It is a tough time to be a celebrity. The recent deaths of Michael Jackson, Patrick Swayze, Ted Kennedy, Oscar Mayer, the Taco Bell dog, Farrah Fawcett, and the Oxy Clean guy have put celebrities on alert that they may be next. So why not take these tragedies and (tastefully) play one of my favorite games? Enter the Celebrity Dead List. For those of you who are not familiar with the concept, you pick the people you thing will die soon (no people who are already terminal) and see if you are right. Here are my top ten choices.
Who out there has any guesses? It’s all in good fun till someone looses more than an eye.
For most guys the most feared thing we ever can encounter is spending $30 to go to a movie theater and watch a horrible chick flick. A sappy love story, no action, no killing, nothing blown up, it is like paying to be tortured for two hours. What men need is for these awful movies to be made more guy friendly. Imagine Ghost with actual ghosts, the Titanic where the rich passengers go below decks to fight with the poor travelers, and Dirty Dancing where Patrick Swayze is an undercover assassin. What I propose is the master of guy movies Quentin Tarentino remakes these “classics” in his normal style. Sit back and enjoy the first of many in the series “Tarentino Fixes... ”.
The first movie to fix is none other than Pretty Woman. A few changes keep the plot the same but make the movie much more watchable. Richard Gere would be the head of an import/export company in town to buy off politicians to let his mob in town. While in town he would rent out a hooker (Julia Roberts) to keep him company, no need to change that, just thrown in some more skin. Gere would use Roberts to influence the politicians, giving them Roberts or any other woman they wanted. When Jason Anderson found out that Gere was falling for Roberts he was going to kill him and take over the mob. Roberts’ friend would then kill off Alexander before he could take out Gere. The killing would cause Roberts to leave Gere in fear for her life and try to escape the town. Gere would use all methods at his disposal to track her down until finally finding her at an abandoned warehouse. No white knight riding in on his horse, you get Gere taking Roberts away in a limo with the movie ending. You never know what she does, it she stays with him, she tries to leave, she gets killed for knowing too much info, you just never know.
As a Patriots fan I would like to thank the Oakland Raiders once again for helping our team improve. In the past the Raiders accepted a lowly 4th round pick for Randy Moss, who had one of the best seasons ever at his position. In the offseason the Raiders gave up one of their top pass rusher, DE/OLB Derrick Burgess for a 3rd and 5th round pick. In yet another stupidly stunning move the Raiders gave up their first round pick in 2011 to the Patriots for fiver time Pro Bowl DE Richard Seymour. On paper that seems like a decent trade, but the Raiders were robbed yet again.
The Patriots have the best defensive line in the AFC with or without Richard Seymour. They have amazing depth and talent to spare. In fact the Pats had too many people up front, and trading Seymour was a stroke of genius. With the money the Patriots save they have cap room to sign the best Nose Tack in football Vince Wilfork, the key to the entire Patriots’ defense. They may even have some money left over to try and resign Pro Bowl Left Guard Logan Mankins. Not only did the Pats save money to help keep their team intact, the also got the Raiders’ 2011 1st round pick. At this point in his career Seymour isn’t worth more than a mid to late 2nd round pick, and the Raiders pick will probably be in the top 10 overall. (Sorry silver and black fans, your team isn’t going to get better any time soon).
So the Pats clear a roster spot, enough cap space to resign their best defensive player, and get a future high draft pick, all without giving up much more than a Pro Bowler in name only? The Patriots need to keep the Raiders on speed dial but they only have a few good players left. You can only fleece the same team so many times before they run out of assets. The Raiders might just take a bag of magic beans for All Pro cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha, but his broken wrist might drive the price down to half a bag of beans. Someone might want to wake Al Davis and tell him to turn his team over to the NFL before things get worse.
A dozen years ago NFL training camp was a much more fan friendly place for the New England Patriots. You had access to the players as they arrived, when the came off the practice field, and at various other points at Bryant College where camp was held. It was at that small campus where I first ran across a truly great individual. His future doesn’t seem to include a bronze bust in Canton , but his place in Patriots’ history as well as an inspiration for others is secure. Tedy Bruschi was a great football player and his retirement is a great opportunity to share the story of one of the best athletes I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.
As a college football fan I was amazed by the stifling defense of the University of Arizona . The “Desert Swarm Defense” was nearly impossible to run against and featured an imposing pass rush. I became an instant fan, staying up late to watch games or even taping them to watch the next day. (This was before Internet streaming videos, DVRs, and YouTube, so if you wanted to see a game you stayed up or taped it on a VCR. Ancient times). That defense was amazing but the focal point was an undersized defensive end named Tedy Bruschi. He was barely recruited out of high school but he became one of the most feared pass rushers in NCAA history. Upon his graduation Bruschi found himself in a situation like that of dozens of college stars, he was a “tweener”. Bruschi was too small to play defensive end in the NFL and too slow to be a linebacker, but he was too talented to pass up. In the third round Bruschi was selected by the New England Patriots with a role that was yet to be determined.
I was standing outside the walkway between the practice field and the locker room as the Patriots came of the field on their first day of training camp. Everyone was yelling at players as they walked by exhausted about twenty feet away. Some players came over and signed autographs but most just walked on by. When I saw Bruschi walked by I yelled out to him as loud as I could. He stopped dead in his tracks and spun ninety degrees to look me square in the eyes. He then walked over to me with a determined look in his eyes and I thought I was a dead man. He asked me how I knew who he was, and my mind went blank. As I stood there in my Arizona hat I suddenly started spitting out stats, plays from his college career, anything my auto pilot brain had retained. He stood there in amazement before finally laughing and stating “You are the first person to actually know who I am. Man, I’m in the NFL.” Every day I was there after that Bruschi would go out of his way to come talk to me. When was the last time a pro athlete would find you in a crowd, know your name, and talk shop with you, a complete stranger?
Tedy Bruschi started out as a special teams star and bounced between defensive end and outside linebacker at the beginning of his career. As his skills and knowledge of the game increased he was moved to inside/middle linebacker (mostly as an injury fill in) but he went on to become a dominant force on five different teams that made it to the Super Bowl. While Bruschi’s accolades are well known, it is the human side of him that made him a fan favorite.
