Tony Peyser Comes Clean -- Tony Peyser
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Fri, 12/21/2007 - 10:46am.
Tony Peyser
The following is a transcript of a press conference that took place yesterday:
WOLF BLITZER: Tony, you were the only poet singled out in George Mitchell's report. Are the rumors true?
TP: Wolf, I wish I could say they weren't but, yes, I am an American poet and, yes ... I have been taking steroids for some time now.
KATIE COURIC: How long?
TP: Katie, my first newspaper poem was "What I Did In The 1970s." When I wrote that for the L.A. Times in 1979, I was higher than Rush Limbaugh would be in the 1990s.
BILL O'REILLY: Ten years later, you wrote "What I Did In The 1980s." Seemed like left-wing commie stuff to me. You musta been high.
TP: Bill, it was a Henry Hyde-esque "youthful indiscretion" but, you're right, that verse for the L.A. Times was not written in a sober state of mind. Although some of the steroids I took were technically legal then.
KEITH OLBERMANN: You mean untraceable.
TP: Whatever.
KEITH OLBERMANN: What made you do it?
TP: Keith, you know what happens when athletes get older: they lose a step here and there, the reflexes start to go and ... well, the rhymes weren't coming as easily. Some days it took me hours to come up with a title. A hard-to-crack sonnet could throw me off my game for weeks. For the record, I never used crack, except just now as part of a colorful expression.
KEITH OLBERMANN: Shouldn't every one of your poems have an asterisk next to it?
TP: I'm glad you brought that up.
KEITH OLBERMANN: What's your answer?
TP: I'm not going to answer that, I'm just glad you brought that up.
KEITH OLBERMANN: That makes no sense.
TP: Neither does all your years covering sports.
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Tony, was it the pressure to write political poems weekly starting in 1999 that drove you to illegal iambic substances on a regular basis?
TP: You're trying to make me cry? Don't even try! Why? Cause that's a lie! (Pause) I ... I'm ... I'm so sorry. That's the "rhyme rage" talking. Yes, Brian, I did create those weekly verses for five years from a dark, intoxicated place. But it was when I came to BuzzFlash in 2004 that my addiction took control of my life.
CHARLES GIBSON: When did you first start getting injections from other poets?
TP: Charlie, let me clear up this issue. I approached Calvin Trillin whose comic political poems I had long admired in The Nation. He refused to help me because he didn't use steroids but I eventually met Billy Collins' pool boy and he was able to provide me with all the unsanctioned narcotics I needed.
CHARLES GIBSON: Billy Collins has a pool boy?
TP: Of course not, Charlie, but I was so juiced up that I thought he did.
ANDERSON COOPER: Getting back to the "rhyme rage," what about the incident with Maya Angelou?
TP: Anderson, she got in my face at that poetry slam and I got into hers.
ANDERSON COOPER: C'mon, Tony, Miss Angelou is 80 years old.
TP: Not until next April. And lemme tell you something: that caged bird still can punch.
KEITH OLBERMANN: A follow-up question: you won a school poetry competition in 1964 when you were nine. Shouldn't you return the award?
TP: I was not using drugs at that age.
KEITH OLBERMANN: Then why did your lawyer, William Bennett, recently have all of your pediatric medical records sealed?
TP: That's, uh, just a ... coincidence.
LARRY KING: Tony, after the Angelou incident, you went into rehab at Promises in Malibu. When did you know you hit rock bottom?
TP: Larry, it was when I was trying to detox and teach Britney Spears how to write short Japanese verse at the same time. Every time I said "haiku," Britney said, "You're welcome." Even worse was when I sincerely told Lindsay Lohan that I thought she gave a nuanced, underrated performance in "Herbie Full Loaded."
ALL THE REPORTERS GASP.
TP: But that's all behind me now.
HELEN THOMAS: Do you really think you can stay clear of steroids with an election year coming up? How can you possibly write another 250 poems in 2008 that are short, funny, and insightful with all that pressure?
TP: Helen, I'm just living one day and one verse at a time.
Technorati Tags: Tony Peyser steroids 2008 race cheating
WOLF BLITZER: Tony, you were the only poet singled out in George Mitchell's report. Are the rumors true?
TP: Wolf, I wish I could say they weren't but, yes, I am an American poet and, yes ... I have been taking steroids for some time now.
KATIE COURIC: How long?
TP: Katie, my first newspaper poem was "What I Did In The 1970s." When I wrote that for the L.A. Times in 1979, I was higher than Rush Limbaugh would be in the 1990s.
BILL O'REILLY: Ten years later, you wrote "What I Did In The 1980s." Seemed like left-wing commie stuff to me. You musta been high.
TP: Bill, it was a Henry Hyde-esque "youthful indiscretion" but, you're right, that verse for the L.A. Times was not written in a sober state of mind. Although some of the steroids I took were technically legal then.
KEITH OLBERMANN: You mean untraceable.
TP: Whatever.
KEITH OLBERMANN: What made you do it?
TP: Keith, you know what happens when athletes get older: they lose a step here and there, the reflexes start to go and ... well, the rhymes weren't coming as easily. Some days it took me hours to come up with a title. A hard-to-crack sonnet could throw me off my game for weeks. For the record, I never used crack, except just now as part of a colorful expression.
KEITH OLBERMANN: Shouldn't every one of your poems have an asterisk next to it?
TP: I'm glad you brought that up.
KEITH OLBERMANN: What's your answer?
TP: I'm not going to answer that, I'm just glad you brought that up.
KEITH OLBERMANN: That makes no sense.
TP: Neither does all your years covering sports.
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Tony, was it the pressure to write political poems weekly starting in 1999 that drove you to illegal iambic substances on a regular basis?
TP: You're trying to make me cry? Don't even try! Why? Cause that's a lie! (Pause) I ... I'm ... I'm so sorry. That's the "rhyme rage" talking. Yes, Brian, I did create those weekly verses for five years from a dark, intoxicated place. But it was when I came to BuzzFlash in 2004 that my addiction took control of my life.
CHARLES GIBSON: When did you first start getting injections from other poets?
TP: Charlie, let me clear up this issue. I approached Calvin Trillin whose comic political poems I had long admired in The Nation. He refused to help me because he didn't use steroids but I eventually met Billy Collins' pool boy and he was able to provide me with all the unsanctioned narcotics I needed.
CHARLES GIBSON: Billy Collins has a pool boy?
TP: Of course not, Charlie, but I was so juiced up that I thought he did.
ANDERSON COOPER: Getting back to the "rhyme rage," what about the incident with Maya Angelou?
TP: Anderson, she got in my face at that poetry slam and I got into hers.
ANDERSON COOPER: C'mon, Tony, Miss Angelou is 80 years old.
TP: Not until next April. And lemme tell you something: that caged bird still can punch.
KEITH OLBERMANN: A follow-up question: you won a school poetry competition in 1964 when you were nine. Shouldn't you return the award?
TP: I was not using drugs at that age.
KEITH OLBERMANN: Then why did your lawyer, William Bennett, recently have all of your pediatric medical records sealed?
TP: That's, uh, just a ... coincidence.
LARRY KING: Tony, after the Angelou incident, you went into rehab at Promises in Malibu. When did you know you hit rock bottom?
TP: Larry, it was when I was trying to detox and teach Britney Spears how to write short Japanese verse at the same time. Every time I said "haiku," Britney said, "You're welcome." Even worse was when I sincerely told Lindsay Lohan that I thought she gave a nuanced, underrated performance in "Herbie Full Loaded."
ALL THE REPORTERS GASP.
TP: But that's all behind me now.
HELEN THOMAS: Do you really think you can stay clear of steroids with an election year coming up? How can you possibly write another 250 poems in 2008 that are short, funny, and insightful with all that pressure?
TP: Helen, I'm just living one day and one verse at a time.
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