Closing Ceremony Ramblings

Just a few thought collected while watching the closing ceremonies of the Vancouver Winter Olympics...

-The ceremony started with the people in charge poking fun at themselves, as the malfunctioning 4th arm of the cauldron from the Opening Ceremonies finally came up from the floor. It was a nice attempt at self-deprecating humor, but did you need the mime/clown involved? Mimes ruin everything.

-One thing they still didn't fix? The lip-syncing. Everyone was still a couple seconds off, which was just enough to be noticeable.

-You know what adds a touch of class to everything? Making world-class athletes wear cheap-looking white ponchos. [Editor's Note: they took it up a notch later by making those same athletes wear fake moose antlers that had a light in them. Work your entire life, kids, and you too can be made to look like a dorky family on vacation.]

-The opening group was a Canadian band called Inward Eye. I guarantee you that at the first band rehearsal this group ever had, those guys spent the entire time coming up with that name and never practiced a single note.

-There was a guy on top of a podium who appeared to be in line to be the star of Canada's version of High School Musical. He was really rocking out on his guitar. Would have looked a little more convincing, though, if someone had bothered to plug the guitar into anything.

-The best part of the Opening Ceremonies is the parade of nations, so why do that again? Instead, lets just have all the athletes pour into the stadium at once, taking pictures, not really paying attention to where they are supposed to be going and let them eventually wander into their seats. It was just like the chaos that happens when they first open the doors to a wedding reception hall after cocktail hour.

-They gave out the medals for the men's cross country 50km race right in the middle of the ceremonies, because that is apparently the most important medal of them all. Just a thought on the medals: I know every Olympics wants their to be different from the last, but what happened to these ones? They looked like squished pennies, all bent and misshapen.

-The big part of the closing ceremonies was the presentation by Sochi, who will host the next Winter Olympics. It all began with the Russian National Anthem, which I can not hear without thinking of troops marching in Red Square. I guess I saw too many war movies in the 80s.

-That was followed by a preview of the Sochi Opening Ceremony, which, if last night is any indication, will be heavily pre-taped and feature some sweet air-conducting from a guy roughly 5,000 miles from his actual orchestra.

-Two of the big Russian stars they brought out for the Sochi presentation were Evgeni Plushenko (last seen complaining so much about coming in second that he took the unprecedented step of giving himself a platinum medal) and Alexander Ovechkin (last seen shoving a female fan to the ground). Not exactly the two guys I would have chosen as goodwill ambassadors. Also, it appear Ovechkin's jacket was two sizes too small.

-Then they brought out Neil Young, marking the 50th time I have said the phrase "I did not know he was Canadian," since the games began. He didn't appear to have a mike at all, but his voice carried throughout the arena. Strange.

-While Young was playing, the flame was extinguished. For some reason I thought it was tradition to take the flame and pass it to a representative for the next games, because the Olympic torch was never to be fully extinguished. Instead, someone below the cauldron just turned of the pilot light and that was it. Very anti-climactic.

-At this point every Canadian star who didn't get to have a part in the Opening Ceremonies showed up: William Shatner (who may have been drunk), Kathrine O'Hara (who is normally very funny, but not in this instance), Michael J. Fox (who was supposed to end on some visual gag that the folks at home never saw) and Michael Buble (who was wearing a tear-away Mountie costume... ok). No Mike Myers and no Celine Dion. I am still shocked at that.

-This was followed by what I like to call "The Parade of Canadian Stereotypes." Giant cutouts of hockey players, Mounties, moose, beavers, canoes and maple leaves. It almost made me long for the flying kid from the Opening Ceremonies.

-Now, with about 10 minutes before the television guide said the ceremony was going to end, NBC started to show us that The Marriage Ref was coming up. But, there was no way that was going to happen, because obviously the Closing Ceremonies were running long. NBC wouldn't cut away from this event, that only happens once every four years and that they paid billions for the right to show, just to shove this clearly-awful show down our throat, would they? Yep, they would. They interrupted the Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics to bring us a terrible show that makes everyone involved look bad and makes me wonder just how much fighting goes on in the Seinfeld household on a daily basis. Good call.

-I stuck around the hour to see how they would handle the rest of the closing ceremonies and suddenly realised why they were so quick to go to alternate programming - when they came back it was just a collection of terrible Canadian music.

-It started with Nickelback, who (unlike everyone else, it seems) I don't hate. They were followed by Avril Lavigne, who I loathe. She got to sing two songs from her last album, which sounds like a good idea, until you realise it came out in 2006. I think she sang the same two songs at the closing Ceremonies of the Turin Olympics, during which I am sure I said, "God, I hope she isn't still relevant enough to play the Vancouver Games." Alas, I was right, but also wrong.

-Lavigne was followed by Alanis Morisette, because at this point, why not? I imagine she must have been pissed to be third. Also, she is a terrible lip-syncer, which is surprising because I know people who saw her live and said she was terrible and should have lip-synced. You would think she would have been better at it then.

-At this point they started scraping the bottom of the Canadian musical barrel, with acts like Simple Plan (is it still 2003?), Hedley (your guess is as good as mine) and some band who's name I missed but appeared to be a French-singing Evanescence rip-off. Was Rush busy? Not that it mattered, because by now the athletes had stopped paying attention to the music and instead come out of the stands to take pictures, exchange cell-phone numbers with their International hook-up buddy and pretend they would be best buds forever. It was like a senior-year CYO dance on an epic scale. Alright, that's enough. Back to regular programming.