Twistin’ like a flame in a slow dance, baby
You’re driving me crazy
Come on, little honey
Come on now
Oh that’s a flaming galah! Throw your wombats in the air like you just don’t care if you’re ready to see the Findon Skid Kids perform their amazing “jumping through fire” stunt!
Spectators at the Findon Skid Kids on Reserve Parade ended up having to throw blankets over the kids when their lazily named stunt went wrong and sent them to the hospital with burns.
This is how the “stunt” should look when it’s performed properly:
Woo. I fail to see jumping of any kind. Fire is the appropriate penalty handed down from above by the immortal and omnipotent Evel Knievel. Homer Simpson made a better effort on a skateboard. The injuries aren’t life-threatening so it’s fine for us to make fun of these kids who willingly put themselves in harm’s way for our pleasure with the lamest of stunts.
I’m surprised Corey Booker didn’t bust in on the scene, put the fire out then treat the kids himself. First he badmouths Obama on Meet The Press and now this dereliction of duty. Is this the man you want as senator, New Jersey?
Growing up in Cincinnati meant that I was going to be a Bengals fan and a Reds fan. But for pro basketball, a sport I love deeply, I was basically a fan with no team. As a kid, I followed a pretty solid formula. Root against the Bulls. And it wasn’t even that I disliked Jordan so much, I just inherently rooted for the underdog every time, which was never Jordan by the time I was old enough to know what the fuck was up. And to this day I’ve really enjoyed never having a true blood-boiling allegiance to any NBA team.
So some years I was a Knicks fan (I like to think of myself as a better Anthony Mason), some years I was a Pacers fan (DUNKEEEN DUTCHMAN!), and some years I didn’t really care who won as long as the games were good. I liked this set up and still do. The NBA is the one sport I can watch casually and never get that upset about the result. I mean, I will root for a team to win (Right now that team is the Knicks because I live in NYC and they are oddly compelling no matter how good or bad they are), but if they don’t it’s not going to put me in a funk. I’m not going to start mainlining whiskey if the Knicks give up 74 points in one half of ball (They did this last night! It was darkly amusing.). And I watch a lot more NBA than I do other sports because of this.*
Anyway, the NBA these days has so many good teams and players and stories making you want to watch that basically every night there is a good reason to tune in. Especially when you haven’t gone sour on the whole league because of your favorite team’s problems. It’s like no strings attached romance. You can walk away without feeling guilty. And you won’t feel guilty a couple days later if you dial the NBA’s number for a late night encounter again.
*Sidebar: Football is football, so I’m gonna watch a certain amount of games every week no matter what depending on the matchups. Baseball though, unless the Reds are playing, it might as well be some form of slow drip torture. Although I do like rooting against the Yankees, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I have to watch their games. I just need a baseline of intelligence about their team and then I can get them riled up about Jeter being a bronzed statue out in the field or George Steinbrenner pulling strings via Ouija Board. Hockey is not televised as far as I know. And European Soccer is awesome and I would watch a lot more of it if all the games weren’t on in the middle of the workday. Not coincidentally, Euro Soccer is also a sport where I don’t have a rooting interest.
In a Super Bowl that was wayyyyy closer than it should’ve been, the Baltimore Ravens defeated the San Francisco 49ers by the score of 34-31. This game really had everything one would want in a solid Super Bowl match-up. It had a bizzare 30 minute blackout in the middle of the 3rd quarter. It had the 49ers making a furious 2nd half comeback only to fall short with under two minutes to go in the game. It had special teams touchdowns, a random fakes field goal and it even a safety. This game was one defensive touchdown away from having every type of exciting play a football game should have.
And now, sadly, the season is over and we must wait until next autumn before football season comes around again. We’ll have the next 6 months to talk about if Joe Flacco is “elite”, if Ray Ray actually did murder someone, if Alex Smith will attempt to murder Jim Harbaugh only to fall short because he is not an elite enough murderer. Sigh…i’m going to miss football.
