Et tu, Bruce?

Julius Caesar was the greatest general of his time. He once conquered all of the countries of the known world. His military victories far and wide were so impressive, he was truly admired by his fellow Romans. His countrymen, the everyday people of Roman society, man and woman alike, simply loved him. He was the man who took the idea of Rome being just another “good” country into turning them into the foremost world power of its time. Remember from your history books hearing about the great civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome? The Greeks has their Alexander The Great, and the Romans had their Julius Caesar.

It was Julius Caesar who was the individual of his time who was the most famous, most important person in the world of approximately 100 B.C. to 44 B.C. He was powerful enough to change the very calendar of months and days that the world operated by. If the month of July sounds a little like Julius that’s because it’s named after HIM. His name was so famous, it’s mentioned in The Bible — “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s”. Hell, Shakespeare even wrote a play about him.

Caesar was architect of what later became The Roman Empire. (Technically, his adopted son Octavius became the “first emperor” Caesar Augustus, but it was Julius who started the transition of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire). His countrymen loved him so much, they gladly made him their consul, their tribune, their dictator. HE was the unquestioned ruler of all of Rome (even though they were still technically a republic). HIS face was on the coins of the realm, the denarius, and HE was being considered as a living deity. HE was becoming so big that he was making the wealthy patrician Senators jealous of his power and what they considered to be the wrong direction their country was taking. And HE was encouraging ALL of this consolidation of power. He could have honestly said and not been inaccurate (to quote Leo DiCaprio’s character in the movie “Titanic”), “I’m the king of the world.”

Until one day, he went out into public on what turned out to be his last day on earth and did not heed the advice of a soothsayer who told him to “Beware of the Ides of March.” So, on March 15 of that year of 44 B.C., Julius Caesar, the most famous, popular, significant person of his era, was attacked and stabbed to death by a group of mostly patrician Roman Senators, who thought that his death would allow them to keep their power and their precious Roman Republic. (Ironically, the death of Caesar would bring an end to the same republic they were trying to keep, and it instead became a nation-state ruled by an emperor). As legend has it, Caesar, while being stabbed, looked up and saw that one of the conspirators who was killing him was his alleged best friend Albinus Brutus, and so he turned to him and said, “Et tu, Brutus? Et tu?” (You too, Brutus? You too?) And then he died.

And you are wondering, what is Julius Caesar doing in a column about sports.

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Bruce Jenner was once a lot like Julius Caesar. No, he wasn’t a general, or an emperor, or a powerful world leader. But he was once very much of a worldwide figure, a SOMEBODY. HE won the gold medal in the 1976 Olympic Decathlon, which brings with it the title of the world’s greatest athlete. HE was an American sports hero, a guy who was universally liked by nearly every sports fan in the U.S., be they man, woman or child. HE was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. HE was on the cover of the box of Wheaties that people woke up to every morning at the breakfast table. HE won many of the various “Athlete of the Year” awards. HE, in his own sports celebrity way, was also “the king of the world.”

Bruce Jenner went toe to toe with the best decathlon athletes in the world, including the East Germans and the Soviets, at a time when many of the athletes of those countries were getting away with being juiced on steroids, and he BEAT them all. He ran 100 meters in 10.94 seconds, 400 meters in 47.51 seconds, the 110 meter hurdles in 14.84 seconds, the 1500 meters in 4:12.61. He long jumped over 23 1/2 feet, high jumped over 6’8″, threw the shot put over 50 feet, the discus over 160 feet, the javelin over 220 feet, and he pole vaulted over 15 1/2 feet — ALL in two days, to set the, at the time, new world record. I’d like to see Julius Caesar do THAT.

Jenner lived a reasonably normal life after his memorable performance in the Olympics, with various TV commentary jobs and acting appearances, a few forgettable movie roles, some game shows where he appeared as himself, mixed in with a brief stint as a replacement for Erik Estrada as one of the cops in “CHiPs” serving as projects that helped to get him re- adjusted to life in the real world again. He promoted track and field meets, raced cars for awhile (doesn’t EVERYBODY in show business like to think they are a race car driver?) and appeared in front of the public as a sane, likeable guy that continued to be perceived as a cherished and respected former Olympic champion.

He was living a normal life.

Until he became a Kardashian.

And thus began a downward spiral that has seen him turned into a bitch house husband to a bunch of spoiled and entitled social climbing skanks in front of a national cable audience. Seen him turned into an enabling parental weakling in the eyes of an entire generation of youth audience members under 30, who see him as the wimpy pushover father to all the Kardashian kids instead of the celebrated Olympic champion he once was. Seen him turned into, for want of a better word, a national joke.

Instead of doing what people do in other countries, which is to become a national patriarch of their country’s sports scene, or to become an elder statesman mentor to the new wave of athletes coming up, Jenner has instead abandoned his sports background and instead followed his plastic surgery-addicted Kardashian family into the vain, superficial world of spending all hours working at trying to be one of the beautiful people. Jenner began being obsessed with looking eternally young and ended up having so many surgeries to try to correct something, that he ended up looking strange looking, kind of like Michael Jackson. Bruce Jenner became fodder for the TV tabloid shows like TMZ and his every move became one more piece of evidence of his descent into Kardashian hell.

Bruce Jenner, instead of living the life of Bruce Jenner, fell into the trap of trying to live life in the fast lane and being Mister Kardashian, trying to keep up with the rest of his Kardashian clan. As the Kardashian show grew stronger with each passing year, Bruce Jenner grew weirder. Internet shows have footage of him doing things like wearing lipstick, cross dressing like a woman, painting his fingernails with nail polish, growing his hair long like a woman and living the life of a desperate man who has lost his way.

There’s something wrong with the picture we are seeing. American sports heroes are not supposed to dress up like a woman and get seen all over town like a walking freak show for the tabloid TV shows. They are not supposed to act like drama queens and effeminate girls, they are supposed to act like men.

Bruce Jenner, you have fallen off the golden path you were once on. Was the chase for reality show fame and money worth it? Is there something gnawing away at you that seems to feel wrong? Can you not see that the Kardashian way of doing things is skanky?

Julius Caesar died at the hands of assassins. He was on top of the world and he was done in by people that he considered his colleagues, his comrades and his friends. The decision was out of his hands. Bruce Jenner was on top of the world and his public image is dying, but he is being done in by decisions HE has made.

I think there needs to be an intervention. Get some of Bruce’s old friends and get him away from the Kardashian’s world of shallowness and decadence. Get him out amongst normal people again. Have a few beers. Watch football with the guys. Get him back to his roots. Back to where he can be a real person again.

The person who is killing off that which was once you is YOU, Bruce. You should look at some pictures of you when you were on top of the world, on the cover of Sports Illustrated and on the cover of the box of Wheaties. And then look at some of those pictures of you with the lipstick and the dresses, where you are playing the drama queen game as you try to keep up with the Kardashians. Then gaze into the mirror and take a long hard look and decide. Which one of you is REALLY you?

Et tu, Bruce? Et tu?