I did not watch the Vancouver Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony. The only thing sports thing I watched of the Winter Olympics was Sunday's Hockey game.And I watched the Closing Ceremony.
I think the last of those I watched was Salt Lake City. I recollect being not all that impressed with the Salt Lake City closing.
But, the Vancouver closing? Yikes. They had how many years to plan that? The first part had way too may speeches. I've always disliked the Canadian thing of saying everything in both French and English. This prolongs any Canadian public ceremony. I forget at what point in the fussing to keep Quebec in the country Canada switched to doing this.
After the speeches, the, uh, or, eh, show began, with Neil Young singing. William Shatner appeared, saying "My name is Bill and I'm proud to be a Canadian." Shatner then proceeded to do what I guess was supposed to be a comedy routine with comic images illustrating his comic points.
Like at one point Bill said something like "a Canadian learns to make love in a canoe." When he said that a cartoon image of a canoe bobbing on lake floated across the screen. With a cartoon caption seeming to indicate the successful completion of the canoe love-making.
I suspect this was an Olympic first.
I'm not much of a prude, but the Bill bit seemed pretty tacky and not very funny. The NBC commentator, I think it was the annoying Bob Costas, said something like "I suspect this act did not get approved by the IOC."
Later Catherine O'Hara showed up, ushered in by curlers sweeping with brooms. I did not find this very amusing. Nor was her banter. There was just this odd, I don't know, tone to it all, sort of like a strange reversal of the well-noted Canadian National Inferiority Complex, morphed into a new, sort of annoying form.
The running remarks about Canadians being so polite, always apologizing, well, I grew up near the border, I've always liked Canada and Canadians, but, I've never found them to be particularily polite, certainly not in the Southern Hospitality way of things I've found in Texas.
Catherine O'Hara made an unfortunate body odor remark, I guess it was a joke, something about fish stinking after a few days, but the Vancouver guests had now been there for over 2 weeks, and well, I guess smelled bad.
Like I said, a lot of it was tacky. When O'Hara made the body odor joke, I sat here remembering how I always made note when going to the Pacific National Exhibition, in Vancouver, how many Canadians seemed to subscribe to the French non-bathing, no soap habit.
And then there was the bizarre half time show gone berserko display, near the end, where flying women wrapped in giant Maple leafs swirled about, opening and closing like moths, while below them a very strange scene of what I guess was supposed to be kitschy Canadiana put on a show.
If I remember right, before the mayhem got too out of control, giant wooden hockey figures showed up and were pushed about as if playing a game. I think they had gold medals on.
After the wooden hockey game there were Macy's Parade type balloons in the form of beavers, lots of beavers, a moose, probably something I'm forgetting, being drug around the stadium floor.
Two man canoes, with the canoes being walked around, by legs stuck through the floor of the canoes, while hockey players and pucks and giant card-like boards with images of Canadian mounties popped up. While this was going on I think some extended version of Oh Canada was being sung.
Like I said it was like an long ago style Super Bowl halftime show that seemed to have anything that seemed Canadian, to Canadians, thrown in to the kitchen sink.
I am not saying this was not entertaining to watch. It was. But in a I can't believe this train wreck is being part of an Olympics type way.
I'm sure the Canadians loved it. The rest of the world? I think maybe there was some head scratching going on.
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