Tuesday Top Ten: Favorite Summer Olympic Events

I've been hellishly busy as of late, thanks to work, travel, and spending every other non-sleeping minute of the day watching the Olympics.  This happens every Olympics, summer or winter, and it's just that much easier to become obsessed when the games are played within a couple times zones of me, so that I can watch a lot of things live.  Hell, I'm watching Kerri Walsh-Jennings and April Ross lose their battle Agatha and Barbara as we speak.

There isn't an event that I won't watch, but here are my ten favorite Summer Olympic events (in no particular order):

1.  Track and field - men's 100m
This was one of my favorite Olympic events because, even as a kid, the idea of "the fastest man in the world" was so compelling.  The first Olympics I remember was the 1984 Los Angeles games, where Carl Lewis won the 100m (and grabbed three other golds while at it).  This is still compelling for me because it really is just pure speed, and as many a coach has said, you can't teach speed.  Watching Usain Bolt is literally awesome.

2.  Team fencing
I hadn't watched much fencing until this Olympics, and I always thought it was cool.  I mean, it's sword fighting.  But this time around, I actually figured out some of the rules, and that it's more than just who touches the other person first.  And then, I watched some team events, where they rotate fencers over nine rounds, and the first to 45 points wins.  Good stuff.

3.  Gymnastics vault
Whether it's the men or the women, the vault is awesome.  People chucking themselves into the air is always cool, but then when they can stick a landing after running full speed, doing a cartwheel off of a springboard, and then three twisting flips in the air, it almost defies physics.  And, of course, this even provides us with the most spectacular crashes in gymnastics.

4.  Women's beach volleyball
It's always a party atmosphere during beach volleyball, and I like the two-on-two format better than the six-on-six indoor volleyball format.  And, of course, let's not kid ourselves, any straight man who says he doesn't enjoy watching bikini-clad women in extremely good shape is lying.

5.  Platform diving
They are diving from over thirty feet in the air and somehow (for the most part) not belly flopping.  You remember that first time you ever went off the high dive as a kid, and it seemed like it took forever for you to hit the water.  They are three times as high as that, and they are doing flips and going into the pool head first.

6.  Swimming - any IM or medley relay
The IM events are crazy to me because you have to be really good at all four swimming strokes.  I don't think I would be able to properly do the breaststroke or butterfly if I practiced for a year.  And the medley relays are cool because it's the best of the best in each stroke.

7.  Archery
The TV coverage never really does archery justice because all you see is the archer release the arrow and then a close-up of the target to show where the arrow hits.  What you don't get a fell for is that they are shooting from 70 meters away, and the ten-point circle is as big as a CD.

8.  Track and field - 400m hurdles
Because someone thought, "Hey, you know what the hardest track event needs?  Hurdles."

9.  Rubgy Sevens
I realize this is a new event, but it's pretty sweet.  In case you don't know, rugby sevens differs from regular rugby in that it's only seven minutes a half (instead of 40), and there are only seven players on each team (instead of 15).  Basically, what that means is that it's like the flag football version of rugby, but without flags and still with all the action of rugby.  Definitely a good addition to the games.

10.  Table tennis
It's just insane how good Olympic table tennis players are.  They are playing about ten feet behind the table, and just killing the ball, but with precision and crazy spin.  It's almost disheartening, since you're thinking that ping pong is a fun, relatively easy game.  I tell you this:  these people would eat you alive.

Retro Video of the Week: "Rio" by Duran Duran

Many apologies for not posting a Tuesday Top Ten yesterday.  I have been battling Olympic Fever all week, and the only cure is more Olympics.  Did you know that today is Duran Duran Appreciation Day?  Neither did I, until a local disc jockey told me so this morning.  My health problems and the day's festivities have come to a glorious intersection, as Duran Duran has perhaps the most perfect song for these Olympic Games.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "Rio."

Tuesday Top Ten: Best Athlete Names for the XXX Summer Olympics

The first Olympics I remember were the 1984 Summer Games in LA.  As a six-year-old, I was mesmerized by the likes of Carl Lewis and Mary Lou Retton.  As I grew older, my love of the Olympics burgeoned, as did my sexuality.  Since 1996, I have been scripting an Olympic-themed adult movie series, with a different film based on each Summer and Winter Games.  Some of the names include St. Whoritz, 8 Gold(en Shower)s in Beijing, The Munich Assacre, In Brook, Tokyo Hos, Raise the Black Fist, Squaw's Valley, Unshrouded in Turin, Cockholm, Lily Gets Hammered, Video Footage of Misty May and Kerri Walsh Competing in the 2004 Athens Olympics, Bonnie Bare Does Albert Ville, Vancougars, The Miracle in Lake Flaccid, and The Cream Team.

"Jesus, GMYH, what's wrong with you and where is this going?"  Well, fair reader, I think it's a combination of mild alcoholism, a painfully vivid imagination, an undying devotion to the pun, and maybe a little lupus.  And in case you haven't noticed, these are 30th edition of the modern Summer Olympic Games, but in the TV listings, it shows up as "XXX Summer Olympics."  It's time.  During the approximately 29 hours of Olympics coverage I watched this past weekend, I had some time to peruse the list of all 11,000+ athletes competing this year to figure out the best names for the XXX Summer Olympics.  Here they are (in alphabetical order):

Honorable Mention:  Chris Adcock (Great Britain); Jack Butland (Great Britain); Imran Butt (Pakistan); Karen Cockburn (Canada); Luana de Assis (Brazil); Andrew Abido Dick (Nigeria); Diamond Dixon (USA); Hyleas Fountain (USA) (for those who are into squirters); Vincent Hancock (USA); James Harden (USA); Maaike Head (Netherlands); Peter Hudnut (USA); Tyson Gay (USA); Gia Lewis-Smallwood (USA); Nic Long (USA); Kevin Love (USA); Long Ma (China); Steffen Peters (USA); Phuoc Hung Pham (Vietnam); Andy Roddick (USA); Brendan Sexton (Australia); Wai Hung Shek (Hong Kong); Donald Suxho (USA); Yusuke Tanaka (Japan); Kelsey Titmarsh (Canada); Queen Underwood (USA); Rena Wang (USA); Timothy Wang (USA); Weidong Wang (China); Rachel Yurkovich (USA)

1.  Shannon Boxx (USA)

2.  Linus Butt (Germany)

3.  Lionel Cox (Belgium)

4.  Dong Dong (China) (aka Twin Dongs)

5.  Destinee Hooker (USA)

6.  Yoo Suk Kim (South Korea)

7.  Brent Newdick (New Zealand)

8.  Victoria Poon (Canada)

9.  Liam Tancock (Great Britain)

10.  Aichen Wang (China)

We could have used you this year, Walter Dix.  Maybe we'll see you in 2016 in Rio.  Or should I say Copacabanga Beach?

You Better Hurry to Get a Piece of Me

I'm going to be pretty busy this week, building up to Lollapalooza Friday through Sunday, so I probably won't have time for too many posts.  I've always told myself, "GMYH, you cannot leave these people empty-handed.  They depend on you for nothing.  If you don't post, their lives will go on."  So I will give you some things to read, but only after a quick story.


Friday night, I had the pleasure of seeing Cinderella and Sebastian Bach at the Congress Theater here in Chicago.  It was a great show.  Cinderella headlined, and sounded great.  Tom Kiefer sounds just like he did 25 years ago.  Sebastian Bach, of course, has headlined Broadway musicals in recent years, so as you might imagine, he still has the pipes.  The non-musical highlight of the night came during Bach's set.  In the middle of "Piece of Me," during kind of soft part, Bach was talking to the crowd, and all of a sudden, he starts yelling at this dude down near the front of the stage.  There was cursing and everything.  Bach was going back and forth with this guy, and said something along the lines of "Get the fuck out of here.  Seriously, if you don't get the fuck out of here, I'm not finishing the set."  He also invited the man on stage to receive a boot to the buttocks.  I was too far away to tell what was going on, but apparently this guy had been just standing there giving Bach the middle finger, so you can understand why Bach might be pissed.  When the guy refused to leave, Bach said, "Security, get this guy the fuck out of here."  So they did.  As they escorted him out, they walked by me and he looked pretty hammered.  Bach didn't skip a beat and blasted right back into the song.  For a while, I thought I was going to see some sort of Axl Rose-esque battering of a fan, but alas, all I got was an awesome concert.  After the show, I drank some beer, sang some karaoke, and slumbered.  Since I woke up Saturday morning, I've spent every waking hour watching Olympic coverage.  If you think I'm kidding, it's only because you can't smell me or see the ass groove I have made in my couch.


So anyway, here are some articles for you to read:
-Here is a really good SI article about the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre.  Thanks to Gregerson for the link.
-Here's an article confirming what I already knew:  new pop music sounds the same.  Thanks to Ryan for the link.
-Keeping with the metal singers calling out audience members theme, here's an article with a video of Iron Maiden lead singer calling out a guy at a show in Indy for texting for three straight songs.
-Finally, here's an Onion AV Club article about looking for filming locations from the Big Lebowski.  I have driven by Sobchak Security, which is on Santa Monica Blvd.  Fuckin' A.  Thanks to Tradd for the link.

Tuesday Top Ten: Winter Olympic Sports

As usual, I all but forgot about the Olympics until they started, and now I am, as usual, physically and emotionally (and sexually) addicted to them. With that in mind, here are my ten favorite winter Olympic sports:

10. Bobsled.
"Hey, let's build a covered sled and go down a frozen waterslide."
"Okay."

9. Freestyle skiing (moguls).
I am always amazed at how fast skiers are able to fly through moguls with pretty much only their legs moving, and then do some aerial tricks twice in the middle, as if going down a bunny hill.

8. Biathlon.
Only in Norway would it seem logical to invent a sport that combines cross country skiing and shooting rifles at targets the size of silver dollars.

7. Snowboard Cross.
This is a relatively new one, but it's a fun one to watch. Four snowboarders race each other through twists, turns, and jumps, often resulting in spills and broken dreams.

6. Short Track Speed Skating.
This is more entertainment on ice than the 1974-75 Philadelphia Flyers. I especially like the relays, when they slingshot the next racer.

5. Ski Jumping.
I want to go to there.

4. Speed Skating.
It's like track, but on ice. Having no ability to ice skate (but insanely deceptive footspeed), I can respect that.

3. Alpine skiing (downhill).
I don't dislike the other alpine skiing events (slalom, giant slalom, Super G, combined), but downhill is usually the one that results in the highest speeds, which I'm all about. Plus, it reminds me of what little skiing I have done, because I prefer to ski straight down the hill as fast as possible.

2. Skeleton/Luge.
I combine these because they're both awesome, and they're essentially the same, except that skeleton racers go head first lying on their stomachs instead of feet first lying on their backs, like lugers. You would think it would be the skeleton racers that would be the ones dying.

1. Curling.
One day, perhaps in 2014, Tradd, Ryan, and I will bring home curling gold for the U.S. Then we will release a surprisingly graphic rap album under the name Stone Throwaz.