Rant #2,533: Different Drum

Happy Wednesday, the middle day of a week that has been tortuous at best.

Yes, the Harvey Weinstein trial reached its conclusion, and the right conclusion, so we can be pretty happy about that.

And on the very same day, the public mourning over the Kobe Bryant helicopter mishap also ended, in a way, with the public memorial that was held for the fallen basketball star out west.

But funny, I kind of think that the world is slightly off its axis having the two episodes end on the same day.

Yes, Harvey Weinstein used his power to bed women who were at his beck and call because he could make them or break them in the entertainment world. Whether some of these women used any logic whatsoever is another story, but the fact of the matter is that he did what he did, and ended up paying for it, not like many of us would have liked, but he went way too far with at least a few of these women, and it came back to get him in the end.

Now we have Bryant, the great basketball player who has also had his problems with the opposite sex, and those problems were not unlike what Weinstein perpetrated, although on a much lesser scale.

Bryant, being portrayed as a saint on earth and the ultimate family man, is being heralded by both men and women who evidently have very, very short memories about the basketball star's behavior, seemingly in another life.

Years ago, while rehabbing an injury, he used his own star power to forcibly bed a very young woman who worked at the venue where he was supposedly rehabbing the injury. Like Weinstein, he said the dalliance was consensual, and like the women in the Weinstein situation, the woman said it wasn't.

One thing led to another, and Bryant, like Weinstein a married man, ended up settling with the woman by paying her an unspecified sum, so the case never went to trial, unlike Weinstein's case(s), which did.

Look, Weinstein is a real crumb in my eyes, but is Bryant's situation that much different from the movie mogul's situation? And word back then was that Bryant had numerous situations with females which were kept hush hush.

Look, maybe he reformed himself, something that Weinstein never did.

And Weinstein's behavior still hasn't been completely sorted out, as he has another trial in Los Angeles on similar matters to deal with.

But the crux of the matter is that Bryant is being lauded as a hero, a virtual god on earth who put family first before anything else. I mean, that is why he was on the helicopter to begin with, to be with his young daughter when she played in a basketball tournament.

Where was that dedication years ago, during the early days of his marriage, when his actions were, like Weinstein's, front page news around the country?

Bryant was a great basketball player, and you can say what you want about Weinstein and his bedroom behavior, but as a movie mogul, he was at the top of his class, so both of these people were superstars at what they did.

But both also had major blemishes on their souls, which we choose to ignore about Bryant but we jump on when it relates to Weinstein.

Yes, Bryant was never a convicted rapist. His case never went to trial. He settled with the woman, and whatever 15 minutes of fame she got from this situation has long expired.

Weinstein went to trial, got what was coming to him, and will probably be in jail for the rest of his life.

That is a major difference between Weinstein and Bryant, but I just found it to be so interesting how things work out, that Weinstein and Bryant both kind of met their final bell in the exact same day.

I also found it interesting how the press covered the two situations.

In Newsday, the local newspaper, on the back page in the sports xection, there was mention of the Bryant memorial, framing his wife for what she said, about how her husband was such a loving, family man.

On the front of the very same newspaper was a picture of Weinstein, and the headline announcing that he had been found guilty of two counts.

I guess there was a fine line between Weinstein and Bryant, and that fine line was even finer when separated with the back page of the newspaper and the front page of the newspaper.

But metaphorically speaking, the back page and the front page are both printed on the same piece of paper--along with page two and the next to last page of the newspaper--so are the two stories really that dissimilar, or are they somehow linked not just by newsprint, but also by ...

Guilt?

"You and I travel to the beat of a different drum

Oh can't you tell by the way I run

Everytime you make eyes at me ... "