Tucson Weekly: Get A Life (April 30

Some Thoughts On The Marginal Nature Of Our So-Called Culture.
By Tom Danehy
SOME PEOPLE WHO are in desperate need of a life:
• National Football League draft addicts. Is this the absolute weirdest thing of all time or what? You have people who spend an entire weekend in front of their TVs watching a bunch of clods in bad suits sit around, taking their full 15-minute time allotment before uttering the name of some college guy who may or may not make their pro team next year.
Then you've got a team of ESPN analysts beating this horse long past its death. They've got graphics and details and anecdotes and analysis of how he's going to help the team. And they do it for 15 minutes at a time because while they're sending out the coma-waves, the next team is wasting their whole 15-minute period, mostly because everybody else does.
Danehy To add to the pathetic quality of the proceedings, they have live shots of sports bars around the country. When they show NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue announcing, "With their third-round pick, the St. Louis Rams select Raspus Longberry of East Central Middle Tennessee State," they get a reaction shot of people in St. Louis either cheering or booing and waving gnawed-on Buffalo wings in response to the selection, as though one guy fresh out of college is going to make their team appreciably better.
This all has to stop. We're turning into American versions of European soccer hooligans. It's just not that important. The regular-season games are cool, the playoffs magnificent. The draft should be almost insignificant. Two normal NFL fans ought to be able to have this conversation:
Guy One: "Hey, who did the Rams draft?"
Guy Two: "I don't know. Did they already have the draft?"
Guy One: "I'm not sure. I didn't see anything about it in the paper."
Then there's that dork, Mel Kiper, Jr. Can you imagine that dude's poor parents? When people ask what their son does for a living, they have to answer, "He analyzes the NFL draft."
To which people respond, "That's nice. What does he do the other 51 weeks of the year?"
The shame those people must carry around with them. I mean, at least Ted Kaczynski's family got to turn him in.
In just the past couple years it has grown quantumly weirder. Now newspapers, TV clowns, and radio talk-show hosts are spending huge amounts of time and space running mock drafts. One of two real jobs I've had in my life saw me working as the sports editor of a small daily paper. If I had been told to do a mock draft, trying to guess who Tampa Bay was going to take with the 24th pick in the first round, I'd probably revert to the profile of the only other job I ever had--postal employee.
Getting back to this Kiper guy, he's got to be the smuggest nerd on TV. After the draft is over, he'll gloat, "I predicted the first nine selections of the draft correctly. Yeah, and? It's like people who can drink beer through their noses. It's a talent, I suppose, but who would want to?
Kiper's not real popular with NFL general managers because he often second-guesses what they do professionally. What the GMs ought to do is hold a secret meeting before the draft and do the drafting right then. When they're done, they should write their selections on pieces of paper and trade with one another, like when you're picking the Secret Santa at work or school.
Then when the real draft day comes along on national TV, they all draft "wrong," just to screw Kiper up. He wouldn't know what to do. When it was all over and Kiper was babbling and drooling, the general managers could trade the players to the proper teams. It'd be cool.
It might also be a little bit interesting if each team had a 15-second limit. They'd have to pick a player in that time or lose their pick that round. And like on Wheel of Fortune, if they pick one who has already been picked, they would lose their turn and the audience would groan. I'd watch that show.
• The media morons who whipped themselves into a frenzy over uncovering the real location of Linda McCartney's death.
This was embarrassing to watch. It was creepy watching the dailies almost gloat over finding out that she really died here in Tucson, rather than in Santa Barbara, California, as was originally announced. What, is that supposed to make us Tucsonans feel proud or something?
I had the occasion to meet Linda McCartney once, several years ago. Naturally, I dogged her about being a vegetarian.
She said simply, "Well, I love animals."
I said, "Yeah, I love animals, too. Mostly with barbecue sauce."
She smiled and we chatted for a while. She was just a nice, down-to-earth person.
I was always impressed with her marriage with Paul. This dude, with his money and boyish charm, could have been one of the Hounds of the Ages. But he chose to live a simple life on a ranch with the woman he loved.
It's a shame their life together had to end too soon. And it's also a shame that the media had to get all frothy and intrusive over such a tragic, private moment.
• Fantasy Baseball enthusiasts. Do you guys realize the depth and breadth of the strangeness in which you are engaging? Technology affords access to every baseball game being played in the world. Cable TV has the Jim Nintzel Package with baseball on 27 hours a day, eight days a week (taking into account the International Dateline and all).
Instead y'all want to live inside your computer, pretending you're a general manager or something. You know what happens to general managers? Mel Kiper.
What you're doing is like brushing aside a naked Jennifer Lopez to go watch a porno movie. The real thing's always better, even when it comes to baseball.

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