Feeling outsiderish, kinda

So, my partner and I were in Oklahoma City this past weekend shooting stuff for our upcoming documentary RETURN TO GLORY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGeW3pYWACo). After day two of the World Team Trails we decide to hit a local bar. Truth be told, I'm not much of a drinker and I can't remember the last time I went out. Between running two businesses, writing, coaching, and doing judo, I don't really have much of a social life outside hanging out with my wife.

So my partner, who lives in New Orleans, calls his roommate who just happens to be from Oklahoma City and asks for a good place to hang. He recommends a place not too far from our hotel, a place that features lots of "morally casual blondes." My partner's single so I figure it'll be a good place for him. Like I said, I'm happily married, I'm not looking for anything more than few pints of Guinness (my beer of choice), he'll meet some women, we'll have fun, it'll be a good time. So we drive around for what seems like forever trying to find the place and when we do it's packed. Like unbelievably packed. We park two blocks away and figure "this must be a great bar."

Upon entering the establishment, we notice a small shop inside.The something off about it, but I can't quite figure out why. My partner goes in to buy a pack a cigarettes, while I look around the place trying to figure out what's so off me. It continues to allude me until I notice a poster located directly behind the register of two dudes making out.

My wife likes to say that I get so wrapped up in my head sometimes that I completely ignore what's going on around me. This is a prime example of that. When we left the shop and were about to step into the bar, I could help but notice the shirtless guy on top of said bar grinding it out to loud house music. Yep, my friend's roommate sent us to a gay bar.

Now it's not like the sight of shirtless, sweaty men is off putting to me, especially considering that I spent the majority of the weekend surrounded by singlet-clad, sweaty men. But we had a good laugh, but still once we figured out our surroundings we both immediately thought we should leave, though neither of us initially said that. I said, "we should go have a beer."

My partner disagreed and we left. I didn't think much of it at the time. We went back to our hotel and crashed a small wedding reception at the hotel bar. Again we had a good laugh. But the incident left my thinking quite a bit.

I didn't feel uncomfortable there so much as I felt I didn't belong there. I had a similar feeling when I was working a Wrestling camp back in 05 in Detroit, when we walked into a black bar in what many would consider a not so great neighborhood. Again, I didn't feel like I belonged, but we went in and had a couple anyway. I think that's why I kinda wanted to stick around for a few minutes, if anything at least I'd have a decent story. But we didn't. Part of me feels like I should've made my friend stick, the other part of me says, "if the guy doesn't want to it, don't force it." But again, because I felt like I didn't belong, I didn't push.

I'm not homophobic, but in all honesty, I don't have many gay friends. I think it's just my background. Wrestlers have such an inferiority complex that many of us feel we always have something to prove. Unfortunately, when you're young, not being gay is one of those things. I can't tell you many times I've heard, even from my own family, that "wrestling is gay." A lot of guys take that personally. I was never really never one of them, but I also didn't like being called "gay." At 31, I realize how bigoted and stupid that is, and when I hear the kids i coach calling each other gay, I immediately correct them and tell them how wrong using "gay" as an insult is. But in all honesty I've never met a gay wrestler. Law of averages tells me I had to have, but i haven't. The only two experiences I have with homosexuality in our sport came from a guy selling hidden-camera-shot video tapes of weigh-ins from my college days, the other was a perv from Amsterdam who purchased a high school state championship video I produced and was selling pirated versions on ebay and marketing them as gay porn, which is wrong because those were all underaged kids. Now, I completely realize that neither of these experiences a reflection of the gay community, rather a couple a couple of random perverts who give their community a bad name,.

Again, I'm not homophobic, as most homophobia comes from the fear of another man finding you sexually desirable. I have one gay friend who told me "I reek of straight" and had nothing to worry about. Of course, rather than be relieved, I asked "why the not? what's wrong with me?" Apparently, like most women, gay men find cauliflowered ears and uncombed curly hair to be unattractive. Hmm...their loss...(seriously, if I wasn't married, I'd be a lonely dude!)

Again, I wasn't worried at all about being hit on (that would actually be flattering since I don't even get that in regular bars anymore), I was more worried about being surrounded by a large group of people that were very different than me. That's when it pretty much hit me, by me I mean straight, white male, that this is kinda what it feels like to be a minority in most places. I think that's why my friend (who know sway more gay people than i do) wanted to leave. I think he felt like we just didn't belong there. I still would like to have had a beer, just so that i can say that I did and there's nothing wrong with it. If I can take anything from the experience (other than reenforcing my wife's belief that I possess absolutely no "gay-dar"), it's that as a middle class white guy, it's very easy to forget that a lot of people feel like outsiders from time to time and it's probably a good thing to get put out of your comfort zone a little bit, from time to time.

The Legacy of Me

Never in a million years did I think that the world's premiere athlete agreeing to take less money and becoming a role player would make me so nauseated. For the better part of my lifetime, I've heard critics bemoan arrogant athletes for putting themselves ahead of the greater good and yet on the surface that's exactly what it seems LeBron James has done.

Let me preface this by saying I've never really been a basketball fan. I grew up in the era of Michael Jordan and by the time I was a senior in high school watching the Bulls win NBA titles was boring. But when the free agency a-bomb was dropped on the NBA this summer, I became sucked into the entire fiasco. I guess it's because I'm a big listener of WSCR The Score sports radio in Chicago and have been bombarded by up to the hour updates of where the these mercenaries were heading. Three weeks ago, I had no clue who Chris Bosh and Carlos Boozer were and today I hate the Miami Heat with same fire and passion usually reserved for the 90's Dallas Cowboys and the everyday New York Yankees.

Free agents leaving for greener pastures is nothing new, my Mom wept when Greg Maddox left the Cubs for Atlanta, but something about this feels different. I can't remember a time when a guy who, for all intents and purposes, was "the man" stepped back and decided to be "the other guy."

The former King would like to have us believe that this is a victory in the name of teamwork. As a high school coach, I see athletes who think they are greater than the team all the time and each time we wish they were a little more cognoscente of the bigger picture. On the surface, that seems to be exactly what happened on ESPN's laughable "The Decision." The three of the best players in the game have formed a Juggernaught in South Beach (why call it Miami? LBJ doesn't) for the greater good of the NBA.

The truth is LeBron James isn't a leader and if you watch the phenomenal documentary "More Than A Game" you can see that he never has been. LeBron followed his friends and AAU coach to St. Vincent-St. Mary's. He certainly wasn't the leader of the St. V's team, he was actually the most immature and self-absorbed. The film would have you believe that the Irish's loss in the 2002 Ohio State Championship changed James' life and refocused his dedication. Guess not. Guess the South Beach Clubs have more to offer the King than being the focal point of an NBA dynasty. Perhaps the King was wearing a crown of thorns and it was just too much for him. I guess a beer helmet will rest more comfortably on his head. Sort of a fitting analogy for a who crucified himself on a downtown Cleveland billboard.

While LeBron might have cashed in his legacy, this could the event that finally cements Kobe Bryant's. Kobe had his fair share of issues in his youth but since then, he's been a man driven to succeed and surpass his idols. Could slaying the three-headed monster in Miami be what finally makes us call Kobe "the greatest?"