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Ladies and Gentlemen, he’s the winner of no gold, silver, or bronze medals! When he wears ice skates he looks like a bowlegged cowboy. He’s your host for this column: Bruuuce Smith!
Hi folks, sorry about the introduction. I’ve been announcing everything that way ever since my wife and I went to see Champions on Ice at the Anaheim Pond. The Anaheim Pond, as you probably know, is not a pond at all, but an arena. It is the home of the Mighty Ducks, who, as you probably know, are not ducks. They are hockey players. It's all a big lie! Anyway... we went to Champions on Ice because we got free tickets. I am the kind of ungrateful bastard who can get something for free and make fun of it, so I have to mention that the seats were in the nosebleed section. From where we sat, a couple miles above the duckless arena, we could see very famous ice skaters, I had never heard of before, spin around on the ice. They were all very eager to demonstrate how limber they were, especially the female skaters who did moves you can’t get away with in public, but that are perfectly acceptable in the middle of a crowded arena. Music played and lights flashed. The two girls behind us screamed like we were at a Beatles concert back in the 60’s. The screams were loud and shrill. My wife began to bleed from her ear. "Do you think it's caused by the screams or the elevation?" I asked her. "What?" she said. The two screaming girls were at Champions on Ice with their parents. Their parents kept telling them to shut up. "Shut up yourself," one of the girls said to her dad, making me grateful once again for that vasectomy I had years ago. Now just so you don’t think I live in a festering sinkhole of negativity (whatever that is) I’m going to say something positive. The ice skaters were very good. There, I did it. I said to my wife, "You know, watching these young performers demonstrate their athletic skills makes me want to go sit down and have a big dinner." Occasionally one of the skaters, as part of his or her act, would set a piece of clothing down on the ice. I noticed that during their performance, instead of thinking thoughts like, wow, that was an awesome three-point twirl, I was obsessing over the fact that their clothing was still sitting there. I found myself thinking, I sure hope she picks up that jacket. Somebody’s going to trip over that thing! I would leave Champions on Ice with the knowledge that I have reached entirely new levels of compulsiveness. I could get a gold medal in compulsiveness. They should have an Obsessive/Compulsive Olympics: "We join competitor Bruce Smith as he lines up the tape dispenser and the stapler on his desk for the third time today." "It’s amazing, John. Have you noticed how he quadruple checks everything he does?" "You’re right and… wait! It seems that Mr. Smith has pulled a ruler out of his desk. He’s using it to line up his sticky notes!" "I’ve never seen anything like it! Let’s see what scores the judges gave him…" My favorite part of Champions on Ice was during the intermission when the machine came out and cleaned up all those messy ice shavings. I was able to see this because I was in and out of the men’s restroom in about two seconds. My wife, on the other hand, is still in line for the women’s restroom, and I miss her very much. My second favorite part of the show was the music -- an interesting mix that included Louie Armstrong, The Scorpions, and Prince. Ice skating is a more like dance than it is like wild game hunting, a LOT more. The routines were varied and diverse. They were the most un-routine routines I have ever seen. There was a girl who twirled Hula-Hoops while skating, a guy who stood on a bald man’s head while wearing ice skates, and a man who shot and killed a gazelle. That last one I made up, but the other two were for real, so, as you can tell, it was pretty interesting. As the show progressed, it became increasingly surreal, and the unusual acts grew more frequent. In one sequence they used a very strange lighting effect that was never explained. It made the ice look like it was covered with eyeballs. I took my glasses off, cleaned the lenses, and put my glasses back on. The scene hadn't changed. There were still people skating on eyeballs. Perhaps this was a prelude to the finale where the whole thing just got out of hand. The finale was an odd garish circus style performance set to Spanish music. There was lots of orange -- the color, I’m told, of insanity. A line of male skaters who were dressed like matadors glided across the ice and waved their capes around. Female skaters zipped by them and twirled. Strange poles were moved around the ice, seemingly at random. They were decorated so that they sort of looked like lollipops, but it wasn't clear what they were actually supposed to be. They weren't definitively anything. Maybe they were giant Q-tips for cleaning the giant eyeballs. I couldn't be certain. What is happening here? I wondered. Some guy who was dressed like a clown, maybe a jester, stood in the middle for a minute while the lollipop sticks were moved around again. Another guy who was dressed like something I can only describe as "a fluffy tree" skated to the edge of the ice and wiggled his legs at our part of the audience. Chaos reigned. Suddenly I was at Champions on Crack. It was a barrage of the unexpected, but we knew it was the finale because that’s how the show ended. The skaters bowed. We, the audience, recovered from our hallucinogenic state and applauded. I left the auditorium, saw my wife in line and told her to call me, then made my way out to the car. On the way home it occurred to me that my column is lot like Champions on Ice. Often times it starts off normal and then it gets increasingly bizarre. Realizing this, I pulled off the side of the road, turned my radio to a Spanish station, climbed up on my car, and did a hat dance. "Arriba! Arriba!" I yelled. I bowed to the passing cars and they threw roses to me, causing me to trip and fall off the car onto the curb, where I lay uninjured, but happy to have entertained my fans. You can applaud now. It’s over. |
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