Stop reading and start talking.

Tiger Woods spoke today.

The world stopped for fifteen minutes while Tiger s-l-o-w-l-y read a prepared speech about his "transgressions." It's interesting to me whenever a celebrity has to read a speech that supposedly says what is in his heart. It would have been much more fascinating if he had spoken extemporaneously rather than looking down every 5 seconds to read the next phrase. At one point, he stopped mid-sentence, looked down and finished it with 2 words.

What I don't understand is why he feels that he owes us an apology. He owes his wife, family, friends and associates an apology, but me? Not so much. I don't particularly care what people do in their personal lives, as long as it doesn't affect me.

At one point he told us that what happens between himself and Elin is a matter for him and his wife and nobody else. Meanwhile, he was apologizing and explaining his misplaced sexual behavior to strangers. Either it's public fodder or it isn't.

If he wants to run around and cheat on his wife, I don't have to like him. I can stop caring about what he does on the golf course because it has no bearing on my life whatsoever if he wins 50 Masters tournaments. Fortunately for me, I never liked him to begin with, so his faults, flaws and other such human characteristics were apparent to me before. I've always thought he was a spoiled brat whose petulant behavior is a sign that he thinks he's above the rest of us somehow. It's nice to be right once in a while.

If you are shallow enough that you would drive a Buick or drink Gatorade because Tiger or any celebrity endorses it, you have bigger problems than Tiger getting his prick wet. The trouble with advertising is that it is tied into celebrities, events, places and things to the point that they leave themselves open to bad press when something goes wrong. It isn't enough to say "Gatorade tastes great," they have to have Tiger Woods tell us that it tastes great, because as a group, consumers believe what celebrities say. That becomes a problem when Tiger (or any celebrity) fouls up. Then, Gatorade might not taste as great if people think Tiger likes it. That's how advertisers think. That is a sad commentary on us as a race of people. Are we so incapable of making rational decisions on products that we need a celebrity to tell us to like it? Apparently, yes.

Tiger Woods stood in front of a camera today and apologized to us because he is a selfish jerk who thinks about himself first and others in some distant place beyond second or third. That's a pretty human way to think and act. He doesn't owe me or any stranger or fan an apology.

Now, it's time to laugh at something...