Some wacky stuff in the news lately

Dude, I’m tellin ya’……………

First off, if you didn’t make it out for the Dick Ourada band this past Saturday night, then you really missed out.

The band did three long sets and an encore including a little Ozzy (Crazy Train), a Waylon Jennings tune (Luckenbach Texas), a Grateful Dead tune (One More Saturday Night), a bunch of originals, a Johnny Cash song, and the customary multi-song set by Elvis. Hell, the lead guitar player even stepped up and did a rendition of the 10CC song I’m Not in Love. It was a pretty packed house and it sure looked like most people had a damn good time.

So I was perched on a bar stool Friday afternoon at my favorite buffalo wings bar and they break into ESPN programming to break the story that Tiger Woods was in a car accident. They gushed over and over that he was “seriously injured”. Now all the stalker shows are in on the feeding frenzy like Entertainment Tonight, TMZ, Nancy Grace, and Extra. They’re even speculating that his wife, Elin Nordegren, actually administered his facial injuries and all of them just have to know where Tiger was going at 2:30AM ??

I’m not a big Tiger Woods fan. He’s OK, but I’ve had my fill of Tigermania for a lifetime already. But to the media…just leave the guy alone, will ya? Where was he going at 2:30AM ?? Maybe one of his kids was sick and he was going to the all-night Walgreens for a prescription. Maybe he couldn’t sleep and was taking a little drive? Maybe he was going for a freakin’ Nachos Bellgrande at Taco Bell. They are open late-nite. It’s nobody’s damn business where he was going regardless of the time on the clock. There’s less demand for an explanation when a 7 year old is out on the streets of Chicago at 2:30AM and gets stabbed to death by their crazy uncle over a game of dice. There’s nowhere near the demand for accountability then.   

While I rarely have any sympathy for mega-celebrities that make ungodly sums of money when they come under the microscope for one reason or another, this media frenzy is already bordering on ridiculous. The guy took out a fire hydrant and ran into a tree. Now the fidelity of his marriage has been put into question, he’s expected to explain his himself/destination, there’s film crews perched out by his house……the truth is that it was a minor traffic accident in the confines of his elite, gated subdivision and he bumped his freakin’ head. That’s it.

What does irritate the hell out of me is the celebrity treatment he has been getting from the police. Almost instantly they announced that alcohol neither played a role nor was suspected. He has been allowed to wave the police away from his door since the moment it happened—-refusing to give them a statement of any sort. I haven’t even heard of any tickets being issued yet.

See, this is how it would have happened for me, you, or any one of my friends. We’d have been hauled off to the police department the moment we were releaed from the hospital. Charges of reckless driving, going too fast for conditions, speeding, public endangerment, destruction of public property, and destruction of private property would have already been issued. Those charges and whatever else they could possibly find in the police fundraising handbook. They would have made us take a breathalyzer at the scene whether we were bleeeding and half-concious from the accident or not. They would have had blood drawn at the hospital. And then they would have added whatever charges they could from those tests.

How did he have such a hard impact going down a quiet side street in his incredibly wealthy community? The speed limit has to be 15 mph or lower in the subdivision. The more elite and wealthy the community, the slower the speed limits are within it. Right until you get to those that are so wealthy that everyone drives around in golf carts. So the question I want Tiger to answer is how damn fast was he going? I could care less where he was going.

So it seems like the police should be on his ass a bit more. And the media should get off his ass.

But at least they stopped following Jon Gosselin around for a few days. That was quite pleasant.

Then we have these people who crashed the White House dinner last week. I have to hand it to these people. That took some balls.

I mean, I’ve heard they serve some good grub at those dinners but that’s taking a heck of a chance, ain’t it ? Is baked Alaska that freakin’ good? But it just goes to show the level of security and how absurd things are.

If that breach can happen, the worst mightmare imaginable when it comes to our US President could have occurred in the blink of an eye. A martial arts expert or a special forces-type of enemy could have harmed our guy in a split second. They were standing right there shaking his hand and posing for a picture. It’s like Chris Moltisanti said on The Sopranos about crime family boss Tony: “You know how fast I could take him out? BAM ! Like that ! “

Its pretty scary when you think about it. All the precautions they take on Air Force One and the Secret Service and everything else. And some couple waltzes in and does the Owen Wilson/Vince Vaughn routine. For all we know, they smoked a joint with the Speaker of the House in the coat room. But try sneaking a cigarette in a no smoking area, or skipping a toll machine on the exit ramp, or making a U-turn where none are allowed. Big brother is all over that. The ol’ cop-in-a-box snapping photos of you. The eye in the sky.

You can’t take a bottle of water with you on an airplane. You know….national security and all that. But you can have duck a l’orange and some pate de fois gras at the White House whenever you damn well feel like it, apparently. No reservations required.

Finally, we have my alma mater making some sports news. Well…..OK, at the moment they are not officially acknowledging our past relationship. But the Southern Illinois University football team has somehow found the strength to look past this grave injustice being done to me. They are now 11-1 after destroying Eastern Illinois in the first round of the playoffs 48-7.  They are the #3 seed nationally after having yet another outstanding season. I remember that Illinois used to play SIU almost every year for a stretch when I was a student in Carbondale. Now that Illinois sucks and knows they’d probably lose to this kid-brother of a school, SIU is not on the schedule anymore. WTF ?

So congratulations SIU and good luck in the next playoff game this Saturday.

I was hoping to get down there and watch the game in-person. But Tiger Woods was my ride. And he had to bow out.