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Everybody's watching us — and so am I

By Chris Hicks
Deseret News feature editor

      Well, we invited the world. But who knew they'd actually show up. All of them. With all their relatives in tow!
      And if that's not enough . . . the rest of the world is watching! That alone could make less hardy souls feel like a peculiar people.
      As I've been walking downtown to take in the color, watching TV to take in the coverage and reading various publications to just try and take it all in, myriad thoughts have tried to find unoccupied pockets in my brain:

• I went to the LDS Church's "Light of the World" program. And it is a spectacular pageant, and quite enjoyable. But it struck me that with that huge cast and crew — plus the Mormon Tabernacle Choir — this may be the first time the Conference Center has had more people on the stage than in the audience.

• So how bad is the scalping outside venues? It's so bad I saw someone scalping business licenses to other scalpers. (Rimshot, please.)

• Of all the comic fodder we've provided late-night comics — and there's been plenty — it's amusing to see how much of it revolves around polygamy and the Osmonds. But it may have been Conan O'Brien who got off the best joke (before his show was banished for two weeks due to NBC's Olympics coverage).
        O'Brien said there was a problem with the torch when it reached Salt Lake City: A Mormon mistook it for a cigarette and stamped it out!

• David Letterman has been hilarious with his faux rants about the Olympics, but Jay Leno is recycling gags from seven years ago!
        When Ch. 2 and Ch. 5 switched network affiliations, Leno came to town and taped an Olympics "Jaywalking" bit (right after Salt Lake City won the bid). It aired July 12, 1995, with jokes about the biathalon, the Zamboni, etc. — the same gags he did in his updated version last Friday. Who says Leno doesn't like to do reruns?

• Controversy, schmontroversy. I'm not sure I understand all the fuss about Bob Costas' remarks, which seem no more caustic than things he's said in other places. And he hasn't really said anything about Utah/Utahns, that I've seen anyway.

• That fellow at the Denver Post, however, is another matter. Sports writer Woody Paige can rant all he wants about Salt Lake and the Olympics. No big deal; he's entitled to his opinion. But as you no doubt know by now, he got too many facts wrong for a so-called credible journalist.
        One thing that hasn't been written about much, however, was his statement that "The Mormon-owned daily newspaper features a special section interspersing LDS propaganda with Olympic photographs." Say what?
        Hey, we don't have to read the Denver Post for scurrilous potshots aimed at the Deseret News. We've got the Salt Lake Tribune for that!

• After one of Johnny Biscuit's pieces on Ch. 5 last week, anchor Bruce Lindsay said that Biscuit would be joining the program every night, "like it or not." Although Lindsay tried to backpedal by saying, "Oh, we all love Johnny," he was actually speaking for all of us — with his first statement. Biscuit's "news" pieces haven't been any funnier than his Utah Jazz ads.

• Those ventilation holes poked into some of the building-banners around the city somehow don't detract from their beauty — and they may even add an interesting, albeit accidental artistic element (sort of like old perforated data-processing cards . . . but in a good way). Especially the banner on the Wyndham Hotel, which is beautifully illuminated as it shows up on television each night behind the Medals Plaza.

• Local radio personality Tim Hughes, who has been doing the Saturday "Utah Outdoors" show for KSL Radio lately, landed a gig as one of the Medals Plaza voices. He's the English-speaking announcer each night, and he's also one of the taped voices you hear. He's in good company with all those celebrities whose voices lend a strange Disneylandish atmosphere to the Olympic Plaza.

• Have you seen the outrageous concession prices at venues — $7 for a large chili dog, $3.50 for a candy bar. What do they think they are, movie theaters?
  

E-MAIL: hicks@desnews.com