We spend most of the day watching the Olympics, so you don’t have to. Before we get to the Opening Ceremonies – yes, I know they’re on tonight, but that’s a replay, they were broadcast live this morning and early afternoon on NBC -- the preliminary rounds of certain sports continued overnight (well…overnight in the U.S). Not necessarily the major sports, but most at least aren’t especially obscure. So, as the expression goes, attention must be paid. The USA men’s rugby team played Uruguay. I’ve never quite figured out the rules, including its strange, undefended drop-kick extra point, which seems to take place from the point where your team crossed the end line. It’s a bit of an odd sport that clearly was a foundation for football. But it’s hard to watch a game and not think of the episode of Friends when Ross was trying to impress his girlfriend Emily, and got worked up enough to become “Red Ross” as he rushed in to play…and got pummeled. In the game last night, the score was somewhat tight, until Perry Baker broke free, raced down the field and put the game away for the USA, winning 33-17. The Team USA women’s soccer team beat Zambia 3-0. But what stood out for me was that the final two goals were not only scored by Mallory Swanson…but about 30 seconds apart. It was an emotional moment for her, since her career had been pummeled by injuries, surgeries and infections that, among other things, has kept her out of the Olympics. But notable for me is that her husband is the shortstop of the Chicago Cubs, Dansby Swanson! And it’s clear that one of the reasons he signed a contract with the team last year was because Mallory plays for the Chicago team, the Fire. There was an exciting women’s soccer game between host country France and Colombia. The score was 3-2 when the game went into extra “stoppage time” for a whopping 10 minutes. The home crowd was going crazy, with Colombia aggressively pushing to get the one goal they needed to tie. But with the French crowd screaming them on, France held on to win. There also was a women’s handball match between host France and Hungary. While I like to watch most games, team handball is not one of my favorites, and even I have a limit how much I’ll watch of everything. To be clear, team handball has absolutely nothing to do with the handball most people think of, smacking the ball ricocheting off the walls. Rather, it is more like soccer, but with players running around and throwing the ball to one another. I just find it a bit boring to keep watching after a while. And in interesting news, 2-1/2 years after having been cheated out of the Gold Medal at the 2020 Winter Olympics, the U.S. figure skating team, that had been giving the Silver Medal, will be presented with the Gold in a ceremony at the Paris Games. The Russian team had gotten the Gold, but one of its stars later tested positive for illegal drugs, and they were disqualified. That moved the U.S. team up to first place. And that brings us to the Opening Ceremonies which were broadcast live earlier today, and as I said they will be re-aired this evening. A few random thoughts about them – The ceremonies are a truly impressive artistic achievement, taking place across all of Paris outdoors and mostly on the Seine (including having to take place in an ongoing light rain). There is more usage of film edited in throughout than I prefer, but the footage is well-done and interesting. The whole production is a bit frou-frou pretentious at times – including an overly-reverential, helmeted, phantom-like character weaving his way throughout, that has a nice, off-beat texture to it, though gets a bit annoying after a while -- but hey, that’s the French. Also odd is the very first musical performer is Lady Gaga – one would think they’d have found a French artist to kick things off. Overall, it’s an incredibly ambitious undertaking, successful, and very beautiful. I don't get many chances to make a pun in French, but this was a near-perfect example of Mise en Seine. (The event does end back in the Trocadéro Stadium for the official parts of the opening. It’s a much smaller facility than the main Olympic stadium, the Stade de France, but it’s filled only with the athletes and officials) Beautiful and impressive as it is, I was bothered by a significant part of it as a sports fan. One of the joys of the Opening Ceremonies is that as teams march in and are spread out across the stadium track, the camera and TV announcers are able to single out athletes from around the world, and tell interesting stories about them, which is one of the important parts of the Games – not just the competition, but the humanity of the world coming together. But with athletes all crammed together on their team boats, that wasn’t possible, and the “up close and personal” stories were borderline non-existent. From the TV perspective, I thought the NBC announcing was lousy. Mike Tirico is an excellent anchor host – but with no stories to tell about the athletes, he was limited in what he could say. He filled in okay, but he’s so much better than okay. He had two co-hosts. Kelly Clarkson is a charming person who, here, was out of her depth, and the bulk of her commentary was “Oooh, that is incredible. Incredible. Wow. Amazing. That is incredible. I love the rain.” Fun Fact: We can see it’s incredible. But she was eloquent compared to (for some reason) Peyton Manning. He’s a witty conversationalist, but as a former football player – not an Olympic sport – he had pretty much nothing to add. He also has no connection to NBC – he’s on ESPN, owned by ABC – so I’m not sure why he was there. Nor why Snoop Dog was either, especially since he doesn’t add much. I assume that maybe, for some reason, he’ll do little features throughout the Games. Throughout there were cuts to a fashion show going on in Paris. I don’t want to even try to describe it. So, I’ll just say it’s very weird and what most people think of the French when they have a nightmare. There was one small sequence I especially loved. It has to do with setting off flames and fireworks across what I believe they said was the Concorde Bridge, leading what was perhaps a museum or maybe an official building. And there was a long cartoon with the Minions. Yes, you read that right. I’m not quite sure what they have to do with France, though apparently Pixar has offices in the country, which is a bit of a stretch. It was an absolutely silly thing to have during the Opening Ceremonies – and hilarious. Ending at the Trocadéro Stadium, the Eiffel Tower nearby is decked out for a pretty nice light show. Also, since the Trocadéro is just a smaller arena without a cauldron, there is a nice twist as an international boat ride of well-known Olympians is needed to take the Olympic Flame and head down the Seine for the lighting ceremony at what was still an undisclosed location. But that’s not the end, because the organizers came up with a clever and moving way to continue the carrying of the Flame. As for how the lighting is handled, I’ll leave that undescribed for those who plan to watch later, though I’ll note that, as part of it all, Mike Tirico is correct when he says it’s the most unique cauldron you’ll have seen. And then that is continued with what I’ll only say is a beautiful and emotional surprise performance of the Edith Piaf song “Chanson d’Amour” – that co-host Kelly Clarkson was left literally in tears. Let the Games begin, although they already did a couple days ago…
0 Comments
It's the most wonderful time of the year. Yes, the Olympics are around the corner, as you know, and the Opening Ceremonies start on Friday. With the competition to begin the next day. Except...well -- at least that’s what I thought. It’s not true. The Olympics have already started! Really. Last night, while lying in bed, getting ready to go to sleep, I was flipping around the channels when all of a sudden I looked at the on-screen guide and saw – the Olympics! On the USA Network. Women’s soccer, Mali vs. Israel. And not only that, but right after, they had women’s handball, with Slovenia playing Denmark. And it didn’t stop there either – and wasn’t just these small, under-the-wire contests, but at 3 AM, the had the USA women’s soccer team playing Zambia. And went on all night. And continued all day. The Olympics are on right now as I type this – and will continue through the rest of the day. And all day tomorrow and beyond. In fact, if you weren’t up at three in the morning to watch the USA women play soccer, it’s being repeated tonight at 6 PM Los Angeles time. For that matter, tomorrow morning early – at 5 AM Los Angeles time, so maybe at 8 AM on the East Coast – the USA men’s soccer team will be on the USA Network playing home country France. The reason for this is that several sports have qualifying “pool” rounds to determine who gets to play in the final bracket. And if they waited to begin competition until after the Opening Ceremonies, they wouldn't finish the medal round in time. So, there’s actually a lot going on. And happily and joyously fun, too, they even had a featurette by my favorite Mary Carillo. In the past couple of Olympics they haven’t used her as much as they should, but if they already have one of her pieces on the very first day, maybe, possibly, hopefully they’ll have more. She does these wonderfully, offbeat, funny but smart and interesting Olympic stories about the culture of the home country. Her story last night was on the French love of escargot, and spent a lot of time on a snail farm, talking with a snail farmer. It was great. He used to be in tech, but decided he wanted a slower life. And yes, there were a lot of “slow” jokes. She and the snail farmer even had a race between two snails – to see whose would cover 6 inches first. (The snail farmer’s won.) She also interviewed a woman at a high end Paris restaurant that specialized in escargot. So, please, let there be more Mary Carillo!!! (And at the very least, please let NBC at least post online the few featurettes she does.) I should add that the Olympics have already had two make news stories of notable controversy. One was that an assistant coach of Canada's women soccer team and an "unaccredited analyst with Canada Soccer" were caught using a drone to (inexplicably) reason spy on New Zealand. Pointlessly, given how highly ranked Canada is and how low-ranked New Zealand is. The assistant coach withdrew for one game, and the "analyst" was sent home and banned for eight months. The weirder story was that a chef for Team Russia, who has been living in France for 14 years, was detained by French police for working with Russia for ways to disrupt the Games. Go figure. Yes, the chef. Police say that terrorism isn't involved, though the intent was cause mischief (my word) throughout the competition. What that exactly means, I don't know. By the way, for those keeping score, Mali and Israel ended up their women’s soccer game 1-1, so each team left with one point for the standings. And the Danish women were ahead of Slovakia in handball 9-8 in the first half before I said, “Okay, that’s enough for tonight…” and turned off the set at 12:25 AM and went to sleep. I love the Olympics. But I do have my limits. More to come. Each day for the next couple of weeks. As I say, We watch the Olympics most of the day so that you don’t have to. Let the Games begin! Early. (By the way, though many people -- perhaps most -- think that the Olympic Theme was written by John Williams, and it's regularly identified that way on YouTube, he didn't. The Olympic Theme is "Bugler's Dream" by Leo Arnaud. What John Williams wrote is "Olympic Fanfare," which comes in here below around the 1:00 mark. And together they make a wonderful piece of music. Yesterday, England defeated the Netherlands in soccer (or football, or whatever you want to call it) and made it to finals of the World Cup, which will be played on Sunday. This is a huge deal for the country which is one of the more soccer-crazed countries in the world, which is saying a lot. So, I thought in its honor, I'd post this article that I've posted several times in the past, originally 10 years ago in 2024. It's about when I was just a wee kidling on a family trip, and we somehow got tickets -- and truly amazing tickets -- to the opening game of the 1966 World Cup...which was the last time England won the World Cup. But that's only part of the tale, and not even the most remarkable part. Which is why I call it -- One of the Greatest Sports Miracles EverNow that the World Cup has started, and the United States has come up with a miracle victory, I thought this would be a good time to tell the story of not only one of the greatest, unknown World Cup miracles, but one of the all-time great sports miracles, period. It's how my family and I got to see the World Cup in London, 1966, And I'm serious. Okay, no, it's not the upstart United States hockey team beating the Soviet steamrollers. Or the unknown Roulon Gardner defeating the unbeaten, invincible legend Alexander Karelin. It's not Kirk Gibson hitting a home run on one leg, or Doug Flutie's Hail Mary. But those are more remarkable physical achievements by talented athletic. This was an act of otherworldly intervention. When I was but a wee kidling, my family took a summer trip to Europe. One of our stops was London, where as fate would have it, the British were hosting the World Cup that year. As maniacal as we know the rest of the world is over soccer, England might be the home of soccer insanity. In a land known for tradition, soccer riots are de rigeur there. If you're not rioting, you're not trying. Nonetheless, my dad thought it would fun to see a World Cup match. (Note: The concept of it being "fun" to see a World Cup match is not relatable for most soccer fans, most especially those who are the aforementioned British. "Fun" is a nice get together for tea, or taking your dog for walkies. Being able to see a World Cup match in England is closer to being life-affirming.) And so, uncaring of the obstacles, my dad found out how to apply to the world lottery being held to get tickets He sent in his form and enclosed his check, and then went on with his life. Meanwhile, throughout England there was national prayer held nightly in homes throughout the country, if only the Almighty would grant them a ticket. We got four tickets. But that's not the story, it's not even close to the miracle. It's just the heavens warming up. Because, you see, we just get four tickets to the World Cup, we got them for...the Opening Match! Which would be filled with grand celebration and royalty. But thing is -- that's not the story, either. Because, again you see, featured in the Opening Match of World Cup 1968 was a team that it was likely British fans -- so knowledgeable of all the great teams in the world -- would dearly would love to see. That team was England. Yes, that's right. By just randomly sending in to the worldwide lottery, we got four tickets to the Opening Match of the World Cup between England and Uruguay, held in London at Wembley Stadium. And here's the thing: no, that's not the sports miracle, either. I should note that we were very happy to get the tickets. Not "mad-crazy-happy, my life has been made whole" like anyone in England would have been to get those four tickets, but certainly happy. But happy as in, boy, this will be fun. I mean, to be honest, one has to put this in perspective. Wembley Stadium is huge, after all. It seats 90.000 people, which is 80,000 more than the town, Glencoe, we lived in. So, the chances of seeing the match very well were small. And not being mad-crazy soccer fanatics, not being able to see the game very well in the nosebleed section would certainly lessen the majesty of the moment. But still, that didn't matter all that much, since I was pretty young and didn't know the rules of soccer all that well. (I can't speak for the rest of my family, though I suspect I knew more than my mother. You kick the ball and hope it goes in the net.) But just being there in the massive crowd, somewhere, anywhere, amid all the excitement, that would be cool. Just to be able to say we were there. Wherever "there" was. Where "there" was turned out to be -- okay, are you ready: mid-field, center line, halfway up, directly across the field from where the Queen of England was sitting in the Royal Box. Okay, that's the sports miracle. Let me repeat. With the entire world of sports fanatics converging on London, England, for the World Cup, we got four tickets to the Opening Match in which the host country England was playing, seated at midfield halfway up Wembley Stadium across from the Queen of England. Seriously. And to be clear, this isn't the fuzzy memory of a little kid recalling things far better than they actually were. Exaggerating for posterity. No, I have photographic evidence. I took pictures. (Sorry for the guy's head. I wasn't great at composition at that age.) Look directly across the field. Do you see that "box" just below the horizontal white line, marking the upper level? That's where the Royal Family is sitting. Directly opposite us. If you look closely, I believe that Queen Elizabeth is waving at you. I told you I wasn't lying. It was pretty remarkable. As I said to my dad just a couple days ago, reminding of the story, if he had decided to sell these tickets it would have paid for the entire trip. "And," he added, "your college education. And your brother's." The crowd, the ceremony, the excitement, the game, it was great. Memorable to one's bones. Absolutely wonderful, historic. There was only one disappointing thing about the match. Ever since I knew we had the tickets, one of the things I was looking forward to seeing was England score a goal amid that maniacal crowd going soul-bursting wild for the home team. (Even at that age, I grasped the concept of such drama.) And the final score of the game between England and Uruguay was...0-0. Zippo. Or as the soccer folks like to say, "Nil." Or more accurately, nil to nil. (More action photos from the collection of photo-journalist Robert J. Elisberg. Notice the compositional improvement after many minutes of experience represented here by the lack of heads getting at least completely in the way. Hey, when you're a little kid, people are bigger than you are.) So, no bursting of massive cheers by the heart-loyal English crowd at the site of the goal for their beloved home team. No cheers over a goal from anyone. On the good side, at least we weren't there to see England lose. In fact, just so you know, the zero goals were not the result of a mediocre team. Indeed, host England went on to win the world championship. They just didn't choose to get any goals that particular day. Hey, that's the way some miracles go. Sometimes, the fates decide to put the miracle in perspective. After all, you shouldn't take the good and miracle for granted. But a dozen years before Al Michaels asked the question of sports fans at the Lake Placid Olympics, I had already been able to answer the sports question. Yes, I do believe in miracles. When I next get together with the Queen, I'm sure we'll swap tales of that day. No doubt it wasn't as much a sports miracle for her -- I'm sure she had an in, or went to a scalper -- but it was nonetheless quite a day of national pomp and circumstance, so I'm sure she had to have written about it in her journal. For all I know, she's got snapshots of me in return. When talking with my dad about this the other day, he noted one other thing. "How did I get those seats??" It was a miracle, dad. The greatest sports miracle ever. At least to some people. On this week’s Al Franken podcast, Al has a tribute to the late Bill Walton who recently passed away. As he writes, “My friend, basketball legend Bill Walton died this week after a private battle with cancer. I wanted to share our interview with Bill from March of 2022. You will hear the unbounded life force of his generous spirit. RIP Bill.” I recall hearing his interview when it first aired, and it was indeed vibrant, interesting, often a lot of fun, which I posted here when it aired. As I wrote at the time, “His guest is NBA Hall of Famer & Emmy-winning Broadcaster Bill Walton – who has opinions. He begins with those on basketball, the Grateful dead and life. And then goes from there.”
On this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guest is long-distance runner Molly Seidel. She ran her first-ever marathon at the 2020 Olympic trails and not only made the U.S. team, but won a Bronze Medal at the Tokyo Games. What’s clear from her interview with host Peter Sagal is how much she loves running, and so it’s not surprising that her conversation is enthusiastic and fun.
This is the full Wait, Wait… broadcast, but you can jump directly to the “Not My Job” segment, it starts around the 18:45 mark. Well, the day has finally come. I finally made it back to Wrigley Field after over five years. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that this occasion doesn’t thrill others like it does me, but then – well, that’s why God created the concept of “tomorrow,” when those uninterested can check back for other folderol. For anyone else (and “anyone” might be a particularly appropriate word), here are a few ponderings about the day. One of the great (and perhaps unique) things about going to a Cubs game is that the El train stops literally a block-and-a-half from Wrigley Field. (It’s in the middle of a brownstone neighborhood after all – something I love. You’re walking through a old world neighborhood, turn a corner…and then there a baseball park looming up in front of you.) So, getting to a game is profoundly easy. There’s an El station only an eight-minute walk from where I’m staying with my aunt. They come by about every 15 minutes, and on a Cubs game day, every El stops at Addison, where Wrigley Field is. I went with my cousin Susie, which gave me more trepidation than it might seem – that’s because she’s a big White Sox fan. She said she thought about wearing her White Sox cap, but after some consideration she decided against it. It’s a glorious ballpark, built in 1914, the second oldest in the U.S, after Fenway Park in Boston. And it still has the only scoreboard in baseball that’s hand operated, looming over center field It's not just that the day was great -- sunny, around 70 degrees, a light breeze -- but we lucked out, catching a doughnut hole. It was supposed to rain Tuesday, yesterday and Thursday. And it did rain on Tuesday...and is still expected to today -- but when we were at the game yesterday? It cleared up perfectly for some reason known to a greater power. Everything was wonderful about the game, except the game. The Cubs only manage one lousy single -- and it was a scratch, infield dribbler that Cubs catcher beat out by half a step. And that was it. And they lost 3-0. Pretty good pitching by the Cubs, but that carries the "positive side" only so far. Making things worst, the San Diego Padres pitcher, Dylan Cease, is a former pitcher on the Chicago White Sox. And a favorite of my cousin. So, she kept enthusing about how great he was doing. The best I could muster was, "I'm so happy for you..." Still, the day was a joy. It was wonderful being back at Wrigley after far too long, and it was a treat watching the Cubs in person there. The elves taking care of the homestead back in Los Angeles say they are very jealous. Alas, no, we 30,000 in attendance didn't get to sing Steve Goodman's "Go, Cubs, Go" after a victory. But there are about 125 games to go. Or to put it better -- about 125 games to go, Cubs, go. We now return you to our regularly scheduled website. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
Archives
June 2024
Categories
All
|
© Copyright Robert J. Elisberg 2024
|