The Dope Show Continues

This week, Miami Dolphins running back Ricky Williams was suspended for the entire 2006 season for violating the National Football League’s substance abuse policy for a fourth time. The illicit drug he was found to have in his system in each of his offenses was marijuana. Williams has never tested positive for any performance-enhancing drug, nor has there ever been any evidence of any other illegal substance discovered in or on him. The extraordinarily talented Williams has long been a controversial character due not only to his repeated marijuana violations, but for his having walked away from the sport for a brief period as well as his affection for meditation, yoga, art and his being unusually soft-spoken and articulate for a football player.

Barry Bonds will break Henry Aaron’s all time Major League Baseball career home run record by season’s end if his oft-injured knee holds up. Bonds almost certainly takes - or at the very least has taken – steroids. Steroids increase an athlete’s ability to perform by reducing healing time after workouts or injury and thereby artificially maximizing training sessions and increasing strength and power. Unfortunately, they can have what most might consider negative side effects, such as cancer, a tendency to precipitate aggressive behavior and shrunken genitals.
Major League Baseball has known about not only Bonds’ use of steroids for years, but of widespread, consistent use throughout its 30-team network.
Baseball’s tacit approval of the use of such drugs can be understood simply as its turning a blind eye in response to economic pressure.

MLB’s popularity and revenues had been in continuous decline since the early 1980’s and its heroes had long gone away. Pete Rose had been busted for gambling and subsequently banned for life, marquee teams like the Yankees and Red Sox were struggling to fill their own and visiting ballparks and the only shining star in Baseball’s otherwise darkened sky was a man by the name of Ripken whose claim to fame was having played more consecutive games than anyone else, albeit often rather well.
So when, in 1998, Messrs. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa came along and chased Roger Maris’ 37 year old single season home run record of 61, everyone – public and baseball executive alike – was willing to ignore the fact that while Sosa alone would have appeared to be cartoonishly large, next to the pockmarked, gargantuan McGwire, he almost looked normal. That year, McGwire hit 70 home runs, Sosa 66. In 2001, Bonds hit 73.

Baseball more than any other sport, measures its significance and allure by numbers. It is constantly in balance with offense and defense with the common denominators being the rules of the game and the geometry of the ballparks as they relate to the players. While there has been, at times, an uneven evolution of ability in certain aspects of the game, the balance has remained consistent, existing in a state of - as more than one cheesy scribe has put it – perfect Zen.
It cannot be stressed enough that while advances in strength training and nutrition have produced far greater results than were possible in the time of Mantle and Maris, to go - in one generation - from two guys with farm-boy roots and roping forearms who can hit a ball 430 feet to weight room freaks with acne and gigantic heads who can knock a horsehide straight out of a stadium takes more than “Body by Jake” videos. It takes drugs; performance enhancing drugs. Were these drugs shown to have no negative side effects, it would seem logical that they become an unhindered part of the sports landscape. For the same reason that athletes seeking to build mass today eat things other than raw eggs and steak, the evolution of knowledge in nutrition will continue to reap benefits for not only athletes, but for the rest of the population. However, it is because steroids have conclusively been shown to have consistently negative side effects that they cannot be legal in sports at any level. It is simply not fair to make an athlete have to decide between his or her career and his or her health. It is very much the same as sexual harassment in that regard.

Now, back to Ricky Williams.
Marijuana has never been considered a “performance enhancing drug,” as even a brief listen to any live Grateful Dead concert will confirm. For anyone who has ever smoked grass, it is no great realization that one would likely not want to attempt to run away from a 280 lb. lineman with 4.5 speed when one cannot even consistently grab a Dorito because one keeps missing the bag’s opening because one cannot see the bag’s opening due to the tears welled up in one’s eyes as a result of the hysterical laughter inspired by the way one’s dog is looking at the television.
It is highly unlikely that Williams ever was high at practice or a game. The NFL has marijuana on its “banned” list because marijuana is illegal and the NFL is trying to keep a shiny - however perverse - all-American reputation intact, which is no small feat when a large part your fan interest is derived from a desire by most to see enormous men try to kill each other.
Steroids, unlike marijuana, create an uneven playing field; they distort history, they confound statistics and they promote an unfair advantage.

Barry Bonds will likely play out this season and Major League Baseball will then truly move forward with its inquiries. Unfortunately for its fans, the action will come too late and the damage will be irreparably done.
The National Football League, meanwhile, will uphold the suspension of one of its kinder and more colorful characters due to an, at best, misinformed and misguided rule. Were Ricky Williams to break one of the NFL’s cherished records, his being a pot smoker would hardly taint the occasion. In fact it would likely quickly become less of an important “example” to show the impressionable and more a late-night talk show joke.
If Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron’s record, baseball, as we know it - already hanging onto its history by a thread - is over.

Murder, Mayhem and Mass Millions

I’ve never been a bumper sticker guy. However, I can’t argue with this: “The lottery is like a tax for people who are bad at math.” Now, that’s a bumper sticker.
As much as I respect those among my friends who profess on their bumpers a hatred of George Bush, a hope for whirled peas, instructions on what toll-free number to call if one wishes to dine on excrement in the event that the reader is less than impressed with the car operator’s driving tendencies, or even conclusions regarding piping plover taste tests, I cannot and will not join their ranks. Until now.

When I am at a Cumberland Farms, a Tedeschi’s, or any other of the rich, warm quilt of evenly placed food marts in our humble, wonderfully zoned region, more than half the time I end up behind some blessed septuagenarian, systematically spending his or her hard earned Social Security check on Mass Millions or Cash Winfall or Megabucks. Now, as I am prone to stereotyping, I will try to avoid jumping the three, well-marked inches to the conclusion that Fred the 71 year old pipe installer with the Masonic ring is likely a Republican who likely at least once in the past month – if not since breakfast – has made some sort of unfavorable comment regarding the status of illegal immigrants in this country (especially the brown ones) and how they are largely if not solely responsible for the downturn in the economy, high gas prices, violent television, us losing the war and "fags." In fact, everything and everyone else besides Fred has had a hand in helping him to arrive at the checkout counter of this very food mart, carefully investing in his future, picking tickets like a more speculative type would pick stocks. He’s going to win and he’s going to thank God when he does and he’s going to go to Foxwoods and blow it all and he’s going to be back at this very counter next year blaming the Pakistani convenience store clerk for selling him the winning ticket in the first place. In the meantime, I’ll still be standing behind him or one of his friends, waiting oh-so-patiently to pay for my chips and gas, finding not only the lottery, but the lighters shaped like cell phones, the $10 baseball cards and the rolling papers more and more attractive as the minutes pass.
I especially love how when Fred, Maggie (or whatever bag of protein is filling the orthopedic shoes in front of me) notices my definitely palpable impatience, they seem to slow down, if that’s possible, and really take their time with the choices they’re making. “Hmmm… I could get ‘Lucky 7’s’ but I won $20 on those in February. Maybe ‘Pot o’ Gold.’ Nope, Jimmy got $100 last week and then busted his leg at the Elks Club; bad luck there.” I’ll get an angry glance that says, “I’ve earned the right to stand here simply by existing on this earth longer than you and I’m gonna do it,” which is the kind of logic that is essentially on an even scale with my saying, “I can forcibly remove you from the checkout counter because I’m younger, stronger and since I haven’t blown my earnings on the %$#@! Lottery, I can easily post bail.”

The great singer (formerly of Black Flag and presently of Rollins Band,) speaker, writer and all-around righteous dude, Henry Rollins, once proposed that there should be varying degrees of murder for people that waste the time of others in such a fashion. His reasoning is that life is finite and the 5 minutes someone spends arguing with the lady at the airport ticket counter about why he should be able to bring a cleaver in his carryon luggage should be considered as 5 minutes less you have in the length of your life. If there are 3 degrees of murder and manslaughter, perhaps an offense of this type should be, say, 16th degree; a “life-larceny,” of sorts. I like that. If someone wants to charge me with that when I’m 70 years old and clogging up the line at “Romney’s Hydrogen and Refuse Mart” in what were formerly the pristine dunes of Truro, great. I’ll pay the $600 (if I have it after I fork over the $20 for M&M’s and the National Enquirer with the photos of a scantily clad Suri Cruise-Holmes caught on a Bali beach with President Rick Santorum) and be on my way.
Until then, move it, Gramps. As much as I appreciate your generous contributions to the state coffers resultant of your poor knowledge of arithmetic and as glad as I am that my road gets plowed because of it, I sense that your luck is in grave danger of running out.

Don't Let the Door Hit Your Perfect Ass on the Way Out

I love what happens to people on their way out. I mean, as in dying, being canned, or just plain leaving for greener pastures (See “Exiting Presidents: Chapter 41- ‘This is the last we’ll see of George Bush.’”)
They – and by “they,” I mean the famous among us – are eulogized in such hyperbolic praise that even I, who am as hyperbolic as Mr. Peepers is hyperactive, am disgusted by the sheer melodrama played out every time some otherwise forgettable character is elevated to god-like status simply by the act of exiting.
As one example of this phenomena, I give you Richard Nixon, who’s only redeeming quality was his having given comedians a long sought break as they were exhausted from trying to impersonate LBJ. Nixon died a little less than twelve years ago.
For the unaware, Nixon set the mold for an entire generation of politicians to commit underhanded, illegal, unethical acts for the benefit of themselves and their friends. No, he didn’t start such behavior, as the Kennedy brothers and many if not all politicos before them abused power like Ike abused Tina. Nixon just did it shamefully and with such verve and audacity, that even then Secretary of State Henry “Power is the Ultimate Aphrodisiac” Kissinger must have raised his eyebrows and given Tricky Dick the big “Whoa, dude,” or more likely, just one soft “Oy…”
When Nixon kicked, it was only a matter of moments before Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and all sorts of otherwise sensible television journalists (and how ugly and untrue do those last three words look together) simultaneously lost their minds and began singing the praises of a man who was responsible for the deaths of millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians (the latter to whom Nixon said “We’re not doing so well over here in Viet Nam, so….Howdy, Neighbor!”) Not to mention making Elvis Presley a deputy drug prosecutor, ironically, so soon before his death from – drugs.
Bizarre. Though I suppose it is perhaps our desire to ultimately see the good in everyone as we realize the gift of life itself trumps all judgments we make in this plane of existence. As if it is a humility we must embrace when faced with mortality in order to give us the courage to not be overwhelmed by simply the idea of life itself.
Of course, this does nothing to explain why Dale Earnhardt is called a “hero.” Up until his death, I imagine that even a great many of his fans shared a belief with his detractors that he was, in addition to being rather extraordinarily talented at driving around in a circle very fast, a belligerent redneck. But, boom, into - not so ironically - a wall his car went and now there are big #3’s on trucks everywhere. On thousands of bedroom and gas station walls you will find portraits of a man wearing an expression so tender and compassionate that he looks more like a kindly church usher than the man who’s nickname was “The Intimidator,” not to intimate that I am anything other than quite intimidated by church ushers (I always half expect to get poked with a cattle prod.)
In an entirely more irrational example, just because he actually-and-for-really did a lot of bad things to people, there is also no reasonable explanation for Ronald Reagan being remembered so fondly. Nor his wife, for that matter (oh wait, she just looks dead.) He made greed cool, he disenfranchised the poor, he grew the military-industrial complex into a bigger beast than Wal-Mart (alright, it’s not that perverse and corrupt,) and he did it all after building a solid career on the bloodied backs of blacklisted former friends in Hollywood who he happily turned in to the FBI as godless communists and enemies of the USA. Many of those folks never worked again and their families and personal lives disintegrated like so much old celluloid, while good old Ron smiled, waved, and told Mr. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall,” which Gorbachev had intended on doing for some time anyway without the opportunistic Reagan barking orders at him via CNN. Then, after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer’s that began to really take hold sometime early in his second term as President of the United States of America, he left for that big convention in the sky, no doubt shooting spitballs at Che Guevara and complaining to Saint Peter that “Che started it.”
I bring all this up because I heard two things the other day that struck me as ridiculous, and one was compounded by the other.
Tom DeLay, the former House Majority Leader and Republican Representative from Texas, resigned from his seat in Congress after corruption charges against him had begun to pile higher than a stack of two dollar bills in the back room of Zachary’s Pub on a Saturday night. DeLay bowed out and went, faster than you can say “Compassionate Conservatism,” from the guy every politician on either side of the aisle in this country was afraid to call “asshole,” just because of the high degree to which he is one, to the guy who was being hailed as “a real ‘get-things-done’ kind of a fella who everyone respected and loved,” who “really cared about his country.” Right. Like, he won’t be parlaying the proverbial gold watch he’ll receive into some sort of revenge on whoever dropped the ball and led to his indictment. What made this even more hysterical was the same Republican Party consultant I heard eulogizing the dear, departed DeLay compared him, in a very complimentary manner, to Newt Gingrich, citing Gingrich as an example of “intelligent leadership in the conservative movement.” Intelligent? Perhaps. Nuts? Definitely. It was great. It was the double whammy of utterly ridiculous canonization. It was a two-fer-one. It was like I died, went to hell, and not only got to see Jimmy Buffet play 147 songs in a row, but as it turns out, learn that he was just the opening act for the Eagles. Oh happy day.
Hey, when I go, I want people to say whatever is true. I want them to say, “Yeah, y’know, he really made me laugh, he smelled of running shoes. Honestly, I just can’t remember much else about him. Oh well. Hey! Quit bogarting the Mountain Dew!” I want to be whole when I’m here and nothing more when I’m gone.
Were any of these guys victims of an oh-we-just-didn’t-realize-how-blessed-we-were-to-have-them-in-our-presence, innocently apathetic mentality? Please.
By conveniently removing the mistakes from the book of history, not only do we reduce a collection the size of a James Michener box set to a Soap Opera Digest, we also run the risk of repeating the same errors in a seemingly ever-shortening amount of time. Need proof? Check out the 43rd President of the United States of America. May history recall him accordingly.