Peter King

= Can you guess who is Peter King in this comic book?

The Wikipedia definies Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) as "an all-pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), the need for excessive admiration or adulation, and a distinct lack of empathy." For those who watch professional basketball, you might recognize these characteristics in announcer Bill Walton. For those living in Boston, a clear victim of this devastating disease is the The CHB (Curly Haired Bastard), Dan Shaughnessy. But one sufferer of NPD has been given a free pass for way too long, coasting on the heels of a sub-par weekly column that has kept him rich and fat (well, a little slimmer in recent years). It's time for us to stand up and finally tell the emperor he has no clothes: Peter King, your column sucks.

One wonders why Peter King gets a proverbial free pass? The only thing I can come up with is that Monday sucks. The weekend being over sucks, traffic sucks, television sucks when it isn't football season. Hence, I've actually heard people say they look forward to Monday Morning Quarterback, Peter King's column. If you work in an office with an internet connection, and want to take a break from putting together another useless PowerPoint presentation, I guess I can see the appeal. But you could read Salon.com or the New York Times Online or the clock tick down on your bid for a Mary Kate and Ashley wall clock...anything but MMQB.

Five Things I Think I Think:

1. I think Peter King's excessive mentioning of his daughter Mary Beth King and her Montclair field hockey team within MMQB was nauseating. King definitely jumped the shark when he started interviewing her teammates to fill space in the column. If I wanted to read what Montclair High School kids think of Justin Timberlake, I'd read their student paper. If I wanted to know who was their field hockey player of the week...wait a second, that would never happen. Thank God his oldest daughter, Laura, didn't play sports at Tufts.

2. I think if I wanted to watch an ad for Starbucks, I would watch it on Google Video. It seems King can't go a week without mentioning something Starbucks-related. Note to King: the core audience at SI.com would probably rather read about Daddy Warbucks than Starbucks.

3. I think Peter King's man crush on Tom Brady is ridiculously obvious. He can point to Brady's win percentage as a reason to like the guy...but let's face it, quotations like "Readers of this column know what I think of Tom Brady" and "Tom Brady is as cool as a man can be" make you wonder if King also might like Mike Brady. My early pick for SI Sportsman of the Year 2006: Tom Brady. Please, Rick Reilly, explain to King what happened to Tara Reid after Brady dumped her...

4. I think Tuesday Morning Quarterback writer, Gregg Easterbrook, is considerably more talented than King. Easterbrook just gets the shaft because his article comes out on a less hated day. Witness the recent cancellation of Tom Cavanagh's series, Love Monkey. Perhaps if CBS would have put the show in its Monday lineup, it wouldn't have suffered from NHL-esque ratings.

5. I think it's amusing that Peter King has a namesake in the Republican party, a representative from New York named Peter A. King. Congressman Pete King's best quote to date occurred immediately after the 2004 election, when he said "It is all over but the counting...and we'll take care of the counting." Of course, SI's Peter King also has a number of great quotes, my favorite being "Who is Tony Shalhoub, and what is Monk?" The answer to the first question is a great actor on a USA Network series, and the answer to the second question is what I wish you would become, so you would take a vow of silence.

So as long as you continue to monopolize Mondays, a few suggestions: no more Mary Beth references, no mentions of Starbucks and take down the Tom Brady poster in your bedroom.