THE PROFESSOR'S CORNER FEATURING PROFESSOR OSWALD TINKLEBERRY

11/11/04 THE PROFESSOR'S CORNER


Special to Wagercom.com , Professor Oswald Tinkleberry will be providing us with his perspective ramblings and answering reader e-mail every week or two, so keep e-mailing him with questions, ideas, and/or comments. Questions can be about the NBA, Major League Baseball, Fantasy sports, or the great Taylor Rain-Janine Lindemuller debate. Just send your questions to info@wagercom.com

The Professor’s Corner

The poet Joe Wenderoth had this to say in a comment he submitted on a Wendy’s feedback card: I wanted to say to my register-person today that my penis was broad. “My dick is broad,” I would say, or “Do you understand how broad my cock is?” Maybe simply, “The breadth of my penis.” What’s the point? There are times when ambiguity is not a failure to tend to a specific concern, but rather, is an articulation of the limits of concern, without which we are nobody.

He’s right. Ambiguity is not a failure. The world is filled with ambiguity. Filled with uncertainty. Questions, unknowns, things that cannot be answered. This is why we live. It is also why we gamble.

Albert Einstein once said that, “God does not play dice with the universe.” Of course He doesn’t. God is omniscient and omnipotent. If He was playing craps, He would know exactly what would come up on each roll. And if He really needed a 7 or an 11, He could just roll one. That would be no fun at all.

We do not gamble because we are able to predict the outcome of events. We gamble precisely because we are unable predict the outcome of events. It is our urge to project order onto a disordered world. Sure, we gamble to make money. But it is more than that.

In a great Twilight Zone episode, a hoodlum died and was sent on to the next world. In that world, he could have all the girls he wanted. He could win at every game of cards. He could sink every pool ball on every shot. He could rob banks without fear of being caught. At first he believed this was heaven. By the end of the episode, he realized it was hell. For it is uncertainty and the threat of losing that make these activities fun.

The one exception to this rule seems to be pornography. In pornography, there is no suspense. You never wonder at the start of a scene if the nurse is going to give the patient a happy-ending examination or if the cable guy will fix the girl’s cable by pounding her young buttocks. But pornography is still fun.

I think that is because pornography is a tool. The same way a drill or a wet saw is a tool. The fun of power tools is not wondering whether a blade is going to flying of the wet saw and into a neighbor’s yard to decapitate a dog. The fun of power tools is that they are loud and dangerous and do what they are meant to do. The same is true of watching young girls lick at each other. And yet, pornography might be enhanced by some surprises or suspense. For instance, if a man could be genetically altered to fire green semen in money shots. The first time we saw this, it would come as a great surprise. Not only to us, but also to the girl. In subsequent scenes with this man, there would be less surprise for us, but there would be suspense. How will the girl react to being covered in green semen?

Hello. I am Professor Oswald Tinkleberry and you have just entered The Professor’s Corner. This is a forum dedicated to gambling and how it relates to our lives. Wagering in all its splendor....

Reader Questions:

I received the following question: Was Bobby Knight and Bill Parcells actually team mates in college at one time ? I was thinking i saw a team photo of them on the basketball team or football team together in college. thank You .....DOUG MYERS

Listen, Doug, we’re not playing trivial pursuit here. This isn’t stump the professor. Who really cares if they were teammates? But whatever.

Yes, there is substantial evidence to suggest that they were teammates. The real evidence comes from the fact that they are both morons. Bobby Knight is an angry, repressed homosexual who takes out his own latent aggressions on poor kids who are just trying to play some ball. The only thing interesting about Bobby Knight is when he will be brought up on charges of molestation. I’m front row center for that trial.

And “The Big Tuna” is a fat idiot. Period. He is a fat idiot. First of all, his coaching is crap. Yeah, he may win games. But he is no fun to watch. He claims to coach smashmouth, grinding, winning football. But could anything be more boring than watching O.J. Anderson stump his old bumpy legs two or three yards every down and look for a place to lie down and then do it all over again? His teams have no stars, no excitement.

Second of all, the whole buildup to whether he was going to coach again revealed just how pompous, self-involved and narcissistic he was. I remember seeing his fat self in a bad suit on a talk show leading up to the announcement of his return to the Girls. The talking head asked him if he had met with Jerry Jones. Playing evasive, he said that he had met with Jones but that he would not reveal the contents of their discussion. He tried to make the whole thing so intriguing, so strange. The only thing that has been shrouded in more mystery since then was the illness of Yasser Arafat. Is he sick? Is he alive? Does he have cancer or a flu or a coma? This is the way of dictators. They try to wrap their pathetic lives up in questions as a way to lord their power over people. But the outcome is the same. Both of their times are up. Arafat is dead. Tuna is coaching again. But he is a loser and he will lose.

So, Doug, these two men did play and shower together. And it was in the steamy confines of that shower that they learned how to be such schmucks.

On to other questions.

I know there are rumors circulating that Peyton Manning is gay. Is that true? -- Dan Ramone

Well Dan, I appreciate the question. And just this past weekend, I did a bit of research. I was in Mississippi for a wedding. And I happened to step outside with a young lady in a red dress who claimed to know both Eli and Peyton. She had gone to Ole Miss and said that she and Eli had been great friends. She also claimed that Eli desperately wanted her but that she refused to give it up to him. I asked her point blank, “Is Peyton Gay?” And her little southern features got all twitchy. “Why do y’all think that? Honestly, why outside the south do y’all think that?” We think that because we honestly believe there is ample evidence to suggest it.

When pressed, she pointed to the fact that he is married. I asked if she liked the wife. “Noooo. His wife’s a bitch. She won’t listen to nuthin’ from nobody. She’s a real bitch.” Now if being married to a bitch makes someone gay, then the population of this planet would diminish very quickly. So that in itself does not ice it.

I am not ready to libel Peyton in my opening column. He may like women or he make like boys. But I do know that the way he plays is as queer as it gets. The way he can’t run a play without stopping and looking up and barking at all his teammates is probably the most annoying thing about the NFL at present. That and TV timeouts. It makes you want to say, “Hey Peyton, shut the F up and play the game. This isn’t a press conference, it’s a football game.” So if I had to go with my guy, I would probably say yes.

Hey Professor, what do you think about this Peterson trial? Which way will it go? -- Concerned Citizen

Great question, CC. The oddsmakers have changed their tune recently. Shortly after testimony in the trial began in June, the official line was 3-to-1 in favor of acquittal. Now it's 2-to-3 against.

My basic feeling is that with the dismissal of juror number 5, things will change. He was a smart guy. MD, JD and well aware that evidence is what matters, not emotions. I’m not sure there was enough hard evidence to convict, but I do know where the emotions lie. Look at the fact that the guy gets dozens of love letters sent to his jail cell every day. Women love this guy. And I suspect, give the gender makeup of the jury, there’s no way the women will let the guy hang. They’re too attracted to him.

So my advice, CC, take Scott and take the points. It’s a good money play.

Prof T, you nervous about having a column? Putting your thoughts and words next to Jiggy and DJ and AC, that’s pretty scary. -- Jay

Well, Jay, you are right. There are some great handicappers on this site. Jiggy is a freakin’ genius. DJ, when he manipulates the lines in his favor, wins games. And Albert Cornelius Titticock esq. III is as depraved an anal-sex lover as I have ever met outside the walls of a prison. So, yes, I am a bit nervous. But I am also honored. This is a great site. And I can’t thank AC enough for the opportunity. I just want to do what I can to help the team.

The first time I went to a strip club I was nervous. All that flesh. In your face. This one angelic stripper looked down at me and in a voice sent from on high, she said to me, “It’s going to be OK. It’s gonna be fine.” Every time I have been nervous since then, I have looked back on her. And I have remembered her creamy thighs. Her unwilting breasts. Her fine-trimmed pudendum. Her expert polework that allowed her to defy gravity. And I think to myself. It’s going to be OK. It’s gonna be fine.

I look forward to answering your questions, to providing my thoughts, and to trying to shed some sliver of insight to this strange world.

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