If this year’s Amgen Tour of California is half as lively as the pre-race press conference, it should be big fun indeed. Lance Armstrong and Sunday Times reporter Paul Kimmage hissed at each other like a couple of tomcats, and Juliet Macur of The New York Times got in a few swipes her own bad self, chiding Armstrong for making snarky comments about her reporting after refusing to take her phone calls seeking comment.
Meanwhile, Floyd Landis has already crashed, but is said to be ready to race after a few beers and a couple shots of Black Jack. He will be supported by a water tender from the San Diego fire department.
Mad Blog Media 
Well to me, Kimmage sounds like just a bit of an asshole. He can write what he wants, but to call Armstrong “the cancer in this sport” and then ask the guy for an interview is a little arrogant. Words have consequences, and cancer isn’t an abstraction to Lance Armstrong.
Well, I’m looking forward to the race. The tomcats can go piss in corners all they want, as long as it isn’t in my house. I did my time with that shit when my darling wife insisted on adopting three stray male cats back in Honolulu. Worked for a while, and then we moved into a new place and one of the three went bonkers. The expensive sofa was a drenched and smelly casualty. On a morning shortly after when I put my morning cup of Joe down into the middle of a puddle of cat piss, one of those cats was the next thing to get the bum’s rush out the door.
Oh c’mon! I’m no fan of Armstrong, and I don’t hate the guy, but are we going to hear a bunch of this “I’m riding for cancer” stuff every time somebody hits him with a tough question? Sounds like a “holier-than-thou’ dodge he can pull out anytime he wants. This could end up like Bush squaking “9-11, 9-11”.
Which brings up another question: he’s riding for cancer awareness? What exactly does that mean? I think we’re all very aware of cancer, and in fact, being among the uninsured, not only am I aware of cancer, I’m scared shitless of cancer. So other than a convenient topic to bring up whenever he wants to shout down a reporter, it makes no sense to me at all. Are well suppose to give Armstrong a pass because he’s being somehow “noble” for “riding for cancer”?
On the other hand, Floyd Landis is off to have a beer, eh? Hmmm. I think we all remember the last time he was feeling down and had a beer or two. I think it was in 2006 and he was riding around France at the time. AToC could get interesting.
I am no apologist for Armstrong, either. But sounds to me like Kimmage fired a shot and now he wonders why there is a war. Well, duh.
Like I said, I don’t really give a flying F-word about any of these prima donnas. Just let the racing begin and the pre-race pissing and moaning end.
Sorry, John, but I just dodged an F-350 and am a little edgy. Have a nice day.
I’m always suspicious of single-issue types, and while I respect Paul Kimmage for his anti-doping crusade, I wonder whether he hasn’t become something of an Ahab on the topic. I thought the cancer crack was particularly ill-advised. There are better ways to make the point, and a guy who makes his living with words should have found one. (This from a guy who in a cycling cartoon made a retarded reference to the Oklahoma City bombing.)
But Armstrong is no day at the beach, either. Dude is a superstar, knows it, and works it. Anybody wants to fuck with him better bring their A game, ’cause Big Tex plays for keepsies.
“There are better ways to make the point, and a guy who makes his living with words should have found one.”
Exactly the point, Patrick. Especially if as you say, he is going to be playing in the big league. (This from a guy whose wife taught college rhetoric but whose vocabulary would be cut in half if I didn’t use four-letter words)
A simple song of sports journalism for two voices:
PK: If you can’t get a story by getting the facts, create a story by getting the attitude.
LA: Attitude is easier to manage and manufacture than facts.
Duet: Attracting eyeballs pays the bills.
Ben,
Eyeballs. Bingo. That’s what really sucks. Remember when all you needed to draw eyeballs was a hard-fought bike race? Watching sausage manufacturing is almost always a bad idea if you love sausage.
What’s that old expression about watching sausage or law being made?
I hear what you’re saying, Khal, about Kimmage being out of line. But when LA says something about coming out of retirement for a “noble cause”, it makes me wonder what does he expect? Roses tossed in front of his bike tires?
Armstrong said, “You are not worth the chair you are sitting on with a statement like that with a disease that touches everyone around the world.” WTF? What Armstrong is doing is implying that an attack on Armstrong is a defacto attack on anyone concerned about cancer. This is BS. He wants to go on a crusade, fine; but don’t expect the rest of us to equate the man with the cause. Supporting the fight against cancer is noble (but who’s going to come out in support of cancer?), but that doesn’t mean I think Armstong is just as noble. Armstrong is wrapping himself in a cause and expecting everyone to regard him and “his cause” as one in the same. As someone who lost a parent to cancer, I think what he’s doing is insulting.
John,
I hear you! This whole thing smells funny. Kimmage has a right to scrounge up whatever he can, and honestly, Lance hasn’t actually been a ‘good boy’ either. It is good theatre.
Hopefully for Lance’s sake he’ll realize that he is a brand, and as such, whatever flows from his person sticks in the media’s mind. It is a 24/7/365 world out there and the last thing that most brands need is some knucklehead wrapping his lips around a ‘smoking pipe’ and inhaling. Right M Phelps?
As far as the ToC is concerned: it should be an exciting race. Hopefully everyone will make it to Escondi(l)do in one piece. And that includes Floyd (I hope).
I hear you, John. Lance indeed lives in a glass house. But its his house, not mine. My original comment about Kimmage was along the lines of Patrick’s—if you make yourself into an Ahab, keep an eye on the whale.
Some of our cancers are due to our own self-inflicted wounds–lung, colon, liver, skin, etc. I think to some degree we have to rely on ourselves to avoid the obvious risk factors, and also realize that as we cure everything else, we will eventually all die of cancer. Or get hit by F-350s. Or get a melanoma from riding too much in the sun. Shit…
As far as cancer, I sat by my mom’s bedside slapping opium patches on her arm for the last few days while she slipped away with liver cancer. Had two uncles get dropped by the Grim Reaper due to throat and prostate cancer. Its no stranger to me. Beating cancer as one ages seems a little like trying to stay away in a crit, with the bunch trying to catch you. I suppose if you make it to the finish line first, it means something else got you.
Lance and Bart Knaggs (Team Lance et al.) know that Lance was, and could be again, an A-list brand in the U.S. They have an incredible ability to keep Lance in the spotlight. They position him well as far as “Lance against the French, Lance against the unfair media, Lance against Cancer” goes. But they run the risk of the U.S. market getting sick of seeing Lance everyday. All pop stars have this problem.
Lance transcended cycling and became a pop star. A huge problem for Lance is that pop stars can take all the entertainment enhancing products they want to keep us entertained, but athletes can’t. As baseball players are figuring out, and professional cyclists have known for years, you can’t afford to get caught.
The last biggest problem for Team Lance is that Lance’s personality doesn’t really exude warmth. This guy is a bear, not a golden retriever.
Khal, I can’t decide if you’re being optimistic or pessimistic. I guess just realistic. Unfortunately, realistic all too often comes out sounding pessimistic. Especially after the last eight years.
Cheerier story that relates to the ATOC: I used to live in San Diego and occasionally we’d make the long ass drive to the north county to ride up Mt. Palomar. t was a sweet climb, just too far from home to do on a regular basis. Around those too-many-to-count switchbacks, and we’d always end up wondering why don’t they do a big stage race up this hill? And now they are. Makes me almost wish I was back in San Diego…well, not really, living there on bike shop pay sucked.
Anyway, I’ll be following the AToC with special interest this year; this will be one of only two times a year that I’ll wish I had cable. When does the DVD come out?
Oh, Khal, didn’t mean to sound unsympathetic about you losing your Mom to cancer. I watched my mom die of cancer from a thousand miles away, she in San Diego and me in Grand Junction, Colorado. They thought she had another six months, and I was making plans for a last visit, then one night the light went out. Given that she was looking at a really hard way of going down, it was for the best. Still, I don’t know which I would have preferred: sitting next to her watching the brutal end like my sister had to go through, or being here feeling out of the loop. So I hear ya.
I’m going to go back to thinking happy thoughts now.
On a lighter note….
Today’s prologue of the ToC featured a sighting of the World Famous “Fat Guys…” jersey. If you get the DVD, it should be only when Stuart O’Grady was riding just past 2km. I don’t know who that fat bastard was but he’s always in that same section of the SacTown course…..hmmm.
Actually the nice lady who was course marshalling along that section of the course remarked that she should get one for her husband. At least that’s what I hear….hmmm.
And John, I never had the chance to ride Palomar when I lived in “America’s Finest City” but I can tell you that the five ascents of Mt. Soledad will do a number on your backside….especailly the ascent up Hidden Valley Road. Maybe next year they’ll try that one too? We can only hope….hmmm.
Sorry, guys. I tend to get too grumpy or morose from time to time. This was one of those times.
Will try to go back to more lighthearted stuff, bad puns, and general surficial grouchiness more typical of my usual posts here.
As far as all the doping stuff? Perhaps the simplest solution is to simply say the hell with it and have the pharmaceutical companies in Mexico sponsor all the teams. Team Mother’s Little Helpers, Team White Rabbit, Team Cellpacked, Aerotokers, TenSpeedHigh, LandSpeedDriven, Testosteronossa, Speedball Express, The LudesDudes, etc. Patrick can get right on designing the kits. I’ll go on lusting after a 1968 version of Gracie Slick.
cheers!
Khal
Garrison Keillor said, paraphrasing, the worst thing a writer can do is have something important to say. Was talking about novelists, but it applies to journalists as well. Next thing you know, you’re writing about the price of tamales and you’re blaming it on Armstrong, Obama, Limbaugh, or whoever your particular boogie man is. I’ve always gotten a kick out of Kimmage, but he’s had to walk the line between writing the story and being the story, and this time he came up short.