Friday, January 16, 2004

 

It’s Not A Stereotype If It’s True

I love the Olympics, and it’s hard for people to understand why. It’s the pomp, the dignified invocations of athletic excellence and international brotherhood, followed by its petty indulgence in international sandbox games. Remember the figure-skating squabble in ‘02? Olympic judges exposed as frauds and shills, Jamie Sale and David Pelletier’s graceful, breathtaking performance of 10,000,000 interviews...and there was Simon Ammann, the unknown Swiss ski jumper who surprised everyone by winning, and his unglamorous, wonderful spaz attacks after he did. Mendacity and greed alongside humanity at its most earnest, all in spite of the dignity it fronts, that’s what I love about the Olympics.

If this is any sign, the 2012 games should be a beaut. Competing nations are handing in their bribes proposals to the Olympic Committee. Yesterday, London announced its candidacy.

Unveiling the capital's plans at the Royal Opera House on Friday, bid leader Barbara Cassani said: "Our aim is to deliver excellence without extravagance."

I’ve known quite a few of the UK’s membership in my time, and their personalities are all over the map. Some are persnickety and reserved, some are boisterous and dirty, some are intelligent, some stupid, some happy sad short tall hot not etc. They are a cross section of humanity that fits the clichéd proper-Brit mold about as often as any cross-section from any other nation would.

So why does "Our aim is to deliver excellence without extravagance" strike me as so tweedy that I can hear John Cleese in full ministerial mode saying it? "Excellence without extravagance. Won’t be anything unbecoming, of course, just some good clean fun. Don’t want to give the neighbors a fright with a gaudy display, don’t you know. Wouldn’t be sporting, yes, hem hem."

It’s like the American presentation was given by J.R. Ewing, or Paris handed in a video of a mime doing shotput. How did a marketing presentation, vetted by tens or maybe hundreds of well-educated, intelligent people, allow that statement to become their money quote? It's like putting on a bowler hat and saying "pip pip."

Something about the Olympics turns us all into fools we really aren’t, and yet, on some level, we really are. Perhaps it’s those pretensions to international unity, pretensions that still move me, in spite of my cynicism. The idea that we can achieve peace and brotherhood through getting together every four years and wrapping pre-pubescent girls around horizontal stripper poles is so absurd, so ridiculous...and yet we do it, because certainly no one has any better ideas.

More thoughts on this later.

UPDATE: Nope, no more thoughts.

posted by Dan 1:59 PM
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Thursday, January 15, 2004

 

Big Mac Beachhead

Sherri is wondering whether the American export of of franchises is destroying other cultures. The conversation continues at Xoloitzquintle. Specifically, the discussion covers the opening of the first Starbucks in Paris. Is this a bullet straight into the heart of the country that gave us Voltaire and Moliere?

Let's assume for the moment that the French, as a society, want these American abominations out. Let me divulge the secret to the French getting McDonalds off their boulevards...the key to a Starbucks-free rue...it is...

DO NOT BUY THEIR CRAP.

"But les tourists!" goes the cry. Well, yes. In a major cosmopolitan city like Paris, there are enough expatriates, travelers and Yankeephiles to support one or two of these businesses. There's a store specializing in UK products in New York. But, just as the presence of that business doesn't mean the red coats have returned, one Starbucks in Paris doesn't constitute the American invasion of la culture Francaise.

So then, what if more Starbucks open up in France? This is a possibility. The coffee-schleppers would like to make a few more francs. However, if they open these stores, and if these stores succeed, that means somebody is buying their rotgut. I'm going to guess that the somebodies are French.

In which case, my original assumption is false. The French do not want Starbucks out. They want it, tall skim avec Sweet 'N' Low sil vous plait.

They're free to buy whatever garbage they like. I personally can?t stand Starbucks coffee. Something in the McDonald's fries that makes me buggy. Still, I won't try to stop others from buying it. I won't try to stop others from trying to sell it.

Cultures have absorbed the products of other cultures since the first tribes traded pottery for beads. The exchange didn't annihilate those ancestors of ours (the sabre-tooth tigers, on the other hand...). Even if the opening of Starbucks in Paris does spell doom for French culture, I won't shed a tear for the club abandoned by its own membership.

I don't believe this is the case, though.

I'd also like to ask if anyone else feels like they've snorted bad coke after eating McDonalds fries?

posted by Dan 2:00 PM
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Tuesday, January 13, 2004

 

My Plan

Several events in the past few days have lit the way for me:

1. My friend Belle is taking a hiatus from her blog, which features her erotic fiction.

2. Mike Mariano has issued a call to arms for people to stop reading about getting laid and go get laid.

3. This site receives several hits a day from people searching for pictures and/or descriptions of Kate Bosworth and Orlando Bloom making whoopee.

I never miss a chance to steal an audience. I never miss a chance to thwart a call to arms. And I never fail to give the audience what they want (actually not true, but it’s my New Year’s resolution to try harder). Not unlike the dog next door, the blogosphere is speaking to me, and it is saying this:

I MUST POST MORE EROTIC FAN FICTION,
FEATURING RANDOM CELEBRITIES.

UPDATE: I’ve deleted the entry. I was angry about the vulgar and stupid mess into which the dialogue of our world has collapsed, but my satire ended up being vulgar and stupid.

posted by Dan 1:41 PM
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