XI. Bad decisions abound..

Some random thoughts….

-I’m sure we all remember John Arne Riise, the Liverpool defender who gets into fights at Karaoke bars and gets golf clubs swung at him by teammates...anyway it appears that J.A.R. is also something of a lady’s man in his native country of Norway. Back in 2005 Norwegian newspapers reported that J.A.R. had stones big enough to get the phone numbers of several different Norwegian celebrity women and send them all the exact same text message.
The actual content of the text message sent to all these smoking hot women wasn’t exactly Shakespeare. (Note- text message is translated from Norwegian) "Good evening... After a lot of calling to all kinds of contacts, I finally got your number. I have always thought you are very charming, cute, sexy, fantastic aura, and last but not least, you seem exciting and challenging;) hope we can get in touch, and I will of course invite you on a romantic dinner for two;) kiss from John Arne Riise xxx".
Not to limit the damaging effect of sending a text that appears to have beeen written by a 12 year old with a raging case of hormones, he sent this message to SEVERAL women. He was subsequently ripped apart by the media for his text messaged romantic overtures and J.A.R. no longer gives interviews about anything other than football. Check out the modern day Cassanova with his ex-wife though, not too shabby. http://www.vg.no/bilder/edrum/1128487370603_531.jpg

-Craig Bellamy, the Liverpool striker who was the chap swinging the golf club at John Arne Riise, has been dubbed with a new nickname by the European press. The press had previously referred to him as Craig “The Baby Eater” Bellamy….fact. The press now refers to him as “The Nutter with the Putter”……also fact. I think all of our lives are a little better for knowing that.

-Would it be possible for the good people at Facebook and MySpace to attach some sort of electronic breathalyzer test on their website that has to be passed for a user to log in anytime between 2am and 5am? If passing a breathalyzer test isn’t feasible, could they design some sort of aptitude test for the log-in screen that will trip up anyone who isn’t completely sober? Because I feel that some sort of test of sobriety is essential to prevent the alarming rate of random 4am Facebook posts that are flying around these days. Has there ever been anyone ever who didn’t regret something that they thought was hysterical after 36 twisted tea’s but found to be just a little (or a lot) awkward the next morning?
Chances are that any late night Facebook/MySpace post by a dude occurs under the following regrettable conditions; you’re drunk, you’re tired, you just left a bar where they luckily had $9 Bud Light night, the bar was staffed by people who work for 1-800-MORE-DUDES.com, you talked to your friends (who are coincidentally also dudes) for the past 4 hours, and you just want to check out Facebook/MySpace so that you don’t forget what a female actually looks like. Then in your abject loneliness you start thinking either “hey my buddy’s little sister is looking very mature” or “I remember this chick used to sweat me bad 6 years and 45 pounds ago” and so you type in some message that sounds great in your head and looks great at 4am, but then you frantically check Facebook/MySpace in the morning because you’re sure you wrote something stupid last night but you have no f-ing clue what it was. “Hey woman, I was just thinking about that time sophomore year when we were making out to ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ and then we went back to my place and didn’t hook up because I passed out. What a love-life night! So what are you up to these days, give me a holler.” Does this sound familiar to every single person? If you say no you’re clearly lying.

-The Carling Cup was played this past Sunday and Chelsea triumphed over Arsenal 2-1 behind 2 goals from Didier Drogba. There were a couple scuffles and three total red cards (player thrown out of the game) were given, which means this match was heated.
John Terry is a defender for Chelsea and had a hell of a day….
”Terry made the starting line-up for Chelsea in the Carling Cup final. Going forward for a corner in the second half, he threw himself at the ball with a diving header; Arsenal's Abou Diaby, in an attempt to clear the ball, kicked Terry in the face with tremendous force. Terry was unconscious for several minutes. He was carried off the field on a stretcher and immediately transferred to the University Hospital of Wales, where he was successfully treated. Terry discharged himself the same day and returned to the Millennium Stadium to celebrate his team's 2-1 win. The only recollection Terry has of the second half is walking out onto the pitch and does not remember the 10 minutes he played prior to his injury.”
When the report says that Terry was taken off on a stretcher they mean the serious stretcher, with his head immobilized and everything, not like when the trainers bring out a stretcher to cart injured players off the field who are rolling around and grimacing for several minutes only for the player to hop nimbly off the stretcher as soon as the staff starts carrying him off the pitch. Uh uh, this dude Terry was OUT. So what happens this coming Saturday? Chelsea has a match and Terry is feeling well enough to start in the match, a week after sustaining a serious concussion (clearly a great decision). The guy who kicked him in the face to cause the concussion? Abou Diaby is out injured for Arsenal’s match this Saturday because he injured his ankle while inadvertently giving John Terry a mouthful of cleats.


Question time…

Is the movie “300” going to change movie making forever? Why am I so excited to see it?
-R. Dot

It might be a bit of an understatement to say that 300 will be the greatest movie ever. We’ve both read the graphic novel by Frank Miller (author of the Sin City graphic novels as well) so we know to expect at least 6-8 scenes in the movie that will be better than anything you’ve ever seen before, guaranteed. It is curious that 300 is not being directed by Robert Rodriguez, the director of Sin City, but I’m sure it will rock anyway. I know that I personally am excited to listen to the movie’s soundtrack on my Ipod while running around central park slaying imaginary Persian warriors. Incidentally I also expect this movie to break every record held for “number of lone un-showered men wearing trench coats and breathing heavily in attendance.”



Why do some professional athletes (mainly NBA) still find it necessary to ride around with guns the size of Lil Bow Wow in their vehicles when they are making millions of dollars?
-Chet

NBA players carry enough weaponry to invade the Netherlands because they want to make sure they scare off every single white male viewer between the ages of 16-75 because they are not content with the fact that there are still several dozen white folks out there that watch the NBA. No, I’m just kidding. Though I do have to say I find it mildly hysterical to turn on TNT and watch J.R. Smith and DerMarr Johnson of the Denver Nuggets fly down the court against Ronnie Brewer and Jarron Collins of the Utah Jazz in front of 20,000 petrified Mormons. The fear in the arena is palpable.

In truth I think that athletes and NBA players in particular find it necessary to carry around burners because their sport is now inextricably linked to the Hip-Hop scene. While secretly every rapper and hip-hop artist out there would be an NBA player if they could, it’s also true that conversely most NBA players would love nothing more than to be part of the rap industry. Ok so Shaq, Ron Artest, and Steve Kerr made some horrendous rap albums, what does that prove? (Steve Kerr didn’t actually cut a rap album) It doesn’t prove much, because the actual guys who try and make rap music or other beats aren’t the point; it’s the idea that NBA players have embraced the values of the hip-hop industry.

There are several facets of the hip-hop scene that mesh well with the NBA; NBA ballers already have the big bootied girls, they’ve already got the fantastic amounts of cash, and they’ve already got the big cars. What the hip-hop industry brought them is the salient point; that toting around guns is cooler than ice cream. I mean, I bet even Nick Cannon has some kind of gun. The white guy from Fort Minor? He’s strapped. Kevin Federerline’s entourage? They’re all packing. I’ll eat a spam sandwich if you can name one song by Young Jeezy that does not refer to him being the biggest f*cking drug dealer ever as well as the perpetrator of over 76,843,219 murders. These NBA players eat that crap up, so in turn we now have at least 25 teams in the NBA that could pull double duty as SWAT teams.

What the gun-carrying is primarily about is that NBA players don’t want to lose face with the fans in the urban and inner-city market. Let’s look at Shaq for example, who is arguably the most famous current NBA player. Rick Barry, a former NBA player with a career free throw percentage of 90%, offered to teach the perpetually awful Shaq to shoot his free throws under-handed, a move that would guarantee Shaq a huge leap in his free throw accuracy. Shaq refused the offer because he claimed he wouldn’t look cool doing it, even though he would likely have gone from a 25ppg scorer in his prime to anywhere upwards of 31ppg. Shaq didn’t want to hurt his street image by shooting free throws under-handed, which I find ironic after he made ‘Kazaam.’

We could talk about the scene at this past week’s NBA All-Star Weekend for days and days, but the facts are that over 360 arrests were made that weekend with 6 different shootings being reported, although nobody was shot fatally. Now THAT is how to keep it real. So when NBA players concentrate you might want to break out some sort of bulletproof gear.

The thing is, it’s not necessarily the NBA players who are causing the problem, it’s simply that they are so integrated with the hip-hop scene that it’s hard to tell what is and isn’t their fault anymore. The NBA culture has changed to the point that any NBA event that doesn’t involve rappers or hip-hop artists, with the ensuing violence and baby-daddy-drama, is a huge surprise.

The reason the public hears about so many players carrying weapons is due to the NBA players having adopted the hip-hop culture as their own. Or maybe they were street to begin with, who knows, but it’s getting redundant to hear about another famous athlete shooting up a club. It is also hysterical though, so let’s take a look at some of the more notorious offenders:

-Even though he’s an NFL player, how could I leave the aptly named Tank Johnson off this list. He owns a LOT of guns.

-Although Ron Artest has kept his legal troubles on the court (where they belong!) and hasn’t shot up any clubs yet, I feely fairly confident in predicting Ron-Ron’s involvement in a fatal recording studio shooting incident within the next 3 calendar years. Also, did you know that K-Fed sold more copies of his album than Ron-Ron sold of his own album? Ouch.

-After terrorizing corn-fed white people in Indiana for years Stephen Jackson was traded to the Golden State Warriors, so he’s now doing his damage in Oakland. Oakland and “Crazy Steve” cannot be a healthy mix, seeing as how I’ve lost track of the number of the number of night clubs he has shot up. Back in the day my main man also played his cards right financially; after winning the NBA Finals with the Spurs, as a free agent Crazy Steve turned down something like a 25 million dollar contract to resign with the Spurs only to end up signing with the Atlanta Hawks for somewhere around 2 million dollars. So at least he has shown good negotiation skills, which will be useful in prison.

-Not to be outshone by Stephen Jackson, his old teammate on the Indianapolis Pacers Marquis Daniels has helped himself to extra servings of crazy as well. I’ll briefly mention the fact that Marquis shot up a night club recently, which marks the 3,412th time a member of the Pacers has shot up a club in the greater Indianapolis area. What I really want to talk about is Daniels’ tattoos; these tattoos range from an “extremely detailed” map of Florida that covers his entire back (is this an example of Urban Geography?), a disturbing caricature of a man blowing his head off with a shotgun on his right arm, and Chinese characters on his left arm that were intended to represent his initials but when translated into English the symbols actually mean “healthy woman roof.” I am 100% serious. Marquis Daniels, we salute you.

-Although it doesn’t involve a firearm I have to mention my personal hero Eddie Griffin (the basketball player, not the actor from the Miller Lite “man law” commercials). Eddie, who has a history of violence and alcoholism (key ingredients in any top-flight player), crashed his SUV a year ago in rather unusual circumstances: while driving drunk he was watching a porn movie on dvd and was masturbating. While he was “mid-coitus” with himself he rammed into another car. The cops came, and the greatest car accident ever got reported. Eddie didn’t get a DUI though because the cops knew who he was and let him go, so the case is actually still under investigation.

-Another NFL player bears mentioning: Bengals WR Chris Henry was arrested for threatening a crowd of people outside a nightclub with a gun before fleeing the scene. How were police able to identify the guilty part? Henry was wearing his own Bengals #15 jersey, with his name on the back, while waving the shooting iron around.