Schadenfreude for Dummies

Today is my birthday. [Golf clap.]  Moving on.

Consider this my obligatory, quite random and uninspired response to the Tiger Woods' apology: It was boring, about as interesting as watching golf on television.  Like, seriously.  How can I take voyeuristic pleasure in something so...um, vanilla [talking about the speech, not Woods' taste in women]?  For a guy who sends such racy text messages, I was expecting a much more electrifying statement.  If Tiger Woods had read from his Blackberry I assure you all that his apology would have actually been worth talking about.  Maybe he should've used Autotune.  Is there an App for animating an otherwise mundane statement by a professional athlete?

How much more satisfying would it have been if Woods had just walked up to the podium and said, "My wife made me do this..."?


That said, I imagine that the statement was probably part of Woods' rehab process.  As an avid watcher of Intervention, among other things, I'm well aware that folks who enter rehab have to 'fess up to the people they've hurt because of their addiction by honestly articulating their transgressions.  It's one of the steps; I don't know which.  Whatever the case, I suspect Woods' speech falls under that genre--and not the press conference/release kind.

Whether or not Woods is a sex addict is debatable.  Whether or not he was sincere or not, arrogant or humble, the point is Woods is working the program--for sponsors, for his image, for his wife, for whomever.  Frankly, that's way less entertaining to us than the pre-intervention.  It's much more enthralling to watch a (famous) person act like a jerk, and take pleasure when said celebrity status is on the brink of being taken away. Seriously, how many of us stick around after the addict enters the hotel room and sees her family waiting for her?  We turn away and return two minutes before the top of the hour just to see if she got kicked out of rehab.  At least I do.

I suspect our opinions about Woods' statement, whichever side of the fence we land on, probably say more about us than it does about him.  I'm not sure the statement is even worthy of comment, a response, or a critique of what was said.  If anything, I was reminded of why we don't pay athletes big bucks to talk much: they suck at it.  I was also reminded that we like to pretend we purchase products, sold by morally detestable corporations, because we think the guy shopping it is "good," a far better person--and athlete--than we are.  Ironic, I guess.

The fact that Lil Wayne is on now Twitter is far more interesting to me.

Anyway, I have to go prepare a statement.  I left the toilet seat up again, and N is pissed.

That is all.