Real-world pulp is everywhere you turn these days. And since our mission here at Pulp Intl. includes not just showing you wonderful pulp art from days gone by, but charting modern day pulp incidents wherever and whenever they occur, here’s a little roundup of the previous week, a seven day span that included the shooting death of another boxer, the arrest of more than forty people—including rabbis and Democratic officials—for fraud, and the clandestine peephole recording of sportscaster Erin Andrews, who later admitted the blurry nude steaming up the internet with a hotcurler and a fresh bikini wax was indeed her.
Vernon Forrest’s murder brings to three the number of ex-athletes killed in July. Steve McNair ran afoul of a disturbed lover, and Arturo Gatti is thought by Brazilian police to have gotten similar treatment from his wife, but Vernon Forrest seems to have been killed for money. The former welterweight and light middleweight champ reportedly was at a gas station putting air in the tires of his car when a man approached and asked for money. Nine of ten people probably would have freaked in that situation, but what did a former boxing champ known as the Viper have to fear? So he took out his wallet—which the man promptly snatched and bolted with. Forrest gave chase, and at some point exchanged gunfire with the robber. Either during that exchange, or a few moment later as he fled back toward his car, he was shot multiple times—and the world lost yet another great athlete who had provided so many thrilling memories.
We move to the subject of Erin Andrews, the popular ESPN sportscaster who was illicitly recorded nude in a hotel room. Yes, we analyzed the dirty little .avi file, and we have to wonder why she didn’t just deny being the figure in the recording. To our discerning eyes it does appear to be her, but there is no way to be 100% sure. If she had denied it, the official record on the story would have read “hoax,” and that would have made anyone claiming otherwise a crackpot by definition. Don’t get us wrong—we’re not among those who think the whole thing was a publicity stunt. We’re pretty sure we know those when we see them. Besides, just watching Andrews fret over her body and do those weird semi-squats is enough to convince us she truly thought she was unobserved. But having been recorded in such poor quality, why not deny it? Perhaps she’s simply honest—to a fault.
For a good example of people whose fault is dishonesty, observe the New Jersey 44 (™ Pulp Intl.). Several of those snared have already professed total innocence, though it’s hard to manage an effective denial when one of your crowd has already admitted trafficking in human kidneys for more than ten years. We think it’s safe to say the dominoes in Jersey will soon begin to tumble, and when they do, the line of crooks outside the Newark prosecutor’s office waiting to turn state’s evidence will look like the Late Show queue outside the Ed Sullivan Theater. The whole situation is ripe for ridicule, but frankly, we’ve exhausted ourselves making fun of Rod Blagojevich, Silvio Berlusconi, and Sarah Palin, so let’s just put the New Jersey 44™ in the UFC octagon and see who survives. The blood drenched winner receives a full pardon, a lifetime supply of Oxy-Clean, and dibs on all the salvageable organs.
