Idiots in the Woods

It's none of my business so why do I care?

Two Sundays ago at our local watering hole---before all this non-stop daily trash-talk--- a friend of ours who isn't one for gossip but was merely relating the incident to us about Tiger Woods' car "crash" told us he heard from a reliable source that Tiger had been "doing the Red Bull rep for years." Yes, doing.

Many people don't know this but Orlando is a small town. Sure, there's sprawl and lots of it but just like New York City, people stick to their neighborhoods. And the same types of people patronize the same places. Over and over again. We are all, most of us for the most part, creatures of habit. Like Sam and Diane and the rest of the crew on Cheers, we like a place where "everybody knows [our] name." It's comfortable. It's easy. And, as it happens, we all kind of know each other. At least within a few degrees of separation. And that's especially so here in Orlando.

So anyway, about Tiger. I didn't really care. I figured it was nobody's business. It sounded to me like his wife was chasing him around and bashing his car with golf clubs. Passion'll do that to you. Not that I'm speaking from experience. OK, fine, maybe I am. If you love someone deeply and totally and they betray you, you might just lose it a bit. Or maybe even a lot. And if the damage is a busted car window, that's not the worst thing in the world. Go Elin. Fight for your man. Let him know that you won't put up with this shit.

Anyway, so when the news very officially broke and this Rachel Uchitel broad was suddenly forced into the spotlight, I studied her, too. Such a classic illustration of too much plastic surgery at too early an age. The telltale "bass lips" channeling Lisa Rinna (yikes, so scary, all puffed up like that) and, of course, the pulled cheeks and eyes. I mean, the girl's only 34. Ease into your age, don't scare it off with scalpels. Because you end up looking like everybody else who's done the same thing. A tribe of the Pulled Tight & Mighty. Not very hot. Her body, however, was smoking hot and, beyond all that plastic surgery, well, I could see what a typical guy would see. And, even more so, I used my active imagination and I imagined Tiger, oh-so-famous and oh-so-rich and maybe a teeny bit lonely and feeling a little randy out there in Vegas and ok, fine, he cheats with this sassy, plastic chick. Who's business is that but his and his family's? It's certainly not mine. And, by the way, at least the Uchitel woman is keeping her mouth shut and denying the whole thing. Who cares how much they're paying her and the reasons. Keep your mouth shut. I respect that.

And so, on the drive to work the following day, the radio chitchats endlessly about Tiger, Elin (who knew her name was pronounced "Eel-in," I always thought it was a stupid spelling of "Ellen"), his broken window, the embarrassment, yadda yadda yadda. And I start to actually feel kind of sorry for the guy. Sorry for him, his wife, their kids and anyone else close to them. And I really start to wish the media would just shut up about it. As one guy so astutely said on 104.1 The Monsters, "he's a great golfer, that's it. Why do people think he's a god or good at everything? He's just a great golfer. Period."

True that. It's just that we're so enamoured with celebrity and wealth in this culture that we expect the rich and the famous to be the ubermensch. We expect them to be better somehow, to be something we strive to be, that we'll perhaps model ourselves after or tell our children to be "more like."

And then the names of more of these women come spewing out like so much smelly garbage. And all seemingly cut from the same mold. Plasticky, cheap and with great bodies. But pretty forgettable overall. Clingy, climbing, slutty, and now throwing their trashy stories out there to get money and hurt people. I'm disgusted. Jamie Grubbs, you're a lil pig. Oink oink. And the Perkins waitress. If there was a "Come on Man" for this Tiger Woods spectacle, it'd be all these woman, and especially that one. The parking lot? And, excuse me while I laugh and throw up in my mouth a little, but she "fell in love with him" and yet he "was selfish and heartless"? How dumb are these women? Smart women learn in high school or college that men, all of them given a chance, will screw you if you let them. It's how things are wired. It's biology, baby. Sex ain't got nothin' to do with love.

So now this whole slutty debacle has become a statement of our age. The times we're living in. Plastic tramps. And the rich and famous. And everybody looking to cash in. It's foul and appalling. I do think Tiger has to get his shit together, if he can at all. But maybe he's destined to be just another rich "whale" with a big sex drive, fucking plastic whores until he dies just like Wilt Chamberlain. I met Wilt Chamberlain once. He was sweaty and old and he hit on me. He died not long after that. But I remember that disdain in his face as much as his desire, that I was just one more. I was just another possible body he could fill, and he was just like an addict seeking a fix.

Tiger = Wilt someday? Yuck. That's just gross.

I hope that Elin packs the kids and goes someplace for a good, long while.

You're right, it's none of my business. None at all. I wish this had never been broadcast to these masses. There are entirely too many people making too much money off this thing. And too many people humiliating themselves (plastic girls, you make us all look bad and stupid. So stupid).

You fuck a guy who's insanely rich, married to a beautiful woman, with two beautiful kids and expect him to what? Love you?

It's so much more than embarrassing.

It's sad.