The Rumbling, Bumbling, Stumbling, Ramblings

After a summer of gallivanting around Gainesville, Huntington, NYC, and the Hamptons, the Sports Dude is back and ready to write again at his semi-proficient pace. I hope everyone had a healthy and safe summer and no one did anything rash (minus looting and rioting, which the Dude wholeheartedly endorses) because I did not pen a column all summer. A lot has transpired this summer in the world of sports, most of which I do not feel like rehashing. Also, word has it that many of the Dudeheads out there may be wondering if I’m planning on writing a NFL preview. Well, the answer to that is no. I don’t feel like performing the requisite research to analyze every team with the painstaking detail of a quality control worker at a Jenna Jameson Torso factory. I will throw the people a bone though and throw some random thoughts on the upcoming season as well as the summer’s happenings in this addition of THE RAMBLING DUDE! 

The moment of the summer that sticks out the most, and will surely stay with me for the rest of my life, is the Mets trading their top prospect for Victor Zambrano. Victor Zambrano?! No, not his psuedo brother Carlos Zambrano, but Victor who owns a lifetime ERA of well over 4.00 and a WHIP over 1.40. Last year he won the infamous pitching triple crown of issuing the most walks, hitting the most batters, and throwing the most wild pitches. This trade makes me angry…no, sick to my stomach…this is the kind of trade that ensures the Mets the backseat of baseball fandom. Now only mustached, fanny-packed, yamaha-wearing fathers will be in attendance at Shea when we clearly need healthy working girls. You can’t trade a top five prospect in all of baseball for a pitcher who is 29 years old and nothing but mediocre. It defies all baseball logic. If I ever kill myself and/or enter a nut house it will be due to this trade. It makes the Nolan Ryan and Dykstra trades look like steals for the Mets. I just punched a hole in the wall and took two shots of gin. 

Why do dudes think that Serena Williams is hot? I can appreciate beauty in all races (except Indian chicks, sorry Anil), but I just don’t see how people go ga-ga over an excessively muscular women without a particularly attractive face. Just because she wears revealing outfits does not make her sexy. Hell, if I need to prove this point I’ll start sporting neon spandex too. I’m sick of hearing Wilbon and Kornheiser extol her non-tennis playing virtues. Is this some sort of anti-Kournikova/Sharapova, blonde hair, blue-eyed backlash? 

While we’re on the issue of attractiveness, do you think it’s better to be in a place with a lot of hot chicks or a bunch of ugg-o’s? Now it sounds like a stupid question, but it’s not as open and shut as one would think. When you’re around a lot of hot chicks but don’t hook up with them, they become this elusive object. This can get quite frustrating. Like a pornstar in a creamery, it’s a sticky situation. But if there are unattractive girls all around and you go home without hooking up, you can just say to yourself, "Good, I didn’t want to hook up with any of those fatties anyway." On the converse, if there are a lot of hot chicks you may just be bound to dumb luck yourself into one of them. If all the girls are solid 5's or below you will never be proud of your hook up, but you can always justify it by telling yourself that you just bought what was on the market. 

I can’t get a feel for the new Real World yet. It seems to have potential, but there are two things that are bothering me about the cast.

1) There doesn’t seem to be a character that you love to hate/make fun of. Last season had Frankie, who made you root for the Multiple Sclerosis to kick in. The season before had Adam (a truly fantastic rapper/slam poet), who as discussed is the king of secondary embarrassment. Others who come to mind are Kyle for Chicago (an emotional queer), Matt from Hawaii (an emotional queer who insisted on wearing a terrycloth green shirt everyday), and Pedro from San Fran.

2) The SportsCenter Anchor Syndrome. Over the years, SportsCenter anchors have basically morphed into one catchphrase spewing comedian/sports personality. You will never see anyone like Charley Steiner or Chris Berman ever get hired by ESPN again. There used to be signature voices and personalities, but no longer. When I turn it on I have no clue if I’m listening to Steve Van Pelt or Trey Wingo. It’s actually kind of sad. It’s ironic because my favorite anchor of all time, Craig Kilborn, has spawned all of these one dimensional copycats. The Real World has followed in stride. Gone are the regular guys (Steiner and Berman) who you could identify with. You won’t find any Andres, Johns, or Franks. Every guy is big and cut (a girl told me that because y’all know the Dude doesn’t check out other dudes) and trying so hard to be politically correct. It’s almost become the opposite of what it originally tried to create. Maybe I’m just getting old. 

On the bright side, this year’s token slut was accepted into my law school. The campus is already buzzing with anticipation. The guys can’t wait to try to stick it in her and the girls can’t wait to be nice to her face and call her a bitch behind her back. She probably won’t be down here until my third year at the earliest because it’s obvious she is trying to position herself as the breakout character, meaning a post-RW career of touring college towns, getting shots taken off her stomach, and of course participating in multiple RW-RR Challenges where she can hook up with the Mizz and fight with Veronica.

Who would’ve thunk that the big black dude was straight gaying. Also, there’s no way MJ was cool with being in that gay bar. I’m sure he would rip on gay dudes constantly back home. He’s trying way too hard to position himself as the "aww shucks, I’m such a nice guy" Ace roll. Believe me, he’s no Ace. I hope his friends back in Tennessee are making fun of him and will continue to do so even after he passes on.

Another major negative is that there is no one close to Cameron’s league in this year’s squad. I wish she was the automatic housemate every season. 

In related MTV reality news; how about that new chick on Road Rules who came in and banged out a dude the first night? What a performance! It's like when Tatanka would enter the Royal Rumble. He’d run down the ramp at full speed, clean house and eliminate the likes of Mabel and The Mountie, then hang out for a bit before his inevitable elimination by doing something stupid like going to the top turnbuckle or running to the ropes.

Back to sports. The Jets will have a great year this year. I haven’t had such a good feeling about this team since I was sitting on a futon in my soph year dorm room waiting for the Jets to open up against New England. After a Curtis Martin fumble, that day would become one of the worst in --censored-- family history. It’s up there with when the Jets drafted Ken O’Brien over Al Toon, the day my brother Justin was born, and oh so many painful whiskey-fueled Christmases.

This year’s squad looks great on both sides of the ball. Chad O’Pens, is so good that no one need worry. Curtis is as healthy as a pre-HIV Tommy Morrison (aka “The Machine” Gunn), and McCairens is the big target the team has missed since Keyshawn (an all-time Dude favorite). Defensively, the new aggressive style introduced by Donnie Henderson coupled with the addition of speed at linebacker and safety will result in more forced turnovers. Even when I look outside my green-and-white blinders I still think this team will make the playoffs and end the season in a debilitating come from behind loss in the AFC Championship game. 

Got hit with my first legitimate hurricane over a week ago. Never underrate the fun of drinking beers and watching trees fall on stuff (you gotta chug a beer then a tree/limb falls on a house). On a more serious note, the Dude wants all Dudeheads to keep our dear friend Anil in your thoughts and prayers. As many of you know, Anil is in Grenada for medical school (yes, The Elements of Voodoo is a mandatory course). Unfortunately, Hurricane Ivan Lendl has run through the tiny isle like a frat boy through a drunken freshman. Thankfully, the hurricane did not kill Anil (the Dude had a long and seductive conversation with Anil’s sis to garner this info). But a new problem has arisen.

Lendl hit the island’s only prison with such severe force that it blew the walls off. The island is now run amuck with its worst element and supposedly they’re trying to loot the med school campus because that’s where the wealth is located. I was sent a news story saying that American med students are fending off the escaped convicts with knives and sticks. Anil is no Napoleon Dynamite though, and lacks the necessary kitana and numbchuck skills. The irony here is that Anil taunted the Dude that Grenada never got these swirling storms and that I was in the "danger zone." Also, Grenada is currently without electricity and not expected to get service back until 2009.  

Well, the Sports Dude has just written over two single spaced pages. I hope you guys enjoyed the official return of the Dude (if you didn’t, I couldn’t care less). Keep an eye out next week for a "diary" column on my first major college football game day experience. Go Gators!

To contact the Sports Dude click here or respond to his irreverence at the 1 Tuff Place Message Board.