Or - we could actually flip that script in hopes of witnessing something
different. Twisted. Unusual. Unprecedented and unreal. Something with
frightening flare, balls and style.
Change.
Right now, I'm as unmoved by change as Sam Cook was about singing to it.
However, in the midst of my fluctuating pretentiousness triggered by a
confluence of current events, I'll admit my eyes blinked twice to the flash
of that Senator cat from the snowy, Canadian breakaway Republic known as
Vermont. That was tight - I'm feeling it, because …
Lately, I haven't been much about change. I'm busy bracing for bowel ripping
rage if 6 foot Philadelphia phenom Allen Iverson can't fix his cracked
tailbone and carry my home team to inevitable annihilation in a Kobe Bryant,
Shaquille O'Neal dominated final. But - AT LEAST I can say we got there.
Change? Man, change is that trash-strewn East Coast Gotham everybody slept
on making its first NBA Eastern Conference showdown since '88. The City of
Brotherly Love as social icon, a delightful urban Oz of furious, hostile
contradictions driven by hardened public servants; infamously brutal municip
al police, yet bass dropping hip hop innovation and delicious,
artery-clogging cheesesteaks. That's change. Yet, as fate would have it,
Milwaukee - of all truly tasteless jokes - may make its way to the matchup
with L.A. That wasn't the plan.
Neither was Jeffords. It was his supposedly decisive rhubarb stripped of
conventional political logic and welded in attitude that provided the
schismatic and theatrical spat against the "Establishment." His appalling
flirt then marriage with independence will now remain the discordant mantra
amongst the quarrelsome partisans, pundits and pontificators holding
conversations already scrapped and meaningless before the rest of us even
care ...
I'm not saying we shouldn't. Yet, we get pushed to disillusionment through a
meat-grinding mind-blow of rhetorical tiff, endless rebuttal and raunchy
squabbles we did not elect our public servants to engage in. Breaking his
lone, moderate and straight shooting straw over Bush Junior's back, Jim
Jeffords says "bump that" and knocked a fresh dent in the cycle. And while
point is soundly made, it will be short-lived as the political Matrix of
campaigns, elections, pork and corruption persist, short of national
implosion and social upheaval once it hits too many paychecks.
I'll walk the verbal plank and risk announcing a useless recommendation for
Jeffords as Commander-in-Chief. In him, I see what us stressed,
money-drained, credit-crippled and cardiac-arrested souls would love to
occasionally scream on any given commute: screw the status quo. 76ers coach
Larry Brown keeps that same faith, so we nominate him as Jeffords' running
mate. He pokes a symbolic middle finger in nonchalant disgust, sizing up
convention in ghetto defiance. While the NBA crowns him coach of the year,
Brown snorts, scoffs, smirks and rattles the purveyors of corporate
permanence: "I don't care about that stuff."
Reflecting upon a swelling surge in registered Independents, Jeffords
possibly drew identical conclusions. What is "stuff?" Without going into
the word devouring details, "stuff" is the crack of acceptance, the
aphrodisiac of circumstantial denial compounded by the expectation of
thorough social or institutional conditioning. In Jim Jeffords' case, he
grew skeptical of the party line forcing him to resign his own conscience in
favor of a ruling conservative agenda. A tax cut was not as significant as
was the thought of what people would now have to adjust to in the face of
lost government revenue and drastically reduced spending on certain social
essentials. The $600 per citizen payoff rebate granted, in the meantime, will
ensure wool is thickly covering heads before our ears get cold, brittle and
frostbitten.
In strokes of casual, cool and contemplative disgust at the status quo, Jef
fords and Brown reached to the bottom of the mental stasis and stopped
scanning front pages for the next traded insult - they instead reclaimed
identity. Most will settle for tepid, game show dialogues and manage to
avoid the heavy truths that might hurt feelings, toss emotions into brick
walls and slam heads into stained teeth … although, this is sometimes
necessary to jolt the change needed. Vent the un-vented rage, yet remain
calm enough to discern right from wrong, truth from lie and let the rest of t
he world know.
It's not even that complicated, though. Each man has a job to do and feels
compelled, through honored contracts with either taxpayer or red-faced fan,
to honor it. Senator Jeffords grew weary of defending something he didn't
believe in because he saw, across the horizon, greater cobs of corn to shuck..
He became the most un-Republican Republican his right-washed Senate
colleagues could ever ask for. After a while it wears you out.
Coach Brown - the now frustrated and Bucks-beleaguered Philly Messiah - is
focused on one thing: the win. Win a Conference final, give his old college
try against the Lakers, motivate, save and turn a few young upstart players
into stars and maybe … just maybe … win a Championship or two along the way
before it's decided retirement on Chapel Hill is the appropriate and fitting
end. C.D. Ellison is Contributing Writer to Metro Connection. He can be reached
at againstthegrain@metroconnection.info. |