The olympics & the true face of medusa.

The True face of Medusa?

I write this time from Ocean Village a complex of expensive apartments and piers built by speculators hoping Gib will become another Monaco. The dream to attract people with a lot of money to buy summer homes and berth their luxury yachts. I’m in one of a slue of high class restaurants which have opened and this is an Indian restaurant without a hint of Indian styling or dark skinned waiters. Through the open windows the smell of the sea and the sounds of the bay float across me and the sweet white flower which floats in a glass on my table. All this mingles with Nora Jones whose crooning quietly in the background. As I peruse the menu and listen to the music. I notice a heavy set woman in her mid-sixties looking towards my direction almost smacking her lips. I wince at my sudden attractiveness and order a drink to steady my nerves. A gin and tonic in honor of my dear friend John Whitley who would love this tranquil moment. He would also smile to know that the man with no sports gene (moi) has so far successfully managed to miss the Olympics. A hard thing to do in Gib which like the rest of the western world has become littered in every bar and restaurant with flat screens plastered with the games.
The young waitress with the accent from some unfamiliar European country comes over with my drink and I order a chicken Byranni with some Nan bread. The lady across the room is still glancing over towards me with that hungry look. Feeling like an appetizer at a homeless persons convention. I try looking elsewhere towards a framed picture opposite of me of a British fox hunting scene. An image totally incongruous with the Asian menu I’ve chosen my food from. I drift back to my notes and sip my colonial G&T. Where was I? Oh yes…the Olympics in China with all it’s Ying and yang grandeur and grotesqueness. A more humdrum looking singer swapped out for a lip-sinking cutie. A spectacular fireworks display tweaked with computer graphics. A mind blowing opening ceremony utilizing countless humans doing the same thing in unison. Spooky and spectacular. You ask me Chairman Mao still casts a long shadow across this culture?
But not to worry folks here comes President Bush who bumbles and drools his way through the ceremony and games. Ignoring…like all the press…China’s human rights record and pollution levels. Why wouldn’t they? The USA’s are not so good! I like John Stewart am looking forward to the end of the Bush administration ‘as a person….and as a mammal.’ Speaking of mammals the woman is now looking like she’d like me to suckle her deepest desire.
I look once more towards the picture of English gentry on horseback hunting down a fox…when I spot it. Like Perseus avoiding the gaze of Medusa by using his shield’s reflective surface to see. The glass of the painting opposite me has a reflection dancing in it from an until then unseen television screen which is above my head. A perfectly beautiful young man on the parallel bars. The figure that the woman has been watching with such hungry eyes. He is the tall drink of water which her thirsty body would love to drink. I smile…a little disappointed and eat my dinner in peace. At least I didn’t get turned to stone!