People I Dont Trust Part Four
The big news in the world of sports last week was that an NBA referee, Tim Donaghy, was under investigation by the FBI for fixing NBA games. It was the lead story on every website in country, as well as most TV stations. Everybody was talking about how fans would never be able to trust the integrity of the NBA again, blah, blah, blah. Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is. I thought it was just assumed that NBA games were fixed. Regardless, this story gave me a perfect excuse to write another edition of People I Don’t Trust. So, personally, I’m happy that Tim Donaghy got busted because I was having a real hard time thinking of something to write about this week.
- The NBA
Ok, what better place to start than the aforementioned NBA? Like I said before, I don’t see what all the outrage is about. So a ref fixed a couple games…big deal. How does this change anything? Only a fool trusted the NBA before hearing about this story. If it’s not the refs then it’s the players. If it’s not the players then it’s the coaches. I mean, have you ever watched an NBA game before? More shady shit goes down in the last two minutes of an NBA game than any sport in the world. There are a million ways to shave points without anybody even blinking an eye. People fixing games just comes with the territory. The bottom line is that it all comes out in the wash. Sometimes you bet on the fix, sometimes you bet against the fix. It’s exactly like betting on Jai Alai. And you can’t tell me that David Stern doesn’t always act like he’s hiding something. He’s like a little Mussolini with the way he runs the league.
2. Big Men Who Celebrate When They Get Fouled Even Though They Suck at Free Throws
Sticking with basketball, let me just throw another one out there. I hate big men who celebrate when they get fouled even though they suck at free throws. This happens a ton in college and it drives me nuts. If you don’t believe me just watch Memphis play and you’ll see what I’m talking about. I don’t think all big men realize that you don’t automatically get two points for being fouled. You need to hit your free throws. There is no point in celebrating getting hacked when you shoot 32% from the line. In fact the other team probably fouled you on purpose. So stop high fiving everybody and trying to whoop up the crowd because you’re just going to embarrass yourself at the line. Basically it’s like celebrating getting called for traveling.
3. Foreigners With A lot of Money
Not sure if this is racist or not. But I don’t trust foreigners with tons of money. You know the ones I’m talking about right? Their driving up and down Newbury Street in their fancy cars. They’re sitting outside Armani Café like they have the world on a string. They’re dressed to the 10s no matter where they go. And they’re usually fairly young, too. Something just doesn’t seem right. To be honest, I’m kind of suspicious of all rich people in general. How do rich people get rich to begin with? At some point they had to break the law, right? I mean, I’m sitting here busting my ass at Barstool Sports working 29 hour days and I can’t save two cents. I just feel like at some point most rich foreigners probably killed somebody or did something illegal and then just relocated to Newbury Street with a ton of money. Yes, I watched Blood Diamond this weekend on On Demand.
4. People with no picture on MySpace
You know you’ve written a bunch of these columns when you can’t remember whether you already said this one before. So I apologize in advance if I’ve already said this. But I don’t trust people with no picture on their MySpace profile. Time and again we get MySpace messages from dudes who think we are the girl that is on the cover of our newspaper. They don’t take two seconds to read our profile to figure out that we’re a bunch of dudes. And 50% of the time the message says something like this: “You’re hot…Let’s chat”. And then these guys have the audacity not to include a picture of themselves. Are you serious? What type of girl do they think we are? We’re not going to chat with some wack job out of left field who doesn’t even include a picture of themselves. If I had to guess I’d say that 97% of the people who don’t include pictures of themselves on MySpace are certifiably insane.
5. Chris Hanson from Dateline NBC
Chris Hanson, of course, is the host of How To Catch A Sexual Predator, which has apparently become a weekly TV show because I swear a new episode is on every week. I also saw him do a guest appearance on How To Catch A Con Man a couple of days ago. Anyway, I don’t trust Hanson and his tough guy persona. There is no way he’s not pissing himself when he confronts some of the bigger dudes on the show. He just comes across as so smug when dealing with these sexual predators. Like he’s untouchable or something. I keep waiting for somebody to take a swing at him. I don’t know what it is about Hanson but there is something just not right about him. I can’t quite put my finger on it but I’m guessing he has some skeletons in his closet that we don’t know about.
6. Mark Philippoussis from Age of Love
Sticking with guys on TV that I don’t trust, I don’t trust Mark Philippoussis and his whole age doesn’t matter shtick on Age of Love. In case you’re not watching Age of Love on NBC and you’re probably not, basically Tennis Star Mark Philippoussis is on a dating show where 40-year-old chicks compete vs. 20-year-old chicks to win his heart. Every show we listen to Philippoussis talk about how great the old bags are blah, blah, blah. I don’t trust that shit for a second. There is no way the cougar is getting picked over the young chick in the end. It just won’t happen. I’m 30 and there is no way in hell I’d date a 46-year-old woman. I mean, I don’t want her dying before I can afford to move out of Abington. So Philippoussis can save his whole song and dance about equal opportunity. And to take it even one step further, he’s not going to date the 20-year-old who wins for more than 10 seconds, either. It’s obvious this whole charade is just a publicity stunt for the guy. His tennis career is winding down and he needs to find a job. He’s not looking for love, he’s looking for his next gig. But the bottom line is that I don’t trust anybody who would claims they would rather date a hot 40-year-old than a hot 20-year-old.
7. Charity Beggars
I feel like everyday there is a new charity group begging for money in Boston. I guess they call it donations, but I still call it begging. Back when I used to be a cube dweller four years ago there was that track team dressed in orange that must have collected enough money to travel by plane from Dorchester to Roxbury for their track meets. Lately I’ve been seeing a group of dudes hawking candy bars all over Boston. And the common denominator with all these “charity groups” is that there is never any adult supervision. Maybe if they mixed in an adult every now and again, I’d believe that they were legit. But I’m not trusting a group of punks handing out Hershey bars to raise money for the math club to go to Belize. Just admit that you’re straight up begging and maybe I’ll give you some money. But this farce that you’re collecting for a cause isn’t fooling me.
8. The Sleep Techs and Beauty Rest Black
Have people seen the Jordan’s Furniture commercials for the Simmons Beauty Rest Black mattress? You know the one I’m talking about. This is the one when Barry or Elliot jumps on one side of the mattress and doesn’t spill a glass of red wine that is resting on the other side the bed. The point is that supposedly you won’t feel when your partner moves because of some space technology that is built into the bed. Well let me be the first to call bullshit on this one. I refuse to believe there is any bed in the world that won’t spill a glass of wine when somebody jumps on the bed. It’s just impossible. But let me just say this. If I’m allowed to go into Jordan’s Furniture (assuming they provide parking because I can’t take their parking lots) and successfully replicate this stunt, I’ll buy the bed on the spot no questions asked.* Because if this type of bed technology exists, I can’t live without it. The First Lady is notorious for ruining my night sleeps by turning over and other shit like that. This could be the answer to my prayers. But like I said I refuse to believe it’s for real until I see with my own eyes. And I’m not going to be bullshited by the Sleep techs either. It’s either I get to do the test myself or no deal.
*In the event the bed passes the wine test, El Presidente plans on paying for it in hats.
9. People who buy real food at the movies.
I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend lately at the movies. People aren’t buying just popcorn and candy any more. Oh, no. Somewhere along the line people starting buying hotdogs and pizza and shit like that. Let me ask you this: who the hell buys a hot dog at the movies? You have to be deranged, right? I generally don’t trust people who eat hotdogs from anywhere except baseball games, golf courses and barbecues to begin with, but the movies is taking it to a whole new level. Dude, it’s dinner and a movie. Not dinner at the movies.
10. Street Vendors in Downtown Crossing
Sticking with buying food from disgusting places, you’ll never catch me buying anything edible or anything period from Downtown Crossing. The whole place just smells like shit. I don’t know how you can trust anything that comes from shit? I don’t care whether you think you’re buying Chilean food, a “Boston” sweatshirt or a Rolex: the odds are that it’s probably a dead rat. And I’m not going to be the guy wearing a dead rat around my wrist to business meetings trying to impress my clients. But the good news is that according to Menino once he gets rid of all the news racks in Downtown Crossing it will suddenly turn into Rodeo Drive. But until that day comes, I’m not going to trust anything in Downtown Crossing.
So there you go. 10 more groups of people that El Presidente doesn’t trust. Now I’m not saying I’m right about all these groups of people, but if you happen to find yourself belonging to one of these groups you may want to reevaluate your life. Unless of course you’re a rich foreigner in which case you’ll probably just have me eliminated.