Is anyone really extraordinary? Aside from our closest of kin, who play such instrumental roles in our daily lives, it seems like every other outward human act has been cheapened and overplayed in our world.

On a local scale, the children inside our formative schools are given lavish praise (and the accompanying bumper stickers) for average schoolwork. They are held back from dodgeball but never ‘held back’ a grade. Don’t fuck with our kids’ self-esteem the parents cry. It’s all they have in the world.

Just the same, everyone has an old teacher or an old coach that would swear to this day that their old star was the most gifted human on Earth. If the Earth is the size of your zip code that is. And we are all just as guilty, the once star pupils, who over a glass of wine or beer couldn’t think of anything more exciting to discuss than our accomplishments in the glory days. “Well yes, friend, that is interesting. But you don’t understand, I was awesome. We did it different where I came from. Let me tell it . . .”

In grander settings reside the men and women who live inside our TV sets, laptops, cell phones, movies and newspapers. Aren’t they extraordinary? I’m beginning to question that more than ever. (Okay, I almost always have. But you’d have to be pretty stupid to not do so now.) With the vigilant media chasing them (read: $$), scandals of cheats and drug users and greedy businessmen are told to America every day.

There’s no shield to hide the ordinary behind anymore, and the self-esteem props only saturate the problem. The visibly ordinary continue to try to fool you into seeing them as extraordinary. The supposedly extraordinary are scrambling to find the vanished shield that once protected the humanness of legends past.

A little more closely I flow . . .

Politics/History.
No space beyond this sentence will be wasted here talking about the foot-tapping senator or BJ Clinton, but you can think about that as part of it. I’m more inclined to discuss the lavish praise placed on contemporary golden boy Barack Obama. I’ve loved the guy from the moment I knew he might run in ‘08, not because of what he might put together in his campaign for policy change but moreso because his election would be a symbolic step for America to me. Since last week’s Iowa caucus, pundits have been praising his speech that night as something of legend. A speech of quality and hope most recently paralleled by a man named King.

I watched that speech and I though it was nice. But it didn’t strike me as anything extraordinary. Am I the one that is numb or does this indifference affect more people? I have an Obama t-shirt in my closet. I’ve never voted but I’ll go stand in line with all those stinky old people in November and pencil him in. I am a fanboy. But he simply sounded like a smart dude who was feeding a bunch of poetic bullshit to the TV cameras. I didn’t hear change in those words. I heard what I expected to hear. Nothing more.

What about the sultans of history, their accomplishments and legacies so often debunked by modern scholars? I think most of us have become aware that the lovey-dovey recounts of American history taught to us in our formative years omit quite a bit of the story. Interesting to consider.

Sports.
Mr. Cratchit we’re going to need more coal for the fire. 3 things here - Obviously steroids is a big speakeasy topic these days. Every record since I was 7 years old in baseball and football seems tainted. These aren’t extraordinary men and heroes to young and old, not completely. They are talented people with some distinctly unnatural advantages. I mean, I don’t really care if they take steroids or not but it does make that hypothetical young lad from 1948, sitting in the stands cheering on Musial or DiMaggio seem lucky. Those athletes could seemingly be special all on their own, without the cloud of drugs hanging over their games and leagues.

Also, if you tune to a lovely American football match in this day you should be prepared to be inundated with hyped up (roid breakfast + disillusioned coach pep talks), uber dudes that upon breaking up a pass, tackling someone in the 1st quarter, or running 2 yards into the end zone untouched will break out in incessant chest bumping and theatrics which may or may not have included a rehearsal. They know they are on TV. Yeah, over 100,000 people have made that same play in the last 30 years (no joke) but they are on top of the world. Ordinary, no sir. They will be trying to get laid off that one play starting tonight and riding that shit out til 2038.

On a somewhat different note, the pervasiveness of corporate interests and advertising in sports makes the experience less special and less something the fan can consider their own. It can be subtle, like with the ads out in right field or along the dasher boards, or it can be ear-ringingly annoying like the sponsorship of the stadiums and bowls or the pop music at every whistle. We’re always reminded it’s a business, not a fairly land of heroes and battles.

Reality TV and UGC. Hell, this blog.
Everyone wants to be a star (gotta get back to the glory days with old teach/coach). Lately, people get to be on television and feel like they are just that. They chase it. They watch it. On the internet, we can upload amateur videos, which don’t even have to be pornographic anymore, for a chance at recognition. The internet makes celebrities. I’ve seen some of their names. Bloggers. The headline game. It’s tiring . . .

Fin.
My attention span is waning at present, but this seemed relevant. I think there’s a lot more to this discussion. On the more playful end are things like Girls Gone Wild, Guitar Hero / Rock Band, iPods, ringtones. The things that make us feel extraordinary but in reality are anything but. Religion. Sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll? It’ll take a lifetime to ponder it all. Meet me at the finish line with Pac and some cheddar, word.