Dickie V – Dr. Phil or Dr. Jack Ramsey?

During last night’s Duke vs. Maryland basketball game on ESPN, Dick Vitale made a plea to Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan to clean up their ways. I will allow you to pause here … and read that again.

During last night’s Duke vs. Maryland basketball game on ESPN, Dick Vitale made a plea to Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan to clean up their ways.

Ok. Has this really sunk in yet? One more time …

During last night’s Duke vs. Maryland basketball game on ESPN, Dick Vitale made a plea to Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan to clean up their ways.

This is amazing for a number of reasons. First of all, those of you who happened to not see it, but are familiar with Dick Vitale, yes, it sounded exactly how you are imagining it in your head. He was able to put on the serious, “let’s have a real moment,” voice for a second (which consists of lowering the volume on his voice from jet engine level to the THX Dolby noise at movies) before making his plea.

Secondly, and to be fair, this was all brought on by the staggeringly coherent and insightful Mike Patrick, who in a rare moment of Annakin Skywalker-like weakness made a quip about Britney Spears having less hair that Dickie V. True as it was, Vitale could not resist talking about it. *Side note* Vitale cannot resist talking about anything. He is like a shark when its eyes roll back in its head and it is operating on some level of instinct and just keeps biting and biting. This is what happened last night, once that name came up, it was over. And you could tell when his moment of clarity happened – it was like he came to all of a sudden. His voice changed and he exploded with a patented “Ohhhhhhhhh, but why are we talking about Britney Spears when there is such a great game going on with the Dukieeeeeeeeeeeeeees?” His awakening cannot hide his addiction to talking. Listen sometime. Darfour, The Facts of Life, Steakums, it doesn’t matter. You bring it up, he’ll talk about it. Even if it makes you uncomfortable. This is why I have always said; do not bring up sex if Dick Vitale and your mother are in the same room. It’s a recipe for disaster.

Finally, it made me think of other possibilities for heartfelt calls to action from unlikely celebrity sources. For instance, imagine if during a State of the Union address a few years back, now former President Bill Clinton went from discussing the reasons for tactical strikes in Iraq to imploring Dennis Rodman to stay faithful to Carmen Elektra. This would be great because it is A) highly hypocritical and B) highly hypocritical. Other possibilities include former Mr. or Mrs. Melissa Etheridge Anne Heche (your guess is as good as mine) accepting an Oscar and in her ensuing speech thanking the X-Men character Mystique for teaching her to stay true to herself. How about Jordan Vasquez from “My So Called Life” telling John Amaechi to “man up” in an interview? Mr. Rogers telling Chancellor Palpatine to act with some honor. Martha Steward telling The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase to be careful with his money. *Side Note Jr.* Ted DiBiase was released from the WWE late last year and has started his own ministry. Once again, we will pause here so you can go back and read that over. Ted Dibiase started his own ministry. Google him and check out his web-site. Arnold Palmer making a public plea for Cartman to watch his language. Flipper asking that Jessica Simpson think before she speaks about the plight of chicken in the ocean. Billy Joel writing a song to inspire better behavior from the Cincinnati Bengals.

So thank you, Dick Vitale, for reaching out to three people who are certain to heed your words of wisdom. Without your public plea for normalcy, I would have never thought that someday maybe Kris Kristofferson would write an open letter to Sacagawea asking her to come back to earth.

Tuesday Tid-Bits

Tuesday Tid-Bits:

- Today is NHL Trade Deadline Day – which elicits variations of the “nudey magazine day” dance done by Billy Madison - unless you reside in Pittsburgh and just traded a promising defensemen (Noah Welch) for a 40 year old who has only as many goals as Michelle Ouellet. This really doesn’t make much sense. Forcing the world’s best hockey player to wear cement laced skates so his teammates can keep up is definitely on the bottom half of my list of things to do as a hockey GM.

- Pittsburgh Pirates majority owner Bob Nutting addressed the team at their spring training home of Bradenton, Fla. yesterday, assuring players that all of the Pirates’ monetary resources were being spent on player salaries. This is like being diagnosed with cancer and spending all your money on Tylenol. The Pirates are near the very bottom of the rankings in Minor League talent level and for a team that cannot lure a free agent to PNC Park, they are seriously misallocating their (few) resources. It would make more sense for Nutting to admit his disinterest in fielding a competitive team and let Jim Tracy motivate the players with a naked cut-out of the owner which can only be covered up fully by winning 98 games. It worked for Pedro Serrano and Willy Mays Hays, and it can work in Pittsburgh.

- “Pacman” Jones is obviously in a lot of trouble. Not surprising when you douse a stage with approximately $80,000 in cash, beat up a stripper, and Don King a gun fight. (PS these events apparently transpired in succession – amazing. That is AT LEAST a three month period for Stephen Jackson.) Maybe more interesting is the report as to why he popped a pole dancer. Apparently Jones employs the “Make it Rain” technique in viewing naked women. He throws multiple denominations of American currency into the air allowing it flutter onto the stage around the feet of the not-so-tiny dancers. The dancers must continue to dance until Jones gives them the go-ahead to pickup their bounty. One over zealous dancer decided to snatch (stop) up some of the cash a bit early, and caught some fists in her face for her trouble. This ignited a massive altercation that led to gunfire. Next time Jones does this he will throw a pack of cigarettes towards a bench and a she-male in orange will be hard pressed to keep from picking them up. Good luck Mr. Jones, let’s hope you don’t find a Ms. Pacman where you are going.

- At least three incidents of “praying hands” style thank you’s were seen by my eyes in the two days since the Oscars.

- http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/27/washington.faked.retardation.ap/index.html Apparently nobody had to teach Ms. Costello. Good luck in hell! Bring me back something French!

Award Shows

Tonight is apparently a great night for those who follow, or are themselves in, the Hollywood circle. Yes, from 8 p.m. until sometime early Monday morning, actors, actresses and activists will grace our airwaves on the Oscars. And I'll be honest here - I don't get it.

For one thing, there is an award show about every week and a half. And they never seem to run out. Tonight, the Oscars. Next week the Pizza Hut Stuffed Crust Pizza Awards. The following week, join us as we celebrate great actors who's names end with the "om" sound at the Namesies. Tom Selleck will be receiving a Lifetime Achievement award for his work on Magnum, P.I. and Mr. Baseball. Tom Cruise will be receiving the award for "Shortest Movie Man to Ever Completely Lose His Mind in Public, Jump on a Couch, and Misuse Simple English Words." It is not yet known if he will graciously bow with "praying hands" clasped as if to say, "No, America ... I salute you," in the most condescending way humanly possible, so make sure you tune in. As an aside, Brian Dennehy will host. The point being, how many times a year do celebrities need to get together to tell each other how great they are? Which brings me to my next point ...

Nowhere in the history of mankind has one profession's importance to society been more overstated than at Award Shows. Acting is: pretending to be somebody else. Acting is not: stem cell research. However, those participating in acting would have you believe that it is by far the hardest thing in the world to do. Harder even than running the country, which of course all actors think they can do (more on this later). "Researching" roles for movies based on real people often becomes more than reading books or talking to people the subject once knew. It becomes organic, enlightening, humbling, and glib. Wait, is that how you use glib? I don't understand why we let actors get away with saying they prepared for a role organically. Explain. Please. "Well, I really wanted to become insert person here, so I acted like him." GOOD. That is your job! That is acting. Way to go! What was so organic about it? You watered yourself without chemicals? Nice. Keep it up.

Shouldn't they reserve award shows for people who make real and tangible contributions to society? For instance, the Nobel Prize Awards should be a red carpet event. We should honor great teachers, doctors, and community leaders. Or, we could have one for Politics called The Pollies where the award statue is a beer bottle adorned with naked interns standing on a check book. Just a thought.

Speaking of politics ... why is it that every A through D list actor thinks they are better prepared to run this country than our actual elected officials? Does Bill Pullman's "We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight," speech from Independence Day qualify him to actually lead the nation? In my opinion, yes, but in reality probably not. It just seems like award shows are the usual platform for the Susan Sarandons and Sean Penns to force their political beliefs and agendas down our throats. And now accepting the award for Best Performance in a Great Movie, Scott Bakula of Quantum Leap: The Movie! "Thank you, thank you ("praying hands" and head bowing). You know, this was really a great movie. But what I'd like to talk about tonight is something that really touches us all. And that is Feline Abortion. The numbers don't lie. If we stopped spending billions of dollars on this war, and started educating our young kittens about the dangers of Feline Abortions, then calicoes like these (slide show of really sad cats) may have made better decisions. Luckily, this is President Bush's last term. But next election, I ask you - neigh - IMPLORE you to vote for the candidate who has taken a stand against Feline Abortion ... "

Which brings me to my last point, acceptance speeches. Aside from being the judge of the Anna Nicole Smith hearings, there are very few places where people tend to break down into incoherent ramblings more than on stage at Award Shows. There are four basic steps to the award show acceptance speech. Step one - thank God (whichever one you are believing in at the time). Step two, and by far the most important part - pretend you are surprised by your win by saying something along the lines of, "WOW. I really, really didn't expect this. This is a shock - it really is. And a blessing." Step three - shed tears (you MUST cry). And lastly, step four - say, "I have so many people I want to thank," and read a list of names that you might as well have picked out of the phone book until the music comes on and some celebrity's daughter stands nervously behind you with the "Seriously, we have to go" look on her face, but keep on plowing through the M's until they cut the mic. Then again, there is one other option for the speech - the already discussed political diatribe. But be careful with that, should you talk too much you may actually have to go to Iraq with Sean Penn next time to show your distaste for the war.

Well, it looks like the music's coming on and I've been up here so long that Nicole Richie, who was behind me, lost some more weight and vanished while waiting for me to be done, so I'll leave you with this. Instead of watching the Oscar's, or any other award show for that matter, I suggest you do something constructive with your time. Like play Guitar Hero on Playstation!