GTFO while the GTFOing's good

There's a lot to be said for retiring with your legacy intact. Making your exit while people are still asking why you're leaving, not why you haven't left. Pearl Jam just might have managed it, pulling stumps (for that's effectively what they've done) on the back of Backspacer, their least ordinary release in several moons. U2 haven't. And as for musos, you can read for sportshumans (and the similarities betwixt were a theme one really meant to make more of in ITWPT, but never really got around to. Time enough if good enough.) L'Equipe notwithstanding, Lance Armstrong will probably get away from his ill-advised comeback with his seven-time-champion legacy largely preserved. Michael Schumacher probably won't. No matter what arm of the entertaining arts you're part of - be it the performing arts or bread and circuses - it's critical to remember to fuck off before you get told to.

*cough* Yer up, Punter.

That's not actually the point we wanted to get to this evening, however. The theme we're exploring in our very pretentious third person style (thanks v. much Michael Clarke) is - what happens when you manage to fuck your legacy while you're still a long, LONG way from retiring?

I managed to fuck my Legacy recently. Fucking shitbox.

Back to those who've taken the PR Sword of Damocles and used it to cut their own balls off. I'm here to suggest this evening that Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel is the LeBron James of Formula 1, and vice versa. Not because either are the most talented starlets in their chosen internationally-relevant sporting fields. More because they've managed to take all of the unerringly positive publicity slathered upon them, all of the good-guy puff pieces and cheerleader press coverage, and piss all over it such that somehow, through mechanics known only to the culpably insane, they've managed to make themselves Chief Villain #1 of their sport.

Vettel's PR issue is easy to ID. He's your typical snotty Gen Y brat with entitlement issues who hasn't had to wipe his own arse since he was a preschooler in go-karts, and wouldn't know struggling-for-a-break if it bit him on the arse and called him Deirdre. His misfortune, other than the fact he looks like a childrens TV host, is that his teammate is a leathery, cranky, nuggety former Canberra Raiders ballboy and freelance bastard called Mark Webber who has spent 10 years driving fucking gormless shitboxes in order to get a gig driving the fastest car in F1, and some precious little team managers' pet ain't gonna get between him and the most altitudinally advantageous position on the podium. So when the major sponsors' preference for the Krauty kid getting all the breaks results in Red Bull giving Webber wings, then taking them away and giving them to the work experience kid, it's not that surprising the whole thing goes to PR hell in a handbasket and the former darling of the press box (Google some of the cringing interviews about his Monty Python fetish etc etc etc) turns out to be a spoilt brat in need of a stellar arse-kicking. Despite the best frothings of the Red Bull marketing machine, most of F1's fanbase is now convinced (a) Wunderkind Vettel is being favoured by Red Bull (b) Vettel has asked to be favoured by Red Bull and (c) Vettel may actually NEED to be favoured by Red Bull in order to avoid having his arse kicked by a former Raiders ballboy. You see his problem. He's a little twat.

LeBron James, likewise, appears to have taken careful aim and blown both feet off. The NBA's poster child, unimbued by the usual PR shitfights associated with the sport (Kobe, it's generally accepted that asking first is polite), the hometown hero of the Cleveland team he plays for, managed to fuck up seven years of Nike-supported PR fluffery by holding a very public auction for his free-agent services, then starring in an hour-long live TV special to announce he was stiffing his hometown club and was fucking off to Miami to play for Pat Riley and the Heat. You could argue, and many have, that he was actually being brave and selfless, taking less money and less limelight to join Dwyane Wade (no he really does spell his fucking name like that) and something called a Chris Bosh (no idea) to form the NBA's scariest three-man superstar offence since the last one, but the prevailing sentiment in the endlessly self-referential and masterbatorial Seppo sportsmedia appears to be LBJ = CNT.

Anyway, there was some great incisive point to be made here, but it appears to have disappeared into the bottom of this bottle of Hunter Valley cab sauv. Never mind. The moral of the story is: good PR is much, much easier to piss away than your media advisors are telling you. Fire them, and stop being a fucking tool. Message ends.

The Doctor is OUT.