The inspiration can hardly be called provocative. Whatever.
I have a habit of watching Kansas City Chiefs games in a downtown St. Pete bar. The last couple of weeks, there has been an overload of 1 p.m. games, so that place has bumped the Chiefs in favor of more attractive games. Fine. So I've gone to a north St. Pete sports bar and had a dreadful time.
And today I figured it out. No, my poor mood had nothing to do with the shellacking endured by the Chiefs this afternoon. The clientele of the place creeped me out. A lot of yuppie pinhead types who couldn't even make decent conversation.
There's an etiquette to this sorta thing. You establish why you'd be so nutty as to be a Chiefs fan in Florida. Anyone who mentions Joe Montana is persona non grata. That's a given. Most of us had lived in the K.C. at some time, so we were cool there. Off and on, I've spent 12 of my 26 years within two hours of Kansas City. I remember the Paul Wiggin show. Enough said. My creds are solid.
"Hey, Criswell's having a hell of a game," I said to the woman sitting next ot me.
"Who?"
I knew then that I couldn't give a specific position. So I went with "Offensive lineman."
"Oh," she said. "I only watch Marcus Allen."
Hey, Marcus is one of my favorite players too, but watching the Chiefs just to watch Marcus Allen is like watching A Time to Kill just for Sandra Bullock. He's a featured performer, but his screen time is limited.
Anyway, I figured out that these people weren't passionate fans, like the folks downtown. They were watching the Chiefs as a pastime, nothing more.
As we didn't have any other points of reference, I found these people dull. Their lives and philosophies were insipid. And I couldn't wait to take off.
This insight finally explained to me why I just can't stand hanging out with most of my wife's coworkers at the St. Pete Times. They all have college educations. Most of them have backgrounds similar to mine, and generally seem like folks I should dig.
But they're really dull.
This dullness is a result of living completely inside their lives. Like the pinheads up north, my wife's co-workers aren't interested in much outside of work and homelife. I generally try to engage people in philosophical battles when I meet them. It's a strange habit, but I like to challenge people and see how they react. These folks don't care about what they believe, much less what I think. They have no passion, nothing that binds them to the world outside.
Everyone and their dog chastised David Brinkley for calling President Clinton a goddamned bore. And under heavy pressure, he apologized, not for saying "goddamn", but for calling the President a bore.
Why? Brinkley is right. Clinton has been a bore, and I say this even though I voted for him. The guy needs to get a little more rambunctious and, dare I say, passionate. If he could give just one speech like the one Michael Douglass gives at the end of the American President, I'd be thrilled.
But most people are too worried about big brother. Whether this is related to their boss, their parents or the government, people worry away their passions. People go to Vegas or the Seminole Gaming Palace to get a thrill, a sense of living on the edge that can come with passion, but refuse to actually take a stand.
I've heard the philosophy that passion is for the young. The old understand that nothing can really be changed, and that we're all better off just being comfortable. Well, I didn't get raised that way. My mom went to the UN Women's Conference in Beijing and is now helping to run a food and clothes bank. My dad's a historian, and in his work he tries to show how individual people can make a difference.
All it takes is belief in yourself. Anything can happen once that takes hold.
Actually believing in something. A truly novel concept.
Jon Worley is bound and determined to change the course of history. His next big plan involves contaminating all Anheuser-Busch products with a drug that encourages homosexual tendencies.