Bleu Star
Bye Felicia!
- Messages
- 33,925
- Reaction score
- 19,920
By Os Davis on December 23, 2006 06:42 AM
Link
A little satire for both sides of the TO love/hate world...
Terrell Owens came home, exhausted again; it doesn't matter how many times you work the muscles, they always tire out. Of course, in T.O.'s case, the nagging soreness wasn't in the legs or arms - he could run and break tackles with the best in the NFL, forget the Dallas Cowboys practice squad - but in the mouth and throat. These sportswriters will hang on forever for another quote, and the Monogrammed One was willing enough to fulfill that need.
But the work was blown away now for the sanctuary of a quiet home at Christmas time. A couple of hours in the oxygen chamber, and he'd be right as rain, maybe call up Dennis Rodman and Fred Smoot; surely Tennis Ball Head and the Love Boat Captain would be doing something entertaining for the holidays.
The ghost, of course, was a deterrent to Owens' plans.
T.O. was agog at the sight of an eerie blue-white apparition in eerie blue-white chains inconspicuously not blending in with the living room layout.
"Yo, man, you're blocking the TV," Owens joked, trying to play it cool as though Tony Romo had just called some obscure play mentioned in some team meeting he'd slept through. Ghost in the crib, he figured, that's just a real-life clown route, right?
"T.O.," said the suffering sight, "the football gods are unhappy with you, but in this holiday season, they have taken pity and chosen to issue you this warning."
"The football gods?"
"You must make amends, Terrell."
"Wait a minute..."
"It is not too late."
"Michael Irvin?"
"Don't end up like me, weighed down by the stories of my own indiscretion."
"But, Michael, you're not dead."
The spirit stopped mid-ominous warning. "Yes, that's true. Um. The gods decided to cast me in this guise so that you might recognize me. I'm actually Chuck Bednarik."
"Who?"
The ghostly figure muttered then (something about freaking inferior one-way players) before continuing. "Listen. Three spirits will come to visit you this evening. Hopefully, they can show you the error of your ways."
"Hey, Chuck. Answer me this. In the afterlife, are there ... birthday parties?"
"Repent, T.O., repent."
Owens stood there a good two minutes, then three, unsure of what he'd seen or even if he had. "I gotta get some oxygen," he said and continued to the bag.
In his way, standing ramrod still was the Ghost of Football Past.
"Aw, come on now. I got a game tomorrow. I don't need all this poltergeist s---."
No response from the spirit, who merely crossed his arms a paced a step or two, hawk-like see-through gaze never leaving Owens. It creeped him out, to be sure.
"All right, so what's up?"
"Don't you know who I am?"
"Yeah, sure. I recognize the fedora. Indiana Jones, right?"
Tom Landry sighed, wondering for the nth time why he wasn't watching game film. His all-time Cowboys had far too much work to do before the game at Otherworld Arrowhead and he'd lose to that damn Stram again over his dead body. In a manner of speaking.
"Let's just get this done with, son."
And whoosh went the pair through dimensions to land squarely in the past, T.O. feeling his body wash up on the shore near San Francisco, tens of thousands cheering again and again, in a full-life filmstrip reel, click, click, click.
"Now this," said Owens, "is what I'm talking about."
Steve Young throws him "The Catch II" in 1997. He goes for 283 yards against the Chicago Bears in 2000. Philadelphia. He turns in an MVP-level performance in Super Bowl XXXIX while playing hurt. He scores two TDs and 143 against his former team in 2005.
"Now, son--"
"Wait, wait, wait. Where's the star? Where's me dancing on the star?"
"Son, listen. Don't you see the difference between then and now?"
"Yeah, I wasn't on the Cowboys then."
"Don't remind me. What's different is your reputation, kid. It's catching up with you, it's overshadowing your play, and if it continues, it'll eclipse anything you've ever done. Heed my warning, son. Stay out of trouble."
And the Ghost of Football Past faded from vision, Owens convinced the hat was the last to disappear from the foreground of his comfortable living room's surroundings.
"Should have put in the star dancing," Owens groused.
T.O. waited there in the easy chair, not bothering to attempt a visit to the life-improving oxygen, knowing he'd never make it anyway. He didn't have to wait long.
"So this is what I've been reduced to," indignantly barked the beak-nosed Ghost of Football Present. "Delivering messages from the ectoplasm to some pompous pusillanimous egomaniac. Where's Arledge? I demand to speak with Roone Arledge immediately! This is a farce! A palpable perfidious ploy!"
"So who are you supposed to be? The Penguin?"
"Of all the..." The spirit wished sincerely he'd been given any other task. Honestly, he'd rather be interminably reshooting guest appearances on "The Odd Couple" with Randall and Klugman than this. "Howard Cosell."
"Oh yeah! I remember you! You're the dude that interviewed Ali all those times."
"The very same. There may yet be hope for you. Come on, I'll try to teach you a few things."
Whoosh went the odd traveling sensation again. T.O. found himself whisked away to some meeting at ESPN. Three guys, tied loosened, Owens couldn't recall their names in their sameness. No matter: The subject of their discussions was T.O.
"Damn, guys," said one, "I'm so sick of doing T.O. stories."
"Hey, we have to present this one," said the second with an authority that revealed his higher status in this food chain. "He spit on DeAngelo Hall. That's going to have a profound effect on both teams and the league for the remainder of the season."
"Is that really how we're going to present it?"
"Hey, chief, how 'bout this? We do a roundtable-type discussion show talking about how everyone's tired of talking about Terrell Owens?"
"Okaaaay," tentatively nibbled "the boss." "But who can we get? And don't call me 'Chief.'"
"Come on, how many NFL shows do we have? We'll round up a Mike, a couple of other guys, we'll shoot it on a Wednesday coffee break. That's good for five minutes on 'Sportscenter' easy."
"Hey, hey, guys!" cried T.O. "I'm here. I'm right here! I'll give you an interview right now! Have I told you about the Cowboy snitcher yet?"
"They can't hear you," The Ghost of Football Present reminded. "You were never born."
"Wait a minute. That's 'It's a Wonderful Life.'"
"Hey, who's the esteemed representative of the Great Unknown here?"
Owens didn't offer an answer.
"Correct!"
"We could even do some fan interviews with people talking about how they're sick of talking about him," nattered on the third ESPN'er. "We could bring back past great players to call his behavior 'shameful,' we could get a biologist to do an analysis of T.O.'s saliva, comparing it to the deadly bite of the komodo dragon..."
"Hey, I like the way you're thinking. Isn't there some komodo dragon that's giving birth without a father right now? We could even get in the virgin-birth angle into the T.O. show just in time for the holidays. Let's get going on this one."
"How about this?" offered the first. "How about we do a serious analysis show, stripped down of gimmicks, maybe get Jaworski, and talk about the fact that the Dallas defense is far weaker than statistics show and is popularly known?"
A second passed before all three in cadence proclaimed, "Nah."
With a zip, T.O. found himself at home again. "Now what are you going to tell me? That fame is fleeting? That I'm a product of the media that will eventually just toss me aside like an empty pill container? That pretty soon people'll just be hating on me?"
"Spare me the grammatically mangled colloquialisms," squawked The Ghost shaped as Cosell. "I tell it like it is, always have, always will. And here's the way it is."
The Ghost of Christmas Present paused for an instant, the less than a second of silence the former broadcaster could comfortably tolerate. "The new version of 'Monday Night Football' is deplorable. Joe Theismann is living proof of my postulation that jocks do not belong in the broadcast booth. And some are calling Tony Kornheiser 'The New Howard Cosell.' Deplorable! Despicable...!"
And so began a long string of denigrating adjectives beginning with "de" which faded, ever so slowly, with the apparition.
Owens must have fallen asleep then, for when he awoke the room was dark. He was not alone. For there in front of him was a fearsome, impossibly tall figure clad in a black shroud. The gear, the look, the countenance ... it was all familiar to T.O., but why an Oakland Raiders fan was coming to him, he had no clue.
"Um, Randy Moss' place is down the way some," T.O. helpfully instructed.
The figure said nothing, merely shook its head in the negative. And then Owens realized who this Ghost of Football Future was posing as.
"Hey, I remember you. I met you when I had that little hydrocodone problem. Quite a party, huh? Say, you want to go hang out tonight? I was thinking about ringing up Chris Rock maybe. You ever meet Chris Rock?"
This ghost was in no mood for press conferences.
Whoosh.
"And today, we have the great honor of inducting a truly marvelous specimen into The Hall of Fame. Terrell Owens!" A great cheer went up from the thousands assembled there, and T.O. basked in this final trophy he now knew he'd someday have.
Up to the podium they came, those he'd played with and for. "For this man, I can think of no more greater honor," said Jeff Garcia. "The player always added something to the team," said Bill Parcells. "Terrell Owens is probably the greatest athlete to enter this Hall since O.J. Simpson," said Donovan McNabb.
"So, I don't get it," said Owens to the figure accompanying. "I'm in the Hall of Fame. I thought you were supposed to show me that I'm doing the wrong thing."
One bony finger pointed to the building's edifice. "American Psychiatrists' Association Head Case Hall of Fame."
Before Owens could protest, remark or even gasp, they were elsewhere: namely, the comfortable suburban home of one Tony Romo, aged and bouncing a grandchild on one arthritic knee.
"I couldn't have done it alone, you see," the old man was explaining. "But the Great Tuna had already found me a perfect receiver. Everyone said he was a bad apple and that he'd never behave. But he learned how to become a true member of the team. We won the Super Bowl that year, and they gave him the MVP trophy. Ah, I miss Terry Glenn..."
With the now-familiar whoosh the two at T.O.'s home.
"So, what? Is that stuff supposed to shock me? You and the football gods or whatever are thinking I'm going to change everything, that I'm going to stop being T.O. out there on the football field ... well, let me tell you something."
It was another Owens moment. Those high-paid lackeys at The Worldwide Leader in Sports? They were nothing. T.O. had the Ghost of Football Future - an anthropomorphization of Death itself - hanging on his every word. In some ways, he'd been born for this moment.
"When I'm good, I'm good, but when I'm bad, I'm badass. Me and the Cowboys are going deeper into this thing this year than you and all the gods think. And I'll be back next year, on the Cowboys, and I'll be better. Me and Tony, we're going to win the Super Bowl and when I put that ring on my finger, nothing else is going to mean a damn thing."
The Ghost of Football Future dissipating before T.O.'s eyes with a cold draft of win. The skull smiled in its passing, and that couldn't be good, could it?
Pffft. Whatever. Ghosts of Football, gods of football ... "bah, humbug," Owens said aloud while visions of Lombardi Trophies danced in his head and he punched up Shawne Merriman on the speed dial.
Link
A little satire for both sides of the TO love/hate world...
