East of Boston

Touch It and Die... The Jessica Simpson Curse

Much was made last week- some of it in this very column- of the effect dating Jessica Simpson had on Dallas QB Tony Romo.

For those of you not in the know, Romo is the Dallas Cowboys QB. Simpson is a beautiful singer/actress. Texas is football crazy, and something that is applauded up here in Massachusetts (like Tom Brady going through starlet after starlet, like a red carpet) is viewed as detrimental to one's game down in the Lone Star state.

With Dallas in the midst of a hard-fought playoff hunt, Romo began to be seen in public with the pop tart, Simpson. She even watched one game -a loss- from the owner's box, while wearing one of those pink Cowboys replica jerseys with Romo's number (uniform, not phone...see pic above) on it. Dallas lost the game, a scapegoat was needed, and Jessica Simpson took the kick deep in her own end zone.

Dallas fans began calling her "Yoko Romo," in reference to the woman who supposedly "ruined" the Beatles by dating John Lennon. It became a topic of national debate. Terrell Owens wept while discussing it.

Jessica, bowing to public pressure in her home state, stopped attending Cowboys games... but instead took Romo on vacation to Mexico when he should have been concentrating on the New York (football) Giants. Romo promptly gagged on the biggest game of his life, throwing the game-sealing interception in the end zone as time ran out.

But is Jessica really to blame?

In boxing,there is an old adage..."no sex before a fight." I'm told that every Petronelli swears by this theory, as did Mickey in Rocky. There are many reasons for this...some sound, some foolish.

Someone actually studied it, and sex the night before a fight actually holds physical benefits... mostly an increase in testosterone levels (even/especially after ejaculation). It may also help to relax the fighter/QB... although that gets into Psychology, and Psychology favors sending the girl home for a few weeks.

For one, there is a fairly sound logic to the hypothesis that sexual frustration leads to aggression... which comes in handy on the football field. The woman-as-distraction theory holds up, especially if you Google something like "Andre Rison, Left Eye." Trainers and managers rightly view women as being a variable beyond their control, and coaches/managers are control freaks supreme.

Muhammad Ali would abstain for 6 weeks before a fight. Soccer players say it robs one of leg strength. NBA stars claim it takes away explosive leaping power. Horses are kept from breeding until their racing careers are finished.

Check legendary manager Casey Stengel's thoughts on the matter, which seem more reasonable...

"Being with a woman never hurt no professional ball player. It's staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in."

I'm with Casey on the matter. But this only excuses women as a species. What about Ms. Simpson personally? Can she jinx a football team?

You can only solve that by looking into her dating history. When you do that, you suddenly believe.

The first thing you see is that Jessica kept her virginity until she was married. This, when coupled with an examination of her personal life, brings to mind the fact that- to our knowledge, anyhow- Jessica didn't wreck anyone's career prior to her deflowering. The connection between sex and the curse cannot be ignored.

It also makes her vagina seem like Albion, or even Godzilla.... sleeping, but soon to rise. Once someone tested a nuclear weapon near it, it was only a matter of time before she came out of the harbor and wrecked Tokyo.

Her virginity was taken on her wedding night by former boy-band hearththrob Nick Lachey. At first, he was able to control the power... they had a successful reality show, and even a Sonny+Cher style variety special.  They had the world on a string.

The first inkling that a Simpson Curse might be at work was when Jessica sang the National Anthem at the 2004 Indy 500. The race was shortened by rain, and an F-3 tornado hit Indianapolis that day. Of course, no connection was made ....then.

No one noticed the critical panning of her Dukes Of Hazzard film, which, to be honest, probably didn't need a jinx. Roger Ebert claims to have lost 20 pounds simply by hating it so intensely. The sequel went straight-to-video....Franchise Slain.

Then, Nick Lachey began to lose his mojo. At the height of his public exposure, he released "SoulO," which bombed commercially and critically. This was almost too much to believe- he was a TV star in the demographic his CD was aimed at, and his show and songs aired constantly on MTV. Of course, no one at the time attributed this to a vagina-driven jinx, which is probably a good thing.

The marriage fell apart in 2006, and Lachey's next CD went gold. Unfortunately for the rest of us, this loosed young Jessica onto the dating scene. She appeared in a movie with Dane Cook, and the two became linked.  He was a comic on the rise, having just hosted the highest-rated Saturday Night Live of the year.

However, he soon began to be haunted by charges of joke-stealing and plagarism. His career suffered, and he was sued. He was being constantly goofed on, with Joe Rogan, Louis C.K., SNL and others taking their turns at the pinata. Extricating himself from the relationship with Simpson, he soon saw a career rebirth which peaked when he became one of the few comics to play Madison Square Garden..

Simpson then turned her attention onto Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine. The band soon lost their drummer to a mysterious neurological disorder, mid-tour. After the relationship was broken off, the band's next release became the most-downloaded ITunes song ever. Not "their  most downloaded"... but "the most downloaded." Getting away from Simpson is roughly equivalent to Superman backing sufficiently far enough away from the Kryptonite so as to be able to kick ass again. 

With time on her hands, Simpson got into philanthropy... supporting an orphanage in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. During her patronage, the town went insane... former Mexican Special Forces soldiers employed by the drug cartels began openly murdering police and government officials in the street. A superstitious, heavily-Catholic country, Mexico is now viewed by theorists (well.. me) as the likely birthplace of the Simpson/Romo jinx talk that went down in nearby Texas.

Jessica then began a relationship with singer John Mayer. This is where my theory began to take a jolt, because Mayer enjoyed growing success both during and after his relationship with the pop rock. The Simpson Curse that brought down MTV idols and A-List comics didn't seem to bother John Mayer one bit.

"I wonder why..." I thought... then I got down to researching HIS past.

Jennifer Love Hewitt, who was being compared to Audree Hepburn at the time, has had a string of like 10 bomb movies since dating Mayer. Her post-Mayer artistic peak was "Garfield." She even got really, really fat. Heidi Klum had an out-of-wedlock baby after being linked to Mayer. Minka Kelly suffered the same fate as Hewitt- a stab at Hollywood followed by a humbling return to the small screen.

Christ! He has his own curse. During their relationship, Simpson even released a straight-to-DVD movie that is said to have grossed the producers $4,000. She was soon out of that relationship, freeing Mayer to work his own mojo, free from the vitriol of the Dallas Cowboys fan base.

Then, Simpson began to be seen with Romo. Romo had just come to stardom as the Dallas Cowboys QB. Soon, he was being seen with her in public, often holding her purse. Then, in a nationally televised game against the Eagles which saw Jessica in attendance, he had one of the worst games I've ever seen played.

Romo and Simpson then went on their little Cabo San Lucas getaway, the media seized on it, and Romo sh*t the bed in the NFC semifinals. Simpson was exposed as a jinx now...one powerful enough to alter the fate of 60 behemoths.

As an additional irony, an examination of Simpson's life with that of fellow Simpsons shows a similar pattern. OJ Simpson's career ended the year she was born, almost to the day. He murdered his wife pretty much when Jessica hit puberty. Jessica's rise to stardom even coincided with the creative decline of  The Simpsons animated series, which seemed to hit the wall about 1999 and is barely tolerable now.

Finally, I submit the personal experience of the family I work for.

Stacey won an AOL contest that sent her to Houston in 2004. She brought along her sisters and the Colonel. Her assignment was to cover the baseball All Star Game. She planned to bring the Colonel to the game, but he backed out due to fatigue (he had flown in that afternoon). Shea and Stacey went, and they had a great time.

The Colonel stayed back at the hotel, pleased to have Texas to explore without his loud, pregnant wife. His first move upon seeing the girls off was to go back inside the Hotel Derek for a steak and a bottle.

As he was walking in, there was a gang of people behind him. Being a gentleman, he held the door as the whole party entered. Right in the middle of the gang was Jessica Simpson, who had a show in Houston the following night.

Simpson actually took notice of the Colonel, who is quite a large man. "Well, aren't you a big drink of water?" she said, and she even touched his arm playfully. Then, she was off.

The Colonel went into the restaurant, had his steak, went to bed, got up, went to the airport... and then somehow got caught in a 22 hour flight from Houston to Atlanta to Boston. "I was in a 757 in Atlanta, watching a tornado at the other end of the airport," sayeth the Colonel. Stacey, who refuses to fly, almost beat him home by AMTRAK.

Coincidence? Or is there a Simpson Curse? I'll let you decide, but I wouldn't lay with Jessica Simpson for all the tea in China.

I mean, I could lose all this....