There's a Dark Hand Over My Heart

I am really not going to look back over everything I've written this past week and apologize, or tweak, according to the latest revelations. Head to TMZ if you really want to feel like the sky is falling. It pains the fuck out of me to acknowledge that, somehow, Vecsey did sort of have the story all along, perhaps the only real reporting of his career. How he got it pre-Gil/Critt cover-up will hopefully come to light soon, and I'm sure will make this ten times craziers. BECAUSE PETER VECSEY DOES NOT GET STORIES THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY. He doesn't know how to.

It's "Armageddnon Week" on the History Channel, and my listening for the day has moved onto this:



But this is really still about Gil. I said on Dan Levy's podcast last night that this was Gil at his most Gil ever. One friend said he's never been more proud of, or at least fascinated, by Arenas. However, Lang's got the most sobering angle on it: Arenas just doesn't seem to recognize that sometimes you can't plow through the world on sheer whim alone. You have to do shit you don't want to, follow orders, and go by the logic of something other than your own bonkers mental activity. Why would Gil have ever learned that lesson? He's a self-made superstar, defying the ban on combo guards, the expectations that he'd fail as a pro, and the post-Jordan belief that personality doesn't sell anymore. He wouldn't sit down and shut up, or play by the rules, not because he's a rebel, but because he's just completely out-there and independent.

He did his whole career his way. And he carried that over into a crisis that could very well end it. The Twitter, the FINGER GUNZ, they flew in the face of everything he was supposed to do—that Stern wanted him to do for the good of the league—to such an extent that it's hard to see this as, in the most grave way possible, Gil being Gil. To the bitter fucking end, I guess. Plus, that he is the lovable goofball works against him. At least a hardened thug-like dude has it expected of him, and is easy damage control for the league to run. In a way, Artest's history of violence allows him to get away with darn near anything now, even if he's at bottom just as fundamentally weird as Gil. Arenas, though, doesn't have that buffer. Nor does he have Delonte West's diagnosis. Gilbert Arenas is what he is, always has been, and he insists on being accepted for that. That's stubborn, arrogant, and misguided, but just as often refreshing, charming, and exhilarating. But here, Arenas knew the truth all along, and Stern's likely known for a minute. That Gil couldn't for once take a break from fighting for acceptance, or noticed that to survive you sometimes have to roll over and play possum, is everyone's loss.

No Peace in Fate

When Sean Taylor was murdered, a handful of folks typing about sports insisted that his rowdy past had played a role. Whether this was racism, immaturity or irresponsibility on their part end up mattering not. As soon as the police sunk their teeth into an investigation, the random nature of the crime became apparent.

Chris Henry passed away this morning. From his lengthy rap sheet, litany of suspensions, and career full of false starts, you might think Henry was just another defiant thug. But Henry was something far darker: A young man in grips of self-destruction from the day he entered the league; an immense talent who could often convince you he was the best receiver on the Bengals; and, by all accounts, a nice guy that the team simply refused to give up on. I spent last night reloading Twitter over and over again, which was both disturbing and strangely uplifting. This morning, when Henry's death was announced and the search went crazy, I was stunned at how many people professed a lack of surprise. Nothing makes me more judgmental than the internet. But then I thought about it and realized that, as unlikely an ending as it was, it wasn't just that Henry had been struggling against forces trying to drag him down since college, and that such things rarely end well. It was that, as with Eddie Griffin's grisly demise, the strangeness, excess, and whole miserable situation that surrounds it, this was exactly the kind of thing that would happen to Henry.

Chris Henry was always one of my favorites. He also, like Griffin, belonged to that rare category of truly troubled pros, guys whose run-ins with the law could be sad, even comical. There was nothing angry or threatening about him. Henry was just a sublime athlete who was terrible at being alive. Maybe being an NFL player made it worse; maybe it was true that his kids and impending marriage had helped him turn his life around. He was only 26. But, at the risk of sounding like a total jerk, it's hard to feel like all was well when it imploded so quickly, and with such disastrous results.

In the beginning, I badly wanted to see Henry fulfill his potential, start for the high-octane Bengals, and give me the chance to see him glide into the end zone on a regular basis. Palmer always did seem to look for him. Then, I was content with a big play every few weeks. At some point, that shifted to hoping he'd get to stick in the league. I haven't watched much football this year, but when I heard the first Henry news, I immediately started wondering if this meant his career was over. That quickly morphed into hoping he wasn't paralyzed. Then, that he wasn't going to have serious brain damage, or stay in a coma indefinitely. That was how it was with Henry. He kept us hanging on, rooting for him and utterly sympathetic, even as the gravity dragging him down got steeper and steeper.