| | With the flaplet over Allen Iverson's first tentative step toward Sinatra covers already dissipating into the ozone layer, it occurs to us that after years of trying, and hundreds of attempts, athletes and songs still don't mix.
|  | | Allen Iverson hasn't been able to avoid criticism about his rap album. |
Oh, you might bring up former Cincinnati Bengals tackle Mike Reid, the classically trained pianist, but let's be honest here -- got the CD?
No, the fact is that whether you be Shaquille O'Neal or ... er ... uhh ... not Shaquille O'Neal, singing is rather a more serious business than athletes seem to think it is. And when confronted by the opportunity to sing, they should consider an alternative.
Like listening to someone else do it.
Take, for example, the "Super Bowl Shuffle," the Chicago Bears' attempt (largely successful) to cash in on the team's Super Bowl run of 1985. Though it raised plenty of money for something or other, it was by any measure an artistic disaster of Weird Al Yankovic proportions. Even now, dogs pull their own ears off when the video is shown on shows like, "What? Steve Sabol again?"
Not that athletes wouldn't have figured out the crossover opportunities afforded them even if Jim McMahon and William Perry hadn't burst into faux song. The modern thrower, runner, jumper, blocker, puncher, rebounder, skater and miscellaneous jawbreaker is surrounded by friends, relatives, agents and other members of the sycophant class to broaden his horizons, to become an entertainment icon rather than a mere millionaire ball laborer.
So they think about singing. Worse, some of them actually sing. In a world that has given us Britney Spears, a professional singer whose repeated impersonations of a strangulated hernia have made her fabulously wealthy, one can only wonder what would enter the mind of an untrained amateur with a nasty crossover dribble when the urge comes to give the music world a try.
Because, and this is the telling point here, music is hard. A lot harder than making a contested 18-footer on the move.
Music is also not just coming up with a catchy tune. It's lyrics, lyrics, lyrics. Even songs like the current favorite, "I'd Give My Right Nut To Save Country Music," have a message.
Which brings us back to young Iverson. The lyrical content of his upcoming CD, to be released in February, has gotten him into what can only be called a raft of trouble with nearly everyone who isn't, well, Allen Iverson. Confronted by reporters, community activists and, for all we know, the editorial board of Rolling Stone, he issued an apology nobody really bought, and still intends to release the song to the general public after the Christmas rush.
This, of course, is madness. Doesn't he know that Christmas is the best time to put out new product?
Being First Amendment absolutists in this squalid little corner of the cyberworld, we do not pretend to understand the full depth and breadth of Iverson's muse, only that he has the right to do it. It's a bad idea, but if we banned every bad idea we came across, Al Gore and George W. Bush would be collecting carts in supermarket parking lots for $5.15 an hour.
As a matter of taste, we're choosing not to get what Iverson is buying. We read the lyrics, see John Rocker with a backbeat, and slap on a Skatalites CD just to make the headache go away. If somehow Iverson has touched a chord with his audience, well, we would tend to worry a lot more about the audience.
After all, he isn't that far from Eminem now, is he?
The more troubling aspect, though, is that once again, an athlete is singing and writing songs. True, Iverson isn't trying to go after the novelty market, but it's a novelty nonetheless. We're going to take a wild stab in the dark here (which might also be on the CD, we don't know), but we suspect that Iverson's attempt to branch out into the music biz will come and go without much more ado. I mean, once you've gone homophobic, misogynistic and violent, you're about as far out there as you can get.
I mean, what's going to do next? Cap on the Uzbeks?
The lesson to be learned here, again, is a simple one. Athletes can play, and athletes can act. Athletes can even go into the music business. That's beauty of wealth; with it comes freedom.
But for his next offering, maybe Allen can resist the temptation to be Sammy Cahn for the next generation. Maybe he could just produce.
I think everyone with ears as well as sensibilities could live with that.
Ray Ratto, a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. | |
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