deppprived

 2010 in women's tennis was supposed to be, according to the media, the return to order.  With Justine and Kim back, and Sharapova healthy along with Venus and Serena Williams in top form, the WTA was supposed to be saved!  All the pretenders will be put in their place as these five ladies will be back in the upper class of women's tennis.  And the Australian Open it seemed like the press got their wish.  Justine and Serena played an entertaining three set final, Serena won and reclaimed the number one ranking from Dinara Safina and all was right with the world.  At least according to the press and Serena fans.

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At first it was tiny.  As I mentioned in my post last year, I was annoyed that Taylor's image went from being an ordinary teenage girl into this Purity Sue who's never tainted by anything bad.

My annoyance grew however when I saw her trying to convince people last year that she was dating Taylor Lautner, a guy who oddly comes off as asexual despite constantly being shirtless.  And then there's the single "Mine," a song that's pretty much "Love Story" set in the alleged real world.

But now the coup de tat.  I saw her VMA's performance two days ago.  The song she sang was obviously about Kanye West and The Incident from last year.

And now it's official: Taylor Swift has gotten on my last nerve.

First of all:  What the fuck Taylor?  Is she for real?  I was hoping, HOPING that this was some kind of a satire, or parody of overly serious songs about trivial things.  But no.  She was serious.

UGH!

First of all, let's get some perspective here.  What Kanye did was rude and douchey.  But there's a reason why so many macros and memes were made as a result of the incident.  And why there's so few of Rihanna's battered face.

Because it wasn't that serious.  He ruined a moment for her.  It was for Taylor a mere blip on what was otherwise a fantastic year.  She outsold virtually everyone and won so many awards her trophy room must be hard to walk through.  And it got her nothing but good press!  She was the new American Sweetheart.  People pitied her, Beyonce arranged it so she can have another chance to thank people, and she was considered classy for how she handled it all.  And up until now, she handled it well.  She hardly talked about it and seemed to truly want to move on from the incident.

And then she had to go and write and perform one of the most condescending, passive aggressive "I forgive you" songs I've ever heard.  Look up the lyrics if you can and read between the lines.  You realize that this is not about actual forgiveness, but rather a chance for her to look holier than thou over a man who made a dumbass move.

It's grating.  And it's also self righteous.  And her VMA performance has her acting like a meek virgin fairy who was done wrong by a bad man. 

May I remind everyone that we're talking about a drunk dude interrupting her speech?  We're not talking about her being raped or violently attacked.  And that right there is an extremely telling aspect of Taylor's character that she probably didn't mean to reveal.  That for all of her charity work, for all of her seeming down to earth persona, she's extremely out of touch with what goes on in the real world.  She apparently doesn't seem to realize just how privileged her life is if THIS is the worst thing that has happened to her in recent years.  And thanks to her VMA performance and her song, she comes off as petty, self absorbed and haughty.

In other words she's like every other celebrity.

This wouldn't be so bad if she didn't sell an image based on being the opposite of celebrity.  At least Kanye owns up to his flaws.  But the fakeness is the just something I can't take anymore.

You and I are done Taylor.

Before I go into this post, let me get something clear: I do like Taylor Swift. I have a few of her songs on my IPOD and I sing to her tunes whenever they come on the radio in my car.

That said, I think girlie has been Flanderized by the press and by her own actions. She was once just a young teenage girl who sang about boys, and lost love. Now? She's 19 going on 12. It's like she's aging backwards or something.

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So up until now I've never talked about Agassi anywhere.  Not on MTF, not on ONTD tennis.  Nowhere.  One of the reasons is that I wanted to wait and observe Agassi's actions and the reactions of everyone around them.

Not surprisingly people have been raking him over the coals for this.  And not surprisingly Agassi will go on 60 minutes to ask for compassion.

Now I've never been much of an Agassi fan.  Nor was I all that keen on Pete Sampras.  I like Courier and to be honest I didnt' follow tennis all that much in the 90's.   Agassi has always annoyed me, with his obvious pandering and calculated planning of his image.  From those Canon commericals to his marriage to Brooke Shields he just seems to try way too hard for my liking.  Sampras wasn't better.  Dude was dull as fuck.  The only thing I liked about him was his white man's afro.

With that said though, I'm kinda shocked at all the virtol that Agassi's been receiving.  Not to say that he didn't bring it on to himself.  Of course he did.  But the reactions have fascinated me.

"Why is he saying this now?"
"Ugh I can't believe the ATP covered for him while others got banned!"
"He's such an attention whore!"
"This makes tennis look so bad! Why is he doing this?"

And many more.  It seems a lot of the responses pertain to the last statement.  The image of tennis is tainted now, many claim, because of this.  Never mind the likes of McEnroe, Connors, and Nastase's bad behavior on court has already sullied tennis's image as a wholesome sport decades ago, but in spouting this response, posters are behaving no better than the man who declared "Image is everything" all those years ago.  And while many are hopping mad because of the ATP's response to his excuse of testing positive for meth, well, what else could've they done at that time?  If they have investigated it would've been a three month ban at the most. WADA didn't exist then and at that time drug abuse in sports primarily focused on steroids which crystal meth isn't. And they didnt' actually cover for him so much as chose to believe his lie.  In 97 he wasn't much use for them promotion wise anyway.  He was playing horribly and had to resort to playing challengers to get his game back.  Sure he's famous but at that time he was getting publicity for all the wrong reasons.  Why would the ATP waste their time promoting a guy who seemed like he was a has been then?


So what have we learned?  Simple.  If a kid grows up to be a public figure of any sort, be perfect.  And if they can't be perfect then they sure as hell better make sure they cover up their flaws and never expose them to the world.  That message seems kinda sad to me thuogh.  On the one hand yeah, you put yourself out there and you have to be prepared for potential backlash.  But at the same time, shouldn't we demand honesty, not just from athletes, but from everyone?  So many people live lives of quiet desperation and fraud because they are either scared of harsh public judgment, or they have a lot to lose career or family wise.  Whatever his reasons for writing this book, I'm not gonna condemn Andre.  I don't plan on buying it, but I won't condemn him either.
 

Congrats Rog!  Hopefully the kid will inherit your hair!

And I was looking forward to your DC match vs. Andy too.

*Hugs*

There are no words.  Just watch.

www.youtube.com/watch

Dear Roger,

Don't go out like Jelena.  FIGHT!!!!


Dear Jelena

WTF???????

Edit:  Good Roger, very good.

Dear Jelena:

It's about time!!!  Yayyy!  

Love

A crazy JJ fan

I went today to see The Dark Knight.  A few observations and speculating thoughts.