I told the doctor I’ve been feeling different for the past week or so. He checked my pulse, dilated my pupils, lit up my ears and began asking about my symptoms. “An increasing desire to work out, strong national pride, an eye for fashion and a sudden interest in sports,” I said. After asking where I’m from and checking my hormone levels for any irregularities, Doc came to the conclusion that I, in fact, had acquired Olympic fever.

It made total sense. The 2012 Summer Olympic Games hooked me from day one with its bizarro opening ceremony. The English are brilliant! The dancing sick children were a nice touch, but I was more enthralled with the overall message. Who knew the solution to our healthcare problems was to set loose a swarm of Harry Potters’ Mary Poppins’ own Valdemort and his minions? Thank you for showing us the way, Danny Boyle.

Once the games began, I started my search for the weird events. Fans and haters of Mitt Romney are probably aware that his wife’s horse is competing in dressage or “horse dancing.” I also saw a track event called steeplechase, where runners jump a few hurdles and hop over a wall into a moat, leaving them to run the rest of the next lap with soggy feet. I didn’t know adults still played field hockey, but after seeing the beautiful Dutch women’s team in their sexy school girl uniforms, I’d encourage all adult women to pick up the game.

The uniforms are part of the reason people watch the Olympics. There are perfect bodies in tight and/or skimpy clothing. The gawking potential is equally divided amongst the sexes, so for every hot field hockey girl, ladies get one spandex wearing, canoeing gold medalist with a boner.

Looking past short skirts and spandex dicks, these athletes need to be recognized for what they are: inspiring. Many of these Olympians spend their entire youths training for just one event. The odds of success are infinitesimal, but they push on because they believe in that remote chance.

Oscar Pistorius of South Africa believed in that chance, despite being a double amputee. Pistorius ran in the Men’s 400 Meter using prosthetic “blades” that were strapped to what remained of his legs. While he didn’t move past the semifinals, he did receive both a warm welcome and a fond farewell from the crowd and his fellow racers, one of whom even traded nametags with him at the end of the race. It was nice enough to warm even my jaded heart.

I noticed other changes in myself. I was proud of Team U.S.A.’s accomplishments, and I even began rooting for our country instead of just staring at the train wreck that we usually see when the Stars and Stripes are involved. I had almost forgotten what it was like to feel that way.

Of course, it’s easy to be proud when we are actually kicking ass. We beat ourselves in women’s beach volleyball to take silver and gold, killed it in women’s gymnastics and have managed to sweep up 20-plus track medals. Our greatest success thus far has been swimming, in which, at last count, we had won 30 medals.

Many of those swimming wins were sucked down the bowl of one Michael Phelps. Phelps plans to retire after these games as the world record-holder for the most Olympic Medals won. When asked why he wouldn’t return in 2016, Phelps told his NBC poolside interviewer that he had traveled the world, but had only seen black lines at the bottom of swimming pools. If that was my life, I would probably take bong loads in the off-season too.

Some people can’t wait until the off-season, though. Seventh place U.S. judo participant, Nicholas Delpopolo, just had to “accidentally” eat that bud brownie at his homey’s house before he left for the Olympics. He was expelled for testing positive for THC after he had already lost.

The Olympics can be a cold-hearted bitch like that, but there are things that can make it more fun. Serena Williams showed the world that gold medal winners should C Walk after they win. We could give out medals for that too!

If dancing ain’t your thing, maybe we could take the original Greek idea and throw in a little Roman Coliseum action. We could add snake pits for the gymnasts, sharks in the pools, lions on the track and humans vs. humans on the gun and archery ranges. Or if that’s too nuts, we could just have regular people doing the events next to the pros so people at home can see what being an Olympian truly means.

-Bocephus Chigger
bocephus@submergemag.com

It’s finally upon us. Every four years the countries of the world put aside their differences (sort of) and get together in an overwhelming display of unity and competition. The Olympics are always a spectacle, and over the years have played host to some of the most dramatic moments in human history both on the fields of play and off. There have been boycotts, world records, kidnappings, improbable upsets, doping scandals and athletes battling through unrivaled hardships (be they physical or socio-political) to achieve feats so amazing that they seem almost super human. This year, as you probably should know, the Summer Olympics will take place in the Chinese capital of Beijing, and I predict it will be the most awe-inspiring event mankind has ever seen.

Over seven years ago, in July 2001, Beijing beat out the short list of candidates that included Toronto, Paris, Istanbul and Osaka to become the host city for this year’s summer games. Since then, the world has pretty much gone to hell: 9/11 happened, two wars broke out and Bush was somehow re-elected; catastrophic earthquakes, fires and hurricanes/cyclones seemed to act as harbingers for an impending climate crisis; greedy lenders and rising oil prices have led the world near the brink of economic disaster; Arrested Development got canceled. Like I said: It’s all gone to hell.

And then there’s China. As wealthy western capitalist nations struggle through their doldrums, communist China has seen remarkable growth in that time, economically speaking. The country has become one of the world’s most prosperous nations, and starting Aug. 8, it will shake its moneymaker for the world to see.

Like any burgeoning super power, China has had its growing pains. Its humanitarian record is as dirty as Beijing’s polluted air. Since the announcement that this year’s Olympics would take place in Beijing, the world community has been up in arms in disapproval, thanks in large part to the Chinese government’s handling of Tibet and its seemingly flippant disregard for its own citizens. You may remember that when the Olympic torch passed through San Francisco in April that it’s route had to be secretly bypassed in order to avoid the throngs of angry protesters.

So much for bringing the world together—though I guess you could make a case that it is at the very least united against China. Sure, the country has its shady side, but they’re not the only government who does shitty things to people. I’m sure there are 200,000 Calfornia state employees who might agree.

The stage is set. The proper political intrigue is in place. The drama of the games themselves is a given. But both these aspects don’t really differentiate the Beijing Olympics from the many that have come before. Why will this one be so much more spectacular? China has a lot to prove, and it wants you to know it means business. Billions of dollars have been invested in aggressive environmental policies to reduce pollution and make this the greenest Olympics ever. A weather drill has been constructed to disperse clouds so that rain won’t threaten the competitions. If that wasn’t enough, China has also deployed the Fashion police, because if you’re going to plan an event to stake your claim as the world’s new supreme power, you’d better look good doing it.

According to an article on Telegraph.co.uk, the Capital Spiritual Civilisation Construction Commission has handed out 36-page booklets on how Beijing’s 15 million residents should behave and what they should wear. According to the guidelines, men shouldn’t wear pajamas in public, nor should they prance about with a bare chest and rolled up trousers. Women must adhere to more stringent specifications. They should be mindful of their age-to-skirt-length ratio, not wear outfits that contain more than three colors, and, if they have thick ankles, then they should wear dark stockings to mask the problem (I wonder what the Chinese character for “cankles” is). The booklet also contains words of fashion wisdom such as, “Clothes should not be too small, otherwise this makes people feel you are unreliable.”

No matter how you feel about China’s politics, you have to at least admire its ingenuity.