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The 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week: Tony Robbins

May 22, 2019 | Posted by Bryan Kristopowitz

The 411mania Dumpster Fire of the Week

Hello, everyone, and welcome to The 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week. I’m Bryan Kristopowitz.

The 103rd Indianapolis 500 is this Sunday, for the first time ever on NBC, and I’m not sure what to expect. I really didn’t get to see any of the practice sessions leading into qualifying on Saturday, and I only got to see the NBC Sports 1 hour show on late Saturday afternoon (everything else was on the NBC Sports streaming thing, NBC Sports Gold, and I didn’t sign up for that), so I’ve been out of the loop this year. Team Penske is fast, as always seems to be the case, as three of Penske’s four cars are in the top 9 with Indy Grand Prix winner Simon Pagenaud on the pole (holy shit was he fast on Sunday). And Ed Carpenter’s team is fast, too, with all three cars in the top nine as well. The Honda teams seem to be at a disadvantage, but then qualifying is qualifying and the race is the race. How many times has Honda been “Slow” during qualifying and then come alive during the actual race?

The big story coming out of Sunday’s “bump day” was Fernando Alonso failing to qualify for the race. The 2-time Formula One World Champion crashed in practice during the week and, from everything I read, was never really fast to begin with. I believe his McLaren team was affiliated with the Carlin Indycar team, and that team just didn’t have the resources that a Penske or a Ganassi or an Andretti Autosport would have had. In one sense, it’s unfortunate that Alonso didn’t make it as he’s a big international star and it’s always good to have those kinds of drivers in the race, but then Kyle Kaiser and his low budget Juncos team getting in at the very end is a great story and it will be interesting to see how he does in the actual race. McLaren has apparently said it will not try to buy a spot in the field for Alonso. The big question, though, is will McLaren and Alonso try to qualify for next year’s Indy 500?

I really don’t have a favorite going into this year’s race. I mean, sure, it would be great if Ed Carpenter had a shot at winning, but I have no real idea if he has a shot at winning. I’m not sure who has a real shot at winning. Will Team Penske do it again? Will Andretti Autosport somehow get one of its five drivers to the front? Will some other team no one thinks about win?

Carb Day on Friday should let us know who is, at least, prepared to win. And the Indy Lights race should be a good one (how many cars will enter the race? More than 12?).

Who do you think will win this year’s Indy 500?

And now onto this week’s Dumpster Fire of the Week.

This week, the 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week goes to world famous motivational speaker Tony Robbins, for for claiming that he was “never intentionally naked” in front of his staff. In the midst of an ongoing sexual harassment scandal, where five different former female employees of the motivational speaker are accusing him of various instances of sexual harassment, Robbins (and by Robbins I mean his lawyers, speaking on his behalf, so, yes, it’s is Robbins saying this) claims that he was “never intentionally naked in front of his staff.” Apparently, at least two of the women accusing Robbins of misconduct claim that he often expected them to work alone with him in his hotel room while he was naked or in the shower.

Now, we’ve heard of this kind of, I guess, workplace harassment before (Harvey Weinstein is, at the moment, the most famous naked employer), but I don’t think anyone accused of being naked around his or her employees has ever said “Yeah, I was probably naked around my employees, but I never meant to be naked around them.”

As far as I can tell, Robbins is basically admitting to one of the things he’s being accused of. Are you supposed to do that when, in an overall sense, you’re claiming that the harassment allegations are all untrue and part of some big hooha “agenda driven” conspiracy?

And what the hell does “I was never intentionally naked” mean anyway? How often do grown men, in a business setting (even if it’s somewhat informal), walk around/appear naked in front of anyone? By accident? I mean, shit, if it did happen by accident, wouldn’t you make sure you were never in a position to do it again? If you were telling your employees that you were meeting up with them in your hotel room to go over this and that wouldn’t you make absolutely sure that being accidentally naked in front of them never happened again?

What the hell is going on here? And is this really the best story Robbins, a smart guy, could come up with?

Jesus Christ, this story is horrible. And sad. And ridiculous. Will Robbins and his legal team come up with a different story soon? They’re going to have to, aren’t they?

And now for this week’s honorable mentions…

–Barry Hovis, Missouri state representative, for his “consensual rapes” remark. While attempting to defend the state house of representatives bill banning abortion, Hovis, a former cop, claimed that most of the sexual assaults he dealt with were “date rapes or consensual rapes.” What the hell is a “consensual rape?” Hovis and his supporters claim that he just misspoke, but, come on, does anyone really believe that? He knew what he was saying, he was speaking from the heart, and he meant every word of it. I hope he never lives this down.

–The petition people, for their recent petitions demanding a redo of the latest season of Game of Thrones and demanding that Robert Pattinson not be the next Batman. There’s certainly nothing wrong with fans complaining about how a show or TV show plays out (it’s part of the fandom experience), but petitions demanding shit? Why would these people think that anyone at HBO or the BBC or anyone else involved in producing Game of Thrones would actually produce a full season do over simply because some fans didn’t care for the show? Don’t these people have anything else better to do, like just complaining like everyone else about stuff they don’t like?

-2014 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Champion Kevin Harvick, for once again openly complaining about his pit crew. Every single time there’s a potential issue with his pit crew, Harvick doesn’t deal with the issue privately with his team or his owner, he just complains openly about them. That’s just bullshit and completely unprofessional. Harvick also acts like he doesn’t make mistakes out on the track, which is also just bullshit. He will likely never stop doing this since no one above him, like Tony Stewart, tells him to stop. It’s sad, and, really, I have no idea why anyone would want to work with this guy. He’s a whiny little bitch.

–The guy in South Africa that drop kicked Ahnold Schwarzenegger in the back, for dropkicking Ahnold Schwarzenegger in the back. The man, who as far as I know hasn’t been identified, was apparently just a “crazed fan” who got a little too overzealous and, at that moment when Ahnold was doing a live snapchat thing, decided that he needed to dropkick the action movie legend.

Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with people? Crazed or not, why would anyone suddenly feel the need to dropkick a celebrity (or, really, anyone)?