From THE SOFA,
February 13th, 2010
Yes, I'm a big sucker for the Olympic Games. Yes, the pre-games coverage and the opening ceremony always get me kinda teary, right down to the unveiling of the latest feature-length Tim Horton's ad. And yes, this year's ceremony in Vancouver was really well done, and impressive, not to mention inclusive and respectful of the memory of Nodar Kumaritashvili, the Georgian luger who had tragically died that day. Organizer John Furlong's speech was nice. The music was pretty great. They made it look like frickin' whales were swimming under the stage.
But....
I would be remiss were I not to comment on the unacceptable paucity of silly hats. Clearly Olympians the world over had read what The Tourist had to say during the 2006 parade of athletes at Turin, thus discovering that we've all been having a snicker at their expense. (No, not the chocolate bar; that's only if it's plural.) Come ON, superhuman world-class jocktypes; this is the one time we mortals get to laugh at you, don't you get that? Is it so much to ask that you let us, just once every couple of years?
No, this year far too many of you had your shiny, lustrous, just-done hair out waving around along with your flags and arms and whatnot, no hats on whatsoever. Hardly fair.
GREEK NATIONAL TEAM, OSLO WINTER GAMES, 1952. NOW THAT’S MORE LIKE IT.
Our sweet, muscle-bound Canucks, I happily report, did wear their silly hats dutifully. HOWEVER: flag bearer Clara Hughes was wearing a different AND DECIDEDLY LESS SILLY hat than the rest of Team Canada. Boo, I say to you, Ms. Hughes. And good luck. May your powerful thighs be wrapped in gold come Thursday.
Cut to our poor put-upon truant-from-parliament Prime Minister in the stands, looking slightly stoned, he and his wife terrified someone might mention him in a speech and draw boos from half the stadium. Waving timidly while crazy drunken premier Gordon Campbell goes insane right next to them. "Shut up, Gord," the Highly Medicated Harpers whisper through tightly clenched smiles, "You're gonna make them notice us. Here - take this valium."
All right, why do they have to drag stupid old Nelly Furtado out for all these damn things? Every time she did her inappropriately sexual yet awkward little hip wiggle Bryan Adams looked like he was gonna laugh.
Who did Sarah McLachlan's hair and why?
Kickass gay biker hooker fiddlers with tattoos and spiky hair! Cool!!!!
Props to the Japanese, for waving Canadian flags as well their own. Of course our flags do match theirs, so it didn't compromise their colour scheme or anything....but I thought it was a friendly gesture.
As for the U.S. team, I can never stop wishing someone would smack all those stupid camcorders out of their hands.
Now, I'd never before heard of Shane Koyczan, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who was worried for him when he was introduced as a poet and stepped out onto the empty stage. That poor fat nerd, I thought. The jocks are all gonna laugh at him. They'll make him stick around for the whole games with the sole purpose of shoving him into their lockers when they've had a bad day. But then brother comes out with THIS:
(Except last night’s version was even better.)
Like that Molson (I AM) Canadian ad meets W.O. Mitchell meets Jay-Z. Right on for chubby bearded slam poets! Our games are so inclusive they even include you!
All tolerance has its limits however, and the overriding message of the Canadian media’s Olympic coverage, when it comes to our team, seems to be this: no useless little bronze or silver medals will do.
Bring home the gold or CTV will ram your decapitated heads onto stakes as a warning to future losers. And feed your bodies to the winners. Mention the words "personal best" and we will ship you to Nunavut, stick a pointy thing in your skull and Michaelle Jean will eat your heart.
Speaking of Jean, anyone notice the two minute shot of her sleeping during the speeches? I know, she’s had a pretty tough month.
Another thing that scared poor Harper was that the drums they'd handed out for everyone to beat on instead of clapping made a sound oddly like that once-familiar rumbling when all the MPs complain and bang on things in the House of Commons.
Or maybe the crowd was grumbling, about having to wear white smocks that made them look like a bunch of morons in the kind of cheap dollar store raincoats that tourists wear when they get caught in the rain. God forbid the audience shouldn't match! (What's that, Emily?) My trusty research intern is informing me it had something to do with the lighting effects. Well lah dee dah.
Jacques Rogge en francais is just as boring as Jacques Rogge en anglais.
Luckily, to wake everyone up, there’s kd lang sounding fucking amazing. But I gotta say it...Hallelujah? As in "It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah"? Wow, nothing says "Go Canada" quite like that. (Heads on stakes, people.)
And then there's Measha Brueggergosman singing the Olympic Anthem. Measha B belts that shit out….and is met with a little meh and some limpwrist flag waving. Bloody Canadians.
Follow that up with some overdramatic croaky franco-dude (called Garou of all things) who gets to sing on account of having a song called Un Peu Plus Loin, Un Peu Plus Haut, which is like oh so inspirational. Un peu plus BLECHH. I try to get Quebecois music, I really do. Okay, that's a lie, I really don't. Whenever my dad waxes nostalgic about his mom and all his aunts and uncles jamming in the Laurentians back in the day all I can think is, "Oh thank God I wasn't born for that".
As for Nikki Yanofsky, she’s lovely, but it’s day one and I already don’t ever need to hear that song again. Thanks again, CTV.
Wayne Gretzky runs like a girl. Of course I skate like a turd.
By the way, have a look my right skate, which literally exploded under my feet last time I went skating (the other one was ready to blow), which explains my nonparticipation in this games' short track speed skating events.
Watch out in 2014, when I'll be 38 and therefore really ready.
Anyway, it was very exciting when the Great One took the torch from BC Place…
To his Fortress of Solitude…
And lit the magic cauldron of Olympicon.
(As he’s doing this, Brian Williams points out that the torch ceremony was conceived by the Nazis for the ‘36 Olympics as a symbol of Aryan supremacy??? WHAAAT??? Jesus Christ.)
The people lining the streets were so excited! They didn't know whether to yell CANADAAAA or GRETZKYYYYY! So they shouted sort of a combination of the two, peed themselves and cried. That's why the RCMP mistook them for derelicts, tasered them and drove them out of town in the “Spirit Van”. Just for the duration of the games. Then they get to come back and dine on the succulent yet untriumphant limbs of the Canadian competitors - er, big fat failures – who don’t get gold, along with all the rest of us.
See you in two weeks, when all this is over and I pry my atrophying body off the couch,
The Tourist
GO GRETZKADAAAAA!!!!!!!!!
