Karl Klockars

Two weeks.  We just passed the time for two weeks with the glories of international competition?  Blink and miss it?  Me too.  Wish it were back already?  Kinda, yeah.  I missed the judo and the archery, as well as the javelin, some of the pole vault, and I think coordinated laundry folding.

So it’s only another 4 years, another 48 months, a scant 1460 days or so, give or take a leap year, until the next Summer Olympics in sunny, beautiful London.  In between now and then, perhaps we should start thinking about the successes and failures of the fine people of Beijing.  Here’s a few ideas:

1)  Each Olympic host city from here on out must agree to spend money than God has on the opening ceremonies.

The Olympic ceremonies kicked off with a big digitized bang and 83 million participants (which equals about a tenth of the entire population of the country).  And it looked pretty damn good.  So from now on, everyone who gets the Games must agree to drop the serious coin it takes to match it, whether they like it or not.  Chicago, should we win the bid, will easily be able to spend $100 million just on beneath-the-table payouts to “guys that know a guy that know a guy that can help with that permit problem.”

Some other ways to top the Chinese:  More elephants.  An Elton John/Cher duet.  A waterfall flowing away from the torch that Michael Phelps has to swim up to, clutching the Olympic Flame in his teeth to light it.  All athletes, on the procession march to the field, must wear either stilts or those springy-boot things.  And Bill Murray must parachute into the field, possibly lighting the torch as well. And…that means two torches.  The more fire, the better.

2) More random sporting events.

I want coverage of fencing.  More badminton.  More horseback…whatever.  And that trampoline thing was kickass.  More of that – but more of the bad athletes.  I want to see people landing on their heads.  While we’re at it, since they allowed a special wushu tournament because it was in Beijing, can Chicago (should it get the bid) have a special Bags tournament?  Or maybe London can have a special “drinking tea and grumbling about the weather” competition?  Just asking.

3)  More Beach Volleyball.

This one should of course speak for itself.  By the way, this suggestion goes for just about everything on earth.  National nightly news.  Morning talk shows.  Sitcoms.  Put in 2 minutes of women running around in sand, jumping and grunting, and it’s worth at least a 1 share ratings jump.  And on the same line of thinking…

4)  Smaller Beach Volleyball outfits.

How do those women play in those things?  They’re so restrictive.  London should enforce dental-floss thongs and pasties.  By the time it gets to Chicago, they’ll be bare-assed nekkid.  Now, tell me you won’t TIVO that.  Oh, the guys can go down to banana hammocks, too.  I’ll be getting a beer or examining an old magazine or sweeping up the dining room or something.  What?  Women’s beach volleyball is back on?  Sweet!  I’ll be there in a minute.  And while we’re on the subject…

4.1)  More two-piece swimmers outfits.

Sometimes, accidents happen during diving.  Use your imagination.

5)  More media coverage.

This year we had NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, USA, Oxygen, the Spanish Channels, Blogging, online coverage, On-Demand stuff, plenty of web coverage, and Twittering from Michael Phelps while in the pool.  London will be requiring telegraph operators, semaphore, carrier pigeons, Esperanto, smoke signals and telepathic broadcasts by government “thinkers.”  If NBC can get a Coke ad or a Nike commercial in front of a few more dozen people, damnit, it’ll be worth it.

6)  More human rights violations in host countries.

All I’m saying is, China throws a lot of people in prison for silly things like “thinking” and “speaking their minds.”  And you know what?  They managed to do a pretty good job with their Olympics.  That’s all I’m saying.

7)  A collective implosion of all Olympic venues during the Closing ceremonies.

It always bugged me that people would build these extravagant places just to be used for under 2 weeks.  It seems a lot grander and a little bit decadent if we built all the venues solely to blow them up at the end of the games.  A kind of cosmic “if we’re not using them any more, no one will.”  Becuase who knows what’s going to happen to the others?

Remember when Sarajevo was the center of all that conflict?  And the news kept telling the story of the Olympic stadium at the heart of a warzone?  Nobody want’s that to happen again.  Doesn’t look good.  You know what does look good.  Massive amounts of detonating explosives.

8)  2,012 drummers.  Everywhere.

Take that, China!  2,008 drummers piddles in comparison to 2,012!  And in 2016?  Guess what happens then?  Hah!  More drummers!

I don’t ask much.  But maybe one of these will happen.  I just want the world to be a more-fun, interesting place.  All of these will contribute.  Bombs & Bikinis in 2012!  (Note to NBC:  You want this tagline, you’re going to have to pay for it.)