Making It Up As I Go Along #247

MONDAY…
--- Little bit annoying/tough day at work.
--- It’s Melissa and visitors for lunch prior to work.
--- Me falling asleep on the sofa after I get home.

TUESDAY…
--- Busy night with trouble with the computer system.
--- Chinese food with Megan and Laura is a good break though.
--- Tom Waits is on the Daily Show tonight and man… that guy commands attention when he sings.

WEDNESDAY…
--- Crazy day. Starts nice enough with office bowling. My team has Melissa, Megan, Laura and I on it and it’s fun with that group.
--- Work is pretty insane afterwards. System troubles to fix up… helping workers… just lots of craziness.

THURSDAY…
--- Another busy day at work. Lots of work getting things ready for temporary employees to apply for other jobs.
--- After being friends for almost a year and a half, I find out I’ve been pronouncing Laura’s last name wrong. Everyone at work has been. She just let it go. Craziness.

FRIDAY…
--- Tough day with pre work stuff that is stressful and wearing on the nerves. And then work starts with a bang as well. Supper at the officer’s mess for the staff Christmas supper. I sit with Laura, Megan, Melissa, Janice and Phil and that’s good… but I’m too worn out to have any real input into the evening.
--- Home a bit early and it’s time to decompress from a tough week.

SATURDAY…
--- With little sleep last night, I go lazy around the house today. I need it anyway… feeling pretty worn out from the last week or so.
--- Liberal convention stuff is odd at times and mildly entertaining. Stephane Dion is fine by me as the winner.


A very busy week keeps me away from the story for update #246. There was just no good time to sit and come up with anything. Actually, I think it’s the busiest week I’ve had since 1998… when I was finishing up my university degree.

Anyway…

Stanley Cup for Geeks

After a week that smacked me around and left me bruised and battered mentally, I was in hide away mood Saturday. The curtains didn’t even open, I was able to figure the weather outside based on hearing some wind against the windows and seeing some brightness against the kitchen blinds late in the day.

So on hide away day, the TV is on from 9:00 AM to midnight… and much of the watching is of the Liberal leadership convention.

Politics is a bizarre field to study. Not necessarily the issues behind the politics but the human element of it all. Seeing the people drawn in to the production of it all is what’s fascinating.

And, after watching a dozen of hours of the Liberal game, here’s my conclusion... democratic nations are run by dorks!

That’s right, the people in political power are largely the same people that were beat up and wedgied in high school. And the delegates who vote for the leaders on a day like Saturday are the biggest set of dorks and nerds in society today. They’re stuck in this frantic bubble of flash. For many of the 4500 people in attendance, this is the Stanley Cup… the World Series… Woodstock… Live Aid. It’s their moment to be a part of a group that ‘makes a difference’ and they go wild in nerdish, dorky delight.

What makes them this way? Let’s observe examples shall we…

Straw hats. Even the commentators made a joke of straw hats. Those cheap hats with “liberal” written on them (although they could have any political slogan taking the place of that moniker). And I thought “no, surly people don’t still wear those hats.”

Not ten minutes later there’s some dishevelled old man with a straw hat perched atop his head. In fact, this seems to be a man of straw. His beard is bristles of an old style curling brush and the bits of hair poking out from under his lid is that of the common kitchen broom variety. It appears that this guy was pulled in from off the street to be given a cup of coffee and a bit to eat prior to being deposited back on a nearby street corner. He doesn’t even appear to be aware of what’s going on around him.

Spin is another topic even the TV commentators joke of. How every supporter spin the situation to make things sound just peachy. Every candidate is being made out to be the next Pierre Trudeau or John F. Kennedy. And after every vote, even the candidate near the bottom of the popularity has loyal followers touting how “this is where we want to be”… “We’re building momentum”.

Some of this isn’t even spin. Some of it is just bold faced lies. Nobody got on camera, during the entire twelve hours of live broadcasting, and said “This doesn’t look good, I think we’ll lose.”

And for some, it seems like they’re drinking the kool-aid of a cult leader. They’re blindsided by defeat even though the rest of us are seeing it come some six hours before it got there.

It got me thinking… who are these people trying to convince anyway? Everyone able to vote for this show is already right there. As far as the TV audience goes, they could tell the cameras the absolute truth and it won’t make any difference. A supporter can say that their candidate will lose and the vote will remain the same as when they proclaim to the nation that their man will lead the free world. I have no 1-900 number to call. I can’t get my friends to call either. There’s no internet site to point and click for my choice. They’re in their bubble with all the power to decide the turnout, and they’re trying to convince us of something other than reality.

And so I continue to watch the insanity, wondering more and more about this question. Who are they trying to convince? Why do they bother to do this? I’m looking at seas of signs with candidate names on them as they bounce along the auditorium floor almost like living bits of cardboard that dance across human heads. And I wonder “Why?” There could be 4000 signs with one candidate’s name floating through the throngs but, when it comes time to vote, any of these sign holders could punch any other name they wish. It’s not like it’s a sign counting democracy we’re in.

Then there’s the prop to prove anyone’s inclusion in the world of fanatic dork. That invention brought to us through Japanese baseball. I speak, of course, about Thunder Sticks!!!

For those who never knew their name or where they came from, Thunder Sticks are those inflatable contraptions that look like a creation of a really bored clown at a kid’s birthday party. Giraffe? Horsey? No kid, you don’t want that… here’s an inflatable 2x4! Actually, here… take another and have some fun.

That’s Thunder Sticks. Two inflatable 2x4’s that the fanatic will pound together. It has taken the place of the normal human ritual of applause. For the dork, hands just won’t do, you have to slap together inflated plastic to show your support. This began in Japanese baseball. Fans throughout Japanese stadiums would eat their sushi and slam their Thunder Sticks.

The sushi failed to make it to North American sports facilities (unless you have seats in a luxury box) but the Thunder Sticks came in hoards and all over North American sports facilities, annoying Thunder Sticks became the rage.

That rage has died down in sports. Only the desperate franchise, looking to latch on to a fade a few years too late, break them out. But the dorks in politics have found a whole new level of ‘cool’!

I picture them now, prior to the convention, digging through their closet for the straw hat while yelling to the wife asking “where’d you put my Thunder Sticks???” The horror.

The press get caught up in the dorky fanaticism. For the first few hours, they aren’t too bad but… by hour four… you’re clinging to every reaction and looking for gold on film. A candidate gets up to go to the bathroom and a dozen camera people jump up, flick on the lights, and run to cut him off. Microphone yielding reporters are trampled as they try to extend their arm far enough to get a snippet of political thought from a guy who needs to drain the kidneys. This is, after all, important stuff.

And no discussion of political dorkiness would be complete without mention of the music.

A political convention is a time warp to a 1980s concert of all the worst musical acts together on one stage… on one night. The delegates dance and clap, completely out of sequence, to the most horrid collection of tunes a music lover could ever hear. But they love it. It’s like they’ve returned to their teenage years when they got their first kiss in the middle of a Journey concert. Or maybe Starship… or the worst moments of Fleetwood Mac. But even though their minds take the geeks back, we at home get to watch forty-five year old, delusional, straw hat covered twits as they put down their Thunder Sticks long enough to do some out of time jig to Mambo #5! Now I tell you people… that truly is horror.

And, in closing, what in the name of God is up with the thumbs? An enthusiastic thumbs up to anything went out the day after Happy Days was taken off the air. Maybe if you review movies, you can give a very easy going and slow paced thumbs up… maybe. But if you’re a political person of any kind, and you have some insane grin plastered to your face with a straw hat perched atop your skull… for the love of all that you find holy!... keep your hands in your pockets! Some spastic thumbs up to show how all is wonderful in your world is the greatest tip off to the rest of the world that… you are very much insane.

Yes indeed. After twelve hours of watching the Liberal Leadership convention, I have come to the conclusion that democracies the world over are run by crazy dorks. And after watching his candidate win, last night some guy named Eugene, skipped home, gave passing cars an enthusiastic thumbs up, and lost his straw hat in the wind. But he didn’t even mind much cause when he gets home, his mom will make him some hot coco and he’ll retire downstairs to his basement apartment, having won his Stanley Cup. And forty-five year old Eugene will drift off to sleep with a smile on his face and the tune of Mambo #5 racing through his head.