What Ever Happened To […] #1022

[It doesn’t seem much like it today, but Happy Bad Joke Friday anyway! Here’s one I just heard (actually saw online) that may even pertain (to much of the country): “It’s so cold today, I actually saw a Democrat with his hands in his own pockets.” 😉
I should sell that one to… whichever of the five dozen late night talk shows now on TV that might be writer-starved enough to buy it. Eh? Nevertheless, all this TV News lately about Hoozits Pist-off-i-yuss is driving me crazy. What, now they’re saying he might be “innocent” because the lead investigator is up on charges? Huh?? Since when does possible police misconduct have anything whatsoever to do with ANY suspect’s murderous guilt or innocence? Oh wait. Hmmm… O.J.’s case was “botched,” wasn’t it. That and that damned shrunken leather glove got HIM off, didn’t it. OK, never mind.]

The Obama Administraction Presents…

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO [Heroes] ?

Indeed. Didn’t we always used to think that running heroes and heroines were somehow special? And other sports’ champions, too? When in the “good old days” did any of us, you know, cheer the champion, buy the Wheaties with his or her picture on it, and then hunker down for the short wait for the indictment?

Did we ever used to cheer and then wait, for example, for Jesse Owens to be arraigned? Or Edwin Moses or Carl Lewis or Sebastian Coe or Mary Decker Slaney or that Sergei-the-famous-Ruskie-pole-vaulter-guy, or even Bruce Jenner? Hey, even being hitched to the Kurvy Kardashian Klan shouldn’t get Bruce in dutch. Or jail. Well, maybe looking at it another way…

Never mind. None of those dudes and dudettes ever murdered anybody, or tried to, or were accused of it, or anything else—like, how ’bout shootin’ up their own selves? Sure, Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle used to “party” hard enough to still be hungover in the outfield in the ball park the next day, but by and large they weren’t criminals!

So, whatever happened to taking a bite out of crime, and keeping crime out of sports? Whatever happened to holding sports heroes to higher standards? Stan Musial just died. Betcha we’ll wait a long LONG time before his reputation is ever tarnished. How ’bout Ted Williams? The only thing he’s gonna feel “guilty” about is waking up in the 23rd century… to a dead planet!

Heroes! Don’t we need them? Don’t we want them? Don’t we make billion dollar industries out of whatever the hell they’re hawking? So (as we can easily imagine Lance Armstrong, for example, wondering) what EVER happened to “my” endorsements? Maybe Lance is looking to get paid for Prednisone commercials (along with Ben Johnson and Marion Jones), and that South African Oscar should endorse cricket bats? Wickets? Home remodeling contractors that install bulletproof bathroom doors?

What EVER happened to HEROES? Heroes specifically of athletic achievement? Tiger Woods? C’mon. His sleaze was plastered all over TV screens for years. Pete Rose? No Hall of Fame for YOU! (Recalling the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld: “No HoF for you!”) Roger Hoosgotclemency, Hoozerry Bonds, Whutzisname McGuire, and on and on? On STEROIDS?? Puh-leeease. Quite a few some-kinda-bodies actually ELECTED Hoozis “Owl Bee Bach” Ahh-nold as governor of Cali-phrenia! And look what a sterling champion bodybuilder-cum-actor, cum… HE turned out to be! He has single-handedly dismissed the entire housekeeping industry from ever becoming IBBF fans.

And we’ve not even touched on football. OMG! Isn’t the fast-track-out-of-the-ghetto these days just how hard you can hit—nay, sack; nay, PULVERIZE—other human beings? How do you elevate thuggery to great athletic achievement? Give it an NFL contract.

So, is now this Mister Oscar Pist-off-i-yuss about to become an “honorary” NFL “playa”? Izzie jus’ playin’ da game, sucka? And HIS hero was O.J.???

What EVER happened to the purity of sport? To “the thrill of victory and the agony of… de feet”? Now the whole entire damn activity (nay, industry) is tainted? Fast women use juice and faster men shoot them? Put them on Wheaties’ boxes? No, they’re already inside Pine boxes. And, in fact, Wheaties itself might well come under scrutiny for Genetically Modified something-or-others. Now the box glamorizing bad stuff is itself full of bad stuff.

Heroes? Here’s what happened to yours troubly’s “heroes”: They got old. Out of date. Passé. No longer hip, chic, hop, happening, current, popular, or TV-see-worthy. They all picked up their honor and went home. They refused to share it with the rest of the playground. They slunk off to that fantasyland of Disney’s called suspended animation. The Big Freeze. We laugh at Ted and Walt and yet still hold fast to their sterling images, like wintertime tongues stuck to the flagpole. Nobody remembers Bob Cousy anymore, and Wilt-the-Stilt Chamberlain’s reputation seems lame, compared with today’s Gangland Battery of Assault, Porn, and Murder.

And “schpeakingk of spwahts,” where’s Howard Cosell when we need him the most? “Oss-kar PIS-cah-tor-yee-us, that bright young glint on the cutting edge of running blades, the Maldive of drive, the thundering thighs of not much else, that frickin’ African foot fetish freak. Oh, how sheemingly flimsy your rock-a-bye alibi is, Mister PIS-cah-notorious. If evah a schpawtsman’s pedestal has cracked its plastah…. And now? Even le gendarme of the law’s veneer is off. Blade Gunner, if only you’d’ve held the golden promise of Olympic gold in your hands, instead of that murderous weapon of ‘ass destruction. Oss-kar, we hardly knew ye.”

Welllllllllll, “this IS John Cameron Cameron downtown. Things here are in chaos. Everything once heroic is now topsy-turvy. All that was sacred is now on its head. Maybe after the fog—and all these reporters—have cleared, people will see what comes out of this as a whole new hero. A brand-new embodiment of the very best of manKIND. And instead of those saps that only look good, run fast, and kill people, maybe now there’ll be a new kind of sap: homo sapiens. A guy with the thickest glasses, most A’s on his report card, and captain of the chess team.

“Yes, the Nerd.”

Maybe the heroes we’ve been supposed to be worshipping haven’t been sports heroes at all. Maybe they’re the dufusses and dudettas who’ve reshaped the world, come up with new tools, and helped raise humankind off the playing—now battle—field to begin with. The Inventors! Maybe we should all start worshipping motherboards and collecting video cards. Maybe it shouldn’t be Wheaties at all, but raw data that we serve for our brain salads. Maybe someday alumni will start buying season tickets to chess games, science fairs, and poetry readings, instead of what passes for glory on the gridiron.

Personally, I’d like to cheer more for Steve Jobs than Oscar Pistorius. And please note that the former never killed anybody! Oh no—and O Woe!—he was taken from us waaaaay too early. Just like Reeva Steenkamp.

( x_x )

Yours troubly,

The Troubadour
“a one time mid-evil lute-plucking contender for adoration on ‘French Idol’–a popular market square song-and-dance stage show centuries ago”

Yankee Folly of the Day:
So who’s left that we CAN worship? Someone who isn’t violent and hasn’t shot anybody and doesn’t ‘roid himself up on rage just to win championships and IS smarter than your average 9-to-5 flunky and DOES embody everything we runner-folk could possibly ever hope for? Dean Karnazes?