Dealing with th mistakes
“HATE ALL U WANT BECUZ I GOT A GRAMMY Now! That’s the ultimate **** OFF!”
THAT’S the kind of reaction you get from someone who’s made a grave mistake but is still given the blind, unconditional support of adoring fans around the world.
Doesn’t matter how terribly wrong you are proven to be, even if you had turned a defenseless girl’s face into mush – with fans who’d defend you vociferously no matter what the authorities conclude, there tends to be a tiny part of you that thinks you were hard done by.
And so Chris Brown took to Twitter to vent his frustrations because he obviously believes he was hard done by, that the people criticising him aren’t right-thinking individuals merely stating their distaste at the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences or Naras’ (the folks who run the Grammy Awards) decision to let him bask in his own glory, but simply “haters” who should just go, as he so eloquently puts it, “**** off”.
He can’t see past the fact that people still aren’t comfortable with Naras putting him front and centre three times (two performances and one award) because he was, just three years ago, convicted for felony assault on then-girlfriend Rihanna, for having punched her in the face repeatedly in a fit of rage, and grabbing her by the neck until she passed out.
And he now he thinks that winning a Grammy is supposed to make all that better. Brilliant.
Guess which footballer I’m not-so-subtly trying to draw parallels with on this case? That’s right, Robert Huth.
It might as well be, because some Liverpool fans still can’t see what Luis Suarez did wrong. Some are still saying that the media is to blame for having blown it out of proportion, like former Liverpool player Jason Mcateer did when we spoke the day before Suarez’s non-handshake with Patrice Evra. I wonder if he’s changed his mind.
Suarez himself might be able to claim that, but Liverpool certainly can’t, as it was their own manager Kenny Dalglish who spoke up the most during that period, defending and praising his player when he wanted to, and curling back into his spiteful/defensive mode when interviewers asked him anything about it.
That’s why I thought it was brilliant that Geoff Shreeves stood his ground with Dalglish after the Manchester United game (just like he did with Alex Ferguson in 2006 over Cristiano Ronaldo’s diving). Before the game, Dalglish was talking up Suarez and how he’d shake Evra’s hand and how wonderful a guy he was.
But after the game, after Suarez had petulantly ignored Evra’s hand, his perfect chance to finally put the incident to bed, Dalglish suddenly decides he doesn’t want to talk, threatens to walk out of the interview claiming he didn’t see the incident, and calls Shreeves “bang out of order” for playing it up.
A few days later, both Dalglish and Suarez finally issued apologies, their first acts of contrition ever since Suarez’s careless racial slur against Evra a full 120 days before. It was, however, just one day after Liverpool jersey sponsors Standard Chartered, who pay the club £20mil (Rm90mil) a year, publicly voiced their disapproval.
Chris Brown’s first acts of contrition came much earlier than Suarez and Dalglish’s, though being charged with a felony assault did leave him with little choice.
He accepted a widely-criticised plea deal that meant he only had to do community service, be on five years’ probation and attend counselling; and he did issue a grovelling apology for his actions.
And yet here he is now, revelling in the perceived justification of his actions from being given a music award, one that has quite honestly lost all its meaning.
Ironically, he was nominated in the same category as R. Kelly, who has a history of violent conduct and had battled allegations that he was a paedophile, and El Debarge, who has been repeatedly arrested over the years for persistent drug abuse before his recent rehabilitation.
Suarez’s apology didn’t include any hint of remorse over the original incident involving Evra, merely remorse for having snubbed the handshake. He has yet to apologise for his choice of words at Old Trafford that day back in October.
But one thing’s for sure – Suarez, with the amount of talent he has, will make a spectacular comeback, just like Chris Brown. He just needs to realise that it’s how he handles himself when he’s back on top that will truly be the ultimate “**** off” to his critics.
Boring United
It’s not very often that I sleep through a Manchester United match, but last week’s Europa League match against Ajax was one of the several times it’s happened this season.
Maybe I’m getting old and the days of meeting up with friends at a mamak at 3am for a game are now permanently consigned to the past, but it could also be that United are simply more boring these days.
The thrilling days of Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez seem like a distant memory now, never mind the even headier times of Keane, Scholes, Beckham and Giggs.
Funnily enough, we had started the season playing some super football like that bunch, with Tom Cleverley and Anderson pulling the strings in midfield and Nani and Ashley Young blazing down the wings, bamboozling the noisy neighbours in the Community Shield and blitzing Arsenal for eight. So what the hell happened? “Laborious” was one pundit’s description of United’s passing against a very ordinary Ajax side despite a very credible 2-0 victory for United away from home, and in European competition.
I made it a point to wake up at 2am to watch the game precisely because I thought with Tom Cleverley set to make his comeback, and playing against more open European opponents, it would be a footballing feast.
It was barely a meal. It was like the footballing equivalent of a Gwyneth Paltrow guilt-free mid-day snack.
Is this the side that’s really going to win the Europa League, or challenge Manchester City all the way for the Premier League title? I hope not, because that would make for one incredibly boring title race.
I mean, if City are going to march their way to the title, the least we could do is position ourselves as the attractive football-playing runners-up ala Arsenal, not the boring also-rans.
Man of the match(?)
Dereck Chisora – what a fantastic ambassador for British sport.
The Zimbabwean-born heavyweight boxer followed the lead of his fellow loud-mouthed Brit boxer David Haye in trying to taunt the mighty Klitschko brothers, and it ended in exactly the same way – a nice, long, embarrassing beat-down.
After Wladimir’s humbling of Haye last year, it was big brother Vitali’s turn last Saturday to teach the obnoxious Brits a lesson, completely out-boxing Chisora, who was actually game enough to last the whole 12 rounds of whoop-@$$. His knuckle-headedness had never seemed so attractive an attribute.
But it was the stuff that happened outside of the ring that was really stupid. First Chisora slaps Vitali in the face during the traditional face-off at the weigh-in, completely unprovoked and wearing a Union Jack scarf over his face.
Then after the fight, having been comprehensively schooled by Vitali, he turns his considerable powers of annoyance on Haye, who was at the post-fight press conference as a media pundit.
Having both failed miserably to deliver on promises that they would bring down the world champion Klitschkos, the two Brits then turned on each other, getting into a brawl at the press conference that ended with Chisora and his trainer being detained by police.
Guess their boxers are just like their footballers – they aren’t really that good, but they still cause a whole lot of trouble.