And I’m Baaack!!

So much has gone on these last couple weeks outside of politics, and it’s all in The Bender’s wheelhouse. The most important thing that went down of course was the final episode of the RW/RR Challenge on MTV. The Gauntlet wrapped up and while the Rookies won with their slim compact team, it may have been a career ending moment Big Easy. Eric aka “Big Easy” couldn’t finish the grueling final mission. I don’t know exactly how hard the final mission was, but I can’t believe how poorly he performed. I watched the reunion show this week to see if there’d be an explanation of what had gone wrong for him, but there was none, so I don’t want to be overly critical, it was obvious that he wasn’t exactly a pro athlete and not in ship shape, so he probably had some fear inside that his life could’ve been in jeopardy. All that said, I just don’t think he’ll be treated the same if he comes back for future Challenges. There was one interesting thing that caught my eye from the reunion show this time around. And no, it wasn’t that Coral came out guns blazing (not referring to her boobs.) It was that a few of the contestants seemed to go out of their way to state that they were successful in real life outside of their roles as MTV celebrities. I really enjoyed the idea that a lot of these people were making their livings as MTV personalities, perhaps that’s a thing of the past but hopefully there will be a book about the lives of reality TV celebs, sooner rather than later.

In other huge reality TV news, Chekezie Ezie was voted of American Idol. For me he was truly the most likeable contestant, especially more so than that little fraud David Archuleta. Chekezie was done in by two things this week. First, that damned Kristy Lee Cook singing one of the most patriotic songs ever written. I could just imagine hundreds of thousands of votes coming in from the red states on her behalf, and those votes may or may not have been preceded by conversations that anyone who doesn’t vote for her doesn’t love America. In fact I heard there was a situation in Texas where a fight broke out because someone wasn’t voting for Kristy and the result was that the “un-American” voter was banished to Massachusetts. So that person got what they deserved. The second big factor for Chekezie getting voted off was that he kept singing songs that no one had ever heard of. I remember his singing some Luther Vandross song at some point that had also been sung by Mariah I think, but aside from that I had no idea what he was singing. He even managed to find two Beatles songs that no one had ever heard of. But no use crying over it now, Chekezie is gone and all he got was some stupid video montage with Fat Ruben Studdard singing in the background. What we need is America to smarten up and vanquish that little devil spawn David Archuleta. Perhaps my words are too strong, but I can’t stand these little child star types, especially when they keep singing preachy songs like “Another Day in Paradise” and “Imagine.” He’s too young and inexperienced to understand those songs, at least “Imagine” anyway.

Have to at least weigh in on the NCAA tourney. I watched it all, the first day sucked. Duke survived a scary game but ultimately won, and there’s nothing more disappointing than that, and when they did lose it was to West Virginia, who is coached by the very hate-able “Huggy Bear” Bob Huggins. Other quick observations from the first weekend, I was quite under-whelmed by Michael Beasley. This guy is supposed to be the top pick, but he couldn’t even look good against Wisconsin. Wisconsin is a good defensive team, but if you’re a top star you have to be able shine on the big stage. Long story short, The Miami Heat are tanking for no reason. Stephen Curry was a revelation, the hype for him began last season and I poo poo’d it because I thought he was a product of his father’s fame. But he may be the best college player around before his career is over at Davidson. He’s an amazing shooter and undersized shooting guards are perfect for the college game. His shooting is so good that he may end up in the NBA someday, despite his diminutive size. Davidson really was the show-stealers of the first weekend, not only because they’re a double digit seed making it to the sweet sixteen, but also because they knocked off the only true title contender who has been eliminated so far. Georgetown really broke a lot of hearts because expectations were so high, they had probably the best Center in college basketball in Roy Hibbert, along with a top senior point man in Jonathan Wallace. They had a comfortable second half lead but it all fell apart, worst of all for many fans, CBS was showing other games for the bulk of their collapse so the comeback really seemed to come out of nowhere. Week two is set up well despite the eliminations of Duke and Georgetown, hardly any low seeds have stayed around, and one of them is Villanova who while a low seed had high expectations all season and has seemingly put it together for now. My last impression from week 1 is that Kevin Love is a really good college player, but I just don’t see him making it in the NBA. He had two clutch turnaround jumpers from the post to help win it against A&M and complete the comeback, but he’s too slow and not tall enough to ever be an NBA star. Perhaps a good conditioning program could change all that and he’ll be an all-star someday, I’ve been wrong before, but he just doesn’t seem to want it badly enough right now.

That’s way too much for now, so I’ll end it there. I double posted so don’t forget to scroll down and read about the Clintons if you’re bored enough.

-Bender Out