I have convinced myself that these ramblings are vaguely relevant enough to post. The summer games may not have been games of the video variety, but they were games nonetheless, and that’s enough of a viable excuse for me.I don’t wish to speak too much about the opening ceremony of the summer Olympics because I’m still scared shitless. It appears that China is assembling an army worthy of Mordor. It really seemed to me while watching it that this event would be in history books if (and by if I really mean when) China becomes the next dominant world superpower. This would be the event that kids would learn marked the beginning of the end (or long decline, depending on your degree of pessimism or optimism). First it starts with beating ancient drums that have been tricked out, presumably by Xzibit and everyone at Far East Coast Customs, then it becomes invading countries, but don’t worry… they will come smiling and smeared in face paint.
In all seriousness, it’s not that I think someday China will bring about the end of the free world as we know it, but I am uneasy watching this. Noam Chomsky has said that China’s global dominance will be inevitable. And just seeing how China treats the individual, exploits their tireless dedication, loyalty, and spirit to favor the whole (and by whole I mean the exceptional individual: government figures, celebrities, and glowing beauties who gracefully dance on the backs of the hundreds lifting her and her platform up) is troubling. Every nation does this to an extent, but the scale on which China operates seems completely foreign, well maybe apart from the hive mind mentality of domestic honey bees.
I will, however, speak about certain adjustments and new practices I think the Olympic Committee should adopt to add a bit of honesty and pizazz to this wearisome, tradition-steeped event.
1. The silver and bronze medals should be replaced by clumps of human shit. Silver will now be Shit 1, and the neck ornament formerly known as bronze shall become Shit 2. Shit 1 is sun-dried and solid. Shit 2 is wet, bloody, and at the rate it drips, it wouldn’t even last you the whole day. Elderly men would definitely have to be the primary donors. Just think about the potentially awe-inspiring spectacle of watching thousands of elderly Chinese men defecating into LED light-laden, ceremonial bedpans while smiling widely. If only that could have been included in the opening ceremonies for Beijing.
2. Coaches who slap gymnasts’ asses deserve a medal themselves. Those gluts are like concrete for fuck’s sake. Similar to a pommel horse routine, this is a risky procedure that requires courage and years of practice.
3. Interpretive dance should be added as an event and judged mercilessly on a numerical scale.
4. Most athletes it seems are just genetically more ideal for success in certain events than others (Phelps and his large fin-like hands and feet, tall guys in basketball, volleyball, and running, etc). For the most part, it seems like we are just rewarding athletes for their arbitrary genetic identities coupled with an absurd amount of years spent mastering one task. I propose that in the future, when the necessary technologies emerge, we should just make purebred athletes spawned from medal-winning fathers and mothers. The Olympics will then consist of running a gamut of tests on these babies (blood tests, cardiovascular tests, genetic tests), entering all of that data into a computer which will then determine through accurate simulation, which of these babies would have won their assigned event at a future Olympics. They will then either be given gold teddy bears or pacifiers made out of shit.
5. The next-gen Olympics aren’t going to be interesting if the Olympic committee preserves this stance of theirs on doping. When nanotechnology becomes commonplace and little kids are hitting baseballs out of townships and men are enjoying a leisurely 4 hours at the bottom of their pools before surfacing, how are the “true” athletes going to compete against this new shift in human abilities without the aid of technologies that the average person has? I suggest a merger between Rapture and the Olympics, the NanOlympics©. The committee can still keep their beloved element of chance and suspense, but in the form of syringe injections and which athlete can manage them the best during a given event… that is until a new nanobot emerges that exponentially increases proficiency with syringe injection management.
During one gymnastics routine I was watching, a Chinese gymnast launched himself off of a vault, whirled through the air and spun down toward a blue mat beneath him like a beautiful, dancing leaf falling from a tree branch above a serene vernal pool. As he landed on the mat, he made the supreme mistake of losing his balance temporarily and wavering before finding his center of gravity once again. After raising his “I’m done now” arms into the air, he walked off of the mat and gave an embarrassed smile. A commentator then said something to the effect of “ I don’t like that. I don’t like when gymnasts laugh after making such a crucial error.” I concur. How dare he! How could he possibly not take doing flips and revolutions through the air while wearing spandex seriously? The nerve of some people. How beautiful is a leaf if it doesn’t stick its landing in that natural body of water? Not very fucking beautiful at all. Then it’s just a rogue leaf, a smartass leaf that chooses to succumb to external forces and other variables by just simply landing anywhere it, or the wind, pleases. Only the supernatural, the exceptional, truly beautiful ones land in the pool in front of you. They become miniature boats that sail you away to the realm of fantastical daydreams and relaxation. The ones that land on a bed of their rotting peers are just ordinary organic material, not worthy of note. This fucking gymnast, he should sulk, languish, brood, mope, self-mutilate, self-immolate, beat himself up and squirm till the end of his days with the knowledge that he failed himself, his sport, his dead ancestors, his dead cat, but most importantly… his country.
It seems the idea of country is most of what this comes down to, a prestige contest (or dick size competition) between nations with athletes serving as their playthings. As if it was America that made Phelps such a fast swimmer. America isn’t the only place that has water to swim laps in, although I could see how some might get that impression in light of some of these commercials. But perhaps it is the only place that has pH-controlled freedom water that seeped into his skin and gave him that motivational shot of the American dream. No, lots of fucking, a few people who gave them guidance (not Lady Liberty), how much of one’s life and soul are surrendered to the cause, and in the case of long-distance running, a healthy whiff of smelling salts have more to do with an athlete’s success than nationality. But try telling the majority of Americans that. It’s no surprise that Michael Phelps got that early, fake copy of CoD: World At War, he’s the greatest soldier we have.
Aside from this ridiculous notion of national pride, the display of man’s conquest over obstacles and essentially, nature, or his will to power, seems to be the other big draw of the Olympic games. We can be dolphins, we can be eagles, we can be cheetahs, we can be… whirling dervishes, we can overcome the limitations of our bodies and take out our frustrations on water, land, and shot put balls. We arose, quite literally, out of a defiance to nature. Some biologists have argued that one of the only logical reasons why our species at some point decided to walk on hind legs, neglecting bad balance and becoming visible to predators above tall grass, was out of this cultivated and now inherent spirit of defiance. The Olympics are not the only home to the exhibition of the will to power. It can also be argued that art and technology are also similar conquests, but at least they aren’t solely conquests... for the most part.
It was during this summer games haze that I started to notice that as much as I criticized athletes for foolishly trying to challenge boundaries, limitations, and nature for no particular reason, I myself am responsible for my own vendettas against nature; the gamer’s will to power.
I used to be a 360 achievement whore. I’m reformed now, clean. At the peak of my habit, I would have done anything to get another fix, to see just one more cheaply-designed binary bauble come up on the screen and tell me reassuringly that I had accomplished something in this world. I felt like a depraved boy scout who lived and died by the promise of getting that Eagle Scout status. I would have sold skooma to children, if there were children in Oblivion, if it meant being handsomely compensated for it. I would have swabbed 50 q-tips worth of crime scene semen in Condemned, had a restraining order issued against me in Sneak King, I would have done anything short of signing up for the Battlefield newsletter, pre-ordering Bad Company, naming my first-born ChallengeEverything©, or whatever other absurd and inane marketing tie-in hoops you needed to jump through in order to unlock new weapons in BF: Bad Company.
But, like I said, those days are well behind me… that was until a patch was released for Super Stardust HD that supported trophies. Then, I relapsed. I bought the $5 expansion in this whirlwind hysteria of trophy collecting I was in, thinking that was more than enough money to unlock all the meteor-blasting content and frustration there was to be had. Then I discovered that the co-op trophy can only be unlocked by buying yet ANOTHER $5 add-on. What’s next? Only after buying the chrome ship color add-on can you then unlock the ‘admired your cool new ship color for 20 seconds’ trophy? This was where I drew the line and what prompted me to sober up again.
It’s during these moments of clarity that you realize how outlandish and hollow your actions were that received an empty symbol of recognition, not unlike Olympic competition. Kicking gnomes to gain potions or simply riding the ‘Cockatrice’, shooting unsuspecting pigeons, collecting yarn, Cyrodillic brandy, vampire dust, skeletal remains, COG tags, getting 50 headshots, killing two enemies with one Spartan laser blast, killing 1,000 enemies during one game and head biting 50, killing enemies with a curb stomp, an airborne toilet, and road flares is just some of the behavior I have regretfully participated in to gain decorations for my service. It could be worse I suppose. I could be touting how my PC can run Crysis and posting videos of it as evidence. It seems like we’re almost at the point where people are going to be demanding recognition, accolades, and trophies just for wasting enough money to get a sub-par game running properly.
Oftentimes, conquest takes president over all other gameplay mechanics. And the ridiculousness of what you’re doing is neglected in favor of this spirited conquest. It’s not that there will never be a place for mindless games on my shelf, it’s that the achievement, trophy, what have you, knows what I can’t resist, knows my own inner circuitry better than I do, and exploits these innate desires to give a game an unearned, unnecessarily long, and fruitless arfterlife.
Sober, I watched the ending ceremony to the Olympics with my mother and father. The upper rim of the Bird’s Nest crackled and spew out fireworks into the night sky. Call it withdrawal paranoia or trophy-induced mistrust, but for a minute I thought these so-called fireworks were actually disguised inter-continental missiles hurdling toward various international cities. No amount of “oohing” and “aahing” could change our fate. I tried to get my family to go into the basement, but they were hypnotized by the dazzling display. That’s the desired response the Chinese wanted I told them. I began to prepare for impact. What wishes had gone ungranted? What aspirations had been left unfulfilled? What should I accomplish before the end? … Earning the coveted platinum trophy.
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