Just tonight, while fixing myself a plate of nachos (see my wonderful recipe below), I decided to pop in my Big Six DVD and watch highlights from Lance Armstrong’s first six Tour de France wins. If I had anything that remotely resembled a social life, I would have grabbed my phone and made a few calls to schedule a night out with a saucy young vixen, but it’s Monday. Who the hell wants to go out for Mexican on a Monday night? More to the point, all the saucy young vixens I know have expressed on several occasions that they think I’m ugly and that my mother dresses me funny.
Admittedly, the saucy young vixens have a point.
Regardless, I was in the middle of flipping a chicken cutlet and watching Lance crash during the 2003 race. I can do this as my tiny kitchen boasts a huge pass-thru window, so I can cook and stay tuned to the action on the TV at the same time, yet as cool as that sounds, trust me, it doesn’t mean much to saucy young vixens. The moment Lance hit the ground and then remounted to sprint all the way up the rest of the climb, I thought, Cyclists are a lot like bodybuilders were back in the 80s and 90s. Not that I’ve ever been the biggest fan of professional bodybuilding (I think one look at me will confirm that statement), although as a teenager, I would occasionally flip through a copy of Flex or something similar. Back then, all those guys who spent at least nine hours a day in the gym and had biceps the size of watermelons all had the same stupid answers when interviewers inquired regarding drug use: “I’ve been blessed with good genes.”
And a rotating supply of hypodermic needles in which they pumped gallon after gallon of steroids and human growth hormones into their asses.
While I can’t speak for the cyclists of old, the cyclists of today sure do sound a lot like the freaky, ‘roid-rage prone juiceheads used to sound. At least most professional bodybuilders are beginning to admit they’re the products of serious synthetic enhancements. I don’t remember what video or TV show it was where I saw this, although not long ago, I caught a clip of an interview with two bodybuilders who looked as though someone had stuck the end of a bike pump valve in their respective asses and blew them up to well over the recommended 120 PSI. The juicehead standing to the left put it simply when he said, “When you look at us, it should be obvious what we’re doing. You can’t get like this without using steroids.” The juicer on the right nodded his approval.
I understand there’s a lot of corporate money floating around in professional cycling, but wouldn’t it be nice to inhale a flash of the truth rather than swallowing the same mouthful of shit year after year? Rather than the incessant, adamant refusals when the subject of doping arises, wouldn’t it be a blast of fresh air to hear Ivan Basso proclaim, “Basta! Of course I dope, you moron! How the f#ck do you think I climbed all those freaking mountains in the Giro as fast as I did? Eating my shredded wheat? God, you people are so freaking dumb.”
At the same time, for my own flimsy reasons, I’m of the belief that the sprinters, racers such as Thor Hushovd (Thor is such a cool name, isn’t it?), Robbie McEwen, and company, are not dopers. Go ahead and call me ignorant, yet don’t the sprinters typically struggle once a stage race reaches the major climbs? Okay, maybe these guys take the occasional injection, but compared to someone like Tyler Hamilton who, according to recent reports, was spending seven months of the year living on the equivalent of a black market pharma cocktail, the sprinters look like a bunch of saints.
While we’re speaking of dopers, how about that Joe Cuomo guy? A few weeks ago, he disappears to have “surgery.” Then, on his first morning back with the group, he’s up front during most of the ride with his face in the wind while most of us are in the back breathing hard. I think it was T-Mobile Tommy who mentioned Joe’s name had come up in Operacion Puerto, although since sixty-eight-year-old Joe no longer contests the Giro, the Tour, or the Vuelta, none of the Spanish authorities made a stink about it. More importantly, they probably couldn’t find Staten Island on the map.
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Steve's Macho-Nacho Dish
1 plate of nacho chips
1 chicken cutlet sliced into strips
½ cup taco mix cheese or sharp cheddar cheese
½ tomato diced
Salsa
Sour cream
Spread nacho chips on plate. Spread chicken atop nachos. Spread a generous helping of cheese over chicken and nachos. Microwave until cheese melts. Remove plate from microwave and sprinkle diced tomato over plate. Season with salsa and sour cream to taste. Enjoy. Upon finishing, open windows around house/apartment. As is typically expected, ingesting Mexican food may result in pungent flatulence. Keep air freshener handy. Apply Vick’s Vapor rub under nostrils on upper lip to maintain consciousness during severe emergencies.
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