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The Rant

The Rant

The Littlest Peter

by Brian Dykstra
You know what I hate? I hate it when athletes who have been given every gift we, as a society bestow on our members with athletic prowess, who are held in higher esteem by the public than the rest of us taxpayers, who are both self or otherwise proclaimed role models, I hate it when these Boys of Summer, Hoop Heroes, or Giants of the Gridiron, screw up. Because it's not the screwing up itself that bothers me so much, it's the shit that follows. And follow it inevitably does.

Michael Irvin, All World wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys gets arrested in a hotel room with two local "working girls", neither one being his wife (not that I'm accusing his wife of anything, but we're all now fairly clear about the kind of girl he parties with), an ex-teammate, a party sized quantity of


cocaine, and some sex toys.
His opening statement to the arresting officers, when initially trying to smoothly sweet talk his way out of the arrest was, "Don't you recognize me?" I guess he was expecting one of the star struck cops to do a little double take and say,
"My golly fella's, we got us Mr. Michael Irvin,

from the hometown hero Cowboy organization. We sure are sorry Mr. Cowboy. Of course the laws of this state do not apply to a star at a skill position like yourself." Needless to say, that is not the reply he received. I don't know what the officers actual reply turned out to be, but I'm hoping it was something snappy, in that unmistakable Texas drawl, like,
"Shut The Fuck Up, Asswipe!" (17k .au)

Press reports out of that part of the world mentioned that this being a first arrest, blah blah blah, anyway Mr. Irvin would see no jail time. That is until he showed up at his arraignment dressed like Huggy Bear from the old Starsky and Hutch series, and proceeded to smirk his way through the proceedings. The District Attorney's office is said to have been so mortified by Mr. Irvin's behavior that they re-wrote the charge, naming him as the key defendant. The Judge slaps a gag order on everybody, but somehow Mr. Irvin can't figure out that the order applied to him. This ignoring of a Judicial order lands him in even more hot water so he is understandably silent now. His general text is now the typical defense of fallen heroes all over the map, "It's not me."


No, not even Michael is attempting to get away with the mistaken identity defense, see he looks out through all those TV cameras that have been beaming his image into our homes for some years now, and he attempts to take advantage of our Image of him. Heck, Michael Irvin sells things on TV. He must be a neat-o kind of friendly guy, huh? He acts as his own character witness imploring through those puppy-dog innocent eyes that he's way too much of a stand-up guy to do anything sordid or untoward and that although he doesn't deny being in the room or planning on following through with the evening's festivities, that the events of that particular evening are so out of whack with the REAL Michael Irvin (55k .au), that even though the arresting officers didn't look the other way, now the rest of society should close their eyes to this matter because, after all, noting even remotely like this has ever happened before and, my lord, if not for the temporary insanity, or emergence of some dastardly inner evil twin, or the dangerous alignment of anti-matter asteroids impacting on Irvin's sun sign at the longitude and latitude he found himself, it will, I swear honey (and, Your Honor), it will never happen again. Ever. I swear.

I know chicks who didn't fall for that shit in High School from boyfriends who got spotted in the back of the new girl's car by the big mouth friend who blabbed. I wonder if Mrs. Irvin or the local county Judge did, and if so, I hope they learned their lessons back then.

If this defense works there may be a run on this sort of thing. "Elizabeth Borden, you are accused of taking an ax and giving your mother 40 whacks. How do you plead?"

I plead guilty, your honor.
But I'd like to point out that I have never done anything remotely like this in the past and I just want to say it's not me. Ask the people who know me. Heck, just look at me. You can tell."
 "Mr. Simpson, how do you plead?"

"Absolutely 100% Guilty, your Honor, but I feel compelled to add that even though you will find reports of spousal abuse that a jury of my peers will hardly consider anyway, I have never in my life up to present nearly decapitated any other blonde to whom I had been married. I have to say it Judge, it wasn't me!

When Magic Johnson bumped a ref recently he stated, "It's just not ME." Now, I'm a big fan of Magic's but I do feel compelled to point out that he did it. He bumped the ref. I didn't do it, you didn't do it, Dennis Rodman didn't do it (and if he did, at least he wouldn't try the, it wasn't me defense because of all the athletes in the league, it IS Dennis Rodman), Magic Johnson did it. And I know that it never matters what a man says to define his character, it only matters what that man does. No, bumping a ref doesn't make anybody a bad guy, but it does make him part of who he is.

In the middle of writing this Rant, as my deadline creeps up on me, there are new reports out of Dallas that station KXAS has obtained a video tape of Mr. Irvin

buying cocaine

a matter of WEEKS after the original arrest. His lawyer claims that he was set up by a friend of his who was paid $6000.00 for the video tape. There goes the "It's not ME!" defense. Oh, a side note to Michael Irvin: choose your "friends" better.

What's with professional athletes, anyway? Bam Morris (166k .au) is found with nine pounds of pot in his car, and says he doesn't know how it got there. Nick Van Exel (140k .au) shoves a referee over the scorers table, and accuses the man of taking a dive. Lawerence Taylor buys fake crack in a police sting operation, blaming personal problems and then when approached by cops for the arrest he eats the shit. (164k .au) These stories are, for me, just a preamble to the strange case of Christian Peter. He may very well be a Christian, but he is also unquestionably a dick. Mr. Christian Peter is a 6'-3", 300-pound defensive lineman from Nebraska University (that make's him a Cornhusker). He was drafted in the fifth round of last month's NFL draft by the New England Patriots. Then, they cut him.

Before the first workout, physical, contract negotiation. Before anything, they cut him. There is some debate as to why. The Pats claim that they did not have enough background information about the young horse before selecting him, and when they found out more about him, they regretted their choice. That may be true, but what is probably the case is that the team bent to the outside pressure of their fans protesting that selection. Why would their fans do that? Well, let me run it down for you:

That's EIGHT arrests, and I'm sorry, I went to college. For every event that anybody I knew ever got arrested for, there were dozens and dozens of similar transgressions that we could have been nailed for as well. There is also a suit pending in which a former Nebraska student claims she was raped by Mr. Christian Peter. Now I think we have a pretty good idea about just who exactly this Christian Peter jerk IS.

In reaction to being cut, he actually looked into the camera, called the person who cut him a "coward" and then stated that he considered himself "The Victim". Me, I couldn't believe it. No matter what this piece of shit has happen to him, he's got to go a hell of a lot further than losing out on a couple of dollars because there will be some immoral team out there who will give this psycho another shot (that is a guarantee), before he gets to call himself anything close to "The Victim". In that same television interview he defended himself as someone who people don't know, except for what they've heard about him and that (and I'm quoting now)
"To know me is to love me."

Yeah.

Sounds like a rapist to me.

Hey, Michael, Christian, act like men. When you screw up, at least consider taking some of the blame. And the truth is I don't know you, I only know what you have done. And what you continue to do.

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