Podium Bling

"Don't call me a Hoser - you're the Hoser, Hoser."

Between the Jazz and the Olympics it's been hard to find time to get any writing done - as of press time the Jazz have won right around 20 of their last 25 games. Yet, believe me, when I consider what happened to the Tonight Show after my casual mention of Conan and Jay, I worry that any reference to the Jazz (regardless how innocent the context) may inadvertently bring about the kind of ill-fortune that meant curtains for Coco and left Leno's approval rating somewhere between Snidely Whiplash and Adolf Hitler. The thing is, I could've just as easily used Letterman and Kimmel to make the same point, so this will be a little experiment. I just hope you won't judge me too harshly if by the time you read these words, Carlos "Boozer's" private battle with the bottle puts him on the DL and Mehmet Okur has been traded back to Turkey for a Honeybaked Ham and a side dish to be named later.

You probably think I'm over-reacting, but I've come to the sobering realization that "I Boneman" possess strange powers that extend well beyond my ability to get away with using cuss-words while discussing lewd and offensive things in a predominantly Mormon community. Just as an example, I've discovered that when the Jazz are pissing away a big, comfortable lead, I can stop the bleeding and restore our momentum by simply flipping over to the Spanish channel and chanting the words "Sabados Gigante" 24 times. By the time I flip back to Boler and Booner my wife is smacking me in the arm pretty hard, but the Jazz are always back up by exactly 17 points. Sportswriters and fans are mostly pointing to the renewed vigor of Kirilenko, Boozer's re-discovered dominance, Williams and Millsap's consistency, but the true secret to the Jazz' steady climb up the standings can more accurately be attributed to me - the Boneman.

Many of you may consider this completely ridiculous and, frankly what you do with a pair of oven mitts and a hedgehog in the privacy of your own basement is none of "my" business. All I know is that at half-time of every game - regardless the score, I head straight to the laundry room and throw in a load of towels. Nothin' fancy - scoop a' Tide, Normal Speed, Single Rinse - what can I tell ya? I'm undefeated. Scoff if you must, but the handful of losses we've suffered during our amazing run have all occurred when I was watching the game . . . somewhere other than home. "If I travel yonder and cannot launder" the Jazz are on their own.

Moreover, I can never tell another living soul the depths I had to plumb in order to appease the Karma Police after the sudden and most unpleasant bit of business that sent Ronnie Brewer to one of those hard-to-keep-straight teams that exist well east of Eden. I'll just say that the injury was necessary and that it hurt me more than it did him. Hardcore fans understand all too well how "vital" Brewer's deflections and cat-like defensive quickness and vision were to our success. Alas, perhaps it's for the best, because as crazy as Boozer was for the hard-stuff, Brewer was equally nuts for the suds. But he was no fan of the local pee-weak pilsner. Nay. "Just say Hail No to that flatass Brewtah tah." In his Facebook he left only this telling epitweet, "Toodle-ooo three point two. Via con Dios El Brujo."

But enough with the Jazz, how about the excitement and majesty of the Winter Olympics? The fluid grace and finesse of figure skating and the balls-out "Bet you don't dare do that" madness of . . . all the other events. I think the Olympic committee is thanking their lucky stars that the crazy Americans started inventing "Extreme"ly cool new events like the Half-Pipe and Crazy, Flipping Ski-Jumping, because there are a few "oddball" games that I think we could live without. Curling, for example, is basically Shuffleboard for cheaters. I have to imagine the most difficult part of Curling at the Olympic level would be doing it without drinking beer. One thing in its favor is that the Olympic committee "does" save money on Curling, because it's one of the few sports that doesn't require expensive blood testing for steroids or other PEDs. In fact participants are simply asked to submit to random field sobriety tests.

Next to Curling the weirdest event of them all is the Biathlon. I believe this one involves skiing for a while, then stopping and shooting a rifle at something for a while (a target I suppose?) And then skiing a little further and shooting some more. If I were to bet, I'd certainly imagine that this event was invented by a German. Some Wurst-muncher who figured cross-country skiing would be much less dull if it included killing something. Pardon me if you find this offensive, I just watched Inglorious Basterds. (Speaking of which - is bastard less offensive if it only contains one "A?" ) Anykrau, I don't mean to be a Deutchphobe – I'm sure it's time we started getting over the Holocaust. Then again if I were 15 years older, it would've happened during my lifetime; and I look pretty young for my age.

Regardless who invented the Biathlon, I'm sure it would be much more fun had it been invented by a Canadian? First you would like, drive a snowmobile over a few miles of snow-covered meadow until you came to a lake. Then you'd strip down to a dry suit, swim 25 yards to a buoy and back. Once ashore, you'd build a fire, speed-guzzle a 6 pack of Molson, and then . . . fish. The winner would be the first competitor to arrive at the lake. The other stuff would be just ‘cause like it's fun eh? Koo roo kookoo k'koo kookoo – how many of you remember Bob and Doug McKenzie eh? "Beauty, you're like really old, eh?" (Note from Dr. Freud: true you've given up beer going on two years now, and my goodness what a proud lad you must be, but during your proofread you might want to count how many times you've mentioned id it. Just sayin').

You certainly have to admire these career athletes, whose events require years of dedication, incredible strength and stamina, and of course complete and utter insanity. I'd say around 75% of the Winter Games competitors would be more realistically categorized as daredevils than athletes. True they're in great condition, but that's mostly so they don't get killed when they fall. To me however, the real daredevils, are the chaps who skate out in front of a television audience of millions wearing those ultra-skin-tight, elastic, aerodynamic jumpsuits. Most of you are familiar with the Seinfeldian concept of "shrinkage" - where your Castanzas shrivel up like Raisinettes when exposed to the cold? Maybe it's just me, but the sound ice makes when you scrape it with steel blades, makes my bollocks want to curl up some place warm and cozy - like by my prostate. That noise - that "squeep" stands my teeth on edge and would cause my scrotum to bunch up into a rigid little patch you could strike a match on.

And yet those daredevils just zip right out there seemingly unaware that, for all the world, they appear anatomically incorrect. I don't mean to belittle anyone, because in the off chance that I wound up a world class Speed Skater - the press would be all over me: "Excuse me, Apollo Bono, you consistently finish last amid speculation that you are hindered by the fact that you wear a codpiece? What do you have to say?" "First of all, I'm not just representing my Country, I'm representing my "Gender" and, while I wouldn't mind sportin' a little "Podium-Bling," let's just say that there's this Swedish Ice-dancer named Inga and well, you know what they say about first impressions. Y'see if I take off the codpiece, I make "no" impression - whatsoever. All pancake, no batter up. Not a package so much as a note left behind by the UPS guy that there "was" a package, but it's been taken some place warm, for safe keeping.

Watching the Olympics can be an exhausting, emotional experience. After all, so many of these athletes have literally devoted their entire lives – certainly sacrificed their childhoods - in order to prepare for their Olympic moment. Ah, but unfortunately someone has to lose, and to see these kids worlds' fall apart beneath them as they brush the frost off their backsides is more than my wife really cares to witness. Eventually these competitors outgrow their events and take their place alongside the rest of us.

Resume: Grades Completed: 1-8. Previous Employment: None. Character Traits: Competitive, Comfortable on slippery surfaces. Will work with foreigners. Do not like beer at all, never even think about it, actually. (Didn't see that one comin' didja Siggy old boy. You swell Germanic fellow.)