Wheaties & Politics
When talking about internal skating politics in person, so often I will just throw up my hands, and exclaim with frustration: “Why can’t we all just get along and be nice to each other”.
But money is involved, power, people’s lives, personal perspectives, & what they work so so so hard for. Niceness goes right out the window when you mix that stuff into sports. And there is no avoiding it.
I swore to myself, to have nothing to do with it, to just skate, just skate and be positive. Yet I waded fully into this morass by describing the US speedskating board meeting, and then the “Hindu death goddess” Eva.
I dove into that mudpit, and now I feel dirty with politics. Absolutely filthy. Sick with a disease I could have avoided by simply applying the time tested “Ostritch immunity strategy”.
So at breakfast this morning, I am eating my bowl of Wheaties, reading the box with Joey Cheek’s bio on it. What could be more pure that a celebratory Wheaties box? that bit of weird Americana that seems to MATTER for some bizarre reason.
However, politics wormed its filthy way in, money, lawyers, lawsuits, etc, and my bowl of cereal lost its taste.
Click here, and read for yourself the words on the back of the Wheaties box.
See if you can find for yourself what is so oddly wrong with this collection of words (of course Joey had nothing to do with this word choice, I would have hated to be the writer who had to create this).
I am sure someone will mention the 800 pound gorilla that is missing, in the comments, if you are stymied.
Filed under: from home
uh - limp - icks ?
in my little snail (slow and small) brain, i can picture (though this is just one monopod’s opinion only, with no facts to back it up (disclaimer for the lawyers!))essentially, the very organization charged with supporting and promoting the uh,limpick movement and its athletes in this country, saying essentially to one who has been, up to now, an amateur athlete pursuing an uh,limpick dream in a sport with no real professional future:
“sorry, thanks for the effort, the memories, the $40,000 in checks donated to right to play, and all the great warm fuzzy pr, but, you can’t use the word ‘uh,limppeon’ in describing yourself or your accomplishments. it doesn’t matter that we wrap our uh,limpick organization in the flag of your own country of which you are a taxpaying citizen of (good thing the USofA doesn’t charge us a rights fee for that! or denies us the chance to use it!) and use it, as well as your very own personal athlete image, to raise money for our uh,limpick organization, which we might just throw a little bit your way if you are nice to us.”
that’s pretty offensive and seems to go against the whole nature of the uh,limpick movement and what it stands for. instead, it replaces the uh,limpick ideals with the thought that:
“for a price, you may get to use the word ‘uh,limpick’ to describe yourself and accomplishments, but, all that effort and sacrifice and goodwill you have shown isn’t the currency we deal in - just show us the money! oh, and, by the way, we’re going to keep using YOUR image and likeness and the fruits of all your training and efforts for years with essentially no pay and no guarantees of any kind of future. you look real nice on our official uh,limpick website of our official uh,limpick organization, you know, the one where we promote all those uh,limpick ideals and feature lots of fresh-faced kids who plug away sacrificing everything, often paying their own way, while we use their images and stories to sell to corporate sponsors who then give us money, which, we may share with these little folks, if they please us and our agents, the ngb’s these little folks have to be accountable to.”
i know you have bills to pay and you do some good too and all that takes money - fine, but, if you and your lawyers deny someone the right to their basic identity, but feel free to use their’s at the same time, then even this small snail brain can see that you are pretty sad, sick little hypocrites! how much longer will corporate sponsors want to be associated with your little twisted policies that keep an uh,limpick champion from even referring to themselves as one in an informational bio?!?!? snails know slime, and this is really pretty icky sliminess going on.
Joey Cheek won medals in the most prestigious competition of them all… which would be what? the Pepsi 500? the Penn Relays? the Superbowl? or perhaps it was the Ryder Cup… Uh, it seems to me that the word “Olympics” is missing. Is there some reason Wheaties can’t use Olympics on it’s box? HE IS AN OLYMPIAN. Wheaties should be yelling that from the tree tops.
I wondered if the anonymous “snail man” was still reading.. maybe he was hibernating, the snails have appeared in my neighborhood in force in the last few weeks.
brilliant & funny commenting mr snail… thanks….
I thought I had a good handle on who this is, maybe I am wrong, speedy signs his email as “speedy@snails.com”
(of course that does not exist)
I wonder what the IOC charges companies like VISA & etc so they can call themselves “official sponsors of the olympic movement” & use the rings in their advertisements…
obviously, the price is too high for even a very large company like kellogs…
in court, the IOC furiously prosecutes via giant lawyer invasions any commerical use & picture of the rings, or even use of the word “olympics” that has not been paid for..
I can understant why, to a point, but this “feels” somewhat silly…
What you really mean is that you wondered whether or not you might have squashed me with your feet or tires at some point since the last posts before today! Sorry, you missed me! Either you are being more careful or you’re just not out there on the pavement training as much. either way, the brothers and I appreciate it.
Stupidity, remember, is hurting others even at the cost of hurting yourself. To refuse to let people say your name is not only ludicrous - it undercuts your own efforts to promote that name (never mind anything like fulfill a mission).
I do believe the first amendment would protect my right to post on my blog, or write to the editor of the NY Times that “The people who run the OLYMPICS are a bunch of stupid excretory orifices.” I have nothing to lose - I only compete at board games and speed-shopping.
A reporter who tried to make a story out of this would also have nothing to lose, and where there’s controversy, they always have something to gain. But… sad as it is, what’s the point? Would it do you folks any good? Anyone who cares knows what’s up, and little kids reading cereal boxes will generally be immune to this kind of poison.
I wish it weren’t so, in the same way i wish people didn’t do all the other stupid, pointless, destructive things they do. And vow to not act like that myself, and go on.
Well, I don’t necessarily think that the missing “olympics” is such a big deal in and of itself, but you have to consider the other issues speedskating athletes are facing/going through.
It’s kinda like the day I had yesterday… I work in customer service and had a very nasty customer that we actually had to call the police on. Then I had to drive through rush hour traffic because this person kept me after they business day ended. Then I was sitting in the turn lane to get into my neighborhood and someone’s van broke down and kept us from going through the light for what seemed like 11 billion rotations. Instead of moving the vehicle out of traffic, they chose to run back and forth between the car and the gas station on the corner putting water into a radiator that was obviously not going to work. So I finally got back into the through traffic lane and went a made a U-turn to turn into the neighborhood. I get home and found that my dog had had an accident on the living room carpet. Then my husband (God bless his heart) comes home and walks across the newly clean carpet with his golf shoes on tracking golf course grass through the house.
So what I am trying to say is the missing “Olympics” from the Wheaties box is kinda like the golf course grass on my carpet. Not so bad, but when you’ve had a really crappy day it sucks a whole lot.
right, its not a big deal,
but what is a big deal is the GIGANTIC CORPORATION the IOC has become through the marketing of the rings and olympics & the struggling & poor athletes who compete there (a few are media superheros after, the majority are desperately poor)…
an individual/blogger/reporter can talk about the olympics all they want…. first amendment protects that
however a company is not allowed to mention the olympics, even in a lauditory way, without paying huge $$$$$$$$$$$
and also, from what I understand, during the games, athletes are not allowed, to do their own press releases/blogs/etc.. it all must officially come from the MAW of IOC -approved media..
do you know that the whole original idea of “amateur athlete” that barred “professionals” from the games was an effort too keep the games a “gentlemen’s” event, and bar frequently better “lower-class” athletes (who needed to earn their living at their sports) from competing….
this post was not intented to tear down the games, they are STILL inspiring and amazing, however, love the CORPORATION with EYES OPEN
maybe someone decided there was no other way to do it, in this day and age…
this is so off topic, but i want that wheaties box.
they aren’t here =[
Andrew,
and fellow ‘Andrew’s-zen-blog-travellers’; once again I laud you on your courage standing up and speaking out [well do i know, I was standing right next to you] at the USSpedskating Board meeting about [one particular!] festering cancer, or ‘incident’, however one wants to describe the Grand Larceny involving USSpeedskating [our!?]property, which, by the way, we never heard the outcome of…? I’ll look into that, loudly, and publicly..! I, too, had ‘dirty’ feelings about that whole fiasco.
but you mentioning the IOC also brought back memories of my working ‘inside’ the ‘inner circle’ at the 02′ olympics..My final impression after the Circus had left town and the dust had settled, was that ‘now there goes the biggest, Richest travelling Circus on Earth, and it has about 1/2 of 1% to do with athletes competing!!’.
which may shed some light on the antics of our illustrious USS-org. leadership, having obviously had to jump through hoops, grovel, and engage in all the other exemplary spiritual activities inherent to that Ilk.
That aside, I do look forward to 2 &1/2 weeks of speedskating on T.v. again in 2010![ok, I’m a lowly speedskater, I’ve learned to take what crumbs Mainstream Society throws us]
If you go and look at the wheaties box fronts for olympic athletes sometimes you see the olympic circles and/or the official usa olympic uniforms sometimes you don’t. check out the gold medal hockey teams and gymnatic teams of the late nineties.The covers are all at the following web site www.wheaties.com/champions/championslist.asp
Speedy Snail, you are a snarky and subversive genius! Thanks for your insights.
No one knows how hard it is to break through in an amateur sport than someone who tried really hard and failed to make it. The way the fat cats who run the “uh-limpicks” take advantage of the champions makes me want to PUKE!!!
The easiest kind of person to take advantage of is a kid with a big dream, because that kind of person is willing to go through hell to achieve their goal. That kind of person has to deal with being told, “What’s the big deal? There’s nothing and no one in your way. You just race the clock. It’s YOUR fault if you lose. It seems to me, all you had to do is go a little faster.” Then, if they make it, they can’t even call themselves an Olympian.
I’d like to see every single member of the IOC put through Boris’s jump program, just once, even the old geezers who are about to keel over, because I don’t think those spoiled brats have any idea of what it really takes to be an Olympian, or even to ATTEMPT to be an Olympian.
“Olympic” is merely a brand of international multi-sport events, in the same way “Wheaties” is a brand of cereal. Big deal. The people who own the “Olympic” brand generate revenue by building the brand, and selling the rights to use of their name and marks - why WOULD they allow their brand name to be used for free? Frankly, General Mills is a pretty darn big corporation. Why should THEY get to exploit the Olympic mystique and aura built by the IOC on the backs of the athletes for nothing?
The only difference is that we, as fans and athletes have allowed the “Olympic” brand to acquire mythic porportions. The Olympic Brand Games are really no different than the Goodwill Brand Games, the X-Brand Games or the err…Unity Brand Games.
As part of the mythic reverence given to the Olympic Brand Games, we seem to think that the concept of Olympism and the Olympic Games are some sort of public trust. They aren’t. They’re an event put on by an essentially private group, who owns the rights to the name, the concept and the event. The private group is free to do as they please…
It’s their Games, they own them. If they screw up too badly and ruin the prestige of their brand, that’s their problem.
I guess “Fred” might not be the best name to use here. Let there be no confusion…it’s a fictional pseudonym.
Oh, and further to the point about the branding - the joy and thrill of sport is in sport. Let those who will bastardize the trappings of sport bastardize at will - but as long as you don’t let anyone steal away the joy of the motion, the thrill of play itself you’ll always be ahead of them. Far better to simply be or have been an athlete with dignity than to be hung up on categorization like “Olympian”.
And yes, Mystique and Aura…we know who they REALLY are. Don’t be decieved by the hype.
fred, good points, but before we let the usoc off the hook here, 2 things - 1) perhaps its best to not be too “nickel and dimeish”. look at the NBA today and the Wheaties box featuring the new NBA champions. the NBA is actually allowing the use of their brand and logo on the box along with the team that won the championship. perhaps they were paid a fee? i don’t know, but in any case, the consented to the use of their brand and logo. are they being generous, cheap and easy, stupid and naive? i doubt it. they are pretty shrewd sports marketeers and can usually smell a good deal when the find one. they also aren’t known for being pushovers. it seems to me that they see the value the USOC couldn’t by letting the rights to their brand be used on the box. 2) no amount of rationalization could ever convince me that it is ok to not allow every Olympian, and especially an Olympic medal winner, to use the word Olympian in front of their name. That is who you are and no attorney or marketing person should ever be allowed to edit that out. The relationship between the athletes (particularly these mainly amateur athletes who don’t compete for mainly the bucks) and the USOC should be rich enough that they aren’t deprived of that. Shame on the USOC if that is indeed the case.