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MobileElvis Has left the Building
By Blake Townsley
Howdy folks, and happy Friday. As a few of you may have noticed, the regularly scheduled update from last week was skipped in favor of an early holiday weekend in mosquito heaven. But I’m back, a few pints lighter, and fired up to discuss the monumental week we just had.
First up, the impressive news that Lindsay Lohan is going to jail for violating her probation. I’d guess this is a good thing for Lindsay, normally falling on the side of the argument that jail is enough to cause a person to think about their life choices. I would guess that, except I don’t think Lindsay has enough self-awareness to reflect on any choice she makes except which tweet to delete when she sobers up the next day. She certainly doesn’t seem to think this jail stint is anything but a grave injustice, or as she would probably put it, fucking bullshit. To be fair, she also sees this fucking bullshit as an opportunity to make a million dollars for her first post-jail interview. Gotta keep that prescription med money coming in somehow, I guess.
Ms. Lindsay went so far as to google “torture” on her smartphone, tweeting several quotes from an article by Erik Luna, one of which was Article 5 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” For once, Lindsay, I totally agree with you. It’s been inhuman and degrading punishment watching the trainwreck that is your life these past two years. I’m sure the UN is relieved you’ll be ceasing your torture of us for the next 90 days.
Finally, after the court’s decision was announced, the obsessive scandal barons over at TMZ got out the magnifiying glasses and found out that Lindsay had written Fuck U on one of her fingernails. When it was postulated that this was directed at the judge in this case, a round of cries went up suggesting that Lindsay would be held in contempt of court. I’ve got news for you, people. If the judge didn’t think that Lindsay’s whole life since her last court date was enough to be held in contempt of court, writing FU half a millimeter high on her fingernail ain’t gonna do it either. Fare thee well, Ms. Lohan. I wish you the best of luck for your jail stay, and hope someone converts you to Islam while you’re in there.
Shifting topics only slightly, some of you may have heard about this LeBron James announcement from last night. ESPN certainly tried to do its best impression of an Orwellian entity, doing everything possible to make sure you knew about it, cared about it, and would watch breathlessly, sitting through every commercial. It reminded me a lot of the social commentary subplot to The Cable Guy, when the nation sat transfixed by the verdict in a murder trial that ultimately had no bearing on anyone’s day-to-day life. After The Decision was over, I had a strong mental image of the closing scenes where Jim Carrey’s death knocked out cable across a wide area, and people realized ultimately the insignificance of the event, and returned to whatever they were doing before. Boy, do I certainly hope that’s true.
While the absurdity revolving around the event reached levels previously only seen in the wildest imaginations of satirists, what grabbed my attention was how uncomfortable LeBron looked sitting in front of Jim Gray. He had the look of a man who knows he’s made a series of bad decisions, but committed to following through and is gritting his teeth to get it over. It reminded me of the fact that he’s only 25, and people have been telling him for probably the last 13 years of his life that he’s the best and greatest thing to walk the earth. It sure seems like it took last night, and the surrounding backlash by the media, for LeBron to realize that he is fallible after all.
The weirdest thing about the whole spectacle is that LeBron’s team undoubtedly orchestrated the entire thing, yet by the end you could tell that LeBron would rather have been anywhere but there. In his long-stated desire to become a global icon, this was the masterstroke of the grand scheme, the coming-out party that would provide the level of hype truly deserved by the best basketball player alive. LeBron was going to make the announcement that he truly only cared about winning, taking less money to go somewhere with the best chance of winning a championship, and he was going to make that announcement in a way that showed his charitable side, with $2.5 million dollars going from the proceeds of the telecast to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.
What a colossal fuckup by LeBron’s team! In their scramble to achieve the widest possible level of exposure on the path to global iconhood, they failed to consider the ramifications of their actions. That an hour long tv special was the height of egotism, and no amount of charity that resulted would remove the stink of arrogance that Americans love to hate so very much. That the backlash from jilted teams and fans, especially in Cleveland, would overshadow a simple decision on which job to take. That the sports media is an uncontrollable beast intent only on selling the best story, getting the most clicks, garnering the most eyeballs for its sponsors.
LeBron seems like a pretty good dude. By all accounts, he’s loyal to friends and family, and he seems to have a genuine passion for entertaining his fans. The vilification in the media right now is hysterically hypocritical, considering the buildup perpetrated by them leading up to this summer. While LeBron bought into his own hype, and focused perhaps a bit too much on the ridiculous goal of iconhood, it’s nothing that any 25 year-old with the world on a string wouldn’t have done in the same position. Because I’m not sure if anyone in the media remembers this, but 25 year-old males are all kinds of arrogance and cocksure douchebaggery wrapped into a simmering vat of insecurities. Hell, if he’d made this decision quietly, and released a press statement with all his reasons neatly laid out for the press, and a gracious thanks to the people of Cleveland, the media would have broken their backs praising him for his work in Cleveland, willingness to take less money to win, and charitable actions.
My only hope for King James is that the entire experience taught him to consider his actions carefully, and to make sure he justifies this by winning five championships in Miami.
And finally, to my friends in Cleveland, sorry about this whole charade. Things will turn around someday. Try not to set your river on fire again burning those LeBron jerseys.
(Credits: Image by miamism)
