I love the Olympics. Mock the opening ceremonies all you want to (God knows we did; what was more ridiculous – the little Italian kids towing plastic cows around while the Ricola guys made moose calls on the giant horns, or Rob Lowe singing and dancing with Snow White at the Oscars?), but come on, 418 televised hours of amusement, awe, and at times, sheer terror are well worth the price of admission.
I love the half-pipe. I want to be one of these people in my next life. Just to get a chance to fly. Right now when I watch them all I can think about is how many of them have chiropractors on retainer. And where else in the world can former skateboarding slackers get so much public attention, and maybe, maybe some money? (Can you actually be called a slacker anymore once you’ve made the Olympic team?) Bizarre outfits, though. They look like old-fashioned prisoners swimming in uniforms seven sizes too big. Or, an Olympic version of the clothes they normally wear.
I even love those little misty, Vaseline-lensed profiles of the favorites in each sport. While the bobsled run is being resurfaced or the judges argue over a score, Bob Costas runs his interview: Here’s Sven, who hails from a mountain village in Norway so remote that he only had a yak for a friend. He and his family had to boil snow for fresh water and chip lichen off of the walls of caves so they’d have enough to eat. But little Sven had a calling. Even as a tot he’d swipe a log from the woodpile, hug his tiny arms around it and slide down the mountain. And as he grew stronger and stronger from trudging back up the mountain with the log strapped to his back with elk sinew and a pair of shed yak antlers for poles, he got faster and faster. And now here he is, just seventeen and Norway’s best hope for a medal in the luge…and cut to Sven at the gate, crashing and burning on his first run, flipping end over end like a confused salmon until he comes to rest against the orange netting.
Never fails. It’s like being on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
I’ll stop anything to watch professional ice-skating, just because I admire the skill it takes to get even half as far as any of these people. First you have to born with the right body. And then you go to work your ass off on the skating part. Even the bad skaters are better than I ever was or ever will be. The only trick I was able to master in ice-skating was skating backwards, which would come in handy…like, never. Watching Olympic ice-skating, I drift into a sort of Walter Mitty-esque haze, like Snoopy on his doghouse pretending he was the World War I flying ace on his Sopwith Camel off to get the Red Baron…
...here's the graceful but freakishly powerful young skater about to start her Olympic short program....
“Here comes that graceful but freakishly powerful young skater everyone’s been talking about, Dick.”
”Yes, Peggy, she’s just amazing. And a get a load of that costume. I understand she refused the usual skating skirt for a more practical and definitely more stylish unitard. And I have to say that purple is her color.”
“And not only is she easy on the eyes, Dick, but she was the first woman to land a triple axel triple toe triple loop sequence in competition and she opens with that combination, here it comes, and….woh-ho! Look at that!”
“She nails it! Absolutely amazing, Peggy. Oh. Oh, wait.” Dick cups his hand around his earpiece, suddenly looking serious. “I’m hearing some terrible news.”
“What's that, Dick?”
“Well, it seems that somebody attacked Bob Costas with a tire iron in the men’s room.”
“My Lord, Dick. Is he all right?”
“Yes, but they say he kept holding his knee and crying “why, why, why?’”
“Do they know who did it?”
“No, but allegedly a witness said he smelled like a yak.”
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5 comments:
Heh. Great twist ending to that little foray into fantasy land. Not a triple axel, but still, a good twist and a funny blow off. I like it.
Spectator sports, like nearly all our other entertainment, are all about vicarious wish fulfillment -- we watch these people do things we could never ever do in our lives, and we project our own essences into them from the grandstands or our recliners, and for a brief, transcendant moment, we are suspended in the air in the middle of a perfect dismount, or hurtling down the field with the pigskin cradled in one arm, dodging opponents and breaking tackles as we bob and weave, or we are simultaneously throwing and then catching that perfect pass, often with a spectacular acrobatic extension that requires a lifetime of training and conditioning to be able to pull off.
It doesn't matter what the sport is, although, of course, different events appeal to different people. All that matters is, it has to be something we can't do ourselves... which, since most of us are pretty much useless, and all us geek types are entirely useless at anything physical, allows us to approach the entire spectrum of sports wide eyed and open to the thrills of identification.
Me, I don't get into the Olympics that much, but I admit, if I happen to be walking by a TV where someone is doing something on a set of bars, either parallel or uneven, I'll stop and watch for a while. My fugue states tend to come when I'm watching concert movies or rock videos; I love to imagine myself up there, playing guitar or keyboards or drums, singing away with the rest of the band. I rarely get into athletics the same way I get into rock n' roll.
Still, I recognize the impulse, and believe it is nearly universal, and may well be the primary reason writers get no respect. How many people out there who can't write a lick fantasize about being that nerdy guy or gal, sitting at their keyboards clackety clacking their way through the perfectly turned phrase?
I wouldn't mind being P.J. Rowlings....
That's 'J.P', I think. (I'm not sure, but two of the SuperKids adore Harry Potter, which I can forgive them, because, you know, they're children and don't know any better.)
Me, I always said I wouldn't mind being Stephen King, but that was before the car accident and the pain med addiction and anyway, I don't want to BE him, I just want to have his stature with publishers and his fan base, or, you know, a similar one.
My dream would be to have the courage, trust & ability to do the luge -- something very fascinating about, in such an unprotected way, letting your body speed down an icy path. In my fantasies I can be quite a reckless "risk taker" --of course my son was that in reality. Got him to the bathroom floor!!!!!
Guess some risks get you farther than others...
I'm just wondering who was the first person who figured out that you could fly down a mountain face-up on a plank with blades and live.
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