I’ll Give Ya A Hero

Dude, I’m tellin’ ya………

As I see a couple of the biggest back-patting pageants on full display lately, it reminds me of how much we over-glorify those that don’t deserve it. People who have no business being celebrated in the overblown manner in which these shows do it. They are not deities. A good deal of them are not even respectable members of the community.

I’m talking about shows like the Grammy awards, the NBA All-Star game, and the Olympics. These are simply people who excel in singing and songwriting or a particular sport. While both of those talents are admirable to a degree, it makes me sick to see how much of a pedastel the gushing hosts / presenters /announcers place these people on. The kudos and the compliments and the fawning over them never ends.

It is this sort of reverance that has eroded my love for baseball and football little-by-little over the years. A second baseman that hits .240 every season and makes the news every winter for committing crimes in his Dominican Republic homeland is honored the way George Washington used to be. A wide reciever who catches 40 passes a year and is charged with battery on his wife is exalted the way Martin Luther King used to be.

It’s freakin’ ridiculous.

You want a couple of heroes? If this is how society catapults people into Mt. Olympus these days, I’ve admired a number of people in my life that I’d like to mention here. In the past, I may not have brought them up to others as people to be held in high esteem. But since nowadays all you need to do is be a successful speedskater or grab 12 rebounds per game, I think these heroes of mine deserve some mention:

Hannibal :  I always figured to name my son Hannibal if I ever have one. I’m not talking about the movie character that Anthony Hopkins played in Silence of the Lambs. I’m talking about one of the few men who ever brought the fear of God to the Roman Empire. He brought them to their knees. One of the world’s greatest and most unorthodox generals. And I always thought the name itself was pretty cool too.

Attila the Hun :  This would be the name of my second boy if I had children—Attila. In the same vein, this military leader known as the Scourge of the Planet was one of history’s greatest tacticians and leaders. He too scared the piss out of the Roman Empire. And seeing as how the US considers itself to be the modern-day Roman Empire, I just like those people who are able to slap things back into reality. The US could stand to come up against someone like Attila with our holier-than-thou self image and decadent government.

Ted Williams : My favorite baseball player of all time. He hated the media which is a trait I share wholeheartedly with The Splendid Splinter. This guy was a true hero. A fighter pilot in World War 2 and the Korean conflict. The last man to hit .400 in the major leagues. And he didn’t take any crap from anybody. He once turned down a contract raise in one of his final seasons citing that he didn’t really earn what they had paid him the prior season when his numbers dropped. So he didn’t deserve a raise for the upcoming season. Probably the one and only time in the history of organized sports that someone said that.

Robert DeNiro :  Yes, an actor. But to me, the greatest actor in the history of the movie business. The roll call of his movies……Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Awakenings, Godfather II, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, Raging Bull, Men of Honor, Casino, etc. etc.   The list goes on and on. He has integrity and has done a ton of philanthropic work for both New York City and the craft of making movies. He keeps a low profile mostly shunning the media (which I always like).

Erwin Rommel :  Another of the world’s greatest generals. I put him lower on the list because he was a Nazi. But the Allies should thank their lucky stars that this man worked for a mad man. If he were simply supplied adequately with men and basic supplies like fuel, the whole course of WW2 would be different. The only reason he was stopped in Northern Africa was because he had advanced so far that there wasn’t any fuel left to advance farther. If he received the supplies he pleaded for to defend the Normandy coast (rather than see much of it go to the futile Russian campaign), then D-Day probably wouldn’t have succeeded. And after all he did for his own country, they killed him. He was an ass-kicker.

Archie Bunker :  While a fictional character that I have celebrated a little bit in prior posts, in the end, this guy had a huge heart and usually did the right thing. He said racist things and had controversial views, but he went to work every day and paid his bills and raised a family. He put his son-in-law thru college and eventually opened up his own saloon. He had a heart and a personality warm enough to win a wife like Edith Bunker. And he raised a free-thinking, independent daughter like Gloria. Despite his racist outlook, he was friends with Lionel Jefferson, and to a degree….both Louise and George Jefferson. And to this day, he makes me laugh my ass off on reruns.

Lucky Luciano :   The man that was the backbone of bringing the mafia into a working, cohesive unit by forming the Commission with his buddy Meyer Lansky. He built a “corporation” that lasted a good 80 years in this country and still has some tentacles today. Yes, the mafia was in full swing before he came along. But he organized the various factions in a similar way that Attila the Hun united the various feuding clans centuries earlier. And like Hannibal, he has a pretty cool name too.

–So those are just a few heroes of mine. Do you think some of them are far-fetched? Undeserving? Criminals? Butchers?

Well, who are some of the alleged heroes of modern pop culture? We have Michael Jordan….the gambling, carousing, basketball icon who puffs fat cigars, does any damn thing he pleases, had his first child out-of-wedlock, cheated on his wife endlessly, etc etc.

We have Tiger Woods. You could mostly just re-read the description for Michael Jordan. Cheats on his wife, does any damn thing he wants, carouses all over the world, etc. etc.

We have people like 50 Cent and Kanye West, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, Terrell Owens, Alex Rodriguez, Jon Gosselin, Octomom, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Bernie Madoff, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, Michael Phelps, and Kobe Bryant.

So I think my heroes are as good as anybody out there to choose from today. Sure, my guys may have slaughtered some people or run crime families.

But that’s what most pro athletes and world leaders are doing today anyways.

Right?