I love watching the Olympics. I think it’s seeing people fulfill their goals. It makes me believe that if
I work hard enough, and take performance-enhancing drugs, that I can fulfill mine.
Have you been watching the Olympic Games? Maybe you haven’t seen the games part of the Olympic
Games. They’re the day-late filler that’s been wedged in among the advertising and the stories of athlete’s
donating kidneys, John Kennedy’s World War II bravery, and the poundage of steak served in the
Olympic Village cafeteria. Someday, I think, NBC envisions an Olympics without the impediment of
competition.
When I sold advertising for the New York Knicks and Rangers Radio Network, one critic said our post-
game show sounded like the Home Shopping Network. What a compliment! NBC execs are probably
looking for the same one.
CNBC and MSNBC have been showing some sports during the day. Let’s be fair. Our Olympic softball
team has been featured a lot, and they should bring home the gold, because most of those girls look and
play like Babe Ruth. I think that at about 14, the-shall we say-less feminine girls head for the softball field
and the buffet table.
I just had a gig at The Lake Ontario Playhouse near the Canadian border.
The Canadian Broadcasting Company is doing something novel; they’re broadcasting the games LIVE.
And it’s the Summer Olympics—no hockey! Just as I woke up last Friday, the Toronto affiliate was
showing Weightlifting.
The guy on the screen weighed, I think, about 123 pounds (I’m converting from kilograms), and he was
clean-and-jerking three times his body weight. That doesn’t sound quite right, but I’m not sure what the
gerund of clean-and-jerk is. My head, I was having trouble lifting off the pillow, and this little fellow had
the equivalent of my pillow, my bed, and me over his.
You may like coffee and a cigarette in the morning. I prefer watching a midget Bulgarian Charles Atlas.
There are plenty of events that don’t seem to make much sense. But, maybe they give us a timeline of
what was once important and an idea of what’s changed. This year archery is joined by Women’s Pole
Vaulting and Weightlifting. An athletic theory of evolution, which makes the silly Racewalk still being
contested, the teaching of Creationism of the Olympics. Man walks, but then he accelerates to running.
The Gold Medal for airgun has already been won? Air gun? That’s a B.B. Gun. In my younger days I had
a B.B. Gun. The cops brought me home in the backseat of a patrol car.
Around that time I also got caught throwing tomatoes at some passing cars and then had the school
evacuated by spraying fart spray in a teacher’s desk. I didn’t realize it, but I wasn’t being immature, I was
training for what could become Olympic events. If the International Olympic Committee had a little
foresight, I could be going for three golds right now. It’s not Marion Jones’ challenge, but still, it would be
an accomplishment.
You can also learn a little bit about yourself while watching the games. Just as I was congratulating
myself for finally being mature enough to appreciate the athleticism of the male gymnasts, I remembered
watching the women’s triathlon and thinking, “cool, chicks in bikini’s on bikes.”
I’m not very high on women’s gymnastics. I’d rather see a healthy 11 year old boy throwing tomatoes at a
mini-van than some poor 13 year old girl forcing herself to somersault on the beam after throwing up her
lunchtime salad. Have you noticed that most of the gymnast’s mother’s look like Olympic softball players?
I’d love to be at the next table during dinner. “Sweetie, you just have the steamed broccoli and grapefruit,
mommy’s famished. I’ll have the Baked Alaska.”