casually obsessed

This week during the Cannes Film Festival in Paris, filmmaker James Toback will unveil his new documentary, "Tyson," an in-depth look at the life of Mike Tyson. The film contains segments from over 30 hours of interviews with the former champ, plus highlights and lowlights from his career.

"I look at it now and I'm embarrassed I did it," Tyson told the New York Times. "There's a lot of information people didn't need to know. I don't know who I am. That might sound stupid. I really have no idea. All my life I have been drinking and drugging and partying and all of a sudden this comes to a stop. I never thought I would live to this age."

If you haven't heard by now, Dallas Cowboy Terrell Owens will be making his sitcom acting debut tonight on the Flavor Flav-starred show "Under One Roof." The show will air on MyNetworkTV at 8 p.m. EST. For his appearance, Owens plays a forgotten brother of Flav who shows up unannounced to the house with what seems like ulterior motives other than catching up with family. The network has been getting Owens to make the rounds to sports websites to promote the show. In an interview with USA Today's Game On! Blog, Owens said that acting is something he will try to take up in the future.

"I think I can act and I want to pursue it when my football days are over. I had never done anything extensive acting at all," Owens said. "This was the first time I ever played a character outside of myself. It is very competitive and parallel to football. Sometimes you have things scripted and then you go out there and things don't go your way or the way you planned them. You just have to go with it. The show was a lot of fun and she saw something with me that I didn't see in myself."

Is Venus Williams a better tennis player than her sister Serena? See what she told Real Sports on HBO:

As if LeBron James isn't busy enough worrying about the Boston Celtics, he's teamed up with Cub Cadet to find the coolest looking trick shot. The Trick Shot Challenge is calling on basketball fans to film their best trick shot and upload it to http://www.lebronstrickshotchallenge.com by June 28 for a chance to win a one-on-one game against King James and get $5,000 worth of Cub Cadet lawn equipment. Huh? Yeah, Cub Cadet sells lawn mowers, log splitters, leaf blowers and a bunch of other stuff that has nothing to do with basketball.

Denver Broncos cornerback Dre Bly is one of those laid back NFL players who only makes headlines because of his play on the field. He's not the type to go off to the club, make it rain, and then get pulled over on the way home. He's a family man with a work ethic that shows on the field. An alumnus of the University of North Carolina, Bly was drafted by the St Louis Rams in 1999 where he played for four years, winning a Super Bowl. In 2003, Bly signed with the Detroit Lions as a free agent and made the Pro Bowl twice.

When he joined the Broncos last season after a trade, Bly became part of the best two-corner tandem in the league alongside Champ Bailey. Of course, the season didn't go as he hoped with the team finishing 7-9. BV caught up with Bly to see how he's spending his offseason, what his foundation has been up to, what it's like to be a part of Team Jordan, and if he ever got over getting beaten by Greg Jennings and the Green Bay Packers on an 82-yard game-winning touchdown in that stunning overtime loss on Monday Night Football.

R&B superstar Usher has teamed up with the WNBA's Atlanta Dream to serve his nonprofit organization, New Look. For four years, New Look has been hosting camps for teens in Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Milwaukee in an effort to empower youth by giving them skills for careers in the sports and entertainment industries. The partnership with the Dream now offers teens a chance to be able to intern with the team, giving them the experience to work within a professional basketball organization which offers experience in sports management, player development and game day operations and marketing.

It was a trip to the mountains of Colorado in 2005 that ruined Kobe Bryant's entire life. Companies were dropping him from endorsement contracts and Nike, who had just signed the Laker to an agreement, put him on the shelf.

But now in 2008 Kobe has regained his "marketing mojo", as our friend Darren Rovell of CNBC put it.

He's having a stellar season on the court and getting named the MVP made his market value shoot up.

The resurgence started last year Kobe Bean appeared on the cover of the Sony video game, NBA '07. Then this year he signed with Coca-Cola to endorse Vitaminwater alongside Tracy McGrady, Dwight Howard and LeBron James. Their first ad together appears in last week's issue of Sports Illustrated. Plus Nike took him off the shelf to promote his new shoe, plus the Hyperdunks he was sporting when he "jumped" over an Aston Martin and will later wear during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Maxim Magazine will be coming out with their Hot 100 list this month, their list of the hottest 100 women in the public eye. What does that have to do with Derek Jeter? Well, according to Florida's Sun Sentinel, six of his ex-girlfriends are on that list. In most cases, getting six out of 100 isn't a very good statistic, but in this case, it's probably any man's dream come true. Who are these ladies?

Last month Yankees' Alex Rodriguez and his wife Cynthia had their second daughter, Ella Alexander, weighing at 7 pounds and 2 ounces. But A-Rod's wife says that he's not very helpful when it comes to the labor and giving birth part. In an upcoming episode of YES Network's "YESterdays", Cynthia said that Alex was a shell of himself when their first daughter, Natasha Alexander, was born.

"The one nurse had a cold cloth on his head. The other nurse had the blood pressure on his arm. And my mother was like rubbing his back. And he is passed out on a couch. And I am there, in the middle of labor," Cynthia Rodriguez told the TV show, which airs Wednesday night. "And really, I am not being paid much attention to besides the doctor and a couple of nurses. And he is there moaning. In between pushing, I am going, 'Honey, are you OK?' and 'Are you breathing? Are you OK?'"

NBC held their summer press preview last week to discuss their upcoming shows and Laila Ali was in the house to talk up the new season of American Gladiators. But in an interview with Monsters and Critics, Ali shared how her pregnancy is going, which is about at five months now. This is her first child with husband Curtis Conway and she said that she hasn't had any type of morning sickness and isn't experiencing any type of cravings.

"I was worried about that because I like to eat, so far that hasn't happened," Ali said. "I've been spinning, not too strenuously, walking and doing some Pilates to keep in shape through the pregnancy. I've been blessed to have this easy pregnancy."

Lamar Odom and his L.A. Lakers are in the midst of their round two series in the NBA Playoffs, but in the back of his mind he's looking forward to the summer as well. Odom is planning going full steam ahead with his record label Rich Soil Entertainment this summer with the release of Ali Vegas' debut album, Generation Gap 2: The Prequel, an album a few years in the making. The album will hit stores in August featuring production from DJ Premier, Scott Storch, Cool & Dre, and Midi Mafia with appearances from Akon, Styles P and singer Deemi.

"One of my focuses was to get Ali Vegas the best music because that seems to be what captures people's ear automatically," Odom recently told AllHipHop.com. "And [I'll] just let Veg do the rest. He's playing at a high skill level. The faith that we got in him is just... I mean I think he could take off right where Jay-Z and Nas left off. I think he's that talented."

Even though 49ers' linebacker Manny Lawson tore his ACL last season, that won't stop him from running for the "Run for Something Better" program which fights childhood obesity and promotes a healthy lifestyle for youth. On Thursday, May 15 Lawson will join about 1,500 kids from San Francisco's Unified School District for the ING Run for Something Better Kids' 4K run at Speedway Meadows in Golden Gate Park.

"As a professional athlete, I believe that leading a healthy lifestyle and staying in shape at a young age can lead to a long, healthy life," Lawson said in a statement. "By supporting the ING Run for Something Better program, I hope to encourage thousands of children in the Bay area to embrace physical activity and work towards setting their own personal fitness goals."

There's nothing like the offseason, where professional athletes get to dabble in hobbies and careers that they've always been interested in. This time it's New England Patriot's Randy Moss and his fascination with NASCAR. The baller announced that he will put together a Moss Motorsports team in NASCAR's Craftsman Truck Series, according to Fox Sports. Even though Moss doesn't have a driver, manufacturer, or any sponsors, he's trying to put together the team this racing season, so it can race the full 2009 season.

"There are a lot of NASCAR fans in the locker room," Moss said in a statement to Fox Sports. "We've seen a lot of football players get involved - guys like Dan Marino and Troy Aikman, to name a couple. I think it's a good fit and gives some of the companies I am already working with an additional outlet. It's a smart move on the marketing side of things, but on the personal side of things, I think it's going to be a lot of fun."

First comes the nice big NFL contract, and then comes the big nice check from a shoe company along with a bunch of free gear. Both Nike and Reebok were busy this past weekend at the 2008 NFL Draft signing rookies to endorsement deals. Nike was able to get nine of the top 11 draft picks of the first round including Miami Dolphins' #1 overall pick Jake Long (OT), St Louis Rams' #2 overall pick Chris Long (DE) and the #4 overall pick Darren McFadden (RB) (pictured above) who went to the Oakland Raiders.

Since Jay-Z's New Jersey (soon to be Brooklyn) Nets missed the playoffs, the rapper has most likely been watching his boy LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers' series against the Washington Wizards. And for anyone who has been watching the series knows about the trash talking going back and forth. It started with Wizards guard DeShawn Stevenson calling LeBron overrated and then LeBron saying for him to respond to that is like Jay-Z responding to a Soulja Boy diss.

To shove it in LeBron's face, Stevenson invited Soulja Boy to Game 3, where he sat courtside and watched the Wizards take care of business. But after the Cavs defeated the Wiz yesterday to take a 3-1 series lead, a Jay-Z freestyle over Too Short's "Blow The Whistle" instrumental surfaced that refers to the LeBron-DeShawn beef and without mentioning Stevenson by name, Jigga tells dude to back off and know his place.