Over The Wall

Those final days in Vancouver ... they each remain a fantastic, psychedelic blur.

After posting about hitting the wall weeks ago, the next day (the final Thursday of the Games), brought a great blend of work successes (interviews for clients), a ticketing coup (row three seats for the women's figure skating final for less than an arm and a leg), three nights of red carpet interviews at Club Bud (disclosure: a client of the firm where I work) and as much pin trading as I could muster.

Some old friends arrived in Vancouver, too, so some blogging time went away in order to catch up and create new Olympic memories.

There was a midnight visit to the Main Press Center (MPC) and International Broadcast Center (IBC), tying up loose ends with new friends at work and around town, then packing up from the Marinaside condo (realizing now I have yet to post details of that experience ... and dozens more experiences). Spending an hour at Sochi House, then a Saturday afternoon and evening in the Olympic Village residential zone, were icing in the cake of a fabulous yet extremely exhausting four days of Olympic wrap-up.

Could blog for days about the Closing Ceremony, too (seated under the stage where Avril Lavigne and Michael Buble performed). And I will in good time. There are gold medalist and other surprise interviews yet to be formatted and posted.

There was some big ice hockey game one day, too, wasn't there?

Leaving Vancouver was a HUGE BUMMER. I absolutely love and miss being there.

The commute back to Atlanta -- starting March 2 at 5 a.m. at YVR with landings in Seattle, Dallas and (at long last) ATL at 9:30 p.m. after several consecutive weeks with only 2-3 hours of nightly sleep -- made for a soupy/foggy first few days back (it was indeed good to be home, too -- torn between two cities, now). There are two steamer trunk-sized bags of loot with a label "for eBay" staring at me from the corner of my home office. :-)

It hardly seems possible that only a week after the layover in Dallas on March 2, work travel took me back to "Big D" on March 10. It's nice to sort of ease into a spring of busy days that, by comparison, will be calm and steady.

Was it all a dream?

Vancouver marked my seventh Olympic Games. It is going down among the best. No credentials? No problem.

I keep thinking of John Furlong's astounding speeches of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, and the music of the Games. Paraphrasing Furlong, Canada's Winter Games will certainly be remembered for generations.

Only 862 Days to London.

Michael Jackson R.I.P.

Very sad to learn today of Michael Jackson's death. Given the enormity of his star power, it's surprising he did not perform at Olympic festivities during his career, though he did perform in several Olympic stadiums on various tours.

My earliest memory of Michael Jackson is actually from a cemetery, but not connected to the "Thriller" video. Rather, when I was six years old, on Christmas Eve of 1978, my grandmother, dad, sister and I went to the cemetery in northern Oklahoma City to place flowers at a family headstone, and one of The Jackson Five Christmas songs was on the radio in our red station wagon. We sang along, and my dad explained (I think) that the main singer was only a few years older than my age when the song was recorded. "That kid can sing [but not me]!" I recall saying [and thinking].

A few years later, the Michael Jackson/Paul McCartney duet "Say, Say Say" was all the rage, and I vividly recall donning my first Walkman in the 4th Grade with a "Thriller" cassette playing and an "Air Supply" and "Styx" cassette in my back pockets (though one of my top five favorites was on the air much earlier). I don't recall trying to learn the moonwalk, but classmates of that era may call me out if they are reading. Steve Martin offered up about the funniest "Billy Jean" spoof on the short-lived NBC enterprise "The New Show."

The closest the "Victory" tour got to Oklahoma was Kansas City or Dallas -- it was THE top story on all four local news stations (hundreds of miles from either tour stop), a definitive lesson of the publicity machine from a time before "publicity" entered my lexicon.

Lots of other memories -- songs, lyrics, satires, tabloids, music videos, tours, jokes, stories, other favorites (there are many) --learning of Michael Jackson's untimely end adds another curious mile marker to the "where were you when ..." collection including the "Miracle On Ice," Reagan assassination attempt, John Lennon's death, the Challenger explosion, Murrah Building, 9/11.

During college, there was a made for TV movie about the Jacksons, and we had a great debate about most loved (or loathed) Michael Jackson tunes. When he performed the Super Bowl a year or so later, most agreed his best work was humanitarian.

"There's a choice we're making, we're saving our own lives. It's true, we'll make a better day, just you and me."

Michael Jackson, R.I.P.

(images via http://www.mjsite.com/, http://www.askfactmaster.com/Michael_Jackson, http://www.jacksonmichael.info/)