In my new Taki's Magazine column, I explain the bizarre story behind a weird phenomenon I had pointed out in May 2009: In 2006-07, golfer Tiger Woods suddenly bulked up to look like a GI Joe action figure. You don't really need to look like that to win at golf, and, it turns out, Woods may have had a very different goal in mind.
You seem to know a lot more about Zimmerman than I do.
ReplyDeleteHmm, if this is true, it kinda exonerates Woods' behavior, i.e. he went a little crazy because he was over-eager to serve his country.
ReplyDeleteBut it seems like his main thing few yrs back wasn't proto-seal-ish but rabid-rabbit-ish, humping every chick. I dunno...
Even if the story is true, there isn't much public spiritedness in wanting to be a seal. If guys just wanna serve their nation, they should just enlist in the army or navy(or do community volunteer work). No, people try to become seals out of narcissism, to show off that "I'm one of the very best, the super few and super proud." It's not so much serving one's nation as serving one's huge ego masked as serving one's nation. I'm not saying seals aren't patriotic or don't do great stuff; I'm saying their main motive is megalomania.
Woods, as golfer, did everything he was supposed too and got a little bored. And besides, he prolly felt that REAL ATHLETES and REAL MEN see golf as a recreation, not as a real sport. So, for Tiger to really prove his worth as an athlete, he went for Seals. But I think it was also because he could never make it as a football player or basketball player. If you can't prove your supermanhood via topnotch sports like basketball, football, or boxing, then there's only secret service or the military.
But I'll bet if you offer most navy seals the choice of being (1) NFL star or (2) seal, they'll go with NFL star. And I'll bet if Woods had the physique to play in the NFL, he would have gone for that.
It seems like Woods had two people inside him: the Asian and the Negro. The Asian was happy to play golf, win respect, and make a lot of money. But the Negro inside him was saying, "Man!! You aint no real athlete!! You just playing some faggoty ass white boy game and be favored as a Nice Negro." So, the Negro side of Woods came to subconsciously despise the Asian side of Wood. Since his Asian genes made him too small and wiry to compete with super Negroes in top sports, he sought to prove his TRUE MANHOOD by becoming a super military dude.
I pointed out that Woods had become massively more muscular before our eyes in 2006-07. This was puzzling, since looking like a GI Joe action figure isn’t essential to golf.
ReplyDeleteSigh, so naive. The issue isn't whether PEDs are "essential to golf" but whether they help one's golf game. Any kind of edge would be valuable and sought out by a professional athlete. If they do so with hitting a baseball, why shouldn't they help hit a golfball?
Since his Asian genes made him too small and wiry to compete with super Negroes in top sports, he sought to prove his TRUE MANHOOD by becoming a super military dude.
ReplyDeleteRiiiiight. Because the 99.9% of actual Negroes--those who don't compete in top sports--are also clamoring to join the Navy SEALS.
When my mother died, I was 46. My dad had died four years earlier, his death expected, hers, not. There was an emptiness so profound I couldn't describe it in any way except to say I felt orphaned.
ReplyDeleteI found in talking to friends that mine was a typical response, particularly when one was close to one's parents.
Tiger, I think, must have felt devastated by his father's death. I think of the hours they spent together, likely more hours together than most fathers-sons. Much of that time was spent with his father training him as one would train a special forces' soldier, training him to focus, to endure, and when Tiger won that Open on a broken leg, we saw the results of that training.
I think with the loss of his dad, Tiger may have felt the need to do something that brought him closer to his dad, and golf no longer did that. When death hits, chasing something like Nicklaus' record might have lost meaning for him. How frightening to learn that whole life preparing for, your whole life chasing, has suddenly become meaningless. Perhaps he wanted to do something that was, to him, life-giving, life-saving. What better way to persuade yourself that life has meaning than to protect life. (Of course, he had kids, but it's obvious he wanted a challenge. When he'd spent his whole life focusing on physical challenges, perhaps he couldn't see that there existed other ways to be life-affirming, as in being a great dad to his kids.
Or maybe it was just a macho thing brought on by competition with his special forces' dad (Am I the man my dad was?)or by juicing. Although I've not read the book, doesn't Haney maintain he never saw any reason to suspect Tiger of steroid use?
As we learn more, I've actually found myself feeling sympathy for Tiger even though I've never pulled for him much, not having really liked him or his dad for allowing Nike to throw Fuzzy Zoeller to the pc dogs.
However, it can't have been easy being Earl Woods' son. His dad said some crazy stuff, leading me to think life in the Woods' household might have been very weird or at least very different from what most of us experience. I recall reading something said by his high school girlfriend who flew up to watch him play a match at Stanford. She said one day everything was fine, and the next, she got a note from him saying he never wanted to see her again, "after what she had done" the previous day. She claims she had then and has now no idea what he was talking about and all attempts to reach him were unsuccessful. Her only guess is that Earl Woods had decided Tiger shouldn't see her any more and she claims she was devastated. She also added that Tiger had confided in her once just how his dad's cheating on his mother bothered him.
"If they do so with hitting a baseball, why shouldn't they help hit a golfball?"
ReplyDeleteMost golf teachers say that long, lean muscles make for a better golf swing. Tiger didn't need more length. As a skinny guy, he was very long off the tee.
What no pro golfer can afford to lose is touch around the greens.
During and after the Vietnam War, soldiers were looked down on as low-class baby killers. Oh sure, there were innocent blacks who were trapped in the military industrial complex, and it was unfortunate that so many conscientious whites were forced into the military and tainted by it, but as for the men who actually chose to fight, much less believe in military objectives? Fie fie! They were imperialist murderers, all of them!
ReplyDeleteToday, however, the entire debate about US military policy is couched with praise for the troops. All but the most ardent leftists now say that they love the troops so much that they see no need for them to be harmed in foreign wars.
A Marine might not have the same social status as an investment banker or a J.D. in biglaw, but he's not actively loathed the way he was in the 60s and 70s. Compared to, say, cops and even firefighters, the troops are seen as highly respectable for having fairly blue collar work. And among people in the lower classes, a Marine is seen with my reverence and regard than a banker who has a higher income than him, but uses that money for no higher end.
Most golf teachers say that long, lean muscles make for a better golf swing. What no pro golfer can afford to lose is touch around the greens.
ReplyDelete"Most golf teachers say..." Nothing you write here really contradicts the proposition that PEDs confer an advantage in golf, just as they do in every other sport. Hitting and pitching a baseball also require an incredible degree of timing, accuracy, and finesse. So far as we know, the strength and quickness given by PEDs (and they may offer many other direct benefits as well) may help with touch, accuracy, timing because they make controlling the mechanical parts of the body as well as weighted props such as bats and clubs that much easier.
And among people in the lower classes, a Marine is seen with my reverence and regard than a banker who has a higher income than him, but uses that money for no higher end.
ReplyDeleteInvading other people's countries and killing effectively unarmed people is a higher end?
Steve wrote, "His father Earl had been a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Special Forces, and the only thing cooler than a Green Beret is a SEAL. (Just under a year ago, SEAL Team Six assassinated Osama bin Laden.)"
ReplyDeleteWell it sure helps when the Chairman of the JCS is a Navy admiral and has a hand in granting such assignments. Rest assured had an Army general been in that position at that time, 1st SFOD-D would have gotten the gig and the accompanying fame.
Both George and Tiger have probably played thousands of hours of video games.
ReplyDelete"Hitting and pitching a baseball also require an incredible degree of timing, accuracy, and finesse."
ReplyDeleteHitting requires hand-eye co-ordination. Don't know why that would be affected by PEDs, no.
Haven't most of the juicers that were pitchers, like Clemons, been basically fastball pitchers?
It would be interesting to see if a Barry Zito type curveballer would be helped or hurt by PEDs, or if a knuckleball pitche who juiced would suddenly find his motion screwed up his knuckler.
I know this from having watched Jose Canseco in Oakland for several years. He wasn't a bad fielder in his early, thinner years, and he was using even then, but he got so bulked up, he couldn't run well in the outfield, even though earlier he stole a lot of bases.
Here's a comment I wrote two years ago:
ReplyDeleteThe evidence for large scale juicing by Woods is only strong in the second half of his career. One of my readers wrote, " I’ve stood next to him a number of times (1998, 1999, 2002, 2007). ... Also, back in 1998 and 99 and 2002, Woods was very wiry. In 2007, he was huge. He looked a lot bigger than the 185 lbs. stated in the article."
Woods was the greatest player of all time from late 1999 through 2002, when he won seven major championships, including four in a row. Then in 2003, he didn't win any majors, and in 2004 he had a genuinely bad year, winning no majors and only one regular PGA tournament, and losing his #1 ranking to Vijay Singh.
Then in 2005-2008, he came back very strong winning six majors. The notorious picture of Woods flexing from Men's Fitness, which we know now he was blackmailed into doing by sister journal National Enquirer in return for spiking a story about a waitress, is from 2007.
So, there was a big change in his massiveness in the mid-years of the last decade, probably related to his bad year of 2004.
We know that Barry Bonds didn't use steroids until 1999, after McGwire and Sosa got all that publicity in 1998 and nobody paid attention to Barry having his usual superlative year. I wouldn't be surprised if the story wasn't similar here.
Simply developing big muscles, as Tiger did, doesn't mean he had to be juicing, does it? I mean, he was a workout warrior in the gym.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in high school many decades ago, guys who were somewhat thin in their sophomore year, like my boyfriend, took up lifting weights and the change was gradual, but remarkable. In those days they lifted in each other's garages, not in gyms. My boyfriend, although never as thin as Tiger, developed biceps that look to be the equal of those seen in the pic of Tiger. I know he didn't juice. That stuff wasn't even around then.
So, is it simply the muscles that make you think he was juicing or the fact that we know he met at least once with that doctor from Canada, the one who purportedly was connected to steriods with other athletes?
Now, there remain a number of issues involving cause and effect that I don't have the answers to, but somebody who wanted to study the year by year pictures of Woods could make more sense out of.
ReplyDeleteHere are several milestones:
2000 - a wiry Woods reaches the pinnacle of golf accomplishment
2004 - Woods has an off year and loses his #1 ranking to Vijay Singh
2005 - Woods comes back strong and regains #1
2006 (May) - Woods' father dies
2006-2007 - Woods gets more and more into military training and more and more into weightlifting
2007 - Woods gets blackmailed by National Enquirer, using photos of him and a waitress in the parking lot, into doing an article for their sister publication Men's Fitness on how he'd gotten so muscular
2008 - Woods knee is in very bad shape, he wins US Open in June in pain, then takes rest of year off to rehabilitate
2009 - Woods returns and is good but not great; in November, famous scandal and car crash
2010-2011: Woods mediocre on golf course
2012: Woods finally wins a PGA tournament, instantly made favorite in Masters,
There are a variety of cause and effect scenarios possible. Hank Haney's, if I recall correctly, emphasizes father's death in 2006 leading to interest in joining SEALs and heavy training / weightlifting. Haney quotes a baseball manager saying that the death of a father often gives a player the idea to quit the game and do whatever his father did, like mine coal.
Or, it might have worked in a different order: heavy weightlifting, perhaps with PED supplements, might have been how Woods returned to form in 2005. One way to test this is to look at photos from different dates. By 2007 he was fairly massive (although not enormous), but what did he look like when winning in 2005?
Or it could be that his return to the top in 2005 left him open to a combination of boredom with golf and the Father's Death Effect in 2006.
There are a lot of different ways that all the pieces could fit together, but some diligent study might rule out various scenarios. I think this is interesting because there is this huge amount of public information on Tiger Woods, probably enough to figure out what happened, but nobody much noticed any of this while it was happening on global television.
Off topic:
ReplyDeleteSteve with all the hype it would be great if you wrote a post explaining why census estimates of the Hispanic vote share are lower than exit polls and pew estimates. Are exit polls Hispanic share estimates or weighted assumptions?
A big problem with exit polling is that you have to pick ahead of time a sample of polling stations that you will send your very finite number of paid pollsters to. You need a model that predicts where to go to find a representative sample of voters. Plus, you have to worry about vote-by-mail. It's a bigger challenge to get right than doing a leisurely phone survey after the election, like the Census Bureau does.
ReplyDelete"Haney quotes a baseball manager saying that the death of a father often gives a player the idea to quit the game and do whatever his father did, like mine coal."
ReplyDeleteWow, interesting--even coal mining.
I've read pieces of Haney's book on the net. The part about the popsicle was intriguing. I would have reacted as Haney did. On the one hand, it might simply have been a story of Tiger's lack of awareness, in a world all his own. On the other hand, he might also have been indulging in mind games and this was a stupid, immature way of reminding Haney of his being low on the totem pole.
That need to establish status was illustrated also in Haney's story about the limp, disinterested handshake with Tiger when Earl and Tiger first visited Haney's golf school.
Haney said in some interview that I read not long ago, or maybe it was an excerpt from the book, that what people probably don't realize is that before his fame and celebrity as the world's greatest golfer was established, Tiger had been a skinny, braces-wearing, gawky teenager with these big glassed, a nerd. I think he said that Notah Begay is the one who called him "nerd." As a golfer, he wasn't a big man on campus, and when suddenly he matured physically, he didn't have the social skills to handle even relationships with girls.
Guess I'll buy the book. I like to watch Haney's show on the Golf Channel. Would love lessons from him--easy style. I read he's a recovering alcoholic, something he said he and Feherty share.
"Invading other people's countries and killing effectively unarmed people is a higher end?"
ReplyDeleteThat's so 1960s. It's all done to liberate people from their own dictators now.
Zimmerman's motives are more likely Steve, financial. Underwater in a condo in a place under siege, like a lot of guys in Florida he was fighting a rear-guard action to keep crime at bay so he could be at least level and sell out.
ReplyDeleteAs for Woods, it was more a macho thing rather than any real desire to serve. He had no realistic chance to be a SEAL not the least of which was the ability to resist the cold and wet, which destroy all the bodybuilder types (the endurance guys are the ones who generally avoid washout so I'm told).
As for who becomes SEALs? Mostly guys who want to serve, guys who find competition with guys shooting at you a desired outcome (as long as you win) and who are driven to become as close as possible to real life superheroes as one can get. Able to parachute out of airplanes at 35,000 feet, open the chutes only hundreds of feet above the water, swim ashore in unison in the dark and cold, to creep up on some outpost and blow something up. No other nation has that.
[From what I've been told, the SEALs in Afghanistan had problems when ambushed by superior Afghani forces, they fought not like infantrymen but Spec Ops and were taking too many casualties. Result: retraining for land ops where you can't just swim out and cling to a rock when ambushed waiting for nightfall and the Navy to come pick you up. Spec Ops troops are great but not really built for slug-it-out fights of brutal attrition.]
As for the military having respect, it does because of 9/11. Like the raid on Columbus NM, it meant that other people will invade our country and crash planes into buildings. Killing thousands. No one believes really (despite all that pseudo-leftist/paleocon nonsense) in peace through weakness, so Marines being the toughest are liked. Since people like strength and don't like weakness.
ReplyDeleteWho will you admire, some weakly hippie or a Marine? Really, file that under Derbyshire myths and reality.
I do think Woods wanted to emulate his late father. That probably was something. Could he have juiced to get him over the top, and could that have led to disastrous mood swings, womanizing, etc? Maybe.
As far as today's society, it has little to recommend it for most guys. The brutal realities of warfare make it a non-starter for most guys even with Western advantages: War is the ugliest thing there is (save defeat and devastating occupation by the enemy). But ever wonder why all those guys play Call of Duty and Modern Warfare and HALO on their X-boxen?
They do it because the Western world is empty of any meaning in any real way for most guys most of the time. It is a world of fabulous fashion, glittery gayness, and other things female and gay. But not much interest for most guys. You can sort of understand Woods and Tillman. American Idol is all there is? Really?
"Spec Ops troops are great but not really built for slug-it-out fights of brutal attrition."
ReplyDeleteI think you're right here, but I remember reading in Ghost Wars that the Soviets out-fought the Afghans once they sent in Spetznaz. The Soviet effort was doomed from the get-go, but Spetznaz at least helped them win numerous battles and broke through defenses which regular forces couldn't breech. I'd be interested in learning more about how Soviet-era Spetznaz training and field tactics differ from our Special Forces.
Maybe we're all overanalyzing. Tiger was getting *it*from the money/fame groupies....but wanted to have the *ripped physique* thing going for him to. He probably saw some of his *conquests* with older, balding, short, out of shape, filthy rich, white guys ( Full disclosure: Similar to me, except for the rich part.) It served his ego to get laid *because* he was sexy, instead of just wealthy. IMHO.
ReplyDeleteAnd among people in the lower classes, a Marine is seen with my reverence and regard than a banker who has a higher income than him, but uses that money for no higher end.
ReplyDeleteHow bourgeois. New flash, Sid: Tiger Woods is in a slightly higher tax bracket than you. He dreamed of becoming a Navy SEAL. He did not dream of becoming an investment banker.
IMO steriods/GH. With a naturally wiry physique you don't get suddenly big like that without em, they work. Lummox Lewis would never have been champ as the gangling loose limbed boxer he naturally was.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe he ever had any intent to "serve" anything but himself. Military style training was probably just a yardstick by which he could compare himself to other participants and thus pat himself on the back for being able to perform with the best of them. Doubtful that it would progress beyond just ego gratification. The gyms are full of guys who want to strengthen up for their own reasons, ranging from the shaven-head types to nerdy cubicle-dwellers.
ReplyDeleteZimmerman's motives are more likely Steve, financial.
ReplyDeleteOooh, financial motives. Like wanting to preserve the value of your home--or, more urgently, wanting to keep criminals from invading your home in the dark of night and stealing your and your wife's property. Both could plausibly and reasonably be in play.
Come to think of it, speaking of home invasions, maybe Zimmerman also had nefarious corporeal or even security (oooooooh) motives, like wanting to prevent himself, his wife, and his neighbors from being physically beaten, shot, or raped by a criminal in the course of a home invasion.
Sheesh.
Simply developing big muscles, as Tiger did, doesn't mean he had to be juicing, does it? When I was in high school many decades ago, guys who were somewhat thin in their sophomore year, like my boyfriend, took up lifting weights and the change was gradual, but remarkable.
ReplyDeleteA teenager who bulks up during the most dynamic years of puberty while doing serious workouts for probably the first time ever is less suspicious than a grown man who bulks up many years into a career as a professional athlete (and before that as a Division I athlete).
So, is it simply the muscles that make you think he was juicing or the fact that we know he met at least once with that doctor from Canada, the one who purportedly was connected to steriods with other athletes?
Both, with, as noted above, the massive body change occurring well into a professional athlete's career, raise legitimate suspicions of PED use.
"Invading other people's countries and killing effectively unarmed people is a higher end?"
ReplyDeleteThat's so 1960s. It's all done to liberate people from their own dictators now.
You mean liberating them into the crosshairs of a foreign army's cannon and then liberating them from the balls and chains of this life into the afterlife?
I know little of Woods save for all the trashy women he diddled and his swearing and temper tantrums on the course that media censored.
ReplyDeleteOccam's razor suggests he is much like any other overpaid celebrity - a man child.
This also suggests his flit with the Navy Seals was borne more out of daddy issues than a dying need to serve and protect.
What evidence is there that Woods was ever that public minded in his life before?
You have a very interesting take on Woods and of course you are spot on about Zimmerman. But you may be overlooking a simpler explanation for Woods - boredom.
ReplyDeleteWoods was widely recognized as the best of his time if not the best of all time. He was rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Now what? More of the same? If you hold all sorts of course records and annual records what lights that fire in your belly - lifetime records?
I always assumed that that was at least part of the reason why Michael Jordan tried another sport. He had it all. He was the world's best B Ball player and underwear salesman.
Both of these guys had made it in their sport without much trouble or struggle. They were too young to rest on their laurels. Time to try something else. Successful businessmen abandon their corner office and sail around the world. Athletes, being less imaginative, try some other varition of athletics.
BTW as far as I know the only person to have been a success at both basketball and baseball was Chuck Conners (the Rifleman). There's probably some deep lesson there but I don't know just what.
Mickey Roarke is only one of several Hollywood actors who tried the ring. I believe the most successful was Ryan O'Neal. Not Ron O'Neal the black bad-ass whom you might have expected to have been a fighter, but Ryan the Peyton Place pretty boy and heart throb.
Mickey Roarke seemed to have had the wrong kind of skin for boxing. After just a few fights he (another pretty boy actor) began to qualify to play monsters without makeup. O'Neal lost his looks the more traditional way - booze.
Albertosaurus
I don't think joining the SEALS had anything to do with wanting to serve in Woods' case. It think it was just a psychological reaction to the loss of his father. Sounds like he went through what a lot of people go through when their parent dies- you take inventory of your own life, and in Woods' case he probably looked up to his dad more than anyone else. And even though he was the best golfer in the world and had millions of fans, his old man was still more of a man than Woods since he stood up to the real test of survival.
ReplyDeleteI did the exact same thing when I was young: my dad was a Vietnam vet, and I thought the only way I could be as much or more of a man than him would be to join the military and get into some "shit". Being the extremist that I am I joined the Navy with the intention of going to BUDS, but before you can go to SEAL training you have to get some sort of specialty (like MOS) beforehand. Fortunately for me I was in school for a year, and by the time I finished I had already cooled off. I suspect they get a lot of young gung-ho guys that way...they go in all psyched up but then they have to wait 6 months to a year before they can even get into the training. A young guy generall can't keep up his motivation for that long (I'm sure the Navy is acutely aware of this phenomenon). Unfortunately for me I couldn't get out early, so I had to do the rest of my enlistment in the regular Navy. But I didn't join because I gave a shit about the country, it was all ego and wanting to prove to myself and my dad that I was a real man.
My dad did everything he could to talk me out of it, as he saw the military and combat for what it was. But you couldn't tell me anything at that age.
Anyway that's a long way of saying Woods was grieving and his mind/ego started f*ucking w/ him..he was at the top of his game and at the top of the world but he was still trying to live up to his old man's legacy. Inner game.
Well, according to Jack Reacher, special ops guys are usually whippet-style endurance types, not musclebound guys, so we still have a mystery why Tiger had to bulk up so muchy.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Tiger is like Michael Corleone:he went into golf cuz his father wanted it so badly. But in his DNA--which he got fum his dad--the desire to be a warrior was there,just pushed down out of sight. When dad died-----(and lets not get all sentimental and gooey-eyed about this father/son stuff,as Tigers dad was a drunken yahoo(at times) a cheater,on Tigers mom,and a crook. Recall the story of the "charitable donation" Nike gave Tiger "for the kids." It went right into the pocket of Earl. )---- Tiger may have had mixed emotions. He was free now,of the oppressive presence thats got to be pleased. He could do what he wanted now. Or so he thought?
ReplyDeleteRe Anonymouse and the "negro" voice inside Tigers head:Please please tell us more of what the Negro said to Tiger. I found it very amusing. What does the voice sound like? Redd Foxx?
ReplyDeleteThe SEAL's would scarcely want a world-famous celebrity in their ranks. It would be a huge propaganda boost for the enemy if he were captured.
ReplyDeleteI would rather be a seal than an nfl star. If people can overeager to serve their country, if anything it is joining the rank and file fodder to risk life and limb in pointless war not in the interests of this country, not even for an attractive cause or charismatic leaders
ReplyDeleteEven if the story is true, there isn't much public spiritedness in wanting to be a seal. If guys just wanna serve their nation, they should just enlist in the army or navy
ReplyDeleteDon't you have to enlist first, and then they will consider you for SEAL training? Or are there special rules for special people?
Even if the story is true, there isn't much public spiritedness in wanting to be a seal. If guys just wanna serve their nation, they should just enlist in the army or navy
ReplyDeleteDon't you have to enlist first, and then they will consider you for SEAL training? Or are there special rules for special people?
"How bourgeois. New flash, Sid: Tiger Woods is in a slightly higher tax bracket than you. He dreamed of becoming a Navy SEAL. He did not dream of becoming an investment banker."
ReplyDeleteFar be it from me to admire investment bankers and lawyers. My point is that among the upper-middle and upper classes, being enlisted in the military is seen as xenophobic and low class, whereas careers which pay exorbitantly and contribute little to the overall welfare of society are considered posh.
As for Tiger Woods not aspiring to be an investment banker - so what? Tiger Woods is not "upper class," in the sense that he was not trained from an early age to play lacrosse at elite private schools, get a great score on the SAT after taking innumerable prep courses, study something fun and light in the Ivy League, before getting a J.D. or MBA and joining Wall Street.
Those folks might look up to Tiger Woods, since he's an elite celebrity and athlete, but he's not apart of their class culture. There are a number of celebrities who are more highly revered than our "upper classes," without being within their ranks.
At any rate, Tiger Woods had more money than he could possibly spend, so I doubt getting a job on Wall Street, which he would consider apt for ho-hum drones, would appeal to him. Those jobs are idealized by people who would like the money there to advance or maintain their expensive lifestyles, but elite celebrities don't need the money at all.
Once you have enough money, more money doesn't matter as much, and your interests turn to finer things. Tiger Woods already had enough money and plenty of fame and glory, so he wanted to be a SEAL to either prove his masculinity and walk in the footsteps of his father. Aristocrats, over the course of history, have had little interest in acquiring more money, because it's just empty numbers to them. Achilles fought in Troy for eternal fame, not unlimited wealth. It's only mediocrities who crave wealth.
BTW as far as I know the only person to have been a success at both basketball and baseball was Chuck Conners (the Rifleman).
ReplyDeleteDave DeBusschere was a bigger success at both.
Might I suggest that the reason guys like Zimmerman and Woods latch onto service oriented soft-authoritarian power structures is because they're mixed race and don't easily fit into the standard cultural milieus?
ReplyDeleteAs a mixed race guy myself, I've found myself repeated drawn to such things myself for one reason. When you're a mix of different ethnic attributes, it's hard to fit in with the standard social circles, so you look for social organizations which strive for extreme meritocracy and cohesiveness and celebrate a set of values that is race blind.
Me, I'm too physical, hot-tempered and tradition oriented to make it in SWPL circles and too intellectual and rationalistic for Polynesian ones. I was in JROTC for all four years of high school and I was crushed when I couldn't make the physical cut for the military (partial deafness).
not a hacker said:
ReplyDeleteDave DeBusschere was a bigger success at both.
That's why I'm circumspect about my claims. Too damn many experts out there. I did qualify my statement with "as far as I know". Now I know a little farther.
I guess I should have said baseball, basketball and cowboy movies.
Back on topic.
I've complained about this before. I think almost everyone here worries too much about steroids. I don't care much if someone wants to bulk up with androgens. I recognize that it constitutes an unfair advantage in certain sports, I realize that it blows up your heart in certain men and women develop oily skin and large pores.
BUT... You cannot uninvent steroids. They are not going to go away. We need to adapt to the reality of juice and juicers. It is not helpful to continually bitch and moan about the loss of innocence in sports.
I love baseball but baseball is a sport of statistical contemplation even more so now than formerly. All the analytical tools of Moneyball are now or soon will be available to every fan when the Mighty Casey come to the plate.
Steroids make a joke of records. The logical outcome of which may very well be - no more baseball. I don't like that but that's the way it is.
One of the most beautiful creatures that ever existed is now extinct. I don't like that but some how we must be brave and muddle through even though we no longer have the ...
Albertosaurus