ManO-ManO-ManO-Man!
(written 15 February 2006)

I caught a bit of the Glob-Athele-Cult tonight. I was happy that no one seemed to be falling or skidding or slipping or running into walls or fences as they have been wont to do. At least, if they were, they weren't doing so in a big, obligitory-hospital-trip kind of way. Let me just say that I, as a spectator, can only take so much carnage. After that poor Chinese woman was catapulted into the stratosphere for the one-upswoman-ship quad spin manoever and went knees-first into the ice, I was yelling at my television "Stay down! Stay down, bitch!" (I honestly said that - it surprised even me.) All I could imagine from that point forward was bones sticking through skin. At any rate, it all worked out fine - she and her partner won the silver - huzzah!

And, while I'm at it, let me take a moment to give a shout-out to gay athletes. Where would we be without gay athletes? Or, for that matter, the camp aesthetic? In the men's skate, I saw a guy with a pseudo-ripped black shirt with crimson underpatches, looking like he'd come fresh from a turf war. I think he actually mimed a punching sequence. I saw another guy skate to the James Bond theme music; he was wearing a dapper suit-ish outfit with - I kid you not - "007" rhinestoned into the back of it (you know, in case you didn't "get it" from the music). Lord bless him, he did shooting gun mimes in his sit-spin. Then, there was a guy (from America, I think) who was wearing a Matador outfit with the gold-spangly arm-cap thingies. Plus, there was this one guy from America who was so beautiful and graceful that I was actually looking for his significant other in the stands.

Friends, I remember watching Brian Boitano in the Olympics when I was growing up. Man, he was magnificent. Looking back, that experience makes me think: if I didn't know he was gay, then I didn't know what "gay" was. For my generation, learning that someone was gay had everything to do with AIDS and nothing to do with an acknowledgement of one's lived experience - the ability to translate the personal "you" into the normative public sphere. I mention this primarily because I am sick of hearing commentators refer to straight guys' wives or girlfriends who are there to cheer them on. Wake up, America. Some of these atheletes have husbands (or "husbands") or boyfriends who care just as much about them and cheer just as hard. It's Valentine's Day - if you're not going to show the love, at least acknowledge it.