On Baton Dude

Okay, so the talk of Saturday's ACC championship, in our row at least, was FSU's male baton twirler. This was because discussing the game itself was too painful (what's up, Virginia Tech? Think you can go into halftime with the score tied 3-3 and then just, whoopsy, not play the rest of the game?).

Let me tell you something about Baton Dude: Baton Dude rocks my ass. I know some jokes were made at his expense, and I know I made some of them. I mean, I'm sorry, if you're going to come out with three batons and light the suckers on fire, don't be surprised when the word "flaming" gets thrown around liberally. But the thing is, dude was twirling flaming batons. That's something that I can't do. He was twirling three of them at once, throwing them up in the air and doing all kinds of acrobatics before he caught them, twirling them around his neck - still on fire, mind you - and managing not to singe himself at all. That's fairly impressive.

And this is a man who has to be rock-solid confident in his sexuality. Now, it's not unlikely that his sexuality is male-oriented, and if it's not by preference, it's by process of elimination; I can't speak for all women, but I personally don't see myself gettin' down with a male baton twirler. I just don't see it. Accuse me of perpetuating gender stereotypes, and I'll cop to it in an instant. I tend to like 'em tall and bulky and covered in some kind of automotive schmutz, rather than lanky and Lycra-clad. But that's just me. There might well be a huge underground market out there of women just gagging to hit it with male baton twirlers, figure skaters, cheerleaders and flag boys. Baton Dude could be elbow-deep in it, for all I know. But I know that to get out on that field, to perform as well as he did in front of 70,000 people who all had the exact same thought in their heads, means that he must have been smuggling juevos of pure titanium in that spangled unitard.

So here's to you, Baton Dude. You rock that flaming baton. And the next time FSU plays Georgia Tech in Atlanta, you shoot me an e-mail; this football fan owes you a Mai Tai.