Making a List, Checking It Twice

Naughty: “The Office.” “Lost.” “Once.” Judd Apatow. Smartest Man in Hollywood, maybe. Funniest? Not according to the Golden Globes. None of the aforementioned was nominated.

Nice: Madonna. Newest inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. She. Does. Not. Belong. Even Santa makes mistakes.

Naughty: Roger Clemens. The biggest name named in the Mitchell Report on alleged steroid abuse in baseball. I say alleged because I adore The Rocket. Maybe he had his stool pigeon of a trainer shoot him up with various banned substances from 1998 to 2001 or maybe his stool pigeon of a trainer is a liar, liar, pants on fire. What else you got for evidence? Those side-by-side photos of a whippet-thin Clemens in his rookie season and the St. Bernard he now resembles? A) Everyone’s metabolism slows after 30 and B) when you’ve got a multi-million-dollar contract, you can skip the ramen noodles and go straight to steak. Does it sound as though me doth protest too much? Am I defending the indefensible? Perhaps. But I’m not ready to toss out a man’s entire career (including the awesome Mike Piazza bat throwing incident) based on a single error in judgment. Oh my god, I’m like those mothers of serial killer sons. Not my Roger. He was always such a nice boy.