Four TV personalities that could benefit from a closed-fisted punch to the face

ESPN

My father is of the belief that certain old-school views of manhood ought to be brought back into our sometimes too-PC society. In fact, when he talks about my generation of men, wrapped as we were in the warm glow of mandatory self-esteem training, he uses words that rhyme with “Mussy” and “Bomo”.

There’s a laundry list of formerly male activities that have been protested out of polite society, but the thing my father feels we’re missing most is fighting. In the old days, apparently, if two boys on the block didn’t like each other they didn’t peer mediate; rather, they punched each other repeatedly until one boy learned his lesson. This taught you how to a) take a punch and b) not to be a sniveling little shit who made people want to punch you.

Watching Around the Horn today, it occurred to me that my father was right. Growing up without the threat of a ham-sized fist knocking the snot right out of them has created a generation of TV personalities that are almost unbearable. To paraphrase Michael Scott: I don’t blame them, I blame society. These five TV personalities might just become worthwhile human beings if someone could just get around to punching them square in the face …

1. Jay Mariotti (Around the Horn)

Around the Horn has always been the Kate to Pardon the Interruption‘s Bianca (or to put it a little less pretentiously, the Sarah Powell to PTI‘s Jamie Powell). I actually like the idea of the show — four sportswriters discussing the day’s events while being scored by the likable Tony Reali — but I often find it obnoxious in practice.

Mariotti is a big reason for my feeling that way. The man might be the most condescending person on TV since Q on ST:TNG. He speaks his every word as if it were gold plated while often taking up positions just to create controversy. The man is so obnoxious he even inspired Roger Ebert — yes, kind old man of the cinema Roger Ebert — to write an entire column about what a grade-A prime-beef a-hole Mariotti is.

The thing about Mariotti, though, is that he’s actually got talent. He’s got a sly (some would say oily) sense of humor and he has the undeniable ability to speak compellingly on command about any topic you put in front of him. If not for the pulsating douche-nozzle in his soul, he might make for a great TV personality.

2. Tucker Carlson

You could make the case that Jon Stewart already punched Tucker during his infamous Crossfire appearance. Certainly Mr. Stewart face-palmed the reputation of that show enough that it was canceled just a few months later. Tucker, however, has continued making TV appearances apparently unfazed by Stewart’s public beatdown.

Tucker — full name, the off-the-douche-Richter-charts “Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson” — is another guy who has complicated ideas and the uncanny ability to make those ideas understood. He’s also a guy whose pasty, doughy face (formerly framed by a mussy, bomo bow-tie) is just crying out for a closed-fisted punch to the face.

(Try this experiment: watch Scent of a Woman and every time Philip Seymour-Hoffman’s character is on the screen, imagine that it’s Tucker Carlson instead. Does the movie play out any differently? No, I didn’t think so.)

3. Bill O’Reilly (The O’Reilly Factor)

O’Reilly likes to claim that he came from a “working class” up-bringing, which I guess he figures lends a certain kind of street-credibility to his “no spin (ahem ahem) zone”. Except that if someone like O’Reilly really grew up on the mean streets of New York City, he would have been beaten into a mealy Irish pulp by now.

Anybody that obnoxious, that secure in his own way of thinking about everything and everybody, that dismissive of people who think differently than he does, and that willing to spew his ideas in public would have eventually found his way into a Jared Leto from Fight Club beating at some point in his life.

And that would have taught him how to alternate between the brilliant broadcaster that he obviously is and the d-Bag that often overshadows that talent.

4. Keith Olbermann (Countdown)

This one pains me because I actually like his show (and his ideas), but the fact of the matter is that Olbermann has always been self-satisfied. When he was smug about baseball highlights back in the ’90s we could pretend that it was because he was commenting ironically on the seriousness with which we invest ourselves in our sports.  But now that it’s the ’00s and he’s still acting that way, there’s only one reasonable conclusion we can come to:

Keith Olbermann likes the smell of his own farts.

Of all the people on this list, Olbermann is the one I think has the most potential. The man is brilliant; he’s just incandescently unlikable sometimes. He’s got that Martin Prince, “Oh, teacher! You forgot our homework!” vibe to him.

Until he sheds that, I fear that he’ll be too easy for his detractors to dismiss him. The man is just one punch from greatness, I really believe that.

Who do you think deserves a closed-fisted punch in the face?  I mean, other than me, of course, for writing this list.  Remember, the point isn’t just talking about people you’d like to see beat up, but rather people who could benefit from the beating.  These are good, smart guys that just who happen to have been trapped in the douche-zone by our pansyfied society.

Clacked by Jay Black
on Oct 02, 2008 @ 11:00 EST5EDT