there needs to be a middle-aged beating.

I'm a middle aged man, not particularly skilled in fighting, but a real toughie when it comes to complaining and pointing out the obvious. I see other middle-aged men on TV daily that I'd like to fight. Maybe for charity. Maybe not. I will list these men here with my reason for their inclusion. I will not be including men that I'm certain can beat me, however. (for example: Mike Greenberg, yes. Mike Golic, no) var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-24208073-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

[wannafightme]

34. Alec Baldwin Well, this is no good for me. I really like Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock and in most of his movies. I never really cared that he wrote all that self-righteous blather on the Huffington Post. That’s fine...I write this thing and he has less typos and a better vocabulary.  I did start to think something might be a little off when he called his 11 year old daughter a pig and a whore and threatened to drink her blood because she didn’t pick up when he called her a few years back. A day later he awkwardly apologized on The View while punching himself in the genitals and asking that coven for forgiveness.  I think Alec Baldwin might really believe he’s a tough guy nowadays.  Listen to his comical (to everyone but him) gravelly voice, his bullying of young girls and (if rumors are true) his co-workers and staff. Look at that indignant stare up there. I haven’t seen such a fussy l’il face since Toddlers and Tiaras’ season 3 finale.  The latest evidence that Al is the tool I’ve painted him to be is this oh so overblown airline incident. Only it’s not overblown. Every human over the age of 3 knows you shut up and sit politely during take-off. You certainly don’t dick around with some annoying smart phone game.  I have to assume being a movie star has some perks. So does being in first class. But rather than knocking back a few Schlitz Malt Liquor Bulls in the Applebee’s prior to boarding and keeping his yap shut for 20 minutes, Alec had to play around with his phone because well, he wanted some attention. He knew he would get booted as surely as I know my ex-wife on line 3 is requiring a financial reinforcement.  I don’t know if I could even muss the Clark Kent hair on Alec Baldwin’s ever-widening head but stewardesses flight attendants everywhere would probably adorn me with those booze miniatures I enjoy in movies and at work in church other places.

[wannafightme]

33. Michael Lohan Father of soon to be eulogized Lindsay Lohan and all around tough guy Michael Lohan takes number 33 with this week’s revelation that he punched his girlfriend in the yap during an all-day fight following a night of drinking and somehow, sex. Like every other earthling alive, I never did see any value to this walking, talking failure.  Jail is fine, I suppose, but where we all want to see this hair-plug is in a coffin another country. Maybe Portugal, or Texas. Raising a boozy, sex-maniac, crack addict was a neat trick, but with the help of that terrifying ex-wife you made it look easy. I suppose Thor up there would last a few rounds because like many others on this list he likes to prance sleeveless around the gym now and again… but he’d look away, strike a mean- face pose for the camera leaving me open to hit the back of his big head with my fist something I found nearby.

  UPDATE:  One day later while running from the cops after going at his girlfriend again, Hercules up there apparently hit his head on a tree, fell down and went back to jail.

[wannafightme]

32. Hank Williams, Jr. A pretty obvious choice here but he does deserve his own spot after that beer-drenched breakfast soliloquy on Fox and Friends with my three favorite bewildered news-chimps looking on in horror.  Obama as Hitler is always a great way to start a discussion, but calling the sitting president the enemy is taking the conversation where I only dreamed it could go so early in the morning.  ESPN caught a whiff of the action and canned the old dirtbag from lip-syncing his tired (and increasingly weird) Monday Night Football intro song for the Colts – Bucs game that no one watched.  I’m sure his lawyer will write an explanation of how good ole Hank didn’t mean nothin’ and his comments were taken out of context or some typical hillbilly gibberish. If not, I can see a new, strange breed of American Moron-Patriot, filling All U Care To Eat senior restaurants throughout the south with his words of wisdom to standing (well, sitting I hope) room only crowds as they choose carefully between applesauce and tonight’s cobbler.

[wannafightme]

31. Jeff Pearlman

Take a good look at literary hero Jeff Pearlman. He’s the fashion editor turned sports tattle-tale that writes books about athletes too stupid or too dead to fight back. If you think I swing at low-hanging fruit once in a while, you’ll just love this goatee-wearing cream puff. Jeff took on mentally-deficient racist lunatic John Rocker in a brave expose in Sports Illustrated, launching a shiny career that should never have left the fashion page of whatever hillbilly news-rag he started with. He snitched on the ’86 Mets, the ‘90s Cowboys and human piñata Barry Bonds.  His latest effort is a hatchet-job of dearly departed NFL Hall of Famer Walter Payton.  I really liked Walter Payton because he was quiet, dignified for a football player and made anyone tacking him wish they had called in sick…also because he carried the football like a loaf of bread. I don’t respect a lot of athletes but I liked him just fine. Jeff Pearlman couldn’t find a decent subject to write about and because his last book on Roger Clemens sold poorly, he chose a revered and dead sports celebrity. Sadly, this will probably work as a revenue stream for Cookie-puss up there but there is good news…former Chicago Bears coach and all-around terrifying human, Mike Ditka is looking for our chicken-hearted author and will surely drink his blood before I could ever swing a weak knuckler at that stylish chin. 

[wannafightme]

30. George Lucas: Episode I of many Look, I didn’t want to be in this situation, but he wouldn’t stop the nonsense and so here we are, fighting like two old whiteys trying to get seated first at the Cracker Barrel on Easter Sund’y. In this corner, a once-beloved trillionaire with a flesh-colored neck brace and his own religion behind him and in the other, a middle-aged has-been with a blog.  I loved the first three movies. We all loved the first three and we bought all the crappy merchandise and I still do, although I wish I hadn’t typed that last part. Then he made the three lumbering, although colorful and loud, prequels and things went south quickly. My understanding (from reading a sentence somewhere on the internet) is that he now has six 3-D versions in the queue after he pushes out the Blu-Ray versions. Eventually we’ll be treated to the last three movies in this weird 9-part super trilogy of merchandising gone to hell. Well, if Fudgie could put all of this money creativity on hold for a spell, I think a fight might knock some sanity into that giant, delightfully wavy head of his.

[wannafightme]

29. Julian Assange Remember this Swinging Richard?  Albino internet activist and all-around good sport Julian Assange crept into our consciousness about a year or so ago and the li’l fella is still around here somewhere. He pops up in the news now and then for some trumped up rape charge or a German dance-off all the while smirking like the peevish little radical fame whore he turned out to be.  A hacker is a soulless mongrel,  devoid of friends, hygiene or a real reason to get up off the futon most days. Casper up there is just a clever euro-hacker, as happy to give up American military information as he ever was to expose a criminally bloated, lawless bank or corporation.  A fraud and a reptile, Julian weighs about as much as what I ate for dinner, but I’d happily swing for the fences at this angelic-looking fiend. 

[wannafightme]

Special Guest Post from Wendy, this Texas chick I know 28. Governor Rick Perry My name is Wendy. I’m a middle-aged woman.

I’m not particularly skilled at fighting.  Just ask my little sister who once came after me with a garden rake.  But I do ‘man’ push-ups. I like to point and laugh at other middle-aged men and women who say stupid things and have a lot more money, power, and influence than me.  Unlike Tom, I don’t watch much TV.  But I read a lot, and much of what I read provokes anything from outrage to screeching laughter, mostly at the same time. I too have a hard head.  I found that out recently.  I believe in six-pack abs. Empirical evidence shows I have a bundt cake around my hips.

I live in Austin, Texas.  Austin is different from say…ALL OF THE STATE.  So in the spirit of charity, I’ll make my meager donation to the nation.  I’m going to raise my small-boned, strong, somewhat wrinkly middle-age fists and bring them down on Governor Rick Perry’s coiffure.

Unless you live on whatever new planet is out there, you’ll see his weathered face and spectacular hair on TV and online -  the source from which I learned the Governor ‘apparently’ sports ‘package.’ He once was known as Crotch. Paul Begala said it, and he probably needs a middle-aged thrashing too. 

The primary care physician in me knows that if all of his life’s blood is pooled in his crotch, it has breached his blood-brain barrier.  Well, I have blood in my brain, which is why I wouldn’t say “…it goes back a long way” to a question posed by a child (at the urging of mom) about the age of our planet. I think we know it goes back a long way. Thanks, Rick, for blowing us away with that radical answer. 

Governor Perry is having a hard time with the ‘theory’ of evolution.  The blood in my brain helps the nerves that operate my eyeballs understand a fossil when I see one.  I have seen a few fossils and call me crazy, I think they came from plants and animals that died millions of years ago, going back a long way. He thinks Texas science classes teach both creationism and evolution.  False.  Some people might concur that when a person who has governed a state for 4.5 billion years jumps into a race for nomination to be president of the United States, he should know about the rules and regulations of his state.  Just some of ‘em.

Ah, his swagger. Oh, but wait!  He’s ‘tiptoeing’ back from a position he previously held about Social Security.  Like a black swan, he’s on his tippy toes in his cowboy points walking backwards with a swagger.  Hell, if he can make that look good, he should be president!

I often swagger right on over to the oven, unfurling my white-with-anger fists to check on the bundt cake warming in the oven. I don’t care.  He doesn’t either. Global warming isn’t anyone’s fault.  It’s the earth’s fault, and the earth is pretty old.

There’s just too much to write about Governor Perry.  (Please stop shooting coyotes in your running shorts. Please, don’t patronize children.  Please, not another swaggering Texan in the White House. Please, continue to make an ass of yourself and go away.  Please, don’t.  Please, do.) 

So to tidy up this post: Much of what Governor Perry says makes me spit out my Duncan Hines bundt cake/mouthful of Franzia Sunset Blush onto my throw rug. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I have dogs.

[wannafightme]

27. Sean Hannity It isn’t so much that I’ve run low on middle-aged men to swing my supple fists at as it is that this contemptible meathead deserves his own post. I watch Fox News like your mom watches reruns of Ghost Whisperer…hysterically and with a pudding cup. Nightly, Sean vacillates between inaccurate and essentially criminal. I get the Fair and Balanced joke and I know the Fox News people get it as well, but Hannity is on an island of crazy even for that goofy organization. He rode the terrorist fist bump, the president’s refusal to wear a flag pin, the birther absurdity and every other slap-ass lunatic wave until it grew to be out of vogue.  He is to news what Daniel Snyder is to organized sports…death on two legs. I’ve never seen Sean Hannity standing next to a human man but I assume he has the wingspan of a younger, sexier Dennis Kucinich. I think I can dodge those chubby little butterball arms and maybe sneak in a winner or two for America. My birthday gift to you. Enjoy. 

[wannafightme]

26. Bryant Gumbel I was watching tv last night sober and turned on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. Bryant Gumbel looks like an old woman now and has shrunken considerably, but I still recognized him in his oversized chair, stuffed way back and deep like the remote control you couldn’t find. He is surrounded by C student sports journalists that do most of the work now, asking the questions we wouldn’t (because we’re not 7th grade girls). Bryant now wears his bifocals at half-mast and that’s a cool move if you’re my grandma, reading the recipe for Mint Juleps and watching Family Feud simultaneously, but not if you’re just sitting on your bony ass talking to the camera about how baseball was better before the dh and putting us to sleep. I guess I want to square off and pop Gumbel in the ear because like Canadian hand-job Alex Trebek, he writes things down the entire time he’s on camera...in a scripted television show. He isn’t taking notes…he doesn’t even care what’s being said. He just gave up years ago on any kind of intelligent observations and now just tilts his head and makes weird, old lady faces.

[wannafightme]

25.  Steve (Stevie) Williams

The big number 25 spot goes to buck-toothed dullard, Stevie Williams, the mouth-breathing ex-caddie for Tiger Woods. After getting dropped like my credit score following divorce number one, he went on a shockingly well-covered chatting spree where he hinted at not being treated so well by Tiger. I’ve been told by golf aficionados that a good caddie makes a huge difference in a game…a stroke a day. I think golf aficionados are insane though, so I disregard what they say and how they dress.  A caddie is golf’s rock band drummer. He’s needed, but anyone with a few days practice can fill in. You carry the bag and tell the golfer where he is on the hole. That’s the entire job. A monkey could do that job, and play the cymbals for you while you wait for that horribly dressed wasp over there to chip in already. Stevie is also a thug on the course and pushed fans around, which doesn't necessarily mean he could push me around. Actually though, it probably does, and he looks pretty big as well, so I assume I lose this one and pretty badly. 

[wannafightme]

24. Jim Rome I am home sick today watching espn and was reminded that there still is a Jim Rome and that he’s on tv somehow. I honestly thought he was cancelled a long time ago. The good news for Jim is that he hasn’t aged a day. The bad news is he’s still that same grating douche-bag with a 1996 goatee and that weird, California/Montreal hybrid accent that bothered you before.  Jim is the original sports reporter cum carnival barker that demanded his callers “have a take” whatever that’s supposed to mean or get off the phone, allowing the next sad, desperate fat-ass to make his hushed dissertation on Philly’s cover 2 defense from the comfort of his mom’s basement. Everyone remembers the way this fractious little pygmy gained his notoriety. He tried unsuccessfully to intimidate a man twice his size by calling the man a girl over and over. I knew a kid who did the same thing in 5th grade and we threw him in a river stream  puddle and made him cry. Jim Rome was hit over the head with a table and went into hiding for a year. But he came back and he clearly won’t take a hint. I have no idea if I could knock some civility into Buttercup up there, but that unpleasant goatee and tough-guy glare doesn’t make you any tougher than me wearing my Captain America pajamas (I said I was home sick today).

[wannafightme]

23. Kanye West I’m not overly familiar with Kanye West, but I’ve seen the highlights and remember him slouching indignantly next to Mike Myers during the Hurricane Katrina benefit, when he made it all about him. That seems to be this performer’s m.o. as far as I can tell. He’s the l’il fella who jumped up at some awards show and yelled at that insect-looking country singer until Beyonce punched him in the ear.  I’ve heard some of his songs and they’re pretty funny, but he isn’t. That sad little clown face he pastes on at every possible photo op makes me want to turn that smack that frown upside down. Like many people I see nowadays, I have no idea how old this jackass is. A rough-looking 25 or a well-preserved 42?  Either way, I assume I get a black eye on this one unless he’s actually Tom Cruise short which would be great news for me and the L’il Executive department at Brooks Brothers.

[wannafightme]

22. Mel Gibson Jew-hatin’, gay-bashin’ wife-slugger  Mel Gibson just about scares the Irish outta me. Look at him up there. Half-loaded he still looks like a nightmare. The meaty little bastard’s got arms like Popeye and if he knows thinks suspects you’re a lousy Catholic, he’s coming in hot with those little fists. I enjoyed his breathy phone calls and hot tub requests as much as you did, but unlike you I would risk a broken neck against the angriest angel ever.  If he slipped, hit his head on my knee and went down, I would give the charity money to Jews for Jesus and the Gay something League in Mel’s name. They might make him an Honorary Jew and Gay in the same week. Omg! Yahtzee!

[wannafightme]

21. Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi Professional athletes are a mixed bag at best, really. As much as I like the Redskins, I wouldn’t let any of them near my family unless we were in an open, witness-saturated environment. Nothing against the old Red and Yellow, but pro athletes are brutes. Even the trainers and hangers-on are swine. There are more felonies by NFL players and staff in a year than there are in the entire state of Delaware*.  That being said, they are athletes. The two simpletons above are not athletes since stuffing hotdogs down your stretched-out gullet as you lubricate with backwash, win a ribbon and await the inevitable stream afternoon of diarrhea is probably not a sport. And to bewilder us further, Kobayashi is in the middle of a contract dispute. They have contracts. Well, they aren’t really middle-aged, but let’s be honest…if I time this one smartly I beat both these kids easily. And I assume there will be some untidiness after.

Note* I made these numbers up.

[wannafightme]

20. Gene Simmons I was in the KISS Army in 7th grade and thought Gene Simmons was scary and pretty cool. I played bass guitar and wanted to be him. Now I’m middle-aged and Gene Simmons is a creepy 65 year old cry-baby*, sex-fiend, with an awful tv show, a terrifying couple of children and wife partner whos once-beautiful face looks more like Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler than the Playboy bunny she was in the Reagan days.  Gene still assaults us with his mostly bare-chested, ghastly torso in concert and pretends to be the Romeo of yesteryear in public, humiliating his aging life-partner in the process.  

If  I could get past the cologne, I reckon I could knock our boy around pretty good before the fumes overtook me.

Note* Gene Simmons loves America and professes that love often and with tears.  That’s fine, I really like it here too. I also cry at the end of Saving Private Ryan like Dick Vermeil used to after a preseason win. 

[wannafightme]

I have nothing but pleasant thoughts about America and alcohol and fireworks. And a Rocky Marathon on AMC. So go punch a commie.

[wannafightme]

19. Michaele and Tareq Salahi  It’s my first couple fight! Remember these nightmarish imposters? The well-fed Tareq with his ever-present smirk and his emaciated, mentally-wobbly wife Michaele. They skipped sideways into the unguarded front door of the White House and haven’t left the spotlight since. After teasing us with the charade of maybe having tickets to the White House correspondent’s dinner, maybe sneaking in, they just left us for awhile only to return with reality TV projects, phony claims of notoriety and more face time with Regis, the View and whatever ratings deficient slop their agent could beg his way onto. Deep down, I feel bad for Tariq. You see the dead eyes deep in that melon. He couldn’t have seen this screeching harpy in his future when he married her. On the plus side, the mystifying couple runs ran a pretty well-known winery in Virginia for a long time. I have been to and was asked to leave Oasis Winery twice. It was, as I recall, a tolerable at best operation that catered to a typical Virginia bum wine drinker. I read it’s now gone the way of “The Real Housewives of DC”.  It’s sad when alcohol goes away, but the good news is, this is a very winnable fight for me. I imagine a first round KO of a despondent Tariq while Michaele faints southern-style, just barely able to text the Bravo channel before she hits the ground.