Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

I know I wrote about President Obama’s controversial gun law reform proposals and the need for banning military-style assault weapons in my last column and I tried to be fairly fair about it, but now the NRA has pissed me off (like anyone cares but me) and I’m afraid I’m going to have to throw a tantrum.

In case you don’t watch or read the news, the NRA just came out with a new television ad that mentions Obama’s children. Yes, his children. Those beautiful, sweet young girls. The ad is spreading the message that Obama is a hypocrite because he is skeptical about having armed security guards in public schools while his own children have armed guards at their school. And NRA president David Keene, who makes Dick Cheney look like Pee-Wee Herman on ecstasy, is making the rounds on all of the news shows defending it, saying it is not about Obama’s children — even though the ad specifically mentions his children.

This is really a low point for America, the NRA, and people who are responsible gun owners. It is absurd for them to go after two young girls who have nothing whatsoever to do with this, and it is potentially dangerous, because with all the nuts out there with stashes of guns and ammo, it could potentially spark the ire of someone who might try to hurt them. I wish the Obama administration would come with a new, special-effects commercial of a talking rectum with Keene’s voice being heard as the overdub. If Keene wants to declare war, show him as the ass that he is. Oh, and speaking of Dick Cheney, I can think of one person who probably wishes he had not been let loose with a shotgun!

Keene is so evil and aggressive about mounting this battle against anything Obama wants to do about gun violence I think that he might be doping. And I want to discuss doping and dopers. No, not Lance Armstrong and his latest sort of confession, but just the words “doping” and “dopers.” I love these words and laugh every time I hear someone say them because it is such a serious topic to so many people that no one is willing to admit they are probably trying not to laugh when they say them.

It’s like the name Vladimir Putin. Come on, you know what goes through your mind first when you hear his name. Admit it. I also love the word “fly-over,” in reference to that part of the interstate out near Summer Avenue. Sometimes I count the number of times the traffic reporter on whichever news channel I’m watching says it and reach over and ding my coffee cup with a spoon. I’ve even thought about getting a bell.

What I really need to get is a life, I suppose. But that would likely mean joining things and going out and socializing and engaging in chit-chat and small talk and I just can’t do it. I can’t even discuss the gun situation with anyone in person because I don’t want to hear what people have to say. I am old and mean and stuck in my ways and I would rather talk to my cats and shout the answers out while watching Wheel of Fortune alone in the privacy of my den or shout out cooking suggestions to the chefs on the television show Chopped!, to which I am addicted and in which the chefs are given baskets with ingredients like frog legs, peppermint candy, Gouda cheese, and gin and are expected to create a gourmet meal, and then get insulted by the judges when they don’t come through. More people who shouldn’t have firearms.

I think my appreciation of solitude — other than when at work — is one of the reasons my mind never stops racing. I mean, never, even when asleep. I should probably write a book. Oh, wait, I did write a book that came out in the 1990s. If you’re lucky, you might find a copy of it at a yard sale for a dime. Or I just found out that Burke’s Book Store still sells it. I can tell you that it is a masterpiece. The first entry is about changing the words of movies to include the word “anus,” and David Keene wasn’t even in the public eye back then. I’m still waiting on that lost letter about my Pulitzer Prize for great literature. I may have been excluded because I was doing some doping back then.

It’s becoming more and more obvious to me and hopefully to you that there is no real point to any of this rambling. So let’s see: What kind of point can I make? People better leave Sasha and Malia alone, or a house is going to fall on them. People who oppose Barack Obama’s proposed gun reform package don’t care if first-graders get murdered. Frog legs and peppermint are not friends. Lance Armstrong is megalomaniac doper — albeit a philanthropic one. At the Cowgirl Hall of Fame restaurant and bar in New York City there’s a bumper sticker on the bar that reads, “I’D RATHER BE A ROPER THAN A DOPER!” And I am obviously a dope.

Categories
Sports

Why I’m Glad I’m Not a Sportswriter

teo-cover-resize.jpg

We don’t call journalism the first rough draft of history for nothing.

The Lance Armstrong and Manti Te’o and Chip Kelly stories are being analyzed by some brilliant columnists. See Rick Reilly on his 14-years covering Armstrong, Gail Collins on Armstrong, Rob Moseley on Kelly leaving Oregon for Philadelphia, and Malcolm Gladwell and Chuck Klosterman on Te’o and the online girlfriend hoax. All I can say is, wow. And whew.

One of the toughest assignments in journalism is covering someone you know is not being completely truthful, while they fire back at you with angry denials, accusations, and hired lawyers and flacks. But their biggest weapon is silence. Sports columnists and reporters depend on regular access. I feel for the reporters with daily deadlines who get cut off by athletes and coaches for trying to do their job honestly. They can be placed at a competitive disadvantage when the stars favor other reporters who are more compliant. It’s all about the “gets” — the exclusive interview, the one-on-one, the personal details in a profile. I think of former Memphis Tigers basketball coach John Calipari and the Derrick Rose college admissions test story or former Tiger basketball coach Dana Kirk, who went from toast of the town to convicted felon in the space of three years. Professional careers of journalists as well as basketball players were made and broken by both coaches.

I started this blog a year ago to write primarily about racquet sports and other minor sports from a fan’s perspective. Among other things, I thought it would be a relief from the saturation coverage of football and basketball. I tried to develop a regular panel of insiders and former pros. But when I broached the subject of appearance fees or use of performance-enhancing drugs, my sources mostly took a pass. Not, I believe, because they had anything personally to hide but because those subjects are fraught with so much uncertainty, misinformation, wink-and-nod, and potential reprisals. No sport is pure. Better to not go there. Just focus on the events and scores.

But money, cheating, and melodrama keep shouldering their way into the sports report, and last week’s Armstrong-Te’o-Kelly trifecta was a perfect example. I am fascinated by it as a fan and a reporter and columnist. It must be hard enough to cover grumpy Memphis Grizzlies when they’re on a losing streak. But covering cover-ups, when you know they’re staring you in the face, is harder. I’m glad I don’t have to do it. For my money, Rick Reilly is still the greatest. My hat is off to Deadspin, too, but the job of the beat reporter is a lot different from that of the analyst.