The Occupy M&Ms movement's unexpected supporters.

In the spirit of the Occupy Wall Street (Or Anywhere Else Where We Can Whine About Everything Not Being Given To Us And Get All Kinds Of Free Media Coverage) movement, a group going under the name of Chocaholics Anonymous has occupied the lobby of M&Ms®/Mars headquarters in McLean, Virginia, insisting they’re not going anywhere until the company stops sponsoring Kyle Busch in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series.

“Frankly, we’ve had it,” said a movement spokesperson who declined to give her name for fear of her husband finding out she’s not actually waiting for Johnny to finish with soccer practice. “Ever since they started sponsoring that little brat we have refused to buy a single bag of M&Ms. You’d think they’d get the hint, but apparently not. Now we’re taking it to the streets! Lobby, really. In-between runs to Starbucks, that is.”

The movement has picked up an unexpected ally in that the five M&Ms characters — Red, Yellow, Green, Blue and Orange — have joined in the protest. “You know how embarrassing it is to have to apologize for Busch week after week?,” commented an irate Red as he took a seat among the protesters cheering the character’s presence. “We should have left him tied up after that commercial shoot.”

When asked for a comment about the protest, a spokesperson for M&Ms®/Mars said, “Who’s Kyle Busch?”

Zevon came to public attention in 1978 with the release of his second album Excitable Boy. It was a quirky outing, musically rooted in the southern California “Mellow Mafia” vibe personified by the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Browne albeit with a strong piano-based rock’n'roll vibe. Lyrically, however, the album was anything but a peaceful easy feeling. Zevon was in love with bizarre imagery and ofttimes jarring wordplay, lacing such throughout his songs whether they were rockers or ballads. It was an approach that won him a fanatically loyal cult following, yet to the public at large despite his unquestioned gift for gorgeous melodies he was decidedly hit and miss when it came to having hits. Mostly, miss.

In a moment of bitter irony, the man who early in his career penned a tune titled “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” enjoyed his greatest commercial success when in 2002, suffering from mesothelioma which would claim his life the following year, he recorded his final album The Wind on which the closing track was “Keep Me In Your Heart.” It’s a plaintive tune, stripped of all the oddities which had kept him from general public acceptance throughout his career, in which Zevon makes his quiet case to be remembered. At the end, he had finally learned how to do something that has escaped him throughout his career: get out of his own way.

Zevon came to mind while watching Kyle Busch win the Jeff Byrd 500 Presented by Food City today at Bristol Motor Speedway. The race was an excellent outing, featuring numerous lead battles and very few stretches when there wasn’t racing action all over the track. In the end, Busch held off Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson for the victory, his second of the weekend and fifth straight (Busch won the truck, Nationwide and Cup race on the same weekend at Bristol last August) on the notoriously difficult short track.

For his efforts, Busch was greeted with a resounding Bronx cheer, Tennessee style.

It’s not that Busch is a hack behind the wheel. He is a superb driver, already laying solid claim to being one of the best ever in NASCAR. We know this. He knows this. We are reminded on an average of every 13.7 seconds by the motorsports media of this. And yet Busch is far, far more reviled than revered. It’s not even the we’re-sick-of-you-winning-all-the-time vibe that permeates the dislike among many in NASCAR Nation for Jimmie Johnson and, albeit to a lesser extent now that he’s no longer the dominant force he once was, Jeff Gordon. NASCAR fans hate Kyle Busch with a passion.

Why?

Simply put, Busch has never been able to get out of his own way. Far more often than not he has been graceless and classless in both victory and defeat. Busch can pile up wins like no one else in the NASCAR equivalent of a regular season, yet routinely self-destructs by taking foolish chances when the pressure is on. His greatest challenger isn’t Johnson or Edwards or anyone else presently driving. It’s his own shortcomings. And he has never defeated these. Not once.

Drivers can transform their image by transforming themselves over time. Darrell Waltrip was once the driver everyone loved to hate. By the end of his career he was a huge fan favorite. In theory Busch can do the same. However, no amount of media love can accomplish this for him. Were this the case, given how often his praises have been sung he’d be beloved right now. He’s not. The choice as to whether this remains the case is his.

Busch’s legacy is being laid down in every race. If he’s comfortable with being the brat in Victory Lane, so it shall be, and no amount of being told otherwise will change the NASCAR fan base’s mind. For now, he is very much NASCAR’s Warren Zevon, a genius more than willing to sacrifice public acceptance for the sake of doing things his way and his way alone.

Which leaves him very much alone.

(Cross-posted in modified form at Examiner.com)

• You have to love NASCAR’s logic about the rash of pit road speeding penalties during the Nationwide race at Kentucky tonight.  “Of course our equipment’s right!  If it wasn’t, everyone would have been caught speeding!”  Um, sure.

• In the “we know life’s not fair but come on” category, at last report Johnny Benson was in serious condition after an accident in a supermodifieds race Saturday… a race he wouldn’t have been in had his truck team not folded earlier this week due to lack of sponsorship.  Which wouldn’t have been the case since he actually had a sponsor lined up, but the PC police at SPEED said they wouldn’t show the truck because the sponsor was (horrors!) a gun manufacturer.  Which leads to the question why they have no problem with the GunBroker.com sponsorship carried by Jason White’s truck.  Nice.  Sleep easy, SPEED execs.

Because he has nothing.

Busch’s superbrat act reached new heights (or depths) this evening at Nashville, when after wafflestomping the field en route to yet another Nationwide win greeted with a resounding round of yawns he decided smashing the custom-painted guitar presented as a trophy would be just the thing.

Ah, but afterwards he apologized, or so we’re told, to Sam Bass who custom paints the guitar trophy, offering to buy two of them.  Because after all nothing makes everything all better like a check, now does it.

It also blows the cover off your badass act.

If you’re really a rebel, you don’t apologize.  You defy.  You say you’re proud of what you’ve done, you don’t care what anyone — anyone — thinks, and you’re not backing down for anyone or anything.  You don’t skulk around afterwards trying to undo what you’ve done like a whipped puppy seeking to atone for the mess you left on the rug.

Which is precisely what Busch has done.

He’s shown his act for what it is: an act.  And a weak one at that.  Kyle Busch is a pseudo porn star who runs and hides when it’s action time.

What a loser of a race winner.

Seriously.  What is Kyle Busch’s problem?

His latest tirade against Dale Earnhardt Jr. is the stuff of which studies in petulance are made.  Whether it’s a deliberate attempt to reinforce his bad boy image or sniping on the level of a jilted former boyfriend dissing his replacement, Busch continues to embarrass no one but himself with his words.

What does he hope to gain by this?  He’s the one who’s said loud and long he could care less what the fans think.  His actions state otherwise.  They are those of someone who’s aggravated beyond belief that someone else is popular despite their being, at least in the view of the one feeling slighted, not worthy to walk the same earth as the injured party.

It’s been well over a year since Busch was dismissed by Rick Hendrick in favor of Dale Jr.  Since then he’s won a score of races in all three of NASCAR’s premiere series.  Get over it already and console yourself with your trophies.

Busch has also proven himself quite capable of self-destructing at most inopportune times on the track, thus depriving himself of even more wins.  If there is anyone at which he should be directing his anger, it should be himself for being his own worst enemy.

Why should he care if Dale Jr. is struggling?  That much less competition for him.  His delighting in Earnhardt’s woeful performance as of late reveals an inexcusable character flaw: the poor winner.

In short, Shrub is an ass.

He’s not alone.

Enter Ed Hinton, a worn out garrulous hack who’s everyone he’s ever loved that pukes philippics at every opportunity about The Way Things Ought To Be.  Rather like print journalism’s answer to John Daly.  Naturally, Hinton is employed by ESPN, the network that believes sports exist for the sole purpose of self-promotion.  His ringing endorsement of everything Shrub said plus tacked on rips against Dale Jr. (no link, he’s not worth it) was a classic example of what happens when a tired old man who still believes he’s the show decides to play the role of sports writer as tough guy.  Oooh, look at me!  I’m ragging on NASCAR’s most popular driver!  I’m edgy and provocative!  No, you’re just another bozo with bees up your butt, smarting because your sad sack sorry self got shown the door by the newspaper business and blaming Dale Jr. for all your self-inflicted wounds.  Why doesn’t he admit his thought process is “if he was doing better NASCAR would be more popular and I’d still have my old job!”  Probably because he’s afraid he’ll lose his ‘voice of the fan because I say I am’ status.

Kyle Busch and Ed Hinton.  So richly deserving of each other.

Far be it from I to cast doubt on Kyle Busch’s parentage, as I am confident that despite assertions to the contrary heard at racetracks across the land his parents were in fact married at the time of his conception and his mother’s maiden name was not Lassie.  However, either they took a flier on the “every ‘can I’ comes with a ‘should I’ attached” lesson, or Shrub skipped that portion of the proceedings.  Whichever the case may be, the boy just don’t get it.  Which is why he continues to get it.  On the track, that is.

Even his most passionate detractors acknowledge Busch is an extremely talented driver.  He can throw a car around the track like most no one current or prior.  Sometimes it seems as if he’s literally throwing his car around the track, driving every which way but not loose as he performs a two hundred or so lap skid.  Watching Busch in action is like playing with a slot car on a track with the voltage set to eleven on a scale of one to ten.  Which brings to mind a quote by the legendary guitarist Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap, the greatest metal band that never was:  “It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.”

Guess on which side Busch rimrides.

Busch’s elevator either never makes it from the can I to should I level or is permanently out of service.  Regardless of the lap count, position on the track, place in the running order or number of chickens in the henhouse Busch is all out flat out and if sheet metal gets flattened out in the process that’s what the guys in the shop get paid for.  There is no question of Busch’s insatiable passion for winning every lap of every race.  This is a good thing.  It’s what racing is supposed to be.  However, when winning time draws nigh Busch is just as if not more likely to place too much faith in both his driving ability and ability to win the battle of wills with his opponents as he is to advance.  “How did he do that,” good.  “Why did he do that,” bad.  Way too many of the latter this year.

Take this past weekend at Lowe’s.  In the truck race, Busch was sent to the tail end of the longest line for unnecessarily rough driving when he played a game of bash and dash with an opponent who was in no fashion a threat to Busch’s securing the victory.  That he battled back to finish second is a testimony to his skill.  That he had to battle back to finish second testifies to his earlier being thick as a brick.  The next night, in the all-star race he had as good a shot at victory as anyone.  Oh no.  Let’s make it three wide when we don’t have to!  Those other guys will lift, right?  Wrong.  Jeff Gordon was wrecked, Ryan Newman was rumpled, and Busch received just enough of a ricochet to send him charging in reverse to a seventh place finish.  All because he wouldn’t exercise a modicum of patience by not forcing the issue at a place on the track where doing so could have only one result for all parties concerned.  Namely, not good.

Kyle Busch’s biggest threat is Kyle Busch.  Until such time as he stops doing with benefit of thinking he will remain as he is, one to always watch not for the many ways he can win a race but for the many more ways he finds to lose them.  As long as his elevator remains stuck at ground level, so shall it be.