You Can Tell All Cyclists Are on Drugs...

...because you'd have to be on some seriously heavy crack to want to cycle up the Pyrenees. I caught the end of Stage 14 of the Tour de France today and I got tired watching it, never mind actually doing it.

Cyclists show intense physical ability and mental fortitude, because you just know that they wanted to get off their bike and twat the slightly-too-close-and-intense crowd.

Hip Hop Hubris: 'Forever' by Drake et al

Last name: Ever
First name: Greatest
Like a sprained ankle
Boy, I ain't nothin' to play with
-Drake, 'Forever'

Hmmm. Last name: Ever and first name: Greatest. Well, that makes the name... Greatest Ever. Now, Drake, I don't think that's actually your real name, not when Wikipedia tells me that it's actually Aubrey Drake Graham. So if that's not your actual name, I assume that you're using it as some kind of braggadocio for something. But what?

Greatest Ever Drake? Sorry son, but I'm pretty sure that title belongs to Sir Francis.

Greatest ever MC? Well, that's a very bold claim. Three MCs I would consider his superior off the top of my head would be Kanye West, L'il Wayne and Eminem... totally coincidentally, the three guest stars on this  track.

Well, I've run out of ideas. Maybe he makes a mean chilli.

Of course, it's interesting this video is make in conjunction with brand LeBron (this song was on the soundtrack to More Than a Game, the documentary about LeBron's last high-school season). There's a lot of posturing by the two of them, a lot of needing to be constantly reminded by their support groups about how awesome they are. LeBron and Drake are totally friends, by the way.

(In the interests of fairness, Drake is totally right about sprained ankles. You definitely don't want to play on one of those. Take it from the guy who sprained his ankle and thought it would be okay to go out that same night if he shoved a bag of ice down his sock. Not my smartest move).

The Competitive Art

Yesterday, the great Darren Lockyer played in his last State of Origin game for Queensland. It being a momentous occasion worth celebrating, Channel 9 decided to pull out all the stops with its opening cinematic. In it, we got to see Darren at his old family home in Roma, Queensland, and get told about his idyllic youth that shaped one of the greatest rugby league players of all time. To the ongoing strains of Muse’s ‘Exogenesis Symphony Part 2” (a favourite of the NRL on Channel 9), Darren revealed to us just how special his childhood had been:

“Cricket in the summer, Rugby League in the winter, Squash, Basketball, Motorbikes and Crayfishing. Not once did we sit in the house playing computer games.”

I rolled my eyes so far back at this that I was practically looking back into my sockets. Really, Darren? I suppose the fact that Lockyer is one of the finest players of all time is no doubt down to the fact that he never played Street Fighter II with his brothers. It was such a pointless and unnecessary remark in a celebratory piece that stuck out like a neon signal of negativity. Now I know Australia doesn’t have the most enlightened attitude towards video games anyway, but even so it struck me as so… unnecessary.

Haye vs Klitcshko, Boxing and Bloodlust

Last night, Wladimir Klitcshko beat David Haye in a Boxing bout to unify the World Titles. Although there's been a lot of poo-pooing of the fight, I didn't think it was that bad. Wlad actually had to try for once, and it was nowhere near the debacle that Haye's previous fight with Audley Harrison was. However, it definitely left a sour taste in the mouth, and it's because the two fighters did so much trash-talking beforehand and instead of trying to kill each other, they settled for trying to outmanoeuvre each other with only limited success. After promising to deliver Boxing's grandest statement, the knockout, they both settled into trying to tag the other with limited power. Both fights forsook violence for victory, trading the ultimate glory for the consolation prize.

People often complain about Boxing being a barbaric sport, and wonder how it can be still considered a form of entertainment in this day and age to watch two men essentially try and kill each other. Aren't we supposed to be beyond that, as a species? There are many counter arguments to be made, such as Boxers being about as fine athletes as you can find, and the skills required being immense, and that it is perfectly possible to enjoy boxing on a tactical, skill level. There's some truth to this, but as last night showed, violence is a such massive part of Boxing's fabric that its absence becomes more upsetting than its presence.

The fact of the matter is that when people watch Boxing, they do want to see someone get hurt. As much as one plays up the tactical elements of the sport, or the appreciation of the skills and strategy on offer, it requires that bloodlust to fuel it. In many respects, combat sports are as pure as sport gets - just two men pitting their physical and mental selves against each other in a controlled environment (the controlled conditions of Boxing being the fine line that truly separates it from a street fight). Whilst it is perfectly possible to appreciate Boxing on a tactical, intellectual level, what makes it so compelling is that this chess match of the fists has to be played on the board of primal bloodthirst with the high-stakes currency of human well-being. It's what makes the sport such a high-pressure spectacle. It's no coincidence that at the highest level Boxers receive such insane paydays - they are effectively putting their lives on the line to deliver a spectacle for the masses. As a spectator sport, Boxing relies both on the human urge to see violence and also on the human fear of receiving violence. There's definitely an unedifying, morbid cloud that hangs over the sport of Boxing, but it is this very real sense of danger that makes it so compelling, and removing it takes away the element of fear and worry that it is intrinsically reliant on.

The Amazing Olympic Opening Ceremony Idea

I won't lie, I'm a little worried...

There's been a lot of pontification about the Olympics in London lately. Oh, I'm sorry, haven't you heard? The Olympics are taking place in London next year, and there's been a large outcry over the semi-bullshit methods of ticket distribution (Men's Basketball tickets FTW). I feel this has been distracting from the bigger issue, the one that's secretly weighing on a city's (and a nations's) mind - how stupid the Olympic ceremony will be.

I just have this horrible feeling that it's going to be some stupid attempt at being 'representative', 'artistic' and all those other superfluous buzzwords that ruin it for everyone. Basically, it's going to be a misguided attempt at being a 'worthy' spectacle, which is exactly what happened with the Millennium Dome saga. Look, we all saw the Beijing Olympic ceremonies, and they were pretty damn spectacular:

Why would we even try to compete with that? There's no way it turns out as impressive. No way in hell. For a start, the reasons to be skeptical made themselves known at the very end of the Beijing Closing Ceremony, when London made a little cameo. You may remember that we got this:

Leona Lewis out of the top of a collapsible double-deck bus. Wonderful. How representative. How tasteful. How awe-inspiring. No doubt the Chinese felt shown up on their own doorstep by this display of Britishness. Or not.

Look, we can't match the manpower or dedication of the Chinese, so why even bother trying? It's just going to look like a low-rent version of what's gone before, and that doesn't do anyone's image any good. I bet Danny Boyle, the Creative Director for the Opening Ceremony, knows this.

What we need is a different approach.

Now after the Closing Ceremony in 2008, my Dad actually had quite a good idea, inspired by Lewis' little-known backing guitarist that day, one Mr Jimmy Page: what if the Opening Ceremony was a Led Zeppelin reunion concert? You have to admit, that would be showing the world: look, we've provided the planet with a disproportionate number of the most kickass rock bands in history. Bow down before us! Alas, I don't think the Zep would be up for it, and we'd have to either blow a large portion of the budget on resurrection technology or find a replacement for John Bonham (no, his son is not acceptable. This is the Olympics, damnit!) . However, this idea did get me thinking about what could work, and eventually led me to a solution which is 100% foolproof:

THE 2012 LONDON OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY SHOULD BE A MASSIVE GRIME CONCERT

Bo Burnham - Shepherds Bush Empire (18/6/2011)

If you're reading this, chances are you're on the internet, and if you're on the internet chances are that you've heard of Bo Burnham. He's the prodigy of the comedy world, a 20 year old whose internet videos have won him worldwide acclaim and popularity. After a well-received run in Edinburgh last year, Burnham undertook his first UK tour, and I was lucky enough to be at the tour's final stop in London. 

Looking down at the crowd from my seat up in the rafters, I thought back to an interview I'd read with Burnham about his audiences in the UK, which he said would be more likely to consist of older patrons. Well, not this crowd - I definitely felt like an old man in this crowd, and I'm in my mid-20s. It seemed to be full of teenagers using their smartphones and their twitters right up to the start of the show (some even taking in the start of the show - thank you, YouTube).

And what a start it is - Bo's opening segment is a sprawling seven minute opus, starting off with an epic drone as Bo sets the faux-serious epic tone that he quickly dismantles as he hurtles into comedy lightspeed, taking in a tour of audience abuse (in an endearing way), bathetic undercutting of the intensely dramatic backing-track, and a tour of a fantasy-land with Bo proceeds to desecrate and and cut down, before ending in good-old innuendo. It's an opening that showcases two things that become recurring themes throughout the evening - the relentless pace with which he goes about working the stage, and the wide-reaching, quick-jumping approach he has to his material. 

Bo's songs tend to employ either clever wordplay or quick undercutting of tone, and a few of his songs end on abrupt punch-lines into staccato, just as they seem to be started. The storytelling within the musical element of the show is an interesting comparison with the stand-up part of his show, which consists mostly of quick-fire one-liners, which indicate a rather scattershot approach to his his comedy. He can seem like a demented ADD sufferer at times, simply unable to focus on one thing. It almost feels like he feels that he has to fill the space between the songs with whatever comes into his head.

The reason Bo has such a devoted following is his positioning himself as the mainstream outsider. He often refers to people not liking him and his not liking people. People feel that they can relate to his troubles and travails. In this context, his final piece, 'Nerds', is surprisingly moving - a thoughtful, restrained rap about being a nerd and the abuse that he received for it. It helps that he's a competent enough rapper, but it's delivered with a raw emotional conviction that makes it seem far more personal than the rest of his material, which since it tends to take a more attacking tone has to lie hidden behind the veil of persona. 

I think my highlight of the night actually preceded 'Nerds', when Bo quickly slipped off the mask of his stage persona and started to espouse his love of the UK comedy scene, namechecking people like Tim Key and Tim Vine, before waving his arms at the sky and screaming "WHY STEW, WHY??? WE COULD'VE BEEN FRIENDS!!!", a reference to the seeming discontent he appears to have drawn from UK comedy hero Stewart Lee (Lee had an article in the Financial Times on Friday feeling sorry for Burnham for being compared to him in the previous week's Guardian). I've always got the impression that Lee is more opposed to the idea of Burnham than anything else,

I took a friend to see Bo as a birthday present, and when we left the Empire we walked past the alley leading to the Stage Door. A crowd of  youngsters had already started forming, no doubt hoping to catch an autograph of the internet's biggest crossover star. I saw my friend looking down that alleyway, and could see that she was considering joining them, even though she had nearly a decade on the rest of the group, before evidently feeling I was guilting her into feeling too mature to stoop to that. I could see where she was coming from: Bo's an incredibly likable presence which allows him to get away with pushing pretty far into scathing attack. I think the kid's gonna do alright. 

Hip Hop Hubris: 'Empire State of Mind' by Jay-Z ft. Alicia Keys

me i gotta plug Special Ed and i got it made,
If Jesus payin LeBron, I’m paying Dwyane Wade
 -Jay-Z, 'Empire State of Mind' 

Now this was quite a bold claim by Jay-Z when he first made it in 2009. I assume his meaning at the time was supposed to be that he was only slightly behind Jesus in terms of importance and ability to compensate NBA stars for their ability.

Then LeBron James decided to move to Miami and play with Dwyane Wade. Then they made the NBA Finals and Wade played significantly better than LeBron, who had an implosion on a scale rarely seen and rarely dissected by such media scrutiny (which admittedly was self-inflicted), and everybody had to re-evaluate the LeBron-Wade relationship. As Bill Simmons wrote on Grantland:

If you watched Games 3 and 4 in person, you knew Miami belonged to Dwyane Wade. That was the hardest thing to shake. We made so much fuss about LeBron these past two years and he's not even the most important dude on his own team.

Basically, what I'm trying to ask is this: did Jay-Z say he was better than Jesus?