"High Horse Incorporated - Part Two"

Yesterday, I employed a lofty moral tone to excoriate Lance Armstrong for lying.  Today, it’s its “sister entry” in this “Daily Double of Duplicity” – cheating.  (I have no idea why I’m doing this.  I don’t even care about Lance Armstrong.) 

Lying, at least in its most egregious incarnation, is easy to identify.  A man is taking performance-enhancing drugs to help him win bicycle races and he adamantly insists that he isn’t.  He’s lying.  Big time.  If he were Pinocchio standing in the middle of a room, his nose would be rocketing into a wall.  And the end of it would snap off.

Lying is the counterfeit money of social interaction.  (“Bartletts called.  They said, ‘Nice try.  But no.’”)  Living in a culture where you know, fear or at least suspect that, because it was better for them to do so, that everyone is lying, places us in a world brimming with anxiety, suspicion and mistrust.  A situation of this nature would confine me permanently to the house, because, paraphrasing my daughter Anna when she was two…”No good, that world.”

Okay, that’s lying.

Cheating is trickier.  And, in fact, an argument can be made – though not by me – that there is no such thing as cheating.  Or if there is, it’s acceptable, or even essential, because, according to a radio sportstalk host I once heard, “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.”

But even if you don’t buy into that view – and I don’t, because I dislike cheating almost as much as I dislike lying, though if I’d been competing against Lance Armstrong drug-free, the ranking of the two infractions might easily be flipped – the definition of “What’s cheating?” is not always easy to determine.

Yes, all sports have rules (restricting the conversation to sports, but you can consider it a metaphor for any interpersonal confrontation.)  The delineation here is unequivocal:  If you go outside those rules, you’re cheating.

A boxer who secretes a rolled-up load of quarters inside his glove is cheating.  (They may not get caught, but that’s not the issue; they’re still cheating.)  Ditto a pitcher tossing a spitball.  Or a basketball player who grabs their opponent’s shorts as they’re driving for a layup, leaving them to decide whether to go for the basket or protect their dignity.

All these are identifiable “No-no’s.”  On the other hand, for reasons too complicated to go into, there was a period when baseball lacked anti-drug regulations, allowing players to use the, then, unbanned substances to upgrade their performances.  Is that cheating?  Even though they were doing it in secret, and their adversaries were performing drug free, and losing? 

To quote a recent Nancy Meyers film title, it’s complicated.  My expert and delightful gym trainer Eve tells me that, in bodybuilding, the two competition options are openly identified – there are bodybuilding contests for those who “juice”, and others for their considerably less “ripped” brethren and sistren who don’t.  Which, by the way, do you think is more popular?

Which brings up another point.  Some people don’t care about this issue.  They figure it’s up to the athletes if they want to risk the, sometimes, serious side-effects to “juice up.”  Those who do generally perform better that way, so hey, a guy bench presses a Humvee, who cares what he put in his body to do it? 

“Let ‘em all take drugs”, goes the thinking.  Then there’ll be parity again.  And they’ll perform like monsters!

Perhaps, but, for me, at least, it won’t be the same.

And here’s where I wax poetically.  Forgive me if I accidentally go over the top.

As I recently mentioned, I watched an NFL playoff game between the San Francisco Forty-Niners and the Atlanta Falcons.  Though I did not care who won – this is not entirely true, as, for some reason, a rooting interest inevitably insinuates itself into the proceedings and I found myself here pulling inexplicably for the Niners – by any football lover’s standards – and overlooking the fact that, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, that Canadian football is superior to its American counterpart – it was an absolutely sensational game.

The Forty-Niners were down seventeen to nothing.  And they came back, under the leadership of their second-year quarterback “Cool Hand” Colin Kaepernick, who had started only nine pro games in his entire career.  (He had been a college quarterback at Nevada, itself hardly a football powerhouse.)  

The Forty-Niner resurgence led to a 28-24 victory.  With its tension, its grace, and its “do-or-die” execution, the game was a wonderment to behold.

Why most importantly?  Because people did that.  Guided by their coaches making split-second strategic decisions, young, supremely gifted athletes, working at the top of their powers, stared pressure in the face, and came through gloriously in the clutch, against a team of equally honed professionals, trying desperately to hold them off.

And all of them were people.  Human beings, just like me, except that they’re way, way, way better than me at football.  But still…

They’re people.

Not doped-up lab animals.  Not genetically superior Superbeings from another planet.  Not giant cyborgs, part human, part performance-enhancing machine.  Sure, you could fashion competitions between any of those combatants, and they’d be crowd-pleasing, maybe even amazing.

But it wouldn’t be the same.

Because it wouldn’t be people. 

It would be something else.  Something I might eventually come to appreciate, but could never identify with.  It may as well be Battling Buicks.  Exciting.  Explosive.  “Grill-To-Grill” confrontation. 

“Smash-mouth” entertainment.  But it’s got nothing to do with me.

Unless I can put myself in their cleats – figuratively, because if I “for real” was down on that field, one play and I’m a flattened, little Jewish spot on the gridiron – but unless I can imagine myself stepping up over center ready to take the “snap” with the game on the line and the clock running down, identifying with living, breathing, heart thumping, injury and humiliation-risking human beings free of external supplementation…

The game would have no meaning for me whatsoever.

There is a moral argument against cheating.  And it’s a strong one, especially, as I said, if you’re playing by the rules, and you lose.  But beyond that, there is, in my view, a precious purity to witnessing unenhanced human excellence.

I, for one, would miss the humanity.

"High Horse Incorporated"

Wherein I sound off and act superior.  Or is that all my posts.  Anyway, I have these two things I need to write.  Then, hopefully, I will descend from my figurative high horse and walk once again among mortals. 

Sorry if the following sounds judgmental.  I can’t help it.  I am making a judgment.

Lance Armstrong is an idiot.  He did two things I don’t like.  He lied, and he cheated.  Today, I shall talk about lying, which I of course never do, though I just did when I said “Which I of course never do.”  Call that an exception.  Though I don’t know how many of those I get before they’re no longer exceptions and I actually lie a lot.  I’ll get back to you on that one.  Which may itself be a lie because I probably won’t.

Anyway, this is not about me.  It’s about Lance Armstrong.  Who, repeating “Sentence One” – for emphasis and the sheer joy of repetition – is an idiot.

Okay:  Lying.

After years of insisting that he never took drugs to help him win bicycle races, in an interview with Oprah, Lance Armstrong confessed that he took drugs to help him win bicycle races. 

So now it’s out. 

Lance Armstrong took drugs to help him win bicycle races.  And his incomparable record suggests that that works.  (Although there is no “control” Lance Armstrong participating in those races without taking drugs, so we’ll never know whether Lance Armstrong would have won those races racing clean.  I don’t think so.  And more importantly, neither did Lance Armstrong.)

Okay, so we know why Lance Armstrong took the drugs.  But why did Lance Armstrong lie about taking the drugs?  (I know you know the answer, but I’m building to something here, and I like to be thorough.)

Taking drugs when you are bicycle racing is against the bicycle racing by-laws.  Therefore, if he had admitted to taking drugs when he was bicycle racing, Lance Armstrong would have gotten into really big trouble.   

Since he wanted to take the drugs – because they helped him win bicycles races – but he did not want to get into really big trouble, Lance Armstrong blatantly lied about taking drugs when he was bicycle racing, insisting repeatedly that he didn’t.

Okay, so we know why he took ‘em, and we know why he lied about it.  Now.  After all those years of lying about not taking drugs when he was bicycle racing, why did Lance Armstrong suddenly stop lying about not taking drugs when he was bicycle racing? 

He couldn’t lie to Oprah.

I don’t think that’s the answer.

The explanation here is admittedly not as transparent as the answer to why he lied.  But think about it.

When it was advantageous for him to lie, Lance Armstrong lied his fool head off.  Similarly, one would think, when it becomes advantageous for Lance Armstrong to come clean and tell the truth, Lance Armstrong will then come clean and tell the truth.

It makes sense, right?  In both cases, Lance Armstrong’s actions are inspired by a unilateral self-interest.

Self-interest compelled Lance Armstrong to take drugs to help him win bicycle races, because the drugs helped him win bicycle races.  And, since taking drugs when you’re bicycle racing is against the bicycle racing by-laws, self-interest further compelled Lance Armstrong to lie about it. 

Continuing that reasoning, since Step One – taking drugs – reflected self-interest, and Step Two – lying about it – also reflected self-interest, ipso facto, Step Three – Lance Armstrong’s confession to Oprah reflected self-interest as well.  I mean, he was doing so well with that strategy.  Why quit now?

Here’s the problem with this line of thinking, though it in no way lets Lance Armstrong off the hook. 

How do you knock self-interest? 

Self-interest is natural.  I mean, how else are we supposed to behave?

“If it’s in my best interests, I am not doing it.”

That sounds counter-intuitively nutso.  It’s entirely human to do things out of self-interest.   The problem is…

If it is in someone’s self-interest to lie – not just Lance Armstrong, but anyone – why should we expect them to do anything else?

I have no answer for that. 

But I’m not crazy about where it takes us.

Tomorrow:  Cheating.  Which I also don’t like.  

"I Lost A Girl Because Of My Driving"

I like to get the ending out of the way early.  Though this is a “First” – giving it up right in the title.  And they say I’m not a risk-taker. 

There’s a reason for deliberately giving away the ending.  Regular readers can easily guess where this story is headed.  Why?  Because virtually all my stories – most notably those involving females – head in precisely the same direction. 

Therefore, instead of a letdown pursuant to an ending you can see coming from a distant planet, I let the cat out of the bag, spilling the beans from the get-go, trying to use as many clichés as I can think of in the process.

In sitcoms, this is called “hanging a lantern on it.”  What that means is that, when the story has a deficiency – in, say, logic or credibility – rather than burying it – and ending up with the literary version of a botched “nose job” – you shine a bright light on it, which acknowledges, “We know.”  And you get on with the story.

Which I will now relate, having revealed “off the top” that it doesn’t work out.

Okay.

EXT. THE WEST SIDE OF LOS ANGELES – NIGHT.

The Time:  1974.  December – when it gets dark early.

There are FOUR CHARACTERS in this story (but two of them don’t talk):  Myself.  A Female Companion.  My ’72 pumpkin orange-with-a-black-vinyl-roof Mazda.  And Sunset Boulevard.

Me, you already know.  The Female Companion, I will do a little “Blurring Action” on, like they do on Caught On Camera – which I have occasionally clicked past on my way to loftier programming – and for the same reason:  To protect their identity. 

I shall only say that I was motivated to, if not impress her, then at least not regress ignominiously in the opposite direction. 

The ’72 Mazda, I had arranged to have driven down from Toronto when I decided to relocate in L.A.  It would later blow up on me in the middle of the street, but at this point, it was totally reliable.  And a little sporty.

Which leaves “Sunset Boulevard.”  A majorly-traveled thoroughfare.  Extremely windy.  And horribly lit.  L.A., leaning towards neon as its “Illumination of Choice”, has never splurged on streetlights.  For certain drivers, Sunset is a formidable challenge in the daytime.  At night…well, I’m getting ahead of myself.  And I imagine, so are you.

We are going out to dinner.  Gladstone’s 4 Fish.  Located by the beach, where the Pacific Coast Highway meets the westernmost end of Sunset.  Maybe ten miles from my apartment. 

It is “Rush Hour.” 

It is dark. 

And it’s Sunset.

We take the Mazda. 

With me at the wheel.

We pull out of my apartment garage…

And off we go.

A quarter of a mile up Barrington, turn Left onto Sunset.  We are driving to the ocean.  When we hit water, we’re there.

My driving skills – or the lack thereof – are immediately apparent.  I have never been a confident driver, partly because of eye issues – they are not the best at vision – plus, for reasons explained elsewhere, I had passed my Driver’s Test on a Canadian network television Public Affairs program, and I was never sure if the examiner passed me because I was qualified, or because he did not want to disappoint the producer. 

I have a license.  But am not certain I earned it.

The Rush Hour traffic, brisk but not bumper-to-bumper, is moving along at a steady clip.  I, on the other hand, am not.

It is dark.  I cannot see far in front of me.  And it’s not just the eye issue.  The configuration of Sunset – that being notoriously curvy – makes it impossible to determine what’s ahead.  So I drive carefully.  Braking at every turn in the road. 

This does not make for a smooth trip.  We move forward in fits and starts, my

“Defensive Driving” strategy: 

I have my foot on the gas pedal – and then I brake.  Then it’s back on the gas – and then I brake.

My approach brings new meaning to, “Fasten your seat belts; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”  I, at least, have the bracing protection of the steering wheel.  My companion, on the other hand, is being continually jolted back and forth in her seat, her whiplashing contortions synchronizing with the lurching rhythms of the Mazda.

The drive to the restaurant is going as poorly as I had feared it might.  But what am I supposed to do?  Go racing around a curve and slam directly into a car I did not know was there, the car having, for one reason or other, slowed down, or, idling at the end of an unexpectedly traffic jam, stopped?

So on we go. 

Gas – brake!   Gas – brake!  Gas – brake!  Gas – brake!

My companion, a good sport, is silent.  

Until she suddenly blurts,

“Look out!”

Or more accurately,

“LOOK OUT!!!”

I had taken too wide a turn negotiating a curve, crossed the broken yellow line on the pavement, opening my cowering Mazda to an unpleasant encounter with the oncoming traffic.

“LOOK OUT!!!” led to a “hard right” with my steering wheel, and a return to safety.

Which was momentary. 

With no letup in the curves, my endangering veering would continue, as we careened our way down Sunset.  It was like driving one of those little cars at an arcade, where, whenever you escape from your lane, “Alarm Signals” warn to recalibrate your steering, those signals augmented by fiery explosion images when you crash.

That was fooling around. 

This…was real.

I could tell, with every lurch and endangerment, that I was helplessly losing points with my companion, whom, I noticed, was clinging desperately to the door handle on her side of the car.  This, to me, did not seem like a productive maneuver.  Unless she was thinking seriously about jumping out.

We arrived at an area called the Palisades, a residential “bedroom community”, including a couple of blocks of stores.  The shopping district was brightly lit, the road, comparatively straight, providing a welcome respite in the imperiling action.  But in a matter of seconds, we had passed through it. 

And then, we were back, driving crazily in the dark.

Gas – brake – “LOOK OUT!!!”  Gas – brake – “LOOK OUT!!!”

Finally, we arrived at the restaurant.  I stepped out of the car, handed my keys to the Valet Parking attendant, and, I believe, I hugged him.

Our dinner conversation was conspicuously subdued, a divorcing couple, lunching, before gathering with the lawyers.  I tried to be funny.  But when your audience has lost every shred of affection, respect, interest and good will towards you, it is difficult to elicit many laughs.  

There was only one thing she wanted to hear from me, and I happily accommodated her.  Mustering the last remaining shreds of my dignity, I inquired, in as casual manner as I could fabricate:

“How would you feel about driving back?”

"The Orange Line"

It is not often you hear about the “up” side of being unassertive.  But I would never have had the following experience without it.  Of course, I would have preferred not to have that experience at all.  A reflection of the more celebrated “down” side of being unassertive.  Because I did.

I don’t tape things.  And by “tape”, I mean TiVo or DVR, or, if there’s some new technology that does these things better and faster that I don’t know about, I don’t do that either.  With one exception.  I have TiVoed the entire series of Have Gun, Will Travel off of the Westerns Channel, probably more than once, if TiVo doesn’t discriminate against taping the same episodes over and over, which I have no idea if it does or it doesn’t.  What I do know is no matter how many times TiVo has re-recorded those episodes of Have Gun, Will Travel, I have never watched any of them. 

And it is quite likely I never will.

It is my preference to watch things when they’re actually on.  I know this will sound crazy to people who don’t care about such things, but it just doesn’t feel right. 

And also, there’s this.  Suppose I tape something and watch it later.  At the time I’m watching that taped show, I’m going to be missing something that’s playing on live TV at the same time.  Unless I tape that show too.  Of course, at the time I am watching that show, I will again be missing something else.  In such an arrangement, I will always be behind.  And I fear – no, I’m certain – I will never ever catch up.

I particularly do not like watching taped live shows, such as sporting events.  To me, a game after it happens is an abandoned sweat sock on a locker room floor.  A taped game misses the electricity of “Now!”  I am also not happy that the world who watched the game simultaneous to its occurrence is ahead of me.  While they’re up from the couch, “high-fiving” and going “What a game!” I’m sitting there like some held-back remedial student, clueless, and totally in the dark.

“Earlo, would you rather watch a taped game or miss the game entirely?”

“Please, Italics Man.  Spare me the relativism when I’m talking nonsense.”

Okay.  So last Sunday, Dr. M and I are guests at a couple‘s (Paul and Leah’s) house for Brunch.  After a magnificent banquet (prepared by Leah), after a period long enough to show deferential respect to the prandial preparations, and with the awareness that I am about to sever the foursome down the middle along gender lines, I ask Paul, “Are you interested in the football game at all?” 

Apparently, Paul has been waiting patiently for just this opening.  Bidding the ladies adieu, we proceed post haste to the “Big Screen” to watch the NFC Championship Game, San Francisco Forty-Niners versus the Atlanta Falcons. 

We are late.  The game had already started.  I don’t know, like an hour or so earlier.

Paul informs me, with a detectable excitement, “I’m taping it, so we can watch it from the beginning.”  I have the distinct sense that that’s what he wants to do.  My preference, well…you’ve been reading this, right?

Being certifiably unassertive, I say, “Let’s watch it from the beginning.”

Which is exactly what I don’t want to do.  But, you know, I had free Brunch. 

And so, I submit myself the murky netherworld of pre-taped programming, a bizarre parallel universe from which I may never emerge.  Are you getting a sense of fear in there?  It is not entirely made up.

We are watching the game from the beginning, which, in the natural world, is almost half over.  Are there advantages?  Sure.  One, we get to see the whole game.  And two, we can “Fast Forward.”  A play is over, and Paul instantly “remotes” ahead.

And that’s when I see it.

The first time Paul “Fast Forwards” a bright orange bar appears at the bottom of the screen, its left-to-right progress indicating how far we’ve advanced through the pre-taped material.  I have the feeling – and I confirm this with Paul – that, at some point, if we continue “Fast Forwarding”, we will eventually reach a point where we have caught up to the game in progress, and we will then be watching it live.

The way I like it.  And enthusiastically look forward to.

And so, while others around the country and the world are rooting for the Falcons or the Forty-Niners…

I’m rooting

Intensely

For the slowly but inexorably advancing…

Orange Line.

“Come on, Orange Line,” I hear myself chanting, possibly out loud.

There’s a break between plays.  There’s a time-out.  There’s a commercial interruption.  And each time this happens, Paul immediately “Fast Forwards.”  And whenever he does,

The Orange Line pushes ahead. 

“Come on, Orange Line!  You can do it, Orange Line!”

And, in fact, it is doing it.  When we started watching, the Orange Line was thirty-five to forty per cent towards its destination.  A few minutes later…

We are half way home.

I figure during the “Half-Time Break”, we can really shoot ahead, because the break’s twenty minutes long.  But for some reason, our “Half-Time” advancement is shockingly meager.  In terms of forward progress, “Half-Time” inexplicably provides hardly any more “line movement” than a commercial.

At one point, I needed to use the bathroom.  But I was determined not to do so, because I knew that, being a polite host, Paul would insist on “Pausing” the game.  I could not allow that to happen, because “Pausing” would inevitably cause the Orange Line to lose ground, receding agonizingly in the opposite direction. 

The game was incredibly exciting, though I wasn’t sure if that was because of the game itself, or because of the way we were watching it.  I remember in The Princess Bride, they talked about the “good parts version” of a book, where the reader skips over the boring stuff, reading only the portions of the book that are interesting and fun.  That’s how this felt.  “Fast Forwarding” allowed us to watch the “good parts version” of the football game.

In the end, overcoming a seventeen-point deficit, the Forty-Niners prevailed 28-24.  Two sides were now happy, and two sides were sad.  The Forty-Niners fans were ecstatic.  The winning bettors were delighted.  The Atlanta fans were bummed out.  And I, though I’d watched a wonderful game, felt, well…(HEAVY SIGH.) 

The Orange Line got close. 

But it never caught up.

It was heartbreaking, I have to tell you.  Not only had I seen a football game that had ended before I finished watching it.  But the team I was rooting for had lost. 

“We started too late,” explained Paul, trying to soften the blow.  It was thoughtful, but it really didn’t help.  I felt an emptiness inside.  Not for myself, but for that indefatigable Orange Line that had tried so hard but had ultimately come up short. 

It had done its best.  Given a hundred and ten per cent.  Left it all out there on the field.  But, despite its proud and courageous efforts…

The football game had beaten it to the end.