Jessica Simpson’s Alimony to Own Tacoma Rainiers

When Nick Lachey’s big face started popping up at every sporting event in the known world, I blamed Jessica Simpson. From NFL halftimes and MLB All-Star games to presenting at the ESPYs, Lachey was there.

For a while, he was the Law and Order of the sports world. It mattered not the date, time, or channel, Mr. Jessica was on the air, smiling and offering up his unique brand of Average Joe "analysis." When the frequency of his appearances began to increase, I said, "Ya know, he must be getting his name out there in preparation for the day they divorce. He’ll need a job when Nick & Jessica’s Family Christmas is off the table."

Soon enough, the marriage was in shambles and thanks to his efforts in gaining pre-divorce exposure, Nick is the one coming out on top.  

While Jessica has spent the last year looking like a meth case, giving it up to Maroon 5 and Johnny Knoxville, and getting a guy who looks like a character from Where the Wild Things Are to acknowledge her existence, Nick has been moving up and moving out.

Having secured the love of Vanessa Minnillo, he’s now buying into the Tacoma Rainiers, the Triple-A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners.

Surprisingly, this isn’t the first time Lachey has tried to get involved with a sports franchise. When the Cincinnati Reds came up for sale a couple years ago, he made a bid to join the new ownership but had yet to cash in on his wife’s new fame.

But now Lachey is liquid, so thirty-three percent of the Rainiers organization will be controlled by Jessica Simpson’s alimony payments. This shouldn’t bother those in Tacoma, however, as Lachey wants to make it clear that he doesn’t "want to be one of those meddling owners who is trying to give his influence where it’s not wanted." Instead, he plans to expand on the role of sycophantic hanger-on that he famously perfected on the USC sidelines by becoming an "active investor."

Tranlation: he’ll be practicing with the team.

"That’s the biggest perk," he says. Sure, maybe for him but not for guys trying to make it to the bigs. Nothing says preparing for the next level like batting practice with Mr. 98 Degrees.

Unless Minnillo will be attending practices with a throng of hot, available friends, something tells me the "active investor" role won’t sit well with most players. That said, when Lachey starts pumping What’s Left of Me through the clubhouse, the issue could become moot.

It’s a Mony Mony Yuletide!

Alright kids, it’s been a week but I’m back and better than ever.

Before I begin, thanks for the emails regarding Bret with one T. I feel much better about my reaction than I did a few days ago. The only somewhat negative feedback received was from my father, who was pretty sure I should have busted BWOT in the face but admired my restraint. And Boss, who thought I should have walked him off university property and then beaten him down to avoid a law suit. So let’s move on.

For those around since the beginning, do you remember New Years two years ago when my Uncle Nat’s drunken rant lead my family to momentarily believe I was the bastard child of Billy Idol?

If you don’t recall, my uncle lost it when Idol came on tv during Dick Clark’s Rockin Eve, shouting incessantly about Idol sleeping with his sister. When some genius pointed out that this happened about 9 months before I was born, the speculation was on. It turns out that he was talking about my aunt and not my mother but it took 5 minutes and some comments about my whitish hair and tendency to smirk and sneer to sort that out.

Nothing like drunk adults to make a mess of things.

I haven’t thought of Billy Idol since that night but I’m happy to report that he’s officially back in my life! While out and about yesterday, I spotted the finest piece of holiday fun since Alvin & the Chipmunks did Christmas — Billy Idol’s Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays features obvious tunes like Silver Bells, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Silent Night, and Frosty the Snowman ("This is Frosty the Snowman and we’re not fucking around."), as well as self-written ditties Happy Holiday and Christmas Love.

But what’s insane about this whole thing (apart from the fact that it’s actually happening) is that this cd has no touch of the Rebel Yell. There is no Mony Mony Yuletide. 

Sure, Idol rocks out but he does it with Perry Como’s cock out, which is as sad as it is hilarious.

You see, for Billy, a punk Christmas is bollocks. Christmas music is about the fireside, the family, and that whole feel-good warmth one gets while decorating the house with Christmas cheer. It shouldn’t be about typical Billy Idol things like bringing it hard and tonguing it, which would probably make it more appealing for those of us on the Jew side of the fence. But those are the brokes, I guess.

While many might think seeing Billy Idol jazz around like Pat Boone is a bit of a surprise, I think he’s just seen Love Actually one too many times.  

How many of you have been duped into watching it? Most of you are men in their 20′s and 30′s, so I’d wager that it’s a fairly high percentage. Don’t be in denial – if there is a woman in your life, she has probably tried to force this on you… I know I’ve done it to my man (I love this movie!!). But for those who haven’t used this film as a tool to get laid, Love Actually, set in London, follows nine interrelated tales of love during the frantic month before Christmas.

One tale is that of Billy Mack, a washed-up, aging rock and roll legend that records a Christmas single based on The Troggs’ hit "Love is All Around." Though his record is a steaming pile, it shoots to number one on Christmas Eve and Mack returns to fame and fortune. But instead of celebrating Christmas with celebrities and other stars, he returns to his manager’s house (his only real family) and they spend the holiday getting drunk and watching porn.

Frankly, this sounds like something Billy Idol would be involved in. And after this record shoots to #1 on Christmas (and it will because we Britons embrace horrible pop songs in spite of their badness), I hope he celebrates by bringing it hard and tonguing it or, at the very least, getting drunk and watching porn. I know I will be.

The Psychology of Perspectives

Sometime last week, a friend asked if I’d consent to an interview with a boy writing a paper about the psychology of perspectives. Now, I like to think that I’m reasonably intelligent, so I can surmise a definition for the phrase but who knows what, if anything, it actually means.

Truth be told, the psychology of perspectives sounds like a phrase one dreams up when hoping to earn an "A" based on the strength of the paper’s title. And with one look at "Bret with one T," my suspicions were confirmed.

He made his presence known by knocking out "shave and a haircut" on my office door. Our building is bursting at the seams with testosterone and masculinity. Floating in like with musical tunes doesn’t fly too well in a place like ours but I doubt he’d taken that into consideration.

Actually, I’m certain of it.

"Bret with one T" wore a navy Oxford and a Mogador Stripe tie under a lambswool argyle vest and well-pressed charcoal wool pants. His shoes were even shined.

I sensed a touch of the fabulous in him.

After muddling through the superficial niceties, the interview was underway and I spent the better part of ten minutes answering questions about my family, background, and random details of my past. But soon enough, things took a negative turn, as I got peppered with questions so astonishingly ignorant, that the situation reeked of set-up.

BWOT: You’re of mixed racial, ethnic, and non-American heritage, which must be pretty crazy to deal with on its on, let alone stuff like this.
Me: Excuse me?
BWOT: So what will you do on Thursday?

I said something about protesting the obesity epidemic. But instead of sharing in the laughter, BWOT nodded his bloody head, wrote it down, and asked if the rest of my family had plans. When my mouth fell open, he launched into a detailed narrative of his family’s magical Thanksgiving experiences. Apparently, mine had none of its own.

If you ask "Bret with one T," we savage, un-American beasts known as the Family Warner, spend Thanksgivings huddled around a kerosene heater in an abandoned shack. While we fight to stay warm and keep our wits about us by thinking back to the days when our people roamed the American Southwest or of the good times had across the pond, the rest of the country merrily feasts on turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie (with Cool Whip) in celebration of the New World.

After a few minutes, he asked, "As a Native American with a mother who is not even American, how does that make you and your family feel?"

At that point, the psychology of perspective was officially mocking me.

I did my best to calmly explain that despite its origins, my family, like most, treats the day as one of gratitude; we leave the rah-rah Pilgrim routine for the Macy’s Parade.

Well this pissed him off and he got indignant with me. By failing to be offended by the celebration of Thanksgiving as the beginning of white dominance, I was betraying my bloodline. All the pain and struggle and death and this is how I repay them. "You know you could be on a reservation and here you are in this incredible place!" 

… 

Have you ever gotten so angry, so unbelievably enraged that you became paralyzed by your emotions? Your neck burns, your hands shake, your heart is beating out of your chest. And yet, you’re motionless. It’s not that you’ve grown into an angered calm that often rears its head in cases of coldly calculated violence. In a situation like this, you simply haven’t the ability to move.

That was me. Ten minutes or ten seconds, who knows how long it lasted. And ya know, I could have handled the questions. No matter who you are or where you come from, you have to suffer this from time to time. So it’s no surprise that a sheltered buffoon whose sole expertise lies in matching knits and patterns would have such absurd ideas.

But to bash me with PC bullshit because I don’t feel guilty about giving thanks for blessings while enjoying a good turkey, baked mac and cheese, and rolls with heaping piles of butter?

I went a little crazy.

We exchanged words before he backed out of my office and left. But this experience has left me curious about something — Are some of you wondering the same types of things he was? Am I naive in assuming most people have half a clue? If I am and overreacted, please, please let me know.

Maxim Steakhouse Waitresses Will Wear Clothes!

I know there are only 15 minutes left in the day but the following Tuesday musings can be found in my update at Sports by Brooks:

Since Paul Katcher’s work will be going up in the morning, you’ll have to scroll down for mine. But, as usual, I hope you enjoy.

Cheers mates!

PS. Friday’s post would have been similar but with different snippets. While I’m sorry to have neglected the lot of you, something tells me you survived.

Michael Richards Needs a Beatdown by Street Toughs

WARNING: WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE IS PROFANE AND RACIAL

*This TMZ headline is the only amusing thing about this situation.*

So now that Michael Richards has joined Mel Gibson’s Racist Tirade Army, expect the following to transpire over the next 24 hours:

What happened at the Laugh Factory was as sad as it was disgusting. But with all the time spent on Richards’ comments, why is the crowd getting a free pass?

He should have been confronted (physically or otherwise) after saying, “Fifty years ago we’d have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass.”

But instead, most of the crowd laughed. And though many grew upset and began to walk out, is that really enough? I know it’s easy to express indignation after the fact but am I the only one who thinks their lack of action (and continued laughter, nervous and otherwise) was a problem?

*Update: I just watched Michael Richards’ apology on Letterman. He didn’t fully take accountability but he didn’t mention alcohol, drugs, demons, and rehab. For that, I can applaud. But for the rest, it was sorry stuff from a racist fuck who needs a few people with steel toed boots to dispense some justice on his beat down face.

Dick Hammer & the Busty Crusade

So after the Pacquiao/Morales fight (which gets no space here because I’ve had orgasms last longer), we had a rather sizeable get-together at the house.

Around 2.30 or so, some drunken reprobate who thought he was at his own house turned on our living room tv to search for porn. We don’t subscribe to the naughty channels and he was too lifted to figure out PPV, so he settled for HBO Zone’s softcore menu.

[I'm not a big porn watcher but if I have to see it, give me some action. Softcore porn is like reminiscing on my dry humping days from high school. Two thumbs down.] 

Alabama Jones and the Busty Crusade – "three women answer the call of the wild when a curator sends them to a treacherous jungle to search for an ancient relic." Turns out the ancient relic is a mystic mango that has the power to turn women into sex slaves, which seemed ironic for a movie that likely featured 27 different lesbian throwdowns and a few sessions against trees and rocks with island natives that spoke like Tarzan. But I digress.

The movie was on for a minute or so when one of the characters tried to seduce a guy carrying a spear. I’ve never seen 70 people collectively silenced that quickly but bad sex on a 60" plasma is more than enough to hold a bunch of hypersexed, 20-something drunkards captive for a few moments.

After a pretend makeout scene, the girl saddled up but before anything could really get going, Encino Man grabbed her tits. This was the worst thing he could have done. The move pulled her skin so taught that we could actually see the wrinkles in the bags that held her breast implants.

That was the end of tv time.

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In seemingly unrelated news, WFMZ 69 is reporting that a bloke named Dick Hammer will be inducted into the Lafayette College Hall of Fame for radio broadcasting.

I’m serious.

At first I thought he was the holder of the magical sex slave mango in the above-mentioned "film," but it seems this is not the case.

Dick Hammer has called more than 1300 games, including the 100th Lafayette-Lehigh game, which is the longest uninterrupted rivalry in collegiate football.

"This is Dick Hammer saying good night and good sports!"

Valley Beats Bayside!

I was in elementary school when Emmitt Smith won his first MVP and barely in college when he left the Cowboys. From my perspective, Emmitt Smith killed men by the hundreds. He consumed the fiercest and nastiest of NFL defenses with balls of fire from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse.

That must have been my youth talking.

Over time, I caught a clue and realized that while Emmitt was an amazing running back, he wasn’t the William Wallace of the gridiron (who could have done it all and more without the aid of that ridiculous O-line) and moved on to hold other men in absurdly high regard… I kinda forgot about Emmitt after that.

So it happens that the secretaries in my office spent most of Wednesday squawking about the “Dancing with the Stars” finale. Clearly divided into Team Smith and Team Lopez, the ladies would break every 45 minutes to mull things over and eat a (few) danish. Which guy was sleeping with his partner? Which one had the sexier outfits? Who’s better in bed? At one point, I chimed in and said that Emmitt clearly had the best outfits, what with taking his cues from the Freddie Mercury School of Fashion and all. They were not amused.

In any case, I got home just before 8 and decided to tune in. What’s the harm, right? After 10 minutes, I was sure that Mario Lopez would be the victor because I couldn’t wrap my brain around the possibility that a person I once revered as more than a man could get in a dancing competition and proceed to out-gay Mario Lopez…

But he did.

It’s like we’re back at The Max or something, dueling for Kelly Kapowski’s love. 

Caught Cheating On Your Man? Wear Nike!

I don’t know when this ad ran, so forgive me if i’m 18 months late to the game. But where is Nike going with this one?

Did the shoes make her cheat? Did they help her snag the black guy that fathered the baby? Did he buy them for her? Maybe he wants her in pre-pregnancy shape.

Or maybe (and this is my guess) the Nikes are about to serve as getaway shoes. The mother will need them after the father gets over the shock and tries to beat her ass.

Hattip: Metadish (BlogNYC)

Ron Artest Needs a Sex Tape

Unable to pick up fans while touring with Fat Joe (or engaging in any other endeavor), Nielsen Soundscan is reporting that Ron Artest’s debut album "My World" sold a huge 343 copies in its first week in stores.

Three hundred forty three and you know his mama bought 43 of them… poor thing.

With lyrics like "David Stern! Damn, David Stern. I gotta teach you bout the ghetto there’s some things you should learn" and "Matt Lauer, up on NBC. You look like a girl don’t talk to me," I really don’t know why he’s struggling out there.

Even more troubling is that Kevin Federline’s "Playing with Fire" outperformed "My World" with 6,000 copies sold in its debut. 

How does K-Fed sell anything? On first glance, you’d think he was a master marketer what with his ability to trick Britney Spears into marrying him and have his babies. But you can probably get her to follow you but leashing a bag of Cheetos and a Frappucino on a piece of string and pulling it back to your lair, so maybe he hasn’t accomplished as much as I thought.

But at least he can buy an iPod with his profits. All Artest will be good for is the Whopper with cheese value meal at Burger King and I don’t even know if he’ll be able to upgrade that to the King size.

This wouldn’t be the case if Artest had a sex tape that featured "My World" as the soundtrack. David Stern be damned; hear me out! 

We all know that sex sells no matter who is having it. Chyna and X-Pac proved as much when 40,000 people shelled out bones to watch him get it on with her micropenis.

Is Ron Artest more disgusting than those two? I submit that he is not. In fact, I bet there’s a huge market for porn featuring bad boys that rail girls on the edges of beds, tables, and counter tops because they’re too lazy to take off their Timberlands while knockin it out…

Oh please, like Ron Artest isn’t one of these guys. I’ve dated Timberland Boots Guy; Ron fits the mold.

Anyway, the key to making a profit is Artest finding the right women. To save money, he should either ask Flavor of Love rejects or chicks he already knows – namely, groupies. The high quality girls won’t get on board without extreme demands like a million dollars and an unprotected sperm deposit. So he’ll have to get the low-rent girls that look like Pam from Martin. They’ll settle for $100/hour and the exposure and won’t be so offended by a money shot to the nose.

+ I know you think this is crazy but Flavor Flav has managed to get 20 women to fight for his affections – TWICE – at the cost of $100 per day + room and board. They also sign a waiver saying they won’t hold VH-1 or Flav responsible when he loads them up with STDs. You’re telling me Ron Artest can’t pull that off? The fact that he doesn’t look like a burnt turd with a gremlin face should make him a little more appealing.+ 

After the footage is shot and edited, enter marketing magic, stage left. 

First comes the clever title. I suggest "Tru Warier Nights" with a caption on the box that says "Ron Artest Hits it Like the Fist of an Angry God" … but that’s just me.

Next is the price and packaging. For $24.99, you get a DVD loaded with features and the soundtrack. Or you can download everything through the iTunes Music store for $17.99.

Third – collaborate with Kevin Federline! Get him to throw a few My World tracks onto the Oops, I Did It Again "home movies" that he’s releasing in the event of a divorce from Britney Spears.

He’ll be down; he’ll want to team up with people who also suffer from lack of respect and constant boos from the masses. 

+ Side note – how predictable was a Britney Spears sex tape? Frankly, I expected one 15 months ago +

With a plan like this, who knows – in 2 or 3 years time, Ron Artest’s album might go gold! Someone needs to contact him about my plan.

Curt Schilling Finishes Last on Celebrity Jeopardy

Check out today’s musings on SportsbyBrooks where I make sniping comments on the following nuggets:

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I’m an avid Jeopardy watcher, so I was pretty excited to see Curt Schilling on “Celebrity Jeopardy” last night. It’s not often that I can actively root for someone to lose before they irritate me during the lame personal information segment, so I was feeling pretty lucky.

I have no problem with Curt Schilling, the pitcher. He’s an amazing competitor and one of the most dominating pitchers of this era. Curt Schilling, the pitcher, commands respect. But off-the-field Schilling, the egomaniacal windbag? That guy chaps my arse.

Off-the-field Schilling doesn’t just think he’s omniscient, he also believes that the public is clamoring for his opinions, be they on social issues, political issues, or, well, any issue at all.

I’m in full support of people shouting their opinions from the rooftops but I take issue when an individual fancies him or herself an unquestioned authority by simple virtue of being a public figure.

Schilling is a serious offender in this regard. His ability to throw 95 mph fastballs and play through the pain shouldn’t grant him expert status on geopolitical crises anymore than working on Syriana and The Thin Red Line should for George Clooney and Sean Penn.

But somehow, those are all the qualifications they need.

Tom Cruise got to watch Kurt Russell play a psychiatrist in Vanilla Sky, is well-versed in Scientology literature, and has a million-watt smile. Now he’s ready to slang some knowledge about non-existence of clinical imbalances and yoga and a bottle of Centrum as the cure for depression.

Makes perfect sense.

You know what I’d like to do? Dump Schilling, Clooney, Penn, Cruise, and the rest of those self-important sacks on a Lost-ish island and let them duke it out. Schilling would likely emerge victorious, having beaten Sean Penn to death with a coconut but I digress… I don’t even know where I’m going with this.

<– Back to Jeopardy –>

Schilling’s first problem was rocking a heavily-moussed power mullet. Normally, this wouldn’t be notable but that mullet was the best thing he had going on the evening.

Curt spent a good deal of the first round in silence, holding his signaling button in the air while wearing a blank stare and a stupidly optimistic grin. But sometime in Double Jeopardy, he went on a three question rampage:

It was like the scene in White Men Can’t Jump where Rosie Perez wiped out the “Foods That Start with the Letter Q” category.

Schilling’s score jumped from $600 to $4400 and left him trailing Malcolm in the Middle‘s mom and the gay guy from Melrose Place by $8000.

But then Final Jeopardy dropped this brainbuster:

Schilling, who bet it all, answered: Who is Nancy Drew?

…

Look, I understand some people aren’t aware that Drew Barrymore is something like a 12th generation actor, not to mention the only Drew of note in Hollywood. Pop culture isn’t everybody’s bag. But Nancy Drew? The fictional character? The girl whose next turn in a novel may have as much detective work as threesome action with the Hardy Boys?

Come on, Curt.