Off Topic… This looks a little bit staged, but still, it’s a man at a hockey game… and yes, it was a Friday… and since this is April Fool’s Day, lets see someone making a fool of themselves in public.
And since it is a Friday, and this is a Friday related post, here’s Dallas Friday on a boat…
Yes, she’s a wakeboarder, but I’ll let anyone in my boat that loves to be on the water… just as long as they save some glass calm water for me to do some footing on. It helps if they can drive the boat… anything else is just a bonus.
Over on Karen Putz’s blog Barefoot in the Burbs, she has a nice article about Lauren Lindeman. Lauren learned to ski at 3 1/2, barefoot at 6 and is now a World class barefooter. Take a moment and check it out…
Glen Plake, an extreme downhill skier innovator, recently visited Keith St. Onge at the World Barefoot Center to do some barefooting. Be sure to read the whole story on Chicago Now.
About 1 month ago (Nov 1-6), the World Barefoot Center run be Keith St Onge and David Small (both world champion barefooters) held a women’s week at their school. In a sport normally dominated by men, this week the school was overrun by women.
Karen Putz (previously featured here) attended a did a story for Chicago Now. Be sure to read it and check out all of the pictures. There are also links to her personal blog in the story with even more details from the week.
The Mad-City Ski Team just held their 2nd annual Project Snowflake this past Saturday. They performed a water ski show to raise money for the UW Children’s Hospital. Now, you ask, what’s so special about doing a water ski show? Well, the Mad-City Ski Team is from Madison, WI and in December, there is typically snow on the ground and this year was no exception. From 6pm the day before till 6pm the day of, the entire area was under a winter weather advisory, but they still did their show, amongst the freshly fallen snow. And they even did a little footing…
For more details about the event, be sure to check out the team’s website for more pictures and videos from the show.
Hopefully, you all know what that phrase means and where it comes from. If not, you’ve been hiding under a rock since 1977 when the phrase began to take form. For those that still don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m referring to the Happy Days episode when Fonzy jumped the shark on a pair of skis. It is widely regarding as the episode when the show started it’s decline (however, it stayed on the air for 6 more seasons). Now, when a show is said to have jumped the shark, it’s on it’s decline.
The phrase even has it’s own entry in Wikipedia. And as always (in case you didn’t notice), the Fonze is wearing his black leather jacket (yes, even out on the ocean, he’s wearing his black leather jacket.) Plus, he’s got a yellow banana for flotation. Yes, the little drawing above is correct, he’s rocking a banana. It even comes included with the action figure. Jumping the shark hasn’t been limited to just Fonzie doing it. Even Homer has gotten in on the action…
Now, if you watch the scene closely, you can see so many things wrong…
First off, if you look at the jump and “shark cage”, it looks to be about 60-70 feet that he needs to jump to clear the cage. Not saying it can’t be done, but he doesn’t appear to going very fast when he makes the jump.
The show a large shark swimming in about 4, maybe 5 feet, of water with no sign of the under water “cage”. Later they show a much deeper underwater view. Serious lack of continuity, but not the only one.
Richie Cunningham is driving the boat and asks the Fonze, who’s skiing behind the boat, if he’s sure he wants to do it. The Fonze gives him a thumbs up… I’ve been behind a boat a lot, and rarely have ever heard the people in the boat talking.
Finally, at the 1:21 point in the clip above, you see a good shot of the jump, the shark cage, and what can only be an incredibly large pier just on the other side of the shark cage. Who sets up a ski jump to that as the skier hits the ramp, the boat runs into a pier?
Just after the Fonze crushes on his landing, they switch to a shot showing him skiing away from the front. See anything missing? Like maybe a “shark cage” and possibly a jump ramp? They are both mysteriously gone.
Meanwhile, Richie, who’s driving the boat, continues to look at the Fonze, giving him a thumbs up, and really by now, should have driven the boat into the pillars holding up the pier.
The show the boat turning to the right to whip the Fonze up to the beach, however he cuts out on the right to ski to the beach?
Amazingly, his leather jacket appears to be undamaged by the salt water?
Horton over at the Ball of Spray posted this article from TV Guide where they (the writers) defended their decision to write the scene. My take… if they can make action figures from it, it can’t be all bad… plus, it gave me an excuse to find some goofy jump the shark pictures with Google Image Search.
Someone recreated the scene using Legos...
There is rumor of a new phrase taking form to replace “Jump the Shark” (or at least be the movie equivalent), but off the top of your head, who knows where the phrase “Nuke the Fridge” comes from? Anyone? Anyone? The answer is below the last funny jump the shark image I found…
The answer is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Didn’t see it? Not many people did… it wasn’t a good movie. The phrase refers to an early scene where Indy jumps into a lead lined fridge to save himself from a nuclear detonation. The explosion hurls the fridge (and him) along ways away, far enough that he can exit the fridge and look at the mushroom cloud. Surprisingly, the fridge appears to be the only thing to survive the blast. Everything else has been demolished. Sadly, the scene didn’t make into the trailer (although you do see the nuclear bomb).
A little off topic here, but thought I’d pass this along anyways…
There’s a new world record (recognized by Guinness World Records) in water skiing… The most water skiers towed behind a single boat is 114 by the Horsehead Water Ski Club (Australia) in Strahan, Tasmania, Australia, on March 28, 2010.
I know it’s not barefooting, but it is still one hell of a record. If you check out their website, near the top the have a very wide picture that’ll give you an idea of just how many people 114 people are.
Also, (currently) near the top of the website you can find a link to download the footage taken from The Eagle (the boat that pulled the skiers). You can see that it was a very slow pull.
And I’m not talking about people like Bob Mahnke and Mike Netzer, but Judy Meyers, who at the age of 66 is competing in barefooting tournaments. She’s only been at it for 13 years because she didn’t start until she was 53. And according to the Today Show, she’s the oldest women competing in barefoot tournaments.
Judy isn’t the only one though. She inspired Karen Putz, who 26 years ago caught a toe barefooting and went from hard of hearing to being deaf. Karen’s husband heard about Judy on the today show and sent the story to Karen. Inspired by Judy, she decided to take up footing again and flew down to the World Barefoot Center, where Judy volunteers her time, and started barefooting again at the age of 44.
Joann O'Connor & Karen Putz Barefooting Together (Chicago Tribune)
Since then, Judy introduced Karen to Joann, a 61-year old barefooter from Crandon, Wiscosin and the two of them recently spent a few days barefooting together before heading to Footstock to watch the final day of the figure-8 tournament. There, they got to see some of the barefooting legends like Peter Fleck and Keith St Onge, as well as many other senior barefooters sporting the gray hair.
Check out the following links for more about Judy and Karen:
Barefoot Ski Dot Com has posted their full story about the Glen Mueller Annual Figure-8 Barefoot Tournament with more details on what went down, who beat who, and how the Porn Star came out on top. It also includes complete current standings of the Figure-8 Barefoot Series.
Be sure to head over there for all the details and more great pictures like this one…
These are all things you’ll find in Brad Paisley’s the video for one of his newest song’s titled ‘Water’. I’m not a huge country music fan, but the song just sounds like summer to me. If you watch closely, you’ll see a little bit of barefooting in the video. Unrelated to the footing, I especially like the part where the guy rides a bike off the dock, attempting to go into the water, but instead rides into another dock. Ouch. And yes, I’m talking about that redneck skiing, the one where they use something like a back hoe in the middle of what amounts to a large puddle of water and swing people around in a circle on skis. I think that’s a little crazy, and people think getting dragged behind, or next to, a boat at 40+ MPH hour is crazy. So to each their own. Now enjoy a little bit of summer time music…
Did you know that Brad is married to Kimberly Williams-Paisley? Not sure who that is? She was the daughter in the Steve Martin movies Father of the Bride I & II and also on According to Jim (as Jim’s wife’s sister). So when he’s out on his boat, skiing, footing or whatever he does, he has some good company in the boat. And good company is always important. Especially at the end of the day when the sun goes down at it’s beer-thirty.
Mr. & Mrs. Paisley
It’s also nice to see our little sport, and the sport of water skiing in general, in the mass media, and a Brad Paisley video qualifies as that. I think every waters skier around remembers the Alan Jackson video for Chattahoochee since it featured some slalom skiing in it.
I personally love the neon colors on his life vest and how he is really cutting it up on what appears to be some classic Dick Pop Jr skis in some of the shots. I also love the old Nautique in the video.
And while we’re on the topic of country music video’s featuring water skiing, I’ll throw one more into the mix. It doesn’t necessarily tie directly to skiing, but it does features such lines as:
It was painted red, it’s stripe was white
It was 18 feet, bow to stern light…
Mr. & Mrs. Paisley
Mad-City Wedge 