You know, I might actu­ally want to go see this.

Box­ing leg­end Mike Tyson feels relieved after per­form­ing his one-man stage show, liken­ing the con­fes­sional act to therapy.

The Hang­over star headed to Las Vegas last month to debut The Undis­puted Truth, a no-holds-barred account of his life story.

The auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal show, which Tyson will bring to Broad­way next year, details his drug and alco­hol addic­tions, psy­chotic episodes and even his pen­chant for Japan­ese prostitutes.

Tyson admits the deeply per­sonal show has helped him learn more about him­self and move away from his trou­bled past.

“It’s ther­a­peu­tic to talk about what I’ve lived through in front of hun­dreds of peo­ple,” he tells Britain’s Daily Tele­graph. “And when you’ve been in rehab, you’re very com­fort­able talk­ing about yourself.”

How­ever, the for­mer world cham­pion admits he is reluc­tant to boast about his reform.

“I’m a major league relapse artist. I’ll do two years (of sobri­ety) and then think, ‘F— it.’”

As more and more evi­dence comes out from the med­ical exam­in­ers and other sources, it’s clear­ing up on a few things about the case.

1) George Zim­mer­man should have heeded the words of police that night and let them han­dle it.  There was no rea­son why he had to fol­low Martin.

2) Mar­tin was hardly the inno­cent vic­tim the press and activists have tried to make him out to be.

WFTV has con­firmed that autopsy results show 17-year-old Trayvon Mar­tin had injuries to his knuck­les when he died.

The infor­ma­tion could sup­port George Zimmerman’s claim that Mar­tin beat him up before Zim­mer­man shot and killed him.

The autopsy results come as Zimmerman’s attor­ney, Mark O’Mara con­tin­ues to go over other evi­dence in the case.

O’Mara wouldn’t com­ment on the autopsy evi­dence, but WFTV legal ana­lyst Bill Sheaf­fer said it’s bet­ter for the defense than it is for the prosecution.

WFTV has learned that the med­ical exam­iner found two injuries on Martin’s body: The fatal gun­shot wound and bro­ken skin on his knuckles.

When you com­pare Trayvon’s non-fatal injury with Zimmerman’s bloody head wounds, the autopsy evi­dence is bet­ter for the defense, Sheaf­fer said.

“It goes along with Zimmerman’s story that he acted in self-defense, because he was get­ting beaten up by Trayvon Mar­tin,” Sheaf­fer said.

You know, no one has ever fully explained what Mar­tin was doing 500 miles from his home that night in the first place. (Was he vis­it­ing fam­ily or friends, I never actu­ally heard a media report say fully hon­estly?)  All we know is he was on sus­pen­sion from school for the week.

Beyond that, it’s still fuzzy.

If there is one thing you have a chance to read, I sug­gest this col­umn by for­mer Pack­ers line­backer George Koonce, who is now work­ing in Mar­quette University’s ath­letic depart­ment.  Koonce is wrap­ping up is Ph. D dis­ser­ta­tion and sub­mit­ted it on the day for­mer San Diego line­backer Junior Seau took his own life.

Koonce believes that it is not con­cus­sions which are caus­ing so many tragic ends for ex-NFL play­ers, but the lack of tran­si­tion pro­gram back to reg­u­lar life — if such a thing even existed for NFL play­ers who’ve spent their whole exis­tence try­ing to get the NFL — between the league, its union, and its play­ers is leav­ing many ex-players lost and unable to func­tion out­side of foot­ball.  This is because so many play­ers are used to their roles as play­ers, they know noth­ing else.

And so, with that sense of self shat­tered, they tend to go into immense depres­sions; which may end in tragedy.

I’m not down­play­ing bas­ket­ball careers or the work NBA play­ers put in, but in the NFL you have to be obsessed with the role to make it. (“Role engulf­ment” is the aca­d­e­mic term for it.) There are no prodi­gies in the NFL. There are no Hakeem Ola­ju­wons who show up at the Uni­ver­sity of Hous­ton from Nige­ria and sud­denly become the first pick in the draft. In foot­ball, you can have some­one like my for­mer team­mate Desmond Howard win the Heis­man Tro­phy and become Super Bowl MVP after every­one told him he was too small, too short and too slow. He has a heart the size of Wis­con­sin and sim­ply will not quit.

You say, “You know what, I’m going to prove Peter King wrong or Chris Berman wrong or my child­hood friend who said I couldn’t make it.” So you get even more con­sumed, more iso­lated in foot­ball, and then you have no skill set once the game is fin­ished with you.

In col­lege, my day was sketched out for me, from 6:30 a.m. until 9 o’clock at night. There was no dif­fer­ence when I tran­si­tioned to the NFL. It was all about try­ing to win a cham­pi­onship, try­ing to get pre­pared. The role engulfs you even more. They pay those NFL assis­tant coaches well to show George how to drop back into the flat or cover a run­ning back. I didn’t have those life coaches when I left the game. That sup­port sys­tem dis­ap­peared, and I was lost.

When that day comes and they say your ser­vices are no longer needed, you are in a very lonely and dark place. That first year out of foot­ball, I drank. I can dis­tinctly remem­ber going into Wal-Mart and buy­ing the first three sea­sons of “Law & Order” and watch­ing them alone at our beach place from Thurs­day through Sun­day night. It was such a lonely time. And it was on the drive back home that I took that turn at 75 mph just to see what would hap­pen. [KJB — Koonce opens the essay talk­ing about a near-death acci­dent where he took a 25 mph curve at 75 mph. He called the acci­dent a sub­con­scious sui­cide attempt.]

One month, I was return­ing an inter­cep­tion for a touch­down dur­ing a Sea­hawks vic­tory over Atlanta. The next month, I was fin­ished. Even my agent stopped call­ing. I’d spo­ken to him on the phone three or four times a day since sign­ing with him out of col­lege, and now he wouldn’t take my calls. I’d had a decent 2000 sea­son, fin­ish­ing sec­ond on the Sea­hawks in tack­les, but I was 32 years old, had a bad knee and was sud­denly expendable.

In the locker room, we want to talk about how we’re going to get past the Cow­boys or 49ers. We’re not talk­ing about weak­nesses. We’re not talk­ing about being scared. When guys start feel­ing that way in retire­ment, they go off by them­selves and they start self-medicating: drink­ing, tak­ing pain pills, tak­ing nar­cotics, try­ing to fill that void.

Foot­ball becomes your iden­tity. Your fam­ily buys into it, your friends buy into it, the alums from your col­lege buy into it. And then it is gone. You are gone.

What can we do to help?

The NFL and NFL Play­ers Asso­ci­a­tion just ham­mered out a 10-year agree­ment. How much money is allo­cated toward play­ers’ tran­si­tion away from the game? What about defer­ring some of the play­ers’ salaries until they reach a cer­tain age and have matured enough to use it more wisely?

We hear about men­tors when the focus should be on spon­sors — some­one who goes beyond point­ing ath­letes in the right direc­tion, help­ing to per­son­ally make the intro­duc­tions that make all the difference.

At the col­lege level, Title IX forced the NCAA to account for women’s ath­let­ics. Why can’t the NCAA imple­ment a senior level posi­tion for player and com­mu­nity development?

The aver­age NFL career lasts only a few years. The game requires a player’s uncon­di­tional invest­ment while promis­ing a very con­di­tional and one-dimensional return. It pro­duces too many ath­letes unpre­pared for any­thing else. More of them than we know will have thoughts like the ones I had com­ing around that curve in Kin­ston, N.C.

It’s time to do more about it.

Koonce is likely closer to the truth than any sports com­men­ta­tor out there on the sub­ject; many of which have been quick to blame post-concussion syn­drome on deaths in ex-NFL play­ers.  The real­ity is Koonce is point­ing out what many oth­ers in count­less posi­tions have dealt with when the role they’ve been doing their entire life ends sud­denly.  For NFL play­ers, that “sud­denly” is pretty damn early in their lives.

Some­times it’s called “Empty Nest Syn­drome” in long-time par­ents.  Some­times it’s called some­thing else.  Our roles help define us; and some­times with­out them, they lead to our own destruction.

Oh who am I kid­ding?  The whole cam­paign this time around was to pump up his son Rand for 2016.

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas said Mon­day he will not com­pete in pri­maries in any of the states that have not yet voted — essen­tially con­firm­ing Mitt Rom­ney will win the Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nomination.

Mr. Paul said he will con­tinue to work to win del­e­gates in states that have already voted and where the process of delegate-selection is play­ing out. He said that’s a way to make his voice heard at the Repub­li­can nom­i­nat­ing con­ven­tion in Tampa, Fla., in August.

“Mov­ing for­ward, how­ever, we will no longer spend resources cam­paign­ing in pri­maries in states that have not yet voted,” Mr. Paul said. “Doing so with any hope of suc­cess would take many tens of mil­lions of dol­lars we sim­ply do not have.”

He did encour­age his sup­port­ers to still turn out and vote.

His deci­sion not to com­pete for new votes in other states leaves Mr. Rom­ney as the only can­di­date still actively fight­ing for vot­ers’ sup­port in the 11 states still to vote. That list includes the biggest prizes on the board — Texas and California.

Mr. Paul was mak­ing his third run for pres­i­dent, after an ear­lier bid as the Lib­er­tar­ian Party’s nom­i­nee in 1988 and then a cam­paign for the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion in 2008.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.…

Sorry, I know this is Greg Sar­gent who is as par­ti­san a hack as you’re going to find, but I’m intrigued at this story for a num­ber of reasons.

1)  Sar­gent is a DNC / Lib­eral / Labor Talk­ing Points Regur­gi­tater.  If you recall, when the Daily Caller outed the Media Mat­ters of Amer­ica dossier, Sar­gent was called “a go-to guy” for the group who would run any­thing which would make lib­er­als, Democ­rats, and other groups on the left look good.

2)  It’s clear to me he’s on Mike Tate and /or Graeme Zielinski’s speed dial. (See Point 1.)

3)  It’s clear to me he’s on Kelly Steele of “We Are Wisconsin’s” speed dial.  (Again, see Point 1.)

4)  This is a pres­sure move on the DNC.

5)  If true, (Again, see Point 1.) this could be not just a dis­as­ter for the left, but the pre­cur­sor to blame being passed from the gang in Madi­son to the gang in DC.

Top Wis­con­sin Democ­rats are furi­ous with the national party — and the Demo­c­ra­tic National Com­mit­tee in par­tic­u­lar — for refus­ing their request for a major invest­ment in the bat­tle to recall Scott Walker, I’m told.

The fail­ure to put up the money Wis­con­sin Dems need to exe­cute their recall plan comes at a time when the national Repub­li­can Party is sink­ing big money into defend­ing Walker, rais­ing fears that the DNC’s reluc­tance could help tip the race his way.

“We are frus­trated by the lack of sup­port from the Demo­c­ra­tic National Com­mit­tee and the Demo­c­ra­tic Gov­er­nors Asso­ci­a­tion,” a top Wis­con­sin Demo­c­ra­tic Party offi­cial tells me. “Scott Walker has the full sup­port and back­ing of the Repub­li­can Party and all its ten­ta­cles. We are not get­ting sim­i­lar support.”

“Con­sid­er­ing that Scott Walker has already spent $30 mil­lion and we’re even in the polls, this is a winnable race,” the Wis­con­sin Dem con­tin­ues. “We can get out­spent two to one or five to one. We can’t get spent 20 to one.”

Accord­ing to the Wis­con­sin Dem, the party has asked the DNC for $500,000 to help with its mas­sive field oper­a­tion. While the DNC has made gen­er­ally sup­port­ive noises, the money has not been forth­com­ing, the offi­cial says — with less than a month until the June 5th recall elec­tion. The DNC did not imme­di­ately respond to a request for comment.

Obama’s polit­i­cal oper­a­tion is pro­vid­ing vol­un­teers with info on how to get involved in the recall bat­tle and how to reg­is­ter to vote, but isn’t invest­ing any money in the race, accord­ing to offi­cials. Labor unions are expected to invest siz­able sums in the ground game, but the top Wis­con­sin Dem Party offi­cial says it won’t be enough.

“This idea that labor has unlim­ited resources is a fan­tasy,” the Wis­con­sin Dem says. “Our needs go well beyond that.”

Well, well, well…explains the sud­den need to inflate the turnout machine with the “Divide and Con­quer” video.

Let’s see if all the lefty blog­gers who’ve run with Sar­gent in the past when he had good news attack­ing Walker (James Rowen, I’m look­ing at you) decide to run with this.

So this is what the books of a state com­pletely in the con­trol of the Demo­c­ra­tic Party in thought, deed, action and spe­cial inter­est group looks like.

Boy, does it have to suck to live in the “Not-so-Golden State” these days.

Cal­i­for­nia Gov­er­nor Jerry Brown bet that a nascent finan­cial recov­ery would lift the world’s ninth– largest econ­omy enough to whit­tle down a $9.2 bil­lion deficit. Instead, the gap has widened to $16 billion.

Today the 74-year-old Demo­c­rat will unveil his revised bud­get and explain what addi­tional spend­ing must be cut. Tax col­lec­tions have run $3.5 bil­lion below what he cal­cu­lated four months ago. Spend­ing has grown $2 bil­lion above pro­jec­tions. The fed­eral gov­ern­ment and court rul­ing blocked some sav­ings he expected, while his fel­low Democ­rats in the Leg­is­la­ture balked at others.

Cal­i­for­nia, with an econ­omy big­ger than Rus­sia’s, lost more than a mil­lion jobs in the reces­sion that struck in 2007, cost­ing the most pop­u­lous U.S. state 24 per­cent of its rev­enue. The new deficit esti­mate increases the urgency of the governor’s plans to increase income taxes on some earn­ers to the high­est in the nation, and boost sales levies that are now more than any other state.

Alright, the vote was held. No one got the endorse­ment and a jerk-wad French Horn player from out of state who wasn’t there put his two cents in because he can’t help himself.

Good to know.

Here’s my take on things as they stand.

Win­ner — Jeff Fitzgerald

A cou­ple of weeks ago, the talk was his cam­paign was look­ing for a way to bow out grace­fully due to its ane­mic fund rais­ing.  The “win” in the final round of the endorse­ment vote will add some much-needed life to the cam­paign.  Hope­fully he makes the best of it.

Going in, the smart money was on Fitzger­ald going out first.  The turn­ing point was his speech.

“Fitz” cap­tured the room when he told the story of the first week­end of the Capi­tol Siege. There, he told the crowd his biggest sense of unease wasn’t the pro­test­ers, wasn’t the chant­ing, and wasn’t even the death threats.  To him, it was the week­end just after the 14 state sen­a­tors fled to Illi­nois and he let his cau­cus go home for that week­end know­ing he had the votes on Fri­day to pass Act 10, but wasn’t sure they’d still be there when they came back on Mon­day or Tuesday.

He said some­thing akin to “I had no idea if what was sur­round­ing us in Madi­son was going to be await­ing for them back home; out­side their homes, their places of busi­ness and so on.  It was you who gave them the strength of their con­vic­tions.  You who told them to stand firm.  You who con­ferred to them they were doing the right thing.”

That vote was as much yours, as it was theirs.”

After that, he had the assem­bled crowd and the undecideds.

Chris­t­ian Schnei­der of NRO / WPRI and I both believed dur­ing the tab­u­la­tion of the 1st bal­lot that Fitz’s speech got him a spot in the 2nd bal­lot.  Lit­tle did we think it would get him past Tommy in the 1st bal­lot and put him squarely in the driver’s seat on decid­ing who was dri­ving  the “Not-Tommy / Not-Neumann” car to a no endorse­ment vote.

Minor Win­ner — Tommy Thompson

This is long game, but a more viable Fitzger­ald gives steam to the reg­u­lar con­ven­tional wis­dom of the over­all race — the more non-Tommy can­di­dates in the race, the more that helps Tommy.

It’s just a sim­ple restate­ment of the race dynamic.

Push — The Endorse­ment Process

Giv­ing the gam­ing of the sys­tem and behind-the-scenes bull of these events, you want to start say­ing a “Pox on All Your Houses!” to all these cam­paigns.  But, I’m sure the state GOP isn’t com­plain­ing for the cash for its cof­fers all those bused in del­e­gates and last-minute attendees.

Minor Loser -  Eric Hovde

Hovde’s speech was a lack­lus­ter one which felt more like a col­lege lec­ture than a con­ven­tion speech.  He’s new to the game, he’s got time to get re-adjusted and refo­cused.   Over­all it’s a blip on the radar and he’s got more than enough time to recover.

Plus, real­ity gives them the per­fect way to spin what hap­pened — After all, in 2010, the first once bounced in the state con­ven­tion Lt. Governor’s vote was Rebecca Kleefisch.

Minor Lose to “Dan­ger Ahead” — Tommy Thompson

Was yes­ter­day just a minor bruis­ing of the ego, or the start of the dam burst­ing on sup­port of his can­di­dacy. Time will tell.

Loser — Wauke­sha County GOP Chair­man Don Taylor

Some­thing tells me the “Dean of County Chairs” will have a lot of explain­ing to do about why he was con­stantly send­ing over 55 to 60% of Wauke­sha Co. del­e­gates to Mark Neumann.

Big Loser — Mark Neumann

When you try to game the sys­tem, you game it to win.  Team Neu­mann clearly mis­cal­cu­lated that going into the vote think­ing they could pick off the unde­cid­eds.  Fitzgerald’s speech ended that the­ory pretty quickly.

Also, the 2nd bal­lot couldn’t have turned out worse for them, as he only picked up around 200 or so more del­e­gates than he did in the 1st bal­lot.  This meant his sup­port — bused in or nego­ti­ated behind the scenes — was also his ceil­ing.  I heard some folks say Neumann’s cam­paign is start­ing to remind them of Dar­row 2004, where his plead­ing and over-playing to the base got annoy­ing very quick.

Add in how much the base is still peeved at him for 2010, and the mar­gin for error is excep­tion­ally small for Neumann.

Other Losers — Erick Erick­son, the Red State Com­mu­nity, and Jim DeMint

When you claim openly and loudly that one guy is cheat­ing, you damn well have the proof.  Erickson’s post reeked of being a mis­di­rec­tion from the Neu­mann folks (it was, but no one would go on the record to con­firm it) to say the Thomp­son folks were try­ing to game the sys­tem when they clearly were doing it themselves.

Will Erick (who I con­sider a friend) ever admit doing just that, or admit he was wrong?  Hardly, it’s not good for busi­ness at Red State.

Finally, groups like the Club for Growth, Sen. Jim DeMint, Red State, and oth­ers out in DC have bought into a dog and pony show by Neumann’s cam­paign that he’s [quote] the true con­ser­v­a­tive in the race [unquote] to decide who best to rally folks against Tommy Thomp­son.  Yesterday’s vote clearly showed they were sold a cheap bill of goods as not only did Neu­mann (gam­ing the sys­tem) beat Thomp­son in the endorse­ment vote, but Fitzger­ald did as well in the 1st ballot.

If Fitzger­ald plays their cards right, he make some hay try­ing to break up Neumann’s attempted monop­oly in “non-establishment groups” in DC.