"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast" -Oscar Wilde |
"The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself." -- Proverbs 11:25 |
Maybe there is a more appealing American athlete at the Winter Games than Weir, but it’s doubtful. This is a 21-year-old who mopped his own floor in the athletes’ village because he thought it was dirty. He looks like a sprite, a handsome elf. But he talks like he’s in the grip of truth serum.
For his long program, Weir hasn’t decided whether to attempt a quadruple jump. It depends entirely on his mood, how he feels when he gets out of bed that day. “I could very likely wake up and feel horrible, like Nick Nolte’s mug shot,” he said.
It's an area often located in the bowels of a venue featuring sweaty athletes fresh from competition and weary reporters fenced in like dairy cattle. The exchange is usually brief and unremarkable.
That is, unless, the competitor is a male figure skater wearing a sequined swan costume accented by a single orange glove representing a beak. Say hello to Johnny Weir - and goodbye to the trail of audio cliches.
[snip]
In a 12-minute mixed zone improv, Weir touched on the following subjects: Russian culture. Mopping his Olympic village floor. Rhinestones. The chances of motherhood for a Chinese skater who fell Monday night. A police mug shot of Nick Nolte.
Weir is as much a genuine article as the black and silver swan suit he calls "Camille." He is talented. He is insightful. He is funny. He is just what figure skating needs. Weir is a whoopie cushion placed on the Queen Mum's royal throne.
He makes the uptight figure skating community nervous every time he opens his mouth. And that's a good thing. The skater who called himself "princessy" upon his arrival at the Olympic Village a week ago renewed his grievances with the hired help.
"It's drab and it's dirty, no matter how many times I mop the floor," Weir said. "I mopped it and it's still dirty."
You would almost feel insulted if it wasn't coming from the same guy who thinks his butt looks big in his rhinestoned and sequined costume.
"I'm very princessy as far as travel is concerned,'' he said. "I hate carrying my own luggage. The beds aren't very soft. I'm roughing it. For me, it's the same as going out in the woods.''
You don't find many guys saying they like to be princessy, but that's Weir. Some of you won't care about that, and some will roll your eyes at figure skating.
But give Weir a minute here. It is his ability and willingness to express himself, through clothes, music, athleticism, that is making him America's best figure skater.
This is about honesty and artistry. Weir is a character, yes. But he might be the most honest person you will meet. He is honest with himself, honest about himself, about his feelings, his surroundings. And he is so well in touch, and so athletic, too, that it works to put him in contention to win a medal.
Let me address this head-on: This isn't about whether he's gay because we don't know that, and it's none of our business anyway.
But he is so openly flamboyant, so effeminate in a flaunting sort of way, that he's a test of the homophobic, not-that-there's-anything-wrong-with-that crowd anyway.
"It's over, it's done,'' he said after his routine. "It's Valentine's Day. I can go buy myself a rose and some chocolate now.''
"I'm roughing it," he said, chuckling some more. "It'd be the same as me going out into the woods, I think. Camping. Camping."
Outlandish remarks are not unusual for Weir, who describes himself as a "wild card" for a medal but is more likely to be left in the dust next week by Russia's Evgeni Plushenko.
Weir, 21, got into trouble with U.S. Figure Skating officials last month when he described the tempo of a competitor's short program as "a vodka-shot, let's-snort-coke kind of thing." He's also previously described his costumes to "an icicle on coke" and "a Care Bear on acid."
But he refuses to bow to any sort of self-censorship.
"I think people are definitely very wary of what's going to come out of my mouth and they're very worried about the kind of image I'm portraying for figure skating, as far as I've heard," he said. "That's cool. People should stay scared."
When a TV reporter asked him to say hello to his fans back home in Newark, Del., - an almost compulsory event at Olympic news conferences - Weir was gracious and thanked the "many people who have touched my life and enriched it and helped me get to the point where I'm at."
Then, as if to prove that there's no muzzling him, Weir went a little further. He also mentioned "a lot of people there, though, that didn't support me at the beginning, so all of a sudden, they are. And that's not something that I enjoy. I don't like two-faces."
"So, to those people, you know, you can - you can do your thing, and it just shows that with proper support and proper encouragement, you can go very far even if there are people that are detracting from everything."