I Guess My Part's Over....

My brother-in-law had a good one the other night. The man, who's an amiable sort but a bit on the, well, reserved side, is still capable of getting off some really good lines from time to time.

Anyway, his great line this time was about the Olympics. He said that with the conclusion of the swimming events, someone needed to come on a big loudspeaker and say, "This now concludes the white people's portion of the Olympics. The black people's portion of the Olympics will commence tomorrow."

Now, I know some of you may be offended by that remark. Hell, I might be offended it by it too, but it made me laugh. Hard.

Think about your first week of Olympics here. Swimming, diving, ping pong (or table tennis for you Ping Pong Purists), badminton, tennis (Venus & Chanda being the exceptions), equestrian, beach volleyball, gymnastics. Rowing. Sailing. Fencing.

With the second week, we get track and field, and the thick of things in basketball and boxing.

And OK, I know it. It was a rash stereotypicalization. (Oooh, look at me with my big words.) Not to mention that there are still lots of white people's sports to go around the second week. That is, if you like wrestling, judo, and weightlifting, by far the dirtiest sport in the Olympics, with such divisions as the "snatch" and the "clean and jerk."

But after spending a day yesterday watching the "not my" Olympics, I realized that maybe there is going to be a difference between the first week and the second week.

The first week, in the live-on-the-spot-post-competition interviews, we got swimmers saying, "Yeah, I got a good start, and even though I faded at the end, I managed a win." And gymnasts saying, "I tried to treat it like any other meet, and I just hit all my routines." Yeah. It's as boring as hell, but guess what - so are athletes who spend their entire lives swimming and flipping around on a mat.

Yesterday, I heard live-on-the-spot-post-competition interviews that went like this: "First of all, I'd like to thank God. And my family, my mom and dad, and my coach, my track club...." Well, that's all well and good and mighty generous, but this isn't the fucking Academy Awards. You don't thank people, you talk about if you think you ran a good or bad race, nod your head, then turn around and go put your sweatpants on. (Because, let's face it, track women wear almost as little these days as beach volleyballers. Who would have guessed the time would come when swimmers actually wore the most clothes?)

I also heard an interview that went something like this: "I wanted to go out and win and I ran hard and won and I want to shout out to all my boys in St Louis (or whatever town it was), and -" *eeehhnnnn!* - wrong. This is the Olympics, not the MTV Video Awards. I don't give a fuck who you want to shout out to. Shout out to them on your phone back at the Olympic Village and leave me out of it, OK?

And as for runner Maurice Green, he of the tattoo that abbreviates "Greatest Of All Time" - yes, the man has "GOAT" tattooed upon his person - I guess he's going to have to go back to the tattoo parlor and get a "3rd" put before that GOAT. Cause as of last night, that's his new designation. 3rd GOAT.

Now, I can't speak much for basketball or boxing, because frankly, I hate them both and I know it's hard to believe, but I'd rather sit with the TV off than watch either. I saw a little bit of the basketball team's loss to Puerto Rico ("Pueeerrrrto Riiiico, you loovvvvely iiiisland~"), and saw mainly, well, mainly people in USA uniforms missing the basket, but besides that, tens of bored people with frowns sitting on the bench obviously thinking about anything but the game, probably about their agents and whether Nike or Reebok or whoever would ditch them over the fact that their uniforms are sponsored by somebody else.

Apparently the basketball team is playing better now. Pity.

All I've seen of boxing is one man not punching, but shoving his gloved palm into the face of another. And I don't even know who either man was. The referee was there though, and he was dressed exactly like I was dressed at work the other day. So kudos to him.

So, yeah, maybe my part of the Olympics has concluded. That doesn't mean I'm not going to watch what's still going on, even if it's only with one eye, and even if it's only to bitch. I'm sure black people bitched about the first week.

Hell, I bitched about the first week. But I guess that's what I do.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Boy, is Jim Lampley looking old.
* Great name of the day: Chinese diver Wang Feng. Everybody!: "Everybody have fun tonight, everybody Wang Feng tonight!"