Who is your hero? I only ask this because I have noticed a distinct lack of heroes in the world, at least the bona-fide type. I bring the whole thing up because, as is often the case, I overheard a conversation at Satellite Toys and Coffee.
Two grown men, both graced with southern drawls smoother than a straight shot of Macallahn's 18-year-old scotch, were grieving the loss of their NASCAR racing idol, Dale Earnhardt. For those of you who don't know, Earnhardt, one of NASCAR's former living legends, was killed Sunday during the last lap of the Daytona 500.
The two gentlemen rambled on and on about how heroic Earnhardt had been, how their kids lost a hero, yadda, yadda, yadda. I thought about it. Then, I went home and did some online research. Turns out Earnhardt raced with great skill. He predominantly drove in a circle and at very high speed.
He was not a hero.
For many months now, I have found my level of cognitive dissonance increasing over the frequent media references to sports figures and screen actors as "heroes." Michael Jordan was the greatest basketball player of all time. For people who love hoops, Jordan is a legend and was a player to be idolized for his prowess.
Same thing goes for Joe Montana. He was the best quarterback ever. His magical ability to turn a 14-point deficit into a seven-point win in the last five minutes of a game qualifies him for hall-of-fame status. He's not a hero by any stretch of the imagination. He's just a dude who could throw the pigskin well.
Arnold Schwarzeneger, Jet Li, Jackie Chan ... They pretend to be heroes on the silver screen, much like Steven Segal pretends to be an actor. None of them are actually heroes, although the characters they play may be.
At this point, I would like to raise the shield of foresight: First, sports heroes do exist. Jackie Robinson endured unimaginable torment, humiliation and disrespect in order to break the race barrier in professional sports, as did Satchel Page. If jocks could ever be classified as heroes, they were.
Second, please don't run home or to the library to look up "hero." Webster's and American Heritage dictionaries will tell you that a hero can be someone who excels within their field. However, those whores lost their just title of "Defenders and Keepers of the Language" the day they recognized "supposably," "unquote" and "expresso" as words.
Rather than insist that people speak properly, they now print words, even made-up ones, based upon the sole criteria that lots of morons uniformly butcher the language. It's all done in a good, clean effort to sell more books, hence, "whores."
Heroes take action based upon principles, even though they might not recognize their actions as such at the moment of truth. Their force of character overcomes circumstance, conventional wisdom and/or adversity in an effort to be true to their canons. Personal risk takes a back seat to the higher good.
They run into burning buildings to save children, puppies and other life forms. They subjugate their instinct to survive to the principle that all life is valuable and should be saved. They may very well die while living up to their principles. Heroes disobey direct orders from their superiors when circumstances warrant it. The risk of discharge, court-martial or termination takes second fiddle to common sense, common good and commitment to principles.
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Don't think for one second that police officers, firefighters and rescue workers can't be heroes. The fact that they draw a paycheck while taking a hit for the home team does not disqualify them from hero status.
It's easy to think that they are trained professionals and that they know the risks. But when you stop to think about it, that's precisely why they can be heroes. They are all too aware of the impending danger, yet they take the risk for the financial equivalent of Michael Jordan's belly button lint or Joe Montana's sweat.
Why all of this hero talk? Having a heroic role model is kind of cool, even if your hero is fictional. Captain Jean Luc Picard is a hero and an awesome role model. There aren't many others though.
That's because we live in an age where Madison Avenue fills heads with the idea that rappers, wrestlers, jocks and actors are heroic.
Why? So it can sell T-shirts or a poster with a face on it. So it can sell you a CD, a video or a membership subscription.
So it can get rich off of the perversion that Eminem is heroic for standing up to the man through rap. He's never done a cool thing in his punk-ass life. Going to jail doesn't count.
Think about it. All around Albuquerque are World War II veterans who took bullets to save the world from tyranny. Where are their T-shirts?
Questions? Comments? Outraged denunciations? Write to Brad at physhead@hotmail.com
