I’ve been watching the Olympics. Women’s gymnastics ruptured my loins, Usain Bolt “blew my mind and the word’s” and tonight I have watched the Gold Medal volleyball and ping pong matches and am currently watching Spain try and beat America in basketball much like a stick beats the drum. I was initially hoping to write an inspired post wherein I could expose philosophies of mind over matter but then I realized that that would require America to lose this game, which as I bare witness, is simply not possible. To put it in perspective (if you know the sport), every time Spain looks to be getting close to taking the lead the camera flashes to Lebron James and Kobe Bryant on the bench, jesting and grooming each other like bored monkeys.

But I was hoping, and I suppose still am hoping that Spain wins the Gold. And it has nothing to do with my love for Spain, because I don’t love Spain, I’ve never been there and have no interest to. In fact it has nothing to do with either country, at least in that depth. What it does have something to do with is the so called “Dream Team’s” failure to win the gold in Athens four years ago. Again, if I you know the sport, you don’t have to think very hard to realize how impossibly embarrassing this was. I have only clipped two pictures from a newspaper before in my life. One depicted a Lebanese man sitting on a miraculously salvaged chair that was perched atop the rubble of his house which teetered atop his bombed neighbourhood as he lit a cigarette.

The other picture was of the facial expressions of a benched Allen Iverson and Tim Duncan as they themselves bore witness to a crushing defeat at the hands of a Puerto Rico thus eliminating them from real medal contention: The facial expression looked like that of two seven year old boys as they watched Santa Clause butt-fuck the Easter Bunny after they were so sure neither existed. As a direct result of this puberty, the newest assembly of genetic super beings (also known as America’s Olympic basketball team) has been dubbed the “Redeem Team”, a clever signature that seems to glow with an entitled victory and promise. Is it really deserved though?

I think my overall point lies somewhere in between that response you left on your high school English exam when you didn’t read that book and pure retardation. I simply hope Spain wins to validate a small revelation I just came across, so just pretend, dream if you will, that Spain takes over these next two quarters and wins. It has happened, OK?

America’s 2008 Olympic basketball team is the greatest basketball team ever assembled, and Spain just destroyed them mentally. Redemption is just as pathetic as vengeance.

The live game is really close right now, but there is no way Spain could win right? For that matter, can anyone really tell me, without consulting a dictionary, what is really the difference between redemption and vengeance anyway? Is it just that same false sense of entitlement, a justification of retribution based on nothing but principle? America as a country seems to be looking, through the pixie sticks of democracy to redeem itself for its questionable actions and leadership over the last eight years. Coincidently, that’s same amount of time since America’s Dream Team’s last Gold.

The American Dream/The American Dream Team/America Redeems/America’s Redeem Team.

This is why the Olympics matter. And that question on your English exam may have been about metaphor. Countries love to flex in front of each other, just not as much as they like to flex in front of the mirror.

“It’s back to a 3 point game with under four to play”

Let’s all watch and not really give a fuck.