Olympics or International Stupidfest?

Yesterday I had a delicious turkey sandwich from a little shithole around the corner from my office that calls itself the brown bag. The proper title for my fare was the Lincoln Hall which consisted of turkey on rye with lettuce and cole slaw to which I added a dollop of Russian dressing. While it was just a sandwich, it was scrumptious and still more relevant to me a day later than the 2006 Winter Olympics will ever be.

It’s true that bashing the Olympics seems like the in thing to do these days. I can handle that; consider me a sheep if you must. It’s infinitely better then listening to my boss have five minute long phone conversations while I patiently wait in a chair across the desk from her in her office without so much as a glance in my direction. I usually don’t even have anything to read.

Let’s review the Olympics though, shall we? The Olympics is essentially a party time when all the countries of the world get together, bring a dish of their own choosing and then a giant potluck dinner of an opening ceremony ensues. No one can make sense of it but Muhammad Ali usually represents the United States and it’s a sign of great courage we’re told. The weeks of competition that follow can be summed up as the world’s many nations gathering around a gigantic table, whipping out their international junk and applying the old measuring stick. The United States is a failure unless they finish top three in the overall medal count or are beaten by someone like Canada.

It’s elementary why the Olympics are getting less positive air-time than Todd Bridges these days:

I. The Olympics are an idea conceived by an ancient people
I watch HBO’s series Rome, so I know about these things You say it was the Greeks who invented the Olympics and not the Romans? Well, I don’t discriminate, I’ll lump them all together as toga wearing freaks, how’s that sound? Regardless of who it was, these were the same people who made young boys play the part of women in plays and stuck it in anything that moved, be it man, woman child, beast or cantaloupe. Yeah, let’s follow their master plan.

II. The Winter Olympics are now just another stop on the X-Games tour
There’s no more agony of defeat and thrill of victory. It used to be that the greatest athletes in the world got together and tested their talents against each other once every four years. Rarely did they get to compete against their rivals on the international level. Now the athletes are giving each other high fives before events and paying back beer and coke debts they accumulated on the X-Games tour. These athletes are now competing against each other on a regular basis. It’s like calling any random stop on the seemingly never ending Rolling Stones tour special.

III. Announcers are annoying – consider the case of fallen snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis
Most talk radio hosts I’ve listened to over the past week or so have been crucifying Lindsey Jacobellis. The girl was kicking the ever-loving shit out of her competition, ahead by almost the entire mountain and she booted the gold when she tried to play to the crowd. I give her mad props…which is good where I come from. Even after wiping out, she still barely lost the gold, maybe by a couple of feet. The woman who took the gold…she knows. If she sees Jacobellis in a bar, she knows who the real champ is. In fact, I bet she buys her a beer and goes on her merry way. Also, as stipulated in point number II, the Olympics mean nothing now. Jacobellis will kick her ass on the next tour stop and yell “Booya” in her face. Announcers need to stop being so dramatic and get with the program and tell it like it is. Why can’t Bill O’Reilly announce the Olympics? Now that would be interesting.

IV. We need a nemesis….
No, no, Iraq isn’t good enough. We need to be rivals with a country that we loathe and whose society we feel the insatiable need to apply our doctrine to. Sure we hate Iraq right now but when was the last time Iraq challenged us in Moguls? Back in the good old days of the Cold War, we had Russia to root against. Sure, Americans shit their pants at the possibility of a Nuclear War launching at any given moment and those atomic bomb shelter signs were creepy, but oh the hockey! Just ask Kurt Russell. That remake of the U.S.A. team upsetting the Russians for the Gold in the ’80 games resurrected his career. Now he’s landing roles like Poseidon. Ahem, I said Poseidon. Ok, he got a payday, let’s leave it at that.

This all begs the question, do I even want the Olympics to become relevant again? The answer is: it depends. I seem to remember McDonald’s having incredible deals around the Olympics, like those cool collector cups I horded during the original Dream Team’s route of the basketball world. If it would make things like that happen again, I’m all for it. Otherwise, it’s just a waste of my time that could be better spent watching my full collection of Northern Exposure: Seasons I-IV.