Are you all a go-go for Xpogo? Or does one have to be a bouncing, boisterous nut to want to try this stick on for size? A top notch pogo stick will cost nearly $400 – the price of a house in Detroit.

Xpogo’s apex is a Pogopalooza. The word is so fantastic my font went neon. It’s OK, now. But for the past 11 years Pogopalooza has unleashed an array of competitions, demonstrations, and lessons in all things pogo. If you happen to be in Helsingborg, Sweden August 29th to 30th, drop in to the next Pogopalooza performance.

Did you know there’s an Xpogo Stunt Team 2014? They've landed mostly everywhere on the planet, 17 countries that they know of, and have rocketed to a couple of fifth-dimensions, no doubt.

Teams today come by pogo naturally. Way back in the roaring 20’s the Ziegfeld Follies pogoed in their shows.

CEO of Xpogo, Nick Ryan, says the pros make a fair living - mostly from appearance fees - and Idaho, home of the Idaho Potato, houses a hotbed of Pogo performance in the name of one Biff Hutchison who stands and sticks as the world’s number one in this extreme sport, and is financially quite well off, thank you. He’s described as mild mannered. Wasn't it US president Teddy Roosevelt who said talk softly and carry a big stick?

At first glance, watching a stunt team highlight reel evokes stirrings of want. One wants to do that. It sure looks like fun. And the performers look fit. One figures they've been hardened against sea sickness, what with all the somersaulting-bounding forwards and backwards and ricocheting off trees, stairs, and abutments they do. 

You know a sport is going somewhere when it has its own verb: pogoing. Could we say they pogoed yesterday? Is that acceptable? Probably, because the sport lends itself to flexibility in format and function. It seems to be limited only by imagination.

Rule of thumb, number one, for any pogo wanna be? Start with a solid surface. Not that the rest is incidentals, but without a solid surface you are going to slip, slide, or splat. Keep elbows out and hug the knees into the stick. You’re quick. You are now a master - and you’ll amaze us with the stick flip via the kick whip. However, the spot of the pegs in this trick has a lot of legs, that is, it will take quite some time to get it down pat. Solid surfaces don’t preclude slanted surfaces. But wait a week or an eon before you muster up the courage to try going off on a tangent and bouncing off on an angle.

Maybe try reverse tricks and HooHas first. Or sample some stomps and stalls, mounts and grabs. Try a slick trick like the Saran Wrap and finish off with a hard trick like the Rigor Mortis. But it’s probably best to begin with a Froggy Wiggle medium-level trick before you jump into the hard ones.

What gets weird, and wonderful, is when the pros pogo from behind their backs. They can switch the stick as fast to that position as one can flick a Bic. Sometimes they’ll sit on the handle, or have both feet on one side. They do this so nonchalantly, you think the move looks easy – but inherently, you know it’s not.

Here’s a move for show.  Take your basic high jump bar. Now go pogo over it.  Now clear 8’ 6.” If you did, you just might be Michael Mena. Or soar over a 9’ 7.5” high bar like our aforesaid Biff Hutchison did. That mark set the world record in December 2013.

Is that history? Undoubtedly the bar will be pushed higher, literally and figuratively with the fast growing sport.

Hey! The future is here. COOLIGANS is seven minutes of zany tricks and zesty attitude.

These acrobats of attitude and altitude are called riders or jumpers. There is "pogofred". He is known for doing not only the most consecutive back flips but for tutoring the younger jumpers. Fred Grzybowski is 25. Jake Gartland "Garts" has the most consecutive front flips while a man with WAY too much time on his hands, Gary Stewart, jumped on his stick for 20 hours and 20 minutes consecutively. It was the height of the year 1990. (The reunification of Germany took a close second.)

For those that like their challenges short and snappy, grab a skipping rope and get your pogo stick. Stand on your stick, wedge it firmly between your legs and have the handle rest above your crotch. Your hands won’t touch the pogo stick because they’ll be busy working the rope. This will just take a minute, and when you have skipped 131 complete revolutions while pogoing over the skips of the rope, you’ll be the new Guinness world record holder.

Pogo, extreme of otherwise, may not be as popular as World Cup soccer, or as chic as the Triple Crown, but it does hold our fascination, because it looks so simple, and does hold our appreciation, because it can be done on any hard surface, and yet it’s hard to do if you want to be a pro. It hearkens back to times when fun seemed clean and pristine, but it’s a mainstay today, hotter than ever, and one wonders if it’ll grow and grow - as it pogoes with the flow.

Even if you’re not stripping these days, should you do pole fitness? Most definitely yes! It’s kind of like aerial silks. Both have upside down and all-around movement. Pole fitness, however, is not just a girl thing. Guys can do it too.

Want to learn? Go to pole classes. Seriously. And the classes seriously work out parts of your body you didn’t know you had. Like inner thigh muscles. You have to grip the pole with something when your hands are freewheeling it. Back arching is big. A big bonus? You’ll trim and tone those wobbly triceps.

And instructors in pole fitness classes will quickly dissuade you of seamy stereotypes associated with the pole – as evidenced in the opening line - but here’s a point they won’t have to persuade you of: first timers will be stiff the next day.

Don’t wet yourself. Better said, don’t moisturize before doing a pole class because you’ll slide off the pole faster than a dog licks a dish. And wait until you are adept before you try to pose on a pole upside down, or horizontally, or at an angle, or...Geez this stuff looks hard. You need focus. (You really need transverse abs.) This isn't power walking where you can chat with your friend. Here the dialog is internal: Can I do this? I want to do this. Now do it. I did it. I done rocked!

But wait until you go to a pole party for some real rocking.  They’re fun. Let’s hope that lots of booze isn't involved because people do funny things while drinking, like getting married in Las Vegas. That hurts later and for sure overextending a knee, or falling on an elbow - pole playing, will hurt, like now. Ouch.

Strength, flexibility, nerve, discipline - in body and mind - are critical to this fitness form. In some poses it appears that every muscle of the body is clenched. How hard is that?

You can be upside down, with only your inner thighs and the back/top of your head touching the pole, as your hands stretch towards the floor.

Floor. Where are the mats? Why isn't this done on a sea of foam or an ocean of cotton batten? Perhaps this is why a wimp like me is on the sidelines.

Looking at the Frog, Sumo Squat, Hobbit, and Bottle Rocket, to name but a few pole poses, reaffirms that the human imagination is alive and well, if a bit jauntily off track. What if we used our minds for really important things, like conjuring up new pose names for fùtbol/soccer stars that flop and flail after tripping while skipping?

Got a bit off track myself.

If you want to veer a tad away from the Hobbit, you’ll pose smack dab into the Flying Peter Pan, the E Pose, and the Mercury. All test (and torture?) the obliques, the calves, and the delts – you know, the muscles nobody can find without a GPS.

As mentioned, I’m a wuss. I wouldn't touch this exercise, ahem, with a ten-foot pole. I don’t have the guts, but others like Sam Taylor, who has the gumption, would. She’s trying out 100 new fitness classes and here she tells of her pole fitness foray.

If you are impatient and can’t wait to shinny to the top of the pole in dance competition, or at least get the skinny on this enervating exercise form, the UK’s Bendy Kate (Kate Czepulkowski) gives a supreme performance at the World Pole Dance Championships 2014. She can twirl hanging from one hand. She can ease into the Russian splits. She can flow into Chinese ones. She should be an athletic ambassador to the United Nation’s World Health Organization. She’s fun to watch and with her great music accompaniment, it’s a beautifully impossible act to beat. For five minutes Bendy wows the audience while the song “At Last” blows the mind.

Frankly, some of the moves hurt to watch. You wince as she grabs her foot and brings it close to her head. Actually, well past. Her knee is closest to the noggin. Is the body supposed to do things like that? Rhythmic gymnastics meets innovation, permutation, concentration, distillation. Those are the essence of pole dance at its finest. Bendy, her grace beyond repair, Fred Astaire in air, gives an exhibition of transformation, of elongation and truncation without hesitation - and makes it look easy - and not once is seen a huff or a puff. Us humans, we’d be gasping in a minute. Hacking in two.

Speaking of two, some acts have two persons on a pole.

Let’s get bureaucratic for a minute. UPA. What a great acronym. It stands for United Pole Artists. Or it could subliminally stand for: Up a...something or other. Get it?

What does one get if they get into the UPA? Well, for one thing, it allows one to BSB. “Bringing Sexy Back” has pole players, via video, pics, or blogs - share their best assets to other - registered - practitioners. So Peeping Toms are butted out. For a few other things, it gives news of poles - removable, permanent and portable; of apparel – fishnets, sports bras and shoes; of current events, what pro-polers are up to, the lowdown on pole fitness basics, even philosophy. Pole instructor, Gina Tann, compares pole dancing to gardening and “polers” to plants, both needing nurturing, for example.

Summarily, it may seem odd to many who’d associate pole dancing or fitness with the objectification of women - to hear women state that they feel empowered practicing pole fitness. It may seem odder still, to learn that pole dancers provide benefit programs to aid the less unfortunate among us.  But it won’t seem odd to realize that once you've freed your mind of preconceived notions and perceptions of pole fitness you’ll rid yourself of the biased straitjacket you've been in.

Thanks, pole. 

Get ready for grounders. Big air players need not worry about winning the Open, the most venerated major. Many of us heathen, unschooled, types may know it as the British Open Golf Championship.  

Is Tiger going to be there? Yes. Though he missed the cut at the Congressional his back didn't break. He'll tee it up at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club.

Odds are that he won't be the favorite. Galleries, however, vote with their feet and while he has no Arnie's army of adoring throngs he'll probably have the biggest crowds owing to the curiosity factor to see if his game cools, igniting a fuse.

What are the chances of a repeat? Phil Mickelson won in sterling fashion in 2013 in a final round charge as formidable as lightening but this year he’s winless and is ranked 93rd. His best finish was a tie for 11th on June 5th at the St. Jude Classic, so he’s tepidly warm. He avers, however, that his playing in the Scottish Open before this year’s Open (like he did last year) will put him in a good frame of mind. He shot a 68 Thursday under tough conditions and a 73 Friday under easier ones. Golf...

This year the favorites for the Claret Jug and $720,000 pounds are: Martin Kaymer, who won the US Open by 8 shots. He also took the prestigious “fifth major” The Players Championship.

Adam Scott always seems to be in contention every Sunday on the back nine of any tournament he plays. He’s been number one world ranked for the past few weeks. Bubba Watson, holder of two Masters’ green jackets, has to be a threat although in five whacks he’s only made the top 25 once.

Tom Watson is the sentimental favorite. He's won this championship on five different courses. He's 104 years old. OK: 64. Rory McIlroy shot a course record 64 in the opening round of the Scottish Open at Royal Aberdeen, topped by a 436 yard (wind assisted) drive on the (lucky) 13th hole. Oops. He shot a 78 on Friday...

For those that don’t know about golfing in England or Scotland (where the Open is usually held) the game is called links golf. For a duffer like me, what that means is that I can watch the ball from my drive roll into a pot bunker 50 yards away. And those bunkers riveted fronts are so steep, most of the time you’ll be hitting out sideways to get back on the fairway.

The courses are windswept, the trees are few, the bunkers (sand traps) are evil, the scenery ruggedly sparse. Take away the people - and the golf course, usually near a sea, under laid by sandy soil, looks lonely, and lovely.

Players and fans love this most traditional and oldest of the four majors. Only eight teed it up back in 1860. Willie Park, Sr. won. Now at the RLGC Hoylake gigantic grandstands - seating up to 7,000 - will adorn the 18th green. And 40,000 folks will be following their favorites daily. Not only are the galleries a concern but so are birds nesting habits! Don’t want to have a Dunlin bird done in. The village of Hoylake’s population when golf gawkers aren't dropping in to tromp around, numbered just under 11,000 in 2011

Let’s hope the pros bring their “A” games to start. Otherwise, the Victorian and Edwardian era homes that dot the right hand side of the first hole may find players playing through their living rooms.

And watch out for the rough stuff at Royal Liverpool. There’ll be more of that thick gnarly grass than there was in 2006. This course spots bunkers about 300 yards out left and right and sports long, narrow greens and small ones too – with lots of “movement.” And the mottled clouds, white, gray, and black - seem to touch the landscape.

And don’t get caught reveling in all that greenery on three. The dogleg right features an out-of-bounds ridge closer to the fairway than a too tight dress shirt is to the neck.  The OB would be fair game on many an American course. Here too, the prevailing winds will nastily help blow your ball to the forbidden land.

Watch the pros wrestle with the decision to putt or chip should their shot roll off, or miss the greens. That’s a links course conundrum...

Another toughie will be the 6th hole. Though only 201 yards, this par three has lots of wind, rough, and enough pot bunkers, plus a false front, to stymie the best. Accuracy, and proper club selection off the tee, are musts.

What also bedevils the competitors is the gorse, the thick shrub-like vegetation that can ensnarl them should they drive left on the par five, fifth. Look for plenty of penalty drops, Listen for cursing and cussing. The tenth is a birdie possibility, par five. But if you hit it in the deep trap to the right of the green, you’re in deep doo-doo.

With two par fives in the last three holes those vying for contention will be scrambling for birdies. Risky golf will make for prayers, and great viewing.

Water woes on the left of holes 9 through 12, courtesy of the Welsh-English River Dee. Croaking courtesy of Natterjack toads

The Red Rocks Nursing Home denizens, with their two acres of grounds at the point of the Wirral Peninsula, are probably safe from errant shots that soar over the green on 12...

Craig Gilholm is the course manager.  He hopes this year the course won’t be as dry as in 2006. It was sweltering that summer. He and his 10 staff are hands on. Craig doesn't sit in the office, hoping God takes care of things. He adds: “Nature’s nature...” and warns that a Hoylake wind can be wild and woolly

Just so you know, Tiger loves this course, 82 bunkers and all.

”Hoylake...golf as it was meant to be played” Tiger said.

And no matter who wins this course with its swales, rolls, levels and mounds, will have to avoid the out of bounds that runs up the whole right side of the par five 18th.

But any which way the winner shot maker does it, the Merseyside economy will, thanks to the Open, get a £75m shot in the arm.

Is Brazil digging the beat of FIFA’s slogan “All in One Rhythm” for their 2014 World Cup? If you ask Brazilians their opinions on how things are, with FIFA, with visitors, with the country’s reputation – you’ll get as many contrasting thoughts as millipedes have legs.

Airport workers in Rio want raises, teachers are striking. Bus workers in Natal want more money too, while the Metro Workers’ Union, led by Altino Melo Dos Prazeres, are fighting. The Union president admits that the World Cup gave his underlings, overseeing six lines and over 100 stations, leverage in negotiations with the São Paulo state government. With a state population of 44 million people, there’s a lot of discontent to be roiled should both sides pester and poke each other.

FIFA, for its part, has been a huge pest for Brazil, period. Luke O’Brien describes the depths to which FIFA, in collusion with politicians and others, has scooped up dough – from a country that, despite its economic size - ranked 7th out of 194 by the World Bank for GDP in 2012, can’t readily afford the “basics”, let alone afford the construction of stadiums costing 3.6 billion bucks. Worse, those edifices to egos may be unsupportable financially and unused materially once the soccer soiree is over.

FIFA will do A-OK, if their 2010 World Cup earnings of (USD) $2,408 million from TV and $1,072 million via marketing rights, are any indication.

This party is costing Brazil north of 11 billion dollars. Tourists are warned not to have their health head south. “...we have stadiums but we don’t have hospitals.” So the natives are kicking up a near Capoeira level fuss.

But Brazils’ Ministry of Tourism estimates hotels, restaurants, and retailers will take in the biggest expected portion of R$4.05 billion spent by some 600,000 visitors and 3.1 million Brazilians. So reports Lise Alves of The Rio Times.

Everybody agrees the rabidly (but in the best way) - mad - soccer country loves it when seleção Brasileira scores. In the first game against Croatia, hardly an epicenter event, one heard in São Paulo cheers: of elephant sounding horns, deep cannon-like missile blasts, firework crescendos, raucous roaring, heck, even a clap or two. But can a goal, goals, or even a World Cup victory, paper over anger at how the beautiful game has been put together by FIFA? John Oliver, host of “Last Week Tonight” described it as sausage making.

On the subject of messiness, Sepp Blatter opined that more might dine on Women's soccer if they’d only wear skimpier shorts. He should loosen his tie; let blood reach his upper head.

Blatter is the Mad Hatter, President of FIFA.

You know, if you can get past Blatter’s sexism, the possibly corrupt skullduggery surrounding the Russian 2018 bid, the probably corrupt skullduggery involving the Qatar 2022 bid, the apathetic tomfoolery in FIFA’s lackadaisical response in light of probable match fixing leading up to the 2010 World Cup, the countermanding of national laws, such as with Brazil’s anti-booze laws, and the unfettered unaccountability of this autonomous organization writ large, FIFA’s not an overly sordid,

with some 1.432 billion in-reserves non-profit,

set up.

But once you eyeball the boardroom getup where FIFA’s plutocrats do their wheeling and dealing, gall comes to mind.

FIFA's motto:

"For the Game. For the World"

Could be:

“For the take. World's the stake.

Or maybe the motto should be taken from the James Bond movie, "The World Is Not Enough." That fits with Sepp’s declaration that soccer should be played on other planets. May we suggest Uranus, Sepp?

Sepp isn't a complete oaf. He can foresee, He didn't speak to the masses during the opening ceremony, probably figuring he’d be booed off the galaxy.

Back on planet earth, where politicians are universally held in contempt, Barack Obama with lefty college kids and Vladimir Putin with righty Russophiles notwithstanding, Brazil’s first woman president, Dilma Rousseff, was soundly given that country’s Bronx cheer during the Croatia-Brazil match. She shrugged off the verbal shots. She had suffered, among other indignities and atrocities, electric shocks during her three-year incarceration under military dictatorship in the 70’s.  Brazil’s protesters, rightly or wrongly, will have to focus their anger on more crucial choke points, like to the aforementioned transportation systems, if they want to dent the president’s armor.

Back to FIFA. For years it has been accused of malfeasance and nonfeasance – with nary any kudos for feasance. Not surprisingly, feasance, as a real word, isn’t common. Not surprisingly, FIFA’s good effort, as a real work, isn’t common either.

FIFA can’t even pack a stadium. Take the empty seats, please. FIFA officials are on the hot seat to explain why seats have been unoccupied. And no, they weren't occupied by Sepp’s other-planetary invisible aliens in matches like England vs. Italy. It seems Brazilians are protesting with their wallets too. 

When FIFA’s not blowing our minds with boardrooms and Blatter its numbing us senseless with blather and natter. Uruguay’s biter striker, Luis Suarez, took a chomp on the left shoulder of Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini.

FIFA: “We are awaiting the official match reports and will gather all the necessary elements in order to evaluate the matter,”

19 words.

We: “We’re looking into it.”

5 words.

Wouldn't it be great if Suarez, metaphorically, took a bite out of FIFA’s ass?

Why should Brazilians be agog at soccer stars’ egregious, edible exploits when they’re aghast at paying more for food and booze during the World Cup?

As for the protests, here are the basics: protesters bring street-and-metro blockages; governments bring rubber bullets and tear gas. Protesters, firebombs; police, gas bombs. Seems like a wash.

In the North is where temperatures and temperaments may especially boil. Poor security guards. What’s worse: handling security in a riot or being match security, forbidden to so much as glance at the game?

Every Brazilian will be more than glancing at the quarter-finals game against Colombia Friday afternoon in “The Land of Light” city, Fortaleza. Will savior Neymar, despite his sore right knee, play? Could Brazil make it to the finals without the slim 22-year old? He has scored more than half of the team’s goals so far. He says he's good to go... 

Finally, what should the world do with FIFA? Top European clubs may divorce from FIFA and UEFA in 2014 once their three-year memorandum runs out.  They’re thinking of doing the old: Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum we’re appalled, you’re rotten bums.

Can the body of FIFA survive if the old-head Sepp were to do something decent, like go?

Oh, no. Sepp’s vying for another term.

Or does FIFA, if Sepp were somehow given the heave ho, still need a flush? The organization is up to its neck in problems of image and substance. It probably, therefore, needs a complete makeover - head to toe.