Spotify: https://t.ly/d5xxT

YouTube: https://t.ly/hXF-F

1

I’ve given up on politics. Sure, I read the headlines, but now I’m detached, I’m going to see how it plays out, I’m going to live my life, take a respite from the eight year long movie that had me riveted.

Which means I’m not ping-ponging between the news channels on the satellite dial. It’s back to music. Oh, what a long, strange, trip it’s been.

However, how do you find new stuff?

JOHN MAYER!

John Mayer’s got a channel on SiriusXM that pays for the monthly subscription all by itself. What it is is his favorites, interspersed with his own tracks. And the favorites of a musician are different from the favorites of a deejay. A deejay needs to feel good about themselves, needs to know they’re building a flow, is worried about their taste, for others will judge it. A musician? Music is a calling, they’re just exploring, Mayer is turning you on to stuff HE’S listening to. And in most cases it’s not in the Spotify Top 50.

But it’s all over the map. No specific genre. Could be old, could be new. But it doesn’t stop with classic rock. As a matter of fact, when I tuned in today whilst on Sunset Boulevard, John was giving an introduction to Madonna’s “Cherish.”

I LOVE THAT SONG!

He talked about playing it via Bluetooth when he was down on the playa in Mexico with Dead and Co. Being in the shower. These private listening experiences are the best, when you’re in a trance, that no one can break, just you and the music, it energizes you.

There’s a point in “Cherish” where… It zings back and forth… Hell, I’m not a musicologist, if you were here right now, I’d point it out. These are emphasis points, and they get me every time. So often it’s the little things that put something over the top, make it great. Then again, there’s also the cheery melody…something too often absent from today’s hit parade.

So then I turn onto Beverly Glen, knowing I’ll hit traffic at the top, below Mulholland. And now it’s one of Mayer’s numbers emanating from the speakers. And it’s not fully clicking, but at the end there’s this guitar part, with this delicious tone, it was exquisite.

And now I’m in bumper to bumper traffic. Up a hill. Red on the map. And my car… Does not have good low end torque. I know how to drive a stick, I’ve been doing so since I graduated from college. I could power my BMWS up La Cienega, you know, the steep part, up to Sunset, no problem. But this car… You pump it and it doesn’t engage, it slips backward, it stalls… They knew they had a problem, they improved it the following year, they added that low end torque, and ultimately they put in a hill-holder, but my car ain’t got those. And people pull right up to my bumper on these hills and it makes me uptight and…

John’s playing a song I don’t know that starts ringing my bell.

Now you’ve got to know that they played soul music on AM radio back in the sixties, a lot of it. But albums… Let’s just say soul was a singles world. Albums were a rock thing at the time. We can argue when that changed, maybe with Stevie Wonder’s “Music of My Mind” back in ’72?

Now there were all Black stations, in the inner city. But this song “Fool for You” by the Impressions…I’d never heard it. Turns out it was released on the album “This Is My Country,” the act’s first for Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom Records, back in ’68.

Now you’ve got to know we knew who Mayfield was, but the soundtrack to “Superfly” truly made him a household name. Blaxploitation was its own genre. “Shaft” and its instrumental had preceded “Superfly,” they were both huge hits, but “Superfly” doubled-down, did “Shaft” one better 

The song “Superfly” was as cool as Ron O’Neal’s performance in the movie. “Superfly” was the “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” of ’72. People who had no interest, who were not paying attention, heard the song once and got infected, they couldn’t let go…they had to buy the album, you had to hear it ad infinitum, you couldn’t take it off the turntable…this was a hit record. And in its own way, “Freddie’s Dead” was just as good, what a groove. And “Pusherman”…  This is music that you lock on to instantly, that becomes one with you, that may be foreign on the surface, but you throw off all your preconceptions and join the tribe.

But how good was “Fool for You” really. Did it merit an essay, or would I just be trying to play to my audience, writing about music… Mayfield’s vocals were indelible, so sweet, but not a ton happened in the record…worked great on Mayer’s show, but…

I was happy I was being turned on to a song I hadn’t known previously, this is what my detachment from politics is yielding.

And then…

2

The road flattens out, I no longer have to ride the clutch and the accelerator pedal simultaneously. And in a shorter time than I thought, I made the turn onto Mulholland, which was flowing speedily, I was in a good groove, and then the song switched to…

There was so much information in the readout…

“Raphael Saadiq/Rob ‘Fonksta’ Bacon – ‘Something Keeps Calling'”

This is WAY out of my wheelhouse.

And at first it’s just like “Fool For You,” a hook, repeated, but there’s also a sweet vocal, which is resonating, it’s penetrating, and the sun is setting as I’m driving west and I’m starting to self-check…wait a minute, is this a great song?

And then all of a sudden the track switches, to a guitar solo. Maybe this is why Mayer knows it. This guy is WAILING, TASTEFULLY!

The guitar… We got to a point where it was about how fast you played, how many notes, everybody was showing off, but this guy, he’s in tune with the track…it’s part of the canon, could be out of yacht rock, it’s got a lot of touchpoints, then again at one point he’s sustaining, that’s like a regular rock record, and then the lyric starts again…

“Something keeps calling”

And now I’m nodding my head. I’m past the point of no return. When I ultimately park my car, turn my engine off, I’m still singing the lyric in my head.

Raphael Saadiq… Wasn’t he in Tony! Toni! Toné?

Not really my bag. But he’s moved on from that group. But I didn’t think he was making music like this. That doesn’t play to the strictures, it’s like he’s just doing what he wants to do, the way it used to be done, commerciality be damned.

But this Rob “Fonksta” Bacon… Is he the singer or the guitarist? You can never really know with these featured players. I mean I know Saadiq sings, and I assume it’s him, but I ultimately get to my computer and Rob “Fonksta” Bacon…

Doesn’t have a Wikipedia page. Doesn’t even have a website.

He’s on Instagram. He’s a guitarist.

I’ve never heard of him before. But he’s been around long enough to have a nickname.

Now it turns out that John Mayer is not the only person who knows “Something Keeps Calling”… It’s got 15 million streams on Spotify. But to tell you the truth, don’t be too impressed, you’d be stunned how many cuts have this number of streams that you’ve never heard of. But obviously some people know this record. As far as the other twelve songs on the album, only two even break a million streams, one at 2.4 and another at 1.7.

And the album, entitled “Jimmy Lee,” came out in 2019. How does Mayer know it? I certainly don’t. But he turned me on to it.

And Raphael Saadiq hasn’t put out any solo work since. And that’s five years. Does Columbia even want to make another record?

But this track… Play it once and you might as well play it twenty. It’s not “Superfly,” but it’s on the continuum.

So maybe we’re hitting a new era, or maybe I’m hitting a new era, maybe this is when music triumphs once again.

And I’m thinking about John Mayer… His cred, his image, has only grown since he’s stopped having hit singles, it never used to be that way.

But it’s a brand new world.

And today Mayer was entry point.

“Something keeps calling”

That’s what we’re looking for, something that calls out to us. And it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t call out to you, as long as it calls out to somebody. The world has changed. Not everything worth hearing is a hit, and the business is truly driven by those not making hits, just doing it their own way. How many of the Spotify Top 50 could sell out the Sphere?

“Something keeps calling”

“The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon”: https://t.ly/qacea

1

ANOTHER BOOK?!

I wasn’t planning on writing about it, I wasn’t even sure I was going to read it, but late Saturday night Kevin Fedarko described the experience of running the river… Being at one with the water, checking the flow, charting a path, that reminded me exactly of skiing.

Not that you would know it if you haven’t experienced it.

But if you have…

People throw away their entire lives to go skiing, to go river rafting. And if you asked my father, that’s exactly what he would say, throwing away your life, wasting your time, but the experience, the adrenaline, the hit…

They’re at the top of a rapid, the oarsman is steeling himself, getting focused, ready to dive in at 100%, with this run the only thing that matters. That’s the same experience I have skiing. Not every run. But you’re standing atop a couloir, a field of bumps, and you know the only way you’ll make it is by nailing it, there’s no room for error. That if you pussyfoot, you’re f*cked. Either do it right or not at all.

But you could get hurt, you could die. And in truth, many people do.

And it’s one thing to base jump, to do something where the odds are not good. But quite another to develop your skill to the point where you know you can execute.

And to do that you have to do it every day. You can’t be a weekend warrior.

I used to say it took thirty days straight. Now I’m thinking I can get in the groove a little bit sooner. But I go out every day until I get that fine edge. It’s not about how I look, it’s about the feeling of control, the ability to recover, to stay the course.

And what dividend does that pay?

Only food for the soul, that’s it.

Sure, there are professional ski racers, even professional freestyle skiers, but that’s something different. Forget that it’s a competition, a lot of the time you’re not even skiing. You’re traveling, waiting, getting ready to throw down your run and put down a time.

But I can still remember this run on Wilbere Ridge back in ’76, where I hit every bump perfectly, when the lift was already closed, when there was nobody else on the slope. I’m constantly in search of that feeling.

2

So I stumbled on to Kevin Fedarko’s work. I read about his new book and reserved it at the library. It came out last spring, it’s entitled:

“A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon”: https://t.ly/CW5LM

In it Fedarko does just that, have a misadventure walking the length of the Grand Canyon, which is rare feat. Despite being in the continental United States, the Grand Canyon is to a great degree unexplored. Sure, people run the river, but the gullies, the tributaries, the sun, the heat, the shale, the scree…that’s too much for almost anybody.

And the funny thing about Fedarko is he’s Ivy League educated. And despite only writing two books, he’s got a lot of skill, and to make it simple, I will say he uses big words. Some you’ll definitely have to look up. Was this necessary? I don’t know. All I do know is it’s worth plowing through. Although I thought I was going to stop a time or two reading “A Walk in the Park.”

But writing about that book I got e-mail saying I had to read Fedarko’s previous book, “The Emerald Mile.” I reserved it, but did I really want to slog through another tome?

And when I ultimately cracked it… I was just not prepared for the adventure. It’s a commitment. But then…

3

You see Fedarko writes like I talk, with digression. He knows where he’s going, but there are side trips, that at first will have you scratching your head, wondering why they’re relevant.

You get the history of John Wesley Powell traveling down the river from Wyoming all the way through the canyon in 1869. You wonder why this is necessary. But then you start to marvel, this guy with one arm went on this expedition, and it’s nowhere near as well known as the Lewis & Clark trek, but should it be?

Not that a lot of people follow in Powell’s footsteps.

But then comes the U.S. government. They’re damming up rivers left and right, in order to generate power. And there’s this writer in L.A. who gets a bug up his ass, believing this is a bridge too far, it’s the beginning of the conservation movement, the early sixties, when most people hadn’t even heard of the Sierra Club.

But this guy Litton hooks up with the Sierra Club and gets it, reluctantly, on board, and they stop the construction of a dam in Dinosaur National Monument. It’s a compromise, the government won’t build that one if the Sierra Club lets them build another dam further down in Glen Canyon.

But after agreeing to this, the Sierra Club majordomo realizes this is a big mistake, what will be lost as the reservoir fills up is unique. And from that day forward the strategy is changed. No compromise, ever.

And thank god they felt this way, because the U.S. government was going to build multiple dams within the Grand Canyon. That’s right, they were going to flood the Grand Canyon! Kaput! You can’t stop progress, you know.

But the Sierra Club did. And reading this book will make you a conservationist.

4

So Litton ultimately goes into the business of running dory trips down the Canyon. While everybody is running these massive rubber pontoons. And these wooden dories… They bang into rocks, they get broken up, you’ve got to repair them as you go… But you just can’t barrel through the rapids, you’ve got to navigate, there’s finesse involved, and a dory trip takes three weeks, whereas a motorized pontoon trip can be done in a third of the time.

And this guy Kenton Grua gets the bug, he gets hooked.

If you’ve lived in the wilderness you know these people. They oftentimes come from the suburbs. But they experienced something in the woods, in the wilderness, and their whole life takes a left turn, this is all they care about.

So Kenton Grua dedicates his entire life to running the Grand Canyon in a wooden dory.

Let’s be clear. The canyon doesn’t change. Well, there are the equivalent of avalanches, there is movement of the rapids, but it’s still one river, it’s still in one place, but for Grua, that’s enough. He doesn’t have to run every river in the world. He’s dedicated just to the Grand Canyon. I love going to new ski areas, but I can tell you where every bump, every nook and cranny is at the Middlebury College Snow Bowl, Bromley Mountain and Vail. Because I’ve gone down these runs hundreds of times. Like on Pickeroon… Sometimes I go left, sometimes I go right. If I go left, I drop in where the chair used to be, a narrow passageway. And then there are these giant rollers, you speed along and make a turn on top of each one, you’re flying. And if I go on the right, there’s a roll near the top and another at the bottom but the key is going around the trees in the middle, that exist just a few meters from the woods. One false move and… But it’s the tightness and the turn that give me that feeling. I could almost run it blind.

5

So now we go back to the dams. One dam in particular, Glen Canyon Dam.

Well, first we go into a description of an El Niño. Live in California, live in the Rockies long enough, and you’ll become familiar with El Niño and its counterpart La Niña. Bottom line, in an El Niño year, in this one in particular, 1983, it rains and rains and rains and rains. And in the mountains it snows and snows and snows and snows. And come spring this snow starts to melt and…

The rivers start to flow, the reservoirs starts to fill up and…

Glen Canyon dam can’t cope.

The passageways… Are literally falling apart. There’s a chance the water will breach the dam. Some people even think the dam itself is in jeopardy.

And for all those who hate the government… You’ll learn why we need it, you’ll appreciate the people who work for it, after you read this book.

But, as they’re trying to forestall catastrophe, they’re allowing water to run through and it’s moving fast at a higher level than ever before and Grua…

Decides to set a speed record. Yup, he’s gonna do it faster than anybody before, which in this case was him. He isn’t filming a movie, there’s no trophy, no book, no story, it was a personal quest.

The water is high, they take off surreptitiously, and…

6

Now Kevin Grua died riding his mountain bike. “…he suffered an aortic dissection, a tear in the inner layer of the large blood vessel branching off his heart.”

He was 52.

It’s unclear if this was related to trauma. But when you’re a dirtbag river rat you probably don’t have health insurance.

Grua was a child of the seventies. When you could survive as a dirtbag. You can’t anymore.

Used to be there were ski bums. Now all the help at ski areas comes from South America or Down Under, it’s just too expensive to live in ski town. Furthermore, the longer you stay in the mountains, the further you fall behind in the rat race, sans a career you’re going to be behind the financial 8-ball, and you’d be surprised how savvy today’s youngsters are. People like me used to graduate from college and head for the mountains. Almost no one does that anymore.

Not that Grua was getting rich running the river, but he could survive, he could make ends meet, and he could get that amazing feeling.

7

Now I’m going to quote a few passages, because they stuck out to me.

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”

Ain’t that the truth. Few take the risk today. At least physically. Out in the wilderness. Although it will never again be the way it used to be, no one is off the grid anymore, even your iPhone has satellite capability.

But if you’re not testing limits, pushing the envelope, you’re missing out.

“‘Thou shalt not’ is soon forgotten, but ‘Once upon a time’ lasts forever.”

This is kind of like Nike’s “Just Do It,” but softer. Or Warren Miller’s…if you don’t do it this year, you’ll just be one year older when you do. Step out your front door, put yourself in an unfamiliar position, you’ll encounter the unexpected, and that’s when you’ll feel really alive.

“Among many other things, those dirtbag river runners uphold the virtue of disobedience: the principle that in a free society, defiance for its own sake sometimes carries value and meaning, if only because power in all its forms—commercial, governmental, and moral—should not always and without question be handed what it demands.”

This is the essence of the other, the essence of rock and roll, the essence of the sixties, whose philosophy bled into the seventies, and then Reagan came along and legitimized greed and everybody bought in.

Everybody wants to buy in today. You want those privates, those brand extensions. The music is not enough, there must be perfume, and clothing. And if something makes a ton of bread, what is driving it, what is at the core, is irrelevant.

In many ways society is empty, we’re lacking leaders.

I’m not talking about the free speech movement online. That’s not the same. What you’ve got to know about defiance is it’s always been based on the lone individual. Who points the way but doesn’t insist you follow, who just continues to go on their own hejira. Politicians lead parties, musicians…those who change the world…they’re just following their instincts, and if they don’t align with society’s rules, too bad.

For a while there the techies embodied this. But then they came to believe that they were the establishment, that they were entitled to set the rules…meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

But to do that which is not approved, to risk everybody’s wrath, to not care about the money…that’s rare in today’s society.

But that’s what the dirtbags are all about, all they live for, they put their finger to the wind and…

Tune in Saturday November 16th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

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If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

She doesn’t know what else to do.

This is a failure of the media/sports industrial complex. We exploit them at younger and younger ages and when they’re spit out the other side…they’ve got no education, few skills, they’ve been to the top and they’re never going to be able to get there ever again.

I feel sorry for Britney Spears. Who wanted her to be famous, her parents or herself? Can a girl that age even make that decision?

I’d tell everybody to go to school, to graduate from college, call it seasoning.

The funny thing is you’re in college, rearing to get going. Wanting to eat up the world. Believing you’re falling behind.

When ultimately this is untrue. You hit an age… Could be your late twenties, usually sometime in your thirties, where you’re doing nothing, accomplishing nothing, or maybe just coasting, and you wonder what you were so hungry for, why you wanted to get started so soon, life is long and there’s plenty of time.

But you don’t know that when you’re young.

What causes someone to excel? Is it nature or nurture? Biology or hard work? Ultimately it’s a combination of the two. You’ve got to have the physical skills, the body, but then whether you win or not depends upon dedication. And training is not enough. The greats don’t choke in competition, they get even better!

So Lindsey Kildow is growing up in Minneapolis. Training at Buck Hill, a bump by the freeway whose race program is run by the legendary Erich Sailer, who has trained Olympians previously. Lindsey has success, she’s tall and strong, she could go all the way, but you’ve got to get out of Minnesota to do this, you’ve got to go to…

Vail. Where they have world class training facilities and educational opportunities alongside.

This splits up the family. Ultimately her parents separate. But her dad is a successful lawyer and there’s enough money to make it work. You need the money in ski racing, the equipment and travel eat up your dollars.

So now all the hopes and dreams of the family are invested in young Lindsey. The pressure is overwhelming. Look at all the rubble in her wake, now she’s got to make it.

And she does, she has the skills, and…

She shines at the only moment the American public pays attention, the Olympics, where she wins gold in the downhill, the signature skiing event.

And there’s reams of copy. How she was injured. How she put cheese on her shins to assuage the pain, how she skied on men’s skis with two edges. But she delivered, she triumphed, she was the all-American girl.

She fit the construct.

She was tall, blonde and beautiful.

Now the bottom line is the greatest skier in history is racing right now, Mikaela Shiffrin. She’s better than any man, she broke Ingemar Stenmark’s legendary World Cup victory record, and isn’t done yet. And unlike either Stenmark or Vonn, Shiffrin can win in every event, both the speed and the technical.

And it turns out Shiffrin is very verbal, and insightful.

And certainly attractive.

But she’s not a pinup, or the media does not see and promote her as such.

So there’s endless press on Vonn.

Which is Lindsey’s last name since she married Thomas Vonn. A young girl gets into a controlling marriage. To have security, to escape family turmoil. Her father disapproves and doesn’t even come to the wedding. And Vonn helps her win, but ultimately Lindsey wants out and…

Vonn sabotages her equipment.

But Lindsey gets past that and wins again.

Now all these skiers have had injuries. Some more than others. Kildow/Vonn had a ton. But she always came back. The skills remain. That’s what Bode Miller told me.

We’ll get back to that.

But her knees… The cartilage is evaporating. She wants to break Stenmark’s record, but ultimately she has to give up, she’s in just too much physical pain. She says she wants to be able to ski with her kids while they’re growing up.

Meanwhile, subsequent to the breakup with Vonn, Lindsey gets involved with Tiger Woods. But he steps out on her just like he did Elin Nordegren. And although Lindsey is in the public eye, she comes from a solid background, she’s not Hollywood trash, one faux pas and Tiger’s out.

But there’s never a steady replacement.

And now Vonn is retired. Getting further surgery. And showing up in a bathing suit everywhere, she’s a staple in celebrity news, the first skier since Suzy Chaffee to achieve this status, and, in fact, superseding Chaffee by far.

But that’s not enough.

Now skiing is an interesting sport. It’s a lifetime sport, like golf, or tennis, you can do it forever. But you can’t compete at the top level forever, people have tried.

Prior to Bode, the most legendary American World Cup skier was Phil Mahre. He hit the same wall as Lindsey, his life just wasn’t meaningful enough, he decided to come back. The skills were still there, but the body was not. He just couldn’t compete with the twentysomethings, ultimately he gave up.

And then there’s the sad story of Bill Johnson, an outcast who came from nowhere to win the Olympic downhill gold in Sarajevo, like Babe Ruth even predicting it! Subsequently his home life was a disaster, his young son died in a hot tub, he tried to come back, but…

The equipment had changed.

He kept his gold medal underneath the front seat of his truck, it was all he had left.

But skiers no longer used Atomic Red Sleds, straight planks, they employed shorter shaped skis, with such radical sidecuts that they turned themselves instantly when pressured. And Bill was training and his skis separated and he fell and experienced a brain injury and lived for a little bit, but ultimately died, sad and broke.

Now back to Bode. If you follow World Cup ski racing, and you probably don’t, the big story on the men’s side of the coin this year is the return of Marcel Hirscher. One of the best male skiers ever, maybe the very best. Hirscher won eight overall World Cups and quit. He had nothing left to prove. He rode his motorcycle. And then…

He decided to get into the ski business. He created Van Deer skis. He decided to come back, but he’s only 35. And Bode tells me Hirscher can win, because the crop of guys winning now…just don’t have his skills, we will see.

But unlike Vonn, and like Stenmark and even Alberto Tomba, Hirscher does not ski the downhill. It’s just too dangerous, too risky. You can die. Literally. After all, speeds of ninety miles an hour are not uncommon. And if you follow World Cup ski racing you know…the runs are as smooth as glass, they’re sheer ice, injected with water to ensure this. This is how the racers like it, everybody gets an equal chance.

So…

The average skier, I mean even the average skier who skis double blacks, if they found themselves on a World Cup course, they would not be able to hold an edge, they’d be sliding, they’d be completely freaked out.

Racing separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls. It’s one thing to be an instructor, quite another to be a World Cup ski racer. And it’s one thing to race slalom, quite another to race downhill.

Lindsey Vonn is going to race downhill.

This is an event of strength and speed. Technical discipline is key, but being able to hold a line, stand on your ski, it requires brute strength.

Which is why almost all the downhillers are large people. This mass also helps generate speed.

Can a forty year old hold an edge like a twenty year old? Under pressure, on ice?

Well, theoretically you can work in the gym.

Which is what Vonn does, she’s a noted gym rat.

So what’s she got… Her body, her good looks, her image. Her workouts. Maybe some dates, no long term love. Maybe she froze her eggs, maybe the window to have children is not closing.

So football players… Some get MBAs and become entrepreneurs.

But there are so many sad stories. Of brain damage and death. All the money frittered away.

John Madden said one NFL football game will compromise your body forever.

And if you’re a legendary baseball player you can sign autographs.

How fulfilling is that?

Vonn wants to be fulfilled.

All those young music stars we laud… They missed out on so much. Sure, they’re rich, they’ve had experiences, but this is all they can do, perform. Their options are limited, they’re locked in. And there becomes a time when you’re just too old to start all over again. And most people don’t want to go back to zero, emotionally it’s just too tough.

So Vonn has the world’s attention.

Does the world really care?

OF COURSE NOT! The world doesn’t care about anybody. You learn this as you get older. The spot in the news Vonn filled can be instantly filled by another.

And keeping yourself in the news is a full time job. It’s hard to get off the merry-go-round.

But at some point you become two-dimensional, you’re famous for what you did, and that’s it.

And everywhere you go people see you as that triumph.

Even in the show “Rivals,” Rupert cannot get past his triumphant showjumping days. Those were the peak of his life, he’s been chasing that high ever since.

Anything is possible. Vonn could come back and do well, despite the odds being against her.

Probably she’ll show up, make a few runs, realize she hasn’t got it and hang it up.

It’s so hard to hang it up. Ask Michael Jordan. Everybody who played beyond the sell date of their abilities.

Lindsey just can’t go back to her regular life. Because she never built a regular life.

She didn’t go to college and b.s. and find out who she was. Didn’t go to different people’s houses and meet their parents and experience role models, or the opposite. She was coddled and coached, all for victory.

She didn’t have love relationships outside the spotlight. She didn’t get high with no one paying attention. She didn’t take classes in disparate subjects, ultimately widening her horizons, illustrating the possibilities.

Now some legendary ski racers have come down against this return, talking primarily about the potential for injury.

But the mainstream press, the one that made Vonn an icon? They’re eating it all up. Who Lindsey actually is is irrelevant. It’s a good story about someone people know.

There’s nothing wrong with achievement. But at what cost?

What is life about, doing one big thing and coasting on that forever?

Especially in sports, young people specialize too early.

But some people don’t find their path for years. And they’ve kept the doors open while they’re looking.

This is a dangerous subject. Because Vonn is a beautiful, skilled, successful woman, a man really can’t raise any questions about her behavior.

But in light of the election is this still so? Is every woman off limits to every man? Can we make no comment, no judgment?

People are skilled or not. Successful or not. Physically attractive or not. They’ve got personalities. And in truth, we’re more alike than we are different.

I’d be saying all of the above if it was a guy trying to return.

Oh, but then there’s that issue of children. There’s this myth that you can have it all, but you can’t no matter whether you’re a man or a woman, to be the best in one thing, you’ve got to sacrifice another. Look at all the rock stars who don’t really know their first families, because they were never home!

You can’t judge anybody anymore. Everybody’s off limits.

Or maybe they’re not.