"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear,
And the oldest and strongest kind of fear
Is fear of the unknown."
-H.P. Lovecraft
The place I take my car to get its oil changed hands out free newspapers. Newspaper companies, like dope pushers when too many of their loyal customers have died off, have been reduced to trying to attract new customers by giving their product away for free. Today they gave me a copy of the Dope City Orange Sunshine.
Inside the newspaper I found the usual government and police ass-kissing that drove this once loyal customer away years ago. The assholes on the editorial desk were trying to convince their readership of the many hidden benefits of the latest tax grab being forced upon them by a government that only two months ago had promised not to rape them with. Governments and their media whores get more shameless by the hour. Note to the Orange Sunshine's editorial desk - Fuck off and die already.
The sports section, the only section of any modern newspaper with a shred of integrity left, featured a story about a childhood hero of mine I had quite forgotten about: Ray Nettles, one time star linebacker for my local Canadian Football League team. Ray rode motorcycles, drank beer, did dope and fucked women with the best of them. Motherfucker blazed trail for the junky athletes we are entertained by today. Now he is about to die and has found Jesus just in the nick of time, or so he thinks. See you in Hell Ray. Even if there was a Jesus he would not save your ass for all the wine in Naramata.
7 comments:
Having decided that the sports world could take care of itself after The Mets won the world series, I don't pay much attention to the sports pages. The other day I picked up the sports section and found that most of page three is now devoted to arrest reports for athletes. I am pretty cynical and all, but, you know, damn.
We may have to import most of them but Canada has more heroes per square mile than any place. Our heroes used to be supplied chiefly with imported dope as well but we have taken care of that except for those powerful white powders we have yet to develop north latitude loving varieties of.
Jim Bouton taught me how well, in Ball Four, the packaging of sports heroes hid the rot inside the bag of Heroism people continue to shell out for. Sports, it turned out, was all about the greenies.
Where's Naramata ????
Naramata, a small village on east side of Lake Okanagan, is the heart of my province's wine region.
Beer, Do you really consider athletes, especially professional athletes, heroes? You don’t have to answer mate. Hero is a frequently used word these days. It’s supposed to mean so much and yet it is diluted nearly beyond recognition. I seem to recall some biblical phrase about worshipping false idols. One could make the case that a lot of our society does that on a regular basis even if it’s not religious. Calling an athlete a hero certainly could fall in that false idol category. I love competition. Seeing world class athletes do their stuff can be quite inspirational, particularly when one opponent is considered a huge underdog and yet achieves victory. Heroic though? Fuck that.
Poor old Ray. After a lifetime of enjoying the fruits of his talents and his decision making, bad or good, he suddenly finds “God”. I guess he feels a lot of his life decisions were bad. Finding religion at that point in one’s life is just another bad decision, the coward’s way out.
Naramata - damn, now I want cold pizza and a bottle of red for breakfast. I better hop on the bike first...
... I don’t have any cold pizza though. I wonder if Wheaties goes good with wine? There’s an athlete on the box. That must mean something. Wine and Wheaties - I like that. It’s got a good ring to it. I don’t like cold cereal much though.
Thanks for all your thoughts, Beer.
I just love Christianity... sin, abuse, party, whatever... as long as you show contrition; you can delude yourself into thinking you're gonna take an elevator up.
Fucking fairy tales.
As a boy all my heroes were athletes and all of them played in the Canadian Football League. Jim Young was hero #1. As far as I know he is still a decent man in the hotel business so I guess he is still a hero of mine.
My heroes are more far flung now: the Anarchists of Iceland; Tucson's Fred Woodworth; the late Charles Bukowski. And I guess I still have a soft spot for athletic heroes if they are female and wear roller skates.
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