[Vision2020] The Blonde Leading the Blind

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (May 19, 2006) "Life of Reilly" column of Sports Illustrated -

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The Blonde Leading the Blind
By Rick Reilly

Pull up a stool, Matt Leinart. Let me buy you a fresh-squeezed adult
beverage. You don't know it, but you just made my day. 

You, Mr. Perfect Stubble, USC Star, First-Round-Pick Quarterback, just
checked into the Paris Hilton. Miss Millionheiress Man-eater Paris Hilton,
that is. You're dating her. Guess she graded out well on film, huh? 

You're going there even though you know this girl is hotter than a flapjack
skillet but twice as shallow. She has billionaire boyfriends for
between-meal snacks. The last one she broke up with, Greek shipping heir
Stavros Niarchos, spent an hour last week crying and ringing her doorbell,
according to paparazzi. He wound up sprawled on her driveway, weeping. Next!


Personally, I don't think you'll last longer than a stolen brownie at a
Weight Watchers seminar. In the What Will She Do to Matt? office pool, I've
got Leave Him with a Facial Tic. But professionally, I'm doing backflips.
Self-induced career wrecks make great copy, and jocks and divas mix like
nitroglycerine and band camp. 

In fact, I'd say Miss Paris has a chance to crack my Top 10 Alltime Skirt
Hurts. But it won't be easy. These cupcake killers could bring down an
athlete faster than craps tables and discount birth control put together. 

10. Shaune Bagwell Model and ex-wife of the Houston Astros' Jeff Bagwell
once sold ad space on her cleavage. 

9. Anna Benson Former stripper -- with plenty of ad space -- once told
Howard Stern when husband Kris was pitching for the New York Mets that if he
ever cheated on her, she'd sleep with every member of the team. The Mets set
a record that year for Most Digital Cameras Purchased. 

8. Jane Shea Ex-wife of former Arsenal and England soccer star Tony Adams
got caught by police with a dead body in her car in 2004. Though she was
found innocent of wrongdoing, it didn't help Tony's standing at church any. 

7. Sherrie Daly She married the hard-drinking, hard-gambling,
Diet-Coke-Marlboro-and-chocolate-addicted golfer John Daly. It was the
groom's fourth wedding. The man has rice marks. So what were the odds that
the one in jail on a conspiracy charge in connection with a drug and
gambling ring would be the blushing bride? 

6. Danielle Harper The only woman ever to deserve a Super Bowl share. During
a beef in January with her husband, Indianapolis Colts cornerback Nick
Harper, she allegedly used a filleting knife to make some finer points on
his knee. The next day, in the closing moments of an AFC playoff game, a
bouncing football fell into guess whose hands. Ninety yards of open field
lay ahead, but Harper, running on that julienned knee, couldn't get by the
slowest guy on the field -- Pittsburgh Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger.
Pittsburgh held on to win the game and, eventually, the Super Bowl. Every
Steelers fan owes Danielle a big thank you. But I'd do it by phone. 

5. Kimberly Bell Barry Bonds's former mistress ratted the San Francisco
Giant Head out to two reporters and a federal grand jury with allegations of
Bonds's steroid use and funneling of unreported memorabilia cash to her.
Don't ask for whom the Bell moles. 

4. Tawny Kitaen The hardbody from the Whitesnake videos liked prescription
drugs more than Rite Aid does. One night, as she and her husband, Cleveland
Indians pitcher Chuck Finley, were riding home in their car, the
stiletto-heeled Tawny repeatedly kicked Finley and brutally scratched him.
She even stomped on his foot while it was on the gas pedal -- definitely not
recommended in the owner's manual. 

3. Robin Givens "With this ring, I thee wreck." Remember Barbara Walters's
interviewing Givens and her then husband Mike Tyson? Tyson, loopy on
antidepressants, acting like Robin's purse poodle as she trashed him on
national TV? Robin ending up with millions of Tyson's cash? Tyson ending up
as broke as TWA? Sure, in the long run Mike drowned himself, but Robin
helped fill the pool. 

2. Jeff Gillooly O.K., not technically a woman, but he has to be included
for sheer sensational spousal sabotage. The former husband of ice skater
Tonya Harding, Gillooly engineered the kneecapping of his ex-wife's rival,
Nancy Kerrigan. Now if he'd only kneecap Tonya's fridge. 

1. Lisa (Left Eye) Lopes Before her death in 2002, the on-again, off-again
girlfriend of former NFL star receiver Andre Rison was a walking FEMA file.
In one all-out, Richard Pryor night, she vandalized three of Rison's luxury
cars and burned down his mansion. 

But, hey, don't let me scare you, Matt. Give it a whirl! After all, you'll
always have Paris, even if she leaves you sleeping in a refrigerator box.


(Fred in payroll has that in the pool.)

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

t hansen-moore
Moscow, Idaho


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"The minimum wage issue is just another example of those in government,
weilding the power of government, imposing anti-market, anti-business
regulations on our supposedly free market."

- Varnel W. (April 2, 2006) 

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