Attention Tyson: You Didn’t Ask, but Advice Is Free

If we the public are perplexed by the ongoing docudrama that is life in the Mike Tyson camp, imagine how the camp director himself must feel.

Let us pause and pluck a violin string of sympathy for Mike Tyson. This is a young man who escapes the maelstrom of leeches and coat-tailers for 91 seconds every few months. The rest of us at least get five-minute coffee breaks.

The confusion and bumbling among Mike’s relatives, associates and friends makes the L.A. Clippers’ management look as solid as the Vatican.

I sometimes try to put myself in Tyson’s shoes, although I always wear socks. This lad is in some deep water for a 22-year-old whose only formal training over the last 20 years has been in the field of facial rearrangement.

Tyson needs some levelheaded, objective advice. That’s my department. I offer the following counsel, direct to my man Mike:

Fire Donald Trump.

You’re the only person in the world who can.

It needs to be done on general principals, to shrink the man’s ego down to the size of George Steinbrenner’s.

I won’t say Trump is hopping on your bandwagon, Mike, but he is running alongside it trying to bite the tires. I hear he’s only offering to take over management of your career because he was turned down by Cher and Jesse Jackson.

Build up your entourage.

Trump, I have to admit, has the right idea, of hiring several people to sit on the board of Mike Tyson Enterprises. It’s a concept that has worked well for the Anaheim Rams. Team owner Georgia Frontiere put together a 16-person “Advisory Board,” featuring lawyers, corporate tycoons, a county coroner, an evangelist and a mah-jongg partner or two.

What does this board do? Nobody is sure, but it’s an impressive group, the envy of every other National Football League team.

Your advisory board should be part of your entourage. Follow the role model of Martina Navratilova, who never leaves home without her coaches, consultants, trainers, friends, lovers, parents and dogs. Hotel bills will be high, but you’ll never have to fetch your own ice cubes or copy of The Times.

Hire a media consultant.

Your fans are being portrayed as suckers because they paid billions of dollars to watch a fight that lasted 91 seconds.

Hey, it wasn’t your fault that Michael Spinks put up less fight than the tall buildings in a Godzilla movie. You need someone to feed positive data to the press. For instance, 91 seconds is more total action than featured in the average World Series game. And the fight with Tyson featured less gratuitous violence than the average hockey game.

Besides, you kept the fight within our attention span. Studies show that if the average TV viewer watches the screen for three minutes and nobody bleeds or dies, he assumes the tape in his VCR is jammed.

With most sporting events, we have to wait until the 11 o’clock news to see the highlights. You pioneered a unique packaging concept, where the event and the highlight clips are one and the same.

The media needs a little redirection on this money thing, too. According to all the wire-service stories, for the Spinks fight you got “slightly less than $21 million.”

Is this supposed to make you sound slightly less overpaid? Be proud of your money. Tell people you earned “one hell of a lot more than $20 million.”

Also, don’t soft-pedal your retirement merely because it was a short one. Milk the comeback angle, Mike. Your next fight won’t be just another fight. It will be a whole new career.

“TYSON II: THE REBIRTH OF A LIVING LEGEND!”

Keep fighting.

Where else can you make this kind of money without hiring out as a consultant to a military-defense contractor? Besides, for your own sanity, you need those peaceful moments when you can step into the ring and pound someone’s skull into bone meal.

Fight Frank Bruno. Or any Frank. Sinatra, Avalon, Howard. Climb into the ring with an Amana refrigerator. The fans just want to see you dent something and knock it over.

By the way, on that media consultant gig: I’m available. I’ll even work cheap, for slightly less than a hell of a lot.

I won’t be able to start for a few weeks, though. I’m taking off soon for my annual three-week retirement.