These truths do I hold to be self-evident:
- I don’t cry “cute.”
- I’m a sucker for a floral pattern.
- And I love me some Olympic Closing Ceremonies. Correction: I love the IDEA of the Olympic Closing Ceremonies – with the athletes parading in wearing their hard-won medals while the world looks on, proud and briefly united-as-one while we applaud their efforts.
But what ACTUALLY ends up happening? Could be described as a total Wack Fest. This in turn makes me completely annoyed that I spent time watching such ridiculousness.
In case you missed it, here’s a brief overview of last night’s Olympic Closing Ceremony:
There was a mime in a boat on some sort of journey. In the sky. The journey TO where or FROM where is unclear. ‘Cause he’s a mime. And didn’t say a word. Shhhhh….
The mime was accompanied on his journey by ghosts hanging from the rafters of the arena, while below this nonsense, people dressed in glittery garbage bags portrayed the raging sea. Until they formed themselves into the Olympic rings. Zoom in to the little underdeveloped ring. Remember that from the OPENING ceremony? That little snowflake that didn’t change into a ring at the right time? Well they were recreating the moment. Ha ha ha! Those Russians sure do have a sense of humor; Poking fun at their lighting failures. Didn’t we all have a great laugh about that? It’s like our own private, worldwide Olympic joke. Zoom in to Putin’s face. He WANTED to smile, but his face just doesn’t work that way. Also? It’s too bad all those people in that cluster-bomb ring were dead by morning. [Kidding. Totally kidding.]
I won’t even mention the upside-down-Chagall Town that came out after the mime-in-the-boat disappeared. Nope, not gonna do it. WAY WACK! But what I WILL mention is that the Korean-skater-turned-Russian-skater who was chosen to raise the Russian flag during the ceremony didn’t know any of the words to the Russian National Anthem and so just stood there stone-faced while the youth of that country, accompanied by the elite athletes of that country, sang. And sang. And sang. How long IS their anthem, anyway? While the Korean-turned-Russian dude just tried to avoid catching Putin’s eye. Awkies! [I hope he doesn’t die either for not showing the proper respect to Mother Russia. Again, kidding.]
Now let’s turn our sites to the Parade of Nations. The chicks who escorted the athletes in to the arena looked like they were wearing white trench coats and had gotten their wrought iron head-gear at the Hobby Lobby 50% off wrought iron head-gear sale. And while their outfits were horrible, I think we can all agree that the U.S. outfits were a gazillion times worse. It looked like they were wearing once-white, droopy-in-all-the-wrong places long underwear down below. Up top they had on some pea coat sweater scenario that made these elite athletes look like they had all gained fifty pounds since we just saw them on the giant slalom. In a nutshell, most of the athletes got the memo it was dress-down Sunday and showed up wearing jeans and a team jacket. The U.S. athletes? Didn’t get said memo and ended up wearing some seriously unflattering crap. Lauren! Mr. Ralph Lauren! Please pick up the white courtesy phone. There’s an urgent message for you.
17 days. 2,800 medals. And now? Now it’s time to dance! And the whole thing slides quickly off the mountainside and becomes a bad dance party shot from a bunch of terrible camera angles. There was some mayoral, exchange-of-Olympic-power formalities buried in there somewhere. And another Russian History-told-through-dance sequence. SUPER WACK! But when the HUGE animatronic mascots begin to glide around the floor???
PEACE OUT! And note to self for NEXT time: You don’t actually LIKE Olympic Closing Ceremonies.
P.S. If they find my body floating in the river once this insightful blog on the Closing Ceremony for the Sochi Winter Olympics has been published, Putin’s yer man. [Kidding. Still kidding. Hopefully.]