Actually, I give Sports Illustrated a lot of credit for going with that terrible pun on their cover, because I assume that it was meant tongue-in-cheek. After all, Sports Illustrated has featured New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin on its cover something like 63 times in the last 9 days, so it’s cute that SI can make fun of itself and the rest of the national media for relentlessly blowing this kid while so many other interesting stories have been overlooked. I mean, did they even see the Kate Upton Carl’s Jr. commercial?

But since baseball season is creeping up on us, and it’s my favorite time of the year, I thought I could help SI out with some future headlines in case they decide to reflect on the Miami Marlins’ season and the excitement surrounding their big additions of Jose Reyes, Carlos Zambrano and Mark Buerhle.

MARLINJURIES: Jose Reyes hits the DL because he’s Jose Reyes.
MARLINCARCERATION: Carlos Zambrano facing murder charges after Mike Stanton homers off of him in batting practice.
MARLIN THE RED: Front office stress builds as attendance dips below 6 people.
MARLINSOLVENT: Jeff Loria busted paying players with checks printed on Saltines.
MARLINDICTED: Ozzie Guillen finally brought down after chewing Jeff Loria’s spine from out of his rectum.

See? They practically write themselves.

Before this morning, Muse magazine greatest contribution to my life had been Lindsay Lohan’s greasy hipster freckles and cigarette orgy photoshoot. Also before this morning, the best thing a phony Marilyn Monroe spread had contributed was … well, every other Lindsay Lohan photoshoot.

This morning, everything changed.

Behold, Sports Illustrated swimsuit model and With Leather cultural icon Kate f’ing Upton channeling Marilyn Monroe (and a heavy dose of retro eyebrows) in Muse. In the process, she finds a way to wear less than a swimsuit and complete the artsiest spread she’s pulled outside of a pair of Guess jeans.

We’re about a month from Terry Richardson stumbling upon a pic and deciding to shoot her against stark white with eight garden hoses spraying her in the face. Enjoy Art Kate while you can. (And click the pics to make them as big as I could find.)

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Speculation had been swirling for the past week or so about the identity of this year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover model, and all signs justifiably pointed to our favorite 19-year old supermodel Knicks fan, Kate Upton, earning the honor. After all, she was mentioned no less than 764,872,358,725,361 times on this website in 2011, and I’m pretty sure that’s the top priority that SI uses when choosing each cover model. Also, it didn’t hurt that multiple online gossip sites had leaked the Upton news days ago, but we’re going to pretend like we didn’t know so we don’t look like morons wearing only these party hats over our crotches.

As for Upton, she couldn’t be happier, and I’m not basing that on her smile, because my binoculars broke yesterday. Instead, I’m just going by this quote from People Magazine:

“In the beginning you’re pretty relaxed, you’re not thinking of new poses and it just feels really natural at that point,” she says. “At Sports Illustrated everyone’s so nice and it’s like a family, you don’t really think too much into it. I just have a lot of fun and be myself. It just comes so naturally.”

Upton’s cover was officially revealed on the Late Show with David Letterman last night, but it was reported that a shipment of the magazines was delivered to a gas station in Michigan early. That gas station? Shangri-La.

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Oh, sorry, the Kate Upton Sports Illustrated cover story is AFTER the Morning Links, this is a guy literally busting nuts. With his butt. Sorry for the confusion!

(via The FW)

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Links

The Best Of #Kenny Powers - “So, besides getting shot in the back of the head do you know what else Abraham Lincoln did? He was a champion wrestler in high school and no, I’m not making that up.” [UPROXX]

One ‘Community’ Character Will Die: Let’s Place Odds - Can it please be Chang? There’s nothing Chang does the Dean can’t do better. [Warming Glow]

5 Reasons “Comic Book Men” Stinks - Reason number f**king one: we are not 18 anymore, and “tell ‘em Steve-Dave” just doesn’t have the same impact. [Gamma Squad]

Sports, Illustrated: In Celebration Of Alex Morgan’s Body Paint Bikini - Lots of swimsuits this week. Make sure you didn’t miss the one made out of paint. [With Leather]

Nicki Minaj Offended The World At The Grammys - or, “Nicki Minaj did something on purpose to make headlines because she isn’t good at music and people bought it, because people are dumb”. [Smoking Section]

Henry Rollins’ awesome letter to Chris Farley from 1995 - Sadly, not the same Chris Farley. “YOUR FILM BLACK SHEEP WAS MALICIOUS AND CAPRICIOUS.” [Film Drunk]

Inevitable ‘Who The F*ck Is Bon Iver?’ Reactions Vastly Improved By The Rise Of ‘Bonnie Bear’ & ‘Bony Bear’ - Dude should just change his band’s name to Bonnie Bear and be done with it. I’d listen to Bonnie Bear. [UPROXX]

NYU Girls’ Newt Gingrich Slumber Party - Nowhere near as awesome as Kent State’s Dennis Kucinich parties, where all the girls are 6-foot-3 vegan redheads. [Buzzfeed]

15 Funny Valentine’s Day Quotes By Comedians - “Those flowers fer yer wife fer Valentine’s Day? NOPE, just thought I’d do a lil’ mid-February gardenin’! Here’s yer sign!” – Bill Engvall [HuffPost Comedy]

Jay Z’s ‘99 Problems’ Recreated with Film Clips - See, THIS is what the Internet is for. [Brobible]

Movies That Should Get The 3D Treatment - Not gonna lie, I would go see a 3-D re-release of Snow Dogs. Country Bears, too. [Adult Swim]

20 Favorite Rom-Com Actors Under 40 - I feel like you shouldn’t be a “rom-com actor”, you should just be an actor who has appeared in a romantic comedy. Once you get into Kate Hudson territory it’s time for retirement. [Moviefone]

8 Animal Misconceptions Rundown - Number 9: Dogs can’t look up. [High Definite]

By way of Buzzfeed comes this video of Jeremy Lin doing “The Dougie” during his rookie year at Golden State. You know why? ‘Cause all his bitches love him.

This is, of course, in direct confliction with the greatest of all Dougie instructional videos — Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Kate Upton doing The Dougie at a Los Angeles Clippers game, a clip so great it topped our list of the 20 Greatest Sports Moments Of 2011.

That video (as if you haven’t seen it 200 times already) is below, followed by an important question: if you could learn to Dougie from only one master, who would you choose?

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Because our hearts pump normal, human blood, we have a little crush on Western New York Flash forward Alex Morgan. Because we follow sports closely (and have Kate Upton Google Alert boobytraps set up on every corner of the Internet) we know that the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue goes on sale tomorrow, and because God is looking out for us, Alex Morgan appears in said issue wearing a painted-on bikini.

Our friends at SI Hot Clicks were kind enough to leak the photo and an interview snippet on Friday. From that interview, a condescending question with an awesome answer:

SI.com: What was more intimidating: posing in bodypaint or taking on Japan in the World Cup finals?

Morgan: I have been playing soccer my entire life. I know how to stay calm and not get too nervous for games. That’s why I would have to say posing in bodypaint was a little more intimidating. It was a completely new experience and definitely took some getting used to before I felt comfortable in bodypaint. I had to look in the mirror every five minutes to make sure I actually had a swimsuit on.

I’m still not entirely sure why the SI swimsuit issue exists. For the longest time I thought maybe female sports fans who subscribed to the magazine used it as a shopping guide of sorts to keep abreast of the latest bikini fashions, but then they started just dumping paint on ladies and glitter-gluing sand to their boobs and it lost me. I mean, it found me on a personal level, but it lost me intellectually.

Oh, and before I ramble on too much, here’s Alex Morgan wearing absolutely f**king nothing:

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