There’s nothing America loves more than a thick cheeseburger…except maybe explosives, or breasts, or reality shows, or reality shows featuring potentially explosively breasts (genius, I know. I’ve got a meeting with Fox next week). No wait, what America really loves is painfully attractive celebrity couples who adopt children from Africa, or electronic fish that sing when you touch them, or perhaps just Cheetos. I got it, what America really loves, what it craves from the depths of its soul, is scandal. Celebrities, politicians, your neighbor’s wife, scandal is our true national pastime. That’s why while this summer will go down on record as a terrible time for sports purists, it’s been unbelievably juicy for the nation as a whole. Sports have always served as a place for America to work through some societal dilemmas (maybe there’s something to this whole “desegregation thing”) and this summer there’s been an avalanche of issues for us to work out.
The Barry Bonds Scandal
What it’s about: Bonds broke Hank Aaron’s hallowed career homerun record, but did he use steroids? Is the record tainted?
What it’s really about: Cyborgs. That’s right, cyborgs. Medicine is advancing at an incredible pace, we’re now able to replace limbs with adequate replacements and implant computer chips into brains to enable the blind to see. People can buy over the counter medicines to keep them artificially alert (energy drinks), artificially attractive (weight-loss shakes) and artificially erect (Viagra). Where’s it all headed? Will that guy in your office who can barely operate a coffee machine someday be able to swallow a pill and become smarter than you? Will an obese woman someday be able to step into a booth and emerge minutes later with a supermodel’s body? America’s a competitive place, driven by money and status, and we need to slow down before someone dumber and uglier starts taking what rightfully belongs to us. Bonds represents oure terrifying cyborg future and Aaron our purely human past. I hate Bonds because he’s a cheat, a liar, and a robot prototype bent on destroying all that is good about humanity.
The Tim Donaghy Scandal
What it’s about: Donaghy is a former NBA ref who bet on games he was officiating, quite possibly throwing games to ensure he won, and thereby calling into question the integrity of games.
What it’s really about?: We love the mafia and all mafia related activities. The Godfather trilogy and Scarface and Goodfellas are all well written and acted movies, but so was The English Patient. There’s a reason mafia related fare can be found nearly any time/any day on cable. America loves to fantasize about being in the mafia, living a life of constant danger and criminal honor. The very thought of Tony Soprano sitting a NBA ref down and threatening to break his kneecaps if the Spurs beat the Nuggets is a guaranteed blockbuster movie. The other story here is that apparently NBA refereeing is so bad no one noticed someone was actively trying to throw games. Donaghy was surrounded by so much incompetence his calculated idiocy was impossible to detect.
The Tour De France Scandal
What it’s about: For the third year in a row the world’s most prestigious cycling race was rocked by the discovery that prominent riders were taking steroids.
What it’s really about: No one in America cares about cycling, unless it involves a trash- talking Texan beating the beejezus out of Europeans at their own sport.
The Michael Vick Scandal
What it’s about: Vick, the most exciting player in football, is allegedly the ringleader of a large scale dog fighting ring, including electrocuting and executing dogs. And I mean allegedly in the same way Seigfried and Roy are allegedly gay.
What it’s really about: Fine, the State of Texas can execute mentally retarded minors, but killing dogs is going too far. We love dogs more than we love people, and I include myself in this category, because they’re symbols of innocence, while people are symbols of greed. If there was a fire and I had to choose between saving a puppy or that fucker at my gym who works out with a bluetooth in his ear…it’d be close, I’m actually leaning towards puppy. But as anyone who lived in San Francisco knows wealthy black athletes aren’t the only people raising vicious dogs; the Bay Area has seen a woman killed by dogs raised by a white couple on behalf of an imprisoned skinhead they had adopted (you can’t make this stuff up), and a young boy killed by a pitbull in his home, despite the fact his mother locked him in the basement while she went shopping because the dog was acting agitated. Remember, dogs don’t kill people, people with dogs kill people (who sometimes breed dogs to kill dogs if they don’t kill the dogs first). Got it?
There’s also news coming out of Japan that the country is in the throes of a sumo scandal. Apparently the Yokozuna (the heavyweight champion) withdrew from a match because of injury, then was caught on tape playing soccer with reckless abandon. Yawn, you call that a scandal Japan? Wake me up when steroid enhanced sumos start fighting dogs to the death to pay off mob debts. Now that’s something America would be interested in.
What it’s really about: No one in America cares about cycling, unless it involves a trash- talking Texan beating the beejezus out of Europeans at their own sport.
The Michael Vick Scandal
What it’s about: Vick, the most exciting player in football, is allegedly the ringleader of a large scale dog fighting ring, including electrocuting and executing dogs. And I mean allegedly in the same way Seigfried and Roy are allegedly gay.
What it’s really about: Fine, the State of Texas can execute mentally retarded minors, but killing dogs is going too far. We love dogs more than we love people, and I include myself in this category, because they’re symbols of innocence, while people are symbols of greed. If there was a fire and I had to choose between saving a puppy or that fucker at my gym who works out with a bluetooth in his ear…it’d be close, I’m actually leaning towards puppy. But as anyone who lived in San Francisco knows wealthy black athletes aren’t the only people raising vicious dogs; the Bay Area has seen a woman killed by dogs raised by a white couple on behalf of an imprisoned skinhead they had adopted (you can’t make this stuff up), and a young boy killed by a pitbull in his home, despite the fact his mother locked him in the basement while she went shopping because the dog was acting agitated. Remember, dogs don’t kill people, people with dogs kill people (who sometimes breed dogs to kill dogs if they don’t kill the dogs first). Got it?
There’s also news coming out of Japan that the country is in the throes of a sumo scandal. Apparently the Yokozuna (the heavyweight champion) withdrew from a match because of injury, then was caught on tape playing soccer with reckless abandon. Yawn, you call that a scandal Japan? Wake me up when steroid enhanced sumos start fighting dogs to the death to pay off mob debts. Now that’s something America would be interested in.
