The Day the Peach Basket Died

Hope for the Hopeless - A Fine Frenzy (mp3)
Find You Dead - Letters to Cleo (mp3)

It somehow seems only fitting to follow up Bob's post yesterday with musings on John Wooden.

While I was busy trying to navigate the vomit-inducing highway to Boone, N.C., the Wizard of Westwood chose to retire from life, calling it a day at the nicely-rounded age of 99.

That night, the ritual late-night drunken debate between myself and my two in-law siblings centered around Tiger Woods. While I didn't begrudge Tiger his loss of income or popularity, I did say the onus is on our society to change what it expects of people in the spotlight. (Lest it be forgotten, I was a staunch -- and somewhat erroneous -- defender of Tiger when he first wrecked his SUV last year. I've adjusted my negative opinions of him, but continue to place equal blame with our culture.)

Bob's post yesterday about Polanski, and his earlier post about Bruce Springsteen's adulterous ways, and my mourning the death of the simple hero. I don't know how many times I've lamented our society's idolization of celebrities and athletes. When we place any fallible mortal on a pedestal, we're only creating a greater height from which they can fall. Deep down, we know it, but we don't care. We need our heroes, and we'll help craft them where they don't exist.

You gotta admire the Greeks for that, at least. Their gods were terribly flawed. Powerful, certainly, but flawed. In America, we expect all our gods to be flawless.

In my preferred universe, Tiger Woods would earn significant cash simply for being The Greatest Golfer of All Time. But the hundreds of millions in endorsements? The entire notion of celebrities endorsing products, values, whatever? It wouldn't happen.

What is undeniable, however, is how much more fun it is for people to talk about fallen idols than straight-laced boring ones. Like John Wooden.

The Wizard didn't make much off endorsements, but I'm sure he made a few extra bucks every now and then. Enough to buy Tiger a new driver on occasion.

I don't know everything about John Wooden's life. I don't know if he went his entire life without committing a sin. I don't know if the sins he committed were acceptable or unforgivable. I don't want to know everything; I know enough to admire the man, his career, the loyalty and love he engendered in almost everyone he met, and the values he seemed to espouse through actions as well as words.

Wooden actually seems like something we just don't hear much about anymore: A decent Christian man.

We hear plenty about Catholic priests and perverted Protestant preachers. We hear lots of people talk about God's wrath until they conveniently need His forgiveness for their own misdeeds. But just good decent people who admit to their faith in the glare of the public eye? That's a rare species.

As a UNC alum whose fanaticism about the importance of Dean Smith as a coach and person of tremendous character is beyond reasonable, I can also comfortably acknowledge that John Wooden is, as both a person and coach, Dean's equal if not his superior. (It hurts to even write that.)

Then there's the personal story that tugs at me.

Wooden's wife Nellie died on March 21, 1985. At the time of her death, they had been married 53 years. On the monthly anniversary of Nellie's death, every month, every year, for 25 years, Coach John Wooden would write his wife a letter. That's almost 300 love letters to a ghost. If it weren't such a testament to the depth and endurance of his love, it might well freak me out. But he didn't write those letters to impress me. And I'm sure he wouldn't give a flip whether anyone thought he was crazy for doing it.

Instead of a secret stash of kiddie porn or some secret meth lab in his basement, John Wooden was hiding love letters to the most important person in his life. Because it was none of our business, no matter how much it might have impressed us. How refreshing, that we discover something unknown yet touching about a man we can admire!

Apparently, good secrets about people still exist, and it gives me hope.

"You see, the truth is somewhere in between. It's wrong to turn people into idols. But it's also wrong to lose hope, to believe that we can't find good examples to inspire us," Wooden says in the interview linked above. "We need role models. ... Maybe role models are getting harder to find, these days. That doesn't mean that there aren't any worth finding."

Coach Wooden almost gives me reason to think maybe idolizing great and successful famous people isn't such a bad idea.

Almost.

Leave Tiger Aloooooone!

Tournament of Hearts - The Weakerthans (mp3)
Buy Into It - The Most Powerful Telescope in the World (mp3)

Look at the me. That's what the world is turning me into. Chris fuckin' Crocker.

Everywhere I turn, on the Internet, on TV, on the radio, there's this constant shark-drool hum about Tiger Woods. A fire hydrant. His wife. A golf club. A shattered window. A woman in New York. Scandal! Deception! Dodging the police! Ruining his career!!!!

My collective response to it? Stop it, people. Just stop.

As best I can tell, over the course of his billion-dollar career, this is Tiger Woods' virgin step into anything other than a lily-white track record. Seriously, just try and imagine how impossible it must be to go 13 years as arguably the most famous and best-known athlete in the world -- yes, for a while he trailed Michael Jordan, but no longer -- with press and photographers constantly following your every step, your every breath, without once doing anything untoward.

We get to sit in the privacy of our own homes and amuse ourselves with little platitudes like, "Character is what you do when no one is watching." But guess what? When you're Tiger Woods, someone is always watching. He doesn't need to be threatened by the thought of Jesus or angels or his father looking over his shoulder, because dudes with telephoto lenses and hypersensitive microphones are tracking him 24/7.

So, with the exception of being a little pouty and potty-mouthed on a golf course, this "accident" is the very first moment Tiger has proven himself human. (Well, he proved capable of impregnating his wife... but even the Visitors can do that, so I'm not sure having semen counts.)

And you can tell by our reaction that most of us have been eagerly and hungrily waiting for this moment. He's human, and by God, for that, he's gonna pay! Make him suffer! Let's revel in his imperfections!!

Please don't mistake my anger for fandom. While I'm in true awe of Tiger's golf skills, I don't idolize him or follow him or watch copious amounts of golf tournaments just because he's in them. Truthfully, I'm a bigger fan of Mickelson, and on those rare occasions when I watch golf, I get annoyed that Tiger's the focus of every other shot even when he's mired in 19th place.

While I'm not particularly in favor of politicians getting this treatment anymore than celebrities, at least politicians waste time shouting moralistic platitudes, practically begging to be caught in hypocritical moments. We're still guilty of being the drooling crowd at a gladiator match, watching the tigers maul their armored prey, but at least we can know they kinda asked for it. But celebrities and athletes? They just wanted to play their games, man. Everything beyond that is stuff we put on them that they never asked for.

In truth, we have no way of knowing what happened between this attractive and wealthy couple in the middle of the night. The only thing that's remotely fair to speculate, IMO, is that if -- IF -- she attacked him with that club, the reason Tiger is being so tight-lipped is to protect her from Florida's uber-strict spousal abuse laws.

If -- IF -- they were fighting, does the fight really have to be about his, um, "Driver" and another woman? I know plenty of couples who, especially in the dark of night after some drinkin', get in serious plate-throwing, wall-punching arguments about the most random nonsense on the planet. Watch "American Beauty" and trust that the plate-throwing dinner conversation happens all the time, all over this blessed country of ours. It doesn't just happen in trailer parks.

UPDATE: As of Tuesday night, Police had closed the case. Tiger will pay a $167 fine. The neighbor says Mrs. Tiger came to them asking them to call 911, which is precisely what someone would do after attempting to shove a pitching wedge into her husband's skull, right? The odds are pretty good that all of these rumors, all of this speculation, will either prove to have no merit, or will simply never be proven, like a fart in a phone booth of unbathed clowns. Yet no one anywhere in the media will apologize for gleefully attempting to drag the dude's name through the mud for the sole purpose of attracting the Almighty Dollar. They were just "following their journalistic obligations."

Yeah right. Sleep tight, you sharks and leeches. Rest up for your next celebrity. And please God don't go getting a conscience or anything. Or worse yet, don't go start reporting actual important shit like stuff about war and famine and hunger. That stuff makes Matt Lauer frown, which starts my day on the wrong foot.

The Most Powerful Telescope in the World sent us their album, and "Buy Into It" is a solid example of the quality you can expect from their album, The Moonlight's Fair Tonight. Yeah, he kinda sounds like J. Mascis without the wild and wailin' guitar. As for The Weakerthans, anyone who ever felt like a nerd has no choice but to love this band.

Live Together, Die Alone

New Test Leper - REM (mp3)
Please Please Please, Let Me Get What I Want - The Scattered Pages (mp3)

Live together, die alone.

For the non-LOST geeks out there, this is one of the show's recurring quotes and one that encapsulates at least a part of the governing philosophy on this mystical island. For those of us in Real America who find ourselves on the less than a day away from knowing that Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson are both dead, this quote should mean something as well.

When I look at these two deaths, I don't feel sadness for the loss to our popular culture. I don't feel sadness for myself or their fans. I feel a sadness for celebrity. What's been on my mind when thinking about these two people is this: for every rung we climb on the ladder to success and fame, how much more isolated and lonely must we be?

Michael Jackson sold out concert after concert across the globe. He made teenagers and adults cry from something like fetishistic ecstasy when he walked by or when he moon walked or when he grabbed whatever was left of his crotch. He was surrounded by guards, advisors, lawyers, and anyone else who qualified for his "entorage." Yet I'm sure I'm not alone in believing that no one on this entire planet knew Michael Jackson.

When I look at George W. Bush, I might mock him, and I might loathe many of the things he has done to this country, but I can't deny him this: many people know him, and some very deeply. Laura knows Dubya. I think Barbara and Jenna know Dubya. I bet a few other dozen people know Dubya pretty damn well, too.

How many people knew Michael Jackson?

And when I say "know," I don't mean "know he targets little kids, scurries them to his private quarters, feeds them Jesus juice and takes advantage of them." I don't mean secrets or personal peccadillos. I mean, I don't think anyone knew the guy. I think he died alone. Utterly, completely, and in all ways alone.

He will be mourned by millions. Hundreds of millions. Yet never known.

Farrah Fawcett is also a total mystery and stranger, although a little more understandably so. Here's a woman on whom our culture thrust about a million fantasies and hang-ups solely because of a single poster and a single season on Charlie's Angels. Sure, I also loved her in Saturn 3 and Logan's Run. Hell, I knew Farrah was hot well before I understood why my pee-pee was getting all stiff inside my Underoos.

Maybe because I didn't understand the sex part, I never found Farrah as attractive as Jacklyn Smith or Cheryl Ladd, or Olivia Newton-John for that matter. I don't know if I understood it at the time, but I think she seemed both slutty and clueless, and that's a combination of qualities I've never found appealing. (Slutty and wise? Hell yeah. Clueless yet cuddly adorable? Hell yeah. Slutty and clueless? You've got to have a predatory glee in you to find that appealing, no?)

Unlike the King of Pop, I imagine Farrah had at least a small set of people who knew her. If there was anything there to know. Between her own drug issues and those of the people around her, you wonder how much she actually knew of herself, how much of her there was to know. Even as she's fighting for her life, she's trying to figure out how to use a camera to share her struggle with viewers via two-dimensional TV screens. She's playing the role of Farrah Fawcett Dying, the role of a lifetime.

What I'm begging someone to explain to me is why we as a culture envy this shit. Why do so many of us want what they have (or had) so desperately? Fame and success isolates you. It throws you into a huge ant farm with creatures who idolize you but don't really want to or can't know you. Your identity is so overtaken by handlers and/or the hunger of the masses that most of these people eventually lose themselves. And as they lose themselves, they increasingly isolate from the world around them.

Sure, there's minor exceptions. The oft-cited Bruce Springsteen seems to have held onto most of his humanity. Jon Bon Jovi (God help me for using him as an example) has convinced me in interviews that he's almost a normal person. Paul Newman somehow convinced everyone that he never got swept quite as deeply into the Fame Whirlpool as everyone else (but if you look at his history, a lot of it ain't pretty).

Fame at that level is like playing Russian Roulette with five bullets. And it's somehow a game far too many of us are dying to play.

That's what leaves me sad. I'm sad that our culture devours the very souls of the people we idolize. I'm sad we want to be devoured like that. And I'm said that we'll never really know -- or really, really care about -- either of these two dead stars on the walk of fame.

Live together, die alone

Lighted Fools to Dusty Death

"Might" - Archers of Loaf (mp3)
"Web In Front" - Archers of Loaf (mp3)

The two biggest goals of Generation Y are, according to numerous surveys and reports, to get rich and be famous. I would mock them, but lightning might strike me.

My mother comes from a generation of busy-bodies. I acknowledge that without a hint of mockery or scorn. For her and most of my relatives between the ages of 60-80, to be sitting and doing nothing is a clear sign of failure and pathetic to boot. Unfortunately, I also acknowledge their restless hunger to be productive without much envy. God how I wish I envied them, but I can no more manufacture envy than I could force myself to love someone.

Was it around the time the government injected our precious bodily fluids with that Commie drug flouride that our obsession with fame sprouted from the dirt? This particular plant -- a society's lust for fame -- might have spent its first few dozen years growing slowly, but it seems to have accelerated in the past decade.

The Baby Boomers and my generation -- "X" -- seem to fall somewhere between the obsessive busy-bodies of my mother's "Greatest Generation" and the glitz & glamour trappings of Generation Y. I think that mostly just means my generation prefers lazing above all else.

I distinctly remember being a teen-ager and feeling certain that Greatness awaited me. Greatness was my prom date, and my only purpose in college was to find out when and where the prom would be held, and where to pick up that hot slut Greatness so I could get what was comin' to me after a few dances. Does most everyone feel this way at one point, that naive sense that we're Bound for Glory? Aren't we all victims of the Lake Wobegon effect, even in matters of fame and fortune?

When I landed one of the five coveted spots as an op-ed columnist for UNC's newspaper, I felt I'd finally taken that crucial first step. Over the course of that year, on a very small but very real scale, I encountered Fame. I could walk into bars on a weekend and have someone approach me about one of my columns. I probably had a dozen or so people buy me beer or shots for no other reason than because they recognized me from my column. I had a fraternity offer to throw a party in my honor because of a column I wrote (this was both a badge of honor and shame). The chancellor of the school sent me letter thanking me for one. My Valentine's Day column on "Love v. Lust" netted me a half-dozen letters (this was before the email revolution) from females asking to meet me... and it also was the column that introduced my wife to the psycho she would fall in love with two weeks later.

The experience was so enthralling I ended up making my next career move in the desperate hope I could be the next Dave Barry slash Paul Krugman. (Unfortunately, there's a very good reason these two men are not the same person. Even more unfortunate, I'm neither as witty nor as world-wise.)

With all of my might I do this.
It's a waste of my time to pursue this.
I'm so full of self-indulgence to think that you'd like this song.

We hunger to be appreciated and yearn to be coveted, even though nothing good much seems to come of fame except a guaranteed stint in rehab and the chance to have your own moment in Reality TV five years after you've returned to meaninglessness.

Fame is heroin chic for the domesticated and lazy.

People perform in Karaoke bars for just a whiff of Fame, like the scent of sex on week-old panties. Many secretly fantasize there's a Simon Cowell sitting in the corner shadows, desperate to find that Next Big Thing. Others go to poetry readings where they sit patiently, making grocery lists in their heads while other people read their poems. Yet others write blogs, thinking just maybe some really influential people might stumble across their brilliance and offer them a book deal or connection to a newspaper.

(I'm guilty of the trifecta.)

Bottom of the Glass does not exist to bring us Fame. Might I have wonderful 3 a.m. fantasies that it brings us such? Natch! But I also have wonderful 3 a.m. fantasies that I play point guard for the National Champion UNC Tar Heels, that I am part of a platinum-selling rock band that gets critical raves while also filling arenas, that I write best-sellers that survive the scrutiny of generations.

The good news, for someone like me, is that the fantasy of Greatness is much cheaper than heroin and much more nuanced than mere Fame. And I can enjoy that little perversion while sharing some random thoughts and a few cool songs along the way, with friends both old and, hopefully, new.

Archers of Loaf were hit their peak in Chapel Hill and in the national alternative scene at just about the same time. They tasted Fame, albeit an alternative post-grunge version. Their songs managed to be painfully off-key and catchy at the same time. Off-key with purpose and direction. "Web In Front" and "Wrong" are both off their first album, Icky Mettle.