2002-02-04 - 3:25 p.m.
I like going around yelling.... PATRIOTS WIN! THE PATRIOTS WIN at local Dunkin Donuts. It's like a little New England bonding thing. And honestly. It really was an incredible game to watch. Hands-down. There's no better excitement than the massive underdog winning 20-17 in the last seconds with a 48-yard field goal.
The whole idea though of equating patriotism with football. Ouch. Sometimes you really want something to just be a game. You really do. As much as I was touched by the Budweiser Clydesdales commerical. As much as I sit there and just *bawled* at it. And turned to ask the Girl if Bud made any good beer that we could purchase. As much as I thought it was well done. As much as all that... I just wanted it to be a game. I didn't want the Bono overtones. I didn't want the names of dead people scrolling. I didn't want horses bowing to my wounded city. And maybe there's something I'm just not getting here and maybe it would be much much worse to pretend it didn't happen. And maybe PartyGirl got it right in her really well-done entry today.
But sometimes you just want your Super Bowl to be about the Super Bowl. Sometimes you just want that distraction and not. Not a hoopla? Over patriotism.
I keep thinking I'm missing something about what patriotism is about. Maybe it really is about hoopla and making a show. Maybe I forget what it's really about. Maybe I really am an idealist and keep silently screaming, "POWER TO THE PEOPLE" and mouthing the words of Langston Hughes poems in some attempt to make someone, somewhere hear them. This land is your land. This land is my land. I keep thinking I'm missing something about what patriotism is all about. I like it here. I like living here. I like the common-ness of it. The comfortable-ness of it. I like what it's supposed to be. I like that. i don't know. I just keep mouthing Langson Hughes poems. Trying to find something in bowing horses that I keep missing.
Good god. When did bowing horses come to be a symbol of deep-felt grief and pain? When did that happen? When did we allow our voices to be so silenced by corporate branding? When did we let our grief be overtaken by a chance to feel good about beer? Can't we let our voices speak any more? Why can't we tell our pain? I don't remember how we got here. I'm not sure how any of got here. I forget when it became so that we no longer mouth the words our poets to one another. And instead we look to bowing horses to express our pain.
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed -
I, too, am America.
- Langston Hughes, 1925
