No, I'm not making fun of Steve Smith. Clearly not. It's not his fault that someone else referred to him as "legendary." It's not exactly like Steve finished his 12 minute long Garbo run and then, while he was busy puking up a lung through his dust lined, bleeding esophagus, hike up the hill until he found Colin Meager shooting photographs and say "Hey, Colin! When you write the captions for the pinkbike article later tonight, can you refer to me as A LEGEND!!"
I'm not really making fun of Colin Meager either. Colin takes awesome photographs and is a nice guy. Okay, I've only met him half-of-once while he was minding his own business trying to eat dinner with his friends, but he was very polite to my interrupting ass and we had a nice chat. Mr. Meager is one of the two main Pinkbike World Cup photo guys, and I'd say he does a pretty damn good job. I always read his writeups, especially when he makes fun of me.
No, the purpose of that article wasn't to say someone sucks or to discount the value of what they're doing. At all. It was actually to make fun of the words we use as mountain bikers, words like "legend," "epic," and "crazy." Because, if you were really honest with yourself, nothing you've ever done on a mountain bike is legendary, epic, or crazy. I'm not saying Steve or Colin suck a lot. I'm saying that you, mountain bike community suck a little bit in this one, humorous area.
What does suck is having to explain your joke because your audience is too stupid for words. But because you are that sort of audience, let me explain it one more time:
What does suck is having to explain your joke because your audience is too stupid for words. But because you are that sort of audience, let me explain it one more time:
Hercules slaying the Hydra is legendary.
Odysseus battling Posiedon is epic.
John Hinckley, Jr. attempting to kill President Ronald Reagan to impress Jodie Foster is crazy
You taking an extra hour and a half out of your day to pay money to ride a chairlift to the top of a big hill to coast down a trail that somebody else built for you is not legendary, epic, or crazy.
On the other hand, Steve Peat, Napalm, the Missile, and Voreis are all real, bona fide legends. There are active, factually inaccurate and conflicting oral histories being spread through all of mountainbikedom for each of those guys.
Here's a great write-up from the best page in the universe that I think captures my sentiment nicely. Read it for your own edification:
You could call it the inspiration for my current rant. You could just say that I plagiarized him completely. Maybe I'd like to think the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and that the original author would be flattered. Hey, it almost worked for Fareed.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is that you're all idiots.
-Chaz
2 comments:
but Jody Foter is HOT, especially the Jody Foster of the 80's
but Jody Foster is HOT! and the Jody Foster of the 80's?!? hell yes!
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