I Love NBCOLYMPICS.COM!

It is 3 am in the morning and I am watching Korea vs. Sweden women's handball match LIVE! Thanks GE for letting me watch this! Korea is up 22-16!

Olympic Music

Here's my new favorite song that's the background music for the GM commercial that's been running during the Olympics. And if my first screenplay ever gets produced, this is going to be the payoff song toward the end of the movie. Her name is Brandi Carlile. It's called The Story. Hope you like it as much as I do.



All of these lines across my face tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been and how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything when you've got no one to tell them to
It's true...I was made for you.
I climbed across the mountain tops, swam all across the ocean blue
I crossed all the lines and I broke all the rules, but baby I broke them all for you
Because even when I was flat broke, you made me feel like a million bucks
You do. I was made for you.
You see the smile that's on my mouth, it's hiding the words that don't come out
And all of my friends who think that I'm blessed, hey don't know my head is a mess
No, they don't know who I really am and they don't know what
I've been through like you do, and I was made for you.
All of these lines across my face tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been and how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything when you've got no one to tell them to
It's true...I was made for you.

Six for Six... and Counting

You've got to believe there's a deep-rooted correlation between a nation and the sports that it embraces, but what exactly it all means is sometimes hard to say. Few would argue that football epitomizes the American character, with its emphasis on power, analysis and precision. The same can be said, more or less, for baseball and basketball. When it comes to Korea, increasingly one comes to think of its excellence in golf. The way the sport requires hours and hours and hours of patient practice. Rote, mechanical practice. (Not unlike the way many Korean students attack their studies, memorizing fact after fact after fact.) But before there was golf, there was archery. Since 1984, Korean women have won every available gold medal in Olympic competition, sweeping individual and team play. Yesterday saw a continuation of the dynasty when they comfortably defeated the Chinese, unlike four years ago in Athens when they needed to shoot a perfect 10 on their final arrow to clinch gold. (Unsurprisingly it was the same archer from four years ago who shot the final arrow this time around, Park Sung Hyun.) I can't imagine the kind of practice and dedication, not to mention strength, it takes to keep shooting arrows at a target 70 meters away every day for hours at at time. What does this say about the Korean character? Is there any other sport that so accurately represents what Koreans are about?

What the World Needs Now

In my prayers tonight, I include the Bachmans. As the entire world now knows, Todd Bachman was murdered in Beijing by a mentally deranged man who subsequently committed suicide. I pray that Mr. Bachman is in heaven now, and that his wife makes it out of surgery all right, and that she and her family will heal quickly.

There is so much negativity all around. Today I went to go see The Castle, an off-Broadway production about four ex-cons who tell their stories. And what heart-wrenching stories they are. About abuse. Neglect. Despair. Pain. Redemption.

Please everyone, let's all be good to each other as much as we can.

Good as Gold, Part II

Hooray for Taehwan Park! Korea's first medal in swimming, and it's gold! Four years ago as a 14 year-old kid in Athens, he false started and was disqualified. How agonizing that must have been--to practice and prepare and travel halfway around the world, and then on international TV, embarrass yourself. Four years later, it's vindication. People were saying that he was going to win gold. And he did. What a great moment in a teenager's life!

On another note, how about those Korean women handballers yesterday! In their first preliminary match against the current world number one Russians, they were down by 9(!) goals and stormed back in a ten-minute period to tie the score and ultimately walk away with a tie. An amazing effort in the sport that brought Korea's first gold medal in a ball sport.

Good as Gold

Congratulations to Minho Choi for getting the gold he wanted so badly at the Athens games four years ago. You've got to love stories like this that vindicate the adage "If at first you don't succeed..." I will keep this guy in mind as I go forward with my writing.

I am sure the broadcasters in Korea were screaming their heads off when Minho won gold in the final in a little over two minutes, defeating the current world number one, Austria's Ludwig Paischer, by ippon, a "throw". (But Ludwig was so gracious, so sportsmanlike, at the end of the match when he had to lift up an overwrought Minho from the floor, hugged him and held up his hand in the air to signify that he had been beaten by the better judoka.) A successful throw signals the immediate end of the match, much like getting pinned in wrestling does. The semifinal was an even shorter affair, where he took down the world number 2, Dutch Ruben Houkes, in four seconds! Blink, and you would have literally missed it! These are the matches I really miss seeing in Korea. At any rate, the broadcasters can now relax and stop ranting, "When will Korea win its first gold medal?" Usually it's the women archers who provide the first gold, but Korea definitely got a nice surprise here. (Korea's women archers, by the way, set a new world record in the ranking round scoring 2004 points thereby securing the top seed in the team tournament and the top 3 seeds in the individual.

I wish I were in Beijing!

I Wish I Were in Beijing

Watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics has done nothing for my state of mind and this third script that I am writing. I love the Olympics. It is all about color and festivity and sport and people coming together. One of the biggest regrets in life is that I will never be an Olympian and get to march into a stadium and be a part of a ceremony that celebrates the ideal of one world. (Hmm... maybe that should be my next goal... figuring out how I can come close to doing something that approximates that.) My scripts to date have all been about disconnection and isolation, and I am sure that as I soon as I finish this third one, I will write something much brighter and happier.

So here are some quick thoughts on the opening: 1) It was a show that will never be duplicated ($300 million went into the production!); 2) George Bush looked bored at one moment, checking his watch; 3) The Chinese crowd cheered loudly for Taiwan and Iraq (how very nice, especially since there were only four athletes in their delegation) and gave a jolt of hurrah to North Korea; 4) The announcers made a point of politicizing the games whenever they could, criticizing China for denying Joey Cheek a visa (Joey Cheek, a former gold medalist who has been vocal about China failing to do enough in Darfur), jabbing at Venezuela, slamming Russia; ripping Zimbabwe; 5) Putin looked at the American athletes with positive disdain, LOL (but they didn't show Bush when the Russians came in, so....)