Where Are All the Bums?

In pubs, restaurants, shopping malls, gyms; on the Tube, the Eye, the DLR; at a show; flying to Spain, Turkey, Africa, Australia. Anywhere but the cold, hard, exposed seats of outdoor Olympic venues.  Look at this sky. Would you want to be anywhere but indoors?

I took the above photo Sunday after being denied entry to the O2, the venue for Olympic gymnastics. A minute later, it chucked it down (see British phrases), thousands of uncovered families in hats and trainers (see British phrases) sans umbrellas crowding into nearby restaurants.

A few days ago, the Guardian posted an article about military filing empty seats at uncovered venues such as beach volleyball. I have to ask — why, oh wondrous Olympic Committee, would you build uncovered venues in London? Have you been to London? Obviously for some sports — canoeing, rowing, etc. —  a roof is impossible but we expect water sports to be well…wet.

Aside from the British weather, which is increasingly brutal, bums are not in seats for the following reasons:

• Spectators are allowed to move around during events. If you’re feeling peckish (see British phrases) or you’ve got a whiny kid, you can get up, leave and come back. If certain competitions (USA vs. Senegal in basketball, for example) guarantee a blowout or a snooze, you might prefer a walk to death-by-boredom.
• Some people, including many Brits, find the “Olympic energy” hell on earth. I for one cannot stand being in London right now. Brings out the crabby hermit in me.
• Guess what? Some events just aren’t that interesting. Sorry about it, but some people don’t want to watch rich kids poke each other with swords or coax horses over poles. (Personally, I think fencing is immense.)

Despite these rather obvious reasons for a small audience, the great British tradition of forming a commission to get to the bottom of the issue at hand, prevails. Yes, a commission has been created to determine why people don’t want to sit in torrential rainstorms watching sports they don’t care about.

Do you know what’s frustrating? Despite denied entry to men’s gymnastics, there were open seats.  Sadly, many open seats are due to selfish sponsors who buy in bulk and show up when they feel like it, which is never.

Oh well. That’s life. As is the eminent failure of cloud seeding as shown by this photo taken beneath the city Gondola. Cheers.

L2012 D1: Empty Seats, Cameroonians and the Chocolate Lesbian

Cardiff, Wales

The Olympics, a Hare Krishna celebration or a quick swim in the River Taff with some Russians? This was my Saturday morning dilemma. A lesser person would have chosen one event and called it good but this sleep-deprived lunatic did all three.

Crushing the Krishna

What better start to the day than watching Hare Krishna followers pull a massive wagon down the main streets of Cardiff using two tug-of-war ropes?

Hare Krishna Celebration, Cardiff Wales

It took a good hour to get the wagon into the park, tree branches threatening to rip the top off as they tugged down a path. Most of the men wore peach robes (some with matching peach Crocs) and sported some version of baldness (all clean or bald with a fist-sized circular patch/rattail in the back). One such man approached while I was watching, a pile of Hare Krishna material in hand. He was nice, not over the top.

The Krish: “What do you do for a living?”

Me: “I’m a writer.”

“Oh, so you must be pretty smart.”

“Not really.”

Confused, not picking up on the sarcasm, he shuffled his materials moving the informative, philosophical texts to the back, handing me a vegetarian cookbook called “The Higher Taste.”

“Do you like to cook?”

“Sure.”

Deemed too stupid for regular texts, my £2 donation to the Krishna cause yielded a copy of “The Higher Taste: A Guide to Gourmet Vegetarian Cooking and a Karma-Free Diet.”

I asked a woman unaware of my low IQ about the Krishna following. Vegetarianism, karma, reincarnation. Makes sense but after reading the Bible and inflicting some serious bad karma, I’m nowhere near ready to go beyond the cookbook.

The Chocolate Lesbian and the Cameroonians

I’m not going to lie. I had NO interest in watching women’s football. None. But when they’re only charging £20 for a double header and you’re a 10-minute walk from the stadium, you walk your lazy ass to the ticket booth, ditch the first game for a religious festival and sit through the second.

Millennium Stadium has nearly 75,000 seats. The Olympic mouthpieces claim the game had about 40,000 attendees. This is part of the stadium. It looked like that on the other side and my side as well.

By my count, there were more people at the Krishna do. Although I suppose it’s cool to be in an Olympic stadium, nothing kills your spirit like empty seats. But I guess it didn’t really matter since I missed half the game. I walked in late. Tired from a week and a half of this, that and the other, stupid from the intellectual blow offered by the Krish, I mistook halftime for the END OF THE GAME. What a retard. It’s a shame too because I was actually watching it. Usually during live sporting events, I pay far more attention to the crowd than the athletes.

Feeling gypped, my spirits moderately lifted when, despite the vanilla family atmosphere, the woman behind offered me chocolate and then a drink. After this interruption, I doubt I could have focused on the rest of the game. She rejuvenated my senses. Instead of watching men dump dirt chunks into pitch holes, I contemplated the biological discord of the man in front of me. Aside from his ear hole, his ear lacked all caverns, which led me to wonder, why do our ears look like a vast labyrinth of handicapped ramps? Something to do with sound one presumes.

Wonderfully, right before I accidentally abandoned the ladies, a fan wrapped in a Cameroonian flag started brushing his teeth. Scrubbed those puppies like the metal depended on it. Never spit, one assumes a swallow.

The athletes were impressive but the most invigorating thing about the Olympics or any public, national event for that matter, is the rejuvenation of one’s faith that humanity is not, in fact, a homogenous flat screen.

The Russians

A woman and three Russian children on a raft in the River Taff. American stands in water to cool feet after accidentally ditching a football game. Children wave. Mother smiles. Splashing. Gesturing. Faces and motions.

A refreshingly simple tale after an over stimulating day.