The last time I devoted a column to random thoughts was roughly a year ago. Thus, in an effort to establish an annual pattern, avoiding 800 words worth of coherence and getting out a lot of stuff that would otherwise cost me good money to tell my therapist, I present the second annual installment of Randomania.
• Fair-weather horse-racing fan that I am, I got caught
up in War Emblem’s pursuit of the Triple Crown and decided to watch the
Belmont Stakes. I’m glad I did, simply for the sheer hilarity of the coverage
surrounding the race. The real dilemma, from the TV-producer perspective,
is that the stars of the show can’t talk.
Hannah Storm: “War Emblem, what were you thinking
when you stumbled out of the gate?”
War Emblem: “Neigh-he-he-he, brrrfffrff! (Stomp,
stomp.)”
So the reporters end up interviewing the jockeys, who
basically say, “I hit the horse on the side with my little whip and said
‘Faster, horsey, faster!’ and the horse went faster and won the race.”
Or didn’t. I’d rather hear from the horse. Come on, how many years ago
was Mr. Ed on the air? Talking-horse technology is out there.
My other observation is that although
the Triple Crown was always referred to as the Visa Triple Crown, I’m surprised
corporate sponsors haven’t dug deeper into horse racing. Wait a couple
of years, and I bet you’ll hear “Walmart’s Falling Prices in the lead coming
down the home stretch, Just For Men Hair Coloring in second. Here comes
PriceWaterhouseCoopers Consulting Division Has No Conflict of Interest
With Its Auditing Division moving up through the pack, passing Star
Wars Episode III Now in Theaters...”
• You’ve probably heard of popcorn chicken and popcorn shrimp, but last weekend I saw an ad for popcorn fish. There was no indication of what kind of fish is used in popcorn fish, but I suppose it could be anything. Maybe there’s a nice piece of seared tuna in there. You just don’t know. But I am getting a little worried that the popcorn meat phenomenon is taking off like this. I’m waiting for popcorn pork, popcorn summer sausage and popcorn hamburger to hit the market. High-end restaurants will have popcorn Cornish game hen and popcorn foie gras. At least I hope they will, because I have a short attention span—and so do my taste buds.
• All these Ja Rule duets are getting out of hand. I think that if I could sing and my voice was a couple of octaves higher, I could have a hit single with Ja Rule. This guy is going to squeeze the thug-rapper-and-female-vocalist formula until it’s drier than a pile of kitty litter in a blast furnace. I predict the next single will be “Mary Poppins Want a Roughneck Playa 4 Real,” a Ja Rule/Julie Andrews remix of “A Spoonful of Sugar.”
• When I was 12 years old, I went to a baseball card show and got Roger Clemens’ autograph (this was long before he defected to the Dark Side). The future Hall-of-Famer asked me what was up, to which I should have said “You being a big traitor in a couple of years, that’s what’s up.” I said “not much.” And that’s still what I say when people ask me what’s up, because I don’t feel like perpetuating the exchange of meaningless questions. Greet me with a declarative statement, though, and you’ll have me at “hello.”
• To whoever stole my car stereo—again: I actually left the faceplate in the glove box because I figured even the most desperate thief wouldn’t rip off a stereo with a broken eject button on the CD player. Obviously, I was wrong, because what you stole was a radio with a permanent U2 Elevation option. I sincerely hope you’re stuck in the moment and not having a beautiful day.
• Question: Do I have a corny sense of humor, or does New Jersey Nets point guard Jason Kidd have absolutely no sense of humor? I was watching MTV Cribs the other day, and at one point in the tour of Kidd’s house he brought the camera crew into his infant twins’ bedroom. There they were, Kidd’s kids, sleeping in their actual cribs. I was waiting for Kidd to say something like “There are no hot tubs in these cribs...I hope,” but instead he made an earnest comment about his beautiful babies. If I had babies, and Cribs was coming to film at my house, you can bet those baby beds would be equipped with gold-plated big-screen TVs and Armani sheets by the time the camera crew showed up. I’d have the best cribs ever seen on Cribs. Each baby would even have his own in-crib Starbucks (have some of that, Tommy Lee). Of course, that’ll all happen once I stop renting. *