From Boobies to Bubbas

More Nipplegate fallout. NASCAR honcho Mike Helton cites the Super Bowl halftime show and subsequent FCC investigation as the reason to cut back on cussing in driver interviews.

I'm not a NASCAR junkie, more an aloof observer of an odd culture, but I must've missed the David Mamet-style interviews. Unless Helton is counting "dangs" and "darns," all he has to worry about is the odd "hell" or "damn," and in very, very grave matters "shit." Not bad for a sport that kills people.

Contrast that to the current basketball season, where just this past weekend I saw a Florida State player respond to a foul with, "That's fucking bullshit. Bullshit." (As he had fouled one of my Tar Heels, not only was it not fucking bullshit, he should've lost his scholarship and been press-ganged into the Marines.)

Better still is the NBA, where f-bombs fall like daisy-cutters on a clear Iraqi night. Every drive to the hoop is accented with "fuck man!" or "call the fucking foul!" or "goddamn! shit!" or variations limited only by the imagination and the score. I await the David Stern memo on this.

Then again, I've long suspected that NBA arenas took to playing music and sound effects constantly to help cover up the fact that their stars like to work blue.

Comments

[Citizen]

As a casual NASCAR attender and fan, I am continually amazed at the restraint that the drivers show, by and large. Of course there are a couple of hotheads (like that no good SOB Tony Stewart) that whips his tongue around and occasionally his fists, too. I suspect that this is really just a ploy to stomp out dissent against NASCAR officials and their rulings - as if any dissent was permitted as is.

[nobody]

I had an opportunity to sit court-side at an NBA game a couple of years ago, and boy, was that ever an ear-opening experience. I had no idea how much talking the players did, or how much of it was (potentially) offensive.

And I'm not just talking your typical 4-letter words - many of the players were very creative in the ways in which they insulted the opposing team.

It didn't offend me or anything, (my mouth may be worse), but it was just so unexpected.

[dj of raleigh]

NASCAR doesn't compare to the NBA.
The NBA shows what millionaires
can do with money and fame,
athleticism, low morals and time.

[MALAK]

You pussies wouldn't know cussing if it bit you on the ass! Sit rinkside for an NHL game. If your cuss-o-meter hasn't fried by the second intermission, it's because you're deaf. Even the revered Gretztky would embarass a division of Marines into silence with his language. Now, having said all that, the most effective put-downs/insults were delivered by a warrant officer in my regiment. He prided himself on describing your shortcomings, and the general inadequacy of the gene pool from which you emerged, without EVER having to resort to swearing. He was a master. I often wondered if there was a school that non-coms went to in order to acquire that skill.

[Douglas Fletcher]

You wouldn't believe the cussing that goes on when a mandolin player breaks a string onstage at a bluegrass festival. Ancient, druid curses, calling into doubt the existence of the soul of Man.

And that's before he's tried to retune it.

[MALAK]

They tune mandolins?