Dopey Bikers

hist5bigI’d be pissed if I cared about cycling in the slightest. You go back and look at all the commercials he made, all the tv spots he did, all the times that he denied the doping and pretended to be the Golden Boy of athletic success. He promotes everything you’d expect in an American Poster Child, the easy choice to slap on a Wheaties box and tell kids to emulate, yet we’re still suprised that he embodies everything that you’d EXPECT in an American Star: the Fakeness, the Bravado, the Unabashed Lack of Scruples, and Hypocrisy. “Drugs” is a gimme but with Armstrong’s particular fall, he brought the rest of us with him.

This is different than Tiger Woods’ personal “hole-in-many” celebrations, (which proved he was HUMAN). Sexploits and cheating are two different things. They may both cost you endorsements, but Armstrong’s very accomplishments are discredited with his series of mistakes, as opposed to merely ruining his personal life.

Many people are cynics like me, secretly wishing for our celebrities’ luster to dull and their stardom to burn up on re-entry into this atmosphere. But our athletes are different. They aren’t (mostly) known for their sex tapes and that 5 minute spot on the latest popular sitcom; they’re known for years of physical endurance requiring impressive personal discipline. They’re known for waking up early and dedicating their lives to perfecting their bodies, as living works of art, testament to what our flabby species is capable of. When our athletes’ good fame is cut short, it typically leads to disappointment unless they’re a total douche. It jades us. When we can no longer point to someone who does it RIGHT, we lose a piece of our human confidence and a generation is deprived of yet another role model.

Like The Daily Show points out, we don’t have a Number 2 Cyclist to root for…. This is because it wasn’t even about cycling, but a personification of American Ideals. As a nation, we feel the world catching up on us. We know that we are losing that edge, that it turns out that whatever lead we had earlier this century is running thin: technology, education, cultural “richness”, opportunities, and personal liberties. We still claim all of these things, suckin’ down our sodas, buying our iPads, recording our cats; we fritter our lives away in whatever comfortable way we see fit while the world gets their shit together. “Oh Greece’s economy collapsed! Excellent. Go US.” “The Middle East is still in-fighting. We’re Number One.” No. These news headlines get latched onto as if they were the TOTAL indication of the world’s status. And on some subconscious level we all know this is a false impression. We’re not dumb enough to gloss over comparison charts stating that we’re 18th in education, or that we have ass-backwards approaches to church and state, too much violence, too many guns, and more. It’s all seeping in. We’re not even number one in polluting anymore! (Our Carbon Footprint puts us at number 3.)

The point is: America needs those heroes on those pedestals because it softens the blows of reality. We laugh at our dumbshit celebrities, maybe even model our hair after them, but people truly rally behind the recognizable names of sports. They scream out their names, have “fantasy” leagues, buy their jerseys, and root them on during every step of the way in some sort of perversely vicarious goal. And that’s just the local athletes. Our olympians and international representatives get all the more pressure and expectations. They show US what is possible, that we can still compete abroad, that the U.S. is getting mired in its own bureacracy and status quo of stupidity but we can still win a fucking race, damn it. These particular athletes are the sugar that makes the bitter pill of reality easier to swallow, the comfort food as the playing field is noticably leveled in our competitors favor. There are those who would be devastated to know that even the last hopes of our clinging glory are routinely and purposefully given an injection of unfair advantage….

But not me. I am comfortable with the knowledge that even our stars, shining examples of human achievement, burn out. It’s a fitting metaphor that the night sky is full of pinpricks of light, dots of illumination that were historically used to navigate our world, to gain our own personal bearings, though that very light may be reaching us after the source died out long ago.

Gyah. I don’t want to be a downer, hmm. A high note…. high note. Uh…. How about: We must BE our own personal heroes. In a world of failings, we can’t expect more than what we can accomplish, ourselves. Draw the inspirational boosts where you can, but look inward for moral accomplishment in whatever honest victories you can attain (?).

Also, Livestrong wristbands benefitted cancer research…. You didn’t give your money directly to that asshole.

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