Showing posts with label heroes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heroes. Show all posts
A Letter I'd Like To See (But Won't)
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Dear America,
I take it back. I don’t apologize.
Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months per year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture.
I put myself through hell. I make my body do things nature never really intended us to endure. All world-class athletes do. We do it because you love to watch us push ourselves as far as we can possibly go. Some of us get hurt. Sometimes permanently. You’re watching the Super Bowl tonight. You’re watching 300 pound men smash each while running at full speed, in full pads. You know what the average life expectancy of an NFL player is? Fifty-five. That’s about 20 years shorter than your average non-NFL player. Yet you watch. And cheer. And you jump up spill your beer when a linebacker lays out a wide receiver on a crossing route across the middle. The harder he gets hit, the louder and more enthusiastically you scream.
Yet you all get bent out of shape when Ricky Williams, or I, or Josh Howard smoke a little dope to relax. Why? Because the idiots you’ve elected to make your laws have have without a shred of evidence beat it into your head that smoking marijuana is something akin to drinking antifreeze, and done only by dirty hippies and sex offenders.
You’ll have to pardon my cynicism. But I call bullshit. You don’t give a damn about my health. You just get a voyeuristic thrill from watching an elite athlete fall from grace–all the better if you get to exercise a little moral righteousness in the process. And it’s hypocritical righteousness at that, given that 40 percent of you have tried pot at least once in your lives.
Here’s a crazy thought: If I can smoke a little dope and go on to win 14 Olympic gold medals, maybe pot smokers aren’t doomed to lives of couch surfing and video games, as our moronic government would have us believe. In fact, the list of successful pot smokers includes not just world class athletes like me, Howard, Williams, and others, it includes Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, the last three U.S. presidents, several Supreme Court justices, and luminaries and success stories from all sectors of business and the arts, sciences, and humanities.
So go ahead. Ban me from the next Olympics. Yank my endorsement deals. Stick your collective noses in the air and get all indignant on me. While you’re at it, keep arresting cancer and AIDS patients who dare to smoke the stuff because it deadens their pain, or enables them to eat. Keep sending in goon squads to kick down doors and shoot little old ladies, maim innocent toddlers, handcuff elderly post-polio patients to their beds at gunpoint, and slaughter the family pet.
Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll apologize for smoking pot when every politician who ever did drugs and then voted to uphold or strengthen the drug laws marches his ass off to the nearest federal prison to serve out the sentence he wants to impose on everyone else for committing the same crimes he committed. I’ll apologize when the sons, daughters, and nephews of powerful politicians who get caught possessing or dealing drugs in the frat house or prep school get the same treatment as the no-name, probably black kid caught on the corner or the front stoop doing the same thing.
Until then, I for one will have none of it. I smoked pot. I liked it. I’ll probably do it again. I refuse to apologize for it, because by apologizing I help perpetuate this stupid lie, this idea that what someone puts into his own body on his own time is any of the government’s damned business. Or any of yours. I’m not going to bend over and allow myself to be propaganda for this wasteful, ridiculous, immoral war.
Go ahead and tear me down if you like. But let’s see you rationalize in your next lame ONDCP commercial how the greatest motherfucking swimmer the world has ever seen . . . is also a proud pot smoker.
Yours,
Michael Phelps
[theagitator via slog]
Beautiful, bittersweet memories flood my mind when I listen to this song...
Friday, January 16, 2009
...the lyrics speak of grasping special times in our lives and not letting their opportunities slip away...when we are young it is so hard to really understand that...someday today will be a long, long time ago.
The End of 2008 Means That You Can Expect One Thing: A Boatload of Lists
Saturday, December 27, 2008
gawker, defamer, perezhilton, you name the blog and they've got lists to celebrate the end of the year. celebrity fights, best songs, best reality tv moments, the list goes on. i haven't bothered posting any of the 30 or so that i've seen so far, but this one, from this recording, is worth it. mostly because if i were to make a list of the most facsinating people of 2008, i'd probably have come up with an identical list. (with the exception of david foster wallace, because i just don't get the big deal about him.)
History, indeed, repeats itself. [Enduring Words]
Thursday, October 16, 2008
all of us become aware -- in the course of an average day -- of small moments, snippets of presidential speeches. there are tons of them, constantly -- the president always seems to be speaking somewhere, saying something to someone -- and it's simply a fact of life that during "normal" times, most presidential remarks don't have national impact. sometimes you have to hold them up and highlight them -- so we can read them and concentrate on them, away from the heat of the day and debate, and reflect on them. so i offer, for that purpose, these words from the president:
"our adversaries have not abandoned their ambitions, our dangers have not diminished, our vigilance cannot be relaxed. but now we have the military, the scientific, and the economic strength to do whatever must be done for the preservation and promotion of freedom. that strength will never be used in pursuit of aggressive ambitions -- it will always be used in pursuit of peace. it will never be used to promote provocations -- it will always be used to promote the peaceful settlement of disputes."the words of the president. president john f. kennedy. it's a portion of the speech he never delivered: prepared for delivery at the dallas, texas trade mart on november 22, 1963.
[via the daily nightly] Read more...
"The worst thing of all, is to be forgotten." [JFK]
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
i've had a keen interest in john f. kennedy and his life since the seventh grade, when my english teacher, mrs. lee, would go off on hour long tangents about elements of his political career. the class was typically bored to death, but i always found the veil of mystery that surrounded the president and his family to be intriguing. recently, new audio tapes of fireside conversations on the eve of president kennedy's election have surfaced. brian williams played portions of them on the nightly news last night. i feel like a fresh piece of history has been unearthed; and couldn't have been found at a better time. i blogged on sunday night about the chills of history, and found myself last evening experiencing them in deja vu. i think you will be struck by president kennedy's intellect, his respect for the political process and the voters, his candor, and how our language has changed in the course of a generation or two. you can find the twenty-two minute edited video HERE if you are interested. and if you continue to be as intrigued as i was, the unedited audio is available at the jfk library online, HERE.
[via msnbc, jfk library]
Go Ahead, Put a Ring On It...
Sunday, October 12, 2008
i remember when i bought my first cell phone at sixteen. it was a prepaid motorola phone that was about the size of two sticks of butter. i think the company was called omnipoint. i felt so cool having a cell phone that i would call random numbers just to use it. not because i needed to speak to someone on the other end, but just because i could. these days, ten year olds have cell phones; but when i was sixteen, it was still the days when pagers were the "in" thing. this practice continued until i got my first bill, at which point pointless phone calls were no longer fun.
similarly, if not randomly, when i first got my google reader (which is arguably the most fantastic product in the google empire), the same thing happened. i subscribed to every blog and rss feed that i came across. it was fantastic. i was more "in the know" than anyone i know. i was the first to know when britney checked out of rehab, or when amy winehouse blew a line off a toilet seat, or when clay aiken surprised the world by announcing he was gay, or when tom cruise stopped being crazy. ok, so maybe that last thing hasn't happened yet, but you get the point. this practice was great until cruising the internet turned into such a chore, having to sift through 500 blog posts a day. needless to say, i quickly slimmed down my feeds to a more manageable and enjoyable number.
defamer.com was one of the blogs that had made the cut. i always thought of it as a less sleazy version of that skeezy perez hilton or the ambulance chasers of tmz. to be chic, i'll call it 'boutique celeb gossip.' that's my description of it, but you can use it, since i know you are going to steal it anyway. the whole point of this post, and yes, i do have one, is to share with you the glories of molls and her pup waganstuff. she works worked for defamer and provides the world with a never-longer-than-two-minute video that gives you the low down of the nightly entertainment out in hollywood. and although there's not a snowball's chance in hell that i would ever actually attend any of the functions she mentions, being that i'm on the east coast, i still look forward to her daily antics every night. whether she's talking clay aiken or vagina costumes or headlines or beyonce, she rocks my world. sometimes, i literally roflmao. unfortunately, due mostly to george w. bush running our country into the ground, this coming week will be molls' last. i must say though, under the circumstances, she's really going out with a bang. in the three or four months that she's been filming the to-do's, this past week has offered some of the best. especially THIS one from last week, that actually has a really awesome message woven into the wagandstuff mambo. i seriously encourage you to check it out HERE. so go ahead, put a ring on it...
[to do: the song of the summer is a little late via defamer]
"The Cab Ride I'll Never Forget"
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
by kent nerburn
Twenty years ago, I drove a cab for a living. One time I arrived in the middle of the night for a pick up at a building that was dark except for a single light in a ground floor window. Under these circumstances, many drivers would just honk once or twice, wait a minute, then drive away. But I had seen too many impoverished people who depended on taxis as their only means of transportation. Unless a situation smelled of danger, I always went to the door. This passenger might be someone who needs my assistance, I reasoned to myself.
So I walked to the door and knocked. "Just a minute," answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor. After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 80's stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940s movie. By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.
"Would you carry my bag out to the car?" she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb. She kept thanking me for my kindness.
"It's nothing," I told her. "I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated."
"Oh, you're such a good boy," she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address, then asked, "Could you drive through downtown?"
"It's not the shortest way," I answered quickly.
"Oh, I don't mind," she said. "I'm in no hurry. I'm on my way to a hospice."
I looked in the rear view mirror. Her eyes were glistening.
"I don't have any family left," she continued. "The doctor says I don't have very long."
I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. "What route would you like me to take?" I asked.
For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl. Sometimes she'd ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.
As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, "I'm tired. Let's go now."
We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her. I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.
"How much do I owe you?" she asked, reaching into her purse.
"Nothing," I said.
"You have to make a living," she answered.
"There are other passengers."
Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly.
"You gave an old woman a little moment of joy," she said. "Thank you."
I squeezed her hand, then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life.
I didn't pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly, lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?
On a quick review, I don't think that I have done anything more important in my life. We're conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware—beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.
[weboflove via dooce]
Unstoppable Inspiration...
Monday, August 18, 2008
just one more reason why HE is UNSTOPPABLE.
Phelps' Gold a Dying Boys Wish
By Alan Abrahamson for NBCOlympics.com
It was late, after midnight, and a little boy lay asleep in his bed. Just 11 years old, he was a desperately sick boy. He did not, as it turned out, have many more days left to live.[nbcolympics] Read more...
It was late, and Michael Phelps' plane had been delayed, and so by the time he got to Stevie Hansen's bedroom, Stevie could not be roused. No matter. Michael sat there on Stevie's bed, holding Stevie's hand. Just talking, certain Stevie could hear him. For two hours. Maybe longer. No one remembers exactly.
The next morning, Stevie woke up and said to his mom, Betsy, "I wish I had woken up. But I know he was here."
Betsy Hansen sighed and said, "He was so thrilled."
A little more than a year has passed since that night, since Michael quietly paid tribute to the fighting spirit and the soulfulness of a little boy who, before cancer took over his body, had himself been a swimmer, too -- a boy who dreamed of one day being like his idol, Michael.
"He was an inspiration to me," Michael said Monday.
Michael Phelps is one of the greatest American athletes of his generation. At these Beijing Games, he won eight gold medals, the most ever at a single Olympics, topping the seven that Mark Spitz won in Munich in 1972.
His fame is staggering.
But it can be nearly impossible in our sound-bite culture to see Michael as he typically is away from the spotlight -- the genuineness about him, the profound and fundamental decency.
To be sure, Michael is not perfect. He is not a saint. He is still but 23 years old. He has made mistakes, and acknowledged them.
But in the relationship he forged with Stevie Hansen, and as time went on with Stevie's family, his parents Betsy and Steve and younger sister Grace, Michael's uncommon decency could not have been more evident, more profound.
Here was a life lesson as a life was slipping away -- what it means to be a real friend, and what real friends do for each other.
"He's a very giving person," Debbie Phelps, Michael's mother, said. "He has always wanted to give back and make people happy and make them -- give them a little piece of him, a piece of his heart. Because he has a great heart."
Betsy Hansen said Michael "bravely came into our lives" when doing so meant "he was himself going to feel some pain," adding, "It takes courage to embrace a family in that position. He did it.
"It wasn't to better his image in the community or in the world. He just reached out to a little boy who thought, 'You're a really cool swimmer, I've always wanted to meet you.' "
Stevie was only 7 when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, in October 2002.
Stevie was, even at that young, a promising age-group swimmer in Maryland, where Michael grew up and was training -- the Athens Olympics were still almost two years away.
As a 6-year-old, Stevie was already not only swimming but winning awards.
The day before surgery, Michael came over. He brought a flag, some shirts, a poster. They shot hoops in the driveway. They talked -- about how each of them loved junk food.
Michael sent balloons to the hospital. When Stevie woke up, his dad, Steve, recalls, he "just clutched the balloons, smiled and went back to sleep. It was like a lifeline: 'Michael cares.' "
Over the next year, Stevie seemed to get better. That next summer, Michael sent Stevie a note saying he wanted to come watch Stevie swim at a local meet. Which he did -- showing up unannounced.
"Stevie came over and said, 'Wow, you came!' And at a full run he leaped into Michael's arms," Steve said.
That afternoon, Michael watched from behind the blocks as Stevie raced in the free, the fly and a relay. Michael was coaxed into swimming a relay leg himself in a parents' and coaches' race -- even though he had to borrow a suit.
Michael and Stevie had lunch together. Michael signed autographs for all the other kids as well; he signed for Grace using a red Sharpie on her forehead. She calls Michael a "special friend."
That October, doctors found tumors on Stevie's spinal cord. He underwent another surgery; again, Michael "sent a big basket of stuff to the hospital," Steve said.
Stevie would, ultimately, undergo two more surgeries.
Michael would go to Athens, win eight Olympic medals, six gold, come home a star. He would move to Michigan, following his longtime mentor and coach, Bob Bowman, to train for the 2008 Games.
Still, Michael stayed in regular touch with Stevie, with Grace, with Steve and Betsy, and when, in April 2007, Betsy called Michael's mom, Debbie, to say, "We have a disaster here ... he wants to see Michael," Michael made it happen.
His plane was late. Bags were lost.
Still, Michael made it happen. He and Debbie showed up at the Hansen house well after midnight.
And stayed for two hours, maybe longer.
"Michael never dropped his hand," Betsy said. "It was so touching, so touching -- to see this big guy touched by the frailty of life, that Stevie wanted him."
Stevie had -- just like in the movies -- told his parents he wanted Michael to try to win an Olympic medal for him.
Even though Stevie wasn't awake to hear it, Michael made him that promise.
"I said I'd try to get a medal and hopefully it'd be a gold one," Michael recalled Monday.
Debbie was there that night, too, and when mother and son left the Hansens, stepping softly across the grass, wet with dew, it was hand in hand. "Death as we know it is not an easy thing to take as an adult, let alone a child," Debbie said.
The next day, Michael posted a note to Stevie's personal page on an Internet site for people confronting serious illnesses. It read, "Stevie, it was great to see you last night. I'm really glad I got to visit. You are very brave. You really are an inspiration to us all. Talk to you soon -- Michael."
Betsy responded with this post: "Yours was a gift," she wrote, "like none other."
Stevie passed away on May 29. The memorial service took place on June 4.
Michael came back to Baltimore for the service. He sent a "spectacular spray of purple flowers," Betsy said, adding, "Purple was Stevie's favorite color."
He stood with the Hansens as they greeted friends and family. "A wonderful, selfless display of caring," Betsy said.
"It was never about people knowing he did it," she said. "It never went out in the press that he was here. Never.
"No one ever knew the depth of the relationship between them."
Michael said Monday, "When he passed away, when we went to the funeral -- it was hard. It was an honor for me to have someone like him look up to me."
He paused and added, "I'm sure he's looking down on us and I'm sure he's cheering from above."
Grace Hansen watched from far away this week, back in Maryland, as Michael won those eight medals.
"I saw him swim every day," she said by telephone and then added in a remark about Michael the swimmer and Michael her friend, "He's really good."
In Defense of Nothing...
i want to be like mike.
to say that i've been obsessed with watching michael phelps in the olympics would be an understatement. and i know that i'm not the only one, as nbc is reporting record numbers in viewership during primetime swimming events.
i've been loving all of the articles online and in the blogosphere about how unfair all of the attention is; and that other athletes are competing in his shadow.
why should we care? why should we care that an american olympian, baltimore born & raised, is the face of the beijing games in the united states? why should we care that he has won more gold medals than any olympian in the modern olympics' 112 year history? or that he has tied a record that was last set thirteen years before he was even born?
we should care because he's done it all the old fashioned way, with hard work & dedication, sans drugs.
we've held other athletes on a pedestal in the past: michael jordan & the dream team, derek jeter, that whiny bitch brett favre. but think about it. really think about it. swimming is not considered a spectator sport in the u.s, and is rarely televised. so swimmers that work their asses off just as much as nba/nfl/mlb stars, without the kabillion dollar a year contracts, have the olympics, once every 4 years, to show the world what they can do.
i agree that he's not the only olympian. and others work hard too, there's no doubt about that. but even amongst one's own team, there must be a winner. and for the u.s, michael phelps is it. and he's got the medals & the world records to prove it.
so for 17 days out of every 1460, if the proverbial spotlight never leaves the likes of michael phelps, it's okay by me. because i want to be like mike.
Lucky Number Se7en...
Friday, August 15, 2008
Move over Mark Spitz.[nbc olympics]
Michael Phelps won his seventh gold medal of the Beijing Olympics on Saturday, edging Milorad Cavic by a fingernail, .01 of second in the 100m butterfly on Saturday at the Water Cube.
Phelps, who was seventh out of eight swimmers at the first wall but made up ground with his turn, still looked to be behind Cavic in the final meters but got to the wall first in 50.58 to Cavic's 50.59.
Spitz won his seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Games. Phelps will try to beat the record in the 4x100m medley relay Sunday in the final day of swimming in Beijing.
While the pre-meet, potential upset talk in the 100m fly centered around world-record holder Ian Crocker, California-trained Cavic, who competes for Serbia, surpassed Phelps in the heats as the second-fastest man to swim the event. He nearly spoiled Phelps' chase at history.
Phelps said Cavic's words before the race fueled him.
"Cavic said it would be good for me and good for swimming if he won," Phelps said in an NBC poolside interview after the race. "I'm at a loss for words. I had no idea the race was that close. I was lucky enough to get my hands on the wall first."
Phelps said tying Spitz has been a longtime goal.
"In my dreams I always wanted it," he said. "I thought in the perfect circumstances I could do it."
Spitz marveled at the way Phelps has dealt with all the media attention and pre-Beijing hype since Phelps won six golds in Athens.
"I've always marveled at the fact that in the last four years, he has had to live with a lot more expectations and anxiety that I had to deal with," Spitz said.
[toon by mike luckovich] Read more...
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