Blame and Punish Podcast
Episode: O-0008
Posting date: 02/24/21
[This written episode was used as a guideline to the spoken one. To hear the exact words, find it at https://www.blameandpunish.com/podcasts ... ry/latest/.]
She Made Sure He Didn't Kill Anyone
Hi, this is Bruce Carlson. This is week number 8 of 1,560. As I said last week, I wanted to do my podcast every Monday. The week before I had done one and then changed the subject the day that I was going to post it. I was going to try not to do that again. That didn't work out so well. I was going to post the previous weeks this week and then I read an article in the New York Times and I decided to do something with that – reading from the article. I didn't know exactly how to mix reading and speaking about the article in an organized manner so I had to plan things out a little better. I wasn’t even sure I could legally read their article but I went ahead with it I was ready to post it.
Then, Monday morning I heard that Tiger Woods was in a car accident and he was being operated on. Of course, everyone in the world was going to jump on this story. I didn't want to do it but there was something about his life that I wanted to talk about. I am sure some people were talking about it for the same reason I was going to but I doubt, very much, that they were doing so because of the EXACT same reason I was doing it.
First of all, let me explain that I, being a golfer – not a very good one but attempting to be one – I followed Tiger’s career from the beginning with awe and respect. You had to respect how good he was – regardless of who you are – you had to respect that.
I was fortunate to grow up in Chicago during the days of Michael Jordan. I say fortunate because his excellence gave everyone something to root for, something to look up to, something to appreciate as he won title after title for our city. Then there was the fact that no one in the city was saying, “Wow, what an a-hole.” He seemed to be a pretty regular guy, just one who was very wealthy, yet one who was very nice. He seemed to do a lot of good things for a lot of people.
Tiger seemed to be the same way. Yes, there are stories about him gambling and womanizing and many other things that someone could find if they wanted to. However, I am not going to take that path at this point in the podcast. Hear me out.
I look back at how hard Tiger has worked to be so successful in his life and I know that given the chance to do my life over again and deciding what I really wanted to do (which to this day I still don't know but I know that I could not have worked as hard as he did). I cannot think of anything that would have made me the type of person who could work that hard to accomplish one thing. His one thing was being the best golfer in the world. What does that work bring you? It can bring you great notoriety and I guess you can define that word notoriety anyway you want to: for the good or the bad. He was on top of the world, he was wealthy, he looked like he was happy.
And that is the crux of this podcast.
Maybe he will be very angry if he ever hears this podcast and say that I manipulated who he was or what he tried to do. Maybe he will be very angry if he thinks that I'm doing this to use his name on the day of the accident so that I can be one of the crowd who took advantage of him. That is not the case. Like I said, I really did not want to talk about him today because I did not want to be like everyone else. I did not want to jump on the bandwagon. However, as this is going to turn out: because of the way I am going to use his name some people are going to say they've had enough of me. This is going to sound bad but I swear that I do not mean it to be bad.
A minute or so back, I said that I would not talk about his life errors and make that the part of the podcast that this would be concentrating on. However, and this is a REALLY HUGE HOWEVER, I want to point out a couple of things about his parents. Then, I'm going to really be an a-hole and use a quote from his mother to say, "See, I was right!"
It is documented, all over the place, that the father of Tiger Woods was a very upsetting human being in the manner that he lived his life. We can look him up through any source we want and we can be upset because it looks like, as his life was ending, that he certainly lived a life of depravity because his son gave him money. Stop me right there – and stop yourself from shooting me – I do not know if that was true, it is a thought I have by looking at how he lived his life, and I didn't see his income stream allowing him to live the life that he did. If I am wrong, please forgive me because I am going somewhere else during today's podcast but I'm just mouthing off right now so bear with me a little bit. And that includes you also, Tiger, If you ever listen to this. Please give me the opportunity to finish with my sentence from your mom at the end of this week’s podcast.
His father was, in fact, a domineering influence in his life and without any doubt created one of the world's greatest golfers. He was a strong individual who pushed Tiger to be better than virtually any golfer in the world that ever existed. We all take our hats off to him because he did a wonderful job making an excellent golfer. And, Tiger loves him (I'm sorry, that should be past tense because his father did die of cancer and I am profusely sorry about that).
But I am going to consider his trait of being domineering as an excellent trait to help his son get somewhere in life. I'm not gonna talk about any of the other "bad" things that his father did in life. I'm going to throw this sentence in here now, though. I'm going to say this and I will use myself as an example so that you understand I am not trying to be mean about this: I am going to say that it is, “Easy to fool children.”
I meant that to be that it was easy to get Tiger to love his dad even though he rode him so hard and certainly did not give him good examples to follow in living his normal life.
How dare I say that!!!
Sorry, you lose on this one, I have a right to say that. In our book, Blame and Punish, in chapter 9 – the one I call “My Cathartic Chapter” – I use my life and my raising of my children to say that it is easy to fool them! I do not mean that as it sounds when taken out of context! I love my children more than my life itself! I love my wife more than life itself! What I am saying is that children are born with so much ability to love they want to love the people who are there feeding them, and tickling them, and teaching them, and hugging them. They, when born, are born to be able to love. While they are learning to love, they are not in a position to have had the history of being loved incorrectly yet so they only know how to love – and we, as parents, have the responsibility to make sure they grow up right and that they get paid back for loving right.
I said a few things about Tiger's dad and now I'm going to say a few things about Tiger's mom. I didn't tie anything I said about Tiger’s dad together so it sounds like I'm changing subjects without finishing but let me just add this and then I'll tie things together.
This point I'm going to add is going to make me sound like a cheater. I’m making a lot of excuses during this week's podcast and I'm going to tell you right now that I don't want to be labeled as a cheater so please let me just finish this by listening to the last paragraph of this podcast. I respect Tiger and I hate doing this when he is laying in a hospital bed but I have a goal to change the world so I have to do what I have to do.
Tiger said that even though his dad was supposed to be the scary one, he was afraid of his mom. He jokingly said that he was afraid of her right up to this day. He loved his mom. But in his life, she was the enforcer. I am imagining that his dad wasn't there a lot so she's the one who had to make sure that he did everything he was told to do.
I'm getting to the end so I'm going to point out what was really upsetting about his parents to me. Tiger supposedly had a first girlfriend who he really liked. He was with her for years. He enjoyed being with her family. He grew up being happy, doing silly dances, singing Christmas carols with her family, being with them and enjoying their company. It is said that his parents, and I say that in plural as parents, fabricated some things about his girlfriend and made him break up with her. They so much wanted him to break up with her that they made him do it in writing – they wouldn't even let him do it in person because they probably knew that there were reasons for telling him to break up with her would be found out to be untrue if he did it in person. I don’t know why his parents felt he should break up with her but whatever it was – they controlled him and made him do it! Did they want him golfing more without spending time with her? Did they not want him having fun? Did they feel she was the wrong social class? WHATEVER! Should they have done that for him to be happy?!?
I have no right saying this but, “HOW DARE THEY!!!”
I will say over and over again that had it not been for my wife – my children would not be as amazing as they are. She did her 100% of raising excellent children and covered the 90% that I failed. I'm trying to make up for that now. I am appreciative of the fact that I've lived this long and will live substantially longer to be able to try and do that. I have to tell you, though, that one of the reasons that my wife was able to be such a good mom is because she did not have to work outside of our home while raising them. I truly, truly believe that having one parent home with a growing child AT ALL TIMES is extremely, extremely important and necessary. But more of all of this another time.
Back to Tiger. Here's where I wrap this up in a very cheap manner. I'm going to use something Tiger's mom said showing why it was okay that I spoke about Tiger today – and for a different reason than anyone else in the world did. In 2010 his mom gave an interview and she said, "He [Tiger] didn't do anything illegal. He didn't kill anybody." During that interview she was defending how she raised him.
Out of Tiger's whole life, how he grew up, how he became one of the truly greatest golfers in history, how he became as financially successful as he did, how he got through his parents pushing him and building him and controlling him: that is the sentence that I am going to finish with! “He didn't kill anybody.”
I think his parents made a lot of mistakes and he will hate me for saying that. You may hate me for saying that. Don't worry, I hate myself for making a lot of my own mistakes. But let's remember this: if, as a parent you bring a person into this world, it is up to you to make sure they do not do anything illegal and especially that they do not kill anyone.
I'm hoping to just get that thought process spread around the world in the next 30 years. I don't have the time to get the thought process of people thinking that if they create children they should also try and raise them to be happy.
Hopefully, as we start to look at why we have children and raise them better that will become a natural process of raising them right, making sure they are happy.
Okay, this is the end of week eight. I really am going to try and not change subjects the day of the podcast in the future but I do have a problem with lying.
I don't care what happens in the five days, I'm going to post my podcast on the New York Times next week and then hopefully I'll put up the podcast I had done the week before. I've got to pace myself, I've got to do 1,560 of these. If you don't listen to all of them, it's okay – just leave here knowing and believing that if you bring a child into this world, or if anyone else does, you and they are responsible for making sure they don't kill anyone.
Thank you for your time. Have a safe week.
