An Olympic blunder

The opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics featured the aboriginal peoples of Canada as well as a number of well-known and not-so-well-known entertainers. Yet, the most famous Canadian (in my humble opinion) was nowhere to be seen. That's right, singer/songwriter Neil Young got no love in Vancouver. Oh sure, there is going to be some sort of goofy tribute concert to the rock legend in the city on Thursday. Other bands (not Neil) will play Mr. Young's music. Too little, too late.

There are plenty of ballads and appropriate songs Neil could have played at the opening ceremony, similar to how he performed at the concert for 9/11. Instead, we got Sarah McLachlan. Nothing against McLachlan or any of the entertainers, but have any of them written even one-tenth of the songs Neil Young has or sold the number of albums and CDs he has? C'mon, Canada. How did an omission like this occur? Is Neil not Canadian enough because he resides in California?

I suspect that the slight to Mr. Young has put the whammy on the weather in Vancouver and left the ski slopes bare and the temperatures well above freezing. Maybe the failure of the indoor Olympic cauldron to fully expand and ignite was the rock gods' karmic revenge for leaving old Neil out of the cultural part of the ceremony.

I will say that the flying acrobat's interpretation of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" was the highlight of the opening ceremonies for me. I truly enjoyed that. Very artful.

As for the competition, well, I can't say the Olympics are lighting my fire. The skating is nice to watch for a few minutes here and there, and if the U.S. hockey team makes it to a medal round maybe I will tune in. But the round-the-clock coverage really doesn't have much appeal to me. It's somewhat surprising that NBC can make money off of these two weeks in Vancouver.