What can I say? I've been sucked in. I've been watching anything and everything to do with the Olympics and I am not ashamed.
Sure, it may not be cool, alternative, EMO or even dare I say, hip, to really be into what the majority is fascinated by, but somehow the Olympics just don't qualify for me.
G. H. Hardy once wrote, "It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that."
Well Mr. Hardy, I don't think you have seen Apolo Ohno scramble across the finish line after crashing and gashing his leg to win silver. I don't think you saw the same man 4 days later win gold with 6 stitches in his leg after he was illegally blocked.
John LeClair of the US hockey team took a stick in the face, lost a tooth, needed 12 stitches and minutes later took back to the ice and scored. Hell, even Roenick scored a goal. The Olympic hockey players are playing at a level they never could sustain in the NHL. We're seeing great games every day and there aren't even any cheesy beer commercials every five minutes.
Jim Shea won a gold in Skeleton - a sport resurrected purely for it's mass appeal where you toboggan face first down a luge track on what looks and amounts to a large lunch tray. He's just an everyday Joe who just lost his grandfather - a two time gold medallist in speed skating. He had to scrape and scratch just to buy a sled and now, for him, it's all been worth it because 15,000 screaming people cheered him on as he strove to be the best at something, and for now he is the best. He's the best at sliding down an ice shoot on a lunch tray, but he is the best, and I love every strange minute of it.
Don't even get me started on the Harry Potter look-a-like ski jumper who went from an unknown on the jump circuit to a gold medalist.
It all moves me and I really can't help it. I'm not sure if it's a post 9-11 effect and I'm being sucked in by all the apparent jingoism, if NBC's marketing campaign is just really really good, or if I'm just tired of watching Law & Order and playing spot the twin towers in NYPD Blue re-runs, but I really don't care either way.
It's as if the Olympics are just what I needed, and damnit, sometimes the minority just doesn't know what they're missing.
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Ahem. Hi. Would the real johnpowers please stand up?
"Yo. I'm back and I'm over tired because I had the Providence Poetry Slam last night."
Anyway, Mike Celemme who lost in the Slam semi finals two weeks ago came back and won last night's slam. Bernard came in second, Gary Hoare took third, and Dave Gibs took fourth. Ron Dumont was knocked out after the first round by .1 points.
Sage-X won the youth slam.
This evening the last round of the slam and a few poems by the amazing Shane Koyczan should be up on the GotPoetry.com web site.
I finally fell asleep last night around 3am, then woke up before my alarm at 7:45am thinking I hadn't yet fallen asleep.
It's days like this that make me wish I was jobless, still in college and on summer break. I would just love to let my body dictate my sleeping schedule for an extended period of time.
Yes folks, my dream is to be an Olympic Sleeper.
Hell, I wouldn't care if I ever meddled. Practicing would be enough.
