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Bruce Jenner and the divided self

April 27, 2015

Much of what has been written and said about Bruce Jenner coming out as a transgendered woman has been derisive and ignorant, the two qualities usually going hand-in-hand. Watching his interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC’s “20/20,” I could only feel sadness. It must be terrible to spend your whole life thinking it’s wrong to be yourself.

The self is much under siege nowadays, no doubt as a backlash to our cult of narcissism. The self must be sacrificed to the good of others – critics say. Never mind that others can become a kind of tyranny that crushes the individual spirit.

I’m no libertarian, but you cannot sacrifice what you do not possess. Self-sacrifice implies a self to sacrifice. I thought the single most illuminating moment in the interview was the one in which Jenner said that stepdaughter Kim Kardashian reached out to him in support after her husband, Kanye West, told her that unless you’re happy in yourself it doesn’t matter how wonderful your wife and child are. ...

Nature teams with nurture in ‘The Professor in the Cage’

April 26, 2015

“The Professor in the Cage,” Jonathan Gottschall’s provocative new book, locates itself at the gridlocked intersection of biology and culture.

The subtitle “Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch” suggests another question, Why are women the nicer sex? and its corollary, Are they really?

The answers are fascinating and complex, though perhaps not as complex as his book makes them out to be.

Part of “The Professor in the Cage” is about how Gottschall, an out-of-shape, disenchanted academic, got involved in the brutal world of mixed martial arts (MMA). His personal story is less interesting, however, than his personal observations. He hits the mark, for instance, when he says that MMA is like gay porn – all those rippling, sweaty physiques grappling with one another in clutches that are at once amusing and arousing. It’s the reason I love wrestling. And I suspect – as the nude wrestling scene in “Women in Love” suggests – it gives men a license to touch one another in a way that conforms to traditional heterosexual society, as do all sports.

But why must male athletic competition be so violent – or at least carry the threat of violence? And why do we secretly – or not so secretly – find it thrilling? ...

Seems like old times for Phelpte

April 22, 2015

Michael Phelps, back from his DUI suspension, and Ryan Lochte, back from a knee injury and flirtation with celebrity, went head-to-head at the Arena Pro Swim in Mesa, Ariz. recently and split the difference.

Phelps edged Lochte in the 100-meter freestyle April 16. Lochte finished first, and Phelps third, in the 200-meter individual medley April 18.

“Like old times,” Lochte said.

Theirs is a most interesting rivalry, most companionable. It helps that they have complementary personalities – Lochte being more laidback and Phelps more intense, at least on the surface – and that the superb Lochte is nonetheless not quite in Phelps’ league. And yet that has never fazed Ryan. He keeps coming after him. ...

What price a football player’s mind?

April 22, 2015

A judge has cleared the way for a more-than-$1 billion settlement between the NFL and some 6,000 players who could develop neurological problems from the concussive aspects of the game over the next 65 years.

While some individuals in their 30s and 40s with Parkinson’s or Lou Gehrig’s disease could get between $1 million and $5 million, the average settlement would be $190,000. As anyone who has cared for someone with dementia will tell you, $190,000 is a drop in the bucket. Not everyone, however, is sympathetic.

“This is the player’s decision to play this game and they are already making an absurd amount of money, even sitting on the bench,” Nick Keener of Lock Haven, Pa. posted on ESPN. “If they ran out of money after they are done playing, then that's their fault.”

“What about the guys who played back in the ’60s and ’70s that made just enough to get by with the offseason grocery store job?” Thomas Sanabia of Queens wondered on the same thread. “NFL players only recently became super rich. They weren't making anywhere near this amount for most of the people suing.”

“The NFL got off so good here it’s not even funny,” Zulfan Bakri added, “considering that their current TV DEAL is worth $3 BILLION per year. This is a drop in the bucket compared with what they should have paid for long-term pain treatment and care. It should be 10 x that because in 20-30 years when the current players are going thru the horrors now the costs will be thru the roof.”

I’m afraid I’m with Bakri on this. It’s true that occupations have hazards, and violent occupations have violent hazards. But I have to assume that years ago few understood the relationship between sports and neurological problems (although the movies have sometimes portrayed a punch-drunk boxer for pathos or comic relief). These men signed on for busted knees not busted brains. The very willingness of the NFL to agree to the settlement suggests the league thinks it dodged a bullet. It admits no responsibility and is probably hoping the whole issue will be swept under the rug. ...

The second coming of Tim Tebow

April 20, 2015

Lightning-rod former quarterback-turned-commentator Tim Tebow is back in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles. Let the snark commence.

“Why the Hell is (Eagles’ head coach) Chip Kelly signing Tim Tebow?” Drew Magary opined on Deadspin.

He went on to list some “working theories” – all of them unkind, some of them funny as Hades, although calling Tebow a “Jesus loon” is beyond the pale. Why drag Jesus into it?

Perhaps because where Tebow is concerned, fans don’t know where sports leave off and religion begins. He – and we – are all of a piece, the product of our entire experience. Tebow happens to be a devout Christian who wears his devotion on his football sleeve. He has also been a highly successful if unorthodox quarterback. Those two things rub many fans the wrong way and blind them to the idea that some people succeed seemingly in spite of themselves, because they bring intangibles to the game, like character and great leadership.

But his unorthodoxy as a running quarterback with a peculiar throwing motion and his Christian fervor are precisely what many love about Tebow. Still, they in turn may also be blinded – to the notion that the response to Tebow, particularly by the media, is disproportionate to his NFL accomplishments.

I say that’s not Tebow’s fault. I say that the guy took the Denver Broncos all the way to the playoffs despite bosses who had no faith in him. (That means you, John Elway.) I say he was never given a chance with the New York Jets by then-head coach Rex Ryan. (How funny is it that Tebow will be reunited on the Eagles with ex-Jet QB Mark Sanchez.)

I say the gridiron, like the Lord, works in mysterious ways and that not everyone can be Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. (Should it surprise anyone that the snark for Tebow was immediately followed by dumping on Colin Kaepernick? Why must everyone come out of a cookie cutter? Why can’t these guys be themselves?) ...

Adventures in publishing, continued – the Rainbow Book Fair

April 20, 2015

After participating in the 7th annual Rainbow Book Fair in Manhattan April 18, I now understand the meaning of the phrase “flush with success,” not just because I sold a lot of books and made a lot of contacts, but because I had an altogether enriching experience.

Fashionably “flushed” was the state of many of the faces as it was the first warm day of spring, and the Holiday Inn Midtown, site of the fair, was in the midst of making the change from winter heating to summer air-conditioning – no easy task for modern buildings. Fair co-founder Daniel Kitchen explained that the event is usually slated for cooler March. (Rumor has it that it was bumped to April this year for a previously slated bar mitzvah.) Kitchen suggested that March is a better moment for the fair, but this author, no fan of winter, was perfectly content to spend a beautiful Saturday in her favorite month of April indoors talking books.

It helped that I was accompanied by my dear friends Mary Azzuriti and Wendy Pandolfi – my “bookends” as Mary called herself and Wendy – dressed in yellow sweaters and blue pants to complement my tennis ball yellow-green and navy outfit. Colors, naturally, reflected the colors of this blog and my book series “The Games Men Play” and its debut novel “Water Music,” about four gay athletes – two swimmers, two tennis players – and the way their professional rivalries color their personal relationships with one another.

These hues become the team colors of the New York Templars in the second novel I’m now refining, “The Penalty for Holding,” about a gay, biracial quarterback’s quest for identity, acceptance, success and love amid the brutal beauty of the NFL. Chartreuse and deep blue then become the colors of Linwood Farms, which owns Criterion, the racehorse trying to win the Triple Crown in the planned third novel, “Criterion,” told in part from the horse’s viewpoint. (The fourth book returns us to the heroes of “Water Music” – older, sadder, wiser as they confront life’s greatest rival, death.) ...

Aaron Hernandez and the company he kept

April 17, 2015

Aaron Hernandez’s conviction on first-degree murder charges in the death of Odin Lloyd – the culmination of a horrifically violent year for the NFL – is more complex than you would think, my luncheon companion said.

At first glance, it would appear to be an open-and-shut case of the proverbial man who had everything and lost it. But this was no one-yard-line fumble in the Super Bowl. This was a one-yard-line fumble in the Super Bowl of life, the instance of a man who had a $40 million contract as a tight end with the New England Patriots and – Well, let’s call it as it is, shall we? – pissed it all away. When I think of the people I know with nothing or little whose lives would be transformed by a fraction of that money, I could weep.

But then there’s a lot about the Hernandez story to make you weep.

Partly it’s the cautionary tale of Being Careful of The Company You Keep – not just the company back in the ‘hood in Bristol, Conn. but the one you encounter up the food chain. It’s the story of a drug user with a hair-trigger temper and reflexes who must, of course, bear the ultimate responsibility for his actions. But it’s also a lesson in a system that protected a troubled high school and college athlete – rather than take the time and do the hard work of confronting his problems – because he was considered too talented (and potentially lucrative) to fail.

Former University of Florida Coach Urban Meyer led Hernandez in Bible study. Meyer also coached Tim Tebow. We knew Tim Tebow. Aaron Hernandez was no Tim Tebow. ...