Tag: Tiger Woods

Tiger in the Tank

February 19, 2010

 

Well, it finally happened. Tiger Woods went down the road of all sniveling cowards this morning when he delivered the “heartfelt” apology that the media has been demanding for the past three months. Up to this point, I, like many others, had been disappointed by the golf great’s marital indiscretions, but I had at least held out hope that Woods would have the courage to continue delivering his hearty middle-finger salute to the media jackals insisting on an apology that NO ONE, outside his family and friends, is entitled to.

 

That Tiger would lower himself with such a charade is my biggest letdown of this entire tawdry affair. The man whose trademark has always been a confident swagger looked every bit like Sylvester Stallone trying to emote as he faked his way through the orchestrated dog and pony show with all the robotic sincerity of the Manchurian Candidate. Tiger spoke of core beliefs and spiritual awakenings, but there was plenty of time for soul-searching in the three-plus years that he was crossing the globe porking anyone that could fog a mirror. If you believe one of the dime-store sluts he was hooking up with, Woods was slipping the Jimmy to her while his wife was delivering one of their children. Seems like that may have been a good time to rethink his ways, but alas, it appears family wasn’t that important until endorsement contracts started drying up.

 

Tiger has more money than he will ever know what to do with, and if privacy and family were really his primary concern, he would have continued his silence and eventually returned to the golf course, sans sponsorship, and with the insistence that he would speak to the media only of golf. This morning’s statement looks like nothing more than a desperate act to recapture his adoring corporate sponsors, and for what? I, for one, thought he would at least announce when he would be making a return to golf, but absent that, what was the point? If he thinks the relentless media assault will be any less severe after today, he’s not as smart as we’ve all been giving him credit for. Until he answers questions outside of his controlled cocoon, the media savages will tear him limb to limb, and if, as many say, he is fulfilling some part of a “twelve-step program,” is this not the most insincere manner of doing so? Would it not be more appropriate to meet face-to-face with those he’s hurt and apologize from the heart?

 

Those who insist that Woods let down his sponsors and fans need to grow up and look in the mirror. A vast majority of the pious hypocrites calling for his hide have committed similar, if not worse, violations of their own marriages, and the argument that Woods marketed himself as a family man while reaping mega-contracts is only valid if we subject everyone to the same standard. Charlie Sheen and serial philanderer Michael Jordan appear in ads together selling underwear, even as Sheen appears in the tabloids seemingly every week for a sundry list of indiscretions including drug and alcohol abuse, and domestic violence, but I have yet to see anyone hold his feet to the fire. The list of bad people shilling products is endless, and it’s utterly despicable that some are holding Tiger to a higher standard than politicians who rape and pillage their constituency, teachers who sleep with their students, and priest who molest little boys.

 

Tiger committed no crimes (other than a speculative drunk-driving violation on Thanksgiving night), and owes nothing to the Pollyanas who still believe in Santa Claus or the media whores who spent the day gleefully ranking celebrity apologies and fretting that Woods hadn’t debased himself quite enough for their liking. Gloria Allred tried to cash in on the debacle by staging her own press conference this afternoon with her client– a weepy porn star, who insisted she was in love with Woods and was owed an apology–trouble is, I couldn’t tell which one was the whore.

 

I have always been a Tiger Woods fan, and I won’t pretend that I’m not going to watch him play when he returns, because despite his failings, he is simply beautiful to watch on a golf course. I only wish that he confined his entertainment value to that venue, and not slipped into the reality show miasma of the “celebrity apology.”

In Defense of Michael Phelps

 

 

February 4, 2009

 

So the media has found its quarry, and is now doing what it does best: tearing down the very heroes they created, fawned over, and exalted to Brobdingnagian stature. The sanctimonious media which tanked, in all its white guilt, to ensure we have a black president, are now finding moral compass in assassinating the character of a hugely successful, likable, and driven 23-year old who happened to enjoy a few tokes of the good herb at a South Carolina frat party.

 

These sportswriters (and I use the term “writer” loosely)—you know, the ones who charge their papers for 3-martini lunches and hoard the free liquor in the press box—are wringing their hands about the coming end of the world as we know it because Michael Phelps indulged in something any normal 23-year old should indulge in.

 

Never mind that Phelps works harder in one day than these fat louts work in their entire lives; in their minds, Phelps signals the beginning of the end. Phelps is a role model they cry…but Charles Barkley disabused us of any such notions years ago, and in a world where nudity, violence, and misogyny are the Holy Trinity of pop culture, it’s laughable that Phelps is being pilloried as he is.

 

The very language used by the vast majority of the writers is indicative of how ignorant they are about a subject of which they shoot their mouths off. Virtually every piece I read on the topic referred to Phelps smoking a “bong pipe.” NO ONE…and I mean NO ONE says “bong pipe.” You smoke out of a bong, or you smoke out of a pipe, NO ONE smokes out of a “bong pipe.” But when have journalists ever let their ignorance stand in the way of a good story?

 

Jemele Hill, the race-baiting writer for ESPN, who was suspended last year for making an ill-advised reference to Adolf Hitler in one of her columns, was on ESPN in recent days, lecturing Phelps about his indiscretions, and of course, pointing out how much money he will lose in endorsements. I find it curious how all the pious media always translate everything into dollars and cents—as if the set-for-life Phelps will really be hurt by a few lost endorsements. Hill, who will accomplish far less in her life than Phelps has already accomplished in his, has the temerity to tell the Olympian how he should be spending his free time. I can’t wait for her tutorial for Tiger Woods on how to hit a 175-yard cut shot.

 

And Pat Forde, another ESPN hack, writes in one of his pieces how his impressionable progeny, budding young swimmers they, have seen their world affected by this “crashing news.” Forde trots out all the bromides about role-models and obligations, never realizing that Phelps’ influence is minimal and has slipped through the cracks in a youth culture dominated by luminaries like Fifty Cent, Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, and rapist Kobe Bryant. He doesn’t even see the irony in the fact that today’s children wouldn’t be caught dead doing anything of a physical nature if it involved anything more than pulling themselves from in front of their computers or idiot boxes to waddle their corpulent asses to the fridge.

 

Phelps is a 14-time gold medal-winner who is by all accounts a hard-worker (DUH!!), generous, and a respectful young man. He is free to come out my way anytime to smoke some of the good California medicinal…perhaps the perfect prescription for the uptight, self-righteous media members now standing in line to tear down the monster they created.