Is the Olympic Committee Blind?

Chicago has pulled out all the stops to impress the decision makers for the 2016 games. Please oh please oh please choose us!! seems to be their mantra.

Every effort has been made to prove that the Windy City has the venue chops to handle the hosting duties. But I'm wondering if the powers that be are putting those efforts in all the right places.

The Mayor's office got off to a good start by designing a clever logo to express our collective enthusiasm for the opportunity to pitch the Olympics. It featured the Olympic flame leaping out of the Sears Tower. Unfortunately, next thing we heard, the logo had to be re-designed because someone didn't follow the strict USOC logo guidelines properly. One can't use Olympic symbols, i.e., the torch, for logos like that. How embarrassing. One step forward, two steps back.

The Mayor's committee has since redeemed themselves by commissioning multiple artist's renderings of the lake front and parks, magically transformed into venues for the games. They also spent money to shoot a warm and fuzzy film about past and current Olympians from Chi-town. I'm sure someone ordered t-shirts too.

Whatever the USOC needs, they will get.

After successfully beating out three other competitors, including our full-time nemesis, New York, for the right to be the 2016 US Olympic representative in the worldwide competition, Phase II was launched. The Mayor himself traveled to to London, the host city for the 2012 games, to pick their brains.

Other committee members have visited the competition in South America and Asia to see what Chicago is up against. You would think a city as large and beautiful as ours wouldn't need so much advice. But we're like a gangly, shy girl who grows up and doesn't realize she's now just as pretty and smart as the others. A long time ago Chicago chose to embrace its designation as The Second City. For good or bad, it will always be embedded in our psyche.

It's not like Chicago is a bunch of rubes when it comes to city planning. The lakefront is lined with miles of lush green parks, picturesque harbors, and wide, sandy beaches. Industry had to go somewhere else. Eat your hearts out Boston, New York, Cleveland, and Northern New Jersey.

For decades the Chicago School of Architecture has attracted sophisticated enthusiasts from all over the world. We're considered a major architectural Mecca if you're into buildings.

This is where Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies Van der Rohe built their fan base. But despite Chicago's reputation among the cognescenti for world class avant garde structures -- even Frank Gehry left something on his way through here -- the average Joe in Munich or Milan still thinks Al Capone roams the roads. For most of the world, we're still a shoot 'em up gangster town. And who wants to fly all that way for gunfire, when the middle east is right next door?

Of course, a few million in well placed advertising could go a long way to correct that perception. But the Capone problem is nothing compared with a couple of recent assaults on Chicago's reputation for cutting edge architecture. I'm afraid they could come back to bite us on the butt. And no amount of advertising can repair the damage.

The first assault was the construction of the International Terminal at O'Hare. The place looks like a hanger with a rug on the floor. For some reason, once passengers disembark, they are then required to walk and walk and walk and walk along endless, whitewashed corridors to get to customs. From time to time, the hallways are decorated with a smattering of murals and the occasional bench to break the monotony. But I've been in parking garages that are more friendly and inviting.

This poor excuse for a terminal, with all the charm of a prison block, is the first impression foreigners get when they arrive in Chicago.

When they leave our town, it's not much better. Unlike Heathrow, where you can shop at places like Liberty, Hermes, and Harrod's and eat all kinds of exotic food, the international terminal in Chicago doesn't even have a duty free shop. No chance for visitors to load up on a bag of Jelly Bellys or a box of Frango Mints. For sustenance, departing guests have to make do with McDonald's and a couple of other fast food joints. The dozens of food offerings in the three domestic terminals, including Wolfgang Puck's and Berghoff's, seem like four-star restaurants by comparison.

But my real concern is the assault which took place on the lakefront. The rape of Soldier Field. Since the Olympics are an athletic competition, our skills at building athletic venues will no doubt be scrutinizedfairly closely.

For the most part, Soldier Field has stood as a monument to Chicago football. Like most edifices that last more than fifty years, it was also designated a national landmark. In recent years, however, this beloved home to the oldest franchise in the NFL began to show its age and a new field was sorely needed. Except that nobody could bring themselves to tear the old place down. Especially since there was a large and vocal group of Bears' fans who were willing to lay down their lives to prevent its destruction.

So, in a compromise that still leaves me and many others scratching our heads, a new stadium was built inside [over? on top of?] the old stadium, and the result can only be described as embarrassing. The Chicago Tribune called the result an "Eyesore on the Lakeshore" and the "Mistake by the Lake."

For a city which prides itself on its excellent architecture, the new stadium is a travesty. It looks like a giant, gleaming, metallic flying saucer has landed smack dab in the middle of Soldier Field. Absurd is the only way to describe the effect. Anyone from out of town who drives by this monstrosity has the same reaction, "What in the world were they thinking?" The Park Service responded by removing the spaceship from landmark status.

If I were a member of the USOC, I would have serious doubts about any promises coming from the Mayor's office after getting a good look at the mess they made of Soldier Field.

However, so far, there hasn't been a word of concern.

Maybe they have been taking the USOC by the place at night. 

Tide Quits NASCAR -- YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

"A rumor is heating up about Tide Racing. No, the rumor isn’t about a new promotion or driver change. There’s no new paint scheme or even an announcement to move to another team. The rumor has the Tide sponsorship bowing out and leaving NASCAR at the end of this season."

--- thatsracing.com

The following entry was first written in June of 2004. After the Daytona 500 race yesterday, it seems appropriate to post it again. 
Why is Tide a NASCAR sponsor?

Mrs. Linklater uses Tide. But even though Tide is probably the best detergent out there, she thinks the Tide people are taking advantage of their consumers. And not giving them anything in return. 

Yes, these are shocking allegations. But stick with her.

She just knows that somebody in marketing research for P & G was putting numbers together one day and discovered that a whole bunch of women were watching NASCAR races. 

In between chasing kids, cleaning house, making dinner, washing dishes, doing clothes, and holding down a job, women love to watch NASCAR, apparently.

Do you know what that means? the marketing research person shouted. That means we can advertise a woman's product, Tide for instance, on the hoods of the NASCAR muscle machines. 

We'll have females fixated on our logo like they were watching the Chippendale dancers. For hours at a time. Not just for a piddly thirty seconds in a commercial.

Here's how the logic goes. Mrs. Linklater will type slowly so you can follow along: Women buy Tide. Women watch NASCAR races. Women will buy way more Tide after they see the Tide logo in a NASCAR race. The way men rush out to buy Cialis.

This is so beautiful, why didn't we realize it earlier? Mrs. Linklater bets there was a lot of celebrating around the office when marketing realized what a gold mine they had stumbled onto.

The marketing people love it when research discovers a new way to suck money out of their consumers. And give nothing back. 

They love it even more when research comes up with something that'll get them some good freebies. Particularly for the marketing people working on Tide. 

Because when you're stuck working on a women's product there aren't as many off campus perks as working on say, a beer product. No trips to bowl games, final fours, all-star games, the good stuff.

The excitement must have been enormous. Wow!! Now that we've got a good reason to put the Tide logo on a race car -- think about it -- we can travel to NASCAR races all over the country. 

Hey, somebody has to keep the logo clean and shiny.

And we can hang out with Jeff and Rusty and all the guys. For a whole week sometimes. Lounging in the pits. Getting our own race jackets. I love this job!!!

And you say research has the numbers to justify these boondoggles? Give that person a raise.  How soon can we paint the car?

Hold on to your paint brush for a minute, marketing slut.

Those of you who follow NASCAR have probably noticed something about the drivers. There is no Tide sponsorship for any driver named Sue, Sally, Muffy or Nancy.

Nobody who worries about helmet hair. Or whether her butt looks fat in her racing suit.

And the pit crews don't have any females changing tires and pumping gas that Mrs. Linklater can recall.  Nope.

NASCAR is to testosterone what monthly bloat is to a box of chocolates.

For years, the Tide marketers have conveniently ignored a pretty obvious fact of NASCAR.  

Women have just two chances to break into that good ole boy network. Slim and none.

No chance to share in the millions of dollars that float NASCAR's boat every year.  No chance to have their tawdry lives played out in the tabloids. But plenty of chances to see the Tide logo go around and around the track on top of a car that they don't drive.


No sponsorship money to hire somebody else to take care of the kids, clean the house, make the dinner, wash the clothes, you get the idea.

So, given that the Tide folks have been making a ton of money off women who use their product and watch NASCAR, you would think that they might consider saying "Thank you" in a more meaningful way, besides the usual coupon or two.

Mrs. Linklater thinks it's high time they did the right thing. And sponsored a car with a female driver. Or started a school to train female drivers. 

Put some of the money they get from the hardworking women who keep this country clean and pressed and put it toward getting them out of the laundromat and into a race car.  So they can make enough money to buy their own washers and dryers.

But Mrs. Linklater isn't stupid.  She knows that won't happen unless enough people email P&G [www.pg.com] or call them at (513) 983-1100 to complain.

On the other hand, women could just stop using Tide.  Or stop watching NASCAR.


Thanks to this model of investigative reporting, Mrs. Linklater takes full credit for getting P & G to stop sponsoring a TIDE car. You're welcome.

Mrs. Linklater's Cockamammy Theories, Volume Eleventy-Two

We've had a lot of dead people around here the last couple of weeks. Five at a Lane Bryant store in a southern suburb. And five in DeKalb at NIU -- six, if you count the shooter. But he might have been dead way before he took his own life.

The cops have created a composite of the Lane Bryant killer, based on the only person who survived. He has an unusual corn row hair style with beads. He's also fat -- unless 5'9" and 260 pounds is the new skinny. But there was one unusual detail that made me wonder if this chubby shooter wasn't a guy, but a woman who looks like a man.

Before I forget, this nutcase also attempted to fondle one of the victims before the shooting began, but a woman could have done the same thing. It all depends on what you mean by "fondle" to paraphrase Bill Clinton.

Apparently, and here's what I'm getting at, he/she was wearing jeans with some kind of embroidery on the back pockets. Not very GQ if you ask me.

Of course, the beads and the embroidery could also be the fashion statement of a cross dressing guy, since Lane Bryant's generously-sized clothing apparently attracts members of the transvestite/transsexual set.

But I'm mostly intrigued with the idea that the suspect they're describing as a he could turn out to be a she who has faded back into the population.

That's Mrs. Linklater's cockamammy theory numero uno.

Cockamammy theory numero dos:

We know the NIU killer was given a psychological discharge from the military, plus his behavior over the past couple of weeks had become erratic because he'd gone off his medication. The type of drug he was taking hasn't been identified, but the cops are acting like he was on something for his mental health. So we know his fuse had been lit.

He seems to have a caring family. We know he was an excellent student. Then we heard that he spent a year at a mental health facility after high school. That's the smoking gun for moi. What Mrs. L in her cockamamminess wants to know is when [not IF] did our future psychopath start smoking dope?

Ever since we've learned that teenage drinking and smoking dope can set off some serious noises in your head, Mrs. L has been on a tear. See I told you reefer madness was REAL.

I wonder how many timebombs we have walking around among us, suffering from schizophrenia because of early exposure to alcohol or recreational drug use. Especially in people who may be genetically susceptible.

Of course, there's always Mrs. Linklater's usual fallback -- he was molested as a child.

Or both.

And that, dear readers, is all for today. Coming up with these theories has made me all tuckered out.

Oh Yeah, Valentine's Day

February 14th has often been a day of romantic gifts for me -- roses, candy, shiny objects, fancy meals, certificates to hardware stores, the gamut. In my six or so decades, I've stepped in love a few times, as Rita Rudner would say.

But not this February 14th. Oh sure, I received an absolutely perfect, white, long-stemmed rose, surrounded by baby's breath and ferns.

From my dentist.

But nothing that needed to be insured. Regardless, the rose was as lovely and fragrant as any really expensive hotel air freshener. And I only had to endure two hours in the dental chair to get it.

Hoping to enjoy its scent all day, I was tempted to wear the pretty fleur in my hair, until I discovered it didn't fit under my polar fleece hat. So I stuck it into the change drawer by the heater controls of my car. At least all the folks at the drive-bys would know that SOMEONE remembered me today. No need to tell them WHO.

With no requests to dress up, do my hair or shave, I remembered I hadn't seen There Will Be Blood, so I decided today would be an appropriate time to pencil it onto my empty dance card. It was that or rent War of the Roses.

Sitting alone in the back row of the local movie theater with my $4 beverage, I was greeted by a couple who literally bounded through the door, saw me, and chirped like a couple of school kids, "Hey, happy Valentine's Day!" 

I responded with, "My dentist gave me a rose!" 

Afterward, we all agreed that the picture sucked, but Daniel Day-Lewis was incredible. Good thing, since he's on screen the whole time. Like No Country For Old Men, the main character of Blood was continually killing people without much provocation.  That pretty much sums up the plot of the movie. Both movies. 

I didn't like the film, but I didn't mind the money I spent, since if you're over 62 you get a two dollar discount. Kind of like going to the movies back when there was one HUGE screen, not seven teeny weeny ones.

Some old fart -- probably my age -- was working the concession stand and kept up the most annoying and non-stop snappy patter to entertain me, while he screwed up my drink order. He was slightly deaf and I had to repeat myself three times before he got it right.

After the show I swung by Boston Market for some soup and a salad for dinner. Ta go. The counter guy clearly felt sorryfor me and tucked an extra one of those cornbread muffins into my bag. The ones they won't take back no matter how much you complain.

I put it in the change drawer next to my one, excellent rose. 

Pimping Out Chelsea

Somebody on a cable news channel suggested that the Clintons were "pimping out" their daughter Chelsea because the 27 year old McKenzie consultant was making calls to voters on behalf of her mother. I thought it was funny.

Well, Hill and Bill got really ticked off by the insinuation [Of what exactly? That Chelsea is having sex for money? I don't think so]. So they wrote letters and made some phone calls and the guy who made the statement has been suspended from duty for two weeks. Way to sling your weight around you two. I may have voted for the Hillmeister in the primary, but I sure think there was no need for this overkill. "Pimping out" was an amusing turn of phrase to make a point. BFD. And don't say that Obama's family would have made a federal case out of it -- you're comparing apples [underage children] and oranges [an adult who made her own choice to campaign].

Whatever happened to free freaking speech? [I had to say "freaking" because AOL doesn't allow free speech in this space, since some (*#&$* people get upset by it].

If you don't like what the guy said -- and it wasn't slanderous, only creative, you can 1) go on the air and refute the statement or, 2) ignore it. But no-o-o-o, Hilary is beating it to death.

Here's an idea -- let Chelsea handle it. Step away from the microphone Hill. Chelsea is an adult. She has a job, making obscene amounts of money because she's a member of a former first family -- oh, sorry, I meant to say because she is deserving and she earned it. The Stanford and Oxford University grad is old enough to fend for herself, Mom.

Plus, if you look up the definition of "pimp" it includes using someone else for your own personal gain. And letting the Chelsea girl make phone calls for her mom so Hilary can win the Democratic nomination for prez sure seems to fit that description.

It's not like Chelsea is a virgin or anything. I think.

Joran van der Sloot and Robert Chambers -- Separated at Birth?

Would someone please put Joran van der Sloot out of our misery?

During his hidden camera Land Rover ramble, the Netherlands' answer to Robert Chambers tried to pass Natalee Holloway's death off as some kind of seizure. [Oddly, the police in Aruba asked Natalee's parents sometime ago whether she had a history of epilepsy -- a sign of incompetent and/or corrupt law enforcement, anyone?]

Of course, during his hidden camera confession, there was never an ounce of accountability on Joran's part -- he claimed it was all an accident, something NATALEE [he called her the "bitch" at one point] experienced all by herself during their sexual tryst on the beach. He mentioned she was drunk [thanks in part to plying her with 151 proof booze], implying she caused her own death.

If all that were true, a normal human being would have sought help for someone in so much distress, rather than dragging her [dead? comatose?] body into the bushes and calling a friend to dispose of it.

Since Joran acknowledges that her body would have been found with his semen inside, I'm inclined to think that what really happened is that he choked her to death while raping her. Or he raped her after choking her to death. Take your pick.

But how to explain the seizure she supposedly experienced?

It just so happens that Javier Bardem provides us with a useful demonstration of what Natalee's alleged seizure might have looked like in the highly touted new film, No Country for Old Men. Playing a total nutcase -- how appropriate -- Bardem chokes a police officer to death. We see the killer's face contorted by the effort [did Joran look like this?] as we watch the cop trembling and shaking like he's having a grand mal seizure while being strangled.

If you haven't seen the movie, perhaps you have seen old newsreels of people who are hanged until they are dead. Once the trap door drops and their necks break, you often see similar involuntary, jerky movements. Like a seizure.

To a psychopath like say, Joran, Natalee's death throes may have seemed like an epileptic seizure. Particularly since he had probably disassociated himself from the act of killing her, in keeping with the Jekyl and Hyde personality he really is.

What's next?

Mr, Oboe Was My Favorite Super Bowl Commercial

Too bad Nike or Gatorade didn't come up with the NFL's Mr. Oboe spot. They mighta, coulda sold some product. You can watch it here: http://superad.nfl.com/

I don't think the commercial is even included as one of the 42 or so spots that have been posted on MySpace and FOX as SUPER BOWL ads. Probably for legal reasons. Or because the NFL gets to run its ads for free. But it ran during the SUPER BOWL and should be included. For my money, it is head and shoulders above any of the others -- even the Clydesdale ROCKY ad. Or the squirrels. Or Richard Simmons. Or the uni-brow lady. Or anything you liked.

Mr. Oboe was the result of having about 240 NFL players tell stories about life in the NFL. The best ones competed for votes to be shown during the Super Bowl. As a sustainable execution of an idea, it was easily the most entertaining and relevant use of professional athletes since the Michael Jordan/Nike era. It was certainly the best edited spot. Not to mention the most charming as far as I'm concerned. And arguably a delightful twist on a familiar jock tale.

[Although I must admit I have enjoyed the Charles Barkley-Dwayne Wade series for the Fave Five, particularly the one where the airhead waitress sucks up to Dwayne, then asks Chuck if he's Dwayne's father. Sadly the one with those guys that was produced for the Super Bowl just sucked. Dwayne finally gets into Sir Charles' Fave Five, but then he starts getting calls from the big guy 24/7. Unfortunately they beat that joke into a bloody mess. The spot was overproduced and should have been edited to half its length. Or, even better, they should have spent the money to run the ad in several fifteen second increments throughout the game and then paid it off at the end.]

Back to Mr. Oboe. Frankly I was impressed, amazed, and stunned [yes, all of the above] that the NFL got so creative. Usually their spots are self serving and self conscious embarrassments for all concerned -- from the athletes wearing ill fitting suits who speak their lines like the amateurs they are, to the dumb ideas for the commercials, which are usually just a good reason to go to the bathroom.

By the way, to all the people who thought that the Macy's Balloon Coke ad was any good -- you are as stupid as the ad was. In fact, who's doing the Coke ads -- they are ALL lame.

Seriously you can have all the rest of the spots -- except for the TIDE talking stain commercial. It's not getting any mentions either. Loved it. 

You can see it here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=lEU1dr63yEs

Ooops I forgot the Will Ferrell Anheuser Busch spot. "Suck one." Loved that ad, too.