Greece hasn't hosted an event this big since Yanni played the Acropolis. And it will be big, and it will be beamed via satellite into our homes as one endless video montage of Hungarian heptathletes, Armenian archers and Senegalese swimmers competing as Aerosmith's "Dream On" soars in the background.
But must music fans sit idly by as Marion Jones steals all the doping headlines from Courtney Love? Not if I can help it. I hereby institute the Rock Star Olympics, a competition in which Bela Karolyi shouts, "You can do it, Nada Surf!" and Nikki Sixx bonks stewardesses for the good of the team as the Olympic flame glows eternal from atop Michael Jackson's Jheri-curled head.
Let the games begin.
Event: "High" Jump
Competitors: Snoop Dogg, Art Garfunkel, Bob Marley, Willie Nelson, George Clinton
Competition: Participants sit around a hookah, listen to Hendrix and each discuss whether, if he were Luke Skywalker, he would still bed Princess Leia after discovering that she was his sister. The first three to jump up and make a Taco Bell run after 12 hours earn medals.
Prediction: Snoop tests negative for drugs and is banned from competing. Garfunkel starts strong but is disqualified when he openly ponders what silence really sounds like. Marley is the front-runner but fades to a bronze-medal finish after the Wailers distract him with a game of soccer. The Red-Headed Stranger wins the gold when Dr. Funkenstein trips over Bootsy Collins' platform shoes at the finish line.
Event: 100-Meter Pimp Limp
Competitors: Big Boi of OutKast, Aaron Carter, Curtis Mayfield, Ludacris, Isaac Hayes
Competition: Style is more important than speed for these mack daddies as they strut down the track with a jewel-encrusted cane on one arm and a Hilton sister on the other.
Prediction: Carter might have bagged Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff at the same time if, in the first 10 meters of this race, he hadn't also simultaneously ruptured a hamstring and discovered he had no rhythm. Big Boi veers off-course after the shadow cast by André 3000 impedes his vision. When Ludacris moves, you move (just like that), but he still comes in a distant third as Superfly and Shaft share the gold--and a bus full of Catholic schoolgirls.
Event: Pommel Horse
Competitors: Ike and Tina, Sid and Nancy, Bobby and Whitney, Kurt and Courtney, Rick and Tanya
Competition: This tag-team event pits calamitous couples in an American Gladiator-style death match while competitors balance on a pommel horse.
Prediction: What do you say to Tina Turner when she has two black eyes? Nothing--Ike already explained it to her twice. But if the Turners can focus that aggression, love will have something to do with it when the duo rolls like Proud Mary over the competition. Cobain's limp-wristed flailing knocks Kurt and Courtney out of medal contention. Bobby and Whitney won't stop fighting (and making up) with each other long enough to fight anybody else. Rick James and Tanya Hijazi earn the silver after burning Sid and Nancy with a crack pipe.
Event: 3,000-Meter Needlechase
Competitors: Courtney Love, GG Allin, Scott Weiland, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker
Competition: Celebrity smack addicts have to escape Betty Ford, evade drug-sniffing police dogs and run through back-alley water hazards in pursuit of a syringe filled with Mr. Brownstone.
Prediction: Holiday--who was arrested for heroin possession on her deathbed--and Parker are pioneers in the sport, but Lady Day and the Bird won't compete with this crop of insatiable youngsters. Courtney is one crazy junkie, but Weiland's experience with the rehab revolving door earns him a silver. But even the Stone Temple Pilot crumbles next to self-destructive, shit-flinging shock rocker Allin, who would gladly defecate on his mother's grave for some fruit Mentos, let alone a Ziploc of China White.
Event: Debauchathon
Competitors: Mötley Crüe, KISS, the Osmonds, the Go-Go's, the Bad Boy Family
Competition: This relay event is scored on points compiled in categories that include hotel trashing, whiskey drinking, groupie groping, paparazzi punching, coke snorting and dead-hooker disposal.
Prediction: KISS is an early leader until Gene Simmons goes down with a tongue cramp during the groupie competition. Bad Boy's medal hopes are dashed when the team is disqualified after P. Diddy pays his chauffeur $50,000 to trash the hotel room for him. The Go-Go's are off on vacation until Belinda Carlisle collapses after drinking her weight--48 ounces--in Jack Daniel's. Mötley Crüe surges to silver when--all in one pelvic thrust--Tommy Lee's mansnake snorts a line, punches a Star photographer and videotapes Nikki Sixx doing the deed. But the Osmonds are the little Mormons who could, expending their pent-up purity in a feverish rage highlighted by Donny and Marie's murderous, necrophiliac rampage in a Carson City brothel.
Event: Cycling
Competitors: Duane Allman, Sheryl Crow, Mick Jagger, Kraftwerk, Steppenwolf
Competition: A straightforward Mad Max race, but instead of post-apocalyptic, gas-hoarding road warriors, competitors elude pre-apocalyptic, gas-hoarding housewives driving Hummers to T-ball practice.
Prediction: Duane Allman has the speed but lacks control and crashes when a ramblin' man strays into his path. Jagger asks his Hell's Angels buddies for riding pointers, but they stab a member of the crowd instead. Jagger nonetheless takes an early lead but wipes out when his bottom lip gets caught in the spokes. Kraftwerk's Ralf Hütter has coldhearted German efficiency (and clearly enjoys wearing tiny Lycra shorts) but is blinded by the brilliance of his 1982 win in this event and manages only a bronze. Steppenwolf coasts to a silver thanks to its chopper bicycle, custom-made by Captain America. Sheryl Crow wins the competition in dramatic fashion. She's a savvy rider--she tells reporters afterward that "every day is a winding road"--but her gold is owed less to technical skill than to the fact that she's been sown with Lance Armstrong's seeds of love.
OK. Somebody can put out Michael's hair now.
