March 29, 2006
Wow.
Talk about clichés.
Okay, let’s talk about clichés.
When it is impossible to avoid cliché (because usually you want to do anything you can to avoid cliché, unless you don’t know better, in which case you may be a cliché without ever knowing it and ignorance, of course, is bliss), you are usually in that rare territory that transcends cliché, a place that obviates cliché, you are experiencing something bordering on sublime, the type of feeling that compels forced and fake imitation. In other words, cliché.
So how to talk about GMU’s improbable (impossible? inconceivable?) run to the final four. Can there be occasions that are so cliché that they get beyond cliché, exploding cliché, requiring a reevaluation of how clichés are classified and what they are capable of inspiring?
Enough.
Let’s put it another way: the GMU Patriots are in the fucking FINAL FOUR!If you watch college basketball, you love this story; if you watch sports you love this story. If you don’t love sports, that’s okay, you can get behind the underdog. If you don’t love underdogs then you are a Republican. Actually that is not right. Republicans (the politicos in particular and not the simpletons who support them) love this story—fantasize about it, in fact—because it is the one in a trillion type fairy tale that gives them the opportunity to pretend that the distressing majority of events are, of course, owned or co-opted or created by the unimaginably wealthy who are too powerful to need imaginations. (Indeed, I’m not entirely unconvinced that this entire GMU turn of events is not some elaborate scam engineered in the brilliant rat brain of Karl Rove in an attempt to deflect attention from Bush’s spiraling approval ratings…if I take this nightmare scenario to its illogical conclusion, the Patriots pull off the most unlikely of all wins Monday night, and inexplicably call me up to the podium—because, naturally, if it’s bizarro world, I’m there, and courtside—and as I step foot on stage and reach for the trophy, Tony Skinn rips off his mask to reveal that he is actually Dick Cheney, who proceeds to punch me in the balls…)
But seriously, this is too serious to make light of, and it truly transcends politics. And sports. And what can (and should) usually be shrugged off as the sophomoric rituals of collegiate competition. This is the real deal. Even if you are not an alumnus the bandwagon is big enough: hop on and enjoy this ride.
