Okay.
HST
—February 12, 2001
Death in the Afternoon
The violent death of Dale Earnhardt hit the sport of professional auto racing harder than anything in memory since the assassination of John Kennedy. People who’d never even watched a NASCAR race were deeply disturbed by it, for reasons they couldn’t quite explain. It seemed to send a message, an urgent warning signal that something with a meaning beyond the sum of its parts had gone Wrong & would go Wrong again if something big wasn’t cured—not just in racing, but in the machinery of the American nation.
On the surface it was just another bad crash on a racetrack down in Redneck country. What the hell? It happens all the time. But this one had a resonance that echoed all over the U.S. It was the death of a national hero for no good reason at all—just an Occupational Hazard of the Speed business, shrug it off, forget it. But it was more than that. People noticed it, like they would definitely notice if Michael Jordan had been instantly killed by a brutal & deliberate foul to keep him from scoring in the final seconds of a close game.
Or if John Elway had been killed during a routine play in the last two minutes of a scoreless Super Bowl by a 300-pound blitzing linebacker who knew he would get a big Bonus for knocking a famous quarterback out of the game. Permanently. Dead from a broken neck.
Those ripples would have been noticed far beyond the city limits of Denver. And the killing of a hero like Elway could not have been shrugged off by somebody saying, “Sorry, but that’s the way the game is played.”
Well, no. That is Not the way the game is played—at least not for long, as anybody who watched the NFL last season can tell you. At least half of the league’s star quarterbacks were injured by violent collisions. The Oakland Raiders alone crippled nine (9) opposing quarterbacks by themselves—so there was some kind of poetic justice in their being knocked out of the Super Bowl when the Ravens injured Rich Gannon.
Tony Siragusa’s hit might have pleased the stupid bastards from the Backyard Wrestling crowd, but it also cost CBS about 15 percent of its TV audience for the Big Game. Millions of fans all over the country lost interest when the Raiders went down. Watching Ray Lewis play defense might have been interesting—but it was nothing like watching the highest-scoring Offense in the League going against a racehorse team like the Vikings. Savage Defense might be the way to win football games, but it is sure as hell not what puts Meat in the Seats—no more than losing three of its star drivers in ten (10) months is going to make the NASCAR ratings skyrocket.
Or maybe, God help us, it Will. There is such an evergrowing appetite for Violence as Entertainment in this country—especially among those in the 18–35 demographic that TV is targeting—that something Dark & Disastrous is going to come of it. There is a good commercial reason why Fox just paid for TV rights to NASCAR, and it is exactly the same reason why every recently built racetrack from California to Maine is designed about 20 feet Wider than tracks were built in the old days, when it was physically impossible for more than three (3) cars to run side by side at 180 mph in the straightaway—the new & Wider tracks have created the bloodcurdling spectacle of four cars running fender to fender at top speed.
“It makes the racing vastly more Exciting,” say the auto sport czars. “It dramatically raises the Potential Disaster factor & whips the fans into a frenzy.” Right. Blood & guts, bread & Circuses, human brains all over the asphalt. The people of Rome demanded more & more Death & Cruelty on their Sunday afternoons at the Colosseum—until Nobody was left to Sacrifice. They ran out of Victims.
And so will the NFL, the NBA, and NASCAR. That is what makes people nervous about the meaning of Dale Earnhardt’s death. It is the American Dream run amok. Watch it & weep.
—February 20, 2001
XFL, R.I.P.
I was going to write on the Meaning of Life this week, but I put it aside at the last moment when I got a tip that this might be the last chance I’ll ever get to write anything except an Obituary for the XFL.
The doomed league’s TV rating slipped another 25 points for the weekend—down 71 percent in the four quick weeks since Opening Day—and that steep a slide is fatal.
If the Dow Jones Index plunged that many points in four weeks, the sidewalks of Wall Street would be littered with the broken bodies of Stockbrokers. Five hundred people a day would be leaping to death off the Golden Gate Bridge.
The horrible reality of being suddenly stone broke and homeless is more than most people in this country can handle. They will literally seize up and go mad. Your everyday Nervous Breakdown is nothing compared to the hopeless Craziness of a man who woke up in the morning as a Prince and goes to bed as a Toad. That is a guaranteed overweaning shock to the Central Nervous System: if you don’t go insane from suddenly having to see everything in the world from a point only two inches high, your brain will surely be churned into cream by having to crawl, headfirst, with your eyes open, down a muddy hole in the ground just to have a place to sleep.
Nobody could handle a situation like That. It is Unacceptable. It is worse than any dream that ever happened in the worst and most tortured hallucinations ever suffered by the most pitiful LSD victim.… I spent a lot of time with Allen Ginsberg and I have swapped gruesome tales over whiskey at night with William Burroughs, and neither one of them ever even mentioned a vision so horrible as being instantly changed from a rich and powerful human like Donald Trump into a common leaping toad that might be swallowed alive by a snake at any moment.
Yet that is exactly what happens to people in this world who lose 71 percent of their customers in four weeks. They seize up and go crazy.
Out of personal loyalty to Jesse Ventura, I tried to watch the XFL “clash” on Saturday, but by halftime my heart was swollen by feelings of Hate and Despair. It was like watching a Festival of Shame taking place in a blinding rainstorm. Some fool from NBC appeared to have smeared Vaseline on the Camera lens to make it waterproof. It was like watching a game underwater and never really knowing the score.
A running back would appear on the screen for an instant, then disappear in a mass of mud-caked bodies. A long pass would vanish into a fog bank and never be seen again. There was no way to tell the officials from the players, except when a yellow flag was thrown and you could see who finally stooped down to pick it up.
The weird thing about the XFL is that nobody except Vince McMahon was anxious to see it born, and nobody except the cheerleaders will miss it when it’s gone. There is no way to explain why it ever happened at all, except that some cluster of corporate thugs in the TV business figured they were in desperate need of a tax write-off. It was not even good entertainment, much less good football.
—February 26, 2001
The Most Horrible Curse in Sports
The world of sports has always been plagued by queer superstitions, but most of them are harmless. Nobody really cares if Derek Jeter wears the same moldy jockstrap for 39 straight days, just as long as the Yankees win games—Many games, in fact, including at least four in the World Series.
If I owned a baseball team, I would want Jeter in it. He is a certified Winner in more ways than that bitchy-rich shortstop from Texas will know for the next 10 years.
Jesus, what conceivable reason would a pampered whiner like A-Rod have for bad-mouthing Jeter in the national gossip press? His rant sounds like something Al Gore would say, or a swine like Jesse Helms. I have been planning to continue my personal “Swine of the Week” award for many months, so let’s get it started right now and we’ll give the second one to Alex Rodriguez. He talks like something out of a Roger Clinton cartoon.
The Clinton family is full of hard-core sports fans. His mother spent much of her time at the racetrack, and Roger was big on pro basketball—until, at least, he became persona non grata at Madison Square Garden. A CBS-TV camera caught him spitting beer on a man he was attacking from behind with an amateurish Stranglehold. He was quickly subdued by Secret Service agents, who le
d him away in a wristlock. Roger is a Monster, a mutant brute who should have been put to sleep a long time ago.
I mention this only because the Yankees are about to get a raucous new fan at the Stadium, and his name will be Roger Clinton, famous brother of incoming NY Mayor Bill Clinton, previously of Washington, DC.… That is the best early bet on the Political horizon right now, for good or ill. Clinton did not move to Harlem on some kind of Jazz-addled whim. No. He just counted the votes. The only thing that might stand in his way is that awkward little matter of Felony crime in Arkansas. Good luck. Clinton is already the Winter-book favorite to be the next Mayor of New York City.
Wow! The Big Apple press will love this one. It is like getting what you always wanted for Christmas—a guaranteed Nasty headline every day of the week. It is a Gossipmonger’s dream.
Indeed, but we were talking about the so-called Jinx (or Curse) of Sports Illustrated and how deeply it is feared in the sports world.… Last week it struck Red Sox star hitter Nomar Garciaparra, whose wrist tendon split within hours after his cynically homoerotic image appeared on the cover of SI. He will be out of action for the duration of Spring training, said his doctors.…
Well, okay—in the name of Fair Comment I will stay away from that one. But I hate to think what a veteran drillmaster like Pat Riley would say about it: under Riley’s rules Nomar would find himself on the market within 48 hours.
That is how the meat market worked in the good old days when owners saw players more like Chattel slaves than employees—but even now when the pendulum has swung crazily in the other direction, Malingering is still dark poison for team morale. Like point shaving or getting repeatedly busted for wife beating, it has a long-term effect on the won-lost column, and that is bad for business.
Okay, that’s about It for sports this time. But I have a flash of Good News from the Police Atrocity front, which is heating up in Denver.… Stand back! Good News is rare in the Criminal Justice System, but every once in a while you find it, and this is one of those times. To wit: the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has formally entered the Appeals trial of young Lisl Auman—the girl who remains locked up in a cell at the Colorado State Prison for the Rest of Her Life with No Possibility of Parole for a bogus crime she was never even Accused of committing. She is a living victim of a cold-blooded political trial that will cast a long shadow on Denver for many years to come. Lisl is the only person ever convicted in the United States for Felony Murder who was in police custody when the crime happened.
The NACDL brings a heavyweight presence to this case that will quickly level the playing field. Nobody needs a public fight with a team of Elite warriors from the NACDL. It is like having to fight Joe Frazier every six months. There Will be terrible injuries, and there will be more than one trip to the Emergency Room this time. No more easy wins for the black hats. The worm is about to turn. That is also a good early bet. Take my word for it. And thanx again for your help.
—March 5, 2001
Urgent Warning to Gamblers: Beware the Ides of March
March is an ugly month for gamblers. It is a time of deep mud, foul treachery, and guaranteed personal failures. I have always hated March for personal reasons, but as a Gambler, I Really hate it.
Nothing good has Ever happened to me in March, and it has Never failed to bring horrible Fear, Grief, and extremely tangible Loss down on me—and I know in my heart that this year will be no different. I get the creeps every time I look at the calendar.… Big trouble, soon come.
Even Astrologers will tell you that March is a good time to lay low and beware of taking Risks. Disaster is Certain, because March is ruled by Mars, and that is Guaranteed trouble. The Sun is in Pisces, which is the worst time of Any year for making Decisions. They are sure to be made for reasons of Emotional disturbance rather than Logic or rational thought. That is the Law of the Universe.
And that brings Us, as Gambling people, to the terrible truth that March is also the month of the NCAA basketball tournament—and we know what That means for Gamblers, don’t we? Yes sir. It is Extremely Dangerous territory for even the coolest and calmest Professional risk takers—much less for emotionally berserk Amateurs with “Home Team Fever.” Those people are Doomed. That is a Mathematical Certainty, like a game of Musical Chairs with only One chair. You don’t need a pencil to figure that one out.
Indeed. I have scars on my soul from past gambling disasters that will Never heal over. I still suffer hate and pain in my head every time I see the word “Duke” on a TV screen, and that rotten Thing happened nine years ago when that Swine Christian Laetner hit that impossible last-second shot against Kentucky. I still have a Memory Block about it—but as I recall, it was in the East Regional final that is still known as “the Best basketball game ever played.” Jesus, it Was and remains the Worst Shock I’ve experienced in my Life.
March is a month without mercy for rabid basketball fans. There is no such thing as a “gentleman gambler” when the Big Dance rolls around. All sheep will be fleeced, all fools will be punished severely.… There are no Rules when the deal goes down in the final weeks of March. Even your good friends will turn into monsters. They will watch you intensely for any sign of emotional commitment to your bets, and then jump you like snakes on a toad. Loyalty is a fatal weakness in this business. It is an open invitation to a Beating.
I have been keenly aware of this problem for many years, and I am quick to take advantage when I see it in others. Any jackass who will bet his Heart instead of his Head on NCAA tournament games is either a brain-dead Sucker or temporarily Insane. That is a rule of Nature. And all Suckers are fair game, especially when they’re crazy.
And that’s about it for my Wisdom. I have preached it forever, yet for some sick reason I have never been able to cure myself of it, even when I know it brings pain.
Only two years ago, my good friend Ed Bradley walked into this house and beat me like a gong out of $4,000 on a Kentucky-Arizona game that suddenly went Wrong and bit me in the face. I was completely Humiliated, in front of my friends and family. They laughed like a gang of Hyenas.
I will never forget it—at least not until my people go up against Duke in two weeks. Hot damn! I can hardly wait. We will beat them like stinking animals. Selah.
—March 12, 2001
I Told You It Was Wrong
People mocked me when I picked Kentucky to go all the way in the NCAA finals this year. They said I was dumb, that I was doing exactly what I warned people Not to do, last week. I was betting my heart instead of my head—Homeboy Fever.
Well, maybe so. I am a Bluegrass boy, for sure, and the blood of Devil Anse Hatfield runs in my veins—but I don’t hear any Fat ladies singing in my house tonight, no music has stopped where I dance.…
Betting on Kentucky has always been a white-knuckle proposition. The Holy Cross game on Thursday took three years off my life in ten minutes. Losing a 12-point lead when you’ve just doubled down is one of those things that I will Never learn to tolerate. It is like watching rats gnaw flesh off your body.
Every bastard in Boston was laughing at me when that happened. I could hear it all the way out here on the other side of the Continental Divide.… Ho ho. Remember that old sales pitch that said, “They laughed when I sat down to play the piano”? It was Liberace who said that, I think. He was selling quick-fix Music Lessons.
It was the same thing they said when Tayshaun Prince showed up in Lexington to play basketball. He was way too skinny, they said. He lacked the true grit of a winner.… But let me tell you something, Bubba—that boy Prince has the instincts of a flat-out professional assassin. He murdered Holy Cross in cold blood, and he did it again to Iowa. Prince is a Shootist. He can turn your nerves to jelly if you’re Betting against him.
Ah, but dancing out loud is very bad Karma at this time of year. There are 16 teams still alive in this tournament, and every one of them is dangerous. Stanford survived by the skin of its teeth against lowly St. Joseph’s, and Pen
n State’s cruel bashing of North Carolina brought shame on the whole state.
My own real fear, right now, is that Kentucky might be so rabid for revenge against Duke that they will forget all about USC, which would be a fatal mistake. The Grim Reaper sits close to the floor in this tournament. A single missed free throw can be the difference between Life and Death. Ask that poor geek from Wisconsin how it feels. The next basketball game he plays will be in Korea.
And remember this, folks—I am a Hillbilly, and I don’t always Bet the same way I talk. Good advice is one thing, but smart gambling is quite another. Caveat Emptor.
My topic next week will be “The Importance of a Good Education.” But Kentucky has to beat USC first, and I want Duke to stay healthy long enough to get past UCLA. Once we get our hands on Duke, people will understand why it was Richard Nixon’s favorite school.
—March 19, 2001
Where Were You When the Fun Stopped?
There are many harsh lessons to be learned from the gambling experience, but the harshest one of all is the difference between having Fun and being Smart. It is the difference between Winning and Losing, on most days, and the second half of the Maryland-Duke game on Saturday was a lesson for fun-loving Losers.
Saturday has never been kind or forgiving to these people. They are taught all their lives that Saturday night is when even fools can cut loose and take risks that would be out of the question on any other night: get drunk, shoot guns, dance naked in public parks, or even crouch in your basement and hack into the Pentagon database.…
If Sunday is the Lord’s day, then Saturday belongs to the Devil. It is the only night of the week when he gives out Free passes to the Late Show at the Too Much Fun Club.
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