sour grapes
As many in my vast reading audience know, I ride a bike...a lot. I also enjoy golf, although I'm a better bicyclist than golfer, mostly because any 5 year old can ride a bike where people spend lifetimes unsuccessfully mastering golf. I lean more toward the 5 year old.
I also subscribe to a bicycling magazine. One reason I subscribe to the magazine is that last year I picked up their annual buyers guide issue, and was impressed with the wealth of information. I was so impressed I thought they deserved eleven dollars of my hard earned cash to get their magazine in the mail every month for the next year.
In that issue, there was a contest. It was a caption contest, and I know I won't do an adequate job of describing the picture, but it was a photo of a guy going off a very high cliff or platform into a body of water. I can't remember if it was a lake or a pool. I seem to remember an audience in the background. He and his bike were becoming separated in mid air. It was basically an "Oh shit!" moment, as man and bike plummeted toward the water below. I entered said contest, not really expecting to win. I don't remember exactly what I wrote, but the premise was that the guy was oblivious to the danger he faced. In fact, few people get or enjoy my humor, so, like I said, I didn't expect to win. I just couldn't resist trying, because if it involves winning free shit, I just have to try.
It's now a year later, and in this year's buyers guide, they showed a picture of the guy who won, the bike he won, and the winning caption. Here's where I have an issue. The winning caption was.....
Still, it beats golf.
Excuse me? I thought I'd get slammed to the mat by something clever and witty. I don't mind that I lost, but I lost to...."Still, it beats golf"??????
You must be shitting me!
First, it ain't that funny. Second, what does that say about sports envy, first of the guy who wrote it, and then of the magazine that called it a winner? Third, and maybe this is just a personal pet peeve, I have an issue with anybody or anything that has to bad mouth someone or something else for the expressed purpose of looking better by comparison. Bicycling doesn't beat golf. Golf doesn't beat bicycling. They're apples and oranges. Now, golf has a bigger following than bicycling. On any given weekend, there are a bazillion more people plunking down somewhere between $30 and $500 to play a round of golf than there are cruising bike lanes. You'll find far more people in this country glued to television sets during a golf major (or even this week, during The Players) than have watched the Tour de France..ever, even if you accumulated all of them throughout the years. I would wager that in any given year, more people in this country watched the PGA Tour golf tournament in Milwaukee than watched the Tour de France, or any other bike race. That's not a criticism of either Tour or the city of Milwaukee. It's just the way it is. So what? It doesn't mean you need to take a swipe at golf, for God's sake. It's more popular than bicycling, but they are different animals entirely. It doesn't mean you have to hate golf if you're a bicyclist.
I don't particularly like NASCAR, but I love the fact that a lot of people enjoy it. Those people are buying tickets to races, spending their weekends in places like Daytona and Talladega. They're not crowding my bike lane, or making it impossible for me to get a tee time. If everybody liked what I like, I'd never get to play golf or ride my bike, because the crowds would be unbearable. As it is, it's not easy finding a nice morning tee time in J'ville on a Saturday. You need to do a fair amount of planning ahead. Still, when you get out there early on a Saturday when the sun's coming up on the first tee, reflecting a little off the dew on the grass, and you duck hook that first drive into the trees and get that lucky bounce that somehow sends the ball back into the fairway, there's nothing like it. I love bicycling, and I really love it when I do it with friends, and my son. That doesn't mean I want the whole world out there bicycling, and it certainly doesn't mean I have any disdain for people who don't share my interests. Thank God I can still hop on my bike on a Saturday morning and just go, and not worry about a competition for space in the bike lane.
I put this together with what I observe on weekends when I ride, when bicyclists are quick to yell at cars when the drivers get what they perceive as a bit close (and I'll be the first to admit, that's a bit scary, but they guy behind the wheel never hears a word you scream), or slide through a stop sign, while cyclists ignore the same sign...but that's somehow OK...and I have to ask myself...are hard core bicyclists basically an angry bunch with an inferiority complex? You don't see quilters taking pot shots at golf, do you? Can't we all just get along (to quote Rodney King) and just enjoy what we do for fun? I mean, that's why we do shit like this, isn't it? We're having fun, aren't we?
Can we be happy about the fact that we're all different, and enjoy different things, and not be jealous about the fact that more people like doing something that we don't?
Thank you for plodding through my rant. I'll get off the soapbox now.
I also subscribe to a bicycling magazine. One reason I subscribe to the magazine is that last year I picked up their annual buyers guide issue, and was impressed with the wealth of information. I was so impressed I thought they deserved eleven dollars of my hard earned cash to get their magazine in the mail every month for the next year.
In that issue, there was a contest. It was a caption contest, and I know I won't do an adequate job of describing the picture, but it was a photo of a guy going off a very high cliff or platform into a body of water. I can't remember if it was a lake or a pool. I seem to remember an audience in the background. He and his bike were becoming separated in mid air. It was basically an "Oh shit!" moment, as man and bike plummeted toward the water below. I entered said contest, not really expecting to win. I don't remember exactly what I wrote, but the premise was that the guy was oblivious to the danger he faced. In fact, few people get or enjoy my humor, so, like I said, I didn't expect to win. I just couldn't resist trying, because if it involves winning free shit, I just have to try.
It's now a year later, and in this year's buyers guide, they showed a picture of the guy who won, the bike he won, and the winning caption. Here's where I have an issue. The winning caption was.....
Still, it beats golf.
Excuse me? I thought I'd get slammed to the mat by something clever and witty. I don't mind that I lost, but I lost to...."Still, it beats golf"??????
You must be shitting me!
First, it ain't that funny. Second, what does that say about sports envy, first of the guy who wrote it, and then of the magazine that called it a winner? Third, and maybe this is just a personal pet peeve, I have an issue with anybody or anything that has to bad mouth someone or something else for the expressed purpose of looking better by comparison. Bicycling doesn't beat golf. Golf doesn't beat bicycling. They're apples and oranges. Now, golf has a bigger following than bicycling. On any given weekend, there are a bazillion more people plunking down somewhere between $30 and $500 to play a round of golf than there are cruising bike lanes. You'll find far more people in this country glued to television sets during a golf major (or even this week, during The Players) than have watched the Tour de France..ever, even if you accumulated all of them throughout the years. I would wager that in any given year, more people in this country watched the PGA Tour golf tournament in Milwaukee than watched the Tour de France, or any other bike race. That's not a criticism of either Tour or the city of Milwaukee. It's just the way it is. So what? It doesn't mean you need to take a swipe at golf, for God's sake. It's more popular than bicycling, but they are different animals entirely. It doesn't mean you have to hate golf if you're a bicyclist.
I don't particularly like NASCAR, but I love the fact that a lot of people enjoy it. Those people are buying tickets to races, spending their weekends in places like Daytona and Talladega. They're not crowding my bike lane, or making it impossible for me to get a tee time. If everybody liked what I like, I'd never get to play golf or ride my bike, because the crowds would be unbearable. As it is, it's not easy finding a nice morning tee time in J'ville on a Saturday. You need to do a fair amount of planning ahead. Still, when you get out there early on a Saturday when the sun's coming up on the first tee, reflecting a little off the dew on the grass, and you duck hook that first drive into the trees and get that lucky bounce that somehow sends the ball back into the fairway, there's nothing like it. I love bicycling, and I really love it when I do it with friends, and my son. That doesn't mean I want the whole world out there bicycling, and it certainly doesn't mean I have any disdain for people who don't share my interests. Thank God I can still hop on my bike on a Saturday morning and just go, and not worry about a competition for space in the bike lane.
I put this together with what I observe on weekends when I ride, when bicyclists are quick to yell at cars when the drivers get what they perceive as a bit close (and I'll be the first to admit, that's a bit scary, but they guy behind the wheel never hears a word you scream), or slide through a stop sign, while cyclists ignore the same sign...but that's somehow OK...and I have to ask myself...are hard core bicyclists basically an angry bunch with an inferiority complex? You don't see quilters taking pot shots at golf, do you? Can't we all just get along (to quote Rodney King) and just enjoy what we do for fun? I mean, that's why we do shit like this, isn't it? We're having fun, aren't we?
Can we be happy about the fact that we're all different, and enjoy different things, and not be jealous about the fact that more people like doing something that we don't?
Thank you for plodding through my rant. I'll get off the soapbox now.
Labels: Philosophy
John put this out here at 6:56 AM
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