Pants on the Ground, William Hung, and March Madness Pools

OK.  So, I am not a huge basketball fan.  It’s not that I have anything against the sport per se.  I just don’t watch it all that frequently.  And by “all that frequently” I mean . . . ever.  Perhaps it’s because I am so short, and basketball players are generally abnormally tall.  My shrink (if I had one, which I don’t . .  yet) would probably say that I have “Tall Envy” or something of that sort  . . .

Nevertheless, back when I was in college, a bunch of the guys in my dorm were running a March Madness pool, and I decided that I wanted to partake.  (Knowing me, I probably only did it because I had a crush on one of the guys coordinating the pool.)  Whatever my reasons, I put in my five dollars and filled out a bracket.  I didn’t put much thought into it, really.  Basically, I chose the teams whose uniforms I liked best to win in each round.  (Uniforms containing any shade of purple in them received special preference, of course.)

After I turned in my bracket, I more or less forgot all about it, to be honest.  So you can imagine my surprise when, a few weeks later, one of the guys from my floor stops by my dorm room and hands me a five-dollar bill.   Now, for any of you who have ever been in college, you know that when someone hands you money, whatever the reason, it’s kind of a big deal.  Naturally, I was intrigued.

When I asked this guy  (let’s call him Slim, shall we?) what I had done to deserve his generosity,  “Slim” replies, a bit callously, I might add, “You scored the lowest in the whole dorm on your March Madness Bracket.  Because you sucked the worst, we all felt bad for you and decided to give you your money back.”

“Cool,” I replied.  Then I pocketed the money. 

Keeping that in mind, perhaps you might enjoy this fun YouTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT1wdjlbyFc

Pretty awesome, right?  Tell me your toes weren’t tapping by the end of that clip, and I’ll call you a liar!  So, what do my stinko March Madness prediction skills have to do with “Pants on the Ground?”

Here’s the thing.  63-year old civil rights activist Larry Pratt, the singer/songwriter of  the aforementioned song, didn’t make it to Hollywood when he auditioned for American Idol this past week in Atlanta.  Aside from exceeding the shows’ age limit of 28, Pratt, lets face it, doesn’t have the greatest singing voice.  I mean the song is catchy, not to mention funny as all heck, but Kelly Clarkson, this guy certainly is NOT!

And yet, I am willing to bet that the name Larry Pratt will be on the public’s lips long after many of the significantly more talented A.I.  Hollywood hopefuls have long vanished from our collective consciousness.  If you don’t believe me, I have two words for you “William.  Hung.”

After all, you have to admit, in terms of stretching his fifteen minutes of fame long past their natural “Sell By Date,” Larry Pratt has already gotten off to a pretty great start.  It has been less than a week, and the guy has already: been a guest performer on The View, had his song performed by Jimmy Fallon as well as the entire Minnesota Vikings football team, after they beat the Dallas Cowboys (Countless other “Pants on the Ground” cover songs  are already sweeping their way across radio, television and the net) and has over 500,000 Facebook fans.

I was the worst player in my March Madness Pool, and I got five dollars as a reward.  Players in that pool ranging from a very respectable 4th place, through second-to-last got squat . . . lost money, actually. 

Except for those lucky enough to make the Top Twelve, most American Idol contestants get absolutely nothing for their talent and trouble but a goldish piece of paper to hang on their walls.  William Hung and Larry Pratt . . . got the world.

The moral of the story is:  sometimes it pays to suck.

Now who’s “looking like a fool with their pants on the ground?”