The Best Show on TV is Not On Your TV…

If you have BBC America or have had the opportunity to see an episode of Top Gear while it was briefly on either the Speed Channel or Discovery then you already know that we are missing out on one of the finest hours of television in the world.  If you have not seen Top Gear let me explain… BBC has been producing a TV show about cars since 1977.  Not about building cars, Pimping cars, Overhaulin’ cars and not about race cars.  It’s about the one product that everyone buys. Simply cars.  It is about cool cars and lousy cars.  It is about super cars by Ferrari and Bugatti and about grocery getters by Toyota and Ford.  It is produced and written by smart funny guys who love to drive, look at and discuss cars.  Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are three guys who just like cars.  They are not race car drivers.  They are three different opinions that offer a quirky, funny, real and informative take on the second largest investment most people make in a lifetime.

This is without a doubt the finest program you will never see on American TV… and it makes absolutely no fucking sense.  America is the home of the automobile.  We as a culture have a longer and deeper love affair with the car than any other people.  It is ingrained in our culture.  Europeans travel by train (a lot), same for the Japanese but Americans have more land to travel across and have crappy mass transit because of our individualist nature (Ayn Rand would be proud) which drives us to…well drive.  Americans buy cars that lack any practicality because we love that they are not practical.  Station wagon?  WTF give me a two door pony car with more balls than brains.  SUVs? Fuck YEAH! I want to burn more gas just so that I can have a ride taller than my neighbors.  What does common Euro-trash drive?  Mini hatch backs that run on three cylinders and require shoe horns for egress. Fuck that shit.  We as a people really love our cars. We developed drive-ins for burger joints and double features… just so we could spend more time in our cars.  We love them that much.

So why would we not love a show that talked in a real way about cars?  Top Gear America has been in development at least three different times as best that I can recall.  The last attempt by NBC was going to have Adam Carolla and a couple other car guys try to reproduce the BBC show.   It never really got off the ground.  Instead of taking a chance with Top Gear NBC would rather give us Howie Do It.  (Fuck! I want to break something)

TV marginalizes the car by selling shows like Knight Rider (embarrassing), Pimp My Ride (The creator of this should be shot) and Overhaulin’(quick change the channel!) instead of really discussing the car as a basic underpinning of life.  Every American male worth talking to has an opinion about cars.  How they look, which ones they like, which car companies they will never buy from and the cars that they desire.  Yet, there is a vacuum when it comes to serious discussion of cars on TV.  Why?

I have a couple ideas why… 1. It would take actual work to put together a show for a 20 week run that is as good as Top Gear here in America.  Work sucks compared to hiring Howie Mandel and telling him to do an epically shittier version of Candid Camera.  2. Advertising Dollars.  If you are going to do a show about cars and reviewing them and discussing them then you need to at times say “this car is a piece of shit.”  There are literally dozens of models that are just plain shit; most of them built right here in the U. S. of A.  Even the very finest of vehicles can’t do everything par excellence.  And that is the problem.  GM is not going to stand for a show that ends up telling the viewer what he should already know…that the Cobalt is an embarrassingly bad car.  Nor will it stand for the Cadillac CTS being thrown heaps of praise but still not living up to being a BMW 3-series.  If the show were to say the Corvette was the finest sports car ever made but suggests that it’s Rubber-Maid interior is just not up to snuff the and negatives will kill them…and that is all they would care about.  NBC and other broadcasters do not want to upset advertisers.

Or maybe Jeremy Clarkson said it best in an interview last month in Australia where he let the cat out of the bag that Top Gear America was “canned” by stating that “[Americans] just don’t get it.”

Until that changes those of us who do “get it” will be stuck down loading it online and watching tidbits on YouTube.com…Just watch a couple of these videos and tell me you would not make this appointment viewing.

This is just depressing.

Thanks for coming and suckling Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Bearcat

Wave goodbye to football as you know it…

The NFL and The NFL Players Association have a message for you, The Fan…

The last time the NFL lost games to a strike, fantasy football was a fantasy; 1987 to be exact. The only issue at that time was free agency.

Since that strike, baseball has canceled a World Series, the NHL canceled an entire season and the NBA lost nearly half a season. Remember when tons of NBA players were going broke because they apparently blow their money like crazy and live six-figure paycheck to six-figure paycheck?

Well the 22 years of NFL labor peace is over and here is why: The economy tanked, nothing makes negotiating a labor agreement a total bitch like a sour economy. Unions still want pay increases and Management wants to protect assets. Couple that with a 2010 season with no salary cap if the parties fail to sign a deal before the end of Super Bowl 44. That is ten months away… If the NFL does not get an agreement in the next ten months then we will see Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder go fucking nuts on the free agent market.

This time next year we will have a salary cap free NFL… think about that for a second. Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, for all his on-field mismanagement, has turned his team into an ATM machine, and he is masturbating to the possibility of “making it rain” on players next summer, no matter how great or F’ed up the economy is. What will Cowboys owner Jerry Jones do when his new Billion Dollar Stadium starts making money like a printing press?

The shit is not going to hit the fan. The shit has already hit the fan and is beginning to cover the walls. The only question is how much crap is going to get tossed? The players’ union has said, in no uncertain terms, that once you go black no-cap, you never go back. This is a fundamental law of collective bargaining: Once you get something as good as a non-salary cap is for the players you don’t give it up, not for anything.

The union believes that teams averaged $25 million in profit last year. The owners are refusing to open their books and are doing what major league sports owners always do and are crying poor… which never made any fucking sense to me. You own the New England Patriots and you are not making money? Then you must be retarded or burning hundred dollar bills to heat Kraft factories.

So what is Goodell doing about this? Saying things like: “Ownership has spent a lot of time evaluating the current C.B.A. and determined it is better to terminate that agreement and come up with a new one that will be beneficial to the clubs and players. The economy turning sour has accentuated the importance of the C.B.A.”

Let me interpret that for you: “We think we are spending way too much money in this current C.B.A. and frankly we believe that by terminating this one we can force the player to work for less money… also with the economy nose diving like a Japanese Kamikaze what better time then now to help us cram it up their ass?” In negotiating, management’s best friends are gloom and doom. Hey it worked for the NHL. The “we’re fucked” angle was real for them… in the NFL, not so much. Goodell spent the weeks after the Super Bowl talking up a 17 or 18 game regular season but really what he should have been talking about was the next CBA. Time is running out… unless you are not interested in a new deal.

Everyone knows the NFL sells it competitive parity, anyone (but the Lions) can win on any given Sunday. But the real secret is not just competitive parity but it also has to be the financial parity between its owners. This comes from the league splitting its national broadcast revenue evenly among all its teams, and the fact that true free agency did not hit the league until the early 1990s, two decades after it fucked up baseball.

Now we have the Red Skins throwing $100 million at Albert Haynesworth, 41 of it guaranteed. This does not happen unless Snyder is certain that the days of a salary cap are numbered. Owners have developed a knack for pulling cash out of their stadiums that no one would have tried even 15 years ago… luxury suites, stadium builders licenses, public-seat licenses and all those sponsorship deals. Owning a NFL team has gone from a hobby for the uber-rich to being a business that is expected to generate profit. That means ruthless behavior on the part of individual team owners.

So what is happening or what is going to happen? 1. The current CBA is fucking toast. It is over. No one is saying it but owners (esp. two of the most powerful) are acting like it. So therefore it is done. 2. If the CBA is done then so is the salary cap. Players have said it time and time again. Once the salary cap is gone it is not coming back. When a Union takes a hard line position on a term or condition of employment like the NFLPA is taking here they are not going to back off. They can’t.

What does this mean to me? Football is never going to be the same. The NFL’s success in recent years is based at least in part on Fantasy Football and gambling. Why else would people get the NFL Package or the Dish? No one cares to watch the Pats beat the Chiefs 42-6 unless you are starting Tom Brady and/or have a C-note riding a 49.5 point over. If the NFL loses the salary cap then financial parity’s days are numbered. The Bills are not going to drop nine figures on a defensive lineman… so with financial parity so goes competitive parity. No competitive parity in football could be a disaster for Fantasy Football…less people in Fantasy Football, less people watching that blowout win by the Pats. Less parity, less gambling… are you seeing a trend?

And all of this does not address what would happen to the league when there is a lockout. It would be a shock to the American male’s system to not have football on every Sunday during the fall of 2011. But would people be running to get it once it decides to come back? The NFL product is not Coca-Cola… once you switch to New Coke you can’t just go back to canning Coca-Cola Classic after people tell you your new product sucks. Whatever is in place via the new CBA will be the way things are for a long time…and I don’t think people will like the taste of it. Unfortunately for us the new formula is already taking shape and the sane owners (if there are any) inside the NFL only have 10 months to save the goose who lays the golden eggs.

Thanks for coming and suckling on Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Bearcat

People who are using up my oxygen

Instead of targeting just one person, this time I am taking aim at 1,000,001 people.  That’s right…I am looking at you Ashton Kutcher and the one million people you actually have following you on Twitter.

In a much ballyhooed battle between Kutcher and CNN’s breaking news feed to be the first one to ever get one million followers, Kutcher topped the mark last week roughly thirty minutes before CNN did.  I guess in a technology that limits each tweet to 140 character messages, Kutcher might be the perfect celebrity to be on the forefront.  I doubt very heavily that Kutcher has more than that running around his tiny birdbrain.

Even without the publicity this friendly skirmish generated, Kutcher would eventually have been mentioned in this series.  I’m not sure why this guy is as famous as he is.  Sure, he’s married to Demi Moore but didn’t she lose her fastball ten years ago?  He churns out the same movie every two years – – can anyone tell me the difference between “Just Married”, “My Boss’s Daughter”, “A Lot Like Love”, and “What Happens in Vegas…”? Anyone?  His most memorable roles are either playing an idiot (“That 70’s Show”), a stoner (“Dude, Where’s My Car?”), or a real-life douchebag (MTV’s “Punk’d”).

Even when it seems the world is more interested in celebrity than in anything else, I still find it tough to believe that more people want to know what’s going on inside Ashton’s brain and in Ashton’s life than want the breaking news of the day.  A suicide bomber killed 41 in Israel…but Ashton just ate a braised carnitas burrito from Chipotle Mexican Grill for lunch.  The Federal Reserve chairman has just lowered interest rates…but Ashton just got done with a grueling Krav Magra class at his gym.  Are 1 million people really this interested in Kutcher’s day to day life?

By giving Kutcher more ammunition to feed his ego and ultimately more press coverage (hello, Larry King!) they (and him) should be rescinded their rights to breathe air that is more suited to me.

Additional photos at the request of fellow editor Bearcat…

Iced coffee? Check…Dangling cigarette? Check…Douchebag? Check

Yes ladies, he really is married to an old hag…so hands off!!!

Nice pose, jackoff…Zac Effron wonders if he can borrow it

Thanks for coming and suckling Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Max Power

Either that or Billy Beane just has a big mouth

Michael Lewis’ “Moneyball” is widely regarded as bringing sabermetrics out of Bill James’ basement and into the mainstream.  The following story about Lewis comes courtesy of yesterday’s New York Post:

Never let it be said that Michael Lewis spares himself from his keen reporting. In his new memoir of fatherhood, “Home Game,” he writes that when he was dropping off his daughter at day care, the teachers giggled at him for no apparent reason. He asked his wife, Tabitha Soren, why they were laughing and she mumbled, “Er, it’s about your penis.” Lewis’ dogged reporting uncovered the grim facts: His toddler daughter, who had a habit of peeking on him in the shower, liked to blurt out to everyone at day care, “Daddy has a small penis!”

This article raises a couple of questions:

• Lewis is married to Tabitha Soren? Ex-MTV News hottie Soren?  I mean I know she’s no Serena Altschul, but I’m pretty sure I spanked off to that once or twice (remember kiddies this was long before the you could get porn on-demand from anywhere).
• Apparently, Lewis really does have a small penis considering Soren doesn’t really stick up for his size even though he has become a laughingstock at his daughter’s school…that is something I would have left out of my memoir.
• And last but not least…How many penises has Michael Lewis’ toddler daughter seen to know her daddy’s is small?

Thanks for coming and suckling Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Max Power

Riding off in the Outback Steakhouse bus for good

Boom. The end of an error era. John Madden today retired from broadcasting duties and will not be in the Sunday Night Football booth this year for NBC. The only thing more thankful than me to see him leave the booth is probably my TV’s mute button.

Although like the loss of Billy Packer from the CBS NCAA courtside table I might end up missing Madden as well this season… I mean how many text messages have I sent to friends over the past few football seasons quoting some insane statement Madden has made in the course of a broadcast. Madden’s ability to describe the obvious in an idiotic and redundantly redundant manner may be missed.

So after combing the internet (for about 20 minutes) I was able to compile a nice list of the Turducken’s biggest fan’s  best quotes.

“Don’t worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagon.”

“In order for this team to win the game, the QB has to throw the ball.”

“This offense is all about scoring points.”

“He would have scored a touchdown if he hadn’t been tackled right there.”

“What’s the toughest thing in a professional football game? It’s being the mother of the quarterback — toughest thing.”

“The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer.”

“Here’s a guy who when he runs he goes a lot faster.”

“A fumble is a fumble when he fumbles…”

“Hey, the offensive linemen are the biggest guys on the field, they’re bigger than everybody else, and that’s what makes them the biggest guys on the field.”

“When its raining the field gets wet, then all of a sudden everyone’s running slower”

“When your arm gets hit, the ball is not going to go where you want it to”

“Mark Brunell likes to soak his balls before a rainy game”

“He was waiting for something to develop and, WHAP! He got developed!”

“They’re either going to run the ball here, or they’re gonna pass it”

“If they score any points, it’s a good chance their not gonna win this game”

“He needs to after the catch make a football move and catching the ball is not a football move but here… you see the football move he is making with the football. After the catch he made a football move with the football.”

Clearly why Pat Summerall drank

Good-bye John… Cris Collinsworth is not going to be even half as crazy as you were in the booth.

Thanks for coming and suckling on Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Bearcat

The Not Quite Top Ten Top Ten: Jeopardy categories that you will never see

10. Gay Sex Bathroom Signals
9. Racial Slurs
6. Anal Rape
4. Pauly Shore Movies (pretty sure this is the same as number 6)
3. Common Self-Defense Mistakes
2. Your Ass or a Hole In The Ground
1. Homo-Necro-Bestiality

Thanks for coming and suckling Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Bearcat

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Redux?

Reports have come out that indicate Tom Cruise and fellow Scientologist John Travolta are going to remake the 1969 Paul Newman/Robert Redford classic, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”.

Are you kidding me?
Supposedly, Cruise received Newman’s blessing before the screen legend succumbed to cancer late last year. Even with the bond Cruise and Newman formed on the set of “The Color of Money”, I still find it tough to believe Newman was so willing to let one of his more iconic characters be re-imagined or redone by Hollywood today. Both Newman and Redford held this movie and their characters in such high esteem that they both named their pet projects after it – – Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang camps for seriously ill children and Redford’s Sundance Institute & Film Festival.

Now it would be easy to rail against Hollywood for appearing devoid of any new ideas and remaking any movie with a hint of popularity (“Sixteen Candles”, “Footloose”, and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” are part of a growing number of films being considered). For god sakes, we’ve already had two “Hulk” films in the last 6 years alone.

But what I really don’t get is the potential casting of Cruise & Travolta. Really? One of the original film’s charms was that you actually rooted for these guys even though they are train and bank robbers. So much so, that director George Roy Hill chose to end the movie on a freeze-frame of them right before ultimately being gunned down by the entire Bolivian cavalry. Neither Cruise (after his couch-jumping on Oprah) nor Travolta (who’s last affable role was in 1995’s “Get Shorty”) is that likeable anymore.

Another element of the original film that clicked was the chemistry between Katherine Ross and the two male leads. What current female actress could you cast that you would believe was interested in both Cruise and Travolta? I don’t even buy it from Katie Holmes and Kelly Preston in their real lives. And I’m pretty sure the public doesn’t want the only one I know who likes both – Rosie O’Donnell – riding around on a bicycle to the strains of “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on my Head”. Besides, that would have to be one strong bicycle.

Finally, with all those rumors that have constantly swirled around about both actors in their personal lives, wouldn’t it have made more sense to remake another cowboy movie? I would totally buy Cruise and Travolta in a remake of “Brokeback Mountain”.

Thanks for coming and suckling Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Max Power

The Not Quite Top Ten Top Ten: Sports Terms that Sound like they Belong on the Set of a Porno

10. Clean and Jerk
9. “Now he’s got three ball on him.”
7. They are going man-to-man
6. Unbelievable! Cox has gone to the mound eleven times tonight. That’s gotta be a record
5. He came out of nowhere
4. That’s going to leave a mark
3. Time out while he dons the protective gear
2. Looks like he’s a couple of inches short
1. They’re bringing out the chains

Thanks for coming and suckling Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Bearcat

Jerk Store: Madonna

Why she is a Jerk:
This future HOF Jerk has been at it for years now. Beyond the fake British accent (you’re from F’ing Detroit!) I blame her for single handily killing at least eight years of what is a fine film director, Guy Ritchie (trust me without Madge Swept Away does not happen).  Ritchie eventually wised up, got tired of the Kabbalah BS and agreed to a divorce settlement far below value (the price of her shutting-the-hell-up…50 million bucks).  Now we have to watch major news outlets cover the fact that Madonna is attempting to steal adopt another Malawi orphan*.  Madonna like Angelina Jolie has started to collect children like designer hand bags.  I am totally cool with adopting a child, giving them a life beyond the poverty they would have otherwise known and a warm home but Madonna is NOT raising these children…they are being collected, raised by a nanny and within a red bracket wearing religion that prescribes goofy sleep arrangements and to only consume holy water.  Maybe the worst part of this woman is her jerk appearance.  Madge was thee pop sex symbol…now that she is pushing 50 she refuses to go away.  (WTF is with her arms and hands.  This woman appears to be only bone and sinew.  It is fucking gross, quit working out and eat something; you look like a corpse)  Instead of really changing, moving on, or finding a new career, Madonna has just kept cranking out the same tired look, antics and music.  It is time that she just walked out of the spotlight…but as long as she continues to adopt foreign children or dates head case athletes (I’m looking in your direction A-Rod) the press and the tabloids will put her in the headlines.  I just wish she would go away so that we can remember the good parts of her career.

*Late update.  This morning reports are that Madonna was not granted the right to adopt Mercy (that is the baby girls name) by the Malawi court system.  Madonna apparently was not pleased and plans to appeal.

Thanks for coming and suckling Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Bearcat

Jerk Store: PETA President Ingrid Newkirk

Why she is a Jerk: This bitch is just way too dedicated to the cause of preventing animal cruelty and deliciousness. So dedicated that, according to her will, you can eat her when she dies.  I am not making this up… and I am 100% certain that she is serious about this.  While the link has been provided I will take the time to save you from providing a click to this garbage.  Basically, this lover of heavy petting zoos has decided that when she dies she wishes:

a. That the “meat” of my body, or a portion thereof, be used for a human barbecue, to remind the world that the meat of a corpse is all flesh, regardless of whether it comes from a human being or another animal, and that flesh foods are not needed; (please keep reading… her mental illness only become more apparent)

b. That my skin, or a portion thereof, be removed and made into leather products, such as purses, to remind the world that human skin and the skin of other animals is the same and that neither is “fabric” nor needed, and that some skin be tacked up outside the Indian Leather Fair each year to serve as a reminder of the government’s need to abate the suffering of Indian bullocks who, after a life of extreme and involuntary servitude, as I have seen firsthand, are exported all over the world in this form;

c. That in remembrance of the elephant-foot umbrella stands and tiger rugs I saw, as a child, offered for sale by merchants at Connaught Place in Delhi, my feet be removed and umbrella stands or other ornamentation be made from them, as a reminder of the depravity of killing innocent animals, such as elephants, in order that we might use their body parts for household items and decorations; (I could use an new umbrella stand…)

d. That one of my eyes be removed, mounted, and delivered to the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a reminder that PETA will continue to be watching the agency until it stops poisoning and torturing animals in useless and cruel experiments; that the other is to be used as PETA sees fit;

e. That my pointing finger be delivered to Kenneth Feld, owner of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, or to a circus museum to stand as the “Greatest Accusation on Earth” on behalf of the countless elephants, lions, tigers, bears, and other animals who have been kidnapped from their families and removed from their homelands in India, Thailand, Africa, and South America and deprived of all that is natural and pleasant to them, abused, and forced into involuntary servitude for the sake of cheap entertainment; (Cheap entertainment? WTF Have you been to a circus lately?)

f. That my liver be vacuum-packed and shipped, in whole or in part, to France, to there be used in a public appeal to persuade shoppers not to support the vile practice of force-feeding geese and ducks for foie gras;

g. That one of my ears be removed, mounted, and sent to the Canadian Parliament to assist them in hearing, for the first time perhaps, the screams of the seals, bears, raccoons, foxes, and minks bludgeoned, trapped, and sometimes skinned alive for their pelts; that the other ear be removed, preserved, and displayed outside the Deonar abattoir in Mumbai to remind all who do business there that the screams of the cattle who are slaughtered within its walls are heard around the world; (Any readers out there want to mount this woman’s ear?)

h. That one of my thumbs be removed, mounted upwards on a plaque, and sent to the person or institution that, in the year of my death or thereabouts, PETA decides has done the most to promote alternatives to the use and abuse of animals in any area of their exploitation; (What a gift… is there a better reward than getting this old bag’s preserved thumb?  I don’t think so.)

i. That one of my thumbs be mounted in a downward position and sent to the person or institution that, in the year of my death or thereabouts, has gone against the changing tide of societal opinion and frightened and hurt animals in some egregious manner; (I would be totally cool with Ted Nugent getting this award. I at least know he would display it.)

j. That a little part of my heart be buried near the racetrack at Hockenheim, preferably near the Ferrari pits, where Michael Shumacher raced in and won the German Grand Prix; (I think that Ms. Newkirk has officially run out of ideas)

k. That anything else be done with my body that PETA believes will serve to draw attention to and so abate the plight of exploited animals.

I hope you read all of that.  Holy fuck this woman is crazy.  This is a level of dedication that would make most suicide bombers jealous.  I don’t know what to say beyond what this woman says in her own words.  Obviously the nude billboard campaigns, the throwing of red paint at women wearing fur coats on Broadway were not enough… Newkirk had to take it a step further and make a complete circus of not only her life but of her death as well.  PETA is a cult.  I am not judging all individuals who have made choices regarding vegetarianism or even vegans (although that is pushing it a little in my book).  Those are personal or philosophical decisions that people have the right to make.  What PETA has become is an anti-human campaign.  Newkirk and her PETA foot soldiers therefore get this week’s HOF Jerk Store induction…
After doing my homework on PETA how can I not include this picture…

At least PETA is recruiting hot chicks…

Thanks for coming and suckling on Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Bearcat