DAN'S PAPERS, August 22, 2008 Page 39 www.danshamptons.com
Twentysomething…By David Lion Rattiner Olympics I don’t know about you, but all I’ve wanted to do at all hours of the day and night is watch the Olympics. I don’t know what it is about the Olympics this year, but I’m completely obsessed. First of all, FIRST OF ALL, let’s just set this straight right now: those Chinese female gymnasts are not even close to 16 years old. They are, at the most, 13 years old, and it is so annoying. The American gymnasts are better, in general. I can’t tell if that one girl from China who won the gold is older than 10, but she is for damn sure not 16. She also looks crazy in general; that should count for something. America’s Shawn Johnson is the most adorable thing you have ever seen until you see her walk. She has such a positivelooking face, doesn’t she? She should be a motivational speaker. Watching gymnastics is so annoying because at the end of a routine, assuming they have a good landing, you scream out at the top of your lungs, “HOLY COW, SHE TOTALLY STUCK THAT LANDING. PERFECT SCORE! SHE’S GONNA WIN THE GOLD!” And then the judges come back with, like, a 14.8, and you just sit there all confused because the last chick took a step back on her landing and she got a 15.6. There is nothing quite like trying to write your weekly column while watching Michael Phelps and eating a bag of potato chips. I was one of those people that heard he eats 12,000 calories a day, and then figured I should start chowing down so that I could one day be an Olympian.
Just watching Michael Phelps swim slowly through the pool, even when he is not racing, is like watching a seal in an aquarium. He just kind of slides and snakes through the water, and then pops out of it perfectly and walks to his iPod like he is the man, which he is. He’s got to be the coolest athlete on the planet right now. Who would have thought that we would all be so pumped up about swimming? You just watch the outside shots of the “Water Cube,” and you’re like, “OH MAN, THIS IS GONNA BE AWESOME!” And then they race and you have a conversation with somebody explaining to them what the green line is that runs along the pool, and then you get confused at the end because you don’t remember which lane America was in and then you figure it out just at the last second and you’re like, “OH YEAH! AMERICA CAN SWIM, BABY!” Did you catch that one Jamaican chick with the mouth full of braces that won the 100-meter sprint? She was like a crazy person! So far my favorite part of the Olympics is a toss-up between Michael Phelps racing and the commentary by that weird Russian guy with the white mustache who sits next to Bob Costas and talks with him about what you just saw. You can tell Bob does everything he can to keep it together next to this lunatic. I like him, though; he tells it like it is sometimes. Especially when it came to
the Chinese using underage athletes in gymnastics. He’s got this heavy Russian accent and Bob has such a straightarrow approach to everything, and the two just work. They need to get their own weekly television show when the Olympics end, and just commentate on everything. The Russian dude wouldn’t hold back either — you can tell that he is one of those guys who knows everything about everything, and because he’s got that accent you catch yourself accidentally agreeing with him. If there is one complaint that I have this year about the coverage of the Olympics it’s the stadiums. They are just dumb. We need to stick with old-fashioned construction from the Roman empire or classic New England construction. The Bird Nest? So dumb. You look at it and just think to yourself, “Man, somebody put a lot of effort into a building that was designed from the get-go to look really, really ugly.” There was seriously a meeting somewhere in China where one guy said, “I have an idea, let’s build the Anthill for the next Olympics! A stadium in the shape of an anthill!” And then another guy was like, “No, let’s do a bee’s nest.” And then everybody sat in thought and then the richest guy in the room said, “I got it. We will build a bird’s nest.” And then a whole bunch of guys started clapping.
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