You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
Charles Barkley is crazy.
I’m watching all these guys at the final four and they are all talking and I don’t hear any of them.
Blah blah blah UCONN. Blah blah blah Butler. It’s percentages from the three point line and points in the paint and blah blah blah.
Then there’s Charles Barkley. Bald head and no tie and open shirt collar. He is slumped over the desk like the victim of a mafia hit.
His forehead is heavy like an anvil. His eyes are fixed and dilated as if he has just suffered a seizure snorting sugar donuts. Perspiration is cascading off his bill board sized forehead in globs of chicken fat. Even quiet, he is a more commanding presence than the other 3 broadcasting lamb chops on set with him.
But it’s when Sir Charles opens his mouth that a country kind of crazy spills out.
He calls the first half of the game between Butler and UCONN terrible. Or as Frank Caliendo would say: Tehrrrrbullll.
And he’s right, the game is a joke. Clank is the sound of the ball hitting the front of the rim. Boing! is the sound of the excitement meter going flaccid like a circus freak who forgot his Viagra.
And Barkley calls the game bad. In fact he calls it worse than bad. He paints a picture of players and coaches and plays that are so bad so horrendous, his words of wisdom, wit and crazy, make you wince.
Barkley says 10 percent of all fans are stupid and 90 percent are great. I am unclear what this means with Butler having no points in the paint, but Barkley says it and it seems to resonate.
He says this national championship game reminds him of his high school hoops days when he only dated ugly girls.
huh?
Maybe that is a euphemism for: UCONN is going to win and get the pretty girl at the prom.
Really, I have no clue what that meant, but it’s pure Charles.
Charles Barkley is refreshing because he speaks first and thinks second. He doesn’t measure his statements with one part political correctness and one part king’s English. He uses grammar that doesn’t exist in text books, unless you matriculate in Alabama. He speaks in bar room reality that people would not use if they were not three sheets to the wind.
What Chuck says on live TV shouldn’t be said publicly no less to millions of people.
If Billy Packer said what Sir Charles said, he might get benched. Charles gets celebrated for being sincere and honest.
I like honest. But being honest can get you in trouble. Just ask Jimmy the Greek or Al Campanis or any number of people who spoke without thinking when they voiced their controversial opinions.
I wonder what would Charles Barkley would have to say to get fired.
I’m not sure. Here are some crazy things he has said in the past and like the energizer bunny he just keeps going and going.
“These are my new shoes. They’re good shoes. They won’t make you rich like me, they won’t make you rebound like me, they definitely won’t make you handsome like me. They’ll only make you have shoes like me. That’s it.”
“You know it’s going to hell when the best rapper out there is white and the best golfer is black.”
“I don’t care what people think. people are stupid.”
“If I weren’t earning $3 million a year to dunk a basketball, most people on the street would run in the other direction if they saw me coming.”
“I’m not a role model… Just because I dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.”
“I love New York City; I’ve got a gun.”
“My family got all over me because they said Bush is only for the rich people. Then I reminded them, ‘Hey, I’m rich.”
So the Championship game was bad, but as usual, Barkley was good. He was a breath of fresh air in an arena where average is how everyone else is judged.
Long live sir Charles. And if he ever does run for the Governor of Alabama, he’s got my vote.
“Terrrahbullll”
And that is crazy.