Sir Lance A lot

Although some of my blogs are topical, most of them are just random musings of mine. This one is more topical.  Often I think I have a good point in the blogs I write.  (full disclosure, I write this blog for the three people that I think might be reading it) But the recent news you hear about Lance Armstrong is just silly.  Why we put athletes on pedestals or why we hold politicians to such a high standard is beyond me.  Yeah, when I was a kid I was obsessed with Lenny Dykstra. He was a seriously flawed individual and definitely not a role model.  Maybe sometimes I emulated him, but I never thought he was a necessarily good role model.  He chewed tobacco, he ate "magic vitamins" which were really steroids, he drove fast cars drunk, and he probably slept around a lot and blew all of his money on much worse.  But I didn't like him for those things. I accepted him for his flaws. I just wanted to play baseball like him; steal bases, get hits in the clutch after fouling off a dozen pitches, make diving catches slamming into the outfield wall.  Those were the reasons why I loved him... and the fact that he just didn't care what anyone thought about him.  He even had a tougher time after baseball.
    So back to Lance Armstrong.  Sure, he probably did "cheat", and I am sure 100 percent of everyone else he ever rode against in the Tour de France cheated as well.  That doesnt make it right, but maybe it levels the playing field.  I am not being cynical, I really think 90 percent of all athletes anymore are taking some kind of performance enhancing something or other, whether it's Cortisone shots, Creatine shakes, or some other kind of drug we've never heard of.  It's the nature of sports. Always has been and always will be.  I think if there was a performance enhancing drug for accounting or a performance enhancing drug for some other bullshit desk job people would take them all the time.  If it was the difference of making 30,000 bucks a year and a 300,000 bucks a year we'd all consider doing it. Our performance enhancing drugs are recreational.
The funny parts of this though, that recently people think they can just erase the past. Like actual events.  If they say it didn't happen, it didn't happen.  Just like Joe Paterno didn't really win all those games he really won.  Lance Armstrong didn't really win those 7 Tour de Frances.... I didn't really draw those buildings that I drew the last few years.
And the worst part... he is banned from the sport.  Banned from bicycling... the sport of bicycling. can't ride a bike... in a race. Aw man.. But I bet he can still ride his "bike" really fast if he wants to. Not allowed to race his kids on his bike... If I were him I would train really hard, do as many performance enhancing drugs as I want to and ride my bike as fast as I wanted to. Downhill! With wind at my back! and a Titanium frame!.....with no clothes on! ...and a jet pack!
On a side note, I thought of Donnie Jeffcoat the other day... from Wild and Crazy kids.  Most random thought I ever thought.  I can't believe he was still in my memory bank somewhere.

AIDS test

I was walking near my office a week or so ago talking to a guy I work with on the phone when I saw an RV advertising free aids tests and free condoms. For whatever reason I interrupted our conversation and asked him if I should get an AIDS test. My rationalization was that it was free and people are always saying you (collectively) should get tested. Anyway, really my rationalization was that it was free, free condoms, and it said UPenn on the back so it was at least reputable.
I hang up with my friend and head over to the RV. There were two youngish people outside of the RV with clipboards and UPenn polo shirts on taking information from people. When I say people, I really mean they are just standing there about to take information from me. I tell them I am interested in getting tested so they take some basic information; name, address, age etc. The dude is then like, alright lets get into the van and get some more information and get you tested. Opens the door and I step in.

The place is a dump. I almost backed out as soon as I walked in. I was more scared of getting AIDS at that moment than I had ever been in my entire life. It wasn't set up like a clinic or anything. It was literally just a regular RV inside. Brown velor seats, brown carpet, kitchenette, living room, bedroom. It was like an RV you'd see in bad porn. The kind where they pick up the chick off the street somewhere. The guy is like "have a seat." I almost said "that's okay". I was wearing my good work clothes. Didn't want to get dirty. To give you an idea how dirty it was, there were burger king paper bags on top of the oven. I was beginning to think this was a bad idea. Now I was 99.9 percent sure I didn't have AIDS, but now I was second guessing if I was mentally prepared if this was going to be the day I was going to be told I have AIDS. And was this the way I wanted to be told? In a dirty RV by a guy I am pretty sure isn't even close to being a doctor parked on the corner of the gayborhood? Anyway, I told myself that it'd be okay and went through with it.

The guy proceeds to tell me what he is going to be testing me for today. "We're going to draw some blood and test you for AIDS and Chlamydia" (i think he said chlamydia, but he named a bunch of stds and I wasn't really paying attention...all of the ones you have ever heard of) "And we are going to do a urine test that will test you for basically everything else." As he is telling me this, a stoned homeless guy comes in asking for a pee cup. The guy gives him his cup... tells him to walk back there and "just fill it up a little bit" That's when I asked if I could just do the blood test. No way was I going back there where this guy just went.

Anyway, he proceeds to ask me all these questions about my sex life. Or lack of sex life. That's when I realized I live a boring life. He was asking me about things I would have never even thought of doing or even knew people did. Pretty sick stuff. He takes my blood, and drips a little into this little plastic device that looks like a pregnancy test. I say "that's pretty cool that you can get the results in ten minutes... I would have thought you would have to wait a while for lab results." "yeah man, it's crazy right...remember when it used to take three weeks?" "Nah. Like I said, this is my first time getting tested."

Alright, now if you head back over there so and so will give you your results. I started getting a little bit nervous at this point. She asks me more sexually explicit questions and then quizzes me on how much I know about STDS. Turns out I got all but one question right but I intentionally got that answer wrong. (you can ask me about that one personally) She goes through a list of questions: "have you ever paid for sex? No. Have you ever been paid for sex? No. "Have you been drunk or high in the last six months? Yes. Have you had sex in the last six months and been drunk or high? No. (it's been a while geez) Done cocaine? No. Done heroin? No. PCP? No. Syrup? No...wait. Syrup? Syrup is dangerous? Wait, is that like.."No, we ain't talkin bout Aunt Jemima.." I was like oh damn, for a second I thought I could get an STD from syrup. Phew. No.. never even heard of syrup. wow. It was an eye opener.

Make a short story long, I am disease free. But as I was leaving the RV, I took two steps down and caught my shirt on the door latch and ripped my shirt sleeve a little. "Ah! damn it..." "Are you okay?" "Yeah, it's cool, I'm clean." She didn't really appreciate that joke.