On August 7th, the day before the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, a friend of mine was talking about Michael Phelps. “Who’s Michael Phelps?” I asked. For a second I wondered if had accidentally said, “Do you always dress like that?” for the way her eyes bugged out at me, but yes, I had asked the right question and no, I didn’t know who he was. Trust me, NOW I KNOW. I’ve been cheering him on all week with the rest of the country and when he beat out Mr. Serbia in the 100-meter butterfly I high-fived my family all around because holy crap that was close. I wish it had been the same for Dara Torres so that we could talk about her gold medal instead of how ancient she is at the ripe age of 41, but it was not to be. I still think she rocks.
But this morning the Today Show was running out of ways to interview Michael Phelps so they did a little piece about iPods and what kind of music the athletes are listening to. Their resident expert reported that music changes body chemistry, and undoubtedly plays a part in performance. Then they went around asking various athletes what songs were most motivating to them.
Mary Wineberg, a 400 meter runner for the USA cited Beyonce. Heinrich Barnes from South Africa enjoys himself some Eminem. Another USA shot put athlete pumps up to Garth Brooks’ The Dance and Dwight Thomas from Jamaica gets fired up listening to (Wait a second, did she say “Garth Brooks”? You’re getting ready to throw a ten pound ball across a football field and you’re looking to a slow country song about getting dumped by a girlfriend to fire you up? No wonder you lost.) some lame rap artist Lil’ Wayne. Here’s how much I know about Lil’ Wayne. When they said his name on the TV I thought they said “Will Wayne”, so I googled it and learned my mistake. And just a sidenote – I think a rap artist who is trying to be taken seriously loses credibility by putting Lil’ in front of his name. Wait, did I just say “rap artist” and “credibility” in the same sentence? My bad. Anyway, when they got to Michael Phelps it turns out that he and Mr. Jamaica boy love the same music. Could it be that Lil’ Wayne helped Phelps capture those precious 8 gold medals? And if so, don’t you think he should change his name to Big Ol’ Wayne The Gold Medal Helper?
I do.
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