Tiger on the Loose

Posted By:	Boneman
Posted On:	Wed Dec 23rd, 2009

The Zeroes – What a Decade aka Tiger on the Loose

The 60's - JFK, the Beatles, Hippies, Viet Nam, Indiscriminate Sex and Drugs, The Moon, Revolution! The 70s Watergate, Disco, Billy Beer, Fashion Disaster, the Leisure suit, the Shag, Sideburns, High Heals for everybody. The 80s – Ronald Reagan, Punk goes New Wave, Goodbye Russia, Hello AIDS, More Fashion Disaster, Big Hair, leg warmers, Day-Glow, Mandatory Perms. The 90's – Nirvana, Grunge, CDs, Fashion Recovery, Stockton to Malone, O.J, Fanny Packs and Baggy Pants, Rap, The Big Lewinsky. So what of the Zeroes the ots – Bushwhacked, 9/11, Rehab, Internet, Cell Phones replace human contact, Bin Laden, Hussein, Recession, Obama, Media as Monster and as grist for the Monster mill there's a Tiger on the Loose. I'll bet you read that title and figured I was going to take a few swings at Woodsey (I call Tiger that because of his creepy-big, owl eyes) To be honest with the media feedia-frenzy that he's stirred up I think I'll give the unfortunate (at first I wrote ‘poor') bugger a break. Naa. When you deserve it. you deserve it.

In several quite obvious ways, Tiger Woods really has become the very embodiment of the decade. A (half) black man conquering an area of human endeavor where no Brother has previously had so much as a modicum of success. A man of considerable wealth and power, whose crown becomes tarnished by carnal indiscretion. Snared by the talons of the tech-toys, culminating in a weird bit of domestic discord (a man who can thread a long approach shot safely through a three inch gap between a stand of pine trees, hospitalized due to his inability to back out of his driveway? It was too bizarre to be easily explained away, but who would have imagined he'd backed over Pandora's box. Wha-dunk!!! As even the most casual fans are aware, Tiger has a knack for getting himself out of the rough in miraculous shape, but regardless how he decides to play this one, he'll have to face his fans a fallen hero, whose carefully cultivated image of private dignity is headed for a media meat grinder anxious to rake it all over the sand with equal measure pity, rue and fiendish glee. Visions of sugar plums dancing preempted by visions of Tiger balls bouncing hither and yon, long after the sun has gone.

I found it interesting or sadly weird that one of Tigers closest pals in the Golf world thought of him as being something of a nerd, and was genuinely shocked that he could even get himself laid. I'm glad I didn't catch the guys name because this way I can call him a stupid son-of-a-bitch with an easier conscience. I mean even if Woodsey had to resort to leaving a fat trail of twenties to his room, eventually something attractive would stumble through the door. Evidently that was about as careful or discriminate as he was.
For all the negative stereotyping that African Americans have fought to overcome, "nerdness has never been problematic. I realize that finding a bright side to this nightmare is, at best, a stretch, but if he's avoided being grouped in with Erkle, as the only other black nerd, I guess that's something.

I don't watch the news any more than the bare minimum necessary to be any good at this gig, so I'm not sure if Woodsey is still on the lam. I guess that's how you spell that kind of lam. I know the Lion will lay down with the Lamb, so I guess it's grammatically correct to say that Tiger will lay down with pretty much anything. Look out I'm snapin' ‘em off now. I did hear that ESPN or Time magazine or somebody named him "male athlete of the decade" you'd hate to think he found out about it through a small transistor radio while crouching behind some boxes in his cousins storage unit. Fortunately the chippies stopped coming out of the Woodswork at the 14 mark, or he might have also won the somewhat less coveted "Wilt Chamberlain Off-Season Scoring" award. However, the possibility of an honorable mention is very possible pending verification of the claims made by the porn star Joslyn James. Again, if we're looking for a silver lining here, I think it's another positive that principal photography is already underway for the adult film version of the Golfers exploits entitled (you guessed it) "Tiger's Wood." I think that might actually be true, which means I'm only entitled to however much credit I deserve for typing it up.

Just when you thought things couldn't get any more grim for the athlete of the decade, amid all of the media madness the New York Times has reportedly connected Woodsey with a Dr. Anthony Galea who is under investigation for furnishing his patients (Tiger among them) with PEDs (Which are steroids that pop out the top of a plastic toy when you bend back the little head of pop icons - say Sylvester Stallone or the kid who plays the cute Indian Werewolf). Performance Enhancing Drugs, is the PC way to get bigger muscles and smaller testicles. Certainly more bad news for Tiger. I suppose, on top of everything else, there's always gonna be the dreaded "asterisk" by that number 14.

It seems obvious that Tiger has become a victim of his own hyper-competitive nature, after all a man could grow tired of playing the same hole over and over – where's the challenge in that. Next thing you know you're just happy to get it up and down to save par. Trust me, I know golf I got a bagful of these. I heard some pundits discussing the possibility that Tiger may very well be a sex addict – he's sick with it, can't help himself. He was officially censured during the last tournament he was in when it was discovered that the numbers he penciled in the first seven holes of his scorecard, was the cell number of his caddy's sister.

You certainly feel for his jilted wife, all the lies and deceit, not to mention sleeping with a guy whose whole focus is about getting it in the hole with a minimum of strokes. I don't think anyone can blame the poor gal for grabbing the really valuable paintings and the kids and high-tailing it for the Netherlands. It turns out that Elin was working as a housekeeper for some other guy on the PGA tour, who actually played Cupid with the couple. Now, of course, he feels terrible about the whole thing, and has publicly stated his desire to apologize for causing her ill-fated relationship and the grief one suffers when adjusting to the stress of being the richest women in Scandalnavia. As I was watching it his face actually became Bill Murray as Carl Spackler in Caddyshack in the scene where he gets stiffed after Caddying a round for the Dali Lama. "Excuse me uh, your holy eminence – but how about a little something, you know – for the effort?"

I got to thinking that one of the real casualties of this whole Woods episode is David Letterman. Every comedian from bottom feeders like me, right up to Jay and Conan are mining the richest vein of easy jokes since Monica Lewinsky, but Dave's hands are pretty much tied. He's been remarkably candid about his creepy dalliances, but he really can't join in the Tiger turkey shoot for being accused of calling the Kettle . . . African American. You see, I'm a firm believer in Karma and in spite of our repentance I really think that, to some degree, we pay for our sins in this lifetime.

In defense of Tiger, I think he just suffers from the Michael Jordon syndrome. When you're so far ahead of the pack that you can't even see the guy in second, where do you ‘go' from there? If you're Michael Jordon, you quit and try baseball. Fortunately he got it out of his system and left Left Field in plenty of time to destroy the hopes and dreams of the fine people of Utah. The Inglorious Basterd. But what other sport could Tiger conquer? Miniature Golf? Hockey? That would be another first.

"Well I'll be dipped – ‘ey gotta black guy playing Hockey!" "What's so weird about that? Jeez – I gotta black eye playing miniature ‘golf' once." "What!" "I'm not kiddin' I kept slicing everything off to the left and wound up nailing a big black dude, right in the eye. Talk about a "hazard," he picked me up like I was an inflatable doll and somehow hooked me on to the windmill with my fanny pack." "What are you talking about – I said black "guy" "guy"!" "Right, "big" black guy, like Shaq-big – plus his wife or girlfriend was goin' at least two bills. She pulled my pants down and cinched my ankles up with my belt – talk about a "round" of golf – I lost my voice and vomited three times before the stupid punk that was running the joint could figure out how to turn the dang motor off. By then I had quite a crowd. Man alive – people must be hard up for entertainment, the only guy who tried to help me was lucky he didn't get shot. Needless to say it wasn't the best date I've ever been on. I actually asked her out again and she called me Don Quixote – told me to dream some other impossible dream, haven't so much as touched a woman since." "Are we having the same conversation – Who the hell is Don Coyote and what the hell does he have to do with a black guy in hockey?" "Dude it's a violent sport, you can get a black ear, playing that game.

This bit of fiction reminded me of one of the funniest true stories that ever happened to me. I was taking a pop quiz in a High School Lit class and one of the questions was something like "Name the character who was so hung-up on Windmills? (hint) He was the man of La Mancha? Piece of cake right? Not for my buddy Brad (just to protect the guilty, I'll only mention that his last name was Larsen). I'd always try to whisper him through the tougher ones if I could get away with it. And sure enough, "pssst, number 7?"
So secretively as possible I whispered "Don Quixote." "What?" "Don Quixote." "What?" So as loud and slowly as I could "Don Quixote." He got it, good. The next day the teacher asked us both to see her after class, and I'm thinking man she must have bionic hearing. Anyway she sits us down and congratulates me on getting the right answer, then pauses dramatically then says "next time you try to help Brad you might want to show instead of tell," whereupon she slaps down Brad's quiz and to my horror he'd written "Donkey O Day.

Let's hope for a better New Decade. And keep a good thought, because like I always say - life might not always be that great, but it's almost always pretty funny.