Opening Ceremony

Get out of my dreams, and onto my Dream Team

Is this the Beijing you see on TV?

Personally, while watching prior Olympics, I've had no thoughts about the actual people native to the host city and country. You might see a couple human interest stories. One about a volunteer older than the Games themselves and another about the underprivileged family of an Archer. And of course, you get cut shots to famous sites. I'm guessing you'll see the Great Wall, Mao's portrait, and Tienanmen Square frequently.

But you probably won't see the working class and their neighborhoods. These are the people and the neighborhoods that give China its true charm. Yes, China is expanding faster than my waistline in Italy, but there are still people who collect recyclables, pile them on 3-wheeled bikes and ride them to a plant for pay. Yes, the sum of an overpopulated city and ultra-affordable automobiles is a traffic cluster fuck that make LA rush hour seem like the Autobahn. But most real people ride bikes. What's more, they carpool on them.

Scalize declared the mustache is, "a foreign accessory, indispensable at this point. The stache is in," he said.

Ping Pong Playa
(Watch the preview)

I’ll concede the humor in naming the main character “Wang,” the easiest Chinese name to joke about. I acknowledged the same cheap laugh in an earlier post.

But I disagree with the assertion that Wang “walks the walk” or “talks the talk.” Not only because a more conventional way to prescribe one’s legitimacy does not exist, but also because his on-screen actions prove it untrue. Emphasized by a prolonged “waazuuuuup,” Wang’s “walk” hasn’t been cool since Monday Night Football in 1999, when that fad began and ended on a Budweiser spot. It is akin to Wang walking to a room and asking, “Shall we shag now, or shall we shag later, baby?” in his best British accent (MTL). What a culture vulture!

His shit-talking is hardly legitimate either, especially given its context: Playing basketball against 12 year-old children. What more convenient outlet for your NBA Jam punch lines than a pickup game against kids half your size? Not to mention when he’s on offense he denies the youngster's attempt to properly defend him. Baller.

What shame his perfect life was inconvenienced by the aftermath of his mother’s auto wreck. The perfection that was sleeping all day on the floor surrounded by garbage, using a beanbag for a pillow and pushing a grotesquely undersized, lawnmower engine-powered crotch-rocket about town, was no longer. Taunting little kids after dominating them in sports was the only remaining facet. That’s what it means to be a Ping Pong Playa, I guess, to annihilate children’s confidence while vacuuming their enjoyment out of sport. (Note: Mickle Jickens had a similar nemesis as young’n running at the Glencoe Community Center. How did he turn out? A musician.)

And for all you Iowans, Hollywood still thinks you’re ignorant pieces of shit, even though you caucused Obama in.

“Because life isn’t the only thing that’s short,” declares the announcer. True, like this movie’s run in theaters, I pray.

During a tour of the China Daily news building, I noticed an employee had circled this article from that day's edition. In red marker he or she wrote "Why do we publish this crap?"

I'll take a crack at that one, even though I don't work there.

Maybe, because this is some seriously newsy shit. A product of Journalism school, I was taught one of the ways to define newsworthiness was something unusual.
For this author, a displeasing wife was standard. But those were his first three marriages. Now, he's finally found wedded bliss in his current marriage to a 22 year-old blonde, crater-faced, ex- (but will never live it down) cheerleader who microwaves him meat lover's Bagel Bites and fondles his junk while he hacks away on his battle-scarred PC, smearing grease all over the I'm-a-shitty-journalist-and-a-flagrant-misogynist-button, which his penis fingers cannot avoid pressing by mistake.

Whoever would object to the publication of this story is clearly having marital problems and should leave them at home with their displeasing wife to iron out...and wash, and dust, and have sautéed and on the table when they return.

The view from my office, which I'm always at, late at night.

"Is it about my cube?"

In the words of David Cross, "Flaaaaaags!"

Shirt read: I'm the most important thing in my life. I argued it was the Cold War.

During an IBC banquet, this fellow decided to bring along some light reading. THE BIBLE.

eeeeeeeeeeeeee! My new friend.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Freddy Couples.

No static at all.

It’s a generic hotel lobby. Clouds of maroon, burnt sienna, orange, and beige form a flowery carpet. Textured beige wallpaper covers the walls, its pinstripes tuck perfectly into the fake, brown marble baseboards. Whoever designed this lobby was certainly not earth tone-deaf. Depressing art in a rustic, made-to-look-old, gold frame hangs on the wall, spotlit by a rectangular chandelier (Think Mission Hills Ballroom for those of you who can) that's too bright. Underneath the drab painting is a desk, made to look Chinese by its asymmetrical, interconnecting right angles. That seems to be the rule with foe Chinese stuff: take a normal piece of furniture and superimpose the map of the last level of Pac-Man onto it to make it look Chinese.

Beyond the lobby’s giant wooden doors, a press conference takes place. I’m seated in the second row, chosen to be there by Chen Ying, the project manager in the communications division of the Beijing Olympic volunteer department. Mr. Ying is a headhunter for foreign media. It’s his job to place sources in the hands of foreign media to enhance stories. Therefore, it would only make sense that when the volunteer ministers of the Beijing Organizing Committee (BOCOG) give a press conference, Mr. Ying finds American volunteers like myself to feed to the sharks.

I finish my second cup of cigar-flavored coffee before microphones and cameras bombard me, as well as questions in Chinglish.

They ask me how I like Beijing, why I wanted to become a volunteer, what my experience has been like thus far, etc. I think to myself, Does this shit really pass as journalism here? I guess so, because the next day my colleagues tell me they've seen my on the news. They said they laughed when I told the reporter my favorite part about Beijing was ordering dishes for my entire family at dinner, even though I was dining alone. They also liked when commenting on my living conditions I said I kept it so cold in my room that when I sneeze it snows.

Scalize. Solid gold.

A new low: Listening to the audio coverage of The Open Championship as the video won't work.

You know Fredrick, I'd abhor informing the boss you're neither donning your cap nor hanging your surgical face mask from your ear while we consume these decadent hard-boiled egg bento boxes in this miscellaneous factory we work in."

"No, please Enrique! I'll do anything. The boss certainly will fire me and I'll haven't the money to pay for Junior's therapy through the arts."

"Alright, fine then. Put on your hat, bow before me, and eat that entire crack rock kabob over there. Then, and only then, will I conceal such an intolerable blunder."

"I will comply, but first, what are crack rocks?"


"Crack rocks get ole' Enrique quadruple hard-boiled at lunchtime, Freddyboyee! I'm in the money..."

Every 35 seconds, millions of custodians, pack rats, and subletters die from spontaneous storeroom fires. The more you know...

Apparently, whoever put up this sign thinks Jumanji is non-fiction.

In Patton Oswald's stand-up, Werewolves and Lollipops, a conversation with George Lucas about the newest Star Wars Trilogy leads Patton to conclude, "I don't give a shit about where the stuff I love comes from, I just love the stuff I love." He further delineates his point using Angelina Jolie, the byproduct of Jon Voight's ballsack.

While I don't usually condone such a willful lack of curiosity, I agreed with him wholly when The Beijing Organizing Committee (BOCOG) took its volunteers to the Gaobeidian Waste Water Treatment Plant, as the very first stop on day one of their three day tour.

Welcome to Beijing, wanna see how we make the water that no one can drink?

Nope, no I don't. Not at all.

My, how time flies when you're ogling sewage. Next stop (literally), lunch.

Up shit's creek.

Thanks for the song and dance, barkeep, but I ordered a beer.

Most Improved Player Award

Snarles Barkley

My face mirrors my sentiment towards these blue bloods.

Beijing opera. More like Beijing slumber party.

Awk.

"Whatup Playboyee?"