I have no interest in the Olympics whatsoever. This may be rooted in the fact I have little
background in following international curling, biathlon, or team figure
skating. Luge is not exactly a great
spectator sport. I would imagine
whipping down an ice chute would be pretty kickass to do; it just doesn’t
interest me to watch. It reminds me of
the time I killed a couple hours at the Kanawha Drag Strip waiting to go play a
show at the Empty Glass. Greasy
hillbillies had descended down whatever mountain outpost they called home to
run their piece of shit car down the track at dangerous speeds. The first couple times the Christmas Tree hit
green and the cars took off, it was “Wow!
Check it out!” Then by the third
time I was bored and found myself wondering the odds of winning the 50/50
drawing and if people were actually going to eat that crockpot chili out of the
“fun sized” Frito bags from the Snak-Bar.
While Sochi seems a little less developed than Kanawha WV,
the only thing I find interesting are the pure Russian accommodations,
construction disasters, and rampant corruption.
It’s hard to get fired up about meaningless hockey games and ski jumping
when pictures of side by side toilets capture my imagination so much more
robustly. While I assume that a bunch of Swedes are
totally jacked about the Nordic Combined Ski finals, I don’t truly understand
why. I don’t understand the Scandinavian
Death Metal scene either, so it’s probably all on me.
The worst events are the snowboard and free-style
skiing. The media attempts to tell the
public how popular these X Games events have become. “It’s part of the Millennial Lifestyle!” While that makes great copy, it is also
patently untrue. For example, the recently
televised X Games attracted about 1% of the viewing public, while an NFL
Playoff game will attract about 40%. The
guys that are always really high with goatees and skateboards and NOFX patches
on their jackets? That’s who watches
that shit, assuming they can remember it is on TV in the first place. I get the idea that people like to see dudes
to flips on snowmobiles and spin around a pipe on a snowboard. It looks pretty cool. Am I the only one that notices that there are
a set limit number of things that are possible, and each competitor does the
same basic thing over and over and over and over? Guy goes down half pipe, flies up on the
side, lands, flies up on the other side and twirls around, and repeat. Unless I am crushed by depressants and unable
to reach the remote, I’m not sitting through that shit.
The figure skating is awful.
Prissy little figurines and their overbearing coaches/stage mothers all
preen for totally subjective scores. I
am continually creeped out when I see a heavily mustached coach with a much too
close relationship to a 17 year old girl skater. The guy is always two feet taller and about
150 pounds heavier when he stands next to the always crying skater after their
routine. It always seems like that right
after the event this poor girl is going to be returned to the shackles he has
in his basement by the hot water tank while he eats sardines from a can yelling
some gruff Eastern European language. “Sasha! Stop the
crying. I will beat you with broom
handle. Rest. You skate tomorrow.”
The Olympics last for what I believe is 113 days. Television hosts are straining even now to
manufacture enthusiasm for people and events they have never heard of prior to
getting their assignments. Soon these speed
skaters, skiers, and bobsledders will return to their almost total anonymity
and we can pretend to stop caring that any of this matters. It can’t happen soon enough for me. Well, unless the Russians can keep building
shoddy hotels and western journalists can write about them. If that’s the case, these Games can continue
forever…
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