Slipped a Mickey

Today it came out that yet another track athlete is a drug cheat or, I should say, apparent drug cheat. Lashawn Merritt, 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist in the 400m, tested positive for some steroid I've never heard of. Athletes always claim they were sabotaged or that it was the ingredient in something they were innocently using. In the article I read in the Washington Post, Merritt claims the steroid was an ingredient in OTC male-enhancement pillExtenze. It'll be a long hard road to redemption for Merritt.

Some say we are in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. In homage to that era, back in the day I think it was refreshing and realistic that even Mickey contemplated offing himself. Credit to Tom Meagher for the link, some time ago now.

With over six million views I guess this Asian kid singing Whitney Houston is a pretty known quantity, but in case you've missed it, hella tight. Speaking of Asia, I feel like I posted/uploaded this image before, but just in case here it is again:



Oh, and while I use either Firefox or Safari, my buddy Osbourne alerted me to all of these alternate web browser choices.

So basically I posted some links. I also had a celebrity sighting of Lebron James in a bar/club last night. He was wearing sunglasses indoors, which I sometimes do. Do I think this connects us, no, but it is a statement of fact. And as a matter of fact, I've got to go.

Escape

Two stories you can't escape of late are Michael Phelps' late 2008 bong rip, and A-Rod's steroid use. They're both athletes, but you don't have to follow sports at all to have read endless criticisms of both. Honestly, I shouldn't even weigh in because I'm just perpetuating the bs. So it goes.

I'll start with A-Rod for alphabetical purposes (um, first name instead of last, right). I was never an A-Rod fan, especially when he went to the Yankees, a team I have long despised, but I can separate the player from the man, and he is a stat machine. The revelation that he used steroids, which is hardly a revelation if you are as cynical about drug use in sports as I am, doesn't actually change that all that much for me. Maybe now all sorts of impressionable youngsters or, hell, other professional athletes, are going to feel now as if they need to use performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) to compete but, then again, I have a hunch a lot of them felt that way anyway. And without entering long discussion, I'll simply say that I don't condone A-Rod's steroid use but, since it's one of the popular topics, I think he belongs in the Hall of Fame regardless. When two players are exceptional, it seems logical to assume that the one using steroids has the edge, except that who knows that the other player was not doing the same? I find baseball games a bit too long to capture my attention span these days anyway, but I'll be content in the knowledge that, with all the drug enhancements a contract as lucrative as A-Rod's can buy, I still would not be half the player he is. So it's a little sad, but you move on or, if you are a sports writer, you write hundreds or thousands of words on it and, for at least one writer, I'm sure they will attempt to craft a book.

Far sillier in my eyes is the hullabaloo over Michael Phelps apparent marijuana usage, so silly that I used the word "hullabaloo." The first thing is that it is a reminder how shitty it can be to be a celebrity. If I was at that University of South Carolina party, you can be damn sure no one would have given two shits if I was taking a bong rip. But of course, some asshole takes a picture with his camera phone and opts to sell it. Now, why exactly it took so long to surface is the same question I ask with the Christian Bale angry sound byte. Both took place a while back, especially Bale's incident, but they have only come to light now. It's an interesting game the media plays on when they release information.

As with A-Rod, I am not a Phelps fan. My allegiance and dislike of athletes and other celebrities bears no logical explanation, as I am sure would be the case for a lot of people. Still, guy is an amazing athlete, and I was rooting for him every time he dove into the Bubble and chased a gold. I wanted to see him perform his best. Even when I root for a person or team to lose, I really just want their opponent to outplay them, I'm not asking for my object of disaffection to shit the bed.

So right, again it comes in with Phelps being a role model, and this is where it gets oh-so-very dicey. What if instead of or, in addition to, labeling Phelps a poor role model, we teach kids different things. We all want that great athlete to be a great person too, but wait, all he did was smoke marijuana, right? The same marijuana that can be legally obtained in many states for medicinal purposes. Maybe Michael Phelps is a complete asshole in real life. It wouldn't surprise me if he was or he wasn't. Maybe I'm an asshole in real life too. Maybe I'm an asshole in this blog. And you know, maybe it's just a dose of reality. Do kids get over it when they find out Santa isn't real (sorry kids if you're reading)? Maybe not all of them. Will every kid with swimming or any other type of athletic aspirations go out to grab the nearest bong now? Maybe. Maybe they would anyway. That's a whole lot of maybe.

I'm just saying things happen, and if we're blaming Michael Phelps and A-Rod for shattering dreams, then we should go ahead and take responsibility for creating them in the first place. What if NBC came out and apologized for all the hype and the human interest around Phelps? Or what if Kellogg's came out and said, "Well, we thought long and hard, and we realized that, after a good bong rip, somebody might just want themselves a bowl, or a box, of Frosted Flakes...theeeeeeeyyyyyy're great."

Je Suis Fatigué

I wish that was the correct way to say "I am tired" in French, but sadly I think there are errors, more specifically relating to tense. I often think how sad it is how my knowledge of French has dropped off precipitously over the years but then it's not as if I've been taking any initiative to do anything about it.

So lately I have been pretty tired and while generally I would think this is a bummer, it's kind of refreshing since when I am not active, I usually am fairly close to being an insomniac. The last couple of days I have done two mile jogs, but I think it's my body recovering from the flu rather than this modicum of exercise that is the culprit for my fatigue. It's kind of nice to go to bed at night and want/need the sleep.

I'm not sure how much the general public is following the current incarnation of the MLB's steroid scandal, but I think it's been front page type stuff. This latest tidbit that links Roger Clemens to a Jose Canseco party where he is alleged to have had his first contact with steroids. At this point, no amount of drug use in sport shocks me. I've been out of the sports loop for a while actually, a far cry from the days I used to scour the sports' page as a child. I've been slowly trying to get back into it, but all of the drug scandals aren't exactly raising my enthusiasm. I'm sure people use plenty of drugs (I guess I should specify PEDs when I say drugs in this context) in soccer too, but I think that's going to be my sport of choice once again. With the aid of the interweb, it shouldn't even be that hard to follow anymore.

In unrelated news, I've been getting some odd phone calls on my cell phone. I'm sure this happens to everybody with reasonable frequency but with it picking up of late, I'm searching for some explanation. Aside from getting a lot of messages from some old Spanish grandmother a couple of years ago (who must think her grandson or whoever I was supposed to be hates her), I think I had a clean slate. Whenever I get these random phone calls I always look them up on google to see if they can be accounted for. Sometimes, well, they can. Recently my fun call list has included some pizza place in Red Bank, NJ (also home of Kevin Smith's comic shop), multiple automatons (incidentally, one of my favorite words of late), and even such numbers as simply "102." I don't know how three digit numbers dial me up, but it's happened more than once. It probably means I'm going to be murdered soon.

But back to being tired. Last week on the train ride home I was so exhausted I fell asleep on the shoulder of the portly man seated next to me. I remember being annoyed when he sat next to me for some reason, possibly because he was enormous, but I think more because he was rude and also there were three-seaters with only one person in them and I was in a two-seater. Whatever the case, when I awoke he gave me a pretty dirty look and I couldn't help but think it was hilarious. It wasn't as touching as the time I fell asleep on the Fung Wah, only to awaken before the guy next to me to note that he had fallen asleep on my shoulder. In that instance I just pretended to still be asleep until he woke up so as to avoid any potential man-falling-asleep-on-the-shoulder-of-a-stranger-who-is-also-a-man type embarrassment. And on that note, I think I shall catch some z's.