"Juiced" -- the real subtitle is "Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big" -- is embargoed until Monday. I'll read it then so you don't have to. The Daily News reports that it's a love letter to steroids, that Canseco thinks they should be legal and all ballplayers should use them, though they shouldn't abuse them.
Steroids or no, Canseco is one of the great wasted talents of all time, the "Clambake" Elvis of baseball. He's also an attention whore, and he thinks his career spiraled into the toilet because baseball blackballed him, not because he refused to work on his game once he became a star.
But I found Dave Stewart's comments about the revelation interesting. Stewart, the A's ace during Canseco's great early years in Oakland, told SI.com's Albert Chen, "I don't know Jose to be a liar, that's not one thing I'd call him."
Stewart made it clear he didn't like the idea of Canseco's book, which breaks the ballplayer's code that what happens in the clubhouse and on the road stays there. Stewart also said that while he didn't like Canseco as a teammate because of his lackadaisical approach to the game, he did like the slugger off the field. "He had an 'I don't give a damn' attitude. But that doesn't mean I can call him a liar. What he's saying, I can't deny it or verify it," Stewart said.
Probably no one can. "Juiced" appears to be a series of difficult-to-refute allegations. Canseco allegedly shooting up McGwire is a he said-he said kind of deal, for example. We may never know how much of what Canseco says is true and how much is just his latest desperate attempt to remain relevant and rich. And in the end "Juiced," filled with truth or lies, might end up telling us more about its author than about the game it purports to expose.
But Canseco was a major figure in baseball a decade and a half ago, and he's a central figure in the sad history of steroid abuse in the game. Whatever he has to say, it's worth taking a look, which we'll do next week.
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Those weak Super Bowl commercials [PERMALINK]
Salon has already run its official review of the Super Bowl ads, but I had to sit through them in case one of them became a national hot button, so gosh darnit, I'm going to tell you what I thought of them.
As you know, one of the spots did become a national hot button, and I have to say, we as a nation really have to get our act together on this hot button thing, because this is a pretty weak affair.
The Go Daddy ad featured Candice Michelle, a fitness model and actress, playing the part of Nikki Cappelli, presumably a fitness model and actress, testifying before a "censorship committee." The spaghetti strap of her tank top breaks as she talks about doing a commercial for the Web site, and the old men on the panel have conniptions.
The commercial ran midway through the first quarter and was supposed to appear again in the second half, but NFL suits grumbled to Fox that it was out of step with the toned-down tenor of this year's ad crop, and Fox pulled it. Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons, who has a blog linked on the site, was furious and has said he might sue Fox.
Parsons has said that the spot was intended as a parody of the reaction to Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction last year. Well, it was a dumb parody. It was also kind of a weak commercial. When it aired, before it became this week's version of Nicollette Sheridan's towel, I wrote this in my notes: "I like a curvy brunette in an overmatched top as much as the next fellow, but what was that all about?"
And by the way, all those press reports that the Go Daddy Girl was supposed to be testifying before a congressional committee are wrong. Parsons writes that the committee is supposed to be made up of network censors.
What's funny about the silly blue-nose reaction to the Go Daddy spot is that it wasn't the sexiest or most salacious ad of the day. That honor goes to a commercial for Tabasco hot sauce.
In that one, we ogle a young thing in a white bikini with Tabasco logos all over it as she sunbathes, slinks up the beach into a house, mixes some Tabasco into some dipping sauce with a shrimp, then checks herself out in a mirror. As she gives the camera what I can't think of a better term for than a come-hither look, she pulls the top aside just enough for us to see that her skin is burned only where the material had been.
Cute twist. I don't know if it was $2.4 million worth of cute, but it wasn't my money, and the point is it was a lot more R-rated than the goofy Go Daddy spot.
But I don't think I will ever understand the calculus of what gets culture warriors' noses out of joint and what doesn't.
As for the rest of the ads, I agree with Matt Taibbi, who reviewed them for Salon Monday, that it was a pretty weak crop. It's more fun when the ad people really stretch, really get creative, and make crazily awful ads than it is when they play it safe and make boringly awful ones.
But I liked a few.
I think my favorite spot was a house ad: Fox's "24" promo in which that Fox announcer voice guy -- was that really him? -- walks around a supermarket doing his dramatic promo voice, talking about Jack Bauer to uncomfortable-looking shoppers.
Some other decent ones:
The other mildly amusing spots:
Well, enough of that. Here are the ones I didn't like.
Previous column: Super predictions: The aftermath
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About the writer
King Kaufman is a senior writer for Salon. Visit his column archive.
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