Sunday, July 22, 2007

Infidel Man Of The Week

What, Pastorius? Have you gone gay on us?

Well, yeah, I have. What are you gonna do about it, mofo?

:)

This guy, Shaun White, is a witch. I mean, the dude has to have magical powers. I looked all over the internet to try to find a video which does justice to what I saw on TV yesterday, but I have yet to find it.

Until then, this will have to suffice. (By the way, yes, you've seen him in TV commercials before.)







I don't even know the name of the event I was watching yesterday. All I know is it was some big skateboarding championship event, kind of like a golf tournament in hyperspace.

There were 20 of the world's top skaters lined up on an impossible looking ramp, which actually featured an almost inverted takeoff, in other words, not even a vertical dive (I'd swear it was a bit of a concave).

Jesus Christ Almighty, these guys have balls.

But, no one, NO ONE has bigger balls than this 20 year old kid from San Diego, California; Shaun White. What I saw him do defies logic. He is operating at several levels above his competition. When he goes up a ramp, he comes off it and ascends several feet higher into the air than anyone else seems to be capable of. When he turns his body in midair, it is with more force, speed, grace, and agility than anyone else. When he leaves his boards his fingers are able to play and control it's motion in the air like Leonard Bernstein weaving Mahler's Ninth out of a collection of musicians.

The kid is fucking elevated.

And, he knows it, and he cares about it. He wants to win like no one else. His will to win is incredible. He will defy defeat and even death. He will waste himself to win.

In the first round, he lost control of the board on one ascension, and he played with it in midair, changing its position, not one, not two, but three times, turning it over and over (BODY ALOFT) until he got the proper footing for his landing. He was like a jazz saxophonist performing on highwire. But alas, his chance-taking proved too much on another takeoff, and he fell.

In the second round, it was the same story, but this time, he fell from quite a height, straight down on his ass. Now, anyone who has ever had a lower-back disc problem will know, the last thing you ever want to do is fall straight down on your ass. And, his body must have known it instinctively, because at the last second, he reached behind himself with his left arm, and broke his fall, and his left wrist.

Now, here's where it gets amazing. What do you do when you break your left wrist, my friends? You go to the hospital and have it set in a cast, right?

What does Shaun White do when he breaks his left wrist? He goes out for another round, THIS TIME A PERFECT PERFORMANCE, and he

WINS THE FUCKING COMPETITION.

And, he celebrates like nobody's business. He's throwing his skateboard back and forth between his left and right hand. He's high fiving his friends. He's pounding of the ground with his fists.

In other words, in the throes of his adrenalin rush, he was pulverizing his broken left wrist.

Hey, no big deal, he's only twenty. The thing will probably heal better than new in six weeks.

But, I'll bet you anything he'll be out competing again before then.

Oh, and let me tell you two more amazing fucking facts about Shaun White;

1) Skateboarding is his SECOND sport. Snowboarding is his primary sport.

2) As a skateboarder, he has won 4 out of 7 tournaments in which he has competed.

That is DOMINANCE!

Infidel Man of the week.

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