Get the Facts Straight

This was a "The Whirling Dervish" piece originally published by Speakeasy on October 10, 2005.

Any column/blog/whatever – nay, any new school year – should start off the right way: making fun of Miami. And lo and behold, it’s easier than ever.

Last week, ESPN graced Oxford for the annual gridiron war between the Cincinnati Bearcats and the Miami Redski...er, RedHawks. The game promotes itself as the oldest rivalry “west of the Alleghenies.” That’s all well and good, but perhaps the school should take some time to teach its students where the Alleghenies are first.

Any student that has spent more than about 10 minutes on campus has probably taken at least one jab from Miami students and alumni in their sweater vests about how the school is a “public Ivy,” whatever that means, and just how wonderful the school is academically. At least the average Bobcat knows that Columbus is not home to a mountain range.

Perhaps some of these scholars came from western Pennsylvania. After all, how can one expect them to know their geography when they’re too busy letting boys play on girls teams? I think they’re really onto something. After all, I was little more than an average tennis player among other boys, but against girls, I think I could have made states. And I would have fist-pumped and taunted and smirked every inch of the way. I might have even held my racquet above my head victoriously like a war trophy. Of course, because the Ohio High School Athletic Association has common sense, my dream was never realized. The Man is always keeping me down like that.

I can’t wait for the first time some 6-foot-5-inch 250-pound man-child plasters some poor field hockey player and gives her a concussion. Not only would the lawsuit be completely justified, Oprah might actually explode. Then again, she survived Tom Cruise’s attempts to choke her, so we might need a plan “B.”

Of course, none of this is quite as unbelievable as the music industry. First, MTV has a new weapon in the war to make sure America’s youth has no independent spirit or brains. It’s bad enough they actually take the time to tape, edit, and produce a show taken from the lives of spoiled, out-of-touch kids in Orange County, Calif., who wouldn’t know what actual work was if it handed them a rent due notice. Now they’re using these people to record albums. You know a man is serious about his music when he grows his hair out like any decent rocker would...but he doesn’t want to do the “normal thing.” It’s good to get these things straight.

More troubling, however, is something that, no matter how many times one reads it, doesn’t seem real. One needs no proof that Satan exists than hearing the news that Ice-T is producing a David Hasselhoff rap album. But if it features a remix of the “Baywatch” theme, I might just have to buy it.