Is he strong? Listen, bud -- dude's got radioactive blood.

Some Thoughts While Watching the U.S. Olympic Trials on the Televising Machine

--I must make Sarah Brown aware of the fact that there is a runner named Bershawn Jackson. 

--It is amazing what this level of dedication to a sport does to the human body. Sprinters, for example, look like horses standing on their hind legs; swimmers look like they are made of Silly Putty; gymnasts appear to have been fed, in my brother's long-ago judgement, "nothing but cigarettes and coffee from birth, to keep them small." 

--I believe that the first out gay male superstar athlete will come from track and field. Team sports will be last, and this pioneering person's successful exit from the closet will require Derek-Jeter-level superstardom. 

--It would be interesting to time myself in, say, the 100m run. Get warmed up real well, wear the right kind of outfit and shoes, learn to use blocks, recognize that if I finish the distance at my fullest, best most insane level of effort I may require hospitalization for various pulled and/or torn internal tissues, and just go for it. I just want to understand in a physical way exactly what that order of magnitude is, the difference between my personal human best and the superhuman best of these elite athletes. 

--I find I am straight up rooting for the old people in pretty much every competition. And not even in a "Hey, you go, grandpa!" kind of a way -- more like, "IN YOUR FACE YOUNG PUP! OLD PEOPLE FUCK YEAH!!!!" kind of way.