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.