WHOOPS!

I caught the tail end of the Lakers game last night after a fine vegetarian taco salad (with tofu!) at the Reno Room last night. The Lakers won, which is always a good thing, but the best part was the post-game interview with Andrew Bynum. If you didn't know, Bynum's a 20 year-old 7-footer who's starting to play like a superstar. Last night he seemed to come out of his shell for the post-victory interview that just so-happened to be on live TV. Some guy asks him the reasons behind the Lakers success. He lists a few things, ("Kobe's being Kobe," etc.) then says, "and LO (Lamar Odom)'s getting all the FUCKING...WHOOPS....He recovered and was grinning from ear to ear for the remainder of the interview. Maybe it was the three Fat Tires, but I couldn't stop laughing. I was amazed, stupefied. Rarely do I laugh out loud at things and almost never do I laugh for an extended period of time. This was the exception. I was in tears after the interview was over. In fact, I'm laughing as I'm typing this. In all my years and watching professional sports, I've caught one of the seven words a few times, far too few for my virgin ears. Way to go Bynum! I've been hyping you up and telling fairweather Lakers fans to watch out for you. So far you've proved me right. Your game is improving and you're dropping f-bombs on live tv. Fucking awesome. Bynum's slip reminds me why sports can be a drag and how much more fun they could be. Ditch the family shit. These are grown men, let's hear them talk like grown men talk. Football is the worst. These guys bash the hell outta each other. Finally one of them does something interesting and gets a flag thrown for celebrating. During one of the recent bowl games, a USC player was flagged after doing a flip into the end zone. This is a kid. He's scoring a touchdown in a bowl game. Basically, the highlight of the young man's life. Let him have some fun. The other team can take it. And so can the fans. Rock stars are worshipped because they have personalities. But for some dumb reason, athletes aren't afforded this. Speaking of Lamar Odom, he got busted a few times for smoking weed when he was on the Clippers. Stuff like this makes me like him even more. Ricky Williams of the Miami Dolphins. Probably seen this guy run, maybe four times in my life. But he's my favorite football player because he gets high. Why does MLB think we're so stupid not to realize how many boozers are on those teams? Open up, let's start to have some fun. Bring back the days when Red Auerbach would smoke a cigar BEFORE the game was officially over. I'm tired of pretending that, all of a sudden, jocks grow up and learn the finer points of life once they turn pro. They don't. That's why they play kids games. I hope the strong arm of the law doesn't come down on Bynum. It's just a word, one we've all heard before and one we'll all hear again. Even more importantly, as long as LO keeps getting those fucking rebounds, we'll let just about everything else slide.