— I love the half-pipe boys. I love the half-pipe in general. Shaun White messed up on his first run. The commentators projected themselves into what they KNEW was his mind … because they are psychic! They kept saying stuff like: “He must be FUMING right now …” “He knows that he only has one more chance …” “He must be so angry right now …” Then – after his run was finished – a reporter finally pulled him aside, to hear all about his outrage, and all that fuming anger he had going on. Reporter says: “So … how do you feel right now, Shaun?” Shaun says, throwing his arm around one of his teammates, speaking in SUCH a ski-bum drawl: “Oh, you know … we’re all just so glad to be here … I mean, we’re a strong team … and hopefully I’ll do better the next run … but as long as we all just have fun, that’s what’s really important – it’s so great to be here!” The commentators were NOTICEABLY silent, listening to all that “outrage”, listening to him “fume”. Good for you, Shaun. They were PROJECTING. You are your OWN PERSON. DON’T LET THEM IMPOSE EMOTIONS ON YOU!!
— Apolo Ohno! Here he is again! I feel like he literally took over my damn life for two weeks during the last Olympics … I ate, slept, breathed Apolo Ohno. I read all the interviews, I tuned in to the personal stories, I angsted throughout the controversy etc. etc. What? And now here he is again! Old friend!!!
— I cried watching Chad Hedrick get his gold medal. The first gold for the USA. Just a damn close-up of his face through the entire Star Spangled Banner. Gulp!!! And Bob Costas, thankfully, SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR ONE SECOND SO THAT I COULD HAVE MY OWN RESPONSE … jesus. He is pissing me OFF. Just shut UP and let me get swept away in the ceremony and ritual of it all! But amazingly, Costas shut his trap while the flag rose into the air – and I got to revel in Hedrick’s face – the tears glimmering in his eyes, the adrenaline pumping through him, he was mouthing the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner … and he just looked … completely PUMPED. Like … what a MOMENT in his life! Tears!!! Tears in chez Sheila!
— Update: (and sorry everyone in different time zones – skip this part):
Shaun has made the finals after having to do a second run. The commentators have been angsting and psychically projecting themselves into his brain for half an hour now. Leading up to the run, they set up the drama (as though it’s not dramatic enough being in the Olympics): “He has never felt such pressure …” “You know that he is thinking that he MUST do well …” Yadda yadda. So then he makes it into the finals – whoo-hoo! – and the reporter comes up to him at the end, and asks him: “Have you ever felt such pressure?” He started laughing, his long red hair sweaty around his young young face, and he said, “I was trippin, man!” hahahahaha There’s something about the half-pipe boys. They don’t have the solemnity of more established Olympics sports and it’s refreshing. “I was trippin’, man!”
I just watched Shaun on the podium. Tears at Chez Fish. Awesome!
Now he is chatting with Bob. Help!
OMG, Shaun White’s interview just now with Costas was insanely hilarious: “my friends were all, like, you know Sasha Cohen’s totally digging the gold medals.”
LOVED the Sasha comment. hahahaha And then Bob had to end the night with “He did it with the spirit of a young rascal”.
Kwan realized her time was up. When will Bob?
Costas is simply awful when’s talking about pretty much anything other than baseball, but he also had to endure doing commentary on at least one (or was it more) Opening Ceremonies with Katie Couric, and for that alone deserves at least SOME sympathy.
The Sasha Cohen line is hilarious.
And to your point, Sheila, the reason you like the halfpipe boys so much is that there is a clear sense of joy in what they’re doing. it’s fun, they’re loving it, and that makes you love it too.
Tomorrow night: the halfpipe girls rock the party.
Sheila — Missed it ALL — work! That Shaun cracks me up, though. “I was trippin’!” How funny that he just puts their expectations back on THEIR heads.
I find it eerie that Bob Costas never ages. But tonight, I was examining his temples (he gets way too much screen time– aren’t there some games they could be covering?) and I could be wrong, but I think he might be wearing a rug. There’s a tiny line of short gray hair in front of his ears that disappears into the preternatually brown thatch on top.
I totally hope Shaun and Sasha go on a date wearing their gold medals (if Sasha gets one…)
Red – I’m assuming you’re observing a vigil for Michelle Kwan…
I find it eerie that Bob Costas never ages.
I was just thinking that the other day. I don’t watch much TV sports, but I met Costas 20 years ago, and up until making almost the same observation you did, Roo, I’d felt the same way. He was like the Dick Clark of sports broadcasting.
Separate question; is it just me, or does NBC News’ “Olympic” theme – the one they play at the beginning of the Today show – sound like it’s terribly out of tune? Anyone notice that?
The fact that he actually professed his interest in Sasha Cohen to Bob Costas was one of the highlights of the entire night. It was hilarious!!
i love the snowboarders. they are just so humble and amazed at the fact that they are at the olympics. LOVE THEM.
Didn’t you just LOVE how embarrassed he was that he cried when he won? Then he kept apologizing! I just wanted to hug him and say, “It’s okay! YOU WON A GOLD MEDAL. You’re ALLOWED TO CRY.”
How about when he was on the podium – and he had his hand over his heart for the anthem (which – of course – killed me) and he had a couple of moments when the MOMENT just occurred to him, washed over him, and he would cover his eyes. So intense!!!!
And I just thought it was so funny how he was fantasizing about being on a date with Sasha Cohen – “Yeah, we can just both wear our gold medals when we go out.”
Assuming she gets one …
GO, SASHA!!!!
Oh, and how about the retrospective at the end of the night on the career of Michelle Kwan? It was more like an elegy. She was filmed in light that made her look like a stained glass window of some religious event in a cathedral. She is the most decorated US skater of all time. I understand why she would want the gold – everyone else in her position who have won all these national and world championships ALSO won the gold … but she won’t.
They made an interesting point – or whoever was commentating did: that she was one of the most “graceful” of skaters in a time when ‘grace’ no longer was that important. Very interesting. Now (and look at Sasha, and Irina Slutskaya, and Sarah Hughes) it’s about speed, strength, and courage – doing 3 triples in one program, what have you. Michelle Kwan was living on her swan-like figure-8s for way too long – while Sasha and Sarah were doing triple after triple and bounding over the ice like lionesses. Sorry, Kwan. Grace won’t win you the gold.
That’s why Dick Button and Peggy Fleming love her so much — because she represents what figure skating USED to be, and what they wish it still was.
Dick Button’s barely-disguised contempt for “athletic” type skating is well known. Listen to him at Pairs tonight. He’ll make little snide asides about how no one can do footwork, or — like he did on Saturday — how no one can spin anymore.
Kwan and her contemporaries are the last of the ones who had to straddle that line between athleticism and grace. Now that she’s gone, the old ways, Dick’s ways, are gone, too. From now on, you’re right, jumps are what counts.
I loved the comment – when he messed up, “it was like so annoying because I was like not paying enought attention to what I was doing. I was tripping – just loved that – your are hurtling yourself down a pipe on a board, flying in the air, spinning around a few times for fun and you mess up because you are not paying close enough attention – that was so funny – I can’t imagine myself doing any of that w/o killing myself and “flying Tomato” was annoyed that he had to make another run, priceless.
hope ohno does better is future events. not sure why he tried to pass that guy at the end, but it ended pretty badly. i’m with you, red, the half-pipe guys are tremendous! looking forward to the women’s competition tonight.
Red, on the matter of grace, I think what sets Cohen apart is that she has the strength and power to do the triples and still be eye-meltingly gorgeous in terms of grace and form.
I want her to win in the worst way. She proves that you don’t just need to be some little power-freak videogame character to be successful. And Kimmie Meissner is a pretty skater as well, and she can do the technical moves that are required to get high scores. In four years I expect her to be a serious force.
And Emily Hughes, well, she deserves to be there. I am not a big fan of the Hughes sisters, but Emily will be where she belonged on merits this week. I feel bad for her in that she didn’t get to march in the opening ceremonies. She got so jobbed in this ridiculous hunt to try and get Kwan a medal.
Ahahaha! I got sucked into a little bit of OhnoFest… Thankfully I recovered, helps me focus on all the other Olympic action. Every year I SWEAR that I am not interested. When asked, I say that I won’t probably even watch and then… Ahaha! There I am!
I enjoy reading your ideas here!