Digressions of a Dilettante

Digressions of a Dilettante
Vignettes of Inanity by Bud Hearn

Thursday, October 4, 2012

The Titans Tangle


It’s the event the world has been waiting for…the challenge match between two fierce titans. One, a pontificator of platitudinous innuendo and self-proclaimed, reigning Ruler of the Green Planet. And the other, The Sovereign, his stalking nemesis and best friend of billionaires.

The referee is the legendary Jimmy No Nonsense. He holds the PBS scepter and rule book. He has been tutored by fill-in NFL refs on how to give certitude to questionable calls.

The crowd is tense, warned that any show of emotion would incur the wrath of roving hall monitors brandishing black batons. The wall décor is a banner of the US Constitution. Tonight’s winner will be temporarily enshrouded in the banner and depart the ring to cheers, boos or hisses. The final matchup extravaganza is November 6th.

In the TV Land of Oz, fifty million political junkies surf for an entertainment fix. They’ll stumble on the spectacle. They’ll gape in stark horror and giddy amusement as the contestants rip, claw, gnash, thrash, pummel and flail one another with sharp barbs of statistical weapons and aspersions.

TV sets will hemorrhage blood as combatants bludgeon each other senseless with clubs fashioned with figments of The Truth. They will watch in amazement as the fighters repeatedly hurl insults and taunts like the clash of raging bulls in a Spanish bullpen.

The announcer breaks the tension and speaks. “In this corner, wearing a red tie, lurks the challenger, Morton Mittman, aka Mr. Plastic. His opponent, wearing a blue tie and a classic smirk, Blabber Barack.” The camera pans the ring. The crowd becomes restless. Two mahogany rostrums separate them. A coin is tossed. The Blabber wins and launches the first volley. With that, the match begins.

It’s a weak, glancing blow. Mostly hot air as it whizzed by the challenger’s pasted-on smile. Mr. Plastic does a head fake, dodges the blow. He counters quickly like a coiled cobra with a salvo of statistics. Blabber bounces from the ropes, comes back swinging like a teenage girl, beating the air with generic verbal assaults.

The ref calls time. The adversaries prepare for the next round. Mr. Plastic finds Blabber’s chink, pounds three quick body blows to the Master Manipulator. But he’s prepared this time, shoves some statistics of his own into the Mormon’s face. The ref marks down “Foul.” Seems the statistics were contrived fabrications.

The challenger is quick, pulls out five fingers and jabs them into the Harvard Hack’s ears in retaliation. Blabber stumbles, fends off the assaults with empty platitudes laced with ‘Uh’s” and rhetorical questions. A barrage of words without meanings spurt into thin air as he swings wildly, hitting nothing. And back and forth it goes.

Finally, the challenger senses his opponent’s weakness by the dismissive grins and condescending sneers. He seizes the moment and lands a punishing body blow that takes the final wind out of the dissembler. He then climbs on the podium, prepares for a full body slam to end this torturous punishment of the Union Lackey. He shouts as he lurches forward, “Keep your house, your plane…the facts are not yours to manipulate.” With that, he leaps, soars through the air, every hair in place. It’s an ugly conclusion.

Life demands closure. Tonight, facts overcome vacuous rhetoric, laying bare inane repetitious clichés. The Mormon is victorious over Muhammad. But it’s not over. There’s another winner-take-all contest coming up… for the big money.

Tonight reminds me of the Saturday night WWF wrestling matches of the 60's and 70’s. We’d sit in front of the TV and marvel at the brutal treatment meted out on a canvas mat. Andre the Giant, the Behemoth, rips Gorilla Monsoon apart. Killer Kowalski, the most feared wrestler ever, claws the stomach out of Haystacks Calhoun, a 600 pound block of granite. Stone Cold Steve Austin and tag-team partner Hulk Hogan brutalize Bruno Samartino and Gorgeous George. And on and on the list goes.

Little did we know then it was all choreographed, a Hollywood version of mayhem. A chimerical make-believe, a good way to down a few beers and pass a boring Saturday night. And even when we discovered the reality, like Santa Claus, we still believed!

There are a couple more debates, uh, matches, coming up. The next one will be a tag-team comedy event, featuring Bite The Tongue Biden versus Ryan, The Raging Accountant. Stock up on beer for the show.

I don’t know about anybody else, but a few punches would have improved the carnival. Perhaps duels are better ways to resolve issues. Just saying…..

Bud Hearn
October 4, 2012

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