roger clemmens presents: "it's a wonderful wizard of oz life"

here's some thoughts/highlights from the last week of my life. let's see if we can relate them all and make this one big happy blog-story? i have no idea where this will take us. but it will probably too long and perhaps rather arduous.

1) roger clemens is a terrible person.
if you know me at all, i fully embrace that all of us are terrible persons. but clemens takes the cake right now as the darth vader/oj simpson/fill-in-the-blank terrible person right now. this is what is so appalling to me: how can he continue to do it? the lying i mean. now i know that i am jumping to conclusion and presuming guilt before any true sentences are handed down... but let's just be clear that this man is a dirty liar who would make his wife take the fall for him before he admits to anything that might blemish his "sterling reputation?" this is the worst kind of man. if i were in the position to rank sins, i'm putting this one toward the top (way ahead of eating two of heidi's cookies and playing it off like i only ate one)

i will say this: i have lied a few times in my life. i've told some whoppers. i mean big lies. i'm talking about lies that i never wanted anybody to ever find out about and that i went all out to ensure that those close to me would never find out. i'm not proud of this, but perhaps i can relate to roger here. once you start down that path... you just keep digging. maybe you're ankle deep after covering your ass a few times, but before you know it you're looking up from the floor of the grave you dug for yourself. and you can just keep digging. you can lie straight to the face of your best friend. you can lie to strangers. it doesn't matter who... if you have something to protect (dignity, pride, self-righteousness, sin) then "the ends justify the means" - lying is justified in the liar's mind because it protects him from that which is most dangerous and grievous - the fear of the shame of getting caught and being exposed.

one of these days clemens is going to come clean and tell the truth (after he can't fight anymore and everybody knows everything - that's the way lies work. the truth always makes itself known - just watch law and order). and it's gonna hurt him and his family real bad. and i will probably be smug in my condemnation of him at that moment, saying, "i told you so... he got what he deserves." but it's going to be devastation for the clemens family, and that makes me really sad. that makes me really angry.

2) roger clemens is no jimmy stewart and this isn't "a wonderful life."
this past weekend my lovely wife and i sat down and watched this movie.(for me, this was the first time i have ever seen it. tragic, i know.) i really enjoyed this move. i immediately catapult it toward the top of meaningful and transcendent films i have seen. but i keep thinking over and over again this week about these depictions in pop culture that offer a character the chance to see the way things could/could not, should/should not, will/won't be (wonderful life, back to the future, eternal sunshine, vanilla sky, mulholland drive, labyrinth, christmas story, weekend at bernies II, etc). this is a fascinating concept to me.

one element of fascination is this notion that "if i could just see the things that i will end up regretting, i won't do them." or "i would have lived differently if i knew that would happen." hindsight is 20/20? i don't know. but here's the reality: we all pretty much know what is right and what is wrong. every given day i have the opportunity to lie and cheat my way though life. i can lie at work and claim that i have seen clients that i have not in fact seen. i can say terrible things about my friends behind their backs. i can treat my wife life a ball-and-chain and not like the treasure she is. i know what's right. and i know what's wrong.

and so does roger clemens. clemens is going to someday admit that he wishes he could take it all back. that he could have had his "it's a wonderful life" experience. but he's already getting it. he doesn't need a clarence to show him the devastating damage that is coming from his current devious deceit. he knows this already. he's from texas. and if there is one thing i know about texans, it's that they know better than to lie (i don't really know this. i know nothing about texas). roger clemens is too proud and ignorant to admit that he did a terrible thing and that he is sorry. this is a hard thing to do... and to clemens right now i am sure he feels it the impossible task. which leads me to final point:

3) clemens is currently traversing his own yellow-brick road
perhaps all he needs is a little courage, given from the wizard of oz (heidi and i watched this movie the same night as "wonderful life" and it was delightful as well).

if i were going to make a metaphor for clemens and the wizard of oz, clemens would be the mean old lady who took dorothy's dog (the witch) because he's mean and evil (and ugly). i could see the neighborhood kids ringing roger's doorbell and asking for their baseball back that rolled into his backyard, and clemens coming unglued and yelling at the poor little kids and perhaps throwing his broom or rolling pin at them (clemens sweeps his floors regularly and is a wonderful baker).

roger has lost his way. roger, like dorothy is no longer in kansas. he's in too deep now. he wished for a long and prosperous career, and shot himself in the rump with a needle and signed multi-million dollar contracts that he didn't deserve to get there ("there" being oz and drugs in the butt being the tornado). if only he had ruby slippers instead of a neatly-pressed suit. if only he had toto as a companion instead of andy pettite. if only it was aunty em chastising him for breaking the rules, rather than george mitchell and all of congress. if only his house had landed on brian mcnamee and not the wicked witch of the east. if only...

life in oz for roger isn't so simple as just trying to get back to the "good ole days" of the simple texas life. clemens isn't just dorothy in this story. he's got many more requests for the wizard.
- roger is the lion, because he lacks the courage to tell the truth and make this whole bad dream go away.
- roger is the tin-man because he obviously has no heart, never considering any single person except himself, and because his body needed HGH and steroids like the tin-man needed oil (clemens should have rusted long ago - this picture in my mind amuses me).
- and roger is the scarecrow because he is too stupid to realize that he will never get away with it.

if roger clemens only had a brain... if he only had a heart... if he only had courage... if he could only find his way back home again...

in closing: every time a bell rings, an angel gets it's wings (fill in your own metaphor here... i got nothing)