In response to my request for an interview with Michael Jordan, I received a phone call from the King himself. I asked him what he's been doing since retiring last year, and this is the edited version of what he had to say: "I have been handing out autographed pictures of myself at the hot dog stand down the street from my estate. Gatorade loves the idea, but they don't endorse my ass anymore. [Cough.] Those fucking no-good skateboarders. I can't stand those little bastards. You little motherfuckers. You wait until you get arthritis and your knees go bad, what you gonna do then? [Gurgle.] You think you're a fucking superstar like me? You ain't shit!"
Yeah, I'm as surprised as you are at MJ's fall from grace.
It seems our idiot president, George Bush Jr., has decided that, instead of spending billions of dollars on something tangible, like exercise bikes for all the obese children in the United States, he's going to spend trillions to send a few people to Mars. It's his idea of "inspiring the nation." I'm sure it was inspiring for the last generation to witness the moon landings, until they realized their tax dollars were being used to provide Alan Shepard with a really expensive round of golf on the moon. I can understand why people golf on Earth--basically they're bored and boring and they have nothing else to do. But on the moon? Are you telling me that Shepard had nothing else to do ON THE MOON?!! We could have saved billions by flying him to Arizona to accomplish the same thing.
Sadly, golf is now recognized throughout the universe as the first human sport to be played in space. Therefore, I would like to hereby inspire our nation to find a sport other than golf to be the first sport played on Mars. Knowing my luck, those geeks at NASA packed a Frisbee onto the Mars rovers, but I still hope that the first sport to be played on Mars is one that needs no technological advances--underwater hockey.
Underwater hockey is an ingenious adaptation of a sport that requires great boxing skills--ice hockey--into a strange and difficult three-dimensional game requiring great lungs. Players use goggles, helmets, snorkels, fins, and foot-long sticks to flick a three-pound puck along the bottom of a pool.
Most likely in 20 years the moon will be a giant grass-covered exclusive golf course, and so completely spoiled forever. But there is still hope for Mars! If you want more information about the underwater-hockey-to-Mars mission, e-mail me.
