Cascading in Blue Without a Sound

Preface:  This is an old blog posted on facebook.  I just wanted to post it so that any readers that may stumble upon this who do not know me can get to know me as both a person and a writer.  Enjoy!

So much to talk about... So little time to talk about it...

Basically, there are 5 things that I want to talk about.

1. My Pacers
2. How much I've genuinely missed Indy
3. How thankful I am for everything and everyone in my life
4. How genuinely disappointed I am in myself
5. My existence's disparity towards its representation

Honestly, I can't bring myself to write an intelligible note about any of the above right now, but I just want to hit a couple high notes really quickly...

I am the Indiana Pacers. I am sloppy, unorganized, and right now, I'm nowhere near achieving full potential. I feel like I don't have much direction at this point. Honestly, I'm ashamed of myself. Just as every Pacers fan out there laments about what would happen "if Reggie were here," I tend to lament over similar hypotheticals. I feel like every failure that I've encountered over the past few years is a direct representation of my value, but is that the case? At the end of the season, it doesn't matter how hard you worked or how entertaining you make the games if you are a sub-.500 team. Similarly, I've worked my ass off recently. I've overstretched myself to the point of mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion, and what do I have to show for it? If the semester ended today, I'd have a sub-3.3 to show for it. Sure, in the process I've led a retreat, made people laugh, ushered at IU Auditorium, and never got one day of vacation until Wednesday, but that's irrelevant. I feel like I've failed in several aspects of my life. Those failures, or "losses" if you will, have not been major. In every case they've been close calls, and my victories have been by huge margins, but in the long run, basketball isn't cumulative and many aspects of life aren't either. One thing that I have to ask, however, is where is my inner-Reggie? What happened to my fiery, finesse side? Without that closer, I'm destined to fall short in a lot of aspects of my life. I guess there's one major point college is trying to get across to me: No one can be good at everything.

So I've covered 1, 4, and 5... Now for 2 and 3...

Well I guess the entire point I'm trying to make here is that I feel like I'm starting to figure out where I belong in life, and that place is Indianapolis. The more time I spend away, the more I realize exactly where I belong. Don't get me wrong, I'm not joining the Great Rebel Migration back to Indianapolis schools, but I do know where I'm moving the day I graduate. I love Bloomington, and I'm sure that the more time I spend there, the more it will feel like home to me, but the one thing that has trumped every great feeling towards B-Town is my feeling of love towards my hometown. Put simply, I feel God calling me to do great things in the 12th largest city in the US, my beloved hometown. Indiana is home of the giants. Reggie and Peyton played here, Larry and The Big O were raised here. Helio and the Andrettis made their names here. Gretsky and Randy Johnson got their starts here. Why is it that among all these giants, there has not been one notable political giant?

Because we've never needed one until now...

Suddenly the CIB has successfully bankrupted the city, the Pacers and Fever are out of money, just when you think they've out-worst themselves, IPS has reached an all-time low, our homeless rate is through the roof, and on top of that, the temperamental voters of Marian County boot anyone who tries to address the issue, preferring the dumb-as-you-wanna-be, wait and see approach of Greg "Had Enough" Ballard. Bottom line, Indianapolis needs three things in a leader...

1. A disciplined straight-shooter.
I'm done with this notion that appeasing the voting populace is a politician's job. Just because you voted for them doesn't mean you get to choose their actions. You elected them to lead you, not to be the puppet of the people. Give the government some credit, people. The founders made it a Republic for a reason. We need a leader with the balls to do what's right for the city, not his reelection campaign. We need someone who can be honest enough to not sugar-coat the pile of shit that has been dumped on the greatest city in the nation. We need someone who can address an issue, because if you can't address an issue, how can we ever expect to fix it?

2. A daddy.
If we want to make the next step in fixing Indy, we need more than a mayor, we need a father figure. Let's face it, if we want to fix the problem, we'll have to deal with some tax hikes. We're all going to need to make sacrifices, and that's never easy, but it's well worth it. Priority number one needs to be our youth. Right now, the disparity in reading levels in Carmel to IPS is sickening. When graduation rates in IPS are in the teens, we have major issues. Some may argue that IPS has been improving because they've skewed the data to favor Dr. White, but the truth is that we need a complete overhaul of the entire system. This is rough, but the only way that we can make it through such a transition is if we have a daddy with us, letting us know it's all going to be okay. We need someone we can trust to fix it, not just put a band aid on it.

3. A little bit of insanity.
We need someone that can stand up for Indy on all levels, and with how much our political system gets bullied around here, we need someone who isn't afraid to ruffle some feathers and embarrass a few people. For lack of a better term, we need a glorified badass. All the greatest Hoosier heroes are a little crazy, from Milan to Bloomington to Indianapolis. We need someone who can completely reform our educational and capital financial structures and then embrace the national spotlight and the scrutiny that will invariably come with that. We need someone who understands what we face here. We don't face a battle between school districts for test scores... What we face is the next great frontier in the civil rights movement. Dr. King had a dream, but his dream wasn't for minorities to be the majority of the impoverished. Say what you will about Affirmative Action, but we are yet to reach a day when equal rights are possible. Giving minorities an edge in college applications and employment opportunities is nowhere near what we need right now, what we need is for minorities to be on a level playing field at the BEGINNING of their education so they don't need an advantage later in life. Speaking as a middle class white male, we need to step up and make sure that America is what our founders dreamed, a land of opportunity. This opportunity should know no bounds or limits. (And to the middle class white people bitching about how you "earned" your money and it shouldn't go to "lazy welfare queens" aka the nation's poor, get the fuck over it. You had a 200 year head start in this nation, and your ancestors didn't earn shit, they stole it. In the words of everyone's favorite 90's TV show, "Life's tough, get a helmet")

Well, I just realized that a note this long published at 2 AM will yield absolutely zero readers, so I guess now's the time for me to wrap up by letting you all know that I love you ridiculous amounts and my break has been amazing. You all are fantastic, and if you're still reading this, thanks for being a trooper! I hope to elaborate more fully on Indy politics at some other time... Live hard, laugh harder.