Winter Games XX is Here!

Well, it’s been 4 years, and here we are back at the Winter Games. One of my best friends was the Director of Ceremony at Salt Lake – and it was an incredible experience just to watch from the sidelines. I’ll leave it at that. And those ceremonies were very – serious – as befitted their organizer. I loved the look & feel of the Salt Lake Games, and not just because I had been watching it develop from the get go. But again, I stress that seriousness was all encompassing. Even over venue music selection, which earned some pushback from the younger team members. They provided my friend with a CD of “young folk music”. He played it for me to see what I would make of it, and it sort of backfired when I A) knew almost all the music and B) heartily endorsed the idea of it being played at venues such as the snowboarding, the moguls, the freestyling – mostly because those sports are very much defined by the music. I remember commenting that the Eagles' “Take it Easy” is a great song, but not really appropriate for the snowboarding. Let them play their Blink182 & Green Day – everyone will be happier. I will say the ‘classic rock’ approved for bobsledding was fun – ACDC, Zep, Queen.

In the Olympics, most of the world may think that the hottest competition is among the athletes. I would, however, challenge that after having watched the “behind the scenes” action of putting on a games. The most serious and cut-throat competition is among the Hosts. They all want to be the games you are talking about for years to come (in a good way, of course). And the main sport of this ‘host competition’ is the Opening Ceremonies. Sure, venues, food, ease of attendees moving around, artwork on the tickets and even mascots are medal events, but the Big One is the Opening Ceremonies for obvious reasons.

So I couldn’t wait to settle down this evening with a fine red wine, a nice pepper brie, and Turin’s entry into the Opening Ceremonies International SO THERE contest. And I have to say, I think I love the Italians tonight and I think they owned.

Think of the Opening Ceremonies as the ice skating long program competition. There are key elements you must perform (the flag raising, the torch lighting, the parade of nations), but it is up to you to choose your music and how you will link those elements together. And in this one, we the viewing public get to vote. I’m giving Italy an 8.57635242 for this effort.

The majority of my points come from the fact that the Turin games have opened with – dare I say this – an admirable sense of humor. So often in this venue humor is achieved despite it being the last emotion the designers wished to instill in you. But the Italians had all these little tounge in cheek touches, carried off with professional style, that made their ceremonies fun to watch.

In no particular order, my personal favorite moments/elements:

Dear lord, the MUSIC or rather musak. It was nice that it wasn’t all Sturm und Drang, but some of it was just odd. Like the bad jazz section during one of the turns of the “Sparks of Inspiration” skate-by. Even good jazz would have been a little off, but bad jazz was just too out there. Still, I gave them points for mixing it up.

And speaking of the “Sparks of Inspiration”, major coolness points for having men skating about with fire on their backs. Dude.

I would love to have access to a script for the ceremonies, because it really looked like Dante’s inferno WAS a theme they were going for. First we have the fire imps running about, and the anvil spewing fire in time to the music. And when they had all the dancers under the parachute doing shoulder stands and waving their legs about? Seriously, it looked like souls trapped in the ice at the seventh level of Hell. I love it!

Sophia Loren leading in powerful women with the Olympic flag was excellent, although I’m sorry – including Susan Sarandon in that group was a poor choice. She did not meet the excellence of the others. I was really impressed to see Somaly Mam, however.

Then we have the Alps section – oh my. ICE DANCING COWS! That was totally cool, along with the piped in mooing. That has to be an Olympic first. Then the topper for that? They have ballroom dancing couples, bedecked in outfits patterned after milk cows…and the ladies have *PINK PETTICOATS*, which looked like udders peeping out as they moved. Please, I sincerely hoped that was the intention and I for one salute the Italians for having a sense of humor about the whole thing. Olympic committees tend to take themselves far too seriously. In all the years of ice, sparks, colored ponchos, angsty people dressed as forests/rocks/jellyfish symbolizing hope/ambition/the dream of a clean drug test, that was just a fabulous new addition.

The animated ski jumper was very cool, although the vaguely porn-moviesque sound track was disturbing. And the deep breathing being piped over said porn-moviesque track wasn’t helping. Not that I have any idea what the music on a porn movie sounds like; but if I did I bet it would sound like that….

And who can say no to the bondage fetishists posing along the Olympic rings? At least they had dignified music.

Ferarri olympic doughnuts - get OUT!

But the single coolest element of the Turin Opening? The athletes march in to DISCO! Seriously, it just doesn’t get better than that.

I officially love the Italians. Good job!


P.S.: Thank you, NBC, for finally having comentators who were interesting and knew when to just *be quiet* and let us watch. You are almost forgiven for The Couric Woman almost single-handedly ruining the Sydney Opening for me.