The Olympics - The Greatest Freak Show on Earth

		The Olympics - The Greatest Freak Show on Earth by Mad Dog
So how to explain that the U.S. has won 75 medals so far and, say, Jamaica only has two? Besides the fact that there’s no bobsled competition this time around, it’s because we have more nuclear power plants than they do.		Yowsah, yowsah, yowsah. Step right up, ladies and gentlemen. See the incredible Olympics side show. Yessiree, it’s all right here behind this scalper. I mean, ticket-taker. You’ll marvel at the Human Skyscraper as he drops a ball through a 10-foot-high hoop without his feet ever leaving the ground. You’ll be amazed at the Half-Man Half-Woman, discovered in a remote corner of an Eastern Bloc country. Is “he” the half that throws the shot put over 20 meters or is it “she”? And where else can you see the Incredible Human Lightning, the world’s fastest man—120 pounds and not a lick of fat on him? Welcome to the Olympics, the Greatest Freak Show On Earth. It’s amazing that freaks were banned from sideshows in the U.S. during the ‘70s yet watching them is not only legal but the favorite post-Survivor pastime. And yes, there’s no question these people are freaks. Normal people can’t leap 8.55 meters in a single bound. Normal people don’t swim across a pool faster than I can drive. And normal people don’t go home crying before they compete like Marie-Jose Perec of France did because they have paranoid delusions about people following them. At least not the people I know. The athletes competing in the Olympics are the result of mutated genes, years of hard work, and drugs. In other words, people who have no lives from the age of five until they’re too injured to do anything but be an announcer on the next Olympics so they can tell us the life story of other athletes with no life. Of course it’s better than having to sit on the street playing the piano with their feet to make a living. I think.
This goes a long way towards explaining why anyone would want to devote ten hours a day, day in day out, to practicing synchronized field hockey, water polo (“Marco!” “Polo!”), or the decathlon (from the Greek for “ten times as much agony”).		So how to explain that the U.S. has won 75 medals so far and, say, Jamaica only has two? Besides the fact that there’s no bobsled competition this time around, it’s because we have more nuclear power plants than they do. More nuclear power, more leaks. More leaks, more women who make Hulk Hogan look like Sally Fields while lifting twice their weight. It has to be that. After all, it can’t be genetics. Most Americans can’t lift their own body weight off the La-Z-Boy to get another bag of Cheetos and a 24-pack of Slim Jims, better yet bench press 570 lbs. or run 200 meters in a little over twenty seconds. Hell, mention 200 meters to most Americans and they’ll tell you that’s why they prefer the mall—they don’t have to put money in any of the 200 meters downtown. It also helps that in the U.S. we have a higher incidence of mental illness. This goes a long way towards explaining why anyone would want to devote ten hours a day, day in day out, to practicing synchronized field hockey, water polo (“Marco!” “Polo!”), or the decathlon (from the Greek for “ten times as much agony”). Drugs have a lot to do with it too. Steroids bulk you up until you’re the size of the Incredible Hulk. And the same color too. The difference is at least the Hulk still has testicles. Of course as with any superheroes, good costumes help. Some, like the Williams sisters (no, not Esther and Andy), are into fashion. But most have other priorities, such as adding nanoseconds to their already ridiculously fast world record. Companies like Nike, Speedo, and Adidas have come up with special space-age outfits to give athletes that extra edge. Right, like they need more of an edge. This is like telling Elle McPherson that she needs plastic surgery because her nose is 1 millimeter longer than it should be. Talk about superfluous!
I’d much rather watch John Goodman pole vault, see Madonna take on Britney in the greco-roman cat fight, and toss chauvinism to the wind by cheering for Björk and the Icelandic basketball team.		Thus the manufacturers are making swim suits out of fabric that emulates sharkskin. Big deal! Cool guys have been wearing sharkskin suits for years in East L.A. and most of them can’t swim at all. They’re also making running suits with dimples on them like golf balls. Hopefully these will make them run faster because I’d hate to think Tiger Woods might mistake Konstantinos Kenteris’ genitals for a Titleist. There’s even a one-armed suit for javelin throwers, not because it will do them any good, but do you want to be the one to tell a guy with a spear in his hand that you didn’t do anything special for him? Personally I think these freaks of nature should be barred from the Olympics. After all, this is supposed to be an amateur competition, not a side show. Just because we can send ringers like pro basketball players and U.S. Open winners doesn’t mean we should be able to send our caped crusaders. I think that instead of seeing superfreaks trim a hundredth of a second from their world record, or throw a metal disc a centimeter farther than any quasi-human has thrown it before, we should put real celebrities in the spotlight. I’d much rather watch John Goodman pole vault, see Madonna take on Britney in the greco-roman cat fight, and toss chauvinism to the wind by cheering for Björk and the Icelandic basketball team. While we’re at it, maybe we should go back to the early days of the Olympics and have them compete naked. All except for the pole vault, of course. Then we’d have something to stare at. ©2000 Mad Dog Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. These columns appear in better newspapers across the country. Read them while bench pressing a beer.