You’ve got to be kidding me, right? The San Francisco 49ers fired Steve Mariucci so they could hire Dennis Erickson? This is like replacing Britney Spears with Tori Spelling.

Dennis Erickson? The scumbag who coached at Miami and really cranked up the cheating (only to run away just before the NCAA came in to slap the ‘Canes and put them on probation)? The guy who has been a part of more field sobriety tests than Otis from The Andy Griffith Show? The guy who went to Seattle and inherited the Offensive Rookie of the Year and turned him into the shell of a man that Rick Mirer is now?

Whatever Terry Donahue and Bill Walsh thought they were doing in San Francisco is now officially a mystery. The only thing that hiring Dennis Erickson accomplished is that it leaves the very real possibility that in mid-October somebody in the Niners organization will be able to say–and mean it–“Damn, we should have hired Greg Blache.”

Speaking of frustrating decisions, what are we going to do with Real World: Las Vegas’ Frank?

What a complete and utter tool. For quite a few weeks there, Frank was the “normal” houseguest. We had Steven denying his sexuality. Alton denying an Aussie threesome. Trishelle denying her eating disorder and sex addiction. Irulan denying her love for Alton. Arissa denying herself the amount of sleep that would rid her of that Samsonite under her eyes, and Brynn denying us more chances to watch her go-go dance. Frank was the only one we could count on.

This Amish dork would stand by and watch in horror as his roommates did the dumbest things in the world. But last night. In his own way, Frank topped them all.

Remember Emily (from waaaaay back–like two weeks ago), Frank’s Amish girlfriend who rode the iron bird from Pennsylvania to Las Vegas just to see him? She was cute (albeit in a “we need an orthodontist, stat!” kind of way) and normal. She likes Frank. Frank likes her. Awwwwww.

Frank opened last night’s show with, “Emily is probably the smartest girl I’ve ever met.”

This is a nice sentiment. But when you consider Frank’s current Mensa member female friends (Trishelle, Brynn, Arissa and Irulan) you probably couldnt’ get a decent bowling score if you added their IQs together.

We then met Aric, a pretentious, chubby, horribly goateed wonk from Stuff Magazine (like Maxim only without the readership) and some woman from the magazine. They want the Real World gang to go around the Palms Casino and interview the pretty women who work there. Man, they always get the crappy jobs, huh? Party planners. Dancing on snow skis. Talking to hot women. Awful.

Steven asks one of the Palms hotties where she lost her virginity. His follow up question was (not making this up) “Were you still in your cheerleading outfit?” Where’s Orbitz.com, I really need to go to Vegas right now.

He and Trishelle interviewed a girl from Iowa and Trishelle said, “Would you sleep with Steven?” I’m not sure what her answer included the words, ‘Sure’, ‘why not’ and ‘almost as cute as a sheep.’

Frank needs to fly to LA for a business school interview at USC, so he takes Steven and Trishelle with him. Trishelle wanted to go originally, but now she’s rather stay at the casino and interview the hotties. Sure. She passes the baton to Arissa who is pretending to sleep on the couch. But we know that Arissa never sleeps.

Frank, Trishelle and Steven are staying at Frank’s “aunt’s” house. It’s like the bachelor pad from heaven. It’s gated, it’s got a three-car garage. It’s got a cool swimming pool with a jacuzzi at one end. These guys really rough it, don’t they?

That night they act like tourists. Steven is immediately drawn to the sidewalk in front of Mann’s Chinese Theater and notes that Eddie Murphy has big hands. It just seems perfect that Steven, a latent homosexual if we’ve ever seen one would immediately find Eddie Murphy. I think we can all picture the day next year when we read that Real World star Steven has been picked up soliciting a transvestite hooker, can’t we? Sure we can.

Our next shot is of Trishelle on a mechanical bull.
Then, of Frank, apparently dry humping the same bull.

Frank then says, “I honestly think that when Trishelle is drunk, she’s definitely trying to seduce me.”

Frank, if you get her one more drink you’ll find her “under” the mechanical bull. She’d seduce a barstool if she thought it would buy her drinks and tear her clothes off.

They head back to Frank’s aunt’s house and Steven is passed out on the kitchen counter. Trishelle can hardly walk, but she decides she wants to do some drunken night swimming.

I am now picturing the opening scene of Sunset Boulevard. But alas, she does not end up dead, floating face down in the pool.

Instead she lies helplessly on the bed trying to get Frank to help her get her suit on. We then see her in her suit walking into the pool.

Frank says, “Maybe I should carpe diem and hook up with Trishelle.”

Maybe you should remember that Trishelle is a skank who already admitted to humping most of the Southern Miss baseball team. Maybe you should remember that her and Steven have had unprotected sex like 1,000 times in the last three months. Maybe you should remember that to Steven, AC/DC is not just an Aussie ’80s metal band. Maybe you should try and be the only Real World member to leave with a shred of dignity.

(Maybe you should pay off the camera guys to go to bed so you can re-enact that pool scene between Kyle Maclaclan and Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls.)

Frank goes to his USC interview the next day and leaves Steven and Trishelle on their own. When they all meet at his aunt’s house he tells them he got accepted. Score another one for the admissions folks at Southern Cal! Hey, they got Carson Palmer eligible, and that took some doing, too.

They fly back to Vegas.

They hit the clubs. Frank is still wearing his dress shirt.

Trishelle starts grinding on Frank, so he kisses her. She runs to the safety of the houseguests and says, “I just kissed Frank!” Irulan pretends to care and says, “With tongue?” Trishelle couldn’t be more of a goober right now and she says, “Uh huh! Actually he kissed me.”

Frank heads for upstairs, but first stops to grab Trishelle and kiss her again. Hopefully, Frank is also going back upstairs to take a cold shower and join the priesthood.

We then see Frank acting like a 15 year old boy. He grabs the phone and dials all but the last digit in Emily’s phone number, then hangs up. Finally he gets up the courage to call her and confesses that he kissed Trishelle. Emily’s pretty cool about it and says she doesn’t like it, but she can live with it.

Trishelle says, “I think Frank is being a little melodramatic about the whole Emily thing.”

Trishelle, relationship expert. The woman who uttered the immortal words, “I’ve only been here two days and I’ve already hooked up with two of my roommates.” The woman who cried for weeks because Steven told her loved her one night and then broke up with her. The woman who suffered a one day battle with bulimia and had to take a home pregnancy test on national TV. If TNT’s slogan is “We know drama” MTV’s has to be “We know ridiculous and pointless melodrama.”

We then see some of the photo shoots for Stuff Magazine’s Girls of the Palms shoot. Oh my god, the Maloofs have some absolute honeys working for them! Wow. Memo to MTV, “less Real World morons, more employee shots!”

We see Frank on the phone with Emily again. He says, “What are you thinking right now.” We don’t hear Emily’s answer, but it’s not a huge leap to think it was, “That you’re a complete dumbass.”

Frank walks in to talk to Irulan and Steven and says, “I just broke up with Emily.”
Irulan says, “Why?” In a tone that was more, “Why, were you actually dating her?” or “Why, you think you can ever do better?” than “Why? That’s so sad!”

And so we have the complete evolution of Frank, (or de-evolution) from normal guy on a bad reality show to typical, everyday loser, moron on a reality show. MTV might as well give him a dozen different Princeton Football shirts and start calling him Kyle.

The Osbournes was a hoot. From Ozzy accidentally dying his fingers brown and then saying, “They like like I’ve been scratching my ass too much,” to Sharon finding an empty condom wrapper in Jack’s bedroom (there’s an image we just didn’t need) to Kelly trying to get people to smell her armpit.

And wasn’t that wedding vow renewal reception/New Year’s Eve party the gayest thing you’ve ever seen? The Village People? Marilyn Manson? Ozzy kissing Marilyn on the mouth? Yikes.

I liked Jack’s explanation for why he doesn’t have a girlfriend. “I just get too bored with women.” Translated it means, “Because after about two hours they decide that even though I’m rich, I’m just not worth it.”

Got to hand it to Jack though. Angeline, the blonde that Sharon found in his bed the morning of the condom wrapper sighting was pretty hot.

Steve Rosenbloom is funny.

Rick Morrissey on Ron Santo.

Groucho Smith with a new idea! No, wait, it’s still the trade Jamal Crawford and Eddie Robinson to Miami for Eddie Jones, idea. Never mind.

Jamal is ready to be traded, though.

So who will cry first? Kordell or Bears fans?

Greg Blache is staying. The good news is we have plenty of time to rest up our voices for the first boo in the new stadium.

Kenny Rogers is cheap and easy. But not cheap enough for the Sox. Hey, Jaime Navarro is still available.

Karla Knafel, the woman suing Michael Jordan submitted a photo of the two of them together in what appears to be a hotel room. I think we’re all surprised she’s blonde, huh?

Make that nine wins in ten games for the MAC West leading mighty fighting Huskies of NIU.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to imagine the Bulls with LeBron. It’s not a pretty sight.

Rap on Martha Burke and MJ’s gambling. No, they’re not related.

Jim Hendry is dancing as fast as he can!

We’ve come to expect more from the Wizard of Roz than this pile of feces on Sammy Sosa. It’s like that awful little David Kaplan is feeding Roz his info now. Some day, this deserves its own column. But I’ll give the Cliff’s Notes version.

1) Can we wait until Dusty Baker and Sammy Sosa have actually had a spring training workout together or two? The same people who ripped Don Baylor for supposedly getting tough with Sammy, only to back off, now want Dusty to do the same thing?

2) Sammy Sosa’s not the problem in Chicago. Nobody criticized Mark McGwire for striking out a lot, or failing to move a runner along. When Sammy’s up, everybody’s already in scoring position. What, are you going to move a runner from second to third so that Moises Alou can pop up to end the inning? (And then pull his hamstring jogging back to left field?)

3) It’s a convienient and hackneyed argument to say that Sosa’s defense and baserunning have slipped. He’s still an above average defensive right fielder and on the bases he does not steal anymore, but is a much better baserunner than he used to be. Sosa goes first to third and second to home better than most sluggers.

4) If he’s such a bad guy, how come nobody leaves the Cubs and rips him? His teammates like him. He’s the hardest working guy on the team (he lifts weights before and after every game and takes extra batting practice every day).

And 5) if he’s the problem, and he’s selfish, why is it that his two best years ever (two of the greatest offensive seasons in MLB history, by the way) have come the year AFTER he’s signed huge contract extensions — 1998 and 2001?

It pains me to say it, but, shut up Barry.

David Huh with a good one on Mike Brey. But then, it’s hard to write a bad one on Mike Brey.

Tonya Harding’s first professional boxing opponent (not making this up) said, “She couldn’t whup me with a hubcap in her hand.” She just might take you up on that.

Shawn Kemp has been suspended for a drug related violation again. They found 310 pounds of crack in his pants.

“Rickey Henderson can play for the A’s. Rickey can help the A’s. Rickey just wants to get on base and wreck havoc. Rickey can do it,” said Rickey.

Matt Suhey hit six homers in 67 swings in BP yesterday. I think I join the chorus of “Who gives a s@#$?”

Sports Guy with a better effort today. This one’s on the non-playoff teams in the NBA.

Why does Jim Caple think he’s funny? I’m sure he gets laughed at. He just doesn’t get it. And he never will.

Jason Whitlock with another, “Hey, remember I’m only this fat because I played offensive line at Ball State” column.

Peter King on the absurd Niners coaching search.

Ray Ratto was on ESPN last night. I now know why they don’t run his picture with his column.

Tom Verducci is asking questions. Like, remember when Tom Verducci had talent?

Josh Hartnett and Harrison Ford in a comedy? I think we should all pass.

EW thinks Charlie is an easy winner in next week’s The Bachelorette finale. I hate Charlie. But then, you knew that.

If you told me one of the American Idol “stars” had a porn past, I would not have picked her.

The Smoking Gun has the police report from a 13-year old boy in 1993 that led to a large financial settlement between Michael Jackson and the boy’s family. This is just, plain scary.

Duct tape can fix anything, huh? I have assembled my terror emergency kit.

Contents:
12 six packs of Guiness
Stuff Magazine “Women of the Palms Casino” edition
Toothbrush

That ought to do it.

When did the Germans turn into such wussies?

Yeah, it must be fun to be married to Catherine-Zeta Jones, huh?

The Onion with some Valentine’s Day cutouts for your kids.