Monday, February 05, 2007

Peter King Hates Prince

Before I get to my thoughts on the Super Bowl, I just want to pass along briefly my thoughts on Sports Illustrated writer Peter King. He's bad. Real bad, folks. I've written about King before - his obsequiousness with certain players, his self-righteousness with cultural issues ("You're better than that, Reggie Bush!"), and his generally smug style of writing. But reading his Monday Morning QB column this morning, he's got something going on that I don't understand.

Three separate entries in his column:

1. "Prince, Schmince."

2. Sitting next to Rick Reilly in the press section. "You know what I call Prince?'' he said before halftime. "Not 'The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.' But 'The Artist Formerly Known.'''

3. I did not understand the pregame show or the halftime show.


OK. Let's address these one at a time:

1. What does this even mean? Prince, Schmince? Is he just trying to belittle Prince? Outside of the jungle gym in 4th grade, I'm not sure where this insult is considered effective. King, Schming.

2. He hits us with this Reilly "zinger" just a few lines later in the piece. But it makes no sense. Everyone knows Prince. Everyone. Prince stole the show last night - in the rain, he just blew the place apart. Tore it up. He's still world-famous, as evidenced by the fact that he's the halftime entertainment at the SUPER BOWL! Does the NFL typically book no-names? Idiots.

3. How do you not understand the halftime show? I might give you the pregame show - Cirque du Soleil are kind of weird and bizarre, and when they performed at FedExForum at halftime of a Grizzlies game, I was totally lost. So that's fine. But the halftime show was precisely one thing: Prince singing. If you can't understand that, you probably suffered a brain injury. Folks.

Looking through his columns from earlier in the year, he took a shot at Prince a few weeks back: "Good thing the NFL is promoting the Prince Super Bowl appearance so heavily. It would also be a good idea to promote some of his music, because he hasn't had a song any of the human race has heard since, oh, about 1999." Is Peter King on crack? Did the Stones, or McCartney, or any of the other legends at Super Bowl halftime have "recent hits"? No. They are musical icons, jackass.

So, clearly Prince angered Peter King. But how? That's a story I'd love to hear. My guess is that Prince is a Starbucks freak, and stole all the coffee so ol' Pete couldn't get his usual double-mocha half-caf triple-espresso caramel butternut dreamsicle Colombian rustic blend that we all love reading about. Or else he insulted Brett Favre. One of the two.

In fact, we're gonna play a fun game - I call it "Did Peter King Actually Write This?" I'll put statements below, and you have to figure out which are from King's Monday Morning QB columns, and which are idiotic phrases I just made up. Ready? Here we go:

1. Good for Kimmie Meissner and Emily Hughes finishing 1-2, respectively, in the skating Nationals. Two beautiful skaters, and good kids, apparently, with their scholastic heads on straight.

2. Second in the MVP voting, first in the all-pro voting at quarterback, and he picks up dog doo. That's what I call a heck of an American.

3. Uh-oh. Jim Mora, semi-jokingly, I believe, is not pleased I reported in this column that I skunked him in ping pong 21-15 on Jan. 6. I know Mora, and I'm betting the next time we meet on the table of doom he'll leave his blood on it trying to get even.

4. But I worry about NHL crowds.

5. You see so much on Amtrak. The sights, yes. The country, yes. But did you know that halfway between Wilmington and Philadelphia, a couple hundred feet off the east side of the tracks, there's a Port-a-John graveyard? That's right. Hundreds of decrepit portable toilets. What a view.

6. If you've never played hopscotch with former Seahawks coach Tom Flores, you haven't lived. Flores lives for the game, folks. But not football. Hopscotch.

7. While covering the Pats game in San Diego, I stayed in a hotel that didn't have the Food Network. No Food Network? I can't imagine living without Molto Mario.

8. I owe you a dollar, Rich McKay.

9. Bring back my copy of "Mannequin 2", Rich Kotite.

10. I'm in the middle of John Grisham's nonfiction book about two murders in Ada, Okla. It's really good. Wish I had time to read it.

11. Coffeenerdness: Not sure if this man ran on the Espresso Ticket, but Bob Goodlatte ran unopposed and won a House seat in the 6th District of Virginia Tuesday night. I'd have thought Fred Finefrappucino would have made a swell opponent.

12. Watched "American Idol" for the first time last week. And I just got sick of the ridiculing and the mocking of the contestants. You're better than that, Simon Cowell.

13. When did it become acceptable in this country to not wear deodorant?

14. I think when all is said and done, no movie role will have a bigger impact in this nation's history than Eddie Murphy as Norbit.

Answers below:
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11 are King's lunacy.)


SUPER BOWL THOUGHTS

This game was always going to be about Peyton Manning more than anyone else. And indeed it was - Peyton was the game's MVP, though either Joseph Addai, Dominic Rhodes, or the entire offensive line deserved it more than he did. The Colts exploted a tired Bears defense and just ran it down their throats. It was a smart gameplan. Apart from his first four throws, Manning was solid if unspectacular. He did exactly what he needed to do. The Colts defense continued its inspired playoff performance, though - the Bears were shut down except for Thomas Jones' big 52-yard run in the 2nd quarter.

And Rex Grossman was terrible, but you knew that was bound to happen. He's young, and he'll likely be much better down the line, but right now, he's just incredibly inconsistent. The Bears had opportunities to win that game, but Grossman threw some bad balls and at one point channeled Casey Clausen circa 2002 as he could not handle a snap.

You can't dislike Tony Dungy. A truly classy man winning a deserved title is always nice to see.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Peter,

Despite his smugness and weird insider comments, I generally enjoy Peter King's MMQB column (the infamous colonoscopy entry notwithstanding).

Furthermore, I completely agree with his criticism of having Prince as the halftime entertainment. The guy hasn't been relevant in over 10 years. How many songs of his can people under the age of 25 even name?

Why not have an act that at least represents the era the game is being played? I'm not saying you have the Shins perform, but what about the Foo Fighters? Muse? The Killers?

Hell, if you want to go with an older act, at least get someone who's still putting out new music.

Prince is a has-been they pulled off the scrap heap who no one has cared about since 1999, when he got famous again for 15 minutes thanks to the song of the same name.

Anonymous said...

Peter, Peter, Peter....

Please tell me you didn't compare Prince to The Stones or Mr McCartney (best know for his work with what was the group's name- oh yeah, The Beatles)

How many hits does/did Prince have? You can list them on one hand- 2 if you really want to argue. Try listing just 10 of Mick's best songs. Or Sir Paul's best 10. Try best 30 maybe for both.

Let's put it this way, Prince won't be releasing more than 1 Greatest Hits album. It's called, lack of material.

I can't wait to see Prince's top competition from his heyday, Billy Idol rock the Pro Bowl.

-Stark

Peter said...

First things first -

Jm, I loved your work on Hollywood Squares. It's an honor to have you come by the blog. I almost changed my name to Ptr because of you.

Everyone knows Prince. Even when he went all weird - by his bizarre standards - and changed his name to that symbol, everyone knew who he was. He's collaborated with some great artists in the last 3 years and had the highest-grossing tour of 2004 - 87 million bucks. He's no scrub. And he's no has-been either. He won two Grammys just three years ago.

Just because he's not on the MTV or the "Tube" doesn't mean he's not still incredibly popular and relevant.

And Stark - Prince had 19 number one singles over the last 20 years or so, so I think he'd have no problem filling out at least a 2 CD set. He's about a thousand times more popular than Billy Idol. That's a really dumb comparison. I'm not saying he's as musically influential or as iconic as the Stones or McCartney, but his name isn't far behind.

Eli Savoie said...

Prince has already released two greatest hits CDs