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Torn, Karn, Bozzio |
Polytown |
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Toy Matinee |
Toy Matinee |
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Fu-Shnikens |
Can I Rock? |
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Mike Keneally |
Nonkertompf |
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Fates Warning |
No Exit |
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Triathlon
Buttocks I'll BONK
anytime I damn well please, thank you very much. (9-20) I didn't
know why we were all excited. I didn't have any clue what
was going on, what I was looking at, or why it mattered. I
just knew that something cool was happening, and that it was
important enough to cheer about. It was 1980, and the US
Olympic hockey team had just beaten the 'hated' Russians. It
would take me about 10 more years to realize the actual
significance of the event, but I do remember the family
watching the thing and going bonkers when the final buzzer
sounded. When it came
to the Olympics, I liked watching the bobsled teams, and the
only reason for that was the chase scene at the end of one
of my favorite James Bond films. Once I realized that none
of the Olympic bobsledders were spies, the whole thing sorta
lost its luster for me. But as a general rule, my family
always watched the Olympics. Growing up in Colorado where
the athletes trained for the games, there was always some
reason to be interested -- some sort of 'local boy wins
gold' type of story that kept my family glued to the
TV. The Olympic
Training center is still in Colorado Springs, but I don't
know if it's the same big deal anymore that it was back in
the 70's. My parents, and my mother in particular, always
enjoyed watching the Olympic games. Back then, while the
Cold War was still going on and sports coverage was much
less smothering like it is these days, "The Games" actually
carried a lot more significance to people in this country. I
know people still get into it, but it's always on a
peripheral level, and it tends to give one of history's most
incredible spectacles sort of a "fad" type of feel when it
comes around every four years, sort of like the way people
only get really interested in Politics when an election
comes around… Ice Skating
in particular was a much bigger thing when we lived in
Colorado. I clearly remember a long, long, long, car ride we
took to go watch Dorothy Hamill practice her ice skating
routines. But oddly enough, I only remember Dorothy Hamill
as the impetus for making the trip. Here's how
weird I am: I must
have been four or five years old -- I don't remember
eating hotdogs, I just remember the plastic
machine that cooked the hotdogs. It had a
window, and it spun the dogs around a heat source,
kind of like they do at convenience stores. For all I
know the heat source was a light bulb, and the Sadlers
had purchased an Easy Bake Oven, but it didn't matter
to me. All I know was that one day I was within
shouting distance of world champion figure skater
Dorothy Hamill, and all I could think of was
wieners. Come to
think of it, we had a lot of that "Call this 800 number to
order" stuff when I was a kid. I think everyone had Ginsu
knives at that time in history, but I think ours were
ordered from the 800 number, and not at a store where the
box said "As Seen On TV." We had recipe cards that came in
the mail, and orange colored plastic things that were
supposed to let you juice an orange instantly. (As far as I
remember, those never EVER worked). But I don't
think that my parents were TV junkies as much as it seemed
most people in the late 70's and early 80's were unfazed by
the idea of purchasing products that they saw on television
commercials. As a matter of fact, we bought just about
anything if it was advertised well enough. We'd go to
Exxon for gas, and after 8 gallons would get a commemorative
Christmas glass. We (and everyone else I ever knew) also
made pilgrimages to Burger King every week to get the latest
edition of the "Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the
Jedi" glassware sets (James Belcher still has a complete
set.. the lucky bastard - Josh and I managed to break all of
ours). When you
went to Burger King, you ordered your meal, got the special
glass, and then you sat it on the table at burger king, put
your head down equal to the level of the table, and you
would then slowly
rotate
the glass so you could take in all of the memorable moments
from the movie, captured in vinyl paint on a tumbler. Lando
Calrissian, the imperial guards in their red robes, and the
informative little blurb "introducing" you to Darth Vader.
…And of
course it was Burger King, NOT McDonalds that offered the
Star Wars toys. Burger King, back when there was actually a
character named "Burger King", whose nemesis was the Duke of
Doubt... You
kids today with your Talking Chihuahuas.. But anyways,
as the communist threat faded over the next few years, the
Olympics (snuck back to that topic pretty smoothly, eh?)
just weren't very interesting anymore. Sure, there was the
Jordan/Barkley/Magic "Dream Team" thing, and the
professional hockey players "Dream Team," but these were
like bones tossed to the regular sports fan. The Olympics
started to get dull for me once I started to notice that the
actual games being played were really boring. Synchronized
swimming, softball,. curling... Sports
became enormous in this country because of the personalities
and long developed rivalries that developed within the
games. The perfect proof of this is our national fascination
with Pro Wrestling, which isn't
even a sport at all,
but is so entirely steeped in the attitudes and
personalities of the competitors that fans could care less
if the whole thing was scripted or not. Fact is, "The Rock"
could probably kill "Triple H" easily, but if he did... well
what would be the point in watching? If the
better conditioned wrestlers always won, it would be
like the world champion sprinter who is reputed to be the
fastest man in the world beating all the other sprinters for
a gold medal just like.... everyone… expects him
to… Because we
are not allowed to gradually get emotionally attached or
build up allegiances to the Olympic Athletes, the whole
thing always sorta feels posed and plastic. See, I was
raised to love football, so in comparison, Track and Field
rarely does much for me. My little brother was a Gymnast for
a while, so we had a rooting interest in that as a family,
but except for the movie "Gymkata" (which I adore) nothing
really lasting or exciting ever came of it. But, when
you're spending time with Mom and Dad or flipping channels
while feeding the baby, it's hard not to stop and at least
watch for a while. Unfortunately, no matter how much I try
to like it, it's always the same old thing, and it tends to
get boring pretty quick. My mother
still gets pretty heavy into it though, and last weekend
when we paid our visit, she started slamming me with
questions about Ian Thorpe, whom I had never heard of until
that day. It turns out Ian Thorpe is some really tall
Australian Swimmer with size 16 feet, who is apparently set
to set or break all sorts of world records in the
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz............. Sorry, did I
nod off there? Then we
watched large portions of the first ever Olympic Triathlon,
showcasing the finest flat-assed skinny whack-jobs from
around the world, swimming across the harbor, bike riding
for 100 miles, and then running laps around the city.
(hey,
just put on some speedos and shoot yourself in the head..
might save us a couple of hours…)
So we
pick up the action now as American Challenger Hunter
something-or-other makes his move on the cycling leg of the
competition. Hunter has been a triathlete since he was 10,
and it has always been his ambition to
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......... There
is human drama, and the excitement of competition
is clearly there, but most of the time we've
never heard of any of the athletes (not to mention the sport
they compete in) and we have to rely totally on the
over-schlocked TV production to give us all our background
and emotion on the event. You feel forced into loving the
Australian guy and hating his South African rival. It's all
kind of pushed on
you,
like a movie script -- and in the
froofier
events it always comes off feeling very staged, very
scripted, and I have a hard time getting into it. Kim and I
watched a good part of the women's gymnastics competiton
last night. There wasn't much else on, and the baby needed
to be held quietly or else he would go into one of his
unstoppable crying jags. The main plot of the competition
revolved around the injury weakened Chinese team, the
Russians who would settle for nothing less than Gold
(translation: Stormtroopers), the Americans who.... oh who
cares -- they were Americans, and the cute and cuddly
Romanians, who were not supposed to win anything
(translation: Ewoks). And of
course the Romanians are awesome, and the Chinese rallied,
our American sweethearts don't break their ankles (giving us
no reason to love them), and this one tall and wiry Russian
girl looked like she wanted to murder everyone in the
building. She was strong, athletic, and in a way
graceful, but she was such
a bitch
about the whole thing (apparently the Russians lost by a
tiny, tiny margin, which they blamed solely on this one
chick, and she in turn blamed her teammates for chumping up
her chances of being on a Wheaties box or being the love
interest for Joey on a special episode of "Friends," or
whatever) that it was just hilarious to watch her go through
the motions with this scowl on her face. I personally
was hoping for some sort of catfight to add to the interest,
but all I got was a skinny Russian girl with a silver medal
around her neck looking pissed off. I guess I
miss the days of real subtext, of stone faced communist
coaches and bright eyed young competitors who honestly
couldn't care less about how their performance benefited the
party. Back then it was easy to fall in love with the
Nadia's -- because it was just little girls bouncing around
like little girls with those huge smiles on their
faces. Now it's
YOUNG WOMEN who performed at the world championships and the
Pan Am and Goodwill games, YOUNG WOMEN who already competed
in the last Olympics, and are looking for that "triple
crown" sort of win at this year's competition. Nowadays you
hope to god that someone will hire a fat dumbass to
club their closest
competitor in the knees.
Sure it cheapens the spectacle of the event, but it at least
adds something we can all wrap our hands
around... One thing I
do have to point out though, I had a lot of fun
watching Kim watch the gymnasts. I think most
women watch gymnastics like guys watch regular sports. In
the decade before Grrrl
Power,
little girls were frequently railroaded into Ballet lessons,
which often moved into Jazz, Tap, and tumbling classes.
Athletically inclined girls frequently (and I say frequently
because I don't want to stereotype as much as point out that
before the last decade women were still largely relegated to
"safe" sports and games in this country) competed in Track
and Field, as the idea of women's basketball, softball, or
any sport with a ball other than field hockey was frowned
upon. So when
women watch gymnastics and track events, they frequently
understand the techniques and tricks involved,
and will comment on them in a knowing sort of way -- Much
like a guy would watch Arena League Football or Roller
Hockey and comment on someone's sub-par pass blocking or
forechecking techniques. Kim was constantly pointing out
moments when the gymnasts were being "too wooden" or "not
enough like a dancer." And my wife is a football junkie, so
eventually she got to the point where she was kind of
yelling at the TV, much like she does during football games.
It was very cute to watch. I also had
some idea of what was going on in the event as well because
of my brother's involvement in gymnastics, and as much as I
find the Olympics dull and boring, there was a point where
the two of us were both throwing our hands up at the
television shouting, "You call that a half-gainer?
Cripes, my dead
grandmother
could stick a landing better than you!" So I have to
admit to having a good time watching the Olympics, but
only because I was treating it like a football
game. As a matter of fact, I think that the key to making
the Olympics more interesting overall would be to treat the
entire event like a football game. Think of it!
The ever so boring diving competitions would really be
spiced up if there were marching bands playing that
Tomahawk
Chop
song, or quick snippets of "Rock
You Like A Hurricane"
being played before the Archery competition starts.
Greco-Roman wrestling is dying for pre match interviews by
Mean
Gene Oakerland,
and there's just something that seems right in my mind about
the San
Diego Chicken
performing at the Horseback riding events. Look, if
Dick
Vitale
was commenting on the Track and Field, I would go to a
sports bar just so I could be seen watching the decathlon.
After all,
what's the point of a global sporting event if there's no
excuse to hold up a cup full of watered down Coors Light and
scream, "I'm
on Jumbotron! I'm on
Jumbotron!"
But instead
we've got Hannah Storm and Bob Costas in easy chairs,
somberly telling us about the free
condoms
at the Olympic village in the same tone of voice you hear
from Uncle Morty when he's talking about the time he almost
talked his way out of a speeding ticket. I mean,
free
condoms
for the athletes? Who cares about world records, lets find
out whose taking advantage of this little Olympic perk! Talk
about a much more interesting spectator sport than beach
volleyball! You've got
to think that maybe the Russian ice queen would see things
differently if she realized what exactly is implied by the
fact that Ian Thorpe has a size
16 foot. The guy's
nickname is "the
torpedo"
for crying out loud! Thanks
Bob, well it's been a rough go for the usually
infallible pros from the NBA who make up the dream
team as they have tried many different approaches
with Ms. Kornikova, only to be turned away at every
opportunity. Perhaps most shocking of all was the
early 10 point deduction suffered by US forward Vin
Baker, who made a disparaging comment about the
sport of hockey, apparently oblivious to the fact
that Kornikova has dated several prominent NHL
players in recent years. Color analyst Marc Jacobs,
what can the American Men do at this
point? Well
Paul, they've obviously dug themselves a fairly
deep hole here, and all of this is being
complicated by the sudden insurgence of the
Australian men's Field Hockey Team, including the
strapping young newcomer, Reginald Hornby, who, if
you recall single handedly worked the wall with the
synchronized swimmers from Sweden, showing just how
much this home field advantage means to these
Olympic Games…. So long,
sports fans…
What
I remember clearly about the "Dorothy Hamill
Training Trip" was that the folks who we went with
-- The Sadlers, -- had just purchased some sort of
space-age kitchen appliance which was created for the
singular purpose of cooking hot dogs. You know, the
Ronco Hot Dog Machine (or whatever), yours from this
special TV offer for only $19.95?
you have no idea what it was like.
.. excuse me? Hey
babushka, it's a silver medal! Do you realize how much it
would cost me to order one of those from the Franklin
Mint?
Tonight
on tape delay we bring you coverage of the Romanian
women's swim team as they attempt to hook up with
the two "cute" guys from the German handball
contingent. This should be a very exciting matchup
considering that in the preliminaries the Romanians
were dealt a cruel blow when a language barrier
kept them from advancing to the semi's in their
matchup with the Long jumpers from the host nation
of Australia. Right now we are going to send you to
the medal round of the US men's basketball team,
the infamous "dream team" as they are known, trying
to win it all with Russian tennis pro Anna
Kornikova….
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