Last night at the Xbox twentieth-anniversary party for Madden NFL in Los Angeles, comedian and sports commentator Tom Arnold was thinking of New York. He told us that he’s thrilled that Bret Favre ended up on the Jets lineup. “For a guy to play 254 straight games and then want to still play, and then not be able to, that’s just not right,” he said, referring to Green Bay’s forced retirement of Favre. “That’s not American, it’s not even French.” We asked Arnold if he had any advice for the country boy moving to the big city, and he had some wise words:
• “If you live in New York, you have to have thick skin. Myself, I’ve got thick skin because I only read bad things about myself, and if there is something good, I will not read it, uh, because I don’t believe it.”
• “When they love you, when they ‘Derek Jeter’ you, there must be no better feeling in the whole world, I can only imagine. To be loved by the whole city of New York like I love Derek Jeter, personally, like, I am in love with that guy, he is the nicest human being, you cannot, say a bad thing about him, if you’ve ever met him, or whatever, you’d love to, and he’s also really good-looking.”
• “That’s why A-Rod has trouble. A-Rod’s like the second-best ever, but he’s playing on a team with the best ever and the best-looking and the nicest guy, who does not make a mistake.”
And most important:
• “Scores is not like it was in the early nineties. So if you try any of that crap there, you’ll get beat up and thrown out.”
Thanks, Tom! We’re sure Brett will take that to heart. —Soo Youn