China Puts on its Sunday Best

Watching the great Red unfurling last night made the past months and years of dreary Chinaphobic news melt away. It was impossible to look away from, the most stellar piece of monumental theater all but the deepest of cynics would admit to witnessing. This is what a few billion buys you these days. Plus they probably know a couple really good guys for fireworks.

I even watched the athletes march in, that never-ending segment usually signaling it's time to fix dinner or go out and change the oil. Too much was happening for a traditional narrative. Rather than compose that segment into a theme, because what theme is there but young overachievers carrying their flags into a stadium and walking in circles, here is instead my stream of consciousness. Pardon me while we shift literary gears for a moment, with apologies asked if it comes off as an incomprehensible Burrows-ian brain dump. This is what results when you forgo an edit:

Did they have to make Paraguay look like such bean farmers? Ah, traditional Chinese bagpipes in the background. Did the four Palestinians make you feel sad? Did you laugh when the John McCain commercial came on? George and Laura both checked their watches around the same time. Dubya's a real toe tapper. Halfway through if you Tivo-ed. When Iraq came by he clapped, yet looked like some guy with a belly overfull on steak and PBR. Just observing, not judging. I'm sure my Lazyboy is cushier than his bleacher. Plus there are no cameras to capture my occasional nose pick, so who's got the better seat now? Karzai's black bodyguard clearly dozing at his side, sleeping a sleep he hasn't enjoyed since signing on. Let him dream in a tranquility only 10,000 officers can provide. Sucks to be Chad or Luxembourg, settling for a quick recap after the commercials. Let's hope some of their kids get the competition over early, allowing them a week to try nailing the gymnasts already out of the running for bronze. Maybe one of those sweet Croatian chicks. And let's hope some dude from Gabon medals to win that promised dream house. Everyone walking through paint to create a footprint. Clever bastards. The UAE prime minister's daughters being the first female entrants a coincidence? That Bob Costas sure can hold his tongue, but you know he thought it was baloney too. Half the countries entered the Small World Thunderdome now. Twenty to go before the Star Spangled boys. Dubya check, he's looking ready to haul ass, leaning in with program firmly rolled in hand. You can almost hear him praying, “Screw this no alphabet in Chinese bull, when does USA come on so I can hit the head?” NBC not happy with Hugo Chavez apparently. Or the Ruskies. I was worried they wouldn't hold their hosts' feet to the flames, when they actually did talk politics I was surprisingly annoyed. Or at least felt I was being proselytized to. Looks like only Kazakhstan's mother still buys their clothes. Georgie's jacket is back on for the home team. Team USA arrives looking fresh from the yaught club. China has no time zones? Right now Mugabe is watching this from some smoke-filled Hong Kong airport bar swearing to himself. Fuck him. Good for you, Red Dragon. Nice to see them finally developing some standards. The longest Olympic wrestling match dragged on for 11 hours? Imagine making that into a film. “Come on Roc, let's get you a quick burger and a crap before the next round!” Two chunky yet cheerful female lifters in a row. Kinky. That Botswana girl was under some sort of trance à la Serpent and the Rainbow. Did I miss Jamaica dammit? Here comes the home team. What's with the holdup in the hallway, did someone chain themselves to a railing and the cameras panned away? You'll never know my friend. Let's all cry as we recall the story of the 11 year old earthquake hero. Great kid, but the commentators wanted to take that little twerp home in a silk bag for their wives. Enough of him already. Sap sells in any nation I guess. The teams mingling and whooping it up now. What a night for them. I can picture them enjoying breakfast in the communal lunch room, scolding "no politics!" to a noisy conversation and light-heartedly hurling a handful of dry Wheaties in jest. Thirty years from now, a Gabonese boy will ask “Grandpapa why do you save those old shoes with the paint on the bottom?” And the well preserved old man will laugh wistfully as he sits to tell him the story of his life.

Enough of that, it's as exhausting for the reader as it is the writer.

As an American those ceremonies scared me. Down to my bones. You already knew they had our jobs and could whip up a cheap pair of Pumas. They own our T-bills and now they've even seemingly got Hollywood licked, Spielberg or no. Is this what it looks like to see a superpower torch passed? Too early to say. But this is what they can do now, watch out.

The show did its best to support the Party view- Hey there's been upheaval here for a millenium or so, don't mind us if we need to disappear a few rabble rousers to a dark hole now and then. Look at our end product! This is the future of authoritarianism. Drink the Kool-Aid. The affair makes you so mesmerized you half don't care about the bad if this is the taste of its fruit. No accident I'm sure. Granted Taiwan had a flag agreed on by the Politburo, but the hypnotic aura designed to sooth and calm, that theirs would be a peaceful ascension if there were such a thing, could touch even the likes of Ted Nugent. Or at least elicit a “helluva show, considering..” This sounds like the nicest thing he'd be capable of saying.

My only beef came in the form of ever-present chatter from the NBC booth goons. There is an unwritten policy in effect at the National Broadcast Co. that at least two out of every five seconds must be packed with inane aural spoon feeding, lest your simple eyes and ears be distracted from the Billion dollar high def miracle before you. Are all other nation's Olympic VJ's so inclined to point out the number of laborers that hammered the steel for one of those Olympic rings? If only we could get a international visitor to pipe up on this one. I hear this Internet thing goes on all the way to deepest corners of the dark continent. Did Lauer and pals actually need to tell us “...and if you listen now you can hear her singing”? No, I can't hear. Somebody please tell them this is not Niners at Kansas City. There must be some concerted effort by the networks to dumb us down. Probably makes it easier to hawk sedans and antacids each night.

Setting aside that one whining complaint, the rest went spectacularly. The human powered jack-in-the-boxes, dancers on the surface of spinning planets, a zero gravity torch chase overhead, mind blowers all. The show's themes of Harmony and Promise did their jobs well. I know they're still building another ten jillion coal fired boilers but didn't you think, at least for a moment, that things could change after that? Slick marketing. Here's a toast to there being some substance behind that promise and that it wasn't nothing more than a 3 hour communal drug trip. We could all use it.

We here at the bunker were of mixed thoughts before this show. For a year I'd halfway hoped some madman in a parachute with the flag of Tibet stitched on his ass would land on someone's box seats. Stir up the system a bit. But after seeing this hopeful reminder of humanity, I can't help but feel more a world citizen. Yes gas is through the roof and you can't drive a mile without spying a neighbor's furniture dumped on the lawn by the sheriff when the bank came calling, but at least someone appears to be doing well. Several coats of bitter nationalism lay in pieces at my feet. Dear God, I must have been drinking scotch watching NBC late at night. That explains it. I'll likely forget it all by morning.