THOUGHTS WHILE WONDERING WHY HULK HOGAN DOESN’T JUST SHAVE HIS HEAD AT THIS POINT …
Honestly, I would have been more surprised if Randy Moss said that he never smoked pot.
I think Rashad McCants should just start paying fines to David Stern’s office right now. Kinda like paying estimated taxes.
Could somebody get me Mike Tice’s e-mail address? I want to scalp Red Sox-Angels tickets from him for this weekend.
If anything, the Rafael Palmeiro saga reminded everyone of a time-worn lesson: Never, ever trust a good-looking guy with a nice mustache. Those are always the guys who sleep with your ex-girlfriend and leave the dinner table three seconds before the check arrives. Always keep these people at arm’s length. I’m telling you.
That reminds me, do you think Dale Berra, Dave Parker, Steve Howe, Doc Gooden and every other drug guy from the ’80s wishes he had come up with an “I unknowingly took cocaine” excuse? You know Keith Hernandez must be kicking himself right now.
There’s comedy, there’s high comedy … and then there’s a 5-year-old kid trying to use a urinal.
Yes, I’m slowly coming to grips with the fact that Roger Clemens is going down as the best pitcher of the past 50 years, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do to stop it.
Is there a weirder job than head programmer for the HD Net channel? Imagine sifting through that library every night? Shoot, I still need to fill that 8 p.m. spot on Friday night … should I go with Hanson’s acoustic special, Ruiz-Holyfield III or the 2002 women’s hockey gold medal game?
I’ll believe that Christina Aguilera lost her virginity on her wedding night before I believe that Tiger Woods’ favorite ride is a Buick Lacrosse.
Wait a second … Tommy Lee never went to college? You’re kidding me!
With the second season of “Lost” approaching, I just hope they finally answer my biggest question: Didn’t anyone on the island wear contact lenses? Seriously, not a single person out of the 48 survivors? Nobody had to make the full-time switch to glasses after a few weeks because they were out of disposables?
After Mia Hamm retired, I was wondering if anyone would fill her void as the “cute female athlete who’s as personable as an ironing board” … and then Danica Patrick came along.
You know, after all the great moments on the Pepperdine campus in the ’70s and early-’80s — the Conrad-Kaplan 100-yard dash, Randi Oakes’ see-through bikini in the dunk tank, Scott Baio’s steady evolution into the Bo Jackson of his era — I can’t believe they sullied the “Battle of the Network Stars” franchise with the likes of The Miz, Evan Marriott and the midget from “Amazing Race.” They should have just started the show with Richard Hatch beating Gabe Kaplan to death with a bed post — that’s the only way it would have been more depressing.
When it comes right down to it, there isn’t a more enjoyable Spanish word than pupeseria.
Three things that should be televised at all times: Every Ricky Williams drug test; every steroids test for anyone who’s hit 38 homers or more in the past 12 years; and every Evander Holyfield hearing that determines whether he should keep his boxing license or not.
If Speed Diaper Changing ever became an Olympic event, I think I could become the sport’s Lance Armstrong.
Speaking of Lance, everyone keeps raving how he’s such a physical specimen, how he’s unbelievable, how he’s an inspiration and everything else — and I’m not denying any of that — but what about Jack Nicholson? The guy’s been partying like a madman for four decades now: Outlived Belushi and Hunter S., looks 10 times better than Keith Richards and Jan Michael Vincent, still hangs with 25-year-olds and Playboy bunnies … I mean, everyone else from his generation is either dead, brain-dead or stone-cold sober, and he’s still chugging along like a college sophomore at Mardi Gras. So where’s his Nike commercial?
I never liked “Six Feet Under.” There. I said it.
Watching the Yankees keep throwing Alan Embree out there is like watching your arch-enemy in college unknowingly start dating a girl with VD.
You can always tell how much a baseball team gets along by the “Jumping up and down after a walk-off homer” celebration — it’s like watching an unmarried couple interacting in the wee hours of a wedding reception.
Forget “The Aristocrats” — the funniest movie of the year was “Cyber Seduction” on the Lifetime Network.
(By the way, I liked “The Aristocrats,” but it should have been released as an HBO documentary, and here’s why: You don’t want to see nine out of every 10 stand-up comics on a 75-foot movie screen. You just don’t. It’s like watching a documentary of the “Star Wars” bar scene. Still, it’s worth the $10 just to see Paul Reiser’s haircut.)
All right, is the PGA Championship the Australian Open of golf, or is the Australian Open the PGA Championship of tennis?
Allow me to be the 100,000th person to make the “only Isiah Thomas could screw up the Allan Houston Rule and waive someone other than Allan Houston” joke.
Solid point from reader Andrew Bramlette: “Don’t you feel like the new NHL is the equivalent of someone stealing your NHL ’95 game for Sega, randomizing the rosters, and then giving it back to you? It’s completely unpredictable. Wouldn’t this be a great way to bring back interest in hockey? Every year the rosters are changed completely at random. Who wouldn’t love that?”
When I’m the commissioner of sports, I’m changing the word “holdout” to “contract welcher.”
If Alanis Morrissette can re-release a 10-year anniversary acoustic album, what’s stopping the guy who played Ray Pruit on “90210”? He carried the Peach Pit After Dark for like two years … that wasn’t as impressive as “Jagged Little Pill” selling 10 million records? Couldn’t he release a “Best Of” CD called “One T Was All My Momma Could Afford?”
Random prediction: This year’s breakout TV hit will be “Prison Break.”
Is it just me or does “Pope Benedict” sound like somebody who would be the third receiver on Florida State or something?
One of my favorite dumb Hollywood quirks: The Shue Phenomenon, which applies whenever a less famous sibling suddenly becomes more famous than their famous sibling (like Andrew Shue surpassing sister Elisabeth during his first few years on “Melrose Place”, before she dramatically reclaimed the throne with “Leaving Las Vegas”). And I mention this only because Kevin Dillon’s improbable passing of Matt Dillon (thanks to “Entourage”) has to be the greatest moment in the history of the Shue Phenomenon … in fact, Clint Howard would need to direct three consecutive Oscar winners to approach what’s happening here.
Reason No. 145 why I love the USA Today: The baseball team-by-team notes, when they have tidbits like “LF Bobby Kielty cracked up his teammates last week by dressing up like Ronald McDonald. Teammates began calling Kielty that during spring training because of his wild red hair.” See, I need to know these things.
When they have the “Dawson’s Creek” reunion, they need to throw in a plot when Pacey finds out that Dawson paid Joey $10 million for five years to pretend that she was his girlfriend.
But seriously … does anyone else already feel sorry for the guy who’s following Billy King as the Sixers’ GM?
You know, I still haven’t heard a single person mention the No. 1 reason why the three-time Super Bowl champs are more dangerous than ever: A newly-single Bill Belichick! Remember, the guy was a workaholic when he was married, even when he probably had to deal with a steady barrage of comments like “If you don’t take tonight off and take me to the movies, I’m going to kill you in your sleep” and “Come on, we’re in Nantucket, it’s the summer, do you really have to scout the Chiefs at 9 o’clock at night?” Now? He’s capable of the first-ever 140-hour work week.
The Molina brothers are like the Wayans brothers — I just can’t keep track anymore. It’s too confusing.
Forget about Geena Davis as the first female president — what about Angelina Jolie? What man can resist Angelina? If she could pry Brad Pitt away from Jennifer Aniston, you’re telling me she couldn’t turn on the charms with Kim Jong-il and convince him to give up his nukes in less than three hours? She’s getting my vote in 2008.
Hey, have they held the funeral for Muhsin Muhammad’s roto career yet?
I wish I could buy stock in things like “Kevin Garnett will be suspended for five games for trying to strangle a hungover Marko Jaric during a Timberwolves shootaround next season.”
For everyone who thinks I have the easiest job on the planet: Have you watched Vanna White on “Wheel of Fortune” lately? She doesn’t even have to turn the letters around anymore — they light up, she walks over and touches them, and that’s it. You could train a chimp to do this. And I have an easy job?
Burning questions: When Shawn Michaels and the Hulkster headline Summer Slam this week, is it going to be a Catheter Match? Is there any movie that doesn’t get a “Two thumbs up!” from Ebert and Roeper? Why hasn’t Burger King tried to challenge the McDonald’s All-American Game? What happens if Tommy John goes in to have his gall bladder removed? How many more years will pass before I remember to stop calling the “WWE” the “WWF?” Is anyone else excited for the Pacman Jones Era? Couldn’t Mario Lopez dress like AC Slater for “ESPN Hollywood” on Fridays? Was Phil Jackson’s Toyota ad the single worst commercial of this century? Has John Feinstein started working on a book about the Cameron-Beltran collision yet? And why didn’t Dr. Charles Nichols turn in Dr. Richard Kimble as soon as he first heard from him?
Few things are certain in life, but this is one of them: “Chico and the Man” had the greatest TV sitcom theme of all-time.
Flicking channels and seeing Jay Fiedler on the Jets was like seeing Victoria Jackson on “Celebrity Fit Camp 2” — I had no idea that it happened, but I wasn’t even remotely surprised.
I can’t believe the Knicks signed John Madden for six years … oh, wait, that was NBC.
All right, here’s an actual exchange from my house this week:
— Sports Gal (topless, holding a crying baby): “Have you seen ‘My Brest Friend’ anywhere?”
— Me (not even remotely fazed): “Yeah, I think you left it by the side of the bed.”
(And you wonder why I’m not getting more columns done. Somehow my life has turned into a cross between “According to Jim” and “Girls Gone Wild.”)
I’m not sure what was worse: When my buddy Sal and I did a six-round mock draft for our fantasy football league last week, or when I was upset afterward because I didn’t like my team.
Speaking of roto drafts, have there ever been two bigger wild cards heading into a roto draft than Terrell Owens and Ricky Williams? Anyone who drafts those guys should just call his team “Russian Roulette.”
I just hope Nick Swisher and Terry Tiffee get to play on the same team when everything’s said and done.
And finally, I have a new favorite TV show: “Taradise.” It’s like the E! executives were sitting around one day and one of them said, “Hey, what if we pretended to hire Tara Reid for the ‘Wild On’ series, only it will be an excuse for our cameras to follow her around as she gets plastered in foreign countries and makes a complete fool of herself week after week?”
Somehow that’s exactly what ends up happening. For instance, in this week’s show, Tara went parasailing in Greece with Paris Hilton, somehow avoided a Brutus the Barber Beefcake-type accident, proceeded to chow down at dinner like a Shetland pony, then went out dancing (if you could call lurching around like a marlin “dancing”), threw herself at some horrified Greek guys, stuck her tongue out a lot, stumbled around and repeatedly screamed, “This is awesome!” and looked more bloated than Val Kilmer at the end of “The Doors.” That was the whole show. It’s like watching disturbing home videos of someone right before her friends had an intervention for her … only there’s no intervention. The show just keeps going.
To recap: Phenomenal idea, phenomenal title, a once-in-a-generation star at her absolute anti-apex … and we even get to learn about other countries. Now that’s a winner, my friends. Do yourself a favor and head down to “Taradise.”
Bill Simmons is a columnist for Page 2 and ESPN The Magazine. His Sports Guy’s World site is updated every day Monday through Friday.
