Canadians Outraged As Dog Takes Gold For Skiing

ontroversy again surrounds the Olympics as Canadian skier Mark D’Ouvret was muscled out of the gold medal by a newcomer to Alpine Skiing, skiing dog Murph, representing the United States.

D’Ouvret was gracious in defeat, despite claims by skiing fans and Olympic critics that D’Ouvret had the better showing in the event. Millions around the world, however, especially Canada, were stunned and disappointed by the results. Some even lob charges that corruption has entered the Olympics again. It’s a tough accusation coming at a time when the IOC is still mired in controversy revolving around the figure skating gold denied to Canadian skaters David Pelletier and Jamie Salé. Suspect judging has been the focus of that Olympic blunder, while the gold being awarded to a dog has brought anger to every aspect of the Salt Lake City Olympics.

“Strictly speaking,� said Olympics Historian Professor Drod Hamelstein, “there’s no official statement in the rule book that says a dog can’t participate in the skiing event. Of course, it’s hard to actually write a rule banning something before it happens. There’s no rule that says an athlete can’t turn into a duck and still compete in the Luge. The point is, Olympics officials have to react stronger and quicker to things like this. The official who allowed the dog to compete should have been disciplined. And the dog, too, for that matter.

The dog in question is United States Alpine Skier “Murph� Murphy T. Dog. Murph is trained and owned by Coach Ralph Maple. He feels Murph worked very hard for the gold and the Canadians and critics are just sore losers.

“Murph is no overnight success story,� said Maple. “He worked hard for this, just as hard as D’Ouvret or any of those skiers. Even harder I think. He won, right?�

“That’s completely ludicrous,� said Austria’s Klaus Kleinermacht, who has been outspoken about the illegality of Murph’s participation. “The dog, he skis fine. But he is still a dog. Dogs should not be skiing in the Olympics. They ski on TV shows or home video programs. And did you see the scarf his owner put on him? Shameless pandering to the judges.�

International Olympics Committee President Jacques Rogge was reluctant to name names, but did admit mistakes were made and the situation was being reviewed.

“Personally, I would not have allowed a dog to enter the competition,� said Rogge. “I cannot say who is to blame for the lapse in judgment, but we will investigate. All I can say is I would not have allowed a dog to enter the competition. Unless perhaps he had a darling scarf.�

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Hello and welcome to day four of Operation Jerkhunt, the pet project of a neighborhood group I recently organized to hunt down the freakish scum who stole my neighbor Hamms' Winnebago and, once they'd had their vile fun, dumped it in the Potomac River to conceal the evidence of their truly heinous crimes against the retired. That's the story the vigilante group is working from anyway, I personally know better but am in the unique position of being unable to correct their misconceptions without revealing the fact that Omar Bricks was the one who borrowed the Winni and, through no fault of my own, drove it into the Potomac with a half-naked record store clerk in the shower. "Drove" is actually entirely too strong a word, since in truth there was a giant stuffed carnival bear behind the wheel at the time, and the Winnebago actually rolled downhill backwards into the river thanks to the stuffed bear's poor understanding of parking brake procedures.

I have a rock-solid alibi since I was in the Winnebago's shower at the time, as can be backed up by a half-naked record store clerk named either Darlene or Danielle. That was a large part of the problem, actually, since when you're already wet and in the shower, it's not as obvious as it would otherwise be that your mobile home is steadily sinking into one of America's greatest rivers. So by the time you put two and two together, it's way too late to organize a team of pack mules to pull the Winnebago out of the river before someone's collection of rare "road music" LPs is damaged by the river water, silt, and various beaver activities therein.

So far we've had little luck tracking down the vermin, though we have concluded conclusively that there's no way in hell he could live in our neighborhood. In fact, it was likely a woman, possibly crippled, from remote Eastern Europe, making retaliation all but impractical. There is a moral victory, however, in knowing the truth, and I know that Hamms has appreciated my help and the fact that he can sleep well at night now, knowing that Omar Bricks is keeping an eye on his house and assorted goodies.

Our previous misunderstandings about my frequent trespassing in his bathroom, burning down his house while it was being built, having him arrested twice on charges of necrophilia, and taking a shit in his garden and blaming it on my dog now well behind us, Hamms and I have moved on to a beautiful new phase of our friendship. Namely the first phase after someone's been your enemy before and now you think they're okay on a provisional basis. Like I said, truly a beautiful thing.

He's had me over to his house for beers twice now, once that he knew about, and I can clearly see the roots of a lifelong friendship taking hold. Or at least as long as he's going to live, which from the looks of things should only be another seven months at best since Hamms is older than Bob Hope. But Omar Bricks is pretty good at seven month friendships. Any longer than that and you hit the dreaded "Seven Month Itch," when your friend inevitably finds out that you used their precious Hummel figurine collection for a pyrotechnic-heavy one-sixteenth scale recreation of the Spanish Civil War or that you're the one who's been painting all those crude sexual figures on their bathroom walls at night.

But those first seven months, or five, man. That's the beautiful part. Bricks out.

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I'm doing the audition circuit out in Hollywood big time these days, so it wouldn't surprise me to come home and find the apartment a little dusty. Mom always found cleaning to be in defiance of her religion, and dad thinks dusting demeans his manliness. I would say it's the high-pitched girl voice and purple vinyl jacket, but I don't want to get his ire up. Anyway, the dust is no surprise. And in fact, I'm not really surprised to find a gang war between my dad and lesbians either.

I knew some fallout was coming from my sister's revelation she's a homosexual, and dad's gang was getting dangerously full of itself, so it makes sense the two would eventually crash into each other. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

Cassandra and her girlfriend Steve tried to make a new family connection, part of some therapy or something, Cassandra's attempt to heal all the emotional scars in her life that led her into Harvard law and becoming a lawyer, instead of the path I took of pre-teen superstardom and my brother Poot's path of cult worship. She was doing well, too, she at least got to the point where mom was cool with it. Of course, mom said she always liked lesbians, she just didn't know why they all followed each other off a cliff to their deaths. Once again, mom not exactly Harvard material, as Cassandra always says.

If only dad could be so understanding. I suppose I could cut him a little slack by saying he was still struggling to keep control of his gang, the Baiters. Uncle Luke suggested the name because they attract so much jailbait, supposedly. I totally agree with them, as I was telling dad. I think they're the masters of attracting younger girls. Hopefully they'll take my suggestion and start calling themselves the Master Baiters.

But my own enjoyment aside, nothing challenges dad's masculinity more than fully-clothed lesbians. He and Cassandra never got along while we were growing up, he never did stop calling her "the other one." And Cassandra's partner Steve keeps telling her to stand up for herself, which makes for more tension than you could shake a tense stick at. Dad was just trying to taunt them after a while, his way of looking cool in front of the gang. I know he had to have some clue "the rugmunchers" wasn't a politically-correct way to refer to them. Cassandra told me so over Christmas and he must have heard. Anyway, it wasn't long before things blew up and Steve's friends in the National Wymans Collective began to protest.

Should be no surprise dad saw the group of leathernecks out front and took them as a threat to his turf. It was good for dad, in a way, since he rallied the gang together behind him. Uncle Luke put aside his differences and the fight for control of the gang was over, at least temporarily. They challenged the Wymans Collective to a rumble, and who knew, Steve can't turn down a challenge.

Actually, the rumble hasn't happened just yet, it's set for later Friday night this week, after Steve's lecture at NYU about the phallogenic oppression of the menstrual cycle, and dad sews the names on the back of the jackets. But this is a by-the-numbers thing for dad, so I predict the fight was short, the Wymans Collective fought the good fight and overcame, and probably three of the four members of dad's Master Baiters survived. Dad's crafty enough and knows when to abandon a good fight, so I assume he climbed on Freddy Mercury's back and got the hell out of there when the odds turned against him. If Uncle Luke bought the farm, maybe that will put the gang disputes to an end, and maybe even dad learned a little bit of respect for Cassandra and her new pals. In the meantime, I got to find a place in California and erase all excuse for coming back to this apartment.

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