Zidane unmasked! Shocking truth about the "headbutt"

[flowomo]

(This is my weekly newspaper column for today. It's also available online at:
http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2006/07/27/editorial/rich_lewis/lewis01.txt) :)


By Rich Lewis, July 27, 2006

You have got to keep this to yourself until I finish my investigation, but I think I’ve figured out why he did it.

And the answer has staggering implications for all mankind.

Without doubt, the greatest mystery of the 21st century — well, OK, at least of the last month — is why French superstar soccer player Zinedine Zidane headbutted an Italian opponent with 10 minutes to go in the final game of the World Cup.

Even if you don’t follow soccer, you surely heard about this. Zidane got thrown out of the game; Italy went on to win; Zidane ended his glorious career in disgrace; etc., etc., etc.

It even inspired a free online game — "The Zidane Head Butt Game." It’s cool; you should check it out — http://www.addictinggames.com/zidaneheadbuttgame.html.

But the big question was why he did it. The guy doing the French broadcast of the game kept moaning, "Pourquoi? Pourquoi? Pourquoi?" over and over again. Why, indeed? At first we got nothing. Then Zidane said Italy’s Marco Matterazzi had insulted him. Matterazzi denied it and then allowed that maybe he said a few things.

Oh come on, a seasoned pro playing in the biggest game on Earth throws away his moment of glory because some guy rags on him? It just didn’t add up, you know. Something else was going on. A big coverup. I just knew it.

I kept watching the video clip of the incident and I felt like Roy Neary, the character played by Richard Dreyfus in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Neary obsessively builds a lumpy shape out of things like dirt and mashed potatoes while muttering, "I know what this is. I’ve seen this before. This means something. This is important." But he couldn’t put his finger on it. And neither could I.

Then it hit me. Where I had seen this before.

Coneheads.

You remember the Coneheads — the extraterrestrial family with big, bald heads from the planet Remulak trying to fit unobtrusively into middle-class America. They were on "Saturday Night Live" and they even had a movie about them. They were supposed to be "fictional characters." Sure.

Do you remember how they greeted each other? How they "kissed"? Exactly — they touched cones. In other words, they headbutted each other! I see that skeptical look on your face. I see you thinking the fact that some strange creatures from another planet bumped heads doesn’t prove a connection to Zidane.

I had my doubts, too.

But then I remembered something else about the Coneheads. What did they say whenever they met somebody for the first time? That’s right.... "We are the Coneheads. We are from France."

France.

And it all became clear.

Zidane wasn’t mad at Matterazzi at all. He was just so happy to be in this big game with the nice Italian guy who’d been running all over the field with him all day that he couldn’t contain himself any longer. He wanted to express his joy! But in his excitement the BALD guy from FRANCE momentarily lost his head, so to speak, and revealed his true identity by giving Materazzi a Conehead kiss.

Zidane was aiming for Materazzi’s forehead, but the Italian, startled as you can image, kind of reared back and Zidane wound up planting his Remulakian smooch on his chest instead.


Is this a butt or a kiss? (ABC-TV footage)

Later, Zidane realized he’d made a big mistake and tried to cover his tracks with that crazy story about being insulted. If he told the truth, he’d blow the cover of all the other Coneheads among us.

And they’re here. No doubt about it.

In fact, British jockey Paul O’Neill apparently thought Zidane was signaling that Coneheads were at last free to come out of the closet — and then realized it was all a mistake. I assume you saw this AP story this week: "Jockey Paul O’Neill apologized yesterday for head-butting his horse at a race last weekend. The Horseracing Regulatory Authority is holding an inquiry after reviewing TV footage of the incident at the Stratford races on Sunday."

One British newspaper carried the headline: "Angry jockey does a ‘Zidane’ to his horse."

No, no. The jockey wasn’t angry; he was happy. He didn’t Zidane the horse — he Coneheaded the horse. And I bet if you ask him, he’d say he’s from France originally.

And while a few Coneheads are living in big cities, I would imagine that most of them would locate somewhere more remote, where they are less likely to get noticed. Somewhere like, say.... Tibet.

And how do Tibetan nomads greet each other? They butt heads. Really. Check out the picture.

I’m going to follow this up. I’ve e-mailed Zidane and O’Neill and invited both of them to sit down with me and consume mass quantities of potato chips and beer.

If they grab a six-pack and start drinking all six cans at once.... well, gotcha!


These Tibetans didn’t think anybody was looking. (M.C. Goldstein & C.M. Beall)

[Nickster]

1. Makes perfect sense to me. n/t

[flowomo]

2. once you see it, it's obvious