So today’s the day of the season premiere of the Oprah Winfrey Show — "Welcome Home Team USA’s Olympic Stars!". Of course, the Chicago 2016 people think it’s the "Bring the Olympics to Chicago" show ("Michael Phelps really wants the Olympic Games to come to Chicago in 2016!"), but that’s not how Oprah is playing it.
I am not a stand-in-line-for-Oprah-tickets person, but I knew that they were filming last week, and I had taken some pictures of the preparations, so I decided to swing by on the way to work and see what was up.
I noticed that an officially T-shirted woman was giving out wristbands for entry. She walked right past me to give one to a tall, tanned, buff guy, but he declined due to a prior commitment. Feeling slighted, but not overly humiliated (they’ve got to make some TV, after all) — I said, "I’ll take one, ma’am". She looked around (I’m serious) and gave it to me, letting me know it was her "last one".
I entered through the metal detectors, having received proper admonitions not to take any pictures or video, and promptly ignored them.
I was hoping I would see some of the complete whack-nuts that appear in this video. Alas, it was mostly kids who were crazy about Michael Phelps. God bless them all — they were very nice.
Anyway, here’s my complete take on the preparations and the event.
Here are some other good sets and photos on Flick: