In fact, many of today’s top professional showboaters have abandoned simple dancing and gone straight into the field of pantomime. This is a field traditionally dominated by overly enthusiastic seventh-grade drama class students, but more and more pro athletes are joining the fray. When you see Terrell Owens pretending the football is a pillow and sleeping on it, or Sam Cassell running down the court jiggling a pair of imaginary three-inch testicles, you’re watching classic mime techniques in the vein of Marcel Marceau, or that one dude from that Bobby McFerrin video.
Want to be like David Larible, “The Prince of Laughter”? Consider the mime routines below. They can be used to celebrate your own greatness, or to taunt the inferior skills of your opponent, or to inflame drunken fans, or, ideally, to do all three at once. Consider using a milk crate in these routines. In the world of mime, a milk crate can be anything.
THE STAGGERING PENIS. Standing with your legs a little more than shoulder-width apart, squat down halfway to the ground and mime the lifting of a very heavy concrete tube or an oaken log, placing your hands underneath. Once you have “picked it up,” hold it out and pretend to lose your balance as you stagger under the mighty weight of your own monstrous appendage. Then “place” it on your milk crate. Wipe your brow and mime opening a beer. You’ve earned it after all that imaginary manual labor, Captain Bigdick.
THE BREAKTHROUGH. A nouveau twist on a classic routine. Pretend you are trapped inside an imaginary box only you can see. Oh, despair! But wait. You have a plan! Make a fist. Form a look of determination on your face. Play the Chariots of Fire theme in your mind. Now break through that imaginary wall! Smash through that air! BOOM! You’ve done it! No one thought you’d find a way out, but you did! Très fantastique!
THE PHANTOM STEAMER. Inspired by Randy Moss’s performance against the Packers in a 2005 playoff game. Turn your back to the opposing team’s fans. Bend over and simultaneously mime the pulling down of your pants. But keep your legs straight. This is how strippers remove pants, and it’s a great ass accentuator. Squat down. Mime reading a newspaper. Strain. After five minutes, stand up. Find a cheerleader. Mime wiping your ass with her pom-pom. Do the classic “look back” at the pom-pom to see that you have wiped sufficiently. Wipe again. Watch with great joy as Joe Buck’s head explodes.
THE PARAMEDICS. Done with a teammate over the body of an injured opponent. Pantomime carrying your injured opponent out on a stretcher, only to run into various things along the way: other players, watercoolers, cameramen, a churro stand, etc. Hilarity ensues.
THE FRENCH PRISONER. Imagine it’s 1787. You have been held in solitary at the Bastille for one hundred days and nights with no light, no windows, and no outside contact, with only tepid water and gruel pushed through a slot for you once a day. At last, a window is opened. A brilliant shaft of light hits your eyes. You cover your eyes at first. You’re so happy to see the light, yet now it burns your eyes! Oh, the irony! Soon, you adjust your eyes. Your face lights up! You mime crawling out the window to a gorgeous, sunny day and total freedom! The light! The air! Oh, the feeling that comes with being free at last! Now is the time to jump and dance and mime singing your heart out! And then, do a crotch chop.
These routines are merely a guideline. All great mimes are improv artists at heart. You must find inspiration in what surrounds you. You could mock the child with Kawasaki disease in the handicapped section by pantomiming riding in his wheelchair. Or you could unsheathe an imaginary samurai sword and wave it all around like you’re in House of Flying Daggers, or one of those other movies that ruins fight scenes by turning them into ballet. Or you could do a live simulation of Donkey Kong, especially the part where Mario grabs the hammer and starts fucking shit up. It’s all good.
But do take care. Someone will be judging you during your routine, and they aren’t the forgiving sort.
Integrity, my ass. Your guide to the average official.
The job of a game official is to maintain the integrity of play by enforcing all rules of the game consistently and correctly. It sounds so simple, yet you’d be amazed at how often they manage to fuck it up. Officials, after all, are human (with exception of NFL referee Mike Carey, who is 80 percent replicant). They’re prone to developing the same biases as you or I, perhaps even more so, given the thankless nature of their occupation. So why not turn that to your advantage? With just a little effort, you can be a longtime beneficiary of their numerous, horrible gaffes. But to curry their favor, you must first get to know them. Here are some characteristics of the average official.
Height: 5'9", or one inch too short to lead a happy life
Weight: 185 pounds. Officials are surprisingly spry little creatures. Except in baseball. Most Major League umpires need to exit the ballpark through a specially designed gate, the one normally used for bull pen carts, professional rodeo bulls, monster trucks, and / or Joe Satriani’s amplifiers.
Salary: Six figures. Officials are well compensated. But, given that the job entails trying to enforce rules among a group of immature men who make ten to one hundred times what they earn, officials are in essence the paralegals of the sporting world.