[Up late with a touch of insomnia. Mrs. Puma is sleeping and with the fvckbags trying to kill me, I’m a bit jittery. I promise the satire will return shortly.]
My wife hates Airline, the tv show. She can’t understand why I like it so much. She’s also a hippie, so she can’t understand why I watch E-Ring (guilty), Over There and, on occasion, the Military Channel. I’ve given it some thought and I think I’ve figured out my addiction: competence.
Southwest Airlines, the focus of the show, is by far the most competent airline in the country. Maybe even in the world. I’ve flown them several times and have yet to have a bad experience (or at least one due to their incompetence). Other airlines treat you like a piece of meat. They disrespect your things, they don’t make clear announcements, they generally suck.
But not Southwest. That’s what I love about the show. Sure, they’ll throw a drunk off the plane once in a while. Weather will get in the way–it does that. But they always treat people like, well, people. They smile, they joke, they laugh. None of it is forced, and none of it is this garbled, half-language half-grunt ebonics you get from most Airlines. “You can’ lea ‘dat dere.” Someone from US Air actually said that to me. The ‘dat was my briefcase. The dere was the empty seat next to me on an empty flight.
How like Southwest is the military. There is something so inspiring about the calm, purposeful grace with which the military gets things done. Seriously. Need a bridge. Call the Army Corps. Two hours later, got a bridge. Need terrorists dead. Call the Marines, dead terrorists. Hostages need saving, call the SEALs. Hostages saved AND terrorists dead. It’s amazing. If you don’t believe me, try getting extra ketchup at McDonalds.
Think of the concept of a smart bomb! What other country in the world would build a smart bomb? As they say, only in America. We are, or at least were, a country singularly focused on competence. “Does it work?” “What’s it do?” “How can we make it better?” Any other country in the world would have focused the energy and resources we used to make a smart bomb into just making 100 or 1000 more dumb bombs. Not us:
“Say Bob, I’d really like to take out that building.”
“Sure Frank, but we’ll have to level the whole city.”
“Gee, can’t we use a laser or something and maybe use just one bomb? You know, so as not to kill the orphans next door?”
“Lemme see what we can do.”
Presto! The smart bomb was invented. Now we have bombs that are so damn smart, you don’t even need a laser. The suckers have chips in them that read the GPS signal and guide themselves to the target! How’s that for friggin competent?!?! (Of course, although our weapons can destroy one-and only one-building on West 39th Street in downtown Najaf, a highschool senior can’t even find Wisconsin on a map. But that’s a different story.)
So here I am, a man–a bomb-loving, Airline watching, no extra-ketchup man–naked before the world with my addiction. I LOVE competence. Not even excellence, although that’s exciting in it’s own way. Just competence. That illusive ability to do something right.
That’s why we love sports, especially ones that require skill. Ask yourself, is golf really that interesting? No. Hell no. It’s a guy in a park with a crooked stick. Nobody would watch a complete stranger play golf. No one watches little league baseball unless it’s their own kid is playing. But watching Arnold Palmer or Tiger Woods–that’s fascinating. The control. The ease of motion. The poise. It’s a thing of beauty. This is the market that ESPN exploits. Log rolling? Strongest Man Competition? Archery? If you’re like me, you’ve watched these things because its experts doing their handiwork. The same holds true for the umpteen do-it-yourself networks.
Superman, too. If you tried to sell this idea to people: alien from another planet, can fly, sees through things–pretty much anything you can imagine, he can do. People would laugh. It’s only human nature to think that someone with those abilities would be a slouch. A loafer or, worse, a criminal. But there’s our boy, Clark Kent. He’s strong willed, straight-laced, and above all–competent. He knows what needs to be done and he does it. The stories aren’t boring because, at the heart of each one, is the triumph over adversity. His powers fail, he can’t use them, a dog is made out of kryptonite. What to do? No worries, Kal-El has it.
Sadly, I realize that my addiction betrays a deeper feeling. Why do I watch Airline? Why do I love the military (aside, of course, from the fact they’re out there every day making sure I don’t get blown up on my way to work)? Because competence is such a rare thing in the rest of American life.
Why is that? What happened to us? I thought Ronnie killed that malaise and buried it with Jimmy’s political career. Why is it we have so much trouble getting simple things done? Too much tv? Too much entitlement? I don’t know. But I’m gonna lock myself inside with a bottle of scotch, my DVR and $100 for the Chinese delivery guy. And I’m not coming out until there’s a death penalty for incompetence. (Unless I run out of money for General Tzo’s first.)