So I’ve been watching the Olympics this past couple of weeks.  Or trying to.  What with all the commercials and commentary and human interest pieces designed to get chicks to sit down and watch sports I think I might have seen a long jump.  And dressage.  Dressage.  Don’t get me started on stupid Olympic sports <coughcough rhythmicgymnastics coughcough>.  What kind of person is it that devotes years of their waking spare time to dance around with a little rubber ball?  And why isn’t Prancercising an Olympic sport?

Not to get on a rant here, but I’m about done with the Olympics—and it’s not just because I don’t know whether or not to capitalize the ‘the’ in front of it.  I alluded to the main reason for my apathy in the above preceding and foregoing paragraph, but more and more I am finding the Olympics downright unwatchable.  Thank you, various networks of NBC.  I’ll bet you didn’t know the Olympic theme had words.  Cue the tympani…

BUM bum bum-BUM bum bum-BUM bum bum-BUM bum

One! Sport!
And now a commercial!
Human-interest piece,
Here’s a Ryan Seacrest commentary…

One! Sport!
Another commercial!
Human-interest piece,
Watching all but what you want to see.

The other night I watched for 40 minutes and saw 16 commercials, one swimming heat, and 12 minutes of Michael Phelps walking around in Beats and a parka.  Click.

My real Olympic malaise originated when they said it was okay for professional athletes to compete.  The Olympics hasn’t been the same since.  (And speaking of malaise, does Malaysia even have an Olympic team?  I’m sure they would easily medal in the all-around circular house building.  What? Circular house building is not an Olympic sport?  But BMX biking is?  I don’t get it.)

Sure, we win more medals now that the pros do it.  And sure, the Russians and the Chinese and the East Germans sent their professional athletes anyway.  And sure, they won a bunch of medals.  But the beauty of it was we weren’t sending our best.  We were sending college kids or people who had real jobs up against their giant doped-up statist bipeds.  We were underdogs so when we did win, it was much sweeter.  Now we are expected to win, which is much less interesting.  We beat the Russians in hockey last Olympics but so what?  We watch the same guys play each other in the NHL all the time.  It’s sad that we will never again have a ‘Miracle on Ice’ to inspire young kids to drape themselves in an American flag.  In fact, these days I find myself quite often rooting against the Americans—a statement which will no doubt get me beaten up at the next Trump rally.

I unequivocally root against the USA in basketball.  I don’t care if Carmello Anthony gets another medal or not.  He’ll be fine.  I also root against Michael Phelps.  He has enough medals.  Let some Hungarian kid have a chance, why don’t ya.  Phelps is a great swimmer, I get that.  But I have more respect for Mark Spitz than Michael Phelps.   Spitz won seven gold medals in one Olympics and set a world record in earning each one.  And he did it all with a mustache that resembled a small fruit bat.  But then he quit and went to work.  Has the hairless Michael Phelps ever had a job?  Where does he get his money?  Does he contribute to society?  And why does his back have all those little circles like he keeps wandering onto a racquetball court?

Everyone thinks Phelps is going to retire from swimming after this Olympics.  I’m not so sure.  He is the best swimmer in the world, still.  So why quit?  He gets to travel around the world on someone else’s dime and when he gets there, does little more than hang out by the pool.  What is there exactly to retire from?  That is retirement.  I guess he could run for congress…

And why is it that swimmers can win a gajillion medals for sixteen different events of different lengths and strokes when all they are really doing is one thing: swimming?  No wonder swimmers win all those medals.  Volleyball players for example have to play a bunch of games for two weeks for the chance at a single medal.  Doesn’t it make sense to have a bunch of swimming events and then total up the score to have a single winner?  I think to be fair they should do all the sports like they do swimming.  There would be volleyball, speed volleyball, one-armed volleyball, three-legged volleyball, header-only volleyball, etc., all with 21, 19, 17, 15, and 13-point games.  And maybe one medal for just a single-player, one-point sprint match.  That would probably be my sport.  One serve and back on the couch.  With a pizza.

And the squandered money that is spent to host the Olympics is almost enough to make Nancy Pelosi jealous.  Almost.  You mean to tell me that impoverished, crime-ridden Rio de Janeiro doesn’t have a better use for $30 million than to build an artificial white-water kayaking course?  Or a hippodrome?  I watched a bike race today and there wasn’t a single hippo in the whole place.  What a waste.

So I’ve come up with a marketing motto for this Olympics that I’m sure the committee would have purchased from me had I not procrastinated and come up with it three years late:

Rio, 2016:  Meh. 

Genius.  Cue the tympani…