August 10. i wake up on the counch again, just in time for live coverage to begin again. The american swimmer forgets to extend her fingers and loses gold by 7/100 of a second. Phelps’ 4x100 freestyle team somehow win gold in the last 10 meters, and he screams like a warrior. Watching it is not cathartic, i am jealous. Nothing in life pleases me or excites me to the extent where i feel the compulsion to scream my enthusiams... is it a lack of them, or an example of the differences between me and an olympic legend. I am as equestrian. 50 year-old Canadian woman wins a fencing match (she won china’s first medal in 1984), canadian men equal old world record in 4x100 freestyle, brent hayden (team visa) pulling out of the 200m butterfly (semis?) after swimming everything at the world’s last year.
Women’s bike race in the rain... canada gets it’s ass kicked in judo... some 17 year-old chinese kid lifts 160 kg above his head. He looks like chinese superman, short but built like and inverted triangle... i hate the air canada commercials, in english the voice is so fey that i am moved to change the channel to french, who’s coverage is far more interesting than cbc’s anyhow.
“i’m not supersticious, but whenever i fly i wear my habs socks”
yesterday’s basketball game was a huge blowout, but atleast i got to watch with 1 billion other people, 500 million in china. Yao ming wasn’t 100%, but he was still on the cover of every chinese newspaper for like the last three days. Why is no one concerned that china is clearly breeding supermen? The west must be doing it too.
Speaking of the cover of the newspaper, chris schwartz is arrested in tiennamen square and deported for staging a five-person die-in in props of tibet. He’s on the cover of le journal de montreal, which kinda paints his as an activist type. I know the truth, and make a note to look into the tibet movement with more suspicion. I know chris schwartz to be a douche, and suddenly suspect the free tibet movement for distracting massive amounts of international attention away from such real crisises as nicaragua, honduras, palestine i.e. america’s imperial attrocities. The mass media is clueless, and manipulative wimps rise to the top. Does it take conviction to go 12,000km to do the easiest, most obvious thing? Couldn’t his thousand dollar plane ticket be better used in this cause otherwise? And what is this hyping: chris schwartz or tibet?
Lots of beach volleyball. I biked to the mall and bough a team canada tshirt, which was cheaper at the cash than labeled. The hottest cop ever checked me out—either as fresh meat or potential criminal. A fit young cop with bright, died blonde hair is hot enough, but stuff her into tight, faded jeans and throw a red cap and sunglasses indoors and you may as well be setting up a porno. With my summery white t shirt and liberty spikes, i look like a real fan, like someone you’d find in a seat at the event, except it seems there are few people there besides the chinese and the press. I realize the seven spikes of lady liberty as equal to the seven tips of a pot leaf, and i wonder if i will be so gung ho about the olympics when i’m fifty if i’m not still a big pothead.
More and more i’m feeling the elitist nature of the events here. Sure, anyone could swim, but to reach the olympic level, the sport as healthy activity or hobby has to become lifestyle, and who outside of the north can really afford that. Even old powers like russia and france are all over the place in the first few days, while african countries (country) has to be given a buy into the beach volleyball. If cycling and equestrian events are sports, why not surfing and skateboarding? The IOC is wack, the olympics are the demonstration of political stability and prosperity domestically. Fucked up countries don’t have it together enough to play water polo.
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