Recycled Theme Songs and Waving Flags
The Frank Shorter-era treadmill that I was running on today got stuck every 1K or so. It would go from 8.6mph to 9.5mph to 4.5mph. The first time it happened to me, it nearly threw me into the flabby arms of the sweaty man who was huff-huffing away on the exercise bike behind me. Pretty soon I figured out the pattern. When it was going to hiccup on me, I would jump into the air and let it do it’s shitting underneath me while I floated above it, hovering like Bob Beamon in the pristine, mile-high Mexico City air.
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Good watch: Fam’s steeple qualifier this weekend. Even better: his buck-the-system comments about NOT wanting to pursue the American dream–about wanting to seek a life outside maximizing comfort position.
Good watch as well: the woman’s Oly Marathon. I watched it starting about the 10K mark. As soon as the TV warmed up and I saw the lead pack, I was like “Where the hell is Deena?” Throughout the whole race, I was consulted as to how it was going to unfold.
About 20K into it I said something dopey this: “Tomescu is a nut; this is not how you run a race.”
25K: “She’s going to get caught and dusted; just you wait and see.”
30K: “She’s stupid; here comes the chase pack.” I then clapped my hands slowly together and said, “Boom! Like that.”
35K: “She’s going to win the race.”
I was then asked why my opinion suddenly changed. “Her form; she looks strong. Look at it; it’s all intact. The chase pack is a mess.”
I was then asked by a non-runner, a casual observer, why I originally said it was stupid to run from the front like that. I was then asked what made me change my mind and why I got the whole race wrong. I suddenly felt confronted. The expert in the room was a boob.
“I guess I haven’t run a race in so long I forgot,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.
“You should stick to print interviews and not branch out into live coverage of running,” I was told.
40K mark.
“Look there’s Catherine Ndereba! I interviewed her! Isn’t that cool?” I exclaimed, changing the subject.
Bad watch: pretty much the rest of the show. Worst: Phelps’ mother blabbing for 10 minutes about ADHD and her poor gold-medal-winner-of-a-sad-sack-for-a-son.
I despise the ubermasculine announcers–that one guy with the bulging carotid arterial veins and the $1000 coiffure. I want skinny, Tim Broe-type guys and gals to announce the track and field results to me: a former distance runner. I don’t want a shot putter or a guy who undoubtedly DVRs NFL pre-season football games while he’s out of country telling me about the Bekele making his move at the 6500-meter mark as if he knew anything about what it means to say “67-second to 57-second quarters.”
I don’t want the Flying Tomato making a cameo with his zits and his peyote-stained teeth; I don’t want babbling in-studio guests like the President of America stumbling over his spoon-fed lines about South Ossetia. I want them all to disappear. I want NBC to pack up the 10,000 experts in their air conditioned vans and hand the broadcasting reigns over to the Canadian Broadcasting Company. When I last watched their Olympic coverage a long time ago, it was 24hrs and CSPAN-esque; it had no soundtracks–no cheesecloth. It was pure Olympics.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Yeah, when Tomescu set off it didn’t seem as it was sustainable.
Even my kids are sick of Phelps. They can recognize arrogance no matter how well wrapped in cheesecloth.
And beach volleyball. Beach volleyball? Well, that’s one way to boost the 18-24 year-old-backwards-baseball-hat-wearing demographic. Good marketing. There’s a local farmer who hires scantily clad young MTV women to work at his produce stand. Come to think of it, one of them looks an awful lot like miss teen South Carolina. Funny, I’ve never seen a female customer.