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Say what? He's Talking Halfpipe! (Well, He's Trying.)By Rick Horowitz
Stoked? You bet your headphones I'm stoked! Who wouldn't be? Just catching all those dudes and dudesses dropping out of the house in Goofy stance, then dodging the flat bottom and throwing down trick after trick with huge airs and awesome amplitude -- inverts and McTwists, back 540s and cab 720s with indy grabs, not to mention liquid 900s and even honkin', tornado-esque 1080s! Totally sick!! And I mean that as a compliment. At least I think I do. Care to guess how I've been spending my leisure time up here in our cozy little Olympic-viewing nook? Too true: I've been watching snowboarding! Men's and women's halfpipe, to be specific. Not that I've turned my back on the more traditional Olympic sports -- ski jumping, speedskating, downhill skiing, figure-skating-judge-bashing... But it's the newer events -- halfpipe, and its soulmate in slackerdom, moguls -- that have really lubed my laces this time around. I watch hours of breathless, high-energy coverage of all these folks dissing gravity in the great outdoors, and I say to myself, "That's for me!" Not what the athletes are doing -- are you crazy? I could break my neck with that stuff! I mean the announcing. That's where the real fun is: Fun with words. See, I've finally figured out the criteria for getting a new sport added to the Olympic playlist. To join the world's biggest five-ring circus, a sport has to: * Be popular with younger viewers; * Be popular in at least two countries, one of which borders both Canada and Mexico; and * Have really cool jargon. Really cool jargon that nobody in the outside world has a prayer of understanding -- which is the whole point, isn't it? I mean, how cool can a sport be if even ordinary people can figure out what the announcers are talking about when they describe the thing? And really cool jargon that sounds like it was made up the day before yesterday by three guys sitting in a room somewhere. "Hey, what if instead of, like, saying 'start,' we said, you know, like, 'taking the drop'?" "Sweet!" Which is presumably how somebody on a snowboard came to be doing something the announcers called a "casserole." (I couldn't tell if a "casserole" was a good thing or a bad thing, only that it wasn't a food thing.) Which is also how other somebodies on other snowboards came to be doing "backside tail grabs," which apparently got them extra points from the judges, rather than, say, slapped or sued for sexual harassment. And which is, most noticeably, how any number of somebodies soaring skyward out of the Park City pipe weren't graded on anything as pedestrian as "height." No way -- not when there was a so-much-cooler (not to mention so-much-more-obscure) word just waiting to be used: "amplitude." Which I guess is better than being graded on their "turpitude," or even their "pulchritude." But semi-seriously, folks... Where were we? Right -- fun with words. Here's how I see it: Words are my business. If anyone can step up to the microphone and hit the snow running, so to speak, I figure I'm the guy. And I'd also get one of those great jackets, right? Let's do it. "OK, Ross pops cork here on his second run with a Porky Pig, cuts a titanium solid with super multitude -- lookin' pretty whip -- throws down a ball-bearing 720 with a Seminole side-saddle, eases into an obverse Mulder -- almost fried it right there, but he holds leopard! -- comes right back with a 401(k) and -- I don't believe it! -- a 1440 slipknot with THREE-BEAN SALAD!! And now he's -- " So when do I start? Posted 2/12/02. Go
for the gold twice every week right here at "Rick's"!
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Rick Horowitz
