Who is Paris Hilton?

Today's BBC Olympic quote is a classic illustration of just how disconnected one can get from "popular culture".

BBC Commentator: "This American skater is the Paris Hilton of the skating world."

I have absolutely no idea who Paris Hilton is. I found the picture at left by doing a Google search for images, and then carefully picking my way through about five thousand hits to find one picture that wasn't mostly naked or outright pornographic. I first became aware of the name a year or two ago when I began receiving a lot of spam emails with Paris Hilton in the subject. I innocently assumed they all referred to the Hilton hotel in Paris, of course (Yes, you can point and laugh now). Eventually I came to realize that this was (in theory) a person and not a building, at which point I assumed she must be a porn star with a name like that (If you name your daughter Candy or Ferrari-Lynn, you know she's going to have a brass pole in her future). I still don't know if Miss Paris is an actress, model, or just one of those people who manage to get in the news a lot. It's weird being so detached from reality - Next thing I know, there will be popular bands with names like "Enter the Haggis"......

And this still doesn't explain just what the BBC guy meant by his comment. Does the US skater spend most of his life flashing his midriff for cameras? Inquiring minds want to know.

Argh!

This is all I have to say regarding the US girl's flub when she had the Olympic Snowboard Cross gold medal in her hands. For those who missed it, well, you could probably hear Emily and I screaming at our television set from halfway across France...

So far I have to give the Snowboarders credit for "Most Entertaining Events". The four person races brought back fond memories of my old days watching radio-control cars race at Hobby Park, where the winner is not at all the fastest around the track, but instead the one who's best at dodging the inevitable pile-ups that erupt at the start and around every tight curve!

Another advantage of being an "international" is that we have three different countries to root for (US, France, and UK), so our odds of cheer at the end of an event are a lot higher, even forgiving the British for their bizarre love of curling. And BBC's quote of the day is, "From the emails we've received, it seems a lot of you are using our interactive service to follow all the Olympic events 24 hours a day... which is kind of sad, really..."

Random Olympic Comments

Here's a little tribute to the Chinese Olympic skaters, who seem to be a seriously effective bunch. I painted this as a quickie portfolio illo many years ago, and found it recently while rooting around on our hard drive for a different scan. Nothing of searing insight to offer today, just two random comments of the sort that the BBC announcers will occasionally drop into the dialogue from out of the blue..........

(In reference to the US snowboarding women's gold medalist)
"This girl is the tiramisu of the half-pipe snowboarders"
(Just what he meant by this, I have no idea, but it sounds kinky)

(In reference to today's snowboarding 'Cross' event)
"They're going into the docks now. It's just like greyhound racing, without the hair."

There really is a certain surrealism that lurks in the stolid British character.

Olympic Oddities for the Yanks

Today's pic is a blurry shot from last summer (And, I will strongly note, pre-diet) of me down near Pen-Bé looking quite like I've accidentally wandered into the cinematography from "Local Hero".

We've had a day of watching BBC's Olympic coverage now, and various differences already emerge from the US coverage we both grew up with. The absence of the US Olympic musical theme is really bizarre - I had not realized that A) What I knew of as the Olympic Theme was actually US-Network-specific, and B) how much that familiar music had to do with revving us up into the Olympic mindset. I want trumpets!

BBC's coverage is much more low-key than the US coverage... to our delight, really. We occasionally swap back to a lady or chap sitting in a cozy room by a large crackling television-fireplace, but the bulk of the programming so far has been the events themselves. Out of a 90 minute show about the Men's Downhill, I'd guess that fully 3/4 or more of that time was spent actually showing each skiier's run. To Americans accustomed to 60% of the programming being commercials, another 30% being talking heads ("Here is Scott McScott, winner of Gold in the 1988 Olympics. What do you think of the new contenders, Scott?" Etc. Etc.), and perhaps 10% of the show featuring the actual sport... Well, it's a much more pleasant experience. Also notable is the great lack of carefully choreographed, heart-wrenching personal stories and mini-movies detailing the tragedies and inspirations behind each athlete, where we'd always find out that so-and-so was racing because his sister's adopted daughter was born with three heads, or whatever. For the skiiers, we got a two minute mention of the fact that one fellow had shattered the bones in his shin and had them replaced with titanium rod, and that was that, on with the show!

Also of interest - So far, BBC has not shown any of the awards ceremonies. The event will end, they announce who won, and it's off to the next event, totally skipping over the rousing flag-raising and medal-giving that were always broadcast on US TV. This is a bit of a downer, as it feels like the winners have been robbed of their moment of glory in the rush to move on to the next event. I'm curious to see if this will continue or if we will get to see the ceremonies at some later point. Congratulations to our French friends, BTW, on today's gold medal in Men's Downhill Skiing!

Americans may laugh or gasp that BBC posts betting odds on the athletes before the events. Oh, the sinfulness of it all! :)

Finally, I have learned from one commentator's true love of the word "scrappy" that it seems to have a different meaning for Brits than for Yanks.

British English:
Scrappy - Adjective, meaning, crude, rough, ragged, ex. "He made a really scrappy jump there."

US English:
Scrappy - Noun, meaning, annoying smaller version of Scooby Doo, ex. "I stopped watching the show the day that that damned Scrappy Doo showed up."

Olympic Fever

Here is a little sunshine (as Brittany goes, anyway) pic for a cold winter day. This is a shot we took a couple of years ago at Quiberon, following our first visit to Carnac.

The Olympics have begun! I'm always amused at how many people feel compelled to crack on the Olympics, or make a show of how bored they are by them... and this isn't counting the socially-conscious who complain that all that money could be put to better use. I believe that one's appreciation of the Olympics is tied to one's ability to dream, to really understand the outlook that says, "I am not just going to get up and drive to work and slog through a day just to make it to the weekend. I am going to fight for my dreams and try to make myself a little better today." To me, the Olympics are a festival of humanity's capacity for dreams, goals, and self-betterment.

During the weeks that the torch is burning, people from all across the world will put their lives' work to the test. This is another reason I like the event - It truly seems to be the one time that all our nations come together constructively and peacefully. Especially in times like now, when the news is full of reports of screaming lunatics burning down embassies and making death threats over simple cartoons (Yes, I am 100% on the side of free speech, and being free to live my life uninhibited by somebody else's religious laws... especially somebody in another country, thank you very much!). Seeing the Russians and the Americans competing in skiing presents a hope, as much as anything, that maybe one day we can find peaceful means to settle our differences (Or at least put all of our world leaders together in a cage match on Pay-Per-View, and let them bash each other directly without getting their innocent populations involved...).

So, sorry, no French news or silly Brittany stories today, just some idle thoughts about this giant sporting event. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be off living vicariously through the hopes and fears of the world's greatest athletes, sharing just a tiny bit in their triumphs and feeling the pain of their defeats - The same things that we all deal with, whenever we try to just do something more. The Olympics is the life of the achiever writ in macrocosm.