I've been to enough circuses, here and in Germany, to appreciate a secret truth within John Irving's novels: the trick really isn't training a bear to ride a bicycle, but, without an opposable thumb, to be able to ring the bell.
Irving's bear was my first thought earlier last week when the news stories broke on Lance Armstrong's 'return to cycling'. I had the yellow wrist band and I admire immensely the courage and strength the man has, and has always displayed. I've never really understood how a grownup makes a living riding a bike, unless it's an itty-bitty one and he's wearing a red nose and has big feet.
I'm being snarky, admittedly, except for the part that I took it to hyperbole. Think about it: someone pays men and women (but almost always it's men) HUGE sums of money to play 'professional sports' (or in Carl Pavano's, case to be physically co located near people who do) and we don't bat an eye. In some sports....we all know about baseball, football and basketball players and to a lesser extent hockey players and race car drivers, but what's the going rate for a professional lacrosse player or how many seats do you think get filled for a professional curling match (or scrum or whatever they call it)?
What happens to them all once our gaze goes elsewhere after their careers end? I grew up rooting for Willie Mays and watched him in center field at Shea Stadium, after the Giants traded him to the Mets in the twilight of his career, almost get brained by fly balls he'd made a career out of catching. When he retired, he took a job as a greeter at an Atlantic City hotel and casino, and the Lords of Baseball, fearful of the return of Shoeless Joe, quietly blackballed him (pun deliberate) from ever being part of Major League Baseball. But still, a man (or a woman) has got to eat, right?
Maybe that's what it is for Lance Armstrong. Man cannot live by headlines and adulation alone and I've yet to figure out what his 'real job' was/is or could be. I never understood what happened to the family he had while he battled cancer, and I do know it's politically incorrect to ask about them now, so I'll pretend I didn't, if you will, too.
He and I move in different circles, so while I've read about Sheryl Crow, Ashley Olsen and Kate Hudson, I don't think I have to worry about him hitting on my wife, no matter how sexy he looks in his speedos. And he'll be too busy chasing his own ghost to have much of a social life, I guess, at least for awhile. I'm more of a brown open-necked shirt guy myself, but if a yellow tricot helps him earn some green, I suspect he'll soon enough remember to look out for those beauties, oh yeah.
-bill kenny
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