http://www.nydailynews.com/news/col/grove/

Spike's pointed remark

By: Lloyd Grove

Don't go looking for Spike Lee at any NASCAR events this summer.
The ornery movie director and Knicks fanatic nurses a paranoid fantasy about
the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing circuit.

"I just imagine hearing some country-and-Western song over a loudspeaker at
NASCAR: 'Hang them ******s up high! Hang them ******s up high!' I'm not
going to no NASCAR," Lee vows in the August issue of Playboy.

Lee, husband of "Gotham Diaries" novelist Tonya Lewis Lee, shares some
equally provocative observations about Lakers star and rape defendant Kobe
Bryant and embattled R&B star R. Kelly.

"I was telling my wife that the Knicks may be getting Kobe, and her feeling
was, Why would the Knicks want Kobe Bryant, an alleged rapist?" Lee
recounts. But "in the sports realm today, the bottom line is to win. If a
great athlete has some character flaw or problems, that's overlooked as long
as he is able to perform."

Lee - whose latest movie, "She Hate Me," is due out July 30 - is less
forgiving of Kelly, who was accused of having videotaped illicit sex with a
14-year-old girl.

"I can't make that separation," Lee says. "I saw that DVD with him and those
girls. I have a 9-year-old daughter. I look at him in a different light now.
I can't listen to his music, and I wouldn't buy a record of his."

Ditto 50 Cent.

"What was the title of 50 Cent's debut album? 'Get Rich or Die Tryin','" Lee
says. "When young African-Americans live by the code 'Get rich or die
tryin',' it's a very sad state."