One of the joys of my youth (okay, joys is a bit overstated but it sings just a little, don't you think?) was watching the Olympics on TV. As a young person I thought Curt Gowdy had invented them-he seemed to know everything about them worth knowing. I believe they are, and have always been, an wholly owned subsidiary of the National Broadcast Company, NBC, meaning that they are now a part of the Comcast Xfinity Axis of Mundaneness.
It's okay, really-I no longer remember whether I was passionate about the Winter or the Summer Olympics and realized some numbers of Olympiads ago (I almost typed "X" number but it's closer to "VII" I suspect) I no longer care. I did perk up a little bit when the winter guys at some point added snowboarding.
Stunts and stuff are or should be what any Olympics are about. Instead there's a constant rushing to the exits as a variety of sports tawdry and tawny are quietly placed on injured reserve to make prime-time pride of place for ...well, for stuff like women's beach volleyball. Oh yeah, and guy's, too, I guess, not that I watch it but it has its fans. The best thing about women's beach volleyball is there's no need for audio-as a matter of fact, I'm not sure there even is audio. And that's another good question, why not thongs? I don't remember any other questions about wardrobe.
But as I said, to make room for the new, it often means out with the old. I wasn't happy too many Games ago when baseball stopped being a Summer Olympic sport. Of course, these days, thanks to Roger and Barry (and Senator Mitchell, to be technical) we could add blood doping, inconspicuous site needle injection (talk about sticking a landing!) and cotton ball toss, but it wouldn't have the same feel as an HGH fueled amazon using an aluminum bat to drive a leather covered sphere into the bleachers.
I got to thinking about underwater syncopated ballroom dancing and when the last time some sopping wet dancer had gone for the rings and then remembered it had never been a sport anywhere, much less in the Olympics. And in turn, that led me to this article in the (New York) Times. I like the idea of liberating the pistol from just signaling the start of an event but suspect the organizers will howl in protest over the pallets of ammunition I'd want each contestant to use (hey! the Games last a fortnight) .
And why stop at twelve hour bicycle races? Why not have a race that begins when the torch is lit and ends when the last rider drops from her/his seat, sprawled out cold on the pavement? Injured, near death, unable to go on? Where's one of the semi-finalists from the dueling pistols? Squeamish are we? They shoot horses don't they? It's TV! You'll watch it!
Truth to tell, I thought cross-country was an Olympic sport. Why else do we make children run it in high school? I mean, besides 'because we can.' And tell me an obstacle course for swimmers doesn't make you smile? For Michael Phelps, we could make him inhale his own body weight in mary jane smoke and hold it while dong the breast stroke. But the capper, as the Times' list suggests, has to be a tug of war-but with everyone from every nation...pulling together to keep the greatest show on earth, or in London this summer, from becoming video wallpaper at three AM, East Coast Time.
-bill kenny
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