About that "locker-room talk" ...

The funniest thing I ever heard in a locker room was directed at me.

It was a few years back after another hurricane slapped Louisiana around, and the New Orleans Saints were in Indianapolis as a result, because they had no place to practice. So I'm down in the locker room, a guy with a white beard and, shall we say, a generous midsection. And suddenly one of the Saints defensive backs (I don't recall his name) pointed at me.

"Yo, man!" he piped. "Where's your sleigh?"

And ha-ha-ha, ho-ho-ho, good one, dude. I immediately hung a left to go talk to the guy, figuring someone who could crank off a line that good probably had a few others stored up.

You might not believe this, but none of them involved bragging about sexual assault.

According to the Game Show Host, that's just standard locker room talk, bragging about being able to take any woman you want just because you can. Since that infamous tape came out over the weekend, that's been his defense for Trump-eting his theoretical prowess as a sexual predator.

(Or, perhaps, not so theoretical. You don't say stuff like that unless you're willing to actually do it. Or actually have. We shall see.)

I've been in a lot of locker rooms in 38 years as a sportswriter. A lot of them. And so allow me to clarify a few things for Donny, and for all of Donny's unquestioning followers:

Sorry, boys and girls. But bragging about sexual assault is not standard "locker room talk." Not in any locker room I've ever been in. Even for The Game Show Host, that is some weak-ass stuff.

Sure, I've heard (or at least overheard) some crude stuff over the years, especially when the locker room in question is a losing one. But I've never heard anyone bragging or otherwise making light of sexual assault, even in locker rooms where some players have been accused/charged with it. So I really don't know which locker room Donny is referring to. The one in Shawshank, perhaps?

It is, frankly, a gross insult to the many fine men I've met in all those locker rooms.  It's an insult to men in general. We are not all Visigoths, as Donny seems to imply. We are not all crude knuckle-dragging thugs like the Game Show Host, whose example of "manhood" is not one with which any real man is remotely familiar.

Sorry, Donny. But you're an embarrassment to the male species. Please get off our island.