If there are two things in the world I love, they’re sports and pop music…ok maybe the second one is pushing it but for purposes of this column let’s suppose I’m a screaming teenager on TRL. Of course, there are problems with both: sports is full of corruption and pop music is full of….well, AJ from the Backstrret Boys.
However, I believe that a utopia may be reached by combing these two cornerstones of American culture. It is a simple formula…take an element from each sector, shake well, and presto you have beauty.
There are parallels that you may’ve never seen before, and that is why I am here to make it all crystal clear.
Here’s an example: Take the Backstreet Boys and combine them with the Knicks’ bench. Five guys past their prime who still believe they can be contenders. Mark Jackson sings lead vocals for the newest boy (old man) band, while the “cute one” runs point guard for a team he can certainly keep up with. “The mature one” can play the high post, while Kurt Thomas flashes a wink at the girl in the first row holding a sign that says “Kurt, you have a mishapen head, Marry Me!”.
Here’s another: Take Britney Spears and Warren Sapp, stir five minutes and…..you have a fat guy singing “Hit Me Baby One More Time”, and a little hooch running around “sacking” quarterbacks. It all makes sense.
Try mixing Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan…water and oil? I think not! Both are Kings of their domain, and both are making their big return this year…Jordan moon walks (he jumps real high) and Jackson fades away (he’s not so dark anymore). It works.
Take funk legend George Clinton and Buffalo linebacker Jay Foreman, turn things around a bit and you have two American greats: our nation’s 42nd president (a Bill Clinton) and the former heavyweight champ (George Foreman), not to mention a grill no college student could live without.
O-Town and the Magic: Straight out of Orlando, a young bunch ready to make their name in a very competitve field of veterans. T-Mac and G-Hill could don the cover of Tiger Beat, while the no-names from O-Town, along with captain Darrell Armstrong fight their way to an NBA championship. Well worth watching.
How about this? Christina Aguilera and Anna Kournikova trade lives. The Princess of Pop will probably win as much as Anna, and she’s already got the whole high pitched grunting thing down. And let’s just admit it, we all could use a little more Kournikova on MTV.
Destiny’s Child can coach the Chicago Bulls, rather babysit the Bulls while Tim Floyd (who still has a job after two seasons in the NBA’s basement) can sing his favorite song, “I’m a survivor..”.
3LW might as well switch names with the Minnesota Vikings wide receivers who are the biggest disappointment to date in the NFL…3 Lazy Wideouts? Seems proper.
And who will facilitate the change? Who will cover the transition? Why, the two biggest names in sports and pop music journalism: Carson Daly and Chris Berman. America’s most average guy will do a fine job alongside John Madden, while Boomer fights off thousands of screaming fans who think his chubby cheeks are “so darn cute”.
Maybe it’s just a pipedream, and yet maybe it’s the next big thing for Americans to spend inordinate amounts of money obsessing over.
It just all seems too perfect…and marketable!
Call me crazy, but when Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson show up in an N*Sync video while Justin and JC are competing as starters in Game 7 of the World Series, you’ll remember this visionary who saw the way it could be.
I mean, have you ever heard Shaq’s music? Pure Magic…and there’s more where that came from.
Archived article by Scott Jones