“His arm shall be cut off like that of this bull, his neck shall be twisted off like that of a bird, his office shall not exist, the position of his son shall not exist, his house shall not exist in Nubia, his tomb shall not exist in the necropolis, his god shall not accept his white bread, his flesh shall belong to the fire, his children shall belong to the fire, his corpse shall not be to the ground, I shall be against him as a crocodile on the water, as a serpent on earth, and as an enemy in the necropolis.”
— Ancient Egyptian Curse
No posts for a long time. That’s because I didn’t want to curse my Red Wings in the first round of the playoffs, I was writing about the Raptors in an actual print publication and the Obama-Clinton nastiness has degenerated to the level where trying to thoughtfully comment about the complex primary battle and the manner in which the media is covering it would end with a headache, a broken laptop and several things thrown angrily across the room.
But I’m going to try anyway. From work. Where any damage resulting from the effort will be the company’s problem. And where I have several stress balls on my desk to squeeze mercilessly as I try to make sense of this bullshit.
So yeah … the primary “contest”. What the fuck can I say? I just spent 30 seconds wondering how best to express how I honestly feel about the whole process and all I could come up with was writing an entire paragraph consisting only of the strangest ancient curses I could find with the power of the internet. Instead, I’ll just pepper the post with a few of the more appropriate ones.
“May you live in interesting times,” is supposed to be both blessing and curse, and it may or may not be ancient, but seems more and more like a curse in these days.
It is interesting, and fascinating, and depressing, to watch the American media become the ultimate in sports broadcasters, rooting for the underdog until the underdog shows signs of victory, then vacillating as quickly as possible back to rooting for the team that was originally the favourite.
If you watched any hockey this spring, you would have noticed this in both the Red Wings-Predators and Habs-Bruins series. Both the Wings and Habs looked dominant out of the gate, forcing announcers to talk about what would happen if the Preds or Bruins could just “start playing with energy”, “start knocking some bodies around” or “just get pucks to the net.”
When both teams did this, the announcers lovingly preached about how the undertalented but rich-in-gumption underdogs really had a shot to win the series; Pierre McGuire on NBC screamed “Welcome to Smashville!” as loud as his douchey little voice could scream, trying to will the Predators to a Game 6 victory over the Wings.
It didn’t happen. And at the end of the series, McGuire was once again using his annoying voice to stroke the egos of the Red Wings, calling them “the most skilled team in hockey”. Likewise, when the Canadiens jumped out to a big lead on the Bruins in Game 7, the CBC spent the rest of the broadcast gargling on Carey Price’s cock, despite the fact that he’d allowed 5 goals in each of games 5 and 6.
This is all well and good in playoff hockey. You’re trying to entertain the fans by giving the impression of either a) a hotly-contested game that could go either way at any moment and is therefore Exciting and Worthy Of Attention or b) a team that is So Dominant You Have To Watch Them Play All The Time (see; Patriots, New England).
In politics however, it’s … well … it’s something. It’s not journalism, in any real sense of the word … but it’s something.
It’s something that has influenced the pitch and tone of this contest to the point where both Clinton and Obama (as well as Senator McCain) appeared on WWE Wrestling the night before the Penn. primary, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It was just another night on the stump, with a few borrowed catchphrases to mark the occasion:
(It was almost worth it for the “If you smell…”, but I digress)
The point is that I am almost at a loss for words. That’s astounding to me. I like words. They’re a comforting blanket that I wrap myself in when the big world confuses me. They’re weapons I resort to when I’m angry. They’re friends I visit when I have free time.
And this nomination battle has left me with nothing to do but spill them like wasted seed upon the ground in the biblical sense. Masturbation, by the way, is an incredibly apt metaphor for the media coverage of this whole mess.
So here’s what I got. Six sentences that will hopefully sum up the whole thing:
Barack Obama has a nearly insurmountable lead. Hillary Clinton is still in the race. There are four months to go before the convention. It would be nearly impossible for her to make up enough ground. Therefore, she is up to something. This scares me.
… and that’s all I got. I want to bury my head in the sand until something happens one way or the other. Then I will have thousands of words. More than anyone wants to read, I am sure.
Until then though, it’s just too depressing, so I’m taking comfort in games that have rules that are followed, announcers that are irrelevant and fans that (for the most part) can cheer and boo without resorting to veiled racism and sexism.
It’s truly disgusting that this nomination battle has gotten so pointless that a blog called “Dirty Games” is shying away from writing anything about it. I feel like I should punch myself in the face for belonging to the media guild. If I were an American journalist I would be screaming my head off, nobody would be listening to me, I would be blogging about it on the sly with lots of curse words (and real biblical-type curses, which are good for expressing rage!), I would be found out and then I would be fired — for writing about politics in a straightforward manner. That’s exactly what would happen.
I just popped a stress ball thinking about it. God, I would be so emo right now if I was an American journalist. Instead I get to be all preachy and analytical about it. I get to listen to Tool and look up ancient curses and whinge about my nutless American contemporaries who are doing nothing but rooting for a close game, a big ratings boost and a hole full of fresh mud and cowshit to sling. They’re not reporting; they’re calling the game. And like Bob Cole on a bad day, they’re missing all the penalties. It is, frankly, disgusting.
“His office shall be taken away before his face and it shall be given to a man who is his enemy.
His wife shall be taken away before his face.
His face shall be spat at.
A donkey shall violate him, a donkey shall violate his wife.”
— More Egyptian Curses (I might have to make up some of my own)
But it is what it is. I think we should all just ignore it until Clinton’s campaign peters out. All this attention only encourages her.
Fuck it. I’m done. Stick around for the sports writing if you want. Come back on May 7th if you’re just here for the politics. Unless Obama does porn or Clinton uses the N-word, I’m out of this filty billshit until then.
