Sheriff Buford T. Justice Is On The Case!

I am both amused and a little disgusted to find out that eight people have now been arrested in connection with Michael Phelps' bong-gate! Here's the latest from WIS-TV in Columbia, South Carolina:

The party took place in November at a house on Blossom Street near Five Points.
It was at that house where someone snapped the photo of Phelps taking a hit on a marijuana pipe called a bong.

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott says the picture indicated a law was being broken in his jurisdiction. He said he couldn't ignore the violation just because Phelps is rich and famous.

We've now learned that since investigators began trying to build a case, they've made eight arrests: seven for drug possession and one for distribution. These are arrests that resulted as the sheriff's department served search warrants.

We've also learned that the department has located and confiscated that bong.

Sources say the owner of the bong was trying to sell it on eBay for as much as $100,000.

The owner, who wasn't even at the party, is one of the eight now charged.

Governor Mark Sanford is also weighing in on the sheriff's actions.

On the FOX News Channel Sunday night, Geraldo Rivera asked Sanford whether Phelps should be prosecuted.

"I don't see what it gets at this point," said Sanford.

This is just want was needed in this case... bringing in the cracker sheriff to get a little publicity. It sounds like a stunt that would have been pulled by Sheriff Buford T. Justice of Texas!

Justice is not being served in South Carolina, but at least this gives me the opportunity to present some great movie quotes from "Smokey and the Bandit"...

Buford T. Justice: Give me a diablo sandwich, a Dr. Pepper, and make it quick, I'm in a god-damn hurry.

Buford T. Justice: [to his son] There's no way, *no* way that you came from *my* loins. Soon as I get home, first thing I'm gonna do is punch your mamma in the mouth!

Alabama State Trooper: Did you see that? They went right through our roadblock!
Buford T. Justice: You som'bitches couldn't close an umbrella!

Buford T. Justice: What we're dealing with here is a complete lack of respect for the law.

Sheriff Branford: The fact that you are a sheriff is not germane to the situation.
Buford T. Justice: The god damn Germans got nothin' to do with it.

Paul Harvey Has A Bong, Too!

With everything in the news and on my blog recently about Olympics star Michael Phelps smoking a bong, it reminded me of a cleverly edited comedy bit that someone else put together - an ad in which legendary radio broadcaster Paul Harvey advertises a bong. If you are familiar with Mr. Harvey's work, I hope you will find this amusing. Mr Harvey's distinct delivery has made him a friendly target among people who like to edit audio for fun for decades...

And now... Paul Harvey News!

The Woulda Coulda Shoulda Bowl

Before I offer my take on the Super Bowl, just one quick note about my previous entry concerning master stroker toker Michael Phelps... OK - He has fessed up to smoking the bong. Good. Confession is good for the soul. Having said that, I still don't think this is going to harm him beyond a little silly embarrassment. Phelps is still going to be one of the biggest stories of the 2012 Olympics. Do you really think his sponsors now are going to want to miss out on that payday? Dump Phelps at your peril! This will still be a non-story.


Now - Onto the Super Bowl - or as I like to think of it, the less-than-Super Bowl! I know that goes against the conventional wisdom, but this puppy was fraught with mistakes! I WILL grant you it was very exciting - it was, however, also very sloppy...



Perhaps I'm a little grumpy because I shoulda won my pool not once, but twice... but weird football took over and screwed me! I was playing in the Bernstein pool - one of those standard 100-square pools where everyone gets numbers to follow at random. I bought six squares, and five of them were dogs. But the sixth box was Cardinals 4, Steelers 0. At the end of the first half, the Cards were driving for a touchdown, and a score at the end of the half would have made it Arizona 14, Pittsburgh 10. I'd have won a hundred bucks! But no! The Steelers' James Harrison picks off the ball and returns it for a touchdown on the last play of the half!



Fast forward to the 4th quarter. Ben Roethlisberger fires a 20-yard bullet from his own end zone to complete a pass with less than 4 minutes left, giving the Steelers first down with a 20 - 14 lead. If that play stands and the Steelers run out the clock, I win a hundred bucks. But no! The Steelers are called for holding in the end zone, and it's a safety for the Cards instead!



Aside from my bad luck grumpness, here's what I saw:

• This wasn't the Super Bowl - it was the Penalty Bowl! There were so many yellow flags on the field, I thought some of the fans' Terrible towels had blown away! It's tough to see a game - even one as exciting as this - to be decided by the zebras...


• Was there anything else the NFL could have thrown out there? The only thing missing were the Obamas... Faith Hill... Jennifer Hudson... Bruce Springsteen... and the crew of the US Airways jet... It was a who's who of who's been in the news lately!


• The best ad I saw was the Doritos ad with the crystal ball... And ad that ends with a guy getting it in the cojones will make me laugh!


• The biggest letdown ad was the one for Monsters vs. Aliens... There were at least 20 of us sitting there watching with our stupid 3-D glasses on, and one of the kids calls out "When are they going to do the 3-D effects"? The effects were there, but they didn't amount to much.


• I really enjoyed Springsteen, but it's clear the Boss isn't used to doing 12-minute sets without an applause break. After he crashed into the camera at the end of "10th Avenue Freezeout", Bruce was so out of breath, he didn't catch himself until the middle of the last song!

Otherwise, the food was good... The company was good... and the Cardinals didn't win - just as God intended it to be!

Phelps Wins (Acapulco) Gold!

This is allegedly a picture of Michael Phelps - the greatest Olympic swimmer of all time - sucking on a bong in South Carolina last fall... An outfit called "News Of The World" has posted this with a long article detailing Phelps' drug use on its website. Well, "detailing" is probably too strong of a word, considering it's filled with the typical "sources say" and "friends tell us". In any case, you can read the article here. I find this whole article to be pretty hilarious on several fronts...

First of all - How do we know this really IS Michael Phelps? We're getting a picture of a guy who is in profile - Slightly less than profile , in fact. You could photograph half of the dark-haired college students in America and come up with a shot that looks just like this.

Second - So what if it is Michael Phelps and so what if he is smoking pot? I highly doubt you're ever going to get an admission of it from him or his agents. The guy is worth a hundred million dollars in endorsements, and he's never going to get caught with a positive dope test. He's been handled way too well for that to ever happen. The whole world knew Phelps was going to take a break from training after Beijing, and in fact, he just went back to the pool a couple of weeks ago to start his preparations for 2012. If he got high a few times during his break - and again - it's not going to be proved that he did - you don't think the world will forgive him?

Third - The article claims that Phelps' reps offered to make Phelps a columnist for "News Of The World" for three years if they would keep the story from going to print... Yeah - I can see it now... Phelps' brands ... Visa... McDonald's... Kelloggs... News Of The World.

If you are tempted to get on your moral high horse about Michael Phelps, be my guest. But we live in a world now where people tend to believe what they see on the internet. Who needs verification of anything? I receive urban legends in my email constantly - sent to me by well-meaning friends and relatives who don't even take two minutes to investigate and determine that the story they are sending me is total b.s.

I would bet in this star-crazy world that if it was proved Michael Phelps is a stroker AND a toker, it would only stoke marijuana sales. Do we really want to push that? Until he Nicole Simpsons someone, Phelps is pretty much a Teflon guy, don't you think?

I highly doubt if Phelps "only" wins 4 or 5 golds in London that people are going to look back on this day and say it was the Pot that made Phelps go to pot.

An Instant SNL Classic!

If you missed the season premiere of Saturday Night Live, you missed an opening skit that will no doubt go down as a classic among more than 30 years of political SNL sketches... Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton. After watching this, I almost felt bad for Hillary. Almost.

Since NBC usually makes youtube take down its SNL clips, I have used the version from hulu.com (which NBC co-owns). It may include a 15-second ad, but it's worth the wait! Enjoy!

Michael Phelps' Very First Championship Swim

This is Michael swimming the 200 millimeter freestyle, of course... Thanks to Dan!

What REALLY Happened At The Water Cube!

And YOU Thought He Went To London!

Media reports have erroneously reported that Olympics hero Michael Phelps has flown from Beijing to London to participate in a "hand-off" ceremony as Beijing passes the torch to London for the 2012 Olympics... But don't believe everything you read... My top news source, The Onion, has the real scoop!

Mr. Phelps Completes Mission: Impossible

What a week for Michael Phelps! Like the rest of the nation, I became caught up in his quest to surpass Mark Spitz and Carl Lewis as the all-time Olympics Gold Medal champion and to pass Spitz for the single-games gold medal mark... and I was fortunate enough to do it while working as a freelance anchor at WBAL in Baltimore - Phelps' hometown. Baltimore loves its sports heroes - especially the ones who are homegrown!

For some reason, the sporting Gods decided to plant two of the all-time greatest athletes in their respective sports right in Charm City... Cal Ripken grew up just north of Baltimore, in Harford County, and spent his entire career with the Orioles. And now, Towson's own Michael Phelps, who spent the past four years away at school in Michigan, is coming back home to live and train!

Michael is probably going to get to enjoy his achievements a LOT more in the short term than Mark Spitz did back in 1972. I remember watching his races from our family's rented beach cottage in Ocean City on something called CATV. It was an early generation version of Cable TV... Ocean City was too far away from Salisbury to reliably get reception via rabbit ears, so the whole town was hooked up to cable, which still only got you the three major networks... But anyway, I digress...

Mark Spitz won his medals in the first week of Olympics competition in Munich, and he became the toast of the sports world. - And then, tragedy struck. A terrorist group called "Black September", stormed a dormitory in the Olympic village, and took several members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage. The two-day ordeal ended with 11 Israelis and five terrorists dead, and Spitz being whisked out of Munich for fear, that he, as a Jewish athlete, would be a major kidnapping target.

Anyway... Michael Phelps will hopefully not have that kind of distraction as the Team Phelps marketing machine kicks into another gear. Michael has been clear in saying his goal in chasing all of that gold is not money, but a desire to raise the profile of swimming to make it more than a once-every-four-years sport in the eyes of the world. He'll be facing mighty long odds to do that. Mark Spitz didn't. Neither did Mary Lou Retton for gymnastics, or Carl Lewis for Track and Field. The closest any classic Olympic sport has come to raising its profile as a continuing sport has probably been figure skating, but even then, pro skating is seen more as theater than as sport.

If Michael is going to raise swimming's profile, there's no better place to do it than in his own hometown. As I mentioned, Baltimore loves its heroes. Tens of thousands of Ravens fans stuck around M&T Bank Stadium after the Ravens lost to the Vikings last night to watch Phelps win his 8th Gold Medal on the big screen... Maybe some of them would join a Michael Phelps swim league and compete in a Michael Phelps-brand aquatic center? Hell, you could even throw in fellow Baltimorean Katie Hoff as a guest instructor!


Don't be surprised if a BUNCH of the US swimmers in London in 2012 are crab-eaters, hon!

Finally - The REAL Olympics!

You'll be reading all kinds of blogs and commentaries that condemn Swedish Greco-Roman wrestler Ara Abrahamian for throwing a hissy fit after losing the Gold Medal in his weight class in Beijing. All I want to say here is that it's refreshing to see the Olympics as they really are.

Here's the story in a nutshell. Abrahamian lost a wrestling match that he felt was unfairly judged. The winner of the match ultimately went on to win the Gold medal, and Abrahamian had to be talked into wrestling in the bronze medal match, which he won. At the medal ceremony, after receiving his bronze medal, Abrahamian walked off the podium, dropped his medal on the wrestling mat, and walked off, declaring he will never wrestle again. Let's go to the videotape:



Now, I don't condone what this jackass did for a minute, but it's compelling television - and it should have been shown on NBC. Instead, NBC never even mentioned it! Why? Because NBC is protecting the Olympics brand, which it has spent billions and billions of dollars to market.

The Peacock network is running a poor fourth in ratings outside of its NFL and Olympics brands, and it doesn't want to do anything to piss off the International Olympics Committee. NBC has spent so much money to air the games that its sole mission is to spin its coverage with one and only one strategy in mind - to maximize ratings at all costs so it can charge a higher rate for its commercials.

This is why you'll see every feel-good compelling story that NBC can muster... In fact, don't be surprised if NBC tries to get Michael Phelps to suit up and enter the track and field competition as a pole vaulter next week when swimming is done. The network has already been criticized (and rightly so) for soft-pedalling China's human rights record as it spins so many cotton candy stories of China coming out to the world. You should also note that NBC's corporate parent, General Electric, has been using the Olympics as an entree to line up all kinds of equipment contracts with the Chinese government... So don't expect NBC to screw up any deals for GE by showing something that might offend China's elite!

I have enjoyed what I've seen of the games so far - especially the excellent swimming coverage... and who wouldn't love the Michael Phelps story? But give me the WHOLE story, NBC - not just the one that meets your bottom line needs!