This weekend, ESPN is holding its first Extreme Sports awards. "Extreme
sports"? Hey, folks, let's call this what it is: weird ##### invented by guys
who are willing to die to get laid.
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but our obsession with extreme
sports has people all over the country jumping off bridges, skyscrapers and
mountain cliffs, and some of them aren't even invested in the stock market.
The concept of extreme sports is yet another component in the vast
conspiracy contrived to make me feel like I'm aging faster than a tuna
sandwich in the glove compartment of a black car parked in Phoenix, Arizona.
Extreme sports are usually played by middle-class white kids, because the
equipment involved is expensive, the activities often require costly trips
to exotic locations and, let's face it, unfortunately, if you're growing up
in an inner-city housing project, the mere act of walking to school is no
doubt extreme enough.
Gen-X sports have been so successful for advertisers, they're now afraid to
market anything without them. I saw Charles Schwab on TV the other day,
trying to yell something about moderate-growth mutual funds while
wakeboarding off the North Shore of Oahu, with his knee joints poppin' like
two M-80s goin' off in an underground parking garage.
Hey, you only have to watch a minute of extreme sports to distill what is
really going on here: psychopaths enriching osteopaths.
Now, when it was first introduced, bungee jumping was seen as the peak of
extreme, a wild, daring pasttime only the boldest madmen would undertake. It
has today become so mainstream that all bungee jumping platforms are
required by law to be fully wheelchair- accessible.
Then there's BASE jumping, a high fatality activity which involves leaping
off buildings and bridges with a parachute. You know, when I was ten years
old, I climbed up on the roof of our neighbors garage and jumped off while
holding an open umbrella. Only it wasn't called BASE jumping back then,
let's see, what was it called ... oh yeah, "Being a ##### Moron."
If you really want to screw with a BASE jumper's head, wait at the edge of
the cliff, and just before he's about to go, ask for his girlfriends phone
number.
You know, when I watch one of these Eco Challenge events, I always wonder
what the local natives think when they see the civilized folk "roughing it"
with all the state-of-the-art clothing and equipment money can buy.
Meanwhile, the Sherpas are climbing Everest with nothing on their feet but
Wonder Bread bags, and their gods forbid the use of twist ties. And how
about when these hikers pull out their calorically calibrated protein bars,
while the guide from the tribe, who is naked except for the animal horn on
his penis just digs into a pile of elephant dung and pulls out an undigested
peanut, and calls it macaroni. [SING] Yankee Doody went to town
Extreme sports are fascinating to someone like me, who screams like Maria
Callas in late-stage labor if I merely drive over a pothole with an open
coffee container between my legs. In my defense, I may not be as adventurous
as I used to be, but given the right set of circumstances, I am as extreme
as they come. Like the other day, I'm making my famous cinnamon baked
apples. But just for the sheer adrenaline rush, I stick the cloves in with
their spikey ends pointing out. Balls to the wall, dude!
I think I speak for many of my fellow Los Angelenos when I say that I find
extreme sports rather redundant when I spend a good deal of my day just
trying to stay alive in traffic, while pinned between 4 stegasaurus-sized
S.U.V.s, each being driven by a psychotically aggressive,
Palm-Pilot-wielding, 98-pound woman with the blood sugar level of Lot's
wife.
I view professional extreme athletes with, at worst, mild puzzlement and, at
best, genuine respect. But what pisses me off are the amateur extreme
athletes, who don't just risk their own lives -- they make some park ranger,
fireman, or cop risk his life to save them. Every time I see a soldier who
enlisted so he could defend his country, end up having to put his neck on
the line, rappelling off a helicopter to save some middle-aged hero-wannabe
jagoff who skied 20 miles off the clearly marked trail just so he can have a
better pickup line than, "Hey, baby, your place or my moms?", I can't help
but hope that just this one time, the kid from the National Guard is going
to change his mind and chopper away to get a well-deserved beer, but not
before getting just close enough to shout, "Hey, #####, Charles Darwin
says hi."
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks