One Man, A Set Of Rings, And A Dream...



This is what the Olympics looked like in the 1950s.



I was watching men's gymnastics a couple of nights ago and, I'll say it again, it's amazing what these people can do with the human body.  Take the rings, for example.  These guys can hold their bodies at crazy angles for a long time and then slowly transition to another crazy angle.  Then they whip around for a few seconds, kind of like they are having a seizure, before slamming on the brakes and stopping in yet another angle that seems simultaneously impressive and painful. 

Of course, the first thing you notice after their dismount is their muscles.  Their entire upper torso is muscle.  They look like a giant inverted triangle with arms and legs (some also have a head and neck, but only the less muscular ones).  When I was a kid I remember being on the rings and doing pretty good for a little guy.  I guess my decision to move on to other sports is why I eventually evolved into an adult human being and not a muscular geometric shape.

That's what makes the accomplishment of Bernard "Beanie" Campbell of Speaker City that much more impressive.  He wasn't a floor tumbling, vault exploding gymnastic terminator who was fighting for an entire country.  But he was a regular guy fighting for his grown man frat house.  Click Here To See His Contribution To The Rings.



Phil Hartman as a drug-infused powerlifter.

Speaking of the Olympics, I was watching beach volleyball last night when they gave an update from a few other sports.  One of the updates was Olympic weightlifting where German weightlifter Mathias Steiner was trying to lift 432 lbs. of weight, got it about head high, and then slipped or fell.  The weights came crashing down and the bar pinned him against the ground.  The Olympic staff hurried out and even put a barrier between the scene and the audience in case there was something gruesome.  Turns out he did hurt his neck a little but he was okay.  It was still pretty dramatic.  See his video at the bottom of this post.

As Bob Costas was setting this story up, it was clear that we were about to witness something bad and immediately I hoped it wasn't what we saw at the All Drug Olympics held in the 1980s: Click Here To See.
 
The All Drug Olympics video is another classic from SNL in the 80s.  I'm glad it is still fiction and that isn't what Bob Costas cut in to show us.  Still, the Mathias Steiner injury was pretty hard to watch.  Some people will do anything to go viral.



The opening scene to one of the funniest videos of all time.



I really enjoy the Olympics.  There have been a few years where I don't catch much of it and I kick myself later.  After all, that's four years I have to wait to catch the next go around.  Four more years before I can see men and women do amazing things with the human body in gymnastics.  Four more years before we see 4 or 5 more world records broken in swimming (it is amazing how the records just fall in the Olympics as people push themselves further than they ever have before).  Four more years before we get to see oddball sports like Handball, Judo, or hyper-competitive Ping-Pong...er, Table Tennis.

Worst of all, it might be four years before I see one of the funniest videos ever made Click Here To See It.  The funny thing about the video is how they mockingly portray two men who want to compete in synchronized swimming.  The crazy thing is that there are women who actually want to compete...and do. It is a strange sport anyway, but watch this routine and try not to have nightmares (be sure to turn the volume up, too)...



I think it is very impressive that they are able to do these movements in near perfect synchronization.  but it is hard to take a sport seriously when the participants look like a 1980s Glamour Shot gone bad.  I mean, I realize that much of the 1980s fashion has just gotten to eastern Europe and that might explain the swimmers' outfits, but the makeup is too much for any region, generation, planet.

I don't know if you caught any of the semifinals or finals in tennis, but they were amazing.  The last two matches with Federer might have put Olympic tennis into a new stratosphere.  A four hour dog fight between an 8 seed and Federer that takes over 5 games in the final set to win.  A sound thrashing of the #1 women's player in the world by a nearly washed up Serena Williams.  Then Federer, the men's #1 player in the world, gets stomped by the hosting country's player for the gold.  And all of this taking place at Wimbledon.  Amazing.

Well, I have put in a solid effort watching the Olympics this year and have enjoyed it. I won't have to kick myself for missing all of the cool summer sports this time around...and it reminded me to watch the funniest swimming video ever.  Now if I can just get a peaceful night's sleep without having nightmares about the Russian swimming duet being under my bed...

Call me naive, I guess, or disconnected, but until about two months ago I had no idea that the third Dark Knight movie was the last that Nolan and Christan Bale were going to do.  It was a shock, and upsetting.  They found the perfect balance of darkness and hope, real human characters and comic book heroes, action and suspense.  Now they're done? 

Cosmopolitan put out a New Movies We Can't Wait To See In 2012 that included The Dark Knight Rises and I couldn't have agreed more...until I found out it was the last one.  Now I dread seeing it because there won't be another one.  Bummer.

Granted, they will probably reboot the series and do something a little more unique, like maybe make it a period piece (Batman originated in 1939) with vintage cars and less technology.  While that does sound appealing, I have a hard time believing it will live up to the high bar this trilogy just set. 

By the way, speaking of setting the bar high did you know Leo DiCaprio was almost in the final Dark Knight movie?  He was supposed to be the Riddler but something didn't work out and they went with Bane instead.  Can you imagine?  The awesome first movie, then Heath Ledger's greatest and final performance, followed by DiCaprio as the Riddler?  Wow, that would have ended this series with a bang.

The good news is that if you're bummed out about the series ending and need therapy you don't have to go to a psychologist or psychiatrist, Esquire has a psychologist analyzing the Batman himself.  Get in line.