Ring, ring, ringing.
Five rings, Two guys say, in five.
Rings, you know Arina Grande has a song called seven Rings, but five is just in the goldilocks.
Zone for me. Absolutely, just rights just right. Seven's too much.
That's too much, too much Arianna your opulent lifestyle. But you know what else is opulent The Olympics. And that's really what we're here to celebrate. On Two guys, five Rings, the podcast that talks Olympics. I'm Matt Rogers, that's my name.
And I'm Bow and Yang and we're the two guys, wouldn't you say passing back and forth the torch. That is conversation. That is how podcasts do work.
And episode six of this podcast is going to talk all about the Olympic flame and torch.
Okay, two separate things, and one thing needs the other in order to I didn't.
Actually know that the carrying of the torch around the world was real. Oh yeah, and then you really do understand that this is the spirit stick, but for real, like if this Olympic flame were to be extinguished or hit the ground like this would be true chaos and Olympic fashion.
I think it's like world building. I know we're using that term a little bit too much now, but there's a world building there. It makes you go, oh the flame. It's like very like Game of Thrones when.
You say, absolutely well, it symbolizes the coming of the games and spreading peace and friendship along the route. So it's less Game of Thrones in that that was more like competition for supremacy and this is more like love and peace, but definitely fire, certainly, that's what the Olympics and Game of Thrones haven't the common.
For certain for certain Now, have you ever carried a torch for someone?
Matt?
Oh, God, haven't I haven't I. We all have a story of, you know, the time when we just have feelings and couldn't find a where to put them. I remember I was in high school, you see, and I carried a torch for my best friend, and sometimes, you know, I would go hang out with him and his girlfriend and I would sit on an AOL Instant Messenger while they hooked up behind me in his bed, and I would be in the room and I'd be on AOL Instant Messengers or talking to my friends, hanging out with
my friends. And one day I said to them, Hey, do you guys ever not want me to be around, and they go, no, we love hanging out with you.
Then you make us laugh. I said, okay, So I continued to hang out with them. Mothery sort of hooked up in the room with me in it, and I would just not turn around. So, yeah, I've carried torches before.
I was gonna say, I was gonna get be like backup, backup. So they would be like macing on each other while you were on the computer.
Like imagine me. I would be on the computer, I think when I was like fifteen, and I would be on the computer sort of on aim, just like talking to my friends, like trying to make plans for the weekend or later, and they would be behind me, like messing around. Fully well that and I always was like, I wonder how far it's going, But I thought, well, that would be uncool for me to ask, as if it wasn't uncool for me to be there in the first place.
Not uncool.
Maybe they liked to be watched.
They want they liked how I was a little voyeur, but I wasn't a danger of me being able to turn around.
It's so funny.
I rarely even think about that. How weird that was but that was a thing that probably happened between five and six times. Is I would just sit there and they would hook up behind me, and then I was like, did you guys ever know want me to come? And the excuse was like no, no, no, you gotta be there. Wow, I'm a kink.
You are a kink and you will never be shamed.
You can't be ashamed for wanting me president when you guys hook up, and by you guys, I'm talking to you the listener when if you ever want to hook up and have me just around, I'm so used to it.
It's not that you like to watch, it's more it's more for them. It's for their kink. It's not a kink for you, it's a kink for them.
Have you ever carried a torch?
I was going to say that, I've literally said the words I think I've been carrying a torch for you for too long. And then that was my way of sort of like and of like release of dropping the torch as it were, of being like, I can't do this anymore, I can't do this kind of dramatically. I wish people could see the release. We're sort of dramatically
releasing our torches. I really I encourage all of you to tell the person you've carried a torch for to say the words, I've carried a torch for you, and it's time for me to drop.
It because it's of some kind.
Oh my god, I mean. We are recording this after the Culture Awards, where in which we gave Mandy Moore a Lifetime of Culture Award, and one of the clips that I forgot about that I is now constantly playing in my head as her and want to remember telling Shane West, I.
Do not need a reason to be angry with God.
I do not need a reason to be angry with God. Is an amazing line, and she delivered it. I do not need a reason.
To be angry with God.
Incredible.
The key to acting is to barely allow noise to come out while you're talking. That's the key to emotional actors. To be quiet, literally.
Barely give anything. You can understand everything feeling, even if they don't make us up.
You are so good.
I'm comply, girl. No, you are the dramatic genom. No. Watch Fire Island now. If you're listening to this podcast, turn it off. Watch Fire Island net watch me shed.
A tear to a perfume genius song to a perfume genius needle drop.
You know who would be so happy? Greg Luganis. I met Greg Luganis saw Fire Island in my day.
I don't think he knows the best thing.
It has bone Yang, it has gaze and has Fire Island, It has water, it has everything that everyone loves. I just know he watches us and out with his partner and says I love him. I think he's so funny.
I know it.
I can't be sure.
Well, we'll have to find out. Maybe I'm placing the breadcrumbs for Greg Luguinis to come on the podcast grag.
We would love to have you.
We would love to meet gregor invited Invite.
Nashley once said.
Yeah, and how did that song end? It was Bennette you'll r s V P.
Oh Yeah, yeah, were you a Mariicante?
Nashley fam well through my sister and she got all the Mary Kate national videos from the library.
Chelsea also liked it.
My sister, Oh my god, My sister bought the Sister of the Traveling Pants and I stole it from her shelf. And read it in my own bed and then hid it under the bed because they didn't want anyone to find out that I was reading a girl book. Did she ever find it? I think she did good, But I like want I could just all the girls at school were reading it and loving it, and I was like, I really want to read that.
I know. This is before the movie came out.
That's how I was with the show One Tree Hill.
It was like a closet thing for you because like, don't.
Remember when the OC was out and everyone liked the OC, but not only everyone in high school.
No boys.
I don't know. I got away with watching the OC for sure. I don't know what it was about. Maybe it was like cool California culture, but One Tree Hill there was something like girls only about it.
Chad Michael Mary was only for girls.
It was only for girls. Like you couldn't watch Chad Michael Murray as a boy that age and be like, yeah, I like to show because I'm a fan of his acting. It's like, no, you loved his appetizer plate size nipples and he lit off a fire alarm and you're growing and speaking of fire, the symbolic flame. Let's just chat about the Olympic torch and the flame just a little bit, okay.
The first time a symbolic flame made its appearance at the Olympic Games was for the nineteen twenty eight Amsterdam Games. The main purpose of this fire, placed in a large bowl on top of a slender tower named the Marathon Tower overlooking the Olympic Stadium, was to indicate for miles around where in Amsterdam the Olympic Games were being held. A similar flame appeared once more in Los Angeles four years later, this time at the top of the gateway
to the Olympic Stadium. So fire is life. It's very survivor, it's very desperate span life in this game, fire is your life. In this instance, fire is where the Olympics happened. But you get it. The fire, if you see it shining tall, shining bright, you know you had that way for excellence and excitement.
When they cut to the torch a flame during the games, you know, like you'll be watching beach volleyball and then they will cut to in broad daylight the stadium. That makes me go, this is once again about the human spirit, about human accomplishment, and that's what the Olympics are about Oh, I could relish this forever.
I love it.
Here's another factoid, Okay. The nineteen thirty six Berlin Games were the first in which an Olympic torch relay was used. Chief organizer of the Games proposed the idea two years earlier to link antiquity and modernity. The original relay took twelve days and passed through seven countries Greece, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany. A lot of pop stars come from
that area. I would say three thousand and seventy five kilometer relay was completed solely by runners in Yugoslavia over approximately twenty five kilometers. However, certain torches showed signs of weakness and threat to go out before the end of the expected combustion duration. Thus, in order not to take any risks, the torch bearers were taken to the next stage more quickly by car shooters. So this is once again linking ancient times to the modern.
Era of the Olympics.
The Olympic flame for Berlin was lit with the aid of a parabolic mirror reflecting the sun's rains, which is a time honored method that guarantees the purity of the flame. The lighting of the flame takes place in front of the ruins of the Temple of Hera and Olympia, Greece every Olympics. I believe now the dark origins of the relay has to do with Nazi propaganda. As we said, this was in the nineteen thirty six Berlin Games.
I'm sorry about that, guys, but it's sorry, just true. It's just true, y'all.
The Nazis didn't invent fire. No, it's fine, Okay. Fire is further for everybody.
They use the original torch relay for propaganda purposes. The Olympic Torch relay now is used to signal the Olympic Game are coming into spread a message of peace and friendship along the route. So decidedly at nastic stuff. Now you don't have to be worried. Whenever you see the flame, be in a past. Okay.
When you look at the flame, you should think Central Perk. You should think Ross, Rachel, Phoebe Chandler, Monica and Joey. You should think friendship. You should think harm of national harmony. You should think at world peace. You should think of mister congeniality, the film light slapstick, Light slapstick, light fare overall, but for serious reasons, which is an occasion to bring the countries of the world together in the name of sportsmanship.
You think the Goblet of Fire was inspired by the Olympic torch?
I do you know? Because it never goes out? Right? Is that the part of the deal with the Goblet of Fire? I don't know, the whole sports and fire thing. Yeah, of course it was, of course.
The Olympic, the Triwizard tournament, that is the Olympics.
I ask if it never goes out because our Olympic flame, the acrid fire, is never extinguished in the event of a problem.
Did you know this?
Several emergency backup flames exist, but they are kept secret as the protocol also dictates the flame can only be rekindled with an emanation of the original flame, so this is serious. When it is not being carried by an Olympic torch, the flame is sheltered and especially modified security lamp similar to a miner's lamp. Every eight hours, the lantern is filled with liquid kerosene and the wick is also changed about every two weeks, and at nighttime, the
flame is kept in a special cauldron. So this is the fire. When you see the Olympic fire, just know that's the doll.
Is it the same flame as nineteen twenty eight Amsterdam Games?
That would be completely insane.
Do you think we'll never know?
We'll never know. I think it's one of the those things we can ever know. And also, by the way it kind of says here like if there's if something happens like low key, that there's a backup flame, it exists.
I'm saying like the continuity of the flame is a big part of the flame's lore.
Yeah, but lie, people lie all the time, going this is Hollywood, it's smoked, emarrass you though the Olympics. Ultimately, at the end of the day, it's a show.
This is Hollywood. It's we're in Paris, Mama.
To tell the show peak behind the curtain.
This is all entertainment earlier, so confusing.
Sometimes talk about the use of technology when it comes to the torch, Well.
I'll say that it's integral. As the torch must be able to stand up to difficult weather conditions, including wind, rain, extreme temperatures, and snow. It must also be capable of burning longer than the amount of time anticipated for each leg of the relay. In the event of problems along the route, they have really thought through every scenario. The first torch relay, German manufacturer Krupp, created a steel cloud torch featuring a magnesium burning all that was designed to
stay lit regardless of weather conditions. Over the years, many other products such as gunpowder, resin and olive oil have been used to feel the Olympic flame. These days we're talking gas cartridges in the body of the torch. That is usually the most popular thing. Interestingly, the type of gas can influence both the intensity of the flame as well the color from white to yellowy red now white. A white flame is, as we know, the hottest color.
Well, isn't the blue the hottest flame?
Blue is the warmest color. But white.
You know when someone says white hot, that means it's the hottest kind of hot.
WHOA Can I ask you what your favorite type of fire is? We've never had this conversation, like what is your favorite fire?
To see?
When I'm at the Korean barbecue restaurant and I see the blue flame lighting my table, I go, that is that is? I'm thinking of hades. I'm thinking of James wood goods as hades.
Great performance, bad Man, bad.
Man, a great performance. I'm thinking just like Sleigh color, what about you?
I think blue flame is amazing. I'm very attracted to the phrase white hot. But you know when I go to the club, I like to hear these club classics and for me, fire is yellow, fire is yellow, like it just is.
M Yeah in the movies, fire is yellow and red. I feel the sun is yellow. It's really a goodness gracious a great ball of fire.
By the way, justice for one of the greatest pop songs of all time. Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire. I am telling you listen to it again. It goes off. That is such a goodness mollfire. Who ever wrote that the Greg luganis of songwriting, the greatest of all time? And gay. I just went to a show and someone saying, goodness, gracious, grape balls of Fire, and I was like, hold on a second. This is a hit and a half. It sounds like Chapel Roone.
It sounds like Chaperone.
Absolutely, goodness, gracious, grape balls Bowen. I'm telling you listen to it. After we record this, you'll listen to it three more times. Right after you will be in you love the way you look at you to know me, you don't know me. Second time you said this, I do know you. I know you well. So you know. Speaking of the flame and the great balls of fire and et cetera, as it relates to the Olympics, there have been some mishaps. There have been some flame and
cauldron mishaps. Despite the safeguards taken to prevent the flame from being extinguished, it has happened. In nineteen seventy six during the Montreal Games, an unexpected violent thunderstorm the worst douse the flame at the Olympic Stadium. No eventure taking place at the time. The only people on site were workers. One of them rushed up the steps of the platform holding the Olympic cauldron, using a cigarette lighter to light
some pieces of newspaper and the cauldron. When the Olympic officials learned to the situation, the makeshift flame was extinguished because it was you know, terrible, terrible flame. Fake fire imposter, A light and the back of torches were used to relight the flame. A similar incident occurred before the twenty fourteen Winter Olympics in Sochi in Russia, with a security officer reportedly re lighting the flame with a lighter after it had gone out at the Kremlin in Moscow. This
is just these people are. They're trying their best, like they don't want anyone to know that it was on their watch that it went out, so they whipped the lighter out.
But that's listen, there are safeguards in place for when that exact scenario happens. Please, if you're handling the Olympic flame in the future, don't use your little, big lighter.
Okay.
The torch deserves the real flame, and there are backup torches and flames in place and available. Bick, please, big please.
Faulty burners have caused flameouts too, but beyond weather related and mechanical issues, there are some instances cause purposely it just insane by individuals seeking to maic political or social statements. In two thousand and eight, protesters decrying China's history of human rights abuses managed to extinguish the flame multiple times.
Slay they That is a movie I want to see, Yeah, extinguishers, Extinguishers? Should that be our film? Yes, extinguishers.
It's about two gays who want to put out the fire of the Olympic torch just cause, for attention.
For attention and likes.
They do it for the likes. They do it for the shares. They did it for the reels.
This is kind of slay. At the twenty ten Vancouver Winter Games, they had four pillars kind of meaning up towards the center to light the torch. One of the pillars failed to light from the stadium floor. The trap door was faulty and froze prior to the cauldron lightning, even though it had worked fine early in the ceremony. This is why, let's not get too stunty with the flame lighting. Okay, let's just have it be you light the fuse or whatever, and it travels all the way
up and then it lands in the bowl. That's all we want to see. Let's not get too innovative with fire, is all we're saying.
Keep it simple.
Keep it simple, because if you want to get all stunty with fire, you're gonna be sorry for whatever reason.
Well, one mishap had lasting implications bo in since nineteen twenty, so this has been a thing for years and years and years. Since nineteen twenty, doves had been released at the Olympic Games opening ceremonies to symbolize world peace. So for the nineteen eighty eight Soul Games, the one where Luganis Slade, birds had been trained for a year in preparation of the event. They were supposed to fly around the stadium in circles until they reached the rim, and
then fly off in five different directions. Unfortunately, of the birds landed on the Olympic cauldron as it was being lit. Although the call for world peace remains a part of the opening ceremony, the public outcry from the nineteen eighty eight Soul Games led to the permanent replacement of live birds with inanimate objects or human actors. And then we literally do have a picture here in this document of what looks to.
Be all these doves perched on the rim of the bowl and one unfortunately flying right into the flame, about to get toasted and roasted. Bye sister, By sister, you had one job. You can train birds as much as you want. There's still going to be There's a reason why they call it bird brain very small. Hey, I don't like saying it. As a new birdwatching enthusiast, I really don't like seeing a bird die.
Certainly not you want to see a bird fly.
I want to see a bird fly. And these will always be a symbol of peace. This is two bad things coming together, trying to manipulate fire and trying to manipulate animals. Yeah, just don't ever ever have the two converge into one thing.
Just everyone, just keep the fire away from the birds. Please please wait. Speaking of bird watching, did I tell you I just saw a bald eagle in person?
I sent you the video.
I must not have watched it yet, Oh my gosh.
I sent you a lot of videos from my vacation.
They're scary birds, aren't they. They are huge, the bald eagles. They're majestic, but they're scary up close. Well did you hear that the bald eagle population has actually skyrocket as of wait, skyrocketed. Rather, there are tiktoks out there of these bald eagles. Hordes of bald eagles just like munching on trash at landfills. And I'm like, oh, y'all are ruining the image.
I mean, the America eat in trash? Yeah, absolute, one hundred percent. Can I say something? They're still birds, Like you can look at a bald eagle and think dignified. The bitch is eating trash, okay at the end of the day. But apparently, yeah, the population of bald eagles is up, up, up, because they made certain pesticides that were killing the birds illegal, so that's the reason why.
But they're still quite endangered. But you know, if you see a whole bunch of bald eagles showering down on your trash, just tuesday, Just Tuesday.
Let's talk through some memorable moments of lighting in the cauldron. We have Barcelona ninety two. Antonio Rabilio, Spanish Paralympic archer lit the cauldron for the ninety two Games by shooting a flaming arrow over the cauldron and knighting the gas. Catinus Everdeen found not even born yet, so Catinus of him, had she been born, had she been born? Two thousand Sydney Games. Track and field superstar Aborigine Australian Kathy Freeman, wearing a white bodysuit, stepped into a pool of water
and touched the torch to the cauldron. With the water, a ring a fired circle tar cauldron rose from the water as sending to the top of the stadium. I remember this. I was but a child of nine. Yeah, and I went, wow, that was cool.
That was really cool. That was definitely one of the fire moments I remember the most. Like that was pretty epic. Anytime water is on fire, To be honest with you, I'm kind of gagged.
Well, this is the only exception that we are throwing out there when dealing with fire, they're better be more water than fire involved.
Oh yes, and this was.
Definitely the case. It's very Poseidon's Adventure, very what else like free Willy, Free Willy. Also fantasmic. Oh yeah, absolutely.
I mean you can't talk about fire and water together without talking about fantasmic and really all the Water World show at Universal Studios Hollywood. Have I ever taken you to that?
I think you have.
It's pretty fabulous. It's pretty spectacular, a lot of high optane energy. It's really really it's stunt driven and there's fire.
On the water for sure.
Two thousand and eight, I remember this Beijing Games decorated Olympic gymnast leaning lifted into the air on strings, very crouching tiger, very Wusha film style.
Mm hmm.
He then flew ran a lap atop of the rim of the stadium before lighting the cauldron, and then that itself traveled throm and lit the cauldron that was perched on I'm going to say the word rim one more time on the rim of the stadium. Leaning is sort of like the Michael Jordan of China. He has his own very popular clothing line. He's sort of like the symbolic Chinese athlete who was able to parlay that into a huge thriving apparel business.
Go off.
So we celebrate Leaning go off, Sir.
The ninety ninety six Atlanta Games, the greatest Muhammad Ali gets the honor of lighting the cauldron. That was a moment in time. And you know, of course we've got our key figures from the upcoming twenty twenty four Paris Games because you know, we have to always bring it back to Paris.
We always have to bring it back to Paris.
The flame arrived in France via boat across the Mediterranean Sea from Greece on May eighth.
The relay will span sixty eight days only on French territory. I think that's kind of she keep it in the borders.
Keep it within borders, keep it very French.
Sixty five territories involved, including six overseas Territory, Guadaloupe, French Guyana, Martinique, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and the Island of Reunion.
Hmmm. The relay will go more through more than four hundred cities. So are they going to get like all of France's best to like carry this? Like, are we gonna get some celebrity sightings.
We're gonna get Charlotte Gainsborg, We're gonna get Mari Uncle Tillard, We're gonna get Natalie Portman's children who grew up.
In Paris, Benjamin Milpier, ex husband, ex husband, you know they met doing Black Swan. That's right, that's just the Natalie Portman history. I'm made of that stuff. I'm just a peek behind the curtain. For all the Olympics facts. We need the Google doc that we use. But if you ask, like, what's the name of Natalie Portman's ex husband who she has French kids with, Benjamin miller Pier and they met during Black Swan, there you go, Natalie Hirschlog. Wow,
Natalie Hirschlog, that is her real last name. You know, I saw her once in a CVS tiny.
I saw her once smoking a cigarette outside of a Broadway theater tiny.
Were you seeing the same show as her?
No, she I think she was like in rehearsals and she was like out like this was like my first year in New York. This is like two thousand and eight. And I was like, oh my god, Natalie Portman. And then she did bring her kid to SNEL one time and we said hello, and she looked so normal style like I'm a mom my kid wants to come to SNL to see the musical guest.
She's very sweet.
I am excited to hear that. Oh she was so fish and she said high back. She said high back, and then that was like I didn't want to say anything else. I was just like kind of like, oh my god, Hello, she was like hi.
And then that was it. I was like, this is all that needs to have. Ben. I am truly startstrawing.
I've told you about when I was walking. I think I was walking remember that old when we were in NYU, there was that bar called Forum. Yeah, it was on like third ave. It was like a third ave in right by fourteenth or maybe like twelfth and third. I was walking by it one day and up you know how whenever they're shooting something in New York or wherever
they have those like posters up to prohibit parking. It was like, we are shooting a movie and I asked someone, I'm like, what are they shooting and they were like, oh, it's a new Natalie Portman movie.
Called Black Swan.
They were shooting the scene with Natalie and Mila with a then unknown Sebastian Stan.
Oh my god, it was.
Happening right in Forum. And then when I watched the movie later, I was like, oh my god, that is Forum.
What like the strobe lights kind of go crazy.
Yes, like, well now it's not there anymore at something else now. But at the time I was like, Wow, that really is that bar, And they really were shooting this scene that night. And it was around that time that I saw in the CVS two blocks away tiny as hell.
Well, let's hope that she gets to be one of the torch relad people.
Well, you know what's funny is it's like Black Swan, Like that is such an athletic thing she had to do to accomplish playing her role in that film. And I think that's really what brings it back to Paris. Absolutely, we have so many people that are not only working hard to make sure that their performance in the Athletic
Games and the Olympic Games themselves are on ten. But we've got people who are so dedicated to seeing this fire make its way all the way to the Olympic Games, still a light from its origin, and I think that is to be commended. And I think if we're going to give a gold, silver, and bronze medal today, we have to give the gold medal to everyone carrying the torch throughout history. Throughout history, if you carried the torch gold medal from.
Us except for the people who use their big lighters to light a sham flame.
Y'all don't get metal.
You should have just owned up.
To it and said, hey, I'm sorry, there was a literal thunderstorm happening and that's why they And imagine that the flame went out. Can we get the backup in? Can we fly in the backup? Simple as that. That is your job.
Who gets the silver metal here today?
Silver metal? I would say, I'm gonna give it to the continuity of the flame. The protocols that are put in place are really admirable. This is another testament to the human will, the collective human drive to preserve something something like the Olympic Flame. Humans can do amazing things when they come together and figure out a way to put meaning into something.
And that is what continuing the flame is all about.
Yeah, And speaking of perseverance and excellence, the Bronze Metal is going to fantasmic. Yes, it continues to push the boundaries of how much fire can be on water, how fun a show can be.
How much it can inspire Kathy Freeman.
I mean, let's just say that without Fantastic, we would have no Kathy Freeman lighting the water on fire.
I'm sorry.
And that's on period, and that's on truth, and that's on truth. Well, Matt, I've had such a wonderful time discussing the Olympic Flame with you.
I always have such an amazing time discussing anything with you. And this is a testament to the human spirit.
Absolutely.
I keep saying that, but I really am so inspired by the Olympics, and I talk about you know, they are an arena for all kinds of human history to happen. You have, you know, all the crazy conversations that I'm sorry to get political, that we have about trans athletes that's been happening in the at the Olympics since the early twentieth century. Like the Olympics are the place where all of this, where like humanity comes together. This is why I love the Olympics, honesties.
Though it's a place for legends, the legends is a place for legends. And you can watch every moment of the twenty twenty four Paris Olympics beginning July twenty sixth on NBC and Peacock And for the first time, you can stream the twenty twenty four Paris Games on the iHeartRadio app.
And we close every episode with that amazing Olympics melody.
Dude.
Wow.
If only podcast or a visual medium, you can see the plane. You know what, if you're at home listening flight something on fire and look at it. Thanks guys, talk to you next time.
Bye.