Things I Don't Care About

Before I start, I just have to make one movie comment, about Invictus. Did it really take this long for someone to cast Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela? Seriously, how did it get this far? And the movie isn't really even about him, he's a supporting character, the movie's about rugby, and I'm all for movies about rugby, but how have we possibly gone this long without a movie in which Morgan Freeman plays Nelson Mandela? Every time I see the commercial, I want to go to Hollywood and punch everyone who makes movies in the face for not doing this sooner. I could go on all day about this. Let's get to the blog.

There are, in fact, a great many things I don't care about. I've found that the less things you care about, the less disappointing life becomes. Put that on a bumper sticker. If I posted a blog listing all the things I don't care about, I'd be here for weeks, so we're obviously not going to do that. But here's a few, just to give you an idea.

Soccer. I can't force myself to watch a soccer game. First of all, what's with the no hands rule? Evolution gave me hands, and they're incredibly functional. I can do all sorts of things with my hands. Why would a sport not allow me to use my hands? It doesn't make any sense. Also, anytime I do turn on a soccer game, I see most of the players standing around watching soccer. Other sports have plenty of standing around and watching, but this happens in soccer while the ball is in play. Players have nothing to do while the game is actually happening. I played soccer for a year when I was little (I think) and I didn't even care about it while it was going on around me. So, next summer, when the U.S. team inevitably gets knocked out of the World Cup, I won't be heart broken, I won't even notice, because I don't care.

Reality TV. From American Idol to The Real World to whatever goes on at VH1 most of the time (20 bucks, right now, to anyone who can tell me who the f*ck Ray J is). Come to think of it, I could write a whole blog entry on VH1 too. Last week, I saw Brett Michaels wearing what was absolutely a Brett Michaels t-shirt. If there was a button on my remote that allowed me to cause whoever I was currently looking at on the TV to be kicked in the groin, I would have used it. Reality TV makes stars out of the talentless and rewards stupidity. More importantly, it's just lazy. Instead of writing good TV, they just follow psychopaths around with cameras. So, over the next year, someone will be the best singer, and someone will be the best dancer, and someone will win whatever herpes olympics VH1 is currently running. And maybe someone will ask me what I think about one of those people, and I won't think anything, because I don't care.

Tennis? Local news? Fashion? Video games that don't rhyme with Yadden? Don't care, don't care, don't care, don't care. So what's the point? Of all the many things I don't care about, the one thing I care less about than all the others is what famous people do when they're not doing the thing that makes them famous.

We recently found out that Andre Agassi was a meth head. The only thing that shocked me about this was how shocked people were. Really? The tennis player who never ran out of energy, who started with long, stringy hair and then shaved it for no apparent reason, the one with the crazy eyes? That guy was into meth? No way! Come on! OK, I'm wandering. My point isn't my lack of surprise. My point is that I don't care if Andre was mainlining heroin during commercial breaks. I didn't watch him play tennis because I thought he was drug free (I didn't watch him play tennis at all, but hypothetically, if I had, it wouldn't have been because I thought he was drug free).

More recently, we found out that Tiger Woods cheated on his wife. Again, really? The relatively good-looking, relatively young, super rich dude who spends most of his time traveling the world away from his family? That guy had sex with some other women? Unbelievable! This one is especially annoying for a few reasons.

First, people are just obsessed with it. The Agassi thing only lasted a day or two and mostly stayed in the sports media. Even supposedly real news channels can't go 15 minutes this week without talking about where Tiger's penis has been.

Second, some people just love covering this story. Like they've been waiting 15 years just to bring this guy down. I'm not going to try and talk people out of wanting to take down guys like Tiger, because I won't get anywhere with that. So I'll just say this, Tiger's life is still like 26 million times better than yours, so there.

Finally, this sports guys as role models thing has come up again. How did this not go away permanently with OJ? How did that not teach us, once and for all, that all we really know about sports guys is that they're good at sports, so we shouldn't look to them for anything else? If you want your kids to learn how to hit a golf ball, tell them to watch Tiger Woods. If you want them to learn anything else, try teaching it to them yourself (or don't, whatever, other people's children also fall into the I don't care category).

I also don't care about this story because I don't care about cheating. Look, I've never cheated on anyone, and I never will, because I don't see the appeal. But it seems like every week we find out that some famous person cheated on his or her (OK, mostly his) spouse. Senators, Congressmen, Governors, athletes, actors, etc, etc, etc. And every time we act totally shocked. We're like Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates. I turned 30 today, and I was considering posting a blog with 30 things I've learned in the last 30 years. I still might sometime next week. One of those things would be this: People cheat, frequently. If you don't like it, try not cheating on the person you're with and not worrying about what other people are doing.

So, people, if you can't find something you'd rather watch on TV then more stories about what Tiger Woods did, just turn your TV off. Go read a book, or take a walk, or just bash your head against the wall until you pass out. And news people, if you can't think of anything going on right now more news-worthy then Tiger Woods, just turn the cameras off and shut up for a while.

I, by the way, am not defending Mr. Woods. Just because everyone else is doing something doesn't make it OK. Remember this? "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?" Tiger apparently jumped off a bridge and landed in at least three other women's vaginas. Not OK. He cheated on his wife, who seems like a perfectly nice lady. Over the next year or two, she'll probably become a perfectly nice lady with half of his stuff. All I'm saying is, why do we all have to be watching while it happens?