I remembered what it was I wanted to write about. Dane Bjarne Riis. The 1996 Tour winner. Bald tour winner. He was a hero of mine. After Miguel Indurain he came out of no where to deny Big Mig his six and then precedence setting sixth tour win. Truth was of course that Big Mig was fading. He didn't have what it took to win the sixth.
And now of course the question is, did he? Or did he not have the chemistry in his blood stream to compete with the doping Bjarne?
How can I say this? Bjarne admits to doping yesterday. That is a New York Times article and won't be available forever. You can read it on your own. It's unknown what drove Bjarne to this as he is the manager of the CSC team in current contention. Some of his Telekom team mates admitted to doping in the year he won the tour. And in the year after in their support of Jan Ullrich. Peer pressure perhaps. Bjarne said he doped during his win and if they want his yellow jersey, "its in a box, I've got my own memories." If he were to return it, they would list "no winner" in the records of the tour.
This is crushing. All the heroes are falling. They were all using with the excuse you couldn't compete unless you did. Who's next? The list is getting longer. The sport is tainted.
I've always loved the former advertisement "Better life through chemistry." Heck I believe it. Still this isn't what I meant. I wanted improvements that made the average life better, the people struggling better. The unhealthy better. Not the top 200 of a sport in the world that much or superhumanly better. Cheaters that will spend more time conspiring how not to get caught than on training. I like Eddy Merckx's answer to the question much better, the now famous, "Just ride."
I should know better than to nap. I took a vacation day to do some housework (ha!) and to work on cleaning my car. Got it done, but then, mid day I was tired and took a nap. Now its like 2 am and can I sleep? No, of course not.
So there are two movies I am looking forward to. First is I think called Remote Control and is about those fun loving guys Joy Division and of course especially Ian Curtis. I've been connected to them via their MySpace page and they've been sending out alerts about it all the time. Pretty interesting stuff and I can't wait to see it. Only thing I've really read on them is the last Mojo that had them on the cover and the article about them. I think it was connected with the starting of shooting for the movie. Recently there was some sort of falling out between the boys of New Order where one of them stated it was over and then later the other two came out and said "um, well he can leave if he likes, but we're considering just going on without him. So I don't know a lot about them and think the movie will be good fun since I won't be all critical about it being accurate and junk. Its supposed to be entertainment anyway.
The second movie is about Joe Strummer of the Clash, the 101ers and the Mescaleros. The title of the movie is The Future is Unwritten. The Clash and John Graham Mellor I know a bit more about. I've read at least one biography of the band, called The Clash: The Only Band That Matters (I think). They are a band I enjoyed, but not as much after reading the book. Joe was a bit of a calculating son of a gun. Although I had known he was the son of a diplomat, I didn't know he had a folk stage where he insisted people call him "Woody". Then again, I enjoyed him. I thought his last recording with the Mescaleros was great, showed he was getting back into the groove. I was sad when he died and I was hoping to hear more new recordings by him, but and so it goes.
Ah, the Bleriot? On hold. Too much work. Too much other things like getting ready t o head out of town. Just haven't been up to it some how. It depresses me further how lazy I get. Yet the car is cleaned and waxed end to end and ready to head out of town in the morning. I'm looking forward to some fun with my youngest, Thing 3. No, he's not a thing, I love him a great deal, I just don't give his name out and its easy for others to remember eldest is 1 youngest is 3. Hoping to spend some time with 1 and 2 as well.
There was a third topic I had on the tip of my tongue er fingertips, but it flew away. Later I guess.
