OLYMPICSUCKFEST 8-20-04
I'll get to those other topics and events I referred to in my last update in the next few days, as for now I gotta talk about what I'm ensconced in at the moment, the OLYMPICS!
Yes, friends, the Olympics have officially started once again, allowing the world to collectively revert back to it's patriotically-teamspirited-big dick-one-upmanship-highschool-jock-gets-laid-mindset. It is a beautiful thing. It's the only time we can actually (hopefully) kick other countries asses (hopefully) without casualties, giving the rest of the world a giant ("well earned") golden FUCK YOU MA' MAN!
Without recourse we can stand proud and shout to the world, "HEY BITCHES, I'm on the TOP STEP! SMELL that SILVER? Hey silver, yeah, you, #2. Can you can smell MY SWEATY BUTT CHEEKS!? How do you like the view down there? I PISS ON YOU! RAISE MY FLAG BITCH! That's right, who's the man? I'M THE MAN! Ooh say can you see..."
I usually watch the Olympics. It brings me back to my childhood. I have happy memories of all the Olympic seasons going back to the 84 games when my mom was away on work and left some TV dinners for my dad to make for us. I had never had a TV dinner (this was pre-microwave, kids) and the fact that the desert came already on your plate at the start of the meal was just magical to me. Subconsciously some of that magic probably still lives on with the games.
The opening ceremony is always overproduced and huge. It's a spectacle, with all the water, lights, costumes, glitz, and symbology! They got to do a lot of mime acting, cause it's gotta translate into all languages. They did a great summary of Greek history in a very short period of miming time, although Katie Couric and Bob Costas couldn't shut their fat yaps for a second. Sometimes you just want to look at a painting and not have some nitwit explain to you what you are seeing, that's what the narration of the mimes on floats representing Greek history felt like with Costas and "cosmetically-enhanced-eternally-perky" Couric droned on and on about what we were seeing in front of our own eyes.
I understand about the "having to translate" thing. I do a lot of my Maxim work this way. I will try to do my really complicated drawings without incorporating text into the illustration/cartoon. Letting the action of the characters explain the scene, this is challenging, but makes it easier to reprint overseas in all the foreign editions of Maxim.
So, now the games have actually gotten underway and are almost over, and they are playing on NBC and USA around the clock. Is it just me, or does it seem like any "sport" can be in the Olympics nowadays? How the hell did "Beach Volleyball" and "ping pong" become Olympic sports? Might as well let yo-yo, hackie sack, devil stick, ultimate Frisbee, pogo, stilt walking, and gravity bong (without coughing) in if we are gonna be that lenient.
And WHAT THE FUCK is with the DREAM TEAM? They are such an embarrassment! Wow, you know, since 1992 when the games first allowed the NBA players to compete and the initial DREAM TEAM dominated the games, we have won the gold in basketball every season. In fact we haven't lost a single game. We haven't even been down by more than 20 points in a single game! Until the other night when we went up against PUERTO RICO! What the fuck!?! Puerto Rico isn't even a good team! They weren't even one of the teams that was in medal contention! Their point guard is like a third string guard from the Utah Jazz for Christ sakes! We shot 3 for like 24 from 3 point range, I shoot better than that from 3 point range!
I have a great memories of watching the original dream team dominating over the rest of the world. It was a thing of beauty. I watched all of their rise to greatness in their first outing. Then in 96 I was visiting a few of my old highschool buddies during summer break from college so I wasn't even planning on watching the Dream Team do it again, but some strange twists of fate had me stuck watching it from the emergency room waiting area, and I've been hooked ever since....(cue wavy screen...flash back sequence initiating)
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Having just finished my freshman year of college at SVA (School of Visual Arts-Manhattan, yeah, I'm old) I was back visiting some friends from school. Ink, Davey G and I decided to trek out of Jersey and venture driving around the hills of bumblefuck Pennsylvania, just shooting the shit, busting on one another and catching up on old times. Our only plan was to go to this mall, fuck around like jackasses in the mall, and then go bowling.
Well, we eventually got to the mall and were wandering around, killing time, and one of us had to take a piss. There was a long hallway leading to the bathroom, and I think we must have just watched T2 the day before or something and the hallway was like right out of a scene in the movie. I yelled "get down" in my best Arnold impression to Ink, and grabbed Davey G by the shirt. He grabbed my shirt back and we proceeded to slam each other into the walls of the hallway ALA Arnold and the Metal Cop Robot from the movie (remember the mall scene where he opens the box of roses and pulls out a shotgun?) scaring the hell out of the elderly mall shoppers. Well, some old hag got freaked and said something to the effect of "Henry, get the police," and her and her old husband went running off.
When the coast was clear we ran to the bathroom to hide from the mall security. I stood there taking a piss, or pretending to take a piss while the door blew open. Ink was washing his hands and we were totally playing it cool. The cops were looking for people who were angry or in a fight and hating one another, we weren't angry and were only fake fighting so if we pretended nothing happened we would be in the clear, so we all were just keeping our mouths shut; except for Davey G who like a moron was in the bathroom stall talking his head off "Did you see the look on that old bag's face, priceless!" or some such stupidity. The mall cop banged on the door to the stall with the back of his flashlight. "What do you want Dick?" Davey G said, thinking it was one of us.
We then followed as Davey G got kicked (carried) out of the mall by two angry mall cops.
When we got outside Davey G was pissed. All day he had been doing this thing he saw on MTV the day before that was supposedly the new trend: "Freestyle walking." The concept being that you do skateboard jumps and moves off of inanimate objects and things that are all around you while you walk without a skateboard, so he was like running up walls and jumping off of fire hydrants. He was doing this now more aggressively than ever because he was pissed at our situation.
While walking through the crowded parking lot Davey G decided to "freestyle walk" over a solid 4 ft metal pole with a concrete rounded off top, it was probably 4 inches in diameter, and was there indicating a handicap parking spot.
He jumped up on the pole, his foot gripped the top and he started to get a little air, then his foot lost it's grip, he started falling and the pole caught him by his crotch, flipped him over and he landed on the pavement.
This was the funniest thing Ink and I had seen in our lives. We both had a huge laugh, the kind of uncontrollable laugh that drops you to the ground because it literally takes the wind out of you. We were both crying with laughter. Davey G on the other hand was in pain. "Pull the car around, this hurts really bad. I don't think I can walk for a minute" Him saying this made us laugh even more.
We pulled the car around and he got into the back seat.
"You still going to be able to bowl?" I asked.
"I want to go home." Davey G replied
"C'mon you big pussy, it can't be that bad, you can bowl." Ink said.
Davey G rolled up his pants a bit and there was a big indent gash on his shin. The top of the pole had impacted into his leg with his full body weight in fall, and made an indented rip.
"That doesn't look too bad, you big baby, we'll get you an ace bandage and you will be fine." I said as me and Ink kept busting on how stupid Davey was for trying to jump off of a pole because he saw some morons doing it on television.
"Freestyle walking, you fucking tool!" etc..etc..
While I was driving around trying to find a bowling alley I experienced a strange moment of terror. It was the sounds Davey G was making, out of nowhere shivers went up my spine. I turned in my seat to see if he was OK, cause he was sounding like he was whimpering or something, like on the verge of tears, but in extreme fear.
Time slowed down...It felt like I was turning my head in slow motion. I looked at Davey G's face and he was in shock, he was looking down at his crotch, he had his fly half undone and had pulled the elastic of his underwear away from his body with one hand and had his other hand half reached in to his tighty whities. This hand was shaking, he was staring down at it and his expression was of sheer fright.
"Whhhhhaaaaattttt'ssssss uuuuuupppp Dddaaaavvvve, Yoooooou Oooooo Kkkkk?" I said in slow motion, my voice registered in my ears way too slow to be happening in reality.
And just like the scene from Stand By Me when Wil Wheaton reached in his underwear after swimming with leaches Davey slowly pulled his hand out of his drawers to reveal it was completely covered with blood.
Ink and I looked at each other and I veered the car off the road. We were in a total panic. Davey started flipping the fuck out.
"Dude, did you split your nutsack open?!" I asked frantically
"YES! GET ME TO A HOSPITAL!" Davey G shrieked.
"Are your balls like falling out of your body, just like floating around in your underwear?" Ink asked.
"I DON'T KNOW I CAN'T TELL! POSSIBLY! " Davey G replied in shaken agony.
"I don't know were a hospital is man, I don't know where we are exactly." I said as we hit an intersection, amazingly there was a big blue H for hospital sign. "Dude, you are one lucky mother fucker!" I said as I pulled the right.
I was probably driving like you would if your wife was going to give birth and the baby's head was half out, or if your friend was loosing blood in the back seat of your car with his testicles hanging from his split nutsack.
We got to the hospital and ran into the emergency room. I didn't realize how much paperwork goes into getting a guy with a split nutsack cleared to be looked at by ER doctors, but it took a while. We actually had to sit there with him for about 45 minutes before they could bring him in to see a doctor. Nearby someone sat with a piece of blood saturated gauze on their head. A girl sat near by us clearing her throat over and over (We later heard a nurse say that she had her boyfriend's cockring lodged in her throat!).
Davey's wait time was extended even longer when a woman came running through the doors with two naked children in her arms who had both been stung by bees, and were allergic to beestings.
Ink and I ended up waiting 8 hours in this emergency room while Davey got his ballsack sewn back up. Luckily the Olympics were on and we got to watch Jordan and the dream team dunk all over some foreign country who's team wasn't fit to even play against an American college team.
When we got out of there we found out Davey G only had to get 3 stitches put in. "3 Fucken stitches! We waited 8 hours for 3 Fucken stitches! You are damn lucky the Dream Team was playing today or we would split your nuts again." We then proceeded to bust on him for the entire ride home.
That story didn't have much to do with the Olympics, but I've been wanting to tell it in an update forever.
Which takes me back to the new Dream team... The problem with these guys is they are all superstars with 70 million dollar salaries. Their job is to showboat, take it to the hole, and dunk for the camera, smile (stick out your tongue-what have you), and land. None of these bastards can shoot a three pointer to save their lives. In international play, the other teams play zone defense and know how these superstars work, so they play tight and force you to shoot from outside, or make it very hard to try to drive the lane.
The solution? A white guy. The dream team needs a schlubby white guy from the suburbs. Not a superstar, and not a really tall white guy either. Someone of average height who from a young age knew he would never be able to dunk so he just perfected his outside game to the point where shooting a three is like hitting a lay-up, automatic. Bring in this Larry Bird-ish white dude and you will have a team that will take home the gold.
That's just my opinion.
Just another day in the life of an Art Juggernaut.
-Cojo