I’ve got your mochi right here, people. Right. Here.
*Shock*. *Gasp*. Yup, I’m doing it.
The Olympics have been over for a long time now, so I thought it apropos to have a small reminisce.
The months since the closing ceremony have given me the opportunity to indulge in some thinking.
One thing that has always interested me about the Olympics is the experience of seeing other types of athletic cultures up close and personal. It’s fascinating to watch and compare them. I do miss this when they aren’t on. Example- comparing the different takes on speed skating that the Dutch and South Koreans have is interesting. Both countries are so, so dominant in the two types of speed skating, yet are so different in their approaches to what is almost an identical sport.
Also the Austrians in ski jumping, the Nordics in cross country, and America in free style skiing. Why does Scandinavia crush everyone in cross country, yet are not a factor in ski jumping? Why does America dominate in skiing half pipe, but never in cross country? Watching the Olympics gives one the chance to expand your mind in a way that isn’t possible in other athletic events. It’s cool. You actually learn things you never knew while watching. The lack of this is one reason I just can’t get into mainstream sports; once you know everything, they’re just too boring to watch.
One thing I remember keenly from the Sochi Olympics was the striking likeability of the athletes. I actually *liked* those athletes. It was almost miraculous. I mean, I actually had favorites and rooted for someone to win sometimes.
I can’t do that today with American sports. Take the NFL for instance. Bluntly, I despise professional football players. And coaches. And frankly, fans. NFL players are primitive thugs. They are stupid, ignorant, violent monsters. I mean, there are convicted murderers playing for the NFL right now. Murderers! Christ, how can anyone root for someone like that?
Whenever I see Michael Vick, I think of him as a dog torturer and killer. I can’t get past that and don’t want to. He will never be a hero to me.
I *cannot* like the NFL. Sure, I will watch the Superbowl, mostly for a family bonding experience, and possibly to gather intel on what the opposition is up to, but that’s it.
Olympic athletes are actually likeable. I miss that in sports terribly during those long droughts when the Olympics aren’t on. Sure, I’m convinced that some of those ski jumpers and swimmers are on roids. I mean, of course they are. But they still seem to embody those characteristics of fearlessness, discipline, and bravery that once made athletes such admirable people. They are, succinctly, sporting people.
They’re not monsters.
The racial angle here is impossible to ignore. Blacks get a pass that whites do not. If Michael Phelps tortured dogs to death as a side job, would he still have fans? If Nastia Luikin was revealed to be a serial killer, how would people react?
Yet there are people in the NFL who fit both of these descriptions and nobody seems to care. What the fuck?
Let’s back up a bit, though. That word I just used… sporting. It used to be that the purpose of sports in America was to shape the youth and teach it proper morals. You can still see the remnants of that mindset in the language. Someone that is driven, yet likeable and law-abiding, is a “sporting” person.
I don’t buy the notion that sports are somehow “better” today because people broke all the old records. Rather, I think that sports, especially the big name, mass market show sports like football and baseball, have been cheapened as their overall purpose has become less about building character and maturity and more about running faster and getting shoe contracts. I do not think that modern developments “raised the game” as people say today. In fact I think they lowered and debased the overall culture.
This is especially true in regards to the majority black sports like the NBA and NFL. The players have no depth. There is nothing to them that I see beyond a desire for magazine covers. They are boring and freakish, and I do my best to avoid them when I can.
Perhaps this is just an old conservative talking, but it’s what I think.
And while I’m on the subject of racial double standards, the Sterling controversy comes to mind.
I remember when the Donald Sterling controversy unfolded. Here was a man who committed no crime. All he did was reveal his private thoughts, on the phone, to a loved one that he trusted, not unreasonably, to keep them secret. That loved one then released his private thoughts to the public (!), specifically to ruin his life in what was clearly an extreme violation of his privacy… and Sterling was not considered to be a victim, although he obviously was. He was crucified by the diversity police and driven out of the NBA by the league itself, in spite of not actually committing a crime or even hurting anyone.
And meanwhile, NFL stars can attack people on camera and nobody cares. They can do this because they’re “oppressed”. Even when the videos are made public, nobody in any official capacity cares, and it takes a tremendous outpouring of anger from the public for the league to take any action at all against the players.
Note the difference. In the Sterling case, the anger came not from the public, but from the oligarchy- the media; the poor, oppressed NBA stars; and the diversity police. In the case of the insane, roid raging, sub-80 IQ NFL players, it came from the people.
This stuff is truly sick.
So yeah, fuck the NFL and those that watch it.
To be frank, the hideous antics of NFL players have left me with no interest in seeing blacks in sports, period. They always bring to the table the same boringness, ridiculous behavior, and stupidity. I don’t like watching them, and I’m much too old to pretend to care about that diversity bullshit anymore. So fuck it and fuck them.
Anyways, back in the same universe as the original topic of this essay… beyond the social and political considerations, I do miss seeing Gracie Gold, Ashley Wagner, McKayla Maroney, et. al. doing their thing. Excepting following them on twitter, there isn’t much I can do to keep up with them professionally. That really sucks. This is the reason why my friendships with Gold and Wagner, and Yulia and the others, have somewhat sputtered out. The NFL just crowds out everything, damn it!
I remember one blissful time during the nineties when one of the major networks here in the states tried programming some figure skating events opposite NFL games on the weekends. I was over the moon. It was counter programing at it’s finest.
Then, naturally, the diversity police showed up and attacked the network. A bunch of feminists attacked the station for “stereotyping” women by programming figure skating opposite football. The skating events were quickly pulled from the schedule.
Assholes.
Whatever.
Perhaps there are ways around the barriers between me and Gold. Now, if I could just get Taylor out of my head for ten minutes…