WTF Just Happened!?
Channeling Sidney Zion Again
In the spirit of my old friend, Sid Zion….
OK. Even I know who Taylor Swift is. I’m a Sinatra guy — I like a melody you can hum and a lyric you can remember — but I don’t live under a rock, I love a great lady singer, and as my old friend Joe Franklin used to say, you cannot knock what is current.
So I gave her a shot. Twenty minutes of her songs. That’s twenty minutes I’ll regret on my deathbed. Can’t tell them apart? I can’t even remember them. I got one piece of advice for you Swifties: love him or leave him, and if you leave him, move on. She’s making money off your misery. Sweet deal for her. For you, not so much.
Now this Kelce fellow — he’s pretty good for a football player who isn’t a Giant, I’ll admit. And I’m not one of those mugs who thinks a man’s a bum because he’s Mr. Taylor Swift. Times change. And when your dame is that big, there’s no shame in being Mr. So‑and‑So. That’s show business. Joe DiMaggio should have known that before he married Marilyn who needs no last name.
But there’s a line. And this palooka crossed it, so I’m going to address him personally now.
Look: I don’t hold anything sacred but there is a place for observing the niceties. You hold weddings in churches, synagogues, and City Halls. Not sports arenas. And not this arena.
You let her drag you into another athlete’s cathedral. That’s not even bush league. That’s ignominy. That’s betrayal. You don’t need a Yale Law degree to know it, but I’ve got one, so let me spell it out: the show profaned Madison Square Garden.
The Knicks just won the championship after 53 years, did you hear? And you helped turn the Knicks’ holy ground into a backdrop for your sweetheart’s publicity machine. You don’t walk into Jalen Brunson’s house like you’re renting a banquet hall in Jersey and expect people not to notice.
Pardon me for getting graphic, but Kelce — you handed your lady your balls on a silver platter. The wedding’s always about the dame, sure. But a man’s got to perform his role with dignity. If he doesn’t, the whole show sinks.
So go ahead. Enjoy the honeymoon. Line up the surrogate. Milk the infertility storyline next year. But understand this: in New York, we’ve seen one stooge after another. They’re all the same. Different faces, same deal. I never thought there could be a one of a kind stooge, but you proved me wrong. You stood next to the biggest pop star in the world like a head waiter at a bar mitzvah in Bensonhurst, his nuts on a Tiffany platter, smiling while his feet swell in his Florsheims.
Congratulations. Many happy returns of the day. You’ll never outlive this.