Posts Tagged ‘Olympics’

Olympicitis: The Fever Breaks, the Awards Are Handed Out

Posted: August 14, 2012 in Sports
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The Olympics have ended.  The two weeks blew by in Usain Boltian fashion.  They were fast, they were furious, and they did it all without Paul Walker.  The games were, as usual, riveting.  NBC gave us  brought out the stars, the “stars”, and even trotted out Apolo Ohno’s broke ass for. . .actually, what was Apolo Ohno doing there?  Modeling his goatee?  It must’ve had something to do with Subway.  I digress.

With Sunday’s closing ceremonies bringing the games to an end our Olympic fever has drawn to a close.  The closing ceremonies were a grand, Brit-Rock fueled pat on the back that was well-deserved by the host city.  But, if we as a people had Olympic Fever, watching the Spice Girls reunion pretty much served as a gigantic penicillin colonic that doused any remaining fervor.  The fever has broken.  We’ve moved on.  What a marvelous ride it was, indeed, and how greatly do I look forward to the next one.

So here are the Olympic awards that I would like to hand out:

Most Psychologically Dominating Performance:

Misty May-Treanor and Kerry Walsh-Jennings, USA Women’s Beach Volleyball

While there were a lot of great performances during these Olympics (*Author’s note: Bolt crushing fools, the U.S. Men’s 4×200 relay) none of them compared to the two Queens of beach volleyball obliterating the Italians in the sands at Horse Guards Parade.  It wasn’t the score that made this game so memorable.  What made the performance so dominating was that the American’s made their opponent cry.  DURING the match. 

This wasn’t a YMCA game between 3rd graders.  This wasn’t Gymnastics, where more tears are shed than the girls bathroom in a middle school.  This was a rough-and-tumble, Olympic sport that was supposed to feature some of the mentally and physically toughest women on the planet.  Marta Menegatti simply couldn’t hang.  She got a sandy backhand across her pretty Italian mouth from Uncle Sam’s nieces and broke down like a tweenage girl that just got dumped via text message.

A mid-match cry at the F-ing Olympics?  Silverback Gorillas don’t establish dominance that effectively in the Congo.

Best Spacesuits

Australian Pursuit Cycling Team

Wait, those aren’t spacesuits? 

Most Inexplicably Under the Radar Track Performance

David Rudisha, Kenya

David Rudisha is the fastest 800 meter runner ever.  Despite being humble, tough, and now a World and Olympic gold medalist, he doesn’t get much publicity.  To their credit, NBC did a piece on Rudisha, but other than that his phenomenal performance in the 800 didn’t get nearly enough love. 

Why does he need me to climb up onto my blog and shout like a drunk hype-man trying to whip a rap concert crowd into a frenzy for Rick Ross (*Author’s note: I’m pulling this reference from personal experience.  “I say Rick-eyyy. . .you say Roooo-Zaaaay!”)?

World records in the distance/middle distance events simply don’t get set at championships.  Most championship distance races are like pre-season NFL football games.  Sure, some of the names are big and there’s always a little excitement for a brief period of time, but for the most part it’s just a lot of guys jostling and trying to position themselves for the part that really matters.  In this case, the finish.

Rudisha, the long-striding Masai runner, trains on a dirt track at his prep school where he still lives in a small house on the school grounds.  His race was the single high-point of the Olympic Games for me, although I’m an admitted 800-meter honk, and I think that his superlative-exceeding race should have gotten more run than it did. 

Where Bolt was the flashy, bombastic, arrogant show-stopper, Rudisha came, conquered, and showed that he was worthy of the warrior title that his people had bestowed on him after his first World Championship.  (*Author’s note: a title that the Masai normally only give to lion hunters.  I can’t express how cool I think this is.  1) That there’s a tribe that has warriors badass enough actually hunt lions 2) That his people think highly enough of him to give him such an awesome honor.)

Here’s the video of his race, my apologies on the poor quality.

He wins from the front (which never happens in Olympic 800 races) and I’m convinced that the move he puts on the rest of the field at 1:44 in this video is the greatest surges I’ve seen in any race.  Ever.  He tows the rest of the field around to an insanely fast race and hangs on to explode the old WR and leave me shouting at my TV for a non-American harder than I ever have before during the Olympics.

In case you couldn’t tell, I think Rudisha was undersold and could just as easily have gotten the same amount of hype as Usain Bolt.  Admittedly, though, I am a Bolt-hater.

Best Name

Yoshie Takeshita, Japan Women’s Volleyball

A lot of people said her career had gone down the toilet after 2008, a lot of people thought she would be too blocked up to go (over the net for kills), but she came back to wipe those doubters off.

Best 1-2 Relay Combination

Shawn de Jager to Willem de Beer, South African 4×400 Relay

How’s the old saying go?  Jager before Beer, you get 8th place in the Olympic 4×400 final?  As my friend Eric said about this winning combination, “If you go Jager to Beer, then you know you’ll have to finish up by taking a big Pistorius.”

In all seriousness the real story with this squad was that they had double amputee Oscar Pistorius on the anchor leg.  After years of being kept out of Olympic competition he finally had a chance to run with the big dogs.  He did not disappoint. 

As a longtime fan of Pistorius, (*Author’s note: I wrote an opinion piece about him for my College’s student newspaper in 2008. ) I was proud to see him get his fair shot.

Sport That I’m Sad I Won’t Watch Again Until 2016 Award

(#3-Way Tie) Water Polo, Fencing, Rowing

Each one of these sports brought something to the table for me this Olympics and each sport will be sorely missed as I tune to the more mainstream events in America.  I’ll break each one down briefly.

-  Water Polo:  an intense, grueling, bathrobe-wearing brawl, I found myself drawn to the sport.  While on top of the water ripped men and women pass, shoot, and swim with reckless intensity, under the water the action is one part hockey, one part swimming, and one part shark attack scene from Jaws.  I was shocked at the U.S. team’s amazing run and even more shocked by how enjoyable I found the sport.

-  Fencing:  While the players in water polo often look like they want to stab each other, the competitors of fencing actually get to.  One day I watched a few hours of women’s fencing and the action was intense.  The fencers were lightning quick, agile, and after each point they would rip their helmets off and celebrate like they’d just been acquitted of murder charges and won the lottery simultaneously.  Great TV.

-  Rowing:  I found this sport to be exciting, foreign, and highly impressive.  I’ve canoed, kayaked, and paddleboated around many a lake and river.  To move anything through a body of water simply by using one’s athletic ability?  To row so efficiently that you practically hover over the water?  Amazing.

My only idea on these three sports to make them better?  Combine them.  Make rowing full contact.  Make ramming boats legal and give each boat a sword collection of swords.  If this sounds completely barbaric and insane, ask yourself, “what’s wrong with that?”

It looks like “The Itis” has died down.  I think I may be cured.  But, wait. . .what’s this strange tingling I’m feeling in my remote-hand?  This strange urge to plant ass to couch and remain vegetated there for hours on end?  Oh no. . .I may be coming down soon with an early onset case of footballpox.

FIN

A Hairy Proposition: Follicle Follies in Today’s USA V.S. Argentina Game

Posted: August 10, 2012 in Sports
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Today the United States takes on Argentina in Men’s Basketball.  I’ll be attempting to watch from a choppy, spastic, online feed in which the only picture that comes in clearly is the one showing how much world-class athletes love to drink Coca-Cola before, after, and during their Olympic competition.  (*Author’s note: Dehydration?  Deschmydration!)

It’s the semifinal matchup, with the winner advancing to play either Spain or Russia for the Gold Medal.  Sure the US has already won convincingly in the first matchup with their South American foes, defeating the Argentines 126-97 in the final game of group play.  But, for a hoop-head like myself, and as someone who ingests Olympic sporting events like a competitive eater does a Nathan’s Hot Dog on the 4th of July I couldn’t be more excited to see this matchup.

The U.S. also played Argentina in an exhibition match before the Olympics and won by a slimmer margin, 86-80.  When these teams hit the court today, whether you’re watching at home or on a computer window that has to repeatedly get minimized when anyone in charge walks past, here’s a breakdown of the most important part of this matchup: the hair of the guys playing in the game.  I know.  I know.  That sounds pretty stupid, right?  It is.  Read on.

While watching an Argentina team that features 4 decent-really good NBA Players (*Author’s note: with Manu Ginobili being on his way to the Hall of Fame someday) go up against a team that is the most loaded since the Dream Team in ’92 is certainly appealing, everyone knows the quality of basketball should be high.  But what I’m really intrigued by is the quality, quantity, and qui-what-the-hell-is-that-itude.  Here’s what we’re working with.

-  James Harden’s Beard: 

Harden’s beard has gotten about as much publicity as his blossoming game.  I’ve said before that it looks like Rick Ross had an illicit affair with a lumberjack and they named their secret love-child James.

If James Harden’s beard was a recipe it would read something like this:

1 cup Baron Davis

 1/4 cup of chopped Karl Marx

2 tablespoons Uncle Jesse from The Dukes of Hazzard

3 Teaspoons of Teen Wolf

Mix into a giant bowl, place into an oven at why-the-hell-doesn’t-he-just-see-a-barber degrees and give an uncanny, weirdly hard game to describe and you’ve got James Harden.

-  Anthony Davis’ Unibrow:

While Davis’ unibrow has been beaten to death.  He likes it.  I hate it.  I’ve made that clear in about 5 other posts that somehow touch on that ungainly piece of roadkill spilling across his face like a hairy oil spill that is inching closer together at the center of his eyebrows.  I’m waiting for him to hold a joint press conference with the CEO of McDonald’s and announce that this whole time the unibrow has been an elaborate marketing ploy to subconsciously get people to think of the “Golden Arches” every time Davis raises his eyebrows.  I’ll stop there.  You get the point.

-  Luis’ Locks:

Luis Scola plays for the Houston Rockets in the NBA.  And he’s a pretty good player.  But every time I watch him on the basketball court my eyes are sucked to his head; gravitationally yanked like I’ve wandered too close to a South American blackhole.

When he has his beard and hair going like he does in the above picture?  I’m thinking that when people tell him he’s got a pretty sweet “J” they aren’t referring to his jumper, but are actually saying that he has a pretty sweet “Jesus-lookalike-contest-opportunity.”

My best theory about why Scola rocks his hair like that is that he is actually the lesser known fourth Hanson brother, who was kidnapped while the band was touring in South America.  Realizing quickly that he kept screwing up the indecipherable lyrics to “Mmmbop” they refused the ransom and left him for dead.  Years later, after hitting puberty like a mofo and catching a massive growth spurt, he has emerged as Luis Scola, professional basketball player.  Again, just a theory.

In his mirror at home, Scola looks like an exotic, dashing Argentine with long, luscious locks.  On the court he looks like a 6’9″ Russell Brand.

-  Manu Ginobili’s Male-Pattern Yarmulke:

Manu Ginobili is destined for two clubs in the future.  The Hall of Fame.  And Hair Club for Men.  While I’d happily trade the second club’s stigma to be a member of the first club, I still feel that Manu’s hair, or lack thereof, deserves mentioning.

Where has Manu’s hair gone?  He used to rock a ‘do similar to his countryman, Scola, but the nomadic tribe of the Scalp-Back people appear to have migrated onward.  Perhaps chasing the elusive Argentinian buffalo across the wild plains of the highlands.  Perhaps they chose to leave the arrid, Ginobilian Backheads and migrate to the lush jungles of the Scolangelan Rift Valley.

The basketball on the court today will undoubtedly be stellar.  The hair on the floor will operate in stark contrast to the amazing skills on display.  Try to keep your eye on the ball.  Literally.  I bet you can’t for the whole time.

FIN

Olympicitis, The Fever Continues

Posted: August 8, 2012 in Sports
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We’re yet another week into the Olympics.  I’m still feverishly watching everything I can get my eyes onto.  Here are some more questions, observations, and random bits of hating on the Games.

Does this mean that Debbie Phelps has to get a job now?

Michael Phelps is done swimming.  At the start of these Olympic Games he looked like Jordan in his Wizards jersey.  Burned out, worn down, and keeping things interesting through his sheer talent levels.  By the end?  He looked like Michael F-ing Phelps, Greatest Olympian in the History of the Most Historically Rich Sporting Event Ever.  But, after racking up an astonishing amount of Olympic hardware, Phelps is ready to pack it in.

But I’m not as concerned with what will happen to Phelps.  I think he’ll be fine.  What fascinates me now is what happens to Debbie Phelps?

As Debbie Phelps kept getting more screen time than Tom Hanks in Castaway, kept competing with Justin Bieber for “Most Overexposed Non-Athlete of the Games” and kept vigorously campaigning for her son to drag his tired, pruny-from-excessive-cholorinated-water-exposure, ass to Rio de Janeiro it became clear: Debbie Phelps is Momaging her ass off.  Normally I avoid kitschy, obnoxious mashups of words in an effort not to sound like someone who listens to a lot of LMFAO, but in this case the term is inescapable.  It hovers around Debbie like the swarming mass of paparazzos around her son.  It clings to her like the females in the Olympic Village cling to Ryan Lochte.

Does Debbie know best?  Or is she just Kris Kardashian Jenner with a stopwatch and split times?  At the swim trials in Omaha she signed autographs for fans.  She’s the 5th worst idea Subway has had for marketing their subs during an Olympic year (*Author’s note: who is in charge of Subway’s marketing?  They have a retired, more-known-for-his-shoddy-dental-work-than-anything-else-anymore Michael Strahan, a retired – in Olympic sports, that means: irrelevant –  Apolo Ohno, a didn’t-make-the-team Nastia Liukin, and Robert Griffin the III hurdling towards a delicious avocado sub, even though he quit track after his freshman year at Baylor.  Sweet gameplan, guys.)

She keeps stumping, like a see-through politician, for Phelps to hang around and sully his legacy, and you get the feeling that she’ll be pushing him into the pool, even if she’s doing it with a cane and is seated in a rascal scooter.  What will she do with no coattails to ride?  Will she, **GASP**, have to get a real job?  (*Author’s note: I’m sure she’ll become a Momavational speaker.  I’m sorry.)

The All-Dirty Name Team for the XXX Olympics

Yes, it is a tired observation that this is the XXX Olympics.  Yes, I am aware that the Athlete’s Village ordered a staggering, record number of condoms for this year’s games.  No, I haven’t seen Vin Diesel and, no, I don’t think anyone will get that last joke.  Here’s a few of the leaders for the All-Dirty Name Team thus far:

Liam Tancock, Swimming (Great Britain)
Donald Suxho, Men’s Volleyball (USA)
Destinee Hooker, Women’s Volleyball (USA)
Giedrius Titenis, Swimming (Lithuania) (*Author’s note: his last name looks like the answer to a filthy, filthy riddle)
Coxswain, Rowing (Everyone) (*Author’s note: best gig in sports?  The coxswain.  They get to just chill in the boat and shout.  Plus, they can tell people they’re a coxswain.)

I know you guys have been watching the games, so who else should be on the team?  Help me out, here.  I’m just one man.  (*Author’s note: also, I was terrified to google Tancock, so I put in “Great Britain Swimming Olympics 2012 Tancock” in the hopes that I wouldn’t open Pandora’s box)

Best Dressed

The U.S. Men’s Water Polo squad.  I’m not talking about their star-spangled man-ers or their Red, White, and Junk speedos that would make a Euro trash beachgoer go lunging for a coverup and a sarong.  I’m talking about their fresh-to-death, make Hugh-Hefner-jealous bathrobes.  They’re part boxer, part plush resort item and all badass.  I think the U.S. Men’s Basketball team should definitely hold a shootaround in those.

Most Ill-Advised Goatee

(Tie) Asafa Powell and Felix Sanchez

Asafa once appeared to be the G.O.A.T.  After choking time and again in World Championships and Olympic competitions he may have to change that to just being a goat.  But for now. . .he can revel in the fact that it’s his Goatee that got my attention this Olympics.

Felix Sanchez won big in the 400 Hurdles, proving that he still had enough in the tank to get his second gold medal.  Where he lost?  The facial hair.  It was rather John Waters-esque and took what should have been a touching moment, Sanchez completely overcome with emotion at winning, and instead had me wondering aloud, “So, wait, is Skeletor from the Dominican Republic?”  Can you guess who the gold medalist was in this bunch?

What the F is Shaun White Doing at the Summer Olympics?

Why is Shaun White at the Summer Games?  I even understand NBC using Ryan Seacrest (*Author’s note: kind of) but the awkward, check-out-how-hip-we-are shot in the dark by NBC to choose to bring in a guy whose idea of training is waking and baking, jamming on a hemp beanie, and snowboarding down to the nearest Taco Bell.

Be honest with us, NBC, Shaun White is only there as Michael Phelps’ designated weed man, isn’t he?  It begs the question, how many dime bags can 18 gold medals get?  Wouldn’t you need something to calm your nerves if Debbie Phelps was constantly badgering you about going for Olympics number 5?

The only way it’s okay for Shaun White to be on TV, assailing my 1080p with his napalm-fire hair and Norweigan-coated-in-chalk-dust complexion is if at the end of the games they march White out and ceremoniously depants him and throw his skinny jeans into the Olympic flame.

I’m not sure if you all are getting tired of my Olympicitis posts, but they’re probably going to keep coming.  I’ve got a fever, and the only prescription is. . .more eye-melting hours of Olympics.

FIN

Olympicitis: A Debilitating Olympic Addiction

Posted: July 31, 2012 in Sports
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Hello.  My name is Chris and I’m an Olympiholic.

Last night I watched the Romanian women’s gymnastic team take on the Russian squad.  I’m not from Romania.  I still make ill-advised, dated Kremlin jokes about Russia.  So why did I, a 25-year-old man of sound mind and body (*Author’s note: well, relatively sound mind, at least) spend time watching a group of 16-year-old girls swing on the various gym apparatuses in a Soviet Bloc showdown when I should have been sleeping? 

And save all the responses of, “Because you’re a giant Pervert, man.  That’s why.” Because I don’t want to hear it. 

This wasn’t about me creeping on young, spandex-clad foreigners.  (*Author’s note: I keep digging a deeper, pervier-sounding hole here)  It wasn’t because I had an unrealized dream of competing for Olympic Gymnastic glory that had ended with me viciously pulling my 9-year-old groin trampolining my way through a Saturday morning class at the local YWCA, although that did happen.

No.  It’s because I’ve got the itis.

The itis is a recurring, problematic addiction that only rears its insidious head every 4 years.  This cyclical medical mystery is something that affects hundreds, potentially even thousands of otherwise normal people.

Do you find yourself watching badminton doubles at 2 in the morning?  Staying up late just to catch some more white-water rafting slalom championships?  Recording 7 hours of obscure competitions between countries that you only read about when touching on The Cold War in your 8th grade history class?

You’ve got the itis.

Do you catch yourself cheering wildly during an archery contest, as though you’re witnessing Robin Hood himself pull some arrow-on-arrow crime? 

That’s the itis.

Since I’ve got the itis, I figure I might as well drag you, my 7 dedicated readers down the NBC-run rabbit hole with me into a land of Kazakhstani weight lifters, Norweigan table tennis champions and Ryan Seacrest puff pieces.

Here’s a few of my observations from the first few days of the games:

The Opening Ceremony

Directed by the famous British director, Danny Boyle, this bajillion-dollar production featured dancing, heavy doses of group percussion, and Kenneth Branagh dressed a little like Abraham Lincoln (*Author’s note: the Emancipation Proclamation one, not the Vampire Slayer one).  While I was disappointed that a swarming horde of zombies didn’t invade the stadium, I thought it was a nice ceremony.

It had history, British pride, and the climactic moment in which David Beckham sawed off his own arm with a pocket knife after being trapped beneath an Olympic torch-boulder for 127 hours.  Truthfully, I thought it was very nice.  Did the Chinese probably crank more money, people, and slave-labor-hours into their production in ’08?  Sure.  Do I think the Chinese probably crank more money into everything?  Yes.

Ryan Lochte & Michael Phelps

Beloved by women everywhere for the fact that he is movie-star handsome and hangs out in 1080p in a speedo skimpy enough to make a European beachgoer blush because of his great swimming ability, Lochte was supposed to be one of the stars of this Olympic Games.  He has ads, magazine covershoots, and more screen time on NBC than Brian Williams.  In short, he was supposed to be the Michael Phelps of 2012. 

So far Lochte has delivered the goods in only 1 race, bringing home the gold in the 400 Individual Medley.  He relinquished a healthy lead in the 4×100 relay, getting swam down in the final 25 meters, and finished out of the medals in the 200 meter freestyle.  To make matters worse, he lost both times to a French guy.

Michael Phelps was also supposed to be, well, the Michael Phelps of 2012.  Which means he was supposed to be a little diminished.  A little ground down.  A little more Rocky 5 than Rocky 2.  But not to the point where he. . .(GASP!) didn’t medal in an event.

Both guys still have what experts in Olympic coverage refer to as “the grip” of events left to swim.  But, thus far, Phelps looks like Michael Jordan playing for the Wizards and Lochte looks like a mere mortal.  Let’s hope both swimmers can turn things around and make their impending showdown in the 200 IM be the epic, dramatic battle that it initially appeared to be.

Gymnastyics

One of the big draws in the early stages of the Olympics this year was the gymnastic competitions.  They were packed with drama, glitter, hair gel, and crazed parents  living very, very vicariously through their children.  And that’s just the men’s competition.

After watching a good chunk of the Men’s and Women’s team competition one thing has become abundantly clear to me: the Momagers/Dadagers of the US Men’s teams are way the F- crazier than the normally-borderline-psychotic Momagers/Dadagers of the US Women’s team.

Here’s Danell Leyva.  A pretty phenomenal gymnast, by all accounts.  And there, lurking in the background like the creepy guy who somehow manages to perv his way into Facebook pictures with the hot females taking “girls only” pics at the bar, is his father.

Boom!

And here he is again, doing his world-class gymnastics thing.  But there, in the background, lurking like some mustachioed vulture, waiting to swoop in on the cameras: Dad.

I’m not saying he shouldn’t be proud of his son.  I’m just saying that he needs to dial it back a little bit.  He’s getting more run on NBC than Tom Brokaw.  They have more slow-mo replays– usually of him screaming like William Wallace on the battlefields of Braveheart — than they do of his son’s actual routine.

It’s a sad day when you make the 16-year-old girls’ parents pale in comparison to your antics.

Most Gut-Wrenching, Stomach-twisting, Brutally Painful Reminder of the Sad Truth to the Olympics?

There’s a moment in every Olympic competition where things take a quick, kick-in-the-crotch turn for the worst.  When we’re reminded that someone has to be the loser in all of these events.  That moment?  Every single time NBC finds any athlete’s parents in the stands.  The loser?  Anyone watching 36 hours of Olympic coverage over a weekend.  In more ways than one. 

Once NBC finds a parent in the stands, it’s all over.  They give them close-ups.  Medium shots.  They give them slow-motion replays, frame-by-frame analysis, 3-D shots and probably upload their pictures to Instagram just in case we missed it.  Much like her son, Debbie Phelps, the onetime queen of Olympic camera-hoarding, has been replaced by a host of newer, less Subway-commercialized young talents.

Brace yourself, though, because I think the producers at NBC have just discovered where Missy Franklin’s parents are sitting at the swim meet.

I’ll be revisiting the Olympics frequently in the coming days.  Because, frankly, there’s nothing else going on right now.  And also?  I’ve got that itis.

FIN

Olympic Fever, Part III: 16 (Un)Bold Predictions About Tonight’s Opening Ceremony

Posted: July 27, 2012 in Pop Culture, Sports
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(*Author’s note: Tonight will mark the opening ceremonies for the 2012 Summer Olympics.  Here at Burnpoetry, our crunk meter is firmly entrenched in the red.  The first two posts of from this Manage a trois of over-eagerness basically served as the hypeman, the Flavor Flav of postings.  Here’s the actual post.  Hope you weren’t expecting Chuck D.  If fortune favors the bold. . .this list is probably flat broke.)

-  Bob Costas will prove that he’s the HBIC (Head Broadcaster in Charge) by holding it down in the booth so decisively that Joe Buck’s stone face actually cracks itself into a frown.

-  You will get that damn Olympic theme song stuck in your head.  You just will.  Don’t fight it.

-  NBC will spend an inordinate amount of time critiquing the fashion of the Olympic teams like we’ve somehow slipped into “Fashion Week.”  (*Author’s notes: for those of you drinking, take a drink every time you hear a designer/brand name.)

-  The cameras will find, and hover on, Lolo Jones for a little longer than they really should considering that she just finished 3rd at the U.S. Olympic trials in the hurdles.  I will become enraged that she gets so much love and proceed to lecture my wife and my four-week old son about this Lolo Lovefest.  Neither of them will care.

-  The International Olympic Committee will trot out the mascots of the Olympics.  They will be an ill-advised, stuffed creation that makes you realize that all mascots should be thrown into a scrap heap and napalmed into ash.  Too extreme?  Remember this from 1996?

-  There will be at least one ancient Brit-Band explosion — featuring a group that appears to have risen from the dead and corpsed their way onto the stage for one final, celebratory appearance — onto your screen that leaves you asking 2 things: 1) “Wait, those guys are still alive?”  and 2)  “Are those actually dead bodies being controlled by fly-wire in an elaborate marionette stunt?”  (*Author’s note: Odds on favorites for these 2 leading quote-getters: The Who 6:1 and The Rolling Stones 3:1)

-  Someone you’re watching with will make a bad-teeth joke.

-  NBC will hit a Brit up with a 1080p closeup and you’ll realize whomever made the joke was probably right.

-  I’ll find myself wishing that Dick Pound was still a Vice-President of the International Olympic Committee, purely for comedic reasons.  #freedickpound (*Author’s note: just don’t actually type that into Twitter.  Who knows what would happen.  I’m not going to lie, there was a moment right before I Googled “Dick Pound” when I was really nervous as to what would appear.)

-  There will be a team from some country you’ve never heard of.  They were probably either controlled by Russia, China, or another country you’ve never heard of.  You won’t be able to find them on a map, so you might as well just Google ‘em.

-  There will be a nation that has one representative.  Don’t feel bad.  Through some fluke and/or amazing skill this guy/girl gets to represent their great nation in athletic competition.  Or at least they’ll get to stay in the Olympic Village, which we’re always reminded of this time of year is a hedonistic, den of sin and orgiastic sex parties.  (*Author’s note: See, and there used to be such a hilarious Dick Pound reference here)

-  The Jamaican contingent will look like they’ve all been pounding Red Stripe and Coconut Rum to pre-game for their march.  They’ll definitely look like they’re having the most fun.  They probably are.  Just in case it isn’t clear that they’re super, super fun loving, Usain Bolt will primp, preen, and pose for the cameras like a WWE fighter in on their way to the ring.  NBC will eat it up.  I will want to vomit.

-  The cameras will do a split-screen of Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte and/or will get a shot of them walking side by side and Costas and Co. will hype the living shit out of their rivalry.  (*Author’s note: for the record, I’m definitely more of a Phelps fan.  You can’t pose like this and not have me jump ship on you.)

-  Somewhere, watching on a TV made out of goat antlers, leather-made-from-bat-wings, and the souls of mermaid children, Johnny Depp will find himself getting very excited about watching his home country host the Olympics.  He’ll then realize that he’s just been high for the last 20 years, was born in Kentucky, and needs to stop using a weird hybrid-British accent.  Tim Burton will inevitably be there too.

-  At least 4 members of Team USA Basketball will wear sunglasses during the ceremony.  (*Author’s note: Carmelo 4:1, Kobe 3:1, Coach K 60:1)

-  I will get way too excited to gorge myself on 24-hour Olympic coverage and will annoy anyone who is foolish enough to ask me about The Games with constant, ceaseless chatter.  I love the Olympics.

FIN

Olympic Fever: Catch It, Part Deux!!!!

Posted: July 27, 2012 in Pop Culture, Sports
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During today’s Olympic opening ceremonies, Burnpoetry would like to pay tribute to Kippy Strug, American hero.

FIN

Olympic Fever: Catch it!

Posted: July 27, 2012 in Pop Culture, Sports
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Burnpoetry’s got OLYMPIC FEVER!!!!!!!  Behold: Olympic Grandeur!

FIN

Top Five Sports Memories, Fourth Place: U.S. Olympic Swim Trials

Posted: August 1, 2011 in Sports
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As I set out to document my own personal experiences with sporting events I sort of meandered and dodged around a true ranking system in my initial writing.  After much thought and careful consideration, I’ve decided that these sports moments will, indeed, be in order of how much they meant to me.  In other words, disregard the first 200 words of my last post.

I also should have clarified in my earlier post that I will be limiting these memories to experiences that I witnessed as a fan and didn’t partake in as an athlete.

That being said, here’s fourth place in the Burnpoetry Sports Memory Hall of Fame:

U.S. Swim Trials: 2008

Let me preface this memory by stating that I’m an Olympics junkie.  I know that for some people the constant barrage of odd sporting events and massive marketing effort that are the Olympics just make them more of a nuisance and an impediment to a perfectly good summer of off-season football talk, but I view them as something more; something that strips away the politics and brings simmering nationalism to a full-on stars-and-stripes boil.

I’m that guy.  You know, the one who sits up at three in the morning shouting at the referees for the women’s fencing semi-final, screaming “Stab her.  Stab that dirty ____(insert Communist term here)___.  U.S.A. . .U.S.A. . .”  So it should come as no surprise that I also love the Olympic trials as well.  They’re the Star Wars: A New Hope to the Olympics’ Return of the Jedi.  They’re the Slim Shady LP to the Marshall Mathers LP.  You get the point. 

So you can imagine my excitement when I found out that Omaha would be hosting the 2008 U.S. Olympic Swimming trials.  Normally, swimming wasn’t even in my top five of sports, but every year when the Olympics roll around I would eagerly throw my undying support behind the red, white, and Speedo-ed.  I would immerse myself in the chlorinated world of Michael Phelps and Cullen Harper and marvel at the speed with which humans could rocket through the water.

My fiance got us tickets to the event and I could hardly contain my excitement.  We had three days worth of tickets, a cooler full of cheap beer and Diet Mountain Dew and hearts full of reckless spectator abandon.

The Trials didn’t disappoint.

During the lead up to the 2008 Olympic games Michael Phelps was the U.S.’s biggest star.  He was a man chasing history; chasing an impossible, Captain Blackbeard-like haul of gold.  

In 2008 Michael Phelps was after El Dorado, but first he had to land on South America.  The way to do that was for him to swim at the U.S. Trials.  A ton.  There were tons of subplots not involving the pre-bong-ripping phenom but his star was at its zenith during this period of time. 

The U.S. Swim trials were like nothing I’d ever seen.  They had pomp.  They had circumstance.  They had some type of lazer light show/waterfall that looked like something from the alien world on Avatar that was quite simply the coolest single piece of technology I’ve seen used at a sporting event ever.  I would spout out burst of water that would spell certain words in colored lights.  I kept grabbing my fiance’s arm and shouting, “Oh, wait. . .now check that out.”

The fans were packed in and raucous, the atmosphere was perfect — even getting free red white and blue shirts on the Fourth of July — and the athletic competition itself was brilliant. 

We saw something like 4-5 World Records and at least 7 American Records.  Phelps, Ryan Lochte (*Author’s note: if you didn’t already know his name, you will as soon as the Olympics start up again), and even an aging Gary Hall Jr. who came back out in his patented boxer robe, reading in garishly bejeweled letters “The Godfather of Swimming.”

With each swimmer’s entrance they would play thunderous music and the Star Trek worthy lazers.  It was more WWE than USOC (U.S. Olympic Committee) and it was exactly the kind of “badass factor” that I didn’t know a swimming meet could possess.

It was the importance of the even, coupled with a perfect atmosphere and phenomenal competition in each and every race, that made this event climb all the way to number four for me.  Not even the tweenage hill-billy sitting behind us, who was determined to shout a Deep-South-slurred “Gooo!” every time his favorite breast stroker’s head popped out of the pool or the countless dudes-wearing-less-than-old-pervs-in-a-sauna could ruin the mood.

The swim trials will be back in Omaha for 2012.  You bet your chlorinated, back-stroking ass I’ll be there as well.

FIN