And now...the aftermath

So we're officially into the most boring sports time of the year, the month or so between the Super Bowl and March Madness. I actually listened to twenty minutes worth of Red Sox closer talk on sports radio today, I think I may already be sick of baseball. So the 2007 edition of the sports abyss will be filled by...John Amaechi, the first openly gay basketball player. Professional sports, the last great bastion of homophobia, (well that and the church.) I guess the next big step is to get a player that anyone has heard of to come out as gay, I'm gonna make the assumption that there is actually a star athlete out there who is gay but just doesn't feel like it is worth it to come out. For Amaechi, coming out is really not that big of a risk, he's retired from basketball and if anything this makes him more of a celebrity. So not only is he a positive role model young gay men, but he gets to sell a book about his experience and apparently continue his career as an entertainer in England. I'm not sure exactly what Amaechi does these days but from what I read he seems like the English equivalent of John Salley. On a side note, watching an interview with amaechi was kinda entertaining, maybe it was because of his english accent, but he came accross as a bit of an intellectual, so I guess that's two barriers he's breaking down, not only the first gay ex-NBA player, but the first intelligent one as well.

The only other sports news around Boston these days is the Celtics tanking so they can get either Greg Oden or Kevin Durant. And recently there has been a big push to look at Durant as the true gem of next years draft class, which I find to be completely ridiculous. Durant is a lot more polished than Oden at this point, but in the long run, Oden will be the much bigger star. I've heard a lot of comparisons between durant and Kevin Garnett or Tracy McGrady. First off, Garnett is about 4 inches taller than Durant and for that reason alone is a totally different player, the McGrady comparison is actually a lot closer size-wise but T-Mac is more explosive, has a better handle and is a lot smoother in his moves. The two players who I think are much better comparisons for Durant are Jonathan Bender and Gerald Green. I think Green could be just as dominant against the weak NCAA competition. Jonathan Bender, another player who was actually bigger than durant was dominant against lesser talent but never quite made it work in the NBA and he eventually had to retire due to back issues, but he was every bit as good as durant when he was playing. So memo to Danny Ainge and all the Durant backers out there, it's nice that your boy is performing well in college but the NBA is a totally different game, and Greg Oden will be twice the player that Kevin durant is in the NBA.

So thats all i have to say about sports, but I wanted to mention a few things about TV shows that are currently coming back into full swing. I've always secretly been a fan of American Idol, I enjoy watching the tryouts where a bunch of egotards get put in their place because they don;t really have talent. But this year the show has gone out of control, they've almost stopped showing the tryouts of the actual singers and just show the really bad ones while Simon makes fun of them and Randy laughs. I enjoy it as much as anyone, but there comes a time where you have to remember what the actual point of the show is, that point being finding hot chicks who can sing so I can vote for them. All that being said, a couple of highlights from the losers this year, the skinny gay kid from New york who previously tried out for So You Think You Can Dance. I''m not sure if this kid was for real or not, but seeing him get rejected was the funniest part of this season. My second favorite was the weird kid from LA who had learned to sing by watching a DVD put out by Paula and Randy, he had apparently invented his own style that sounded like he was editing his voice in the studio, I might be willing to buy a full album by that kid. Sadly the open tryouts are over, but soon I'll decide who the hottest chick in the competition is, and I'll try to use this blog to get everyone to vote for her. Perhaps if I had tried harder last year Kelly Pickler would've beaten Katherine McPhee in the final instead of that gray haired guy in the Ford commercials.

The other big news on TV is the return of Lost. It's been moved to 10 o'clock because Idol is too powerful for even Lost to overcome, but the result is the finest night of television since the height of NBCs thursday nights in the late 80s and into the 90s. Between Friday Night Lights, American Idol and Lost you have three of the top shows on TV back to back to back. Friday Night Lights has been the best surprise so far this season, usually shows like this blow their whole load in the first few episodes, trying to make too much happen too quickly, but so far the show has been consistent and realistic. It has everything I like in my TV, realistic plots, hot chicks and that's it. So back to Lost, I'm not sure if this mid year hiatus is a good strategy, when these shows go away completely for that long, it's hard to get back into them. I'll have to see how this goes, I've been able to get back into Heroes, but I still think they'd be better off with a few interspersed re-runs as opposed to no Lost for 3 months.

Well I'm off to watch TV

-Bender Out