THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 19, 1996 TAG: 9607190654
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BOB MOLINARO
DATELINE: ATLANTA LENGTH: 71 lines
Elvis is here.
He's standing right across the street from Centennial Olympic Park, dressed in blue suede shoes and playing his guitar for a grateful-looking Marilyn Monroe.
Off to one side, wearing nothing but a loin cloth and a bemused grin, is Tarzan, like Elvis and Marilyn, a creation of fiberglass and whatnot standing about 10 feet high.
My brush with Elvis and Friends came at the Budweiser exhibit, if you can call a planned beer bust an exhibit. Budweiser has taken over a parking lot and garage in a part of the city that looks like it was decorated for a Fellini movie.
Down the block from Elvis, and across the street from the Coca-Cola Olympic City, a plywood and plastic shanty town of stands and trailers has been erected. If Coke's Olympic City is garish on a grand scale, the carnival-like operation outside its back door is just plain cheesy.
World SportsJam 96 is the name given to this cluster of commerce offering sausages, sunglasses, T-shirts, beer, ice-cream and baubles, even a virtual reality booth.
The centerpiece of the eyesore, visible from a few blocks away, is a ferris wheel.
The sixth Olympic ring, perhaps?
Going in, everyone knew these Summer Games would be oppressively commercial, but the scene downtown, I'm afraid to report, is downright tacky.
``There is a certain amount of clutter as you step outside,'' said Dick Pound, chairman of the Atlanta Oversight Commission of the International Olympic Committee.
``In my view, that's unfortunate. If you have hundreds of street vendors you destroy the look of the Games.''
Atlanta argues that there is nothing it can do, that the vendors are renting space on private property.
Which explains how Budweiser can put some of its Clydesdales on display across the street from Centennial Park.
``The cities who want to host the Games, we will tell them don't even think about doing something like this,'' said Pound.
Still, it's not as if business isn't being conducted inside Centennial Park, a place where official Olympic sponsors rule. Intended to be one of the focal points of these Games, it is as much a corporate tent show as an oasis from the heat and activity.
Near the center of the park is a statue of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympics. He is poised on steps, hat in hand, gazing through ancient Greek pillars, presumably at the future of his Olympic movement.
It's unlikely the Baron could have envisioned an Olympics where his likeness would share a park with a souped-up Chevy Monte Carlo.
Inside the General Motors exhibit, visitors are invited to have their pictures taken with Dale Earnhardt's car No. 3.
People are then forced to exit through a large tent, which is decorated like an automobile showroom.
``Ever drive one of these?'' a man in a yellow G.M. shirt asked me as I walked past an Oldsmobile Aurora.
No, I said.
``You should go by a dealer and test drive one,'' he said. ``It's a great car.''
Until that moment, I thought the guy across the street who tried to sell me a bagel for $3 showed a lot of chutzpah.
Even before a single medal is handed out, an early image of these Olympics is beginning to materialize.
If that statue of Pierre de Coubertin could come to life, the Baron would discover that he is looking through those columns, directly at a sign pointing people to an automatic teller machine.
Let the Games begin.
KEYWORDS: OLYMPICS 1996 by CNB