This week's "feed the ego" episode
GeorgeShaw
Posts: 764
Comments
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That is actually a decent article, whichever standpoint you have.0
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ha ha ha ha
Does he fear being violently attacked on next year's Tour? "Yeah. There're directors of French teams that have encouraged people to take to the streets ... elbow to elbow. It's very emotional and tense."
I thought he wasn't riding the TdF ?????
AND - I want an Italian to win the Giro in the Centenary year"I get paid to make other people suffer on my wheel, how good is that"
--Jens Voight0 -
Where did he get this from? For these team managers to encourage such actions, they must have made public calls for such moves and someone how I've missed them. Can anyone point me in the direction of this Gallic rabble rousing?"Yeah. There're directors of French teams that have encouraged people to take to the streets ... elbow to elbow. It's very emotional and tense."
It seems he is trying to create another US versus France wedge, "it's me taking on the French establishment" again. He admitted he had bridges to build with the French public and media but it now sounds like he's burning bridges.0 -
Wasn't it great for the 3 or so years where we didn't have a PR machine churning out this derivative junk? If he doesn't like the French then don't effing turn up! Sounds like he 'wants' the Tour more than it 'needs' him IMO.Make mine an Italian, with Campagnolo on the side..0
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absolutely, Monty Dog - I suggest that, since only Armstrong lights Bruyneel's fire, he promptly does so and they explode in a shower of homoerotic sparks. Enough of the nonsense, already :roll:0
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Armstrong has always known that pandering to and feeding anti-French prejudice, especially in the USA, is one easy way to bolster his position. The biggest joke is the way he turns his own hate and prejudice around in order to claim that it is `The French` who hate him! :roll:Kléber wrote:It seems he is trying to create another US versus France wedge, "it's me taking on the French establishment" again. He admitted he had bridges to build with the French public and media but it now sounds like he's burning bridges.
I can well understand how an individual can hate a whole nation, or at least his idea of that nation, especially one driven by a desire for `vengeance` for imagined wrongs as Armstrong. However, I really can`t see how the whole of the French Nation can truly hate Armstrong, especially given that most of them couldn`t give a monkeys about the Tour these days, let alone Pharmstrong`s participation in it.
What Armstrong says is also at odds with what he has said previously about his reception in France. I quote:
“Ultimately,” he says, “the people like who they like and don’t like who they don’t like. They make up their own mind. The papers loved to write that I was the most hated athlete in France, but I’m the guy who rides through that kind of shit. They don’t sit on the bike with me and so, you know, out of 100 people, did you have 10 people throwin’ shit at you, yellin’, ‘Dopé, dopé’? Yeah. But you had 90 goin’, ‘Allez Lance! Allez Lance!’ I can do the math on that. My approval rating is 90 percent. Fuckin’ A. I like that.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/featu ... ntPage=all0 -
Oh dear, Dennis is backing me up. I must have gone wrong somewhere...Le Blaireau (1)0
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Disliking certain people who display the stereotypical negative traits of their nationality is not the same as hating a whole nation. That can apply to both the US and France.
But the Great Ego is employing the "Alex Ferguson Reflex" - the use of a generalised external enemy - as a motivational weapon. For LA it's "the French". Ferguson goes even further - it's everybody else.
It may work for them, but it's boring for everybody else.0 -
I'd have said Lance isn't too keen on the Spanish, either. At least his chum, Bruyneel obviously isn't.
With a campaign of hate against the French, a blossoming psychological war to dismantle Bertie's confidence and half a dozen compulsory media moments a day, I only hope the old boy has enough energy left to turn a pedal."Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.0 -
We will find out during the Classics season how his pedal turning is going. Oh, no we won't because he won't bloody well do them. Again. Despite any noises to the contrary. Why am I even commenting on this? The man is an opinion generating, media story filling machine/monster. AAAAaaarrrrghghghg. July is too far away for all this nonsense to be gathering momentum in November.0
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I think everyone knows someone who for whatever reason has some sort of hatred
for a certain group of people, be they French, American, black, yellow, green, or white.
Sad part of it is that most of them have never met a Frenchman, black man, or whomever.
Somehow they get it in their heads that the group as a whole is bad. Luckily these
people are in a minority and will hopefully stay that way or just go away altogether.
Dennis Noward0 -
Dennis, are you advocating that Lance 'goes away'? Good for you.0
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I often wonder if LA's 'anger' model stems from constantly seeking to punish his absent father - he has certainly used a series of 'enemy' figures (generalized & specific I think) for motivation. I also ponder whether the comeback derives from a need to achieve closure by being beaten by a rival. Probably not original thoughts on my part; one way or another there is undoubtedly psychological stuff going on there, or in the words of the psychiatrist in Fawlty Towers, 'there's enough material there for a whole conference'!
Don't know why the Guardian journalist bothered going to Texas for that 'same old' interview.0 -
skavanagh.bikeradar wrote:Dennis, are you advocating that Lance 'goes away'? Good for you.
No, not at all. I've said all along that maybe, just maybe, Lance misses racing. Racing is fun. I'm 60 and I miss it. Maybe he just misses being out their mixing it up with the "boys".
All of the things that are said about him seem to be somewhat "soap operaish" in the respect that all this talk about his "evil schemes and devious motives" for this or that
just don't add up for me. Who has time for all of that kind of crap? And why bother?
He's got kids, a couple of homes, businesses to run, a cancer foundation to run, a bunch of training and resting to do if he expects to do well next year, personal appearances,
friends and family, and who knows what else to keep him busy. I just don't see him spending tons of time, he probably doesn't have, plotting the downfall of civilization as we
know it, or even just the French way of life. I've watched him ride over the years and it
seemed that every time the camera focused in on him during, before, or after a race, if he was talking to someone he had a smile on his face and so did the person he was talking too. Big ego you say. I've got a few friends that definitely have that problem, but they are still my friends and they aren't plotting anything(that I know of).
There is no halo on his head. He's a human being just like you and I, warts and all. Spending time obsessing about Lance and his faults seems to me to be a waste of time.
There was a song that said "I could cry for the time I've wasted, but that's a waste of time and tears". OK, I've gone over the edge quoting songs. Time to quit.
Dennis Noward0 -
Interestingly enough he says he has yet to meet with, or speak to, Contador. Given Contador visited the same windtunnel as him two weeks ago, it must be that the interview was done prior to this. But you might expect a phone call or a meeting between the two by now?0
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Kléber wrote:Interestingly enough he says he has yet to meet with, or speak to, Contador. Given Contador visited the same windtunnel as him two weeks ago, it must be that the interview was done prior to this. But you might expect a phone call or a meeting between the two by now?
Maybe, maybe not. They know each other don't they? And the "season" is "over" so to speak. I would guess that these guys all have their own lives to live, people to see, and things to do outside racing, Just like us. People come and go on cycling teams just like
other sports and I doubt that people who go to a different team feel it's necessary to call or have a meeting with everyone on their new team. The season will start soon enough
and I'm sure that by the end of the season they will all have seen and heard enough
of each other that they won't spend too much off season time(what little there is) keeping in constant touch with each other.
Dennis Noward0 -
Back to the Guardian article.............
Is Lance now sponsored by Scottish Widows?
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SecretSqirrel wrote:Back to the Guardian article.............
Is Lance now sponsored by Scottish Widows?
You obviously have a classier frame of reference than I.
I saw that photo of Lance and thought of this.....
'This week I 'ave been mostly been climbing like Basso - Shirley Basso.'0 -
I thought.....
"Look out Bertie I will take you to the Dark side! HA HA HA"0 -
Reminds me of the Bergman film, the Seventh Seal:
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I said I was going to try not to post about Lance but I'll quickly make this point. If he is really doing this for the cancer cause and not his own ego. Why has he chosen the 2nd biggest cycles race in the world and not the biggest?
As far as I can see, all the LA histeria is being created by his people. ASO seem a bit non-plussed by it all. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.Scottish and British...and a bit French0 -
Reading this thread has me wondering who the posters were , a while back , whose dogs had dutifully volunteered suicide missions this coming season .
Prepared ? "Lick My Decals Off, Baby"0 -
My Jack Russell's getting on a bit and has always been known to growl menacingly at HWSNBN on the telly so am sure he could be deployed in some capacity.
Found this interesting: 'Setting aside the possibility of tampered evidence Armstrong's first sample contained a residue of EPO - a fact he explains away by arguing that he used a cream for saddle sores during his first Tour win without any knowledge that it included a banned substance. Various other people also claim that he admitted to past doping.' I thought his 1999 sample was a positive for cortisone, never heard the claim that there were traces of EPO before.0 -
Kléber wrote:Reminds me of the Bergman film, the Seventh Seal:
I'm starting to think that some of you guys really are in awe of some of the riders.
You make some of them out to be Darth Vader like creatures with evil powers and
world domination as their only goal. Others are envisioned as Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz, pure of heart, mind, and body and of course mistreated by the evil ones. These are real people, real human beings, without mystical powers or ruby slippers. They actually exist in the real world(just kike us). The only place that these people are all powerful and
all conquering are in your minds fantasies. This is not the ultimate battle between good and evil, and you're not a soldier in it, except in your mind. Simple human beings, no better, no worse than you or I.
Dennis Noward0 -
It comes to something when even your own country's media start seeing through you and say enough's enough http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/27793457/0
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micron wrote:It comes to something when even your own country's media start seeing through you and say enough's enough http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/27793457/
Overexposed? Oh yaaaaaaaaaa -way over. Got to admit though that he is definitely
a media darling, good or bad. I doubt the media is seeing through him any more than the rest of us are. He's a very famous person whom a great many can simply see his picture
and tell you who it is(not just you and I and our cycling buddies). For whatever reason the media sees him as great copy and apparently it's true or they would stop featuring him. It's the public persona that he projects that keeps him in the news. Baddest cyclist on
earth or whatever. He could be everything that everyone thinks
he is(good or bad) but I doubt it. I think somewhere in there you'll find a human being.
The Wizard of Oz claimed to be all powerful and all knowing but in the end turned out to
be a simple man.
Dennis Noward0
