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Monday, October 29, 2007
The New American
Way
Sweeps
are cool.
AMERICAN PASTIME. According to some, Boston is the birthplace of America. It's where they had that big tea party the Brits weren't invited to, because if you're invited to a tea party in Boston you'd better be somebody important like a Kennedy or a Kerry or some other rich immigrant from lowlifeland who has more money than God and therefore knows how the rest of us poor schlubs should live.
There are no accidents. There's only an endless chain of symbolic events. The World Series and the unfolding season of the New England Patriots demark a New American Way consistent with the the most ancient traditions of a city which always turned up its nose at common virtues like hard work, quiet accomplishment, and unassuming perseverance. In Boston, life comes down to the simple question of who's better than everyone else and who can send the strongest and most ineluctable message about that betterness to the hoi polloi.
That's why the new American Way is about sweeps. Win fast or don't play at all. Yes, you can toy with the real losers -- like anybody from Cleveland -- but there isn't anybody who doesn't know you were better than them before the competition even got started. When the chips are finally on the table, you've got to win, win, win, win or else the trogs will suspect you're not divine. Maybe not the trogs of the mass media, who always knew you were divine and rooted for you shamelessly throughout, but definitely the trogs who have been taught to quit as soon as their celebrity faves begin to sweat with something like effort.
They need the Sox to sweep and the Patriots to go undefeated. Because in the New American Way, what's most important is trusting the better ones to ride herd on the ordinary ones through a display of raw talent, the rawer the better. Raw talent always seems democratic, even when it's anything but. That's always been the Boston Way.. Thank goodness it's finally infiltrating the rest of the country.
The New American Hero. Slob Appeal.
Utopia has been achieved when the ordinary folk begin to believe they can identify with raw talent by imitating the raw part. We're there. Now that we have slob superheroes, you too can be a superhero simply by being a slob. The winning part is easy. That's why they call it a sweep. And if anyone can see you sweat, it's time to bug out and find a new venue better made for slobs.
Long live the Red Jax.
