If you want to, you apparently can talk to Larry Holmes for the low low price of $19.95. Hollywood is Calling offers up “celebrity” birthday phone calls and amongst its formidable roster of “C” list celebrities you can get Larry Holmes, Lazer from American Gladiators, Lou Ferrigno, and a few WWE ex-stars like The Ragin’ Cajun , Raven, and Rick Drasin to call you and wish you a live Happy Birthday greeting.

How Jose Canseco, the entire rest of the cast of American Gladiators, Jeff George, Ryan Leaf, Mike Tyson, OJ Simpson, Peyton Manning (does he ever miss out on a money making opportunity?), Oliver McCall, Joe Theisman, or any other disgraced, out of work, or money whoring athlete hasn’t jumped all over this is beyond me. Surely they all have the time to make a little extra cash for whatever stardom (or infamy) they have left.

I even know for a fact that these are well worth the money for the unexpected birthday phone call. Trapper John once hooked me up with an unforgettable and nearly unintelligible birthday phone call from Rerun of What’s Happening! fame…that was one of the greatest and most hilarious birthday surprises I have ever had.

Amazingly, they didn’t even pay me for this bit of minor publicity or for attempting to help them fill their rosters with more athletes. I just really want to one day get Peyton Manning to call up someone and just yell “CUT! THAT! MEAT! Oh and happy birthday”. I’d pay 20 bucks for that.

Charles Oakley was interviewed by The Star recently and, as he is apt to do, Oak dropped a few interesting nuggets. Never at a shortage of words, Oakley waxed about his career, the FBI NBA gambling probe, and books. Here’s the highlights from the article with my thoughts in italics:

On his life currently:
“I’m doing the rock star life right now…Travelling, chilling, hangin’ out.”
Not a bad way to live life man…oh to have the life of an ex NBA player for just one day…ok maybe a week…maybe a month.

On a possible comeback:
“I’m not coming back cheap.” “If you read this article and you think you can get me cheap, there’s another thought coming.”
Who wouldn’t want to pay top dollar for a 43 year old bruiser who hasn’t played in 3 years? ERNIE GRUNFELD GET ON THE PHONE QUICK! I think the old man should just stick to washing cars

On Ton Donaghy:
“If the guy was fixing games, he was wrong. If players are getting money to win games, lose games, they’re wrong.”
Way to take a bold stance on this one Oak.

On Coaching in the NBA:
“There’s a lot of less talent for smarts in the game, but a lot of talent for athletic ability.”
Wha??

On his upcoming book:
“I’m not pulling any punches, true stories. It ain’t one of those Charles Barkley fake books, it’s a Charles Oakley book, it’s not an O.J. book, it’s an Oakley book.”
This sounds more like a Jose Canseco book to me and I will of course be reading it. Let me stick it on my Amazon shopping cart right now!

Good article, a little odd in that it says that Oakley is 6’3 when he’s clearly 6’9, but it does provide a great chance to show off some of the better Oakley quotables from the past:

“If it ain’t broke, don’t break it.”
“[Entourages] are like contracts. Everybody’s got one. Some are just bigger than others.”
“It was like the police trying to stop a shootout: You gotta have your gun out. Don’t go out there with your hands down.”
“Nowadays, these young guys, anytime you say something, you’re picking on them. Back in the day, half of these guys wouldn’t get in the league…The league is just like daycare.”
“Oh well, that’s basketball. It used to be basketball. I don’t know what it is now.”

From The Star

Irina Malandina’s only getting $300 million instead of $5 billion in her divorce settlement with Roman Abramovich. He may be worth $18 billion but that’s still a huge chunk to give up in a divorce settlement. The Deuce isn’t saying he should go all OJ on her but if she went out Chappaquiddick/Princess Di-style or had a bit of the polonium glow about her, we wouldn’t be surprised.

The Fiver came up with a great plan to get back at Roman. She should take the settlement money and buy herself a soccer team. Then she should use the money to buy John Terry and Frank Lampard as well as entice Jose Mourinho.

This would be inexcusable. At the very least, he should sucker her back to Russia where he’s a Siberian governor and do her like Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Then again he could be like Michael Strahan and agree to a settlement that he has no intention of paying. So you gotta think about Michael’s situation. $15.3 million up front, $18,000 a month, another man drivin’ his car, fuckin’ his wife, and a house he’s still payin’ a mortgage on. Oh, he’s definitely breaking before Roman.