By
The Reverend
January 15, 2004 - 13:11
Recently, the only thing more constant than the company logo in FOX News' on-air graphics and news tickers was the permanent reminder that the national terror threat level was orange, or "High." If that doesn't sum up the Rupert Murdoch network's "fair and balanced" news coverage, I don't know what could.
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QUESTION: In the last year or so, I have read nothing but bad things about writer Chuck Austen in online reviews and message boards. Yet this guy keeps getting plum writing assignments on A-list material, like Avengers, Uncanny X-Men, and an upcoming Superman book - Action Comics, I believe. Can anybody vouch for this guy? I haven't read much of anything he's done, so I'm wondering to whom he is appealing.
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FILLING THINGS OUT NICELY: I have yet to wrangle up any interest in the new Catwoman movie that's coming out later this year, if you must know. The fact that the movie will have virtually nothing to do with Batman doesn't help matters, and I have the feeling that everybody but the WB bean counters will let us know the hard way when this film inevitably tanks. I just don't have a good feeling from this project, because if the hardcore fans aren't interested, who will be? Another thing that doesn't help is the God-awful costume design Warners signed off on for this movie. But I do have to say that, my goodness, if Halle Berry doesn't still manage to make this outfit work. Mee-yow. I may not go see the movie, but I'll probably check out every article that comes out between now and
Catwoman's release. Lordy.
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COLTS 41 + BRONCOS 10 = SEASON OVER: Ouch. This should have devastated my day when this atrocity happened, but I was basking in a warm glow (no small feat since Chicago was experiencing its first major snowstorm of the season that day) that came from a dead weight roommate moving out of my loft way ahead of schedule. For the first time since this tool entered our household almost a year ago, by our invitation, he exceeded our expectations in a good way. Anyway, back to the game, I was certainly taken back to January 1990 with the way the Broncos got handled. Back then, when Denver got routed by the San Francisco 49ers in New Orleans (the last time John Elway lost a Super Bowl), they were under a dome, and got picked apart by a future Hall of Famer (first Montana, now Manning). This made me nervous the minute it was determined that Denver was going to have to go back to Indianapolis to play the Colts. I didn't really believe that the Broncos could get lightning to strike twice within three weeks - not with all the weapons that Indy has. Win twice in three weeks on the road in Indianapolis??? Next season began the following day, and there's a couple things Denver should hope for next fall: 1) Pray that Shannon Sharpe returns. He's still too good, and he deserves a better end to his career, like in Denver, which leads to… 2) Go perfect at home. The Broncos did their best job at Invesco at Mile High since moving into this plush pad, but losing a heartbreaker on a Monday night to New England (the real deal right now), and a stinker to the friggin' Bears at home made a viable run in the playoffs all but impossible. Take care of business at home next year (and on the road) and other teams will be dreading their road trip to Denver next January.
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A MILE (HIGH) ABOVE THE REST: From Day One, I've peppered my column with commentary on my absolute favorite team, the Denver Broncos, whenever I can (I also appreciate you putting up with it - there will be a good break from this for a few months). I always tell folks that I was born a Detroit Lions fan, but raised a Broncos fan. As much as I followed the exploits of running back Billy Sims & Co. in the Pontiac Silverdome in the 1970s, I didn't truly learn the game of football until our family moved to Colorado in 1980. This move coincided beautifully with a major regime change in Denver. Out were head coach Red Miller and QB Craig Morton, and in were Dan Reeves and John Elway. The Broncos, in the Eighties and into the Nineties, were something that always brought family and friends together. The whole state of Colorado shuts down on "Bronco Sunday" to this day. And despite post-collegiate stints for me in Seattle, and now Chicago, my love for the orange and blue will never waiver. I always love telling football fans that the only two times I saw the Broncos in person (since they always sell out in Denver) were in Seattle two straight years - the two years they won the Super Bowl.
So now that I'm in the land of Da Bears, my need to follow the Broncos is satiated by the Internet. Like Chicago, Denver has two newspapers that compete for the attention of fans of the local NFL team: the Denver Post, and the Rocky Mountain News. On occasion, I like to read the publications of the Broncos' opponents to find out what's being said about my team as well as the bad guys. At risk of sounding biased, other than Chicago, I have yet to find a decent publication from the opposition. This is especially true with the Broncos AFC West rivals. I've gone to the newspaper websites for Kansas City, San Diego, and Oakland, and combined they don't do half as good a job as Denver in covering the local NFL franchise. In fact, having scoured these cities' respective local websites for pre- and post-game analysis, I half-wondered if they had sports departments. Shoot, the Chicago Bears haven't had a really successful season in ages (that 13-3 season a couple years ago was a mirage) and they have world-class coverage (and I should give props to the Detroit Free Press, with award-winning writer Mitch Albom, but you gotta remember that they have to cover the Lions). But after the season that the Chargers and Raiders wrapped up, and how things were in Kay-Cee last weekend, I'd suppose skip over my sports section too. In Colorado, between the Post and the Rocky Mountain News, the gold standard in sports coverage has been set.
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I'M A NEWLYWED! GET ME OUT OF HERE!!! Okay, for the record, my interest in reality television wound down sometime between the time Green Arrow writer Judd Winick was one of the San Francisco Real World castmates who told Puck to take a hike, and when the Chicago cast of the same series uttered their first few words to each other upon getting together for the first time and I felt myself getting dumber by the second (quick-hit trivia: I live right next door to the Real World Chicago house now). For my TV-viewing dollar, true reality TV is what's found on ESPN, TNT, and ABC Sports (along with Fox and CBS): unscripted drama that can actually bring you nervously to the edge of your seat. That being said, I had an ever so mild interest in last year's The Bachelorette, because I thought Trista Rehn was all kinds of hotness. I never watched a single episode, but I usually paused if I ran across her image in magazines or on the Web. The closest I got to watching an episode of her show was after the series concluded and she appeared on Oprah with her fiancée, Ryan (it also piqued my interest that he was from Vail, very close to where my parents now live). On Oprah Winfrey's show, I marveled at how Rehn, a young lady who was supposed to be a genuine person like you or me, was so eerily media savvy and in control of everything in that she practically had their five-year plan laid out, and Ryan almost never got a word in. On this show, this media agenda-setter was in her element, and poor Ryan was merely along for the ride. I assumed that this alleged couple in love would show their true colors on their wedding show (like, who doesn't have a TV network shell out millions for their wedding??), and every report I read, through TV critics usually, indicated that I called out this career opportunist (Rehn) way ahead of the curve, like by a year. Just last week I ran across this update on the "happy" couple on TVGuide.com:
Just when you thought (or hoped) that they'd finally taken the hint and left the public eye, Ryan and Trista Sutter appear on
The Tonight Show to tell a befuddled Jay
Thanks for joining us, TV Guide. No will someone please get me a television critic job so I can sniff out the bullshit in advance so I may do my part in eradicating reality programming once and for all???
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NOTE TO STEVE ERWIN: Just because you've had years of training handling wild animals doesn't make your one-month-old child ready for such work. Keep him on the other side of the fence, dumbass. Didn't Roy Horn teach you anything??
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WHAT'S WRONG WITH BASEBALL, PART 965: There's still much to be sorted out with Pete Rose's long overdue admission that he bet on baseball. What I'm trying to figure out is why his admission might be what it takes to get reinstated in Major League Baseball. He apparently bet on baseball, but not on his own team, the Cincinnati Reds, something almost nobody who follows this story believes. Of course the way Rose comes clean on this matter is through a hardcover autobiography where all proceeds go directly to him - the week the new, more deserving, Hall of Fame class is elected, no less. Commissioner Bud Selig might reinstate Pete Rose into the majors as a way of establishing some sort of legacy for himself in light of an otherwise spotty tenure as head of Major League Baseball, but is undoing the good work of an earlier administration the way to go about this? Bart Giamatti toiled over this issue to such a degree that it pretty much killed him in 1989. And if baseball's not ready to reconsider the case of Shoeless Joe Jackson, why should Selig absolve Rose of wrongdoing in a case that not even twenty years old??
History has proven that Jackson, while on a team of cheaters with the 1919 Chicago "Black Sox," was not a cheater himself. Rose himself was ruled in a detailed report to be a cheater, and he finally came clean (sort of) himself just now. This is not even close to a situation like that of legendary louts like Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth. People have looked back and said that their off-field conduct (and occasionally, but rarely, on-field as well) was not exactly befitting that of Hall of Fame athletes. But was their conduct detrimental to the game? Hardly. Pete Rose did in fact desecrate the integrity of the game of baseball while he was actively participating in the sport. I'm sorry, Pete, but all the base hits in the world can't undo the selfish acts of someone who put his own personal interests in front everyone else, especially when you're really not sorry for what you've done. In all the hubbub about
My Prison Without Bars, the word "contrition" has not come up, and ultimately we as fans cannot excuse Rose for his crimes against baseball if he's still not ready to say he's sorry. Good news is that a lot of the public -- and even more importantly, the writers who vote - have gotten wise to Rose's shtick, and are saying they don't want him in the Hall of Fame. The polls right now are not in Rose's favor.
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NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH IT… But Roger Clemens, surefire first ballot Hall of Famer himself -- and legendary headhunter -- gets a textbook opportunity to call it a career back in October (after he tells us all last season that this is it), and he joins the National League Houston Astros. Roger, you have to go up to bat now. Like "spider-hole" and "metrosexual" before it, expect the term "brushback" to inundate the American lexicon throughout 2004.
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FINAL THOUGHTS ON BATWOMAN & BAT-GIRL: I take it as a great sign that DC Direct is in good shape as a toy company when they are confident enough to market a deluxe action figure set based on two comic book characters that date back to the 1950s, and haven't seen a lot of action in the last twenty years. The Batwoman/Bat-Girl deluxe set should be an absolute winner, and I think it has appeal that could transcend hardcore comic book purists. In no way is this meant to be a dig at the quality of these characters (along with Bat-Mite and Ace the Bat-Hound that are included in the set), but the kitsch value is off the charts. I could totally get this set for ladies AND gents who have an appreciation for retro toys and gifts. The cool thing with DC Direct's packaging is that they give thorough explanations of these characters so that the uninitiated can get a clue as to what they received. And female Batman fans that aren't necessarily comic book junkies are easier to find than you'd think, and I credit this to Batman's lasting popularity in TV and films. This action figure set should do better than the discontent minority out there would have you believe.
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