Last night, after being glued to the TV to watch who got eliminated from “So you think you can dance while almost completely naked?” I turned the TV over to ESPN and found out the X-Games are on again. I hate the X-Games.
Normally, sports on TV are things that we could play as kids (or maybe even adults), but I didn’t see anything on the X Games that seemed like something I could play without being asked by Holli if I was stupid or something. Last night it was stupid-things-to-do-on-a-motorcycle-games.
When we were kids, Evel Kinevel was considered a bad influence. Every once in a while, shows would air talking about kids getting hurt trying to jump the Snake River Canyon (or the kid-equivalent) on their Schwinn to prove to the TV audience that Evel was, well, evil. Personally, I don’t remember my parents ever telling me I wasn’t allowed to set up a ramp and jump over stuff on my bike, but I always felt guilty when we did it, so they might have.
And before, during and after Evel’s jumps, Jim McKay on ABC’s Wide World of Sports would remind us 417 times to not try this at home, even if we happened to have 13 London Buses in our back yard and a really cool ramp.
And he always crashed anyway, so it seemed a bad idea.
But these guys are jumping 100 feet in the air, letting go of the handlebars and doing stunts mid-air while thousands scream in the arena and millions watching on TV wishing Sportscenter would come on. Or maybe it was just me.
It seems if you are crazy enough to do this, you don’t need a helmet, you need a psychiatrist.
