On thin ice…
If he’s honest, Hawaiian has to admit that he can usually be described as an “ice freak” during the Winter Olympics, but this year Hawaiian finds himself giving the Games nothing but a cold shoulder.
I realized just how bad it was last night when I caught myself watching the elimination of Danielle (of “Gonzalez Eye” fame) from Beauty and the Geek instead of watching moguls or speed skating or whatever else was on last night. I felt like a traitor. Like someone who doesn’t care about his country. Like someone who won’t be able to discuss all of the drama of figure skating with the other gays. I felt like someone who would never learn the rules and intricacies of curling, and that made me sad.
It was the same feeling I had four years ago when a friend booked my flights to NYC for a weekend and had me on a plane during the entire telecast of the Oscars back when the Oscars mattered and the world didn’t have TiVo. I was a cultural outcast for weeks afterward and my current Olympic-sized apathy for all things gold, silver, and bronze is threatening to do the same thing. Except, of course, that the Olympics kinda suck this year, and everyone knows it.
So why do the Olympics suck? Well, it could be that Michelle is not there or that GoogleNews is the world’s worst spoiler or that the Cold War is so over that hockey doesn’t even matter anymore. It could be that Bode Miller, (my personal white trash superhero on skis) has crashed and burned in a way that only a star can. Or, it could be this other set of problems that no one else is really talking about, and so I should try to change that.
So here they are… other reasons the Olympics suck. Five of them. Like the Olympic rings. You can count.
1. The Oops… I Threw My Partner Too Hard figure skating debacle
So here’s the thing… if you throw your partner across the ice and she falls and can’t get up and then wants to skate again like 20 minutes later, you can skate, but you can’t have a medal. If your music stops, then so do you. It’s just that simple. Second chances give people nothing to be bitter about. Unless, of course, you’re one of the like 20 pairs who didn’t get one.
2.Shaun White. Everything About Shaun White.
All I can really think when I see this kid is… Dude, where’s your helmet? Please find it and put it back on. It’s bad enough that his nickname is The Flying Tomato, but now he has a gold medal, which means there’s probably a Campbell’s soup commercial somewhere in his future. For the record, I have no problem with snowboarders getting huge endorsement deals, but I do have a problem with it when those snowboarders look like lesbians.
3. Johnny Weir doesn’t really want a gold medal
So all day long, all of the commentary focused on how tentative Johnny was in his long program and how he didn’t seem to really want to challenge Plushenko for the men’s figure skating gold. Well guess what, people? Johnny didn’t want the gold medal, or any other color for that matter. Everyone keeps talking about how heavy they are, and Johnny clearly knows that’s not going to work on that damned charm bracelet he wears around his neck.
4. An Apolonian Misnomer
In case you don’t know, this is Apolo Anton Ohno. And for all of those commentators who clearly don’t know, that bit of growth on his chin is NOT a soul patch. It’s a landing strip. And while you don’t usually see that shape on men very often, you can see plenty of it in Playboy. Apolo’s not winning because champions don’t have landing strips — their girlfriends do. The landing strip, after all, is built for comfort and not for speed. You know who’s sporting a soul patch at the Olympics? The superhot Seth Wescott. Guess what kind of medal Seth just won.
And finally, because it hurts me so….
5. Grandma Luge
I know that 50 is the new 40 or whatever, and I’m sure that when I’m 52, I’ll also be in denial about it, but Grandma Luge just needs to go home. Whatever age she thinks she is in her head, she’s still 52 downstairs, and I don’t need the kind of closeup that the luge position, the high velocity, the spandex, and the NBC cameraman conspire to create. My own mother is 53, and I know she would never want to be on display like that. Ever. And God bless her for it because my mother would ride the luge in her muumuu. Grandma Luge broke her wrist in competition, and is arguring that she was unfairly eliminated. I know she’s running out of second chances at her age, but she needs to go home before she breaks her hip. Go home, Grandma. Go home and cover yourself.
So yeah, that’s just a bit of what’s wrong with the Olympics this year. What’s right so far? Chad Hedrick(but only from certain angles), Tanith Belbin(Thank God for acts of Congress), and some of those curlers from New Zealand. I never knew I could care about curling quite this much.