Real Joe

“In one of the most emotional victories of the Games, American Jim Shea won the men�s skeleton Wednesday. The third generation Olympian carried in his helmet the funeral card of his grandfather, a gold medalist in speed skating 70 years ago, who died four weeks before the Games.”

I don’t know about all these behind-the-scenes “emotional” stories that supposedly add drama to the Olympics. Speedskater Dan Jansen and his dying sister really set the stage for it several Games’ ago, and this year, NBC is looking under every rock for something similar.

Are they all variations of “Win one for the Gipper“? Or, as a friend of mine contests, are the networks aiming it the female viewership?

Everyone in Tinseltown is getting pinched, lifted and pulled. They lose some of their soul when they go under the knife. – Robert Redford

I wonder how he knows? I don’t think I’d ever have cosmetic surgery, but I can’t be sure. Would I dye my hair so it wasn’t so gray? Probably not. But what if I was single? I may not really know the boundaries of my vanity.

A few days ago, geezer sportscaster Jim McKay did a tv profile of 1984 downhill gold medalist Bill Johnson who was trying to make this year’s Olympic team at age 40, but who crashed in a race and now suffers from brain damage.

McKay lauded him as a hero but it became clear to me that the whole thing was really a misguided ego trip by someone who has no idea what else to do with his life… and still doesn’t.