Tiger's Boredom Factor

My name is Jouda Mann, and with the recent upheaval over Tiger getting his jollies away from home, I felt that I had to rebut Lynn’s "Mad Mom" rant, and give a little perspective of my own. She has been kind enough to lease me some space in which to tell my point of view on the whole thing.

So here’s how I think the whole Tiger Woods thing went down:


The Lead-Up . . . From Tiger's Point of View

"All I ever wanted in life was golf and money. That way, I could set my parents up however they wanted to be, get a hot model wife, and everything could be good in life. Now I have all the money that I could ever want, and golf balls and clubs haunt me in my sleep.

I MADE IT! I'M HERE!

What's that? I'm only 34, and it's a reasonable assumption that I'm going to live for at least another 40 years? OK, what to do in the meantime?

Sure, we can decorate the house. Sure, we can buy other houses. And decorate them, too. Jewelry, cars, boats, restaurants, more jewelry, bigger, more extravagant cars, more exclusive restaurants, and I still have how much money left? Hell, what else can we do?

Sure, we can travel. Oh, wait, when we get to Borneo, the local government (magistrate, mayor, tribal chief, whatever) wants a photo op. And I'll have to glad-hand wherever I go. And there's some endorsement thing my agent tells me I have to do. What a waste of time.

Why the hell can't I just enjoy a simple trip with my Hot Model Wife?

Fuck it. Let's just stay home. You want to go to Emeril's new restaurant? I know it's going to be just like all his other restaurants, but it's one that we've never been to. Fine, you stay here and put more dead flowers in a vase. I guess I'll just go to that function that my agent told me about."


The Dirty Deed

(At the function)

"Yeah, thanks for the drink, bartender guy who really wants to break into the business, but you’re just doing this so you can pay bills in the meantime. Oh, hey, whatever-your-name-is. Yeah, I’m still swinging the clubs. Yeah, I’m sure Pebble Beach is going to be a beast this year. It always is. Yeah, I’m gonna go over here now, because I’m tired of talking about this."

(Hours later)

"Holy shit, everyone says the same thing. They’re all rooting for me. Good for them, but it’s not like that’s all I can do. Hey, who’s that? She’s really hot! She’s looking over here. She’s looking at me. Oh shit, here she comes.

Yeah, Hot Model Chick, I’m Tiger Woods, but you knew that. And who are you? Nice dress. No, Hot Model Wife isn’t here tonight, just me. Yeah, you know I want to spend some time with you, but this is a public place, I can’t just have you hanging on my arm when I’m Tiger Woods, and everyone knows I’m married to Hot Model Wife. But what are you doing tomorrow? Awesome. I’ll give you a call."

(Later, at home)
"Hey, Hot Model Wife, how was your day? That’s nice. The function? You know how those things are; same people, glad-handing, all that same stuff. Baby, I have to call Agent. Nothing big, but I need to know what this thing is that he wants me to do tomorrow. He said something about Chicago, and it would only be a one day thing. I’ll probably leave tomorrow afternoon, and be back the day after. Yeah, I’ll be in bed in a little while. I love you, too. "

(On the phone)
"Hey Agent, how’s it going? Nothing on the schedule for the next day or so? Ok, I need you to do me a favor. I need you to get me a room. Nothing too fancy, nothing in-your-face, but nice and quiet, maybe a little bit out of the way. Here’s the thing: I need it to be in your name, or anyone else’s name other than mine. I don’t care who it is, it can be Mickey Mouse for all I care, as long as it’s not my name. Meet me tomorrow at the café on Some Street, and give me the key card. Ok, thanks."

(The next day, on the phone with Hot Model Chick)
"Hot Model Chick, can you meet me tonight at Out of the Way But Still Pretty Nice Hotel? Cool, I’ll see you then."


The Fallout

Well, we all know what the fallout is, don’t we? What? It turned out that Hot Model Chick was recording their conversations? And she played them back to prove it? Why, that means she’s just a golddigging whore! Now come on, is anyone surprised?

But all this doesn’t answer the big question: Why?

Humans get bored. Easily. All the time. It's why we do things like jump out of perfectly serviceable planes or off perfectly stable cliffs. It's why we strap waxed slats of plywood to our feet and go whizzing down snowy mountains at twice the speed of Oh My Fucking God. It is why we stuffed three perfectly healthy human beings who otherwise would have had a long, intelligent and fruitful life in any case into a tiny aluminum cone and sent them to a god-forsaken rock that's been winking at us from the sky for thousands of generations (well, that and propaganda, let's not forget that).

And yes, it's why some men occasionally fall down and accidentally slip their willies into other women. For that matter, it's also why some women occasionally fall down and allow other men's willies to accidentally get slipped inside them.

But, why another woman? Why would he go and let another woman get his nine iron, when he has Hot Model Wife there?

Men are simple creatures, in many ways. Low-hanging fruit is our game, for the most part. And when we think small, we tend to screw up big. I’d put money down that Tiger didn’t leave the house or hotel that night thinking “I’m gonna get some strange tonight." For the most part, men just aren’t that imaginative. But men are opportunists, and when the opportunity came up, he jumped at it, without thinking of the long-term consequences. If it had been coke, another party drug, or a small part in a murder, he just might have done the same thing. Anything to alleviate the boredom.

So there it is. Boredom, and opportunity, possibly combined with the fact that he never really cultivated and invested in a real relationship with his wife.But I have a more prescient question: Why does it matter?

It’s very plain to me that had he not had the skill to hit a small dense plastic ball farther than just about anyone else in the world, consistently and skillfully, he would not be The Tiger Woods. And were he not The Tiger Woods, he would not be followed around by people who make their living on photographing celebrities screwing up, and he never would have been in the paper. He would just be some guy that got into a domestic dispute when his wife found out about his extracurricular activities, and he would just be some guy that got into a fender-bender in his own front yard, warranting a passing entry in Fark, and then he would have been forgotten.

But since he is The Tiger Woods, we worship him. This despite the fact that he is famous for nothing but hitting a ball 300 yards and not having the sense to put it in his pocket after finding it, because at that point he had obviously won the game. And when I say worship him, I mean it, since there was actually a Church of Tiger Woods, that got disbanded after he turned out to be human.

Why are we Americans so fascinated by celebrities? I completely understand the desire to look at their lives as they play out in front of our eyes like a train wreck, but why does it deserve HOURS of air time?

Some of you might say “Well, Jouda, I want my child to be as successful as Celebrity of the Week."

I call bullshit.

You want your child to be happy. You want them to be able to enjoy the simple pleasures of sliding down a metal slide that burns their butt, and play in the dirt in a playground where they aren’t being photographed by people that are this close to being pedophiles. If you’re a good parent, you want them to be happy and healthy of their own merit, and in their own way. I would never want my child to be a Suri Cruise, or a Britney, or anything else that wasn’t exactly what she is.

The (still fairly recent) episode of Britney going ape-shit on a bevy of photographers should illustrate the fact that in many cases, you can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you can’t take the trailer park out of the girl. You wouldn’t worship the little brat down the street that opened her legs for some jackass and spat out two burdens of society. Why worship the same little brat when it turns out that she can gyrate on the stage like a stripper, and her singing voice sounds decent with the help of some production magic?

Just last night, I read that Tiger’s exploits have led to a whole slew of mistresses, at last count up to five of them. So let me get something straight: As a society, we’re going to take a person out of their own local bubble, give them their every heart’s desire, tell them that they’re great, and they can’t and have never messed up on anything, and follow them around in fascination like we’re producing "The Truman Show," and then we’re going to be feel let down when he takes advantage of our idiocy and adulation, and when it turns out that our Idol of the Month has clay feet?

Is this an excuse for his behavior? Absolutely not, nor is it an endorsement.

But are we really surprised?


Written by Jouda Mann