Sports Non-Superheroes

Here’s two things you wouldn’t know unless you read magazines: Tiger Woods is on steroids and Goldman Sachs makes all of its money off of something called high frequency trading. You could probably live a highly productive life without knowing either, but you would be one dull party guest. Other than having been completely convinced by what I have read, I am not entirely sure of the truth of either. Since this is a pulp website, I will deal with both stories purely in regards to their attractions as stories. In pulp land, it’s the truth be damned—thrill me.

Tiger Woods would not have made much of a pulp hero until of late. Even as a secret identity Tiger would have been boring. Despite the obvious tie ins as far as fitness, access to cash and a ready excuse for travel, no pulp hero ever used the profession of athlete as a cover for their secret identity. If Bruce Wayne had chanced upon the sport of football he might have never become Batman. I was pretty upset about my parents having died, but once I joined the team I no longer had much time to ruminate. Between the constant camaraderie of my fellows and the release in violence that the sport itself provides, I never felt any compulsion to dress myself up as a bat. Nope. Outside of one time occurrences involving the Flash (football) and Spider-man (professional wrestling) the idea of using one’s amazing athletic abilities to actually make a buck being athletic just never occurs to them. Pity, too. Batman would have made a hell of a defensive end.

You could argue that the archetype of the pulp hero came about before professional athletes or even celebrities appeared upon the scene, but that really doesn’t hold water. Two of the earliest continuing characters from the Dime Novels, Billy the Kid and Buffalo Bill, were effectively celebrities in their own times. Also there were professional athletes of renown even before the Civil War. At the time the Dime Novels were coming into their own (in the 1880s) there were plenty of baseball players, boxers and other athletes as widely known as any performer. By the 1920s some of them are quite well off, too. Babe Ruth wasn’t just well known—he made more money than the President of the United States. Yet for some reason none of the heroes ever bother with pro sports. Doc Savage spent his off adventuring hours begging for corporate welfare when he could have easily funded the entirety of his operations as a middling shortstop.

All of the purely fictional early Dime Novel continuing characters had ‘master athlete’ buried somewhere on their resumes. Was there a sport that Frank Merriwell didn’t play varsity on for Yale? Despite his commitments to various teams, most of Merriwell’s stories focused on busting up crime rings. The only known hero type who ever settled for sports was Crimebuster—and that was only after his career as a superhero was over. Crimebuster started off as a high school hockey player who fought crime (Nazis, really) while dressed in his hockey outfit. Having at one point run out of Nazis to run down, and becoming bored with chasing criminals, Crimebuster enrolled in college where he again picked up on his hockey playing.*

You see that guy playing center across from you? He used to kill Nazis with his bare hands. Yeah, watch the high sticking.

And there was no shortage of sports fiction at the time, some of it (most of it) as bombastic as the superhero stuff ever was. There were hundreds of magazines like the two that I am showing here. They had something of a fall off after the rise of television, but sports fiction is a viable genre even to this day.** Unlike ‘Western’ and ‘Romance’, there just never has been a genre splice between ‘Sports’ and ‘Superhero’. It seems like missing an obvious beat to me.

That said, golfer would make an unlikely cover for a double life, unless you are Tiger Woods. By day, he’s Tiger Woods, buttoned up Buick spokesman, family man and over-all paragon of Republican clean living. By night, he’s Captain Poontang, Bill Clinton with a tan, dragging six packs through trailer parks, trailing professional party organizers and cocktail waitresses and even the drink cart girl in his wake. (Picking up the drink cart girl is a new low. How lazy can you get?) Tiger only sleeps with women who have no career prospects whatsoever. You get much higher functioning than ‘bar tender’ and Tiger gets intimidated.

(I have nothing against people who are any of the above, but let’s face facts, they are not in any way, shape or form remotely in Tiger’s league. Neither is the soon to be Mrs. Ex-Woods, whose non-Victoria Secret resume consists of the single entry ‘Nanny for another professional golfer.’ I am also sort of wondering how being a Victoria’s Secret poser qualifies someone to be a professional golfer’s nanny, unless—shades of Robin Williams—there’s something fringe attached to the arrangement.)

As of today, Tiger certainly does have the makings of a superhero origin. Assuming he’s been framed and wants to clear his name, that is. (Being beaten senseless by a ninety pound woman with your own club is an inauspicious start, however.) He could have a theme to his gear. (The whole golf thing.) Although it doesn’t seem to really lend itself to golf, it seems as if he has been enhanced by a radioactive spider bite—that is, if there is a non-plausible explanation for how Tiger has gained 31 pounds of muscle in just three years, as the Enquirer reports.

He must be gearing up to be the first sports superhero. That’s the only explanation I have. Otherwise there is just no reason for him to indulge in steroids. We could, alternatively, stare the obvious in the face and make the conclusion that he isn’t much of a pulp hero at all, but rather a villain. And we’re not talking villain mastermind here, but rather Luthor henchman—as in Luthor’s henchman Otis. Bulking up to be tossed around by Superman makes as much sense as bulking up for golf. Worse, if you get caught bulking up for golf, you get kicked out of golf. There goes your endorsement day job and the golf sideline all in one ball. That leaves you only with Luthor henchman to fall back on—the only gig that you, Otis and your some sixteen mistresses are equally qualified for. If you really wanted to make an effort to fit in with the other Luthor henchmen, Otis might have given you some advice on how to become fat. Rumor has it Otis achieved this without the use of banned chemicals which might shrink your weenie.

I mention this only because the whole weenie thing seems to be key for Tiger. Let us set aside for a moment the fact that Tiger is a superman in a sport generally obsessed over by men who can no longer get it up. Previously, Tiger could boast of being not only the best at this sport, but also being one of the few participants of any level not likely to require Viagra. Thanks to steroids, he’s thrown that out the window. On a deeper level, you become famous to get your pick of a variety of women. You become rich to get your pick of a variety of women. Psst, Tiger. Mission accomplished. What do you need the big muscles for? As the incident of being beaten senseless by a ninety pound woman shows, muscles included, you’re more a lover than a fighter. For those in the lover mode, steroids are the opposite of where it counts.

So I am entirely at a loss. Maybe he’s just stupid?

All kidding aside, no person should be criticized simply for acting on a desire to have multiple sex partners. The person should, out of common courtesy, clear this with one’s spouse first. Prior to that, find a spouse who is good with this. Like everything else, success comes from laying a positive groundwork and moving forward. Failing to do so leads to complications, which, if there are innocent children involved, makes one’s actions thoroughly disgusting. That makes you a non-hero—someone whose clothes I do not want to buy, whose cars I do not want to drive and whose boring sport I can safely ignore.

Finally, I am not blaming Tiger’s spectacular demise on our obsession with celebrity. Given the same circumstances, my truck driving neighbor’s life would implode just as certainly, with just as much violence and as many hospital visits and police calls to his house. The only difference is in his odds of surviving the initial beating from the wife, inasmuch as it may be more satisfying to leave him dead. Much less is financially riding on letting him live.

On a much higher super villain level is Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs is one of those things that sponsors golf and that golfers endorse--in this case an investment bank. From what Vanity Fair reports, it appears to be staffed by a number of people who think they are Lex Luthor. The thing has a web of connections that puts the Illuminati, Tri-Lateral Commission and the Free Masons to shame. It’s literally the Skull & Bones Yale Frat as a business, reality’s version of HYDRA. Moreover, it has been led and staffed for several generations by people who do very much resemble Lex Luthor (or Dr. Sivanna.) The firm was founded by an apparent clone of Commodore Vanderbilt or some other such once-washed Irish pirate.

Vanity Fair does of course go on and on about the firm’s lack of obvious splendor splendor, understated style style. But that’s just Vanity Fair being its vapid self. You could kill fifty-three people, leave their heads on sticks mounted in buckets of blood and Vanity Fair will note first how tasteful the drapes are. Once Vanity Fair gets around to it, they ask these guys how they are still making money. They don’t have any clients, really. No deals are being done, no IPOs are being launched, no wealth being managed, no loans being underwritten, no actual movement of money from one place to the next for them to be the middleman for. Thus they shouldn’t be making any money. As opposed to making no money or less money or a reasonable amount of money, Goldman is claiming that its employees are due a whopping 12 Billion in commissions. On no new business.

It’s a heck of a trick.

None of this would be an issue, except that Goldman is a turd floating in a bowl full of taxpayer’s money. Goldman’s entire response to all questions of any kind is that they never needed the bailout money. Not them, no sirrreee bob. Mind you, they took it, but they claim they never needed it. Warren Buffet was going to bail them out, but they didn’t need that either. They don’t need anyone. They don’t need nothing. Not even a functioning market or actual paying customers. It’s a heck of a business model.

Every non Goldman employee Vanity Fair could reach for independent comment used the term ‘bullshit’ a lot. That’s pretty much the top down explanation for everything. Culture of excellence cut into quartiles of demigod factions aside, you really do need paying customers somewhere along the line to churn a profit—and they don’t have any.***

The term ‘churn’ here is key. They do churn a profit, but not really from customers. In true super villain style, Goldman maintains banks of supercomputers which can very quickly buy a lot of a given stock. This sudden flood of buys triggers a rise in price, driven by other computers who watch such things. Goldman then uses its computers to match up and sell its positions as these other buyers flood in. What happens to the stock after that, Goldman doesn’t care. They bailed quick, sometimes within seconds of placing the flood of buys. What generally happens is that the new buyers eventually realize there is no new demand for the stock and its price then collapses. Ha ha. Joke’s on you.

If this strikes you as not being fair, it’s only because that is the truth. They were already busted on 60 Minutes for it, so Vanity’s expose is nothing new. No need for Batman here. If Batman existed, the Chicago Bears are in more urgent need of his help.

So, if we know what’s going on, why aren’t we doing something about it?

From what little I can glean, the government figures that someone, somehow, somewhere will eventually figure out a way to stalemate them. In the mean time, they are more or less going to let them get away with it—this time in plain sight. Apparently there is some benefit to allowing a market which is known to be rigged to continue to operate. Is this reality or the plot of an Operator 9 novel?

Where is The Shadow when you need him?

*Like Airboy, Crimebuster seems to have been led out of the superhero life due to the influence of a woman. In a charming sequence, a young lady asks Crimebuster why he is wearing that ‘silly cape’ and why everyone was calling him C.B. when his name is Chuck Chandler. Everyone knew who Crimebuster really was. That’s it! He dropped the cape, dropped crime fighting and enrolled in college. Twelve years of utterly psychotic behavior was over with one stray comment. Back to hockey.

**It should be noted that the sports pulps did not feature continuing characters of any kind.

*** Goldman does have assets under management, but that was not the focus of Vanity Fair’s piece.