NOW, MORE THAN EVER
As a nation and as a culture, we must work on our numerical modifiers. They all sound too much alike and something must be done.

Cases in point:
When I lived in New York, I lived on Thirtieth (30th) Street in Manhattan. Many a cab took me to Thirty-Eighth (38th). The cabbies complained about English numbers sounding alike.

When giving her address, a friend who lives on Twenty- Fifth (25th) says it over and over because friends, cabs and mail have gone to Twenty- Sixth. (26th)

This morning, as I drove to Oakland Airport, I called to check my flight. There was no record of my reservation, because they had me flying to TX on Feb. Twentieth (20th), not Feb. Twenty-Eight (28th). They canceled my reservation. The Continental reservationist helped me fix it and shared with me that this happens everyday.

Now, some folks would say to me, “Hey, maybe this isn't a systemic problem requiring an overhaul of the whole English language. Maybe you should just try enunciating"

To which I would say, “Shut up. I just missed my flight by eight (8) days. I don’t need you comin’ down on me.”

CLARA HUGHES
Everyone has gone nutty for Sarah Hughes (figure skater), but the better story is Clara Hughes (speed skater).

Clara is only the fourth person ever to get a medal in both the Summer and Winter games.
(Man, it's good to have time to read again. And thanks to Jodi for the note)

RANDOM OLYMPIC MEMORIES
A life in which you have to choose, rather than construct, a journal entry is what I want.

As I fly to Galveston this weekend for grandma's 90th, Austin next weekend for SxSW and Kickball and then the rest of the country with Jeff, Peter and Lane, I think I'll have plenty to write about. My co-workers won't go through my bags and pockets as I enter work anymore, I won't eat lunch in a tent with guys in camouflage and I will get cursed at in far fewer languages from now on. But, then again, you can talk Jeff into just about anything.
I'm back in my home and with my girl - all is well.

And I'll continue to post random Olympic memories/thoughts, so they don't fade:

First one
To the guy who was standing on Main Street in SLC during the hockey finals and yelling,
"Canada is just J.V. America! Always has been and always will be!":
I hope you have a good dental plan.

[Canadians - JV is Junior Varsity, the 'B' squad'. He said it, not me]

BTW - Canada beat us.

CLOSING CEREMONIES
If you gave Debbie Allen $20 million, you'd have the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Games Closing Ceremonies. It was indiscernible from SOLID GOLD 2002 - Live on Ice!.

I commend the person who got the funding for:
1.) Bon Jovi, Moby, Charlotte Church, Donny & Marie, Willie Nelson and *NSYNC all on the same stage.
2.) KISS, Kristi Yamaguchi and Katarina Witt all on the ice
3.) 40,000 people having a snowball fight with enormous cottonballs
4.) Thousands of 5 ft white beachballs avalanching down on the audience
5.) Savion Glover and a Russian ice dancer doing a center-ice, tap routine (no funk, some noise) (White Nights II)

and to end it all

6.) Thousands of gallons of day-glow paint splashed all over the stadium and blacklit and then the athletes of the 2002 games coming down and rolling around it it. They also threw the beachballs back at us and bum-rush Moby's stage.

It was well choreographed pandemonium and I loved it.

CHUCK JONES
1912-2002

a note from Josh:

There's just a little less light in the world this weekend. Chuck Jones, the man responsible for giving two-dimensional cartoon characters more life, warmth, and humor than most 3-D actors can muster, passed away at the age of 89.

The word, "Genius" gets knocked around a lot, almost to the point where it has no meaning. But Chuck Jones was a genius. He could take five minutes of film, and fill it with brain-splitting comedy, lightning-quick dialogue, and even actual moments of pathos. Watch his cartoon, "Feed the Kitty," where a big, dumb bulldog thinks the kitten he adopted has been turned into a cookie. I've already explained too much. Just watch it, and try not to get a little misty.

Chuck Jones had a body of work as big as the 24th and 1/2 Century. Sure, there are his brilliant Warner Brothers cartoons, your, "One Froggy Evening," "What's Opera Doc," "Duck Amuck"...

"Duck Amuck." Man. A 4 and a half minute thesis on post-modernism that could make milk shoot out of your nose. And his work didn't stop with Warner Brothers. In the 1960's, Jones put out abstact shorts like, "The Dot and the Line," and, "The Bear that Wasn't," that challenged the public's very notions of animation. And, of course, they were very, very funny. Everything he touched turned to funny.

I can safely say that I wouldn't be doing what I do (whatever it is I do), if it wasn't for the countless hours of Chuck Jones's brilliance that I absorbed over the years.

Animation is a weird, flimsy thing these days. It pains me that kids grow up lumping Bugs Bunny together with Picachu. It doesn't seem right. Chuck Jones made cartoons art. And he made them live, breathe, sing, dance, and,,,

He made them good.

And he made us laugh.

I miss him already.

--Josh A. Cagan

LAST DAY OF COMPETITION
The Women's 5000 Meter was the last event for the Utah Olympic Oval speed skating venue. The world-record holder was hoping to break her own record and some Dutch, Canadian, and even US skaters were ready to make their mark in this marathon event.

GOLD
As expected, Claudia Pechstein took back the the world record, which had been gleefully broken by a Dutch skater just an hour before. After the event, Claudia became totally distracted with the wig she'd brought to wear during the flowers ceremony (it added black and red -- the colors of the German flag -- to her blond hair). She seemed oblivious that the President of Germany happened to be in the audience and had been brought to center ice to congratulate her.

SILVER
I think I've been clear that Dutch are nuts about speed skating. When their super-cute, pop-star-like Greta Smit won the silver, Holland House just about blew up that night:

1.) The not-ready-for-Utah banner we had to take down in the stands was back up on the bar.
2.) I finally realized that the Disney-like march we'd been dancing to for weeks was Greta's theme song. It's a bunch of Dutch words, then "Greta, Greta Smit" repeated hundreds of times.
3.) Her entrance into Holland House couldn't be topped by Madonna walking the Castro.
4.) She was still doing stage dives when I left.

BRONZE
The allure of Olympic trading pins finally struck me. Here's how it happened:

When the Canadian underdog, Clara Hughes, surprised everyone (including herself, I think) and took the bronze, she could only stop giggling long enough to hyperventilate. One by one, skaters and coaches from her team came up to me asking if we could get her husband down to the press room to help her through the interviews (i.e., hold her hand).

I couldn't let him. He didn't have any (let alone the "right") credentials. But the requests kept coming, they were all coupled with the seldom heard "please" and she was just so excited. Before too long, I broke and devised a way to get him a pass. Some fast talking, then he was set and by her side.

Later, things had quieted. The Canadians had finished the media mix and were off to the press conference, when the first coach who had asked me to help appeared. She quickly placed something in my hand and sheepishly said, "All I have left is the Cheerios one. Thanks again." And she was off.

I looked in my hand and there was a thumbnail-size, metal-cast, red maple leaf with a bright yellow Cheerios box inset in the middle.

I love this pin.

SILVAN
Many thanks to DJ Silvan at the Holland Heineken House for taking the extra time to explain to all the Americans how to do the Dutch "hands in air" dance, the "crouching and marching in a circle" dance, and the "bouncing and yelling 'Anton'" dance.

The dance mix version of John Denver's "Country Road" defied explanation, however.

DEREK'S MOM
see below for back story
In anticipation of Derek doing very well again, his mom and I worked out a carefully timed scenario in which she would call Tiffany in Florida, meet me in the stands, dial the cell phone and then hand it to me. It would be my job to navigate the back-of-house area, locate Derek, hit [TALK], confirm that
Tiffany was on the line, then hand him the phone.

When the work it took to win his last two medals dragged him out of medals contention, I was sorry we wouldn't run our little relay. It pleased me that, though he finished 13th, we ran it anyhow. It seemed just as important to all.

FIGURE SKATING
How can it be that watching beautiful, young, scantily clad women dance on ice is considered less than manly?

I did my best to butch it up.
Last night, I watched Women's Finals from a Park City sports bar, eating red meat, drinking bourbon, and shouting a lot.
And yet, as I felt Michelle's stumble, Sarah's brilliance, and Irina's icy technicality, I couldn't help but think, "I'm totally a chick right now."

I CAN GO HOME HAPPY
I met Winston Alexander Watt and Oneil Lascelles Brown, the Jamaican Bobsled Team. They finished a respectable 28th out of 37 and set a track start record in the process (4.78 seconds).

Guess which one is me.

WORD TO THE HOT
A quick piece of advice if you're pretty hot and trying to enter a secure location: Some (a very few) male security personnel will kick the magnetometer to make it sound an alarm as you pass.
Why?
So they may ask you to step to the side and "wand" you.

My request:
Call them on it. I'd love to see their faces. Or at least tell them to send over a female wander. Or both.

FYI.

METALS
I went to the Olympic Plaza tonight to see the metals given to today's winners. The best part:

Seeing twenty-thousand people take off their hats as your nation's anthem begins.

CELL RELAY
So, we set up a better system for getting medalists families to the ice after competition. However, the system went untested today when a German woman won the Women's 1500 meter. She had no family there..

We discovered a new wrinkle though: Just as the flower ceremony was about to start, a German coach (who didn't have the right passes to get very close) was desperately trying to get a cell phone to the new champion. I ran toward him, explained that he could not go up to the ice and then promised to take the phone to the skater.

I ran up the stairs to her, smiled, and handed her the phone.
"Who is it?", she asked.
And I could only say, "I have no idea."

I'm an idiot. I didn't even check to make sure the guy was her coach. It could have been anyone.
I learned that it was, indeed, her family, and I was told that she left the phone on so her folks could hear the ceremony live, with her.

TIFFANY KICKED MY ASS
It's my job (and the hardest part of it) to make sure only properly accredited people get to the ice for the flower ceremony (which is immediately after competition -- metals are later in the Olympic Plaza). I have a corps of five men and women who assume a triangle, tactical posture to defend the ice. I'm at the top to catch anyone who pushes past the others. We've turned back lots of really mad and unaccredited Russian, German, and American trainers, coaches, and friends.

Derrek Parra came from nowhere (well, Orlando) to take the silver in the Men's 5000m on the first day of competition. Tiffany Parra flew in this week to see her husband go for the gold in his best event, the 1500m. When he broke the world record and took the gold, Tiffany (5'3", 125 lbs.) went flying past three check points and me (6'1", 200 lbs.) to get to her husband. There was just absolutely no stopping her.

I was annoyed at some of my peers who directed her and cheered her run -- until I saw them on NBC tonight.
But it won't happen again! (We set up a better system for athlete families.)

GUNS AND SNOW AND ICE
We were thinking of other games that might be improved by the inclusion of guns -- the way Biathalon improved upon boring old cross-country skiing:
1.) Bobsled - A couple of sled-mounted rifles and targets on the track. The expensive track-side seats would sure drop in price.

2.) Figure Skating - Michelle Kwan with a couple of six shooters would be dreamy. I'd pay to hear Scott Hamilton say "Salchow! -- Pow! Pow!"

3.) Curling - Give the opposing team a 12-gauge and two shells -- Americans would start paying attention. You'd have to work around the divets.

Biathalon
We went to the Women's 4x4 7.5km Relay Biathalon yesterday, on my day off. We had a blast and I'm amazed at the athletisism and the skill required to cross country ski the 7.5km track and then shoot five targets, then do it again. And they are just amazing marksmen (markspersons).

Here's my question:
We are a nation of guns! How can the USA come in 15th out of 15 teams?

CANADA II
Sunday night, after competition and after most spectators had gone, the last two spectators asked me if the medalists were going to come out and sign autographs. I had to explain to this very sweet looking 12-year-old boy and his cowboy-hat-wearing dad that the medalists were in Doping Control and then had press conferences: they wouldn't be out for a long time. The boy then asked if any other Olympic athletes would mind giving an autograph.

Just then I saw a weeping skater walking away from an interview and thought maybe these two needy individuals could do each other some good. I motioned to the skater and she looked at the kid. She walked up to him, saw what he wanted and then proceeded to look past him -- as if he just wasn't there. Then she just walked aimlessly away. Everyone around me sucked in a little breath. It was one of the coldest things I've ever seen.

As I was giving up on humanity, two Canadians came up the stairs. I walked over to the skater and explained (quickly) that there was a boy waiting who was desperately in need of an autograph. She walked out, talked to him about how she skated that day, how she thought others did and wrote him a note on the front of his ticket.

The traces of the earlier snub were immediately gone from the kid's face and Canada had a new best friend.
All was right with the world.
Oh, Canada!

FIELD OF PLAY
The one entrance to the Field of Play (center ice) has been increasingly difficult to maintain. Everyone wants to go up and talk with the athletes and get on NBC. People don't have the right credentials (so we send them away) or they just leave them in the locker rooms.

Best quote so far:
A Canadian skater kept approaching the stairs up to the ice, only to be told that, for security purposes, we had to stop everyone, even if we knew them:
"I'm not a security threat: I'm Canadian"

He had a point.

THE MIX
The Media Mix is the gauntlet that every skater must run after they race. Whether they fall or set records, they have to walk the 50 ft room lined with TV cameras and photographers, reporters and, yesterday, Conan O'Brien. The room is long and narrow and bisected with bike-rack barricades to keep the press back. It is further divided in to 5-foot stalls that each country must fit into. It's obvious when a skater reaches their home country, because that stall erupts with activity.

Yesterday was day two of the women's 500 meter. They combine the scores from two days of skating to determine the winner. On day one a Chinese woman fell on the ice and was out of the running entirely. She still had the courage to skate on day two, had a pretty good time, made it through the media mix with grace -- and only as she entered the locker room did she start to cry.

She's my favorite skater so far.

ITALY
I'm not welcome in Italy. I don't know exactly what he said, but based on the reaction of the Italians with him, I shouldn't let him find me in Italy.

PINS
So, I was warned that pin trading is a big business and a huge pastime at the Olympics. We were warned that people wearing hundreds of pins would cause trouble for the Mag' & Bag, pin sellers would hassle folks in the parking lot, and they'd all bother you with the back story from each pin (an event, friend, stranger met in a bar...). I was, however, unprepared for it to actually impede the operations of the Olympics.

One of many cases in point:

I walked around the venue, making sure all was going well. I was walking through the locker room area, when I noticed that my person standing post outside the Doping Control area wasn't there. I walk down the hall to find him several feet away from his (sensitive and important) post, huddled with a USA team doctor and two US Customs agents (here supporting the Secret Service).

They were all trading 1992 Albertville pins.

The greatest threat to the security and safety of the 2002 games are these damn pins.

I LIKE CHINESE
I was climbing under the stands retrieving something a spectator had dropped, when I got a radio call:

[click] This is (entrance to the Field of Play) for (my radio name). Over. [click]
[click] This is (me). Go ahead. Over. [click]
[click] Hi. We have, eh, the government of China here and they want to get up onto the ice. They don’t have the right accreditation to be down here, but I… can you advise? Over. [click]

Breath -- Why does the government of China want to go to center ice?

[click] If they’re not accredited to enter the Field of Play, then they can’t enter. Over. [click]
long pause
[click] OK. Can you come down here, please? Out.[click]

So, I walk down to the entrance door and come upon about 15 men and one woman in very nice suits, still trying to get onto center ice. I find the translator:

HER: Oh, Hello. This is [name], the Governor of [couldn’t tell you] Province. He would very much like to see the ice.

ME: OK. May I see your passes. (Only one coach had the right pass). OK, you see, only people with this pass may go up to the ice. I am very sorry, but I cannot let you go up.
[she translates] [they respond]

HER: We understand, but we are hosting a world championship, and it would be very helpful to see the ice. We don’t want to put you in a bad position, but if you could let us up for five minutes, the Governor would be very grateful.

ME: (Though I’m thinking, “What the hell are you talking about?”, I say,) I understand. But in my position, I don’t decide who gets the passes – that’s not a job I would want – I just stand guard here and check passes. I am so sorry I cannot help you more.
[she translates] [they respond]

HER: Thank you for your time.

And they all file past me, shake my hand, and smile very big at me. Very big and genuinely. I say no all day long -- nobody ever smiles about it.
I catch up with the translator as they leave and ask why they smiled.

HER: They respect rules, and also they think it’s funny the way Americans smile when they give you bad news.

THE DUTCH BE CRAZY, YO.
The Netherlands National team are the New York Yankees of speed skating. They not only dominate the sport, the whole nation is in Utah to watch. They buy whole sections of the stands at a time, dress head-to-toe in safety orange and scream their Dutch heads off.

But it's not 'til you go to Holland House that you know what true maniacs they are. With all due respect to Jeff Veen, KLM Airlines, and Heineken -- the Dutch have lost their minds. They've taken over a golf course just three minutes from the speed skating venue and put up a football-field-sized tent. Beer flows, they have elaboratly choreographed national dance numbers, and skating is spoken of with religious fervor. I assume -- who really knows what hell they're saying.

PORT-A-LOO RADIO CHATTER, Pt. II
More chatter between the guy who runs the Mag'&Bag and Base:

The Chatter
[click] "This is Entry for Base. Over." [click]
[click]"This is Base, Enrty. Go Ahead. Over."[click]
[click] "We have a Port-A-John tipped over next to ticketing and it's leaking. You might want to send someone to clean it up. Over."[click]
[click] "Entry, is it leaking water or should we call this a bio-hazard. Over."[click]
- beat -
[click] "It's leaking whatever Port-A-Johns leak when you knock 'em down. Entry out.[click[

The Story
Some guy went into the Port-A-John and sat down. His buddies then went around back and tipped it over. FORWARD! Which is to say, tipped it onto the door. He was in there, on top of the door and yelling, until a couple of guys rolled it over and let him out. They said he left his pants there.

Is this every nightmare you've ever had?

BABY GOT BACK
This happens every day and it continues to amaze me:
As the speed skaters come each morning to train on the ice, they walk, talk and act just like anyone. They go into their locker rooms, they ask the audio guys to play some good music and they do their best to ignore reporters. I smile as we pass each other and then, as they walk away, I can't help but note their enourmous, enormous asses.

I mean, holy crap.

Sure, they're in great shape and it's all muscle - but, it just looks like they're wearing some sort of custom, sculpted-foam, ass prostetic.

TODAY'S BEST MOMENT
Answering a radio call, I walked over to the athlete entrance. As I got there, I was met by two, 5'6"ish, very tubby, Latin men who turned to me and, with cell phones pressed to their heads and tears rolling down their faces, said,
"Can you take us to our brother"

TODAY'S BEST EXCHANGE ON THE VENUE RADIO
[click] "This is Stadium South for Base. Over." [click]
[click]"This is Base, Stadium South. Go Ahead. Over."[click]
[click] Yeah, we have a spectator here who dropped her cell phone into a Port-A-Loo. What can we do for her? Over."[click]
[click]"...(pause)...(audible laughing in the background)..."[click]
- beat -
[click] "Well, Stadium South, we could send someone down there ... wow" [click]

We didn't hear anything else from either party.
Did she want that phone back?

MAG & BAG DON'TS
Most days I work the area of the venue that houses the media center, Olympic Family, locker rooms and the entrance to center ice. But, every now and again, I get to work with the entry sector of the venue, the Mag' & Bag [magnetometer (metal detector) and bag search.] They were getting swamped yesterday, so I went out to help.

While searching the bag of a 50ish gentleman (who failed the metal detector test and was being "wanded" by a National Guardsmen), I pulled out a small, closed pouch. I noticed it was a little heavy and it swished. ("heavy" and "liquid" are red flags) I was opening it and noted a vial - it was clearly a diabetic insulin kit = no problem.

The problem came when he yelled over to me: "HEY! You stay out of there!"

GUIDELINE: When you're surrounded by National Guard and Secret Service, you've failed a metal-detector pass-though, and are being searched, you should not turn over your shoulder and yell at the guy searching your bag to "stay out of there".

He went away for a long walk with law enforcement.

OPENING CEREMONY PRE-VIEW
Notes from last nights rehearsal
Clear winners
At the end of the pre-show, I thought nothing would top the three, steam-heated, metal tubes that run above the urinals so that one may warm one's hands before one grabs one's Johnson. This is Utahian ingenuity at its best. Other quality performances were rehearsed by:

1.) Rock-n-Roll Native Americans
2.) The Julie Taymor Ice Dancing Rainbow Trout (I loved them - no kidding)
3.) The Entrance and Ceremony of the Native Nations of Utah
4.) The Mormon Tabernacle Choir
5.) and even the Dixie Chicks were actually a lot of fun

The jury is still out on:
1.) Little Red-sub-zero-parka
2.) Mark Twian's rocket shoes
3.) The sing-a-longs (all of them)(Yes, I said 'all of them')
4.) There were no Osmonds. This is Utah, right?

I still don't know who's lighting the torch.

And, yes, I did think about how many people warmed their (pre-Johnson) hands before me. I don't care. It was indescribably cold out there.

THE FLAME
I'm going to the dress rehearsal for the Olympic Opening Ceremonies tomorrow afternoon. They won't tell anyone who is lighting the flame until the rehearsal.
My guesses-

1.) Rudy Giuliani
2.) GWB
or
3.) NYFD member

any guesses?

BIATHLON
In two weeks, I'm taking my best-girl to see the Women's 4x4 Relay Biathlon. This is not a sport I know too much about, but here's what sold me:

It's four women cross-country ski racing around a track, stopping every 7.5 km to [ ...wait for it... ] pull out their rifles and shoot things. After they shoot things, then they tag a teammate who does the same.

Initial thoughts:
1.) This would make a great bachelor party.
2.) It would be better if they shot at each other. (my mother's idea)
3.) Sweden just makes shit up so they can win.

Men have a "Pursuit" category.

TOO EARLY
The unbearably early mornings started today. The things that make it unbearable:
1.) The 4:30am alarm
2.) The sub-zero steering wheel (froze my hands THROUGH my gloves)
3.) Being at work and really pretty productive before the sun rises.

and the worst offense of all

4.) Trying to bring Krispy Kreme to my staff, only to discover I was there TWO HOURS before they open!

JOSH CAGAN
Josh Cagan was the filthiest man on TV for 2001.
Josh is giddy with pride that, in a report on TV smut, the Parents Television Council selected his show Undergrads as the 2nd most profane show overall - but NUMBER 1 for sexual reference!

* "Undergrads included the most sexual material, with a per-hour average of 28.4. Comedy Central's The Man Show (19.2) was second, MTV's The Andy Dick Show (19.0) third."

SAMPLES OF OFFENISIVE DIALOGUE

"Rocko, I'm not paying for porn…There's plenty of free porn on the web."
"Yeah, there's free porn, but it's full of ads…What kind of jackass would try to sell a guy something when he's, you know…"
(Undergrads, MTV)

Mark: "For me, freshman year was about meeting and being open to new people. Like my partner, Lance. I met him my first week."
Kimmi: "You mean your roommate, Lance."
Mark: "Sure, let's call him a roommate."
(Undergrads, MTV)


There's Satan in every word.

OVERHEARD YESTERDAY
How male skaters dis' one another:
"Dude, you looked fat in Sports Illustrated"

EARL
The heater in Earl should really be called a “warmer”. It’s capable of warming the air in the cab about 25 degrees. Which is fine when it’s 50 out. Less fine when it’s 6 degrees.
Which it is today.