The shit-processor: Part 2 of why running is no place to achieve (the good kind of) fame

I imagine the everyday American media consumer as consisting almost entirely of a round, anus-like construct between two and three feet in diameter and about six to eight inches thick, pulsating and pink and ringed with exactly the kind of inelegant detritus you'd expect to find on the fringes of a less-than-perfectly-tended bunghole. This repugnant disk -- and hell, let's just call it an asshole for ease of description -- serves as the nominal head of the beast, and is centered about five feet off the ground, supported by a single stork-like leg; the ostensible purpose of this is to keep the asshole from rolling away on terrain that is not level, but its primary function is more sinister.

In case you haven't gotten the picture yet: The typical human being you see on the street is basically a 150-pound flesh-colored Dilly Bar with an extra stick, with a winking, rasping shit-pore smack in the middle instead of a nodule of chocolate coating left as a marker of the manufacturing process.

The aperture itself is no mere opening for extruding feces or accepting phalluses or sex toys, however. Instead, it is a bidirectional portal with both digestive and excretory functions. (If you're still with me at this point, I'm not going to lose you by piling on unlikely details.)

When presented with certain abstract cultural inputs, such as salacious lies, unfounded rumors, illicit sexual hijinks, lawbreaking, and generally embarrassing or shameful information or misinformation, the aperture itself becomes a gaping maw as the formidable sphincter in this monstrosity relaxes, and the opening creates a powerful vacuum that sucks all of this misery and nonsense and triumphant self-aggrandizing blather in. Then, the head pivots anywhere from 1 to 359 degrees and looses a horizontal geyser of scalding-hot shitlike matter in a fan spanning about 120 degrees, a third of a circle, like a Claymore mine. Any greater an arc than this would not be realistic. As a result, everything in everyone's mist is awash in the hideous and unholy stench of freshly ejected funk far too foul to be described merely as diarrhea.

I offer this metaphor because it is almost as disgusting as the things that actual members of American human society do with the real holes in their real heads. People not only tolerate garbage but devour it like stoners just rescued after a week on a desert island, and, with very little deliberation -- a skill most people fail to possess anyway -- they find someone to spew what they have learned at. And instead of taking umbrage, the recipient happily sucks it in, pivots clumsily but with undiluted purpose toward someone else, and pays the whole mess forward.

If you want to be famous in this country, you can be a superstar athlete in a major sport. or a talented musician or actor, or a high-ranking politician. But if you are a rank-and-file bozo like maybe 99.99 percent of us -- I'd say 1 in 10,000 is a good cut-off for "famous," and may even be too generous -- then your best bet is to just deal unpretentiously in dirt and worse. Reality TV, tabloids, talk shows, and wild-ass exaggerations in print and online (hi, Jussie Smollett!) offer a path to fame for almost anyone willing to stoop low enough to be fed into the roiling cultural shit-processor.

But it helps to have a decent platform to start with, and that's where running's version of "fame" kicks in.

Consider what it means that the most popular distance runner in the history of American cinema is Forrest Gump. And not only did the lovable moron not compete in any races, he, by his own reckoning, had no fucking idea why he was even out there. Of course, the real legacy of this production is the cries of "RUN. FORREST, RUN!" that people in less urbane parts of this fair nation still insist on yammering out the windows of their pickup trucks, 26 years after the movie's release, oblivious to the fact that this stopped being funny after about the first three thousand times we longtime joggers heard this inspiring refrain.

I should make clear at this point that there is nothing ignoble about dedicating your life to distance running in some way, outside being good enough at it to make a meaningful living as a professional athlete (and if you're reading this, you're almost certainly not in that category). I have read some running-related books that have moved me to tears, made me laugh, inspired meaningful changes in my training and racing, and helped me be a better guide to other runners. Now that we've been in the digital media age for a while, I could add "websites" and "podcasts," but so far most of the better-known stuff in those categories is basically garbage.

But in no instance were the people in charge of these works pursuing fame or notoriety on a grand scale. This is because each of these books, and by obvious extension their authors, were grounded in reality. But every now and again, some runner unleashes himself or herself on the world in a way that is transparently aimed at some combination of moneymaking and ego gratification -- aims that are all but inseparable in many contexts. It takes a certain kind of person to do this, and I'm not going to say that it takes a bad person, just one whose values are tilted more strongly in the direction of naked avarice than most of us could tolerate in ourselves.

In 2006, a previously unknown individual named Dean Karnazes published a book that was so patently full of shit it was clear from the start that he didn't really care if anyone challenged his claims; he just wanted them out there so he could build a brand. I'm not going to explore his various confirmed, legitimate, and objectively impressive accomplishments over long distances here because none of these would have been either possible or widely recognized had his book not been a kludge of confabulations, lies, and apocrypha blended with mundane blather.

"Karno" begins his litany of mythological deeds by describing how he went from being a slug for a couple of decades to spontaneously launching into a run from a bar in his street clothes—a magical solo effort that went on for hours in the dark—and ordering a pizza to a set of grid coordinates in the middle of nowhere (maybe he'd just seen Seven). He then supposedly hitchhiked a ride back to town in his underwear and passed through a drive-through that way. (I’m muddling some of the details, but believe me, it doesn't matter because I'm sure none of them were accurate to begin with.) In the usual style of the bullshit artist, he offers anecdotes that, like alleged miracles, cannot be strictly disproven because he leaves out names and exact places and times. An example is his claim of coming up on a couple of Army Rangers in the Western States 100—a duo that, as literary license would have it, "Karno" had also seen training together in the Presidio in San Francisco where he lives.

I only read this because my ultrarunner girlfriend at the time giggled her way through it and knew I would probably have a thrombo-embolic stroke while reading it myself. While on the speaking circuit -- because all of these narcissistic dingbats inevitably go on prevarication tours -- he told a group of runners with the West Valley Track Club that he could probably run a marathon in 2:35 if he wasn't running 50 of them in 50 days; his actual best is, I think, a little under three hours.

As flagrantly implausible as this all was, it got him what he wanted: Notice. He appeared on Letterman, and probably in some other places, looking quite serious for a guy who quit living a serious life the moment he embarked on his literally fantastic climb toward not just running fame, but general renown. While he never became a household name, he secured more publicity than any of the elite athletes of his day, or since. His ill-gotten zenith, appropriately enough, coincided with the advent and rapid ascendancy of social media, which has led to the visual side of running being stained with countless clamoring goons, many of them even more shameless than Karnazes, who could at least fucking run. Whatever he's up to now, I have to credit him with making his mark and having what it takes to grub for cash without any apparent concern for what thinking people think of him.

The other example I have along these lines is a little more touchy, because it deals with an insanely accomplished, very likable former athlete but one who also has a different sort of relationship to reality than most ethical people would recommend. You might variously remember Suzy Hamilton as an Olympian, a model, and a high-priced Las Vegas sex worker, but if you remember her book, you might have found yourself troubled buy some of the content, and I don't mean because it's lecherous (the whole idea that charging money for sex should be considered either illegal or immoral is laughable in the first place, especially considering how many thousands of Americans would become homeless in short order if they stopped providing sex to their partners). What bothered me about this book, besides the fact that the editor was apparently blind or on acid the while time and that key details were extremely difficult to accept as true, is the fact that Suzy claimed to have written it as someone recovering from bipolar disorder wanting to help others enjoy the same regaining of their sanity.

That last part is just bullshit. I mean, just admit what's obvious: You get caught, you want to parlay this into money (if she didn't need the dough, she probably wouldn't have been...well) and you write a tawdry book. Don't shit on people with mental illness, even if you are arguably such a person, by pretending to want to help them. The book came out as soon as it possibly could have after the scandal became public, and if her Instagram feed is any indication, it's hard to see evidence of the "recovery." By way of facile analogy, if you happen to be a well-known athlete or other celeb who has supposedly been off drugs or alcohol for a while and you want to write an inspirational book about "recovery" -- a dumbass term anyway -- it would be a good idea not to write half of it in a drunken blackout, or celebrate the achievement by doing shots with his publisher and agent on your way to your book signings.

Here's the thing, though. Suzy is absolutely beautiful, one of the best runners in American history, and -- most important of all in this worthless culture -- managed to become known for having sex. She went on some talk shows. In spite of all of this, she is not a household name. As soon as the huge, walking assholes on stalks who run the website The Smoking Gun publicized Suzy's new career, pundits on Letsrun (who are admittedly among the most perniciously ignorant and biased group of shit-eating slit-slingers anywhere) suggested that she would immediately rise to untold levels of fame. Having been around a while, if nothing else, I knew better. Go ahead and quiz a bunch of random people you know who follow sports and don't watch Fox News with their chins resting on their guts who she is, and if more than 1 in 10 can describe who she is even in general terms (e.g., "track runner"), then I will gladly run 200 miles nonstop and have sex with you for money immediately afterward. Or something.

But to end on a positive note, as always, I am reading a very good running book right now, and will give it its due as soon as possible.