surfing: brand x

1999 november 15

you are so beautiful

is anybody else repulsed by the latest nike ad?

you know, the one showing all the scars and bodily damage various athletes have incurred whilst participating in their respective sports. it made me cringe the first time i saw it, especially the cauliflower ear, but each time i see it now i am more and more disturbed to the point where i will turn my head or close my eyes or switch the channel should gene have relinquished control of the remote.

in my youth, i was a jock. and while i received my share of injuries during my career--pulled muscles, broken toes, swimmer's ear--i never gloried in them. quite the opposite.

whilst playing some soccer type game on a dirt field in junior high school, i was tripped up by a member of the opposite team. i went down sliding, since i had been running at breakneck speed, and as a result scraped up the whole of my left leg. what i didn't realize at the time was i had slid across an rock embedded in the field and it had gashed my upper thigh quite badly.

i told the phys ed instructor i needed to go to the nurse, thinking i would have to have some gravel picked out of the scrape. his look of horror didn't quite register as he said yes, i probably should. i trotted across the field and into the silent hallways of the school, where i slowed to a walk. after a few steps, i heard a dripping sound, like water from a barely open tap. it didn't get any louder, nor quieter and when i finally turned my head to find its source, i realized i had been making the noise myself. so much blood was pouring off my leg it was dripping onto the lino each time i swung my leg forward.

i thought it was cool, until the shock wore off and i thought it hurt like bloody murder.

it took fourteen stitches in the main gash to close it. there was a certain amount of pride in the wound but more than that, a sense of embarrassment and failure; if i had been a better player, i wouldn't have been injured. i realize now the faulty logic employed in my adolescent brain--not even the best athlete in the world can always avoid injury--but nonetheless it was how i felt. and i still feel it to some degree today.

maybe that's why i hate a commercial that celebrates the injury and the failure rather than the skill.

or maybe i just don't like the look of that cauliflower ear.

heading out for a run, claire

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