Raise the Flag

NBC’s broadcasts of medal ceremonies other than the U.S.’s are snottily few and far between. I say, show 'em all. It's the only way to truly know what we're dealing with here. You can tell a lot about a country by its national anthem: Who you can party with. Who’s not to be trusted. Who's bombable.

The Greek national anthem begins suspiciously, initally throwing off the fumes of functioning as little more than a really solid drinking song, but it is, on the whole, passable. I thought the same thing for the first five bars of Italy’s, but then it lost control of itself and spun off into an inexcusable over-jauntiness. It sounds like the theme song for a circus wagon. You can't take a nation seriously with an anthem like that. For such laughable non-sports such as speedwalking (seriously, speedwalking) and judo and basketball, they can get away with this, but once you move into the hard-core stuff, your synchronized swimming and your discus throwing, you’ve got to show up with a national anthem that doesn’t make people snort their Dr. Pepper. I recommend “Everybody’s Working For the Weekend” by Loverboy.

Japan’s, clearly created by a fourteen-year-old who sampled the incidental music from a horror movie and added a gong at the end, is the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard. Why the long face, Japan? Is the the radioactivity? Is it the fact that your chief export is outrageously stupid-looking cartoons? Japan is right up there with the US for the most gold medals, which means the entire Olympic Village has been subjected to this thing something like 40 times in the past seven days. I now understand why so many of the athletes have turned to drugs.

Ethiopia, you'll be glad to know, actually has a national anthem. Here I was under the impression that they couldn’t afford one, what with all the famine. I stand, unfortuantely, corrected. Let's just say the “We Are the World” revenues weren't put to the best possible use.

France sucks.

I missed Romania’s national anthem because I was in the bathroom but I imagine it’s an utter piece of post-Soviet crap, complete with the noise of the tape being eaten as the sound studio falls apart around it.

I am quite possibly the only citizen of the United States of America who knows all the words to “Advance Australia Fair”—the very obvious answer as to why, of course, is that I rollerblade to it—and so was able to be all “AdVANCE AusTRALia FAAAAAAAIR!!!!” right along with Ian Thorpe. It’s the little things, you know?