Archive for the ‘Sports’ Category

Expletive

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

I don’t care what Floyd Mayweather Jr. has to say about Mixed Martial Arts, Manny Pacquiao, or anything else. So, the fact that Mayweather apologized for a “profanity-filled racist rant” against Pacquiao doesn’t interest me. What I do care about is what Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole reported:

In the original video, [Floyd Mayweather Jr.] referred to Pacquiao, a native of the Philippines, as “a yellow chump,” and said “Once I stomp the midget, I’ll make that [expletive] make me a sushi roll and cook me some rice.” In addition, he said, “I’m going to cook that [expletive] with cats and dogs. Have some rice with a little barbecue dog.” He also referred to Pacquiao by using a derogatory slang term for a homosexual.

Enough of this “[expletive]” [expletive] already! Report what the man said.  Come on. I want to know what “derogatory slang term for a homosexual” Mayweather used? Was it an original word—something he just came up with one day? Or was it an old favorite?

Boy, that fag can box!

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Taking Athletic Advantage

Monday, August 30th, 2010

I had never heard of someone taking “athletic advantage” over anyone—let alone a minor—before. So, thank you, Yahoo! Sports, for introducing me to Julious Javone Threatts: “this is a 21-year-old criminal taking athletic advantage of competing against 14-year-olds [in middle school football].”

The article tells us that Threatts—who forged documents so that he could play on the gridiron with pubescent boys—is an “avowed Danielle Steele fan who recorded poetry readings on a personal YouTube channel,” but the article fails to report on how well the guy did (or did not do) on the field. Sure, you can follow the link above and listen to his shitty poetry, but what I wanna know is whether the 21-year-old crushed any kids?

Threatts might be one of the lamest Jay Gatsby knock-offs around. (Sub out Daisy Buchanan for Pop Warner football.) But he’s a kind of hero—a hopeless one, of course—attempting time travel without the physics. I wonder what kind of kid he was when he was 13 or 14. Was he doctoring his birth certificate so that he could compete in organized sperm games?

In a strange way I kind of admire the asshole. There’s a little bit of 28-year-old me that would love to go back and play ice hockey—my sport of choice when I was in middle school. But I haven’t skated in more than a decade. Now I’d probably look like a fool on the ice. And I wonder, would the cops let me keep my equipment on—skates and all—when they escort me from the rink to the idling cruiser?

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The UFC’s Dana White Hangs with Mike Tyson

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

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Dream #2

Monday, June 7th, 2010

So, this is only the second dream I’m blogging about since October of 2009. Please, I’ve had many dreams since then, but I’ve been lazy and forgetful. I apologize for not keeping you up with my REM cycles.

But this morning I had a fun dream (or sequence of dreams) involving President Obama. And boy was he a rascal!

The President stands behind a podium. I’m guessing it’s on some sort of raised platform—I’m not sure—because from my point of view he looks to be standing around six feet above me. I could be sitting or standing in the audience, or I might be watching the President’s speech on television and this is the angle the camera (which is most likely on a tripod) is picking up.

I can’t make out the details of the speech, but I seem to have tuned in during a light point—perhaps the President has just told a joke. He is laughing. He has a great smile. He continues to speak in this joyful way words I can’t make out.

Then it becomes clear that he’s chewing gum. No way! The President is chewing gum during a speech! When I realize this, the President comments on the gum he’s chewing. Everyone laughs. (The President hasn’t been the only one laughing, you know. The live audience has been cracking up too.)

Amid the laughter, I realize the President is wearing an electric baby blue suit. He looks like a real old time performer—like Frank Sinatra or a member of the band that plays the school dance in Back to the Future.

The scene shifts or the channel changes, and the President is in a single-man bobsled. He careens around the corner and crashes into a snowbank. “Holy shit! That was dangerous!” I can’t believe the President is doing this—and on a snowy street, not a bobsled run!

A woman I don’t see is talking about that Olympic luger who died in Vancouver. I remind her that the Olypmian she’s talking about was from Finland. (He was not.)

Next, the President is driving an SUV on a narrow two-lane one-way road. He’s dangerously close to another SUV. Is the President trying to pass him? Is the President trying to mess with the guy? I don’t know why the President is doing this. There are icy conditions on the road, both cars are close to the edge of a cliff, and there are no guardrails. (Even though I can’t hear him, I know that the President is laughing. He has a great laugh and a great smile.)

Suddenly, there’s a montage of the President doing all this X-treme stuff. I can’t remember the details, but I know the President’s having a ball. And everyone else is having a great time watching him.

Somewhere in this dream, I enter a small store to take a shower. The shower, which is along the back wall, is in perfect view of the store’s panoramic windows. The blinds and curtains are not drawn.

The bells on the front door ring out. A man enters the store. I have to explain to the guy that this is not a store; it’s my office/shower. He leaves, and I close all the curtains and shut all the blinds. But the group of men in shirtsleeves and slacks who have made their way to the windows can still see in.

I guess this means I can’t masturbate now.

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I’ll Miss You, UFC 114

Friday, May 28th, 2010

Saturday May 8, 2010 was a night of marvelous performances. Early that evening my girlfriend and I watched the film Ordinary People, which won four Oscars in 1981: Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Timothy Hutton), Best Director (Robert Redford), Best Picture (Ronald L. Schwary), Best Writing for a Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Alvin Sargent).

Timothy Hutton blew me away. But what about Donald Sutherland’s and Mary Tyler Moore’s performances! And Judd Hirsch!

Later that night—not long after Ordinary People‘s credits ran—around the 9:30PM mark, my girlfriend and I walked to a local bar to watch UFC 113. It was the first time I think I’d ever topped off a night of great cinema with Ultimate Fighting, but it paid off.

Every fight at UFC 113 that made it to the Pay-Per-View broadcast was worth watching: Alan Belcher vs. Patrick Cote, Matt Mitrione vs. Kimbo Slice, Jeremy Stephens vs. Sam Stout, Joe Doerksen vs. Tom Lawlor—even the Josh Koscheck vs. Paul Daley bout. (Well, maybe around the time the wrestler was having his way with the striker the Stellas were hitting me nicely and I was basking in the fact that I actually knew more about MMA than some of the dudes sitting around me.* Maybe that’s why I enjoyed the fight, in spite of  what I thought were Koscheck’s in-cage theatrics and Daley’s post-fight sucker-punch.)

Man, I was so happy (drunk) with the performances in the Octagon up to that point that the upcoming main event (Lyoto “the Dragon” Machida vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua 2) felt like some sort of gift I did not deserve.**

I’m looking back on that extraordinary night, because this Saturday I will be attending a wedding, and while I would love the prospect of following up the joyful reception of two young lovers with UFC 114, I doubt it will happen.***

So, my friends, when you’re watching some sanctioned “black-on-black crime” at UFC 114, please think of me:

I’m drinking a few too many vodkas-with-cranberry…

I’m choosing the steak over the chicken…

I’m getting sucked into the intestines of a congaline…

Yeah. Extraordinary!

* I even explained to a man in a wheelchair how it’s illegal in the UFC to kick or knee the head of a grounded opponent.

** Shouldn’t the next print of Webster’s Dictionary file Rua’s knockout of Machida under the word “redemption”?

*** Yes, it would be my first time doing such a thing.

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Venus Williams

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

When she was asked about the controversial outfit she wore at the French Open, Venus Williams said, “It’s really about the illusion.”

So what’s the “illusion”? That Venus Williams does not have a penis? Because it still kinda looks like she does.

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The Gospel According to the Power Ranger

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

My article, “The Gospel According to the Power Ranger,” has been published in Religion Dispatches under the title, “It’s Marketin’ Time!: Ex-Power Ranger Morphs into Fighter-Entrepreneur for Jesus.” The article is about ex-Mighty Morphin’ Power Ranger turned cage fighter Jason David Frank, who, for the past couple of years, has been bringing his Jesus Didn’t Tap clothing line to the Christian Mixed Martial Arts enthusiast.

Please read the article, leave comments, and share it with others.

Some things that never made it into the article:

1. When I spoke with Jason David Frank on the phone—Friday November 13, 2009 at around 12:22PM ET—he was both confidant and amiable. I wanted to fly out to Texas to interview him and watch him train in the days leading up to his first MMA fight against Jonathan “The Mack Truck” Mack. When it was looking like I wouldn’t have the money to make it happen, J.D.F. volunteered to fly me out on his own dime. I never took him up on the offer. I was afraid it wasn’t the right thing to do. But, damn, I regret not making it to Texas in one way or another.

2. The Mighty Morphin’ fight scenes were taken directly from the original Japanese series, which explains why sometimes you would see a mid-battle crotch-shot of the Yellow Ranger, played by actress Thuy Trang, and she would be sporting testicles.

3. The Megazord was pretty much a Transformer knock-off. Am I right?

4. Frank wants to fight Jean Claude Van Damme for some reason. Frank already cleaned Jose Canseco’s clock in an unsanctioned stand-up bout at one of Frank’s Rising Sun Karate schools, so I guess calling out a different celebrity-cum-douchebag makes sense.

5. When I asked him how he comes up with the ideas for the Jesus Didn’t Tap line, Frank said, “Ideas for designs come in my dreams.” These dreams are telling. Just look at the T-shirts.

6. I quote Eugene Cho, a Christian who was originally interviewed for The New York Times article “Flock Is Now a Fight Team in Some Ministries.” According to Cho, his hour-long conversation was “reduced to one quote” in The Times. I never spoke with Cho, but I did reduce his blog post about the incident to about two sentences.

BEST COMMENT SO FAR:

So now I’m the asshole?

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Bad Simile, McGrath

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

Writing for the New York Times, Charles McGrath has a long piece on the NHL phenom “Alexander Ovechkin, the Mad Russian.” Ovechkin might be the very player the NHL needs in order to revive its struggling sport. The Washington Capitals’s left-wing blends grit with elegance and manages to pull off some of the most insane goals you’ve ever seen.

McGrath asks the question, “Can a bone-crushing, limelight-loving, ridiculously talented import named Alexander Ovechkin become American hockey’s first true crossover star?”

So what I found interesting is that, in light of the question above, McGrath decided to go with this:

There are now so many celebrated Ovie goals on YouTube that connoisseurs can argue over them like stamp collectors comparing the 1840 British Penny Black, say, with the 1868 Franklin Z-Grill. Which is better?

Yeah, that’s the way to get people excited about hockey—compare their fans to stamp collectors. Maybe “bone-crushing” stamp collectors would have been a better choice?

Bad simile, McGrath. Bad simile.

I loved The Onion‘s take on Ovechkin.

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Tiger Woods’s New Nike Commercial (Alternate Takes)

Friday, April 9th, 2010

Take #2

Take #3

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“Overtime in the Barrio: An Ode to Ryan Miller”

Monday, March 1st, 2010

The following poem was found written in chalk on the corner of 110th Street & Lexington Avenue on February 28, 2010. It was signed “#39“.

The streets of Spanish Harlem are somber tonight, Ryan Miller.

We shuffle down Lex with dejection in each step.

We’re trying to skate without blades, as the hustlers crouch in the shadows and wait to high-stick a nigga.

The Barrio only wants Gold, Ryan Miller.

So that Silver medal we rock ’round our necks might as well be a noose.

We overtime. We sans Zamboni. And death is a left-handed white boy named Sidney.*

*The above photo did in fact accompany the poem.

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