big East super fan growing up on Allen Iverson’s Georgetown teams going against Ray Allen’s UConn teams, the conference looks like it may not be as deep as it has in recent years, but full of exciting players like West Virginia’s Devin Ebanks and Georgetown’s Greg Monroe. An exciting college basketball season will surely make up for a lackluster college football season without any significant player performances or exciting teams and will leave 2-3 undefeated teams out of the Championship because of a computer formula. Until college football adopts a playoff system, it will never top the magic of March Madness.
