Sid, Neve & Gliz - Torino 2006

Crap. I’ve been alerted by Neve and Gliz that the Winter Olympics begin next month and I haven’t even started training yet. Neve and Gliz are the official mascots of the 2006 games. Neve is supposed to be a “soft, friendly and elegant snowball” but really appears to be a cross between Lemonhead and the Cingular Wireless logo. Gliz claims to be a “lively and playful ice cube” that is obviously a hybrid of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and the AOL guy. Some Portuguese artist actually won the competition with those drawings, but I allege it was fixed and demand that the judging panel be drug tested. But I digress.

It’s not looking like I’ll be there for the opening ceremonies in 2006, but maybe it’s for the best. You see, I’m a dirty two-timing bastard. I’ll explain in a minute.

Way back in the old days when the athletes were still wearing fur togas and participating in primitive events like the icicle toss and the hardest nipple competion, Moist Rub and I were sitting around watching Olympic coverage. It was that or attempt some Theoretical and Applied Mechanics homework. Being the patriotic type, I donned my red, white and blue skin suit and dutifully tuned into the proceedings. Seeing as my career in engineering wasn’t working out as planned, I considered life as an Olympic athlete and began to peruse the events.

Skiing
Downhill: I have the feeling that these guys get all the chicks. While this aspect intrigued me, I realized that I really didn’t have a chance competing against an Austrian guy whose mother gave birth to him on a chairlift and who completed his first run before the umbilical cord was cut. So all alpine events are out. Alpine events include any events in which gravity will likely kill me while trying to chase down guys named Franz. I went skiing last year and my 62 year old instructor suggested I stick to snow angels while she worked with Mrs. F’er. Just as I had swept out a perfect angel, they both came skidding in and covered me and my angel in a pile of fresh powder, laughed, and then went to drink hot chocolate at the chateau with some charming studs with French accents.

Freestyle: The Winter Olympic Committee was having a breakfast meeting trying to figure out how to increase the ratings, when one of them glanced over at the Wheaties and noticed a gymnast on the box. “Those gymnasts always get all the attention!” he declared, and vowed to bring the acrobatic grace to the slopes. Unfortunately, the dope smoking slackers that signed up for the freestyle skiing competition weren’t nearly as endearing as the diminutive pixies of the mats. I think I could handle the dope smoking part, but I’m not sure I could land on my feet while altered. Better not take any chances.

Ski Jumping: Face planting into the side of a mountain is pretty low on my list of things to do before I die. Also pretty low on my list of ways to die. I need to update that list. Each year a few additional ways occur to me and they must be properly ranked. That way people can consult the list after my demise and decide how much to grieve. If someone tries to tell Mrs. F’er, “That’s the way he would have wanted to go,” she can just pull out the list to confirm and punch them in the nose as needed.

Cross Country: Eliminates the threat of gravity, but seems too much like jogging in really crappy weather. I don’t even like jogging in nice weather. I don’t even like jogging on a treadmill in a temperature controlled health club with a cold bottle of water by my side while watching Full House reruns on a color TV in the corner. I did a 10k once that was part of the Cowtown Marathon in Fort Worth. If you go slow enough, stop for all the water breaks, and take a couple cigarette breaks you can finish about the same time the first marathon runners are coming in and people will mistake you for one of them. At least they might if you aren’t wearing a velvet track suit and Princess Reeboks. I don’t care how bad my country needs me, I’m not signing up for this event.

Nordic Combined: A combination of ski jumping and cross country. Weren’t you listening when I said I’m not doing cross country? Or face planting into the Alps?

Biathlon: Combines cross country skiing with… I told you I’m not doing… wait, what did you say….? I get to shoot stuff? Like bad guys? Wild turkeys? Just targets? Nevermind. See above. Besides, it’s probably a real pain in the ass to get your rifle past security on the flight to Italy, then you have to try to jam that and your skis into the overhead bin. Besides, I don’t think I’d like to participate in any event where the competitors carry artillery. I’m sure there are rules against capping the competition, but I just don’t want to take that chance.

Snowboard
I’ll be going snowboarding at the end of this month. If anyone is short of cash, meet me there with a digicam and I’m sure I’ll provide you some footage that will lock up first place on America’s Funniest Home Videos of Cute Babies, Hilarious Pets, and Stupid People Being Severely Injured. I have a fear of being tethered to stuff. I think it started when Greg Brady got hit in the head with his own surfboard after mistaking the dangerous Tiki idol as a good luck charm in Hawaii. Then I hit myself in the head with a racquetball racquet and became the first person to draw his own blood in that sport. So I’m not holding out hope that the Olympic Committee is going to be recruiting me anytime soon for this event.
Besides, I’m an old man and don’t know what the hell Jim McKay is talking about when he starts throwing down terms like whoops, waves, banks, kickers and spines during the half pipe competition. I thought that’s what they had to smoke before starting their run.

Skating
Figure Skating: Any activity that requires wearing sequins is not a sport, and I’m not wearing sequins. However, some of those skater chicks develop quite the little cupcake asses, so I might be talked into the pairs competition if you can hook me up with one of them hotties. But then there’s always the chance that a jealous Mrs. F’er will club me in the shin with a lead pipe and then I’d forever have to watch a clip of myself on television crying in an ice rink in my poofy sequin shirt. I’ll never live that down with my buddies down at the steel mill.

I’m not sure why Ice Dancing is in the Olympics, but if they’re going to include it they need to raise the difficultly level so that there are more crashes. Or maybe set themselves on fire. I heard they were going to eliminate this silly event, but then they saw the ratings for Dancing with Desperate Out-of-Work Stars and Skating with Fringe Celebs and decided “what the hell - those dumbass Americans will watch.”

Speed Skating: I almost joined a speed skating club one winter, but hockey looked like more fun. Then I got hit in the ankle with a puck and the speed skaters laughed at me while I sobbed in a snow bank. Bastards.

Ice Hockey
I don’t want to play any sport in which it’s considered a miracle if the US wins.
They added women’s hockey at some point, but I don’t think anyone noticed.

Curling
You know those guys at the gym that just do curls all the time and have huge biceps so they can wear tiny shirts and impress chicks, but never work out the rest of their body and have those skinny disproportionate legs? It’s not that I’m checking them out, but they crack me up. But I digress and it’s not that kind of curling. Olympiad curling is just like hockey except you can’t hit the other team, and instead of firing high speed shots at the other team’s goal while on skates, you just kind of walk around the ice in your loafers and play shuffleboard with a broom. Kind of looks like a janitor’s convention at an ice-age bowling alley. I’ll pass.

Skeleton
What we used to call sledding when we were kids. I painted “Rosebud” on the deck of my bad-ass sled, but none of the other kids got the reference. Dumbasses. Other kids showed up with the round plastic disc sleds that were fast, but had no steering mechanism and usually ended with a fiery crash into the monkey bars at the bottom of the hill. OK, so they weren’t fiery, but it wasn’t pretty. It ain’t pretty after the pretty leaves you ass up in the snow. The third class consisted of the poor kids that would raid the garbage of the more debt ridden families for the discarded boxes of large Christmas purchases and use the flattened boxes as makeshift sleds. Worked pretty well unless it was a wet snow which would leave one sitting dejectedly in a pile of wet pulp, until one of the disc riders knocked himself out and allowed his disc to be commandeered.

The skeleton competition is all about speed, so you have skinny guys in aerodynamic skin suits lying head-first upon a light-weight carbon cookie sheet attached to razor sharp speed skating blades going about 130 km/hr. That’s about 80 mph for those of you that never adopted the metric system. Kind of makes the Olympics a pain in the ass. The course appears to be a juiced up water slide at Wet n’ Wild except the water is frozen and instead splashing into a refreshing pool at the end, you crash into a sheet of ice if you screw up. The rough ice and friction shred your skin suit, burn off your skin and other necessary body tissues, leaving just a pile of bones; hence, the name skeleton. High penalty for failure, so I’m out.

Luge
Looks about the same as skeleton, except these wusses go down feet-first because they’re scared. Instead of medals, they should just give them chests to pin them on. Huh?

Bobsleigh
This incorporates the same Roid Rage Water Park that skeleton and luge use, but with a little more protection offered by the sled. This could work. All I needed was a teammate. I recruited Moist Rub and the US Bobsled Dream Team was formed. We would start our training right after happy hour next Friday. Surprisingly that didn’t work out, but the dream lived on as we attempted to build our own sled out of the plethora of emptied aluminum Stroh’s cans scattered amidst the house using only a staple gun and a psychology textbook. We never got to try it out, but it was probably for the best. I’m also thinking that there might have been some sort of issues concerning commercial endorsement. Not from the Olympic Committee but from Stroh’s for denigrating their brand.

A few years later (probably four, to be exact), LA Ray and I were sitting around watching Olympic coverage at the local tavern. It was that or get off our stools and play darts at the local tavern. LA Ray began to extol the greatness of curling. I was skeptical at first, but after careful thought I realized he was onto something. It doesn’t require much physical training. Low risk of death. Canadian chicks dig you. And you can probably drink beer while competing as long as you keep it hidden in a brown paper bag. That night the US Curling Dream Team was formed. We would order our brooms after happy hour next Friday. Surprisingly that didn’t work out, but the dream lived on.

To date, approximately three Olympiads have come and gone. Neither Moist Rub nor LA Ray has called, so my double dealing has not been exposed. But now I’m just afraid they’ve gone behind my back and have plans to form their own 2 man luge team. Sure it’s a little gay looking, but I just don’t like being left out. I hope the wife didn’t throw out the skin suit.