Alan brings up a good point about this reaction to the Lebron James-Kobe Bryant Nike ad. And it makes me think.
Let's ponder for a moment …
What was Pete Maravich's nickname? Pistol Pete.
What do folks call a guy who shoots a lot? A gunner.
What is a guy who is really ready for a game? Loaded for bear.
What was the nickname of former NBA player Travis Grant? Machine Gun Grant.
What does a quarterback have when he has a strong arm? A gun.
What is a close, high-scoring game? A shootout.
What offense did Jim Kelly run in Buffalo when they lost all those Super Bowls? The K-gun.
What was Tom Heinsohn's nickname? Tommy Gun.
What is a deep pass in football? A bomb.
What is an offense when the quarterback drops back for the snap? The shotgun.
These references happen. They've happened for years, and they'll keep happening. Periodically folks get all weepy and moralistic about it. It usually happens during times of war, when in reality war references as applied to sports are simply out of place.
But in sports, the weapon references are as old as Babe Ruth, and nobody means anything nasty or irreverent or negative by them.
And I don't think Peyton Manning dropping back in the shotgun is condoning any kind of gun violence.
So in this case, I'm going to agree with James when he says that Bryant and he and Nike were not referring to guns in the ad, and that sometimes slang gets interspersed with regular language and twisted.
The timing of Nike's ad is bad, yes.
But this had to have been in the pipeline for weeks.
Nobody could plan that Gilbert Arenas and Jarvis Crittenton would actually … you know … take guns into the locker room. And nobody could predict two months ago when Nike's campaign was being developed that the same week it came out would be the week Crittenton and Arenas were suspended.
I don't particularly like the ad, with its combat theme. I'm glad the city of Cleveland decided not to allow a 10-story poster of it downtown. That seems sensible. This is basketball, not combat.
But there's a difference between not liking it and getting all moralistic over something that was not intended or even present in the ad itself.
A little bit of this high-minded moralism goes a long way.
At this point, it's time for me to shoot on over to YouTube and figure out the weekend music.
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Pat, don't take this as a personal attack, but the majority of the "politically correct" crap is driven by the media. There are so many different media outlets now, what with all of the cable news, internet sites and remaining print media, that they need to fill their time and space with anything that they think will draw viewers/readers. The more controversial they can make something seem, the bigger the ratings they get. I understand it up to a point, but sometimes it gets ridiculous. And with the TMZ's of the world flourishing, it isn't going to end anytime soon.
i propose an immediate ban on metaphors.
Sorry Terje, I'm shooting that idea down.
someday pat, you ought to publish your blog responses to Alan in a collection. don't know how well it will sell, but it will be a tome.
Dude still using all those first names didnt AC/DC have a song about..Shoot you shoot you shoot you down ….and about Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap ,with TnT and cyanide and high explosives,,,,I say Blame it on MTV if i was not exposed to such Violence and hatred on TV i might not have joined the Army to protect the Freedom of those who want to take away said weapons of mass destruction and their right to whine and bellyache about how bad we are as Americans and how we should look to Haiti as our true example of peace and prosperity …as Clark(Patrick Joseph Thomas) Griswold would say Amen HALLELUJAH ive got a migraine pass me the Tylenol ! GO CAVS!!!!!!!
Oh and i am so mad if you saw me right now boy oh boy If Looks Could Kill!
Hey wasnt that short guy who played in Utah with the Mailman known as The Pasty Gangsta ……Conspiracy I still Love the Original Washington Bullets ……Met Manute Bol at the airport once dude was Taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllll!
relax kids i am not going to go all Postal or whatnot ! so is it now better?to say Holy$#!T rather than Shoot? to pass wind rather than blow this room up? And I am stickin to my guns on this one …..She is SO HOT she is DYNO—MITE!!!!!!! Oh the Humanity of it all…..there goes the shotgun weddings of the twins!
So if I'm at work and I'm trying to get multiple things done…if I tell a coworker, "I'm in the zone right now", will I be hauled into HR and made to tinkle in the plastic cup?
Well, the NBA has a problem, since basketball terms such as "blocked shot" and "shooting percentage" promote gun violence. To make the PC police happy, "shot" should be changed to "throw". So, not only will we have "free throw percentage", we'll have "blocked throw" and "throwing percentage". So, when Lebron makes a buzzer-beater like he did at the end of Game 2 in the Orlando series, it will be "what a great throw by James!"
And Pat, a guy that takes a lot of shots is a "thrower".
Hey, Geddy, Pat doesn't have to write it, he could just speak it into one of those books on tape. According to Amazon's latest book sales charts, it would be impossible to be even remotely close to the incredibly embarrassing sales "bomb" of Pluto's and Windhorst's latest (and hopefully last, although I doubt it) milking the cow LeBron tome. Yes, even Pat responding to my silly my tongue-in-cheek nonsense would beat the ultra-serious Dynamic Duo homer nonsense of Pluto and Windhorst. Incredible, isn't it? Hell, our book on tape could even make it to #1 on Billboard. #1. With a bullet. I presume we'd shoot off the charts a neck-tattooed rapper chanting cute lyrics about killing a cop while the NBA's accountants dance to it. Hey, Delonte West could play the exploding cannons in our book on tape, like in AC/DC's "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)." That is, if he's not too doped out of his mind singing about fried chicken.
just read your sunday column pat–are you heading off to the plain dealer too?!
Pat–hate to see you leave–where are you going?????? We will miss you!!!
I have heard that Pat is on his way over to Fanhouse at AOL. We were his original crew! Now we have to share him with the nation!
JBD: yes, we will have to share Pat's talents with the rest of the nation…that is not a bad thing. On the other hand, please mourn for the country if alan decides to follow him there with his comments.
See ya on the flip side Pat!
Brian D., I sense you're one of the very few folks that actually "mourns" about me, of all people, writing stupid stuff about sports. Most guys think about chicks. You, for some reason, have spent your days and nights thinking about me. Whatever.
I ain't remotely a religious guy or anything, but if I've learned anything from when I used to read Terry Pluto, it's that you may really want to consider rubbing the big belly one of those happy 10-feet-tall dudes that calmly sits in front of the fancier Chinese restaurants. For simplicity, you can nickname him "J.C." Although, I think his nickname is really Bud, or something. Anyway, it will put some good sense into you, make you feel a whole lot better, and make you think a whole lot less about me.
Joe, Pat is going where Jason Whitlock had employment for five minutes, that is until he literally ate up all the bandwidth.
Also, nothing to do with AOL Fanhouse, also known as fanhouse.com (there, free plug, Pat), I've noticed something odd that newspapers are doing these days. They used to simply syndicate stuff from other papers. For instance, the San Jose Mercury would simply run Windhorst's stuff. Now, newspapers are not only throwing those sportswriters a few bucks for it, but they're actually outsourcing content and giving them their own e-mail address under their stuff! It's ridiculous.
I was at the store yesterday, I was bored, so I bought the actual newspaper versions of the Plain Dealer, the Akron Beacon Journal and the Columbus Dispatch. The Dispatch is now outsourcing their Cavaliers stuff to the Plain Dealer (because James Walker, who used to work for the Dispatch, now is employed by ESPN's online site), and lo and behold, not only was Windhorst's stuff substituting for a Dispatch sportswriter on the front page of the sports section, but the Dispatch has given Windhorst a Dispatch e-mail address, too! Ridiculous.
The newspaper business has morphed into a bad joke. I give the Beacon Journal six months before they start outsourcing their sports columns to India, and I wake up to read a 10-paragraph rant that elephants should have to wear diapers during polo matches.
Alan, hopefully Pat's new employer will allow him to post more pics of babes with glorious, fake enancements for me to obsess over.
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