Saturday, February 20, 2010

A fourth Gold medal, and a comedy show

Canada has won a fourth Gold medal - Jon Montgomery won Gold in Men's Skeleton last night!!!!! It was so exciting - what an awesome performance!!! Skeleton is one of the most dangerous sports out there; the athletes hurtle face-first on a sled down the track, reaching speeds of 130 km/h.

I love speed and I love going super-fast.... I wish wish wish that I'd known about skeleton when I had a body that could handle it. I think there are tracks out there where a person could give it a try; if I didn't have back problems I'd love to try it.

We forgot that we had tickets to the Black Pack: The Sellout Tour comedy show tonight. Thankfully, our friend reminded us that we had tickets and we were able to get there in time. In the first part of the show, each of the four US African-American comedians did a standup routine with their own individual brand of comedy. A couple of the comedians used their comedy to challenge typical stereotypes and ideas people might have. It was sort of weird because here in Canada I didn't think the racial divide was that pronounced so hearing them challenge the stereotypes was no big deal to me. It's possible that their show would have more impact in the US because things are different there.

The best part of the show was the second half, in the "Ask a black man" section. The audience had previously been invited to write down questions they had about or for black men, and in this second half, all four comedians answered those questions. The funny part wasn't so much the responses they gave but the questions themselves - like, "what is the difference between an African swallow and a European swallow?" (which, as you might know, is a reference to a quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail) and, "how would you guys treat a black guy with albinoism?" (to which the answer was, "how would you know he was black?").

We'll spend the rest of the evening watching more Olympic coverage. Happy days!

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