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THE MORNING ... ACCORDING TO US

by Ted Bauer, Paul Kix, and Brian Hill

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"I like!" (It's relevant, believe us)

Welcome to August 21st. It's Usain Bolt's birthday (dude has a lot to celebrate), as well as Google co-founder Sergey Brin (again, millions of reasons). At this moment, that's of little import; what is? The map up top, which corresponds with the content below. Bolt's fast and all, but is he a Norwegian justice minister joining an exclusive Arctic skinny dipping club or a German mountain climber who must serve a prison sentence naked? Naw. Read on for the goods.

The Mankini Returns
The culture has a way of surprising us. Two years after Borat appeared in theaters, his Mankini is British Amazon's top seller. The uptick in sales doesn't have anything, really, to do with the movie. It has everything to do with this YouTube spot, in which a member of Britain's rowing team lip syncs Frank Sinatra in his teeny Mankini. Everyone at Amazon is surprised. They thought the swimwear that would sell this summer would be what the British Olympic swimmers wore. But no, it's something that shows a man's pubic hair.

Naked and Alone
We did some Googling this morning on this Siegfried Grawert, a 51-year-old German mountain climber repeatedly fined for hiking in the buff. When his fines exceeded 2,000 Euros, a German court ordered him jailed. Grawert got depressed, sitting there in a cell, hardened criminals everywhere, fully clothed. It's the fully clothed part that was the worst. So today, jail officials agreed to let Grawert serve out his sentence naked. Oz must have never made it to German television.

Golf Sends the Wrong Message
South Korea President Lee Myung-bak is crafty. With the economy in the tank, and public approval in worse standing, Myung-bak has ordered his officials to quit playing golf; it gives the appearance that they don't care about the nation's woes. President Bush gave up golf for the war, one of his many bad ideas, so it remains to be seen whether South Koreans will take to their public officials sacrifice. But it shouldn't affect Myung-bak. He plays tennis.

More Items Involving Less Clothing
Probably should have put this after Mr. German Buff Hiker above, but we like anti-Bush rhetoric, so we wanted to sneak that in there (he's a lame duck, it's all good!) A Norwegian justice minister has joined one of the Arctic's most elite skinny dipping groups. Odd thing No. 1: he's member 2,110. They have that many? Zany! Odd thing No. 2: you know the voice-over guy from the movies? Imagine if he tracked a promo and said "...the Arctic's most elite skinny dipping group..." It'd be hysterical, right? Then the movie would star Mike Myers, and you'd openly weep.


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