the legend

i'm not sure how to start this blog, nor where it is going or how it will end. it's directions and creation remain a mysterious entity much like the subject of this blog, crazy olympics. even though ben has blogged about him, i am surprised that i have not mentioned him before as he has become a major player in the folklore of laurel. just to give you some basic background information on crazy olympics, he is a muscular black man who is frequently seen walking, dancing, exercising and brooding his way throughout laurel. he has certain outfits he wears, more or less dependent on the weather. when it's hot, cargo shorts, no shirt, pink bandana. when it's cold, trenchcoat and hat. he is always listening to music...or so we hope. he has an old discman that he carries with him while dancing, exercising or terrorizing laurelinians. some of us are of the school of thought that he does not even have batteries in his discman and is not actually listening to anything a normal person would hear, but instead dances to something he thinks he hears. it is all very complicated, much like the man himself.

dave and i first encountered him driving by safeway and noticing a ripped guy doing pushups in front of the store. he looked crazy. dave asked me what he was doing. i responded "training for the crazy olympics" and thus the legend was born.




his face is pretty similar to charlie murphy's....only...you know...crazier






soon after this safe-from-a-distance encounter we got a little closer as dave had just visited the dentist and we were walking into safeway to get his medicine. well in his anesthetic daze, dave must have looked at crazy olympics the wrong way as c.o. called him a "hippy fucker" and followed this up with a whirlwind of aggressive nonsense mixed in with threatening cursewords. we were both confused and horrified as we quickly entered the safety zone of safeway. upon leaving we checked and made sure he was not around or looking for us as we made our cowardly exit.
he has the body of terry crews, this pic works well as if i was ice cube and dave was mike epps, except that i am 3 inches taller than dave.

since then, all of our crazy olympic sightings have been about the same. he is either seen working out or standing is front of a store "listening" to his music and dancing with a purpose. he does not half-ass either endeavor. i've had a few theories about c.o., who apparently also threatened to kill everyone in ben's store.

1. he was one of hammer's backup dancers and just snapped when his hairstyle was getting clowned
2. he is some sort of social scientist studying how people react to crazy
3. he is crazy

well just yesterday i saw him more close than i had seen him since he tried to murder dave. i was dropping off my dry cleaning so my new suit does not end up like my old suit. as i returned to my car, much to my pleasure and horror, i see crazy olympics standing there in the more or less empty parking lot hunched over, staring at the ground, holding a broom and long dustpan. my first thought was, uh oh, he killed a janitor. but then i saw him actually sweeping...sort of. maybe someone paid him to clean up the parking lot...i guess. but it would not be crazy olympics if he was not doing something crazy. he was sweeping up random leaves, but doing it in an interesting way. he seemed to be randomly stalking specific leaves, leaving other identical leaves unswept. he lept around, pouncing on unsuspecting leaves, quickly sweeping them up, then scanning the area and leaping somewhere else to pick up another random leaf, leaving a lot of unswept leaves in his path. that was difficult to explain and i am sure impossible to understand, but that was more or less what i watched for a good 10 seconds, before i quickly got in my car and drove away.

what was he doing? where did he get those cleaning accessories? was someone actually paying him? is he registered to vote? there are many questions revolving around the man known as crazy olympics (real name apparently bobby), but we will probably never understand, and i guess that adds to his legend. maybe one day (while being escorted by nam) i will approach crazy olympics and try to learn more about him and understand the mystery.