Top 5 Half White Half Hispanics

                                                            

Unless you've been either living under a rock or using this blog as your only source of current events, you know there was a pretty big and pretty controversial trial recently. Trayvon Martin's killer, George Zimmerman walked off Scott free this past Saturday. A free man, able to play cops and robbers with real bullets wherever he very well pleases for the rest of his life, which won't be very long if you ask Victor Cruz. I'm not going to break down the specifics of this case, or what it means in the grand scheme of things or says about RACE IN AMERICA, or whatever. You've made up your mind already about what you think of the verdict and it's actually a very complex situation. Trayvon wasn't an angelic child whose joy for life was only exceeded by his love for Skittles and he wasn't a gang banging ne'er do well who if he wasn't casing GZ's gated community for open windows to jump in and wreak havoc he would have eventually like some believe. He also wasn't him. Zimmerman isn't history's greatest monster either. That's her. One thing is absolute though: George Zimmerman is half White and half Hispanic just like some of our writers here at PTU. And also just like these folks:

5) Tony Romo

 

 

While I originally thought Mark Sanchez was half White, it turns out that he's not at all. He's all Mexican. But Dallas Cowboys quarterback is indeed only half of a Mexican. He might try and hide his Latino side by only dating blond White girls and rarely if ever driving a car service, but it's there. Mexicans and White people can argue over which side is the one that tosses all those interceptions and chokes in the playoffs.

4) Bottle
                                                       

Who's Bottle? Well, he's many things to many people. A doting father, cheating husband, master sandwich maker and prolific writer of nearly none of your favorite articles on PTU. He does it all. He's also half Dominican.

3) Juan Epstein
                                                            

There's no rules to this shit. I can include a fictional character in this list if I want, and it's impossible to make a goofy list of part Hispanic people without including Buchanan High's resident Jewish and Puerto Rican class clown. He's also the inspiration for Hot 97's morning show title featuring Jewish hip hop head Peter Rosenberg and Rican former Funk master Flex lackey Cipha Sounds. Not as funny a mixed race combination as Tony Soprano's nickname for Meadow's half black half Jewish boyfriend "Jamal Ginsberg" but a worthy addition to this list.

2) Charlie Sheen
                                                         

If we had made this list two years ago he would have been number one in a landslide. It seems like a century ago that this dude hijacked pop culture for about a month. It was a lot like Linsanity in that way, except instead of a mild mannered Christian Chinese point guard that captured the nation's attention it was an aging actor addicted to hookers and blow. Off the strength of Major League and Hot Shots alone he deserves placement on here, and we'll try and forget about 2 and a Half Men and Anger Management.

1) Jessica Alba
                                                           

Look at her, she has to be number one on any list.

Say Uncle!

In this time of political strife, wide-spread financial turmoil and cataclysmic global change, it's important that we here at PTU stay on top of the beating pulse of what's current and topical. So, of course I'm going to return from a week long hiatus with what's on everyone's mind:

A list of the best uncles of all time!

Being an uncle is awesome. Whether you're a real uncle to one of your brother or sister's kids or your just such a close family friend you become an unofficial uncle, or you're just some creepy guy who hangs out at the mall with silly bands for all your "nieces and nephews", being an uncle is so much better than being an actual parent. You get the satisfaction of being a parent without all that messy responsibility and upbringing stuff. Just show up every other weekend with a new Xbox game and you're the coolest uncle of all time. Who made the definitive PTU lis of the top uncles of all time? If you think we've run out of ideas for worthy blog posts, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Uncle Leo (see above)
Jerry's annoying uncle who always seemed to turn up at the wrong time was the classic nebbishy old Jew who provided Seinfeld with grief whenever he came on screen. Sadly, the actor who played Leo died a few years ago.

Uncle Junior

Tony's uncle Corrado was probably my favorite character on The Sopranos for the first 3 seasons, he had that great old timey gangster dialogue (My nephew is a cunt hair away from being the boss of all of New Jersey and I am that cunt hair) that was delivered perfectly by veteran actor and New Yorker Dominic Chianese (Johnny Ola from Godfather 2, and he looked old back then). Unfortunately, his character eventually became a demented old bat, shuffling around in his slippers and generally being a sad, old man before eventually shooting Tony during one particularly demented episode. Realistic, I suppose, but a waste of a great character and uncle.


Uncle Buck

The late John Candy is another in the long line of overweight comedians who met an untimely death. While not as universally revered as John Belushi or even Chris Farley, the big guy had his fair share of classics. This might not be one of them, but I still laugh at the comment that my friend's brother once made during the GIANT PANCAKE eating sequence : "This wasn't even part of the script. They just filmed Candy eating breakfast". Looking back at that movie poster, and Jesus Christ that is scary! That looks like the original version of Funny Games. What's in that suitcase, Buck? Macaulay Culkin was in this movie too, just a year before he conquered the world with Home Alone.

Uncle Ralph McDaniels


Tri State area hip hop heads will remember Ralph McDaniels (better known as Uncle Ralph) as the host of late night (and sometimes afternoon) cable-access staple Video Music Box. Back when videos actually meant something to people, and not everyone had cable tv, (you could get it on channel 25 without cable), the Music Box was the go to place for the latest in rap videos, grainy live performances at the Tunnel and interviews with your favorite (and not so favorite) rappity rap rappers. Uncle Ralph has put it down on Hot 97 and various other NY radio stations for years as well. Middle finger to 106 and Park.

Hater J's Uncle Frank (photo not available)
You guys out there probably don't know him, but you probably wish you did. This guy is awesome. Although he's well past 40 (maybe 50) he still comes out to any big or not so big occasion and kicks it with the youngins. Beer pong, funnels, car bombs: you name it, and Uncle Frank will kick your ass in it. He also has a pool at his house and eats little blog reading punks like you for breakfast. That and fiber rich corn muffins. Salute!

Uncle Murda


If you like violent, misogynistic, police hating, godless rap (and who doesn't?), then OH HENRY, do we have the guy for you. Devoid of any redeeming value or social commentary, Brooklyn rapper Uncle Murda is about as self explanatory as that name. He raps about murder (as you can see by the tag line to that mixtape up there: Head shots for everyone!). You know how every family has that one uncle, who's kind of strange and maybe drinks too much Bud Lights at Christmas time and he likes to murder people who snitch to the police on him and run trains on project bitches? Yeah, he's like that guy. He's since changed his name to the slightly more marketable Uncle M but he'll always be Murda in our hearts.

Uncle Phil


Back before Will Smith was a Scientology leaning, Oscar winning, child exploiting douche bag he was a rapper turned actor. For much of the 90s you could see Will in all sorts of wacky colors and classic perp shoes as Will Smith, delinquent nephew to big, bougie Phillip Banks on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. After his mom got scared after one little fight (kind of an overreaction if you ask me) Will went to live with his auntie and uncle in Bel Air where he lived with hot valley girl Hillary, also hot Tatyana Ali, and another Uncle, uncle Tom, Carlton and his Polo sweaters. Uncle Phil was the man though, he might have moved out the hood with Aunt Viv but he was still gangsta, just ask DJ Jazzy Jeff, who was tossed out of the mansion almost every episode. Apparently, the actor who played the big judge is gay and confined to a wheelchair now.

Honorable mentions to those goofy uncles on Full House (Uncle Joey was such a dick), Uncle Fester and Peter Parker's Uncle Ben, who had to die in order for us to have Spiderman to enjoy.

I was gone for a while but I'm back, so stay tuned for more hard hitting and informative posts like this one.

Worst Tattoos Ever

The tattoo is a funny thing. What was once considered either a sign of toughness or gang affiliation is now as common as a pair of blue jeans. But, for something so permanent, many people make some awful decisions on what to put on their body for life (or at least until very painful surgery). With fat blowhard Rex Ryan once again making the papers for something other than saying something stupid (although he did that too), we thought it was a good time to take a look at some of the most misguided decisions ever made in a tattoo parlor that didn't involve scoring crystal meth from an undercover agent posing as a tattoo artist.


The Game's Butterfly tat:

There are many things that are annoying about Compton rapper and one-time G-unit member turned G-unit enemy, The Game: He can't rap two lines without name-dropping another rapper or Dr. Dre, he's a proud member of the Bloods and never shuts up about it, he was on lame 90s dating show Change of Heart, and on and on. Possibly, the cheesiest thing he ever did, though, was tattoo a butterfly ON HIS FACE. Yeah, butterfly tattoos aren't gangsta, my mother could tell you that. To make matters worse, instead of owning up to it, and saying "screw it, I'm so tough I will walk around with a 15 year old girl's first ankle tattoo on my cheek, and what?", he almost immediately had it changed to a red 5 point star (a Blood symbol) and eventually the Dodgers logo. Nice try, asshole.

Richard Jefferson's RJ tattoo:

If you've ever heard the Spurs small forward speak, you know he's about as corny as Uncle Joey from Full House, but in case you haven't, just take a look at his left shoulder. Cut it out. It's bad enough that homeboy was so unimaginative, he just threw his own initials on his body, but it looks like he copied it off of a 5th grader's trapper keeper, complete with the basketball in the R and the super lame "explosion" lines around the letters. R.J. comes across as pillow soft (he was raised by missionaries) but the tattoo that looks like the cover to a Judy Blume novel only confirms things.

Gucci Mane's Ice Cream Cone face tat (see above):
Gucci ain't no sucker. He's in and out of jail more often than DMX and did time for murdering one of Young Jeezy's goons over a song. I guess with street cred like that, you can tattoo whatever the hell you want on yourself, but that ice cream cone could make even the most hardened southern thug seem as soft as Fudgie the Whale. Gucci's whole shtick involves cold stuff (his catchprase is BRRRRRR) so it kind of makes sense in a warped sort of way, in I guess the same way that this cover makes sense. GUCCI!

Deshawn Stevenson's Abe Lincoln:

When I first saw mediocre at best Mavs shooting guard DeShawn Stevenson's throat tattoo I thought it was mediocre at best. I figured he must hail from a rough city named Lincoln or his zip code had a 5 in it, or he's a civil war historian. Naaah, he just likes Lincoln because he freed the slaves. Black civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X are so played out, after all. Never mind Abe probably gave two shits about black people, and probably secretly told monkey jokes behind their back (this is almost definitely true). I just can't wait until LeBron gets that John Wilkes Booth on his neck.

Kobe's Branding:

Less a tattoo than a branding on his arm from his put upon wife (that whole rape thing) Kobe's tattoo isn't really all that bad stylistically, but the meaning behind it is as bad as it gets. After that Colorado incident, Kobe pulled out all the stops to get his wife not to leave with half his fortune. He bought her a Lamborghini, which he paid extra to be automatic, he cried at press conferences and he got this big doofy tat on his arm of his wife's name with a crown. Yeah, you can tell most whipped guys by the fact that they're carrying their wife's purse or they're at a John Mayer concert with her, but nothing beats permanent ink on your arm of her name with a crown atop it to really stress the fact that your balls have been permanently put in a jar and placed on your woman's mantle. Damn you, Colorado hotel manager for being so enticing!

Tom Arnold's Roseanne:

Imagine sleeping with Roseanne Barr in the late 80s. Her big, sweaty rolls of fat rubbed up against you, the imprint from the stretch waist band on her acid wash mom jeans still visible, her nasally screech drilling a hole in your brain. Now, imagine you wanted to remember this occasion for eternity, and tattoo that fat face on your chest. Needless to say, Tom Arnold has admitted to a massive drug problem in the late 80s.

Mike Tyson's Tribal face tattoo:

Mike is a trendsetter. Before face tattoos were all the rage among rappers and basketball players, they were strictly the domain of the worst of society; crank addicts and gang bangers, you didn't want to run into someone with a face tattoo in broad daylight, never mind a dark alley somewhere. Mike's tattoo has opened the flood gates for awful tats, it's so iconic it's even been parodied in shitty movies that Mike made cameo appearances in and was basically the cherry on top of the shit show sundae that Tyson has become.

Top 5 Rap Groups of All Time

With the release of Michael Rappaport's much hyped A Tribe Called Quest documentary "Beats, Rhymes and Life", it got us to thinking about the greatest rap groups of all time. Admittedly, this is a tough task, being that one person's definition of "greatest" varies depending on age, race or personal taste in rap music. Speaking for myself, I'm more of a fan of the mid to late '90s New York thug rap sound, but I can't deny that groups like Tribe or De La Soul or any of the other so-called Native Tongues rappers (while I find mostly boring) made a huge impact on hip-hop. Same goes for pioneering old guys like the Cold Crush Bros. or Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. I'm not likely to sit through The Message any time soon, but they'd have to make any top 10 list of rap groups off their legacies alone.

So, in order to dead any confusion, the criteria for this top 5 list is as follows: longevity, individual talents, at least 2 classic albums as a group and impact on hip hop. This would eliminate at least one of my favorite groups (The L.O.X.) since they've been better individually and their impact has been pretty minimal outside of the tri-state, and unfortunately the group who I've seen more often live than any other performer The Beatnuts, since most people only know one song by them. Also left off the list would be the militant Public Enemy due to their only being one talented rapper in the group. Who made the cut then?

5) Beastie Boys

Say what you want about the three Jews, but they've been around for FOREVER and still release relevant albums, which is more than you can say about any group on the original Def Jam roster or really any rapper from the 80s period (LL hasn't had an album that anyone paid attention to since he was dissing Canibus). Most of their longevity is due to the fact that they've changed their musical styles more than Madonna, but still retain their core appeal: that is, three mediocre at best rhymers yelling out nonsense over funky beats. They've gone from goofy, party animal, ironic frat boy types rapping over ACDC samples and 808 drums to funky beat digging Political activists, to Hip hop culture reviving old men with tons of famous, funny cool friends.

4) Mobb Deep

The only thing keeping the two diminutive Queensbridge dudes from being higher on this list is the fact that Prodigy has royally SUCKED for the past 8 or so years, but off the strength of their first 3 albums alone, they've had more of an impact than most rap groups who were in the game for 25 years. Alongside that group pictured at the top of the post, Mobb Deep revolutionized the rap sound in the mid 90s. Havoc's beats sound like a cold New York winter more than any other musical act (in my opinion) and Prodigy's voice and style paved the way for the generation of no frills thug rap that dominated East Coast rap for the next decade.

3) Run DMC

While losing a point or 2 for a lack of longevity (their albums are fun to listen to still, but definitely sound dated) the Hollis, Queens trio did more than enough in their 7 or 8 years of dominance to warrant a place among rap group royalty (or at least this silly list). Besides popularizing a couple of fashion trends, Run DMC were really the first cross-over rap stars. Alongside the number 5 group on this list, they embarked on a world-wide stadium tour that was a first for the young genre that wasn't really taken very seriously at the time. They also are responsible for introducing the sometimes great, often annoying, rap-rock sub genre of music with their rock record sampling hits and their duet and very literal video with Aerosmith.

2) NWA

The sum of their parts was even better than the group as a whole (at least as far as classic albums go), but perhaps no other group has been as influential introducing the gangsta rap that would be in the DNA of every rapper that followed, for better or worse. Even the tissue softest, singing pop rapper today says "bitch" and "nigga" and other once scary to white people words like it's second nature, and they can thank NWA for that. While most groups have a couple weak links weighing them down, even NWA's worst rapper, MC Ren could rap circles around some of the other chumps who take up space in lesser rap groups. Besides Ren, the other members are practically a Mt. Rushmore of West Coast Gangsta rap. Dr. Dre is probably the most universally loved rap producer alive, Eazy E is somewhat of a legend in death, and Ice Cube (though better known as an actor now) was the baddest mother to rock a microphone in the early 90s. Prompting federal investigations, nation wide protest, and numerous parodies and copy cats, NWA are the most influential rap group of all time and second only to.....

1) Wu-Tang Clan

I'll admit, I'm a bit biased. Bottle can tell you, I once told someone I only listen to Wu-Tang in answer to what type of music I listen to. That may be a little creepy, but it's not too far-fetched that somebody could only listen to CD's that had that W on them and be satisfied. Other groups had a sound, but not like Wu-Tang. When you heard a Wu affiliated album, you knew exactly that that's what you were listening to: movie samples (in particular karate flicks), chopped up soul samples, heavy bass, and somewhat indecipherable lyrics. Even if they were some times hard to understand, they spit enough straight forward stuff to influence a generation of biters (shark ni$%as to hear Ghostface tell it). Every rapper in the 9 (sometimes 10) man crew could rap (even last man on the bench Cappadonna had a couple classic verses), and for a 4 or 5 year period, every album released through the Wu-Tang imprint was a success, commercially and critically. The Wu made dark, weird records hugely profitable. This was a time before the so-called "bling" or shiny suit era (which although it is constantly ridiculed and bad-mouthed, I think still turned out some great music) when scary sounding, karate movie sampling, sometimes chorusless songs could dominate radio. Most of these guys are still churning out albums, but sound like the old guy who still buys the newest Jordans every week and uses words like "swagger". We'll always have the classics though.

The Worst Blown Calls of All Time

Pity the lowly referee. There's no other person in a position of authority who gets routinely shitted on to his face by those he is paid to police (unless you're a police officer in Brownsville). Not only do they have to deal with drunken, sometimes violent, fans who think every call is either a conspiracy against their team or just incompetence, they also have to put up with spoiled millionaires calling them stupid or worse (not to mention the millions of degenerate gamblers who's kid's college funds and knee caps are at stake). It's easy for us to second guess bad calls that are replayed in super slow mo on a 50 inch screen and magnified 1000 times, while these guys have half a second to make a call that could influence the lives of several thousand bookies and neglected children. And then there's calls like the ones that make up our next list (sorry Blacky), that are so obvious to anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the sport that we immediately want to believe everything that scumbag Tim Donaghy says.

5) Hue Hollins calls the foul on Pippen; Game 5, Knicks vs. Bulls Eastern Conference Semifinals 1994:

With Jordan riding a minor league bus around the deep south flailing at curveballs, the Knicks and their fans believed that this would be the year that they would finally beat the big, bad Bulls who had tortured a young Bagels year after year like the sadistic assholes they were (I'm not bitter though). Without this extremely questionable call, though, the Knicks might have had the agonizing embarrassment of losing to the Jordanless bulls and Hue Hollins name wouldn't forever be linked to Hubert Davis. Thank you, Hue, wherever you are.

4) Jeffrey Maier interferes with Derek Jeter's "Home Run"; Yankees vs Orioles ALCS Game 1 1996

Little Jeff Maier was just another 11 year old prick, rooting for the Yankees and probably playing with pogs in the lunchroom, when he was suddenly rocketed to stardom after interfering with Jesse Tarasco on what should have been a catch at the warning track in Game 1 of the ALCS. Lost in all the hub bub over this kid saving the Yankees season (I'm surprised they didn't give him a spot on a float in the parade or at least do a Michael Kay Centerstage with him) was the historically awful missed call by the umps. The O's would go on to lose and never win a playoff series again, and Baltimore is now the second shittiest place on the planet next to Detroit (at least that's what I've learned from watching the Wire).

3) Galarraga's Perfect game that wasn't

This one wasn't a playoff game and really wasn't a significant game at all in the grand scheme of things, but it might be the most remembered blown call of all time. This wasn't one of those instances where the call was huge but the party that was screwed could make themselves feel better by saying "that wasn't what lost the game for us, a play here or a play there blah blah". Nope, this one call was the sole reason that the virtual unknown Galarraga didn't join the exclusive list of Perfect Game pitchers and instead will probably make the hall of fame out of pity. And anyone who was sitting in the upper deck or watched the game on a black and white tv could tell you the runner was out by at least a half a step. Jim Joyce was standing 5 feet from the play (not a play in the 6th or 7th inning that broke up the no-no, but the FINAL OUT OF THE GAME). They gave Galarraga a Mustang or something and Joyce cried all over the field and everyone seems to have forgiven the guy (America loves and hates a man who cries), but this still remains as one of the biggest blown calls in history.

2) The entire game 6 Kings vs. Lakers 2002-

The Lakers dynasty was well on its way to being derailed before it could even be called such a thing. That is until the Lakers flexed their muscle and showed everyone why they would be the first team to 3 peat since Michael's Bulls: horribly one sided and biased officiating. This is the smoking gun in disgraced degenerate gambler Tim Donaghy's case against the league and watching it, it's hard not to believe that there really is a purple and gold conspiracy at work. I distinctly remember a play where Kobe almost took Mike Bibby's head off with an elbow (what would have been Bryant's 5th foul) and instead ended up with two free throws for the Lakers. Sometimes you're not paranoid, the officials really are out to screw you. Unfortunately for the Kings, this game was really the end of the line for them: they lost game 7 at home in overtime thanks to big play by Shaq and Peja Stojakovic coming up about 4 feet wide on an open 3 pointer. Today, Chris Webber is a mostly annoying TV analyst, Mike Bibby is a mostly useless Miami point guard, and Vlade Divac is best known for 3 things: smoking in the locker room, flopping like a woman and being traded on draft day for the guy on the other side of this officiating catastrophe. To paraphrase that homer Kings play-by-play guy: If you don't like biased officiating, you don't like NBA basketball.

1) Russia vs. the U.S. 1972 Olympics

The stakes don't get much higher than a Cold War era basketball contest between the United States and Russia. While perplexing non-calls or questionable decisions by Hue Hollins or other NBA refs might hint at the possibility of funny business, there's no if ands or nyets about this one. The fix is in. Never has a sporting event more infuriated a populace, or has a lay up made an entire nation want to do a Slim Pickens on a country like this farce of a basketball game. The Russians just couldn't let Uncle Sam beat them in a sport that we invented, so they did the next best thing and "coerced" the refs to give the Ruskies the game. Since then, of course, U.S. and Russian relations have warmed up, but don't tell my grandfather there's a dirty commie owning the team that's soon to call Brooklyn it's home. I wonder if Russia has any sappy movies about this game starring the Russian equivalent of Kurt Russell giving emotional speeches. Probably not.

Top 5 Premature Nicknames

It's no secret that the golden age of the nickname is far, far behind us. Back in the day, when Hater J was but a glimmer of hate in his father's eye, most rosters were full of classic nicknames like "High Pockets" and "Scooter". Now, we just call a guy by his first initial and first 3 letters of his surname and that's your new nickname. Boringggg. Nicknames aren't always fun and games though. In the wrong hands, they can curse an otherwise average athlete with high expectations and leave them open for ridicule from wiseacre bloggers with too much time on their hands as well as fans all over the world for years after their modest careers have gone by the wayside. What were the five most egregiously premature athlete nicknames? LIST TIME!

5) Gerald Wilkens AKA "The Jordan Stopper"

Poor Gerald Wilkens. Not only did he have to play ball in the shadow of an older brother who had a very appropriate nickname, but he was also labelled with an oxymoronic nickname himself, if ever there was one. First of all, nobody could stop Jordan in the early '90s and if anyone could come close, it wasn't Nique's little brother who was a decent finisher (he represented the Knicks in the dunk contest one season) and an above average defender but this is "Come Fly with Me" era Michael we're talking about here. Predictably, his Airness made a mockery of whatever Knick was thrown his way, and Gerald was the other guy in the poster for two different teams. He played Frederic Weis to Michael's other buzzer beater in Cleveland (not as popular as the Ehlo shot but still noteworthy) and repeatedly got shitted on by Mike as a Knick. From Gerald's Wiki page: "He was even labeled as "the Jordan stopper," although he had trouble guarding Jordan". Seems like an odd choice for a nickname unless they were being sarcastic.

4)Ruben Patterson AKA "The Kobe Stopper"

Maybe worse than the Jordan stopper label since the Portland forward and accused rapist gave himself this name before repeatedly getting bitch slapped by the then number 8. This may be the greatest match up between two players accused of sexual assault in sports history (unless LT comes out of retirement and sacks Roethlisberger), and we all know who got the best of the matchups on the basketball court as well as criminal court. Portland never played the Lakers during the Jail blazer era of which Ruben was the poster boy, and they pretty much owned LA at the Rose Garden for the past decade, but those 2 shots above are enough to pretty much refute any sort of "stopper" claims. The lesson learned by these first 2 guys is never nickname yourself a stopper of anyone, especially if they're these two guys.

3)Harold Miner aka "Baby Jordan"

Harold Miner was hyped as the next great one, a high flying show stopper who could throw it down with the best of them earning him the nickname (along with his bald head) of Baby Jordan. That's a lot of pressure to live up to, and as we all know, premature Jordan comparisons are nothing new. They have been wrongfully attached to Grant Hill, Jerry Stackhouse, Vince Carter, Kobe Bryant (maybe the closest), LeBron James and a few others, and those guys aren't even close, so you can imagine how a offensively limited tiny guard from USC fared. His one shining moment was a dunk contest win, but he soon disappeared from the league never to be heard from again aside from strange rumors and the occasional "worst nickname" blog post.

2)LeBron James AKA "King James"

Bron has been getting tons of grief from every corner of the Earth. People who I don't think ever watched basketball did so in order to hate on the man. Babe Ruth might not be revolutionary but King James changed the hating game. I know people who never watched basketball, let alone care enough to actively root against a player or team, who this season watched every minute of the Finals just to hate. In that way, I guess LeBron is the king of something: being hated. And the nickname is a big part of it. It's just a play on the Biblical King James name that made some sense as he rose to stardom from high school, but now is just another annoying aspect of his personality that we all love to hate. It's not good to be the King when you haven't earned anything.

1) John Franklin "Home Run" Baker

Imagine being Philadelphia Athletics and Yankees third baseman John Franklin Baker, nicknamed Home Run because of your long ball prowess. You think your hot stuff, you even led the league in dingers 4 straight seasons with out of this world numbers. You hit the ball out of the park (not off the wall or onto the grass like the rest of the weakling contemporary players), you actually hit the ball over the fence not once or twice but 9 times and one season 11 times. Then a guy like Babe Ruth comes along and thanks to the timing of his career and the changing games and ball parks (according to some) your nickname now seems like a cruel joke. It's like saying Slam Dunk Charles Oakley or Jared "The Marksman" Jeffries. Sucks to be you, Home Run Baker.

You Magnificent Bastards:The Greatest Illegitimate Children Ever

The big, shocking news of the week is Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife are splitting up , reportedly over his shenanigans with the help. Even more shocking than the fact that Arnie was a man-whore (his appetite for tang is well documented) is the fact that he fathered a child with said maid. Any time someone knocks up their mistress it's shocking, but when it's the action star former California governor it's doubly shocking, and the fact that juice-head even had working sperm is triply shocking.

But the mini-terminator shouldn't be too worried about his future as the most famous bastard child in recent memory. Plenty of children born out of wedlock have gone onto great things through out history. Here's a small handful in no particular order:

Macauley Culkin


I guess his life didn't turn out all that great (he eventually divorced his parents) but he did gain fame at a very early age and recently dated Mila Kunis. It's ironic that his most famous role was as a kid abandoned by his parents. Anyway,


Oprah Winfrey


The big O's horrible, abuse filled childhood is well known at this point. She was born to a crack addict mother who beat her with broomsticks and so on. She's now the second most influential person in the world next to Lady Gaga according to someone who is much, much less rich than Oprah.

Shaquille O'Neal


Probably not too much of a shocker here, but the Diesel didn't know his biological pops growing up. That army dude who showed up to all the early Finals games was actually his step father. I imagine he took a lot of his anger towards his drug addict father out on Todd Maccullough.

Leonardo DaVinci


You may know him, as most historians do, as the inspiration for a ninja turtle, but Leo's life didn't start out so rosey. Born illegitimately to a notary, DaVinci went on to be the most famous of Renaissance painters. I'm sure stuff like this went down all the time in 16th century Italy (those old guidos were some freaks), but Davinci is an inspiration nonetheless.

Bo Jackson:

Doesn't belong alongside Davinci or some of the other greats you say? Bo was a freakish athlete who was able to excel at two professional sports and spawned some of the greatest sneakers any perp could hope to own. Bo didn't know his father, but Bo knows everything else.