Sorting Out Tiger, Part I

Okay, it's been a month.

But it should have only been two weeks.

Then Tiger hit.

And even though the Tiger News is almost as old as The Y2K Scare, I've got a few things to say. And it's taken me three weeks to sort this out because there are just so many layers to the story. And so here are my wide ranging and often rambling thoughts- broken down into six neat categories, three today, three tomorrow- on what is definitely The Situation (as opposed to that guys abs on Jersey Shore...)

1. THE APPEARANCE OF THE MORALITY POLICE

My favorite group of people are made an appearance during this scandal: The Morality Police.

The Morality Police are my favorites because they like to climb on their high horses and then decide what is morally acceptable and what is heinous, damning to hell immorality.

Tiger Woods cheated on his wife with a bunch of 21 year old cocktail waitress, some girls made famous by 9/11 deaths, and some porn stars.

And while this has been as fun as hell to watch from the sidelines, I have been shocked by my inability to get fired up about this topic and I have finally realized why.

Because who fucking cares.

Why do I not fucking care? Well, mostly because these types of transgressions do not effect the greater world what so ever. Sure, his kids will be fucked up and his wife must be learning how to die nooses, but truthfully, what Tiger did didn't hurt anyone. He's not Bernie Madoff or O.J. Simpson and although I have heard the comparisons to Kobe Bryant, he certainly isn't him because for those of you counting at home; alleged ass rape is slightly different than cheating, no matter how despicable you think cheating is.

While you can give me the role model crap and he's liar and blah blah blah, I say bollocks. Not a single person on Earth is going to cheat because of Tiger and and the whole celebrity role model thing is completely overhyped in American society. While certain fashion styles and hair dos are taken from celebrities, no one actually really tries to ACT like a celebrity. When Madonna started randomly speaking with a British accent, people didn't start doing that. When Ice-T said to kill cops, no one did that. And I don't think there was a wave of anal sodomy in the wake of the Kobe Bryant scandal. So I firmly believe that there will not be a wave of cheating because Tiger Woods cheated on his wife. There will be cheating because there has always been and will always be cheating. Which leads me to my next point.

2. WHY DID TIGER CHEAT?

I've heard this question a great many times over the past couple of weeks. People have been asking how he could do that when he has such a beautiful wife and a perfect life and why would he risk wrecking his image and is he a sex addict and blah blah blah. I have heard many of these questions from the painfully naive women who have been calling sports talk radio. More on this later.

Ultimately, we really have no idea why Tiger cheated. Maybe he had a sexless, boring marriage. Maybe his wife didn't give him blowjobs anymore. Maybe she wore a sweatsuit to bed and their marriage was like an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. Maybe she only liked it missionary and he got bored. Maybe Tiger is a sex addict like Wade Boggs. Maybe Tiger is just a cheating douche who thought he could get away with it. Maybe he's a narcissist who cares only about himself (an athlete who's a narcissist? Really? I've never heard of an athlete who is a narcissist.). But as you can guess, I have an idea as to why he cheated.

Tiger cheated because he is a golf geek who got married way too early in his life and like most teen and twenty something males, he had no idea how painfully easy it would be to get women once he figured the whole thing out. Let me explain.

Tiger was (is?) a full on geek. He played golf all his life, he dresses like a tool (even Tommy ripped him), he plays golf, he went to Stanford, he plays golf, he is awkward in press conferences, he plays golf, and he is about as charismatic and cool as Rain Man. And he plays golf.

As it turns out, he plays golf really well and as it also turns out, when you play golf really well, you can make a ton of money. It also turns out that Tiger's ethnicity in a virtually all white sport coupled with his dominance makes him a pretty damn marketable guy. To say he never expected this is an understatement. Where does the cheating fit in to this? Hold on a sec.

So, geeky Tiger- who likely never talked to a girl between the ages of birth and twenty- suddenly starts to become a celebrity. And what does celebrity brings with it? Chicks!!!

However, in the early part of the millenium, as Tiger begins his reign as the best golfer ever, he is still a geek. Or at least he perceives himself as a geek. And as I most assuredly can tell you, geeks can't talk to girls. But, Tiger does have a penis and even though he plays golf and is a geek, his penis still likes vaginas. So....

He meets a really, REALLY hot girl named Elin. This girl is way beyond his hotness and she would NEVER have talked to him in high school, nor would she have even dared looked at him at Stanford where all the hotties were banging football players, basketball players, or as fall back, future geniuses. But now Tiger is kind of famous and he has some money and he notices this here Elin girl with her ten foot legs and white blonde hair and says, "wow, I like her. And, given my expanding wallet and growing fame, I might actually have a chance with her. But just to be safe, I better have my golfer friend set me up with her because she is his nanny."

So, still geeky Tiger gets his pal Jesper to set him up with Elin and he wows her enough with his dorky smile and pleated pants and she ends up sleeping with him. Tiger, not understanding how this smoking hot girl would actually sleep with him (because he still thinks he is a geek), decides to see her again and AGAIN she sleeps with him. They do this again and again until Tiger decides to marry her. He thinks this is a pretty good idea because as he likely knows, no hot 21 year old waitresses or hot 34 year old cougar hostesses even know who a golfer is (something tells me that Rocco Mediate and Corey Pavin aren't showing up in US Weekly too often). So Tiger is psyched because Elin is the absolute best he can get given his celebrity. It's sort of like McSteamy marrying Noxema girl. They are a perfect match because they are both W List celebrities who KNOW they can't upgrade to Miranda Kerr or Johnny Depp, so they take what they can get. And this is how Tiger felt.

But something happened.

Tiger became the most popular and recognizable current athlete (and quite possibly, the most popular and recognizable athlete EVER) and he also became a billionaire. These are things that Michael Jordan, Muhammed Ali, and Barry Bonds never did.

But Tiger did.

And all of this celebrity came as a shock to him and even more shocking was that porn stars and cocktail waitresses were launching now their labias at him.

Him.

Tiger.

The Geek Golfer from Stanford.

And so Tiger tried cheating once and liked it because no girl ever gave him this attention before. Not only did he like it, but he also got away with it. Until Thanksgiving. You know the rest.

Again, I'm not excusing it. I'm just saying how it all went down. Which brings us to the next question.

3. WHY DID TIGER EVEN GET MARRIED?

This is my favorite.

"Well, if he wanted to just bang girls, he should never have gotten married. He should have acted like Jeter and Clooney and Leo and no one would have cared."

This is so wrong people and why?

Because Tiger plays golf.

Now granted, Tiger Woods is absolutely an A List celebrity but he probably never THOUGHT he was an A List celebrity. He plays a game full of middle aged men, all of whom are married with families (quick, name a golfer you saw on TMZ before Tiger Woods three weeks ago... Waiting... Waiting...) that meet them on Sunday with kisses and hugs at the 18th hole.

So Tiger, wanting desperately to be like his peers who he probably realized were disliking him with an increasing regularity, got married because he thought that was the GOLF thing to do. Golf isn't exactly a profession whose members are hanging at the Viper Lounge and doing bumbs off of chicks titties with Colin Farrell, Robert Downey Jr., and Mickey Rourke. Hell, they don't even hang out with Screech and Brian Scalabrine. They travel around in RVs and wear pleated pants and awful sweaters even though they know they are going to be on TV all weekend. These guys ARE NOT COOL.

And Tiger knew that, so he got married. Like everybody else does. Because in case you haven't noticed, EVERYONE gets married. People get married for a variety of different reasons, but one reason they do is single people aren't exactly embraced in this country. Short of being Derek Jeter, George Clooney, or Leonardo DiCaprio- and to remind you again: TIGER WOODS DID NOT THINK HE WAS DEREK JETER, GEORGE CLOONEY, OR LEONARDO DICAPRIO- guys who don't get married are seen as immature, skeevy, loserish, gay, or mentally deranged (I've heard all of these about me except for the skeevy, which weirdly makes me proud...)

So, not only did he face pressure to get married from the people he works with, but he also faced pressure from society to get married. And it was obviously not a good decision because he still wanted to bang cocktail waitresses. But since there were no other golfers banging cocktail waitresses, he figured he should get married. So he did.

Side Note: Did you know that 95% of society gets married KNOWING that 50% of them will fail?!? Has there ever been a more outrageous statistic than this?!? Imagaine buying something, ANYTHING that you knew failed 50% of the time?!? Imagine paying $68,000 for a BMW 5 Series KNOWING that half the mornings you turn the ignition it won't start?!? Or dropping $1500 on a Sony 1080p flat screen KNOWING that 50% of them will just stop working?!? I could go on like this for days, but keep that in mind the next time you're jealous that your friend is married and you aren't, know they dropped x thousands of dollars on a stainless steel refridgerator that will just stop keeping your food cold for 182.5 of the 365 days in a year.

Come Back Tomorrow For Part II...