February 6, 2022 — It’s sports-week, for sure! We are seven days away from the Superbowl. The radio stations talk about it every day, but then again, I’m in Los Angeles, the Rams are in the Superbowl, and the Superbowl is here. Nothing like a home-town Superbowl! Okay, and yes, I’m leaving out all the radio’s talk of masks required, but that’s LA too. LA loves its masks. Well, honestly, nobody was wearing them at the ATM on either Thursday or Friday, but I digress.

Add to the Superbowl the Winter Olympics. This time is great for figure skating. I love Olympics years because I love figure skating. There’s a new Russian (and I like my Russians) named Kamila Valieva. She breaks her own record almost every time she skates, and now she holds the record for everything. She does a triple axel. She does quads of all the jumps before Axel. (Axel has a half revolution more than any other jump before it on the scale of least to most difficult; that’s why her Axel is a triple, because it’s actually 3 1/2 revolutions in the air.) All of that technical skill, plus she’s a beautiful skater too. Her teammates are really good too. The crazy thing about them: they are all coached by the same Russian woman, might as well call her champion-maker. I don’t actually know the coach’s name, but if you watch the scoring after, she’s the woman with medium-length wavy blonde hair sitting next to Valieva.

And honestly, all of this is a bit rock-n-roll. Well not Valieva; she’s just so good I can’t write this story without her.

The point though: who would I rather be?

The Superbowl is going to give us Nita Strauss. She’s the official guitar player for the Rams and part of the Rams’ entertainment team. So I guess, Nita and the cheerleaders, and that mascot-thing perform for every game. Nita gets to play guitar on the SoFi field at the 50-yard-line. Pretty good thing there, and it looks like outrageous fun. That’s rock, for sure.

Then there’s the US pairs figure skating team of Knierim and Frazier. They are rock-n-roll; in their short program they skate to House of the Rising Sun. I don’t know about him, but her smile looks super genuine. Mind you, I’ve never known a male skater that could skate with me, but I think that would be fun. Pairs? Probably not, but for sure, I would love to try ice dancing. And that song and those outfits look great. I think that’s also the makings for outrageous fun.

And back to Valieva. Wow. I really don’t have any word for her skill, for her performance, other than wow. It’s so “wow”, it’s just it’s own version of rock-n-roll.

So who would I rather be?

Can I be a guitar player for the Rams, who can also do a quad? Nita who also ice dances to House of the Rising Sun? Or how about this? I can fly to Dallas, and be the guitar player for the Cowboys and skate with Cowboys’ cheerleaders to House of the Rising Sun. Well, Dallas isn’t in the Superbowl. I can’t play as good as Nita. I can’t do a quad. And I’ve never done ice dance, so I guess I’m just stuck watching. Pity. But …

Go Rams. Go US pairs’ team. And most certainly, go Valieva!