Date: Tuesday Aug. 17
Subject: NBC's Monday Night at the Commercials
(occasionally broken up by a few minutes of an Olympic Event)
MICHAEL PHELPS
You gotta feel sorry for this kid. Between NBC, MSNBC, and most of the print media over the last month or so, he was so OVER-HYPED that he had to fail. It was a curse, a jinx — a good-old-fashioned implicit lesson from God Himself to all Americans in these troubled times.
"Don't get cocky. You ain't the best. Nothing is guaranteed. The Ego is deadly. Don't count your Gold Chickens before they hatch. The one advantage the rest of the world might have over you Americans is that they're hungrier — and they haven't been told since birth that they deserve it.
Pride and Massive Overhyped Marketing Goeth Before a Fall."
Too bad. The kid should just relax and swim, and the media and the commentators should, once again...
---SHUT THE FUCK UP.
...which reminds me...
MELLISSA STARK
I don't mean to pick on someone who has bounced around as 'commentator' for basically male audience sporting events because either somebody at the networks is doin' the Wild Thang with her or just flat out thinks she's "cute", but man...
Ever notice her hands? They look like they belong to Andre The Giant or some brick mason. She should wear gloves... or better yet — just go topless. I mean, that's why she's onscreen anyway, right?
(BTW: I got a copy of NBC's special notes to their Olympics interviewers; it was xeroxed from a Today Show copy personalized for Matt Lauer and Katie (Cute but Evil) Couric; the document only contains one line of instructions relative to onscreen interviews.
Ask them: "Can you describe how it felt?"
Over and over and over...
MEN'S GYMNASTICS
Okay, bear with me here for a sec.
It's the bottom of the ninth in the World Series;Player A has been up 4 times and gotten 3 hits and a walk.
Player B has a higher batting average, but has been sitting on the bench all night.
Coach pulls Player A and pinch-hits with Player B for the big one.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
Thanks Sharky,
I think Phelps is handling himself very well, keeping perspective and not letting the "aren't you disappointed" shit get to him.
My perspective on the commercials is: they are fucking commercials, ignore them. I turn up the radio to the Indians game during the commercials, go pee, sleep for a few minutes, etc. The commercials might as well be dead air for as much as I notice them. BUT, good points, cars and beer: the American way?
2 - Mark Saleski
ok, now shark needs to get up at the crack of dawn's ass and review a badminton match.
i watched on this morning.
it aint' the same thing we used to do during the family bbq's.
3 - Shark
Eric, unfortunately, my spleen requires that I watch the commercials. It just can't get enough psychological toxins.
(Besides, I need the material!)
4 - Mark Saleski
i couldn't get over the idea of "drink bud in europe".
ick.
5 - visualsimplicity
Hey you have to admit some of those beer commercials are rather humorous. Not the ones you mentioned, but have you seen the low calorie beer commercials? You know, the ones where they have people do like 10 meter relays or something, or a 10 meter marathon, just to show how easy it is to burn off the calorie from the beer. Yeah beer is bad, but they're clever commercials none the less.
6 - andrew | BB
Well, I was going to type "give it a rest." But then I read your post.
Wildly entertaining.
7 - Shark
Thanks, Andrew, et al. I aim to please.
LATEST UPDATE:
I watched TUES. night's activities and don't have much to say.
The Flying Munchkins With Hormone Problems (aka USA Little Girls' Gymnastics Team) got a Silver Medal -- and once again, NBC's pick to become the next cute overhyped Mary Lou Retton choked at every opportunity.
So much for the hype. Spend every friggin' day of your life distorting your body for a climactic couple of nights every four years -- then hit a small bump -- and you're relegated to the dust-bin of Sports TV history. You'll be lucky if you show up as a Jeopardy question or a bar bet.
I can't even tell you the name of the girl who [in 1996] was the big star of the last "dramatic" moment in gymnastics history; she sprained her ankle and the network treated her like Audie Murphy single-handedly fighting a Panzer Division in the Battle of the Bulge.
I do remember the guy who carried her around the venue: Bela Karolyi.
Ahahaha.
Don't you know she's thrilled?
("I wasted my childhood, sprained the fuck outta my ankle, and Shark doesn't remember my name!?")
Like forgetting Custer's name but remembering his *horse's.
Fame and fortune. Bait and Switch.
Fickle Finger of Fate.
etc.
++++++++
Another thing I noticed is that our fucked up hyper-inflated Nationalism is apparently rotting away the brains at NBC; you'd think there were only one or two countries competing in most events.
The Chinese gymnasts got less time than Pat Buchanan will at the upcoming GOP Convention -- and a casual glance makes it look like the White Western European Olympics.
Not much else to report.
Oh yeah: No bombs or terrorist attacks yet, but **Iraq is still a fucking vietnam-like quagmire.
*Comanche (--I knew that)
** off America's radar; we're tired of that 'competition' and would rather pay attention to one we can 'win' -- or at least come in second place.
8 - Eric Olsen
Kerri Strug. How can we forget one of the iconic lines in the history of sport, Bela's "Keddi, you are a weeeener!"
9 - visualsimplicity
And don't forget, "You cawn doo eet!"
10 - Joe
VS- the flip side to that coin: "We suck, again!"
11 - KATHY C.
LOVE THE CUSTER REFERENCE!!!!
LOOKING FORWARD TO YOUR NEXT OLYMPIC REVIEW!
KATHYC.