Monday, December 06, 2010

Turn out the lights . . .


If you consider a million cash mere finance, te salud, Don Corleone, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Kind of a slow news week. In fact, some of our writers called the studio of; “Two and Half Men” to find out when Charlie Sheen has his next vacation. 


The WikiLeaks documents described French President Nicolas Sarkozy as pompous, short-tempered and egomaniacal. In fact, if Sarkozy was any more difficult he could be a French waiter.

The WikiLeaks documents describe French President Nicolas Sarkozy as having a Napoleon complex, over-compensating for being short. Or as we call it: David Spade-atosis.

“Playboy” magazine is offering an entire computer hard drive that contains every issue of “Playboy” ever printed. This just in: “Playboy” is the last place not to know about Google.

Miami Heat’s LeBron James returned to Cleveland to beat the Cavaliers 108-90. LeBron was booed unbelievably. In fact, I haven’t heard that much booing since Michael Vick went to the Westminster Dog Show.

Listerine is now offering a less intense mouthwash called Zero. Are there really people out there who find Listerine too intense? Do they also find flossing too complicated?


Since you asked:
Man, was I a huge fan of Don Meredith. They are not making them like that anymore. That guy was as tough as they come, charming, a wild partier and he was quite the lady’s man. He was cut out of the same cloth as Detroit Lions hard drinking Texan Bobby Layne, but a lot more charming.

And funny too. Camera catches a sleeping fan waking up and giving the camera the middle finger and, without a beat, Meredith says;

“Another Cowboy fan showing how Dallas is number one.”

Without Meredith, Gifford and Cosell would have been unwatchable on “Monday Night Football.” That absent haircut Gifford had virtually no personality nor sense of humor, and Cosell’s personality, like his hair piece, was indescribably grating and annoying. It’s no joy to speak ill of the dead, but Humble Howard, as Meredith sarcastically called him, may have been the most toxically hated person on the planet and he earned it by having the reportedly most difficult and egotistical personality. Not just in TV, but ever.

It’s like Letterman’s inside joke of when mass-murderer Saddam Hussein produced a TV show, and Letterman said and he isn’t the biggest A-hole in television.

Howard Cosell was the biggest a-hole. But those who knew him say he was a devoted and doting father, grandfather and especially husband.

In an interview ABC producer, Don Ohlmeyer, himself a raging egomaniac and tyrannical boss and a mean drunk, said it was impossible to describe the hatred Cosell generated inside and outside the broadcasting world. Entire TV crews walked out during broadcasts angered by the abuse Cosell wreaked, owners of stadiums refused to allow Cosell to broadcast their events. So as bad as Howard was when the cameras were on, he was ten times more obnoxious off camera. Hard to believe.

Howard Cosell proved my theory about men with bad hair pieces.

Howard Cosell was as big a hypocrite as ever lived. There was nothing Howard liked to pontificate on more than how forward-thinking he was about civil rights. When, in fact, Cosell spewed incredibly racist insults to crew members about his brief fellow broadcaster, O.J. Simpson, before we knew he was a murderer. It was well known that, without any prompting, Cosell would deride Simpson's street-honed dialect and grammar lapses in the manner of a vaudeville performer wearing black face.

Whereas black former Cowboy teammates of Don Meredith's, like "Rapid" Robert Hayes, spoke unabashedly of their love for Meredith and his friendship and kindness.

But apparently there were people who loved to hate Howard because his ratings were sky high. My memory is I hated Howard too much to enjoy him, but I liked Don Meredith so much, I put up with Howard. Barely.

Like I said, they aren’t making them like Don Meredith anymore. To show how far we’ve fallen, we have a woman beater and twice-charged rapist in Ben Roethlisberger. And Don Meredith wasn’t all hat and no cattle like that cackling stupid phony, Terry Bradshaw.

Don Meredith, along with other born NFL leaders, like Paul Horning, proved a football star could be a hard drinking womanizer and, unlike Tiger Woods, pull it off with charm and a sense of humor.

To give a sharp contrast as to which is more important in the end, how you treat people or attaining wealth and fame, look at how drastically opposite we think about Don Meredith at his passing versus Howard Cosell.