Son of Sam Olympiad

All that was missing was a massive mushroom cloud looming overhead, as the climax. During the fireworks — the opening ceremony, of the Winter Olympics at Pyeongchang. Just kept waiting.

The North’s contribution or maybe the good ol’ US of A’s.

Augmented reality, beyond VR. Beyond R&R, which no one ever gets. Who has the time?

Trying to take it all in, between ads, wondering what countries we missed entering the Pentagon. The Pentagon? Waving their flags, no wait, that was the Olympic stadium: America’s Jim and Katie kept yapping about the symbolism. But didn’t mention that. The doves of peace, yada yada yada, yes, ok already. Couldn’t they just shut up so we could hear the presentation ourselves? I know I personally was shushed watching on silicon screen, Friday evening, the 9th. Go figure, I have a propensity to comment aloud as TV commentary isn’t enough. So I yap a lot myself. I know. Symbolism.

The stadium is a pentagon!

A country hosts the games that has been at war since June 25, 1950 with its neighbor. Makes sense. Don’t forget who has the original pentagon with their own games. War since 1950. I could say with no end in sight, but perhaps in the freezing temps of Pyeongchang, relations are thawing between North and South.

That statement probably gets an icy reception for those hoping to sell more weapons and see some real fireworks.

President Moon Jae-In, of the South, invites President Kim Jong-un, of the North, on over. Then he reciprocates, by inviting him on over to his crib. Will they have really good chocolate cake, the best, like we do over here.

What did we miss during those ads?

I know there was San Marino, Andorra and Bermuda shorts. Did they have a time-out like the NFL, so America could have some F-150s rolling around with that jazzed up Denis Leary telling me I’m incomplete unless I have a 2018 truck of his? Who did we miss? Lesotho, Israel, Myanmar? The Off-World Colonies, Mars, Sector 12 or the Kuiper Belt? They of course had to have that shirtless exhibitionist Tongan Pita Taufatofua all greased up. He went from taekwondo at the Brazil Summer Olympics and now he’s back as a cross country skier for the Winter. How much snow do they get in that South Pacific Island? Wasn’t that Pita in the Hunger Games with Katniss Ever-Lawrence? Aren’t they all exhibitionists?

Talk about symbolism, US VP Mike Pence, looking oh so pensive, applauding only for Americans, with his wife Karen, Japan’s Prime Minister Shizo Abe, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and an entourage of security, – they sat way, way in front of forlorn Kim Jong-un, sister of the celebrated President Kim Jong-un, of the North. Symbolic. She didn’t look happy. Disconsolately, who would? While the neighbor, down South, is booming technologically, financially, culturally, presenting a futuristic foray for the entirety of Earth to see, her brother can have a Military Parade. Their booming above, up North, in DPRK; it is in the form of missiles – falling into the Sea of Japan, nuclear testing, prepping for World War III, and sanctions and near starvation.

The US of A’s can have a Military Parade too, just ask our celebrated President Donald John Trump. When will we get sanctions? Forget that high tech. We’ve got “clean beautiful coal” now, anyway, according to DJ. Go for the coal!

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea: the North, Democratic, as in Democrat, no wonder DJ hates him — Rocket Man, not a dictator but a Democrat? The South: Republic of Korea, Republic, like they are all Republicans of Korea. Makes sense.

Symbolism: what about all the dancing around? All the rectangles on wheels: Doors, like to some brave new future or some new OS — or were they all just Samsung cell phones? Or was that something else entirely, like just being nice visually, like a pentagon? Or, will a new system, Doors replace Windows? Maybe, it seems anything is possible there.

Samsung perhaps owns Korea, or tried. Or did for a while. Or at least the former president, the nation’s first female president, Park Geun-hye who was removed March 9, 2017. Amid her accepting bribes from Samsung’s de facto leader, for choice contracts and political favors, her fate remains in progress. Her former business associate, he was just released from confinement, after a successful appeal on February 4. With a net worth estimated of over 10 billion, Lee Jae-yong was freed after just over a year, breaking his five year prison sentence.

Ten billion, I’d maybe pay off a few bills, buy a new lease on life. Or the title outright. I imagine you could buy anything with that kind of money. I like Samsung products by the way. Their surveillance cameras are great.

If the Olympics were in America would we have them dancing around a logo for Win10, F-150s or everyone donning coal mining regalia? What about the drones? Drones. Security was pretty lax. It had to be. Some kid wearing Beats wandering around the field, while 80 year old Kim Nam-ki, the oldest man alive to have ever performed the original version of 600 year old Korean folksong Jeongseon Arirang. While wearing a really great hat, way better than Abe Lincoln or the Good Witch of the West, he belted it out for the pentagon that seats 35,000. Tickets must be expensive. Only 35,000? Even the Brewers, in the third smallest market in MLB can do better than that.

Jeongseon Arirang, what does it mean? Where was the translation? American TV’s Katy said it was common to the hearts of both North and South alike. Unifying. Unifying what? “Imagine” from John Lennon, yeah, yeah peace and harmony. Couldn’t they do something more recent, like Killing Joke’s “Colony Collapse”? Lines like “The future doesn’t need us …”

Truly unifying as the world moves from automobiles to androids like Sofia, fabricants like Sonmi-451 and replicants like Roy Batty. Except for America where we have coal. “Clean, beautiful coal.” Isn’t that what naughty children got from Santa? Well, for now, the Olympians are human, they’re not androids yet, or cyborgs, even if they are modified beings different from the rest of humanity. Training since toddlers or zygotes, eating the right food and hidden from society. That in and of itself is like doping. Who eats the right food? Who gets to live in a vacuum? It’s not fair.

Rolling down memory lane, the Republic’s Su-mi Hwang sang the Olympic Theme song, taking us back to 1896. An operatic number. The piece composed by none other than Spyridon Samaras, (wasn’t he with Spyro Gyro?) with lyrics by Greek poet Kostis Palamas. Who knows what she said? Couldn’t they have had some drones flying around on the side with translation, like an opera at the Lyric? Really smashing up-do she donned, no doubt there. Too bad a robotic arm couldn’t have come along, from a drone above, to let down that hair, or rather lift off her wig, helped her off with her costume, then have her break dancing in a neoprene body suit with those B-Boys there: “Just Jerk.”

Ok I will. I am.

When the President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, instructed in English, telling the competing athletes that they will be living together, sleeping together (well kind of, if not maybe literally) and chilling together, in the Olympic Village; I expected more. Why English? Political barriers and differences cast aside, I was so hoping he would say, just like in the Hungers Games in closing: “May the Odds be ever in your favor.” Then everyone standing with three fingers raised. An explosion and an image overhead of who has been eliminated before party time. Go Team America.

Top illustration by Jeff Worman