America stopped believing in Bode.\u00c2\u00a0 But not skiers.<\/p>\n
So I’m toweling off in Portillo with the Canadian National Team.\u00c2\u00a0 After a soak in the outdoor pool, we’re talking equipment, we’re talking conditions, but really, all they want to talk about is Bode.\u00c2\u00a0 How he’s better than everybody else on the circuit, how on any given day he can win, the ski tech believed he was the best EVER!<\/p>\n
Didn’t they know that Bode was a LOSER!!!<\/p>\n
You play by the rules in our country.\u00c2\u00a0 Just ask the Dixie Chicks.\u00c2\u00a0 You fuck up, you apologize.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, the Chicks DID apologize.\u00c2\u00a0 Didn’t seem to make any difference.<\/p>\n
Justin Timberlake apologized.<\/p>\n
Mark McGwire took the Fifth.<\/p>\n
Nobody says fuck you, nobody continues to play by his own rules, we live in too small a society, there’s too much scrutiny, the hate is too intense, you’ve got to sell your soul, come down to our level, after all, we OWN you.<\/p>\n
Yes, own.<\/p>\n
If I hear one more time that endorsement money, playing with the corporate big boys, has no effect on a musician’s career, I’m going to SCREAM!\u00c2\u00a0 If you take someone’s money, you’re beholden to them.\u00c2\u00a0 Even a LABEL!\u00c2\u00a0 But that used to be different, back in the sixties and seventies, when these longhairs with the weird sound were suddenly outselling the popsters and Pat Boones of this world.\u00c2\u00a0 In the late sixties and early seventies the label signed you, and you delivered a record.\u00c2\u00a0 That was it.\u00c2\u00a0 No cowriting sessions, no endless producer auditions, certainly no imaging and sell-out marketing campaigns featuring appearances on the "Today Show".<\/p>\n
Bode Miller had endorsements.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the nature of professional sports, you need EQUIPMENT!\u00c2\u00a0 But after the Torino fiasco, his sponsors DUMPED HIM!\u00c2\u00a0 Because it’s bad enough if you don’t win, but if you’re not humble, if you don’t play by the rules, WE DON’T WANT YOU!<\/p>\n
A different sponsor on his helmet.\u00c2\u00a0 Even worse, a completely different ski company, one without a monolithic track record.\u00c2\u00a0 One that provided skis and bindings that just POPPED OFF in a race last weekend, one Bode probably would have won if he’d managed to stay upright.<\/p>\n
And the U.S. Ski Team.\u00c2\u00a0 They tried to break Bode’s back.\u00c2\u00a0 Saying he could no longer sleep in his motorhome.\u00c2\u00a0 NO ONE could sleep in their motorhome, even though Julia Mancuso did so in\u00c2\u00a0 Torino and won a gold medal.\u00c2\u00a0 You see we’ve got to tame these unruly athletes.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like we’ve got to tame the musicians.\u00c2\u00a0 Sign to Clive Davis and make YOUR OWN record?\u00c2\u00a0 HOGWASH!<\/p>\n
The system isn’t ready for you to make your own record.\u00c2\u00a0 If you haven’t heard a major label talk about how much money they’ve got invested in you, you’re not signed to one.\u00c2\u00a0 They want HITS!\u00c2\u00a0 TOP FORTY HITS in most cases.\u00c2\u00a0 And by god, you’d better deliver them.\u00c2\u00a0 They know the game, and you’re just a pawn in it, what do YOU know, do what they SAY!<\/p>\n
Or go indie.\u00c2\u00a0 But the indies don’t win.\u00c2\u00a0 Not on the scale of the majors.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got integrity, just a low profile.<\/p>\n
And the oldsters?\u00c2\u00a0 They’re a joke.\u00c2\u00a0 Although they can work live, they can’t sell a record.\u00c2\u00a0 They just don’t have it, their careers cannot be rehabilitated.<\/p>\n
So what about Bode?\u00c2\u00a0 Finished, RIGHT?<\/p>\n
He had the temerity the GALL, to say he partied at the Olympics when he didn’t win.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s not why you go to the Olympics, not for YOU, but for US!\u00c2\u00a0 You’re representing your country, goddamn it, BEHAVE!\u00c2\u00a0 And certainly win, America is a COUNTRY of winners.\u00c2\u00a0 Just ask George Bush, who wants to give it one last try in Iraq, to avoid being labeled a LOSER!\u00c2\u00a0 Practicality is secondary to image.\u00c2\u00a0 Triumph AT ALL COSTS!<\/p>\n
The press has been merciless.\u00c2\u00a0 Beating Bode up.\u00c2\u00a0 He got a chance to play on the national stage, he got the PRIVILEGE of being front and center in the media.\u00c2\u00a0 He BURNED them.\u00c2\u00a0 They built him, they’ll SHOW HIM!\u00c2\u00a0 God, every year-end news review talked about the overweight, out of shape, losing Bode Miller.<\/p>\n
They didn’t mention his problem knee, which he had operated on in the off season.\u00c2\u00a0 In a nation of crybabies, Bode uttered not a word.\u00c2\u00a0 But nobody would have listened anyway.<\/p>\n
And then this season, Bode started to win.\u00c2\u00a0 AGAIN!<\/p>\n
Today for the fourth time.<\/p>\n
But the reason I’m writing this is the style he employed in Wengen this morning.\u00c2\u00a0 He CRASHED at the finish.\u00c2\u00a0 INTENTIONALLY!\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what Bode’s saying.\u00c2\u00a0 It was the only way to win.\u00c2\u00a0 If he took the S-turns at full volume and then hit that bump right before the finish there was no way he could stand up.\u00c2\u00a0 And he didn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 The Net is FULL of pictures of Bode sprawled out on the slope.<\/p>\n
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