Grey Ghost
The Contender Wrap
I hope for Sugar Ray's sake that that snooze of a final didn't kill the franchise. Sugar got a little heavy on the hype during the intro by comparing it to the Super Bowl. I like it Ray, but that's a little strong. Had some solid fights this year, though I think last year's show was better on the human drama scale. Can I say it? I miss Sly. Last year Ray & Sly sit together ringside, this year it's Ray & last year's winner Sergio Mora. Big drop off.
Whatever happened to:The Challenges - You lose to much high comedy potential doing away with them. This year the first half hour of the show dragged to the extent that by the second half of the season, I was tuning in for the fights only. That's bad Ray. I thought you'd want to know. Why not product place the crap out of them? If these guys are truly hungry, and it seems that a lot of them are, you can have some seriously competitive challenges if you dangle the right carrot.
The Crazy Family Member - Maybe I missed somebody tuning in for the fight only, but from what I saw nobody, and I mean nobody, approached Manfredo's dad on the crazy scale. I know they have to focus on casting the boxers. If it comes down to a tiebreaker on anybody, please, please go with the guy who's related to somebody insane. I hardly even saw any spouses going to the corner giving useless obvious advice. "Honey, you've got to get going!!" Thanks sweetheart, loads of help. I think that humanizes the boxers more than anything. Hey, he's got a bitchey wife. I can relate. Imagine if your own wife could come down to the office and give you encouragement. "Honey, you've got to get going on those TPR reports!!" Wait, don't imagine that's a bad imagine.
Celebrity Cameos - All I remember this year was Burt Reynolds who looked like he's practically dead. I don't think Burt can move his head from side to side anymore. It makes it hard to talk to Ray when you move about as lifelike as Abe Lincoln at the hall of presidents. Outside of that who'd we get? Last year's guys, couple of other boxers, and, oh yeah, Willie McGinest. Let's cheese this up a little. Empty the D list on this thing. It's just like the product placement, you know they're dying to get on. Theme it. One week empty the Love Boat, next it's the A-Team. Are any of them working? We can spend the commercials playing, "Hey wasn't that...". If they can find 10 fat has beens for Celebrity Fit Club, they can find 3 for Ray. Make it a circus. That way if the fight's a snoozer, you can fill the time with cut shots. What major fight doesn't have celebrities ring side?
Sly - O.K., I already said it, but it bears repeating. He was missed badly. His pseudo-seriousness was just off the charts hilarious. We missed his catch phrase, "Toe da line." We missed him sitting with Ray during fights punctuating every big blow with his Balboa-istic exclamations. And we missed the closing shot cast meeting with Boss Sly sitting behind the desk on 2 phone books. The boxers love him like I imagine hockey players love Paul Newman. The difference is Paul Newman played Reggie Dunlop. Sly is Rocky Balboa. And Sergio Mora, the seat replacement? Stop acting like your Ray's equal in boxing. Once I'd like to see Mora talk, Ray rolls his eyes, and Ray slaps him. Once.
The Promoter - Remember her from the first season? I do. She had that mature sexpot thing going. She also had virtually zero lines so she was pretty easy to move off in season 2. Have her in there teasing the boxers, maybe incorporate her into one of the challenges. Ramp up the moral conflict. Oh wait, that's right. Boxers never get in trouble with women, and TV never uses sex to sell. It will never work.
Heavyweights - I asked for them in last year's wrap review. It's an obvious choice. The challenges alone would be worth it. You could sprinkle in fraternity pranks with the challenges. Race 'em in Speedos through the city square. Cut the fights down to 3 rounds and show us the whole fight, or at least more of it. Please, the big fellas are where the show needs to go from here.
Finally, as a public service, I give you:
Drinking Game for the Finale Repeats - And you know they'll repeat it, just like they pound poker programming. Every time Teddy Atlas says, "bigger, stronger man", hit it. You'll be lit in no time.
Good luck Ray. Bring it back.
Slow Death
Been taking the blog down from posting near daily, to 2 a week, to 2 a month, and soon we'll be back at "oft hiating'. "Oft Hiating" you'll recall was the characterization of this blog by its only known visitor, the blogger @ strangeblueghost. blogspot.com. Wait, who am I talking to?
In any case, I'm sure mine is the typical arc of a blog. Inactivity, flurry of activity, inactivity. You can stick a bell curve on just about anything. It's not a lack of initiative or material that's kept me away. Rather, it's that old pesky middle age proclivity to correctly categorize something that pays nothing. Should anyone happen to purchase a hammock, a bean bag, or any of the other ridiculous crap that Adsense throws out there, I might be inclined to hit this more often. Absent that, the blog will remain what it is, evidence of mild schizophrenia.
I'm certainly not intending to pack it in yet, but if this is it, please enjoy the death spiral.
Long Weekend
Wait, It's over? Then I'm officially unproductive.
Flipping through sports this weekend, I was able to confirm that Tennis remains in the "Never Watch" column. I'm always mad when CBS shows the U.S. Open final instead of a 4 o'clock NFL game. Can we get the U.S. Open to a network that doesn't carry football? I'd gladly give up one of my, I don't know, 8 shopping channels to move tennis somewhere else. I think I even have a tennis channel. I have no idea what's on it. Seriously. I wouldn't even watch tennis if they had a Stalker Cam that didn't follow the action, but stayed trained on whoever's the current hot Russian. O.K., that one's a lie, but still, not over the NFL.
Is Hot Russian not a drink yet? I don't know. I don't drink in bars anymore. Order it in a strip bar and see what they bring you. And let me know. I'll be back here waiting, not in a strip bar.
This weekend's purchase for the middle ages was a mattress. It's almost as degrading as buying a girdle or hair plugs. Prior to middle age, you never really had to buy a mattress. They give you one when you show up in college. It doesn't matter what it feels like because half the time your drunk and sleeping on the floor anyway. After that, someone's always in transition, and the first thing they dump is the mattress. So you sleep on the abandoned mattress for 10-15 years until it resembles a hammock. Hammocks are fun to sleep in in Fiji, bad to sleep in in the suburbs. The mattress is just another thing in your life that reminds you, just like your pants or your wife, that "Hey, you don't weigh what you did in college". Your wife is fond of pointing out how the slope on your side of the hammock/mattress can only be accurately expressed by using a graphing calculator. (Little joke for the parents in algebraII/pre-calc)
There's no fun in the buying process either. Of course, you have to test each mattress. It's like your own personal John Lennon/Yoko Ono sit in. People walk by you and stare while you lay prone on the mattress. I guess they're hoping that since your in a bed, you might start something, and then they could watch. They could come to the house and have as much chance of seeing anything as they do at the furniture store. Then the mattress salesman asks the inevitable, "What do you think?". I think I'm embarrassed. Then the wife peppers the salesman with her pre-purchase interrogation. All the answers are a none too subtle reference to the issues I face beyond this mattress purchase. Hopefully, the mattress we purchase will have an attachment for an IV stand, and can later be converted to a coffin. I throw out my lone question of the inquisition, "Which of these mattresses muffles farts the best?" The wife shoots darts so large that the salesman knows he can safely sidestep that one, but I know she would have liked to known the answer.
There was more to the weekend, but it will be next weekend if I don't get this out of Save Post. Save it for what? Nobody reads this any way. Enjoy.
USA Basketball
When I woke my younger son today to go to school, I told him we had lost to Greece.
In his words, "How?"
20 of 34 from the line for 59% vs. 23 of 33 for 70%
9 of 28 from 3 for 32% vs. 8 of 18 for 44%
That's how.
11 percentage points from the free throw line.
12 from 3.
Teach your kids to shoot, or find somebody who can.
