Retreating Back to the Cave or Why Sports Moguls Must Actively Support the Performing Arts

You might remember the first time you were introduced to Plato's allegory of the cave. Short version with apologies for vagueness or imprecision:
Plato supposed that there were ideal, unchanging "forms" existing on a higher plane and that in our unpredictable, ever-changing world we only saw reflections of these forms. The allegory was of a man chained in a cave who only saw shadows on the wall of the cave, produced by light and fire outside the cave. When released from the cave, the man sees the fire and light and the shapes and does not recognize them, having only seen the shadows up until then. He therefore returns to the cave, because that is what he can perceive and understand.

For millenia, the performing arts were second only to communal worship in terms of their ability to gather large groups of people together, in order that they might participate in a shared experience. In fact, the conflict between organized religion and performing arts is ages old, as the former feared the influence and permissive tendencies of the latter.

I'll warn you now, I won't be able to fully unpack my argument here. And I KNOW you are just DYING for me to declaim and reveal all of the intricacies of the world for you. However, I need to go cut down some brush, and you could probably learn more from the AOL splash page than you could from my ramblings. But I will continue as far as I can.

Sports are clearly ascendant in terms of events that unite people across the socio-economic and ethno-cultural spectrums in the United States. Far more people share the experience of the Super Bowl and the World Series and the Olympics, than experience The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera. Part of that owes to the fact that sports events are broadcast on national TV. But I suspect that the Opera, were it televised, might pull a Nielsen rating somewhere behind re-runs of Family Ties and in front of the Surgery Channel's "World's Largest Abcesses."

Of course, I haven't mentioned movies or the bulk of popular television shows here, many of which draw a huge audience on a weekly basis. Carlos Estevez and his high-brow sitcom get a weekly viewing audience of somewhere around Fifty-million viewers, give or take a few Goddesses.

And here is where the rabbit hole begins to open. If live performance--plays, musicals, opera, operetta, symphonies, vaudeville, kabuki, minstrels, choirs--were the standard entertainment media for, as we've said, millenia, then on what Platonic plane is the boob tube? Are movies and television the fire outside of the cave, a more perfect version of what we attempt to convey in our imperfect human artistic presentations? Or have we all retreated back to the cave? After five-thousand years of public performance did we finally decide that artistic events conducted in public sphere didn't really get us anywhere, so we want the simpler, more polished, less harsh reflection of our lives that is captured on the cave wall?

These are real questions. The answers probably aren't available right now, considering the relative newness of the cinematic and broadcast media, but the questions will not go away.

And now on the heels of Hollywood and Cable TV, comes the individual "pro-sumer" trend made possible by cheap digital video and the internet. We can all be the stars of our own youtube shows. We can be sketch comedians and confessional dramatists. Our entire lives can unfold in 780p and all of our friends can watch, provided they aren't busy making their own shows. Hell, I'm blogging, for Christ's sake, instead of reading the newspaper and writing a letter to the editor.

Sports are popular for the same reasons melodramas, morality plays, and Shakespeare were popular. They are inherently dynamic. Two teams begin at a moment of stasis, 0-0. They engage in conflict, attempting to achieve their goals on the field, in the same way the protagonist and antagonist attempt to do so on stage. There are slow movements that contrast with giant crescendos. There is conflict and resolution. Good triumphs over evil, or the hero fails tragically. We live vicariously through the performers, who are presumably better at the skills on display than we will ever be. They are the Platonic forms of us, but we can witness them, even if we cannot be them.

As new media develop, computer processing speeds increase geometrically, and gaming platforms become more and more advanced, the simulacra of life and especially sport will become less distinguishable from the real thing. Indeed, if I can BE Tiger Woods with my Wii controller, why should I watch him on TV, much less go out to the tournament to see his actual form.

I contend that the only reason for public sporting events in the not too far off future is the shared experience of the event itself. The communal act of watching live human beings perform transcendent acts of humanity. Victory and failure, right in front of your face. At home, in our "man-caves" (hate the term, love philosophical implications) we can see Peyton and Tawmmy B. far better than we can in the stadium. The cameras show us far more of the action than the view from the bleachers.The only thing that keeps people buying those $300 tickets is the roar of the crowd and the ability afterwards to say, "I was there. With 75,000 other people, I stood and watched it happen, while you were at home on a La-Z-Boy licking cheese dust off your fingers."

Likewise, my current obsession with the Butler Basketball team's run through the NCAA tournament is as much based on my desire to share something with my friends and family and neighbors as it is my desire to watch a thrilling basketball game. When my son and I went down to watch the Bulldogs' pre-Final Four practice at Lucas Oil Stadium, (yes, it is named after my child. He's THAT awesome.) I was struck by how many people were there, simply because they wanted to be in a building together with other people who loved basketball. The practice itself was pretty uneventful, the crowd was relatively quiet and the interview with Brad Stevens, broadcast on on the public address, was the highlight of the experience. But after the team left the court and everyone rose from their seats, a strange electricity developed. And I'm positive that it was because 35,000 people were in a building together waiting for something to happen. Nothing did, and that was both disconcerting and enlivening. We spilled out into the downtown even more eager for the drama of sport, craving something with a beginning, middle, and end. Something where, when it was over, the curtain would come down and the audience would either be crying or rejoicing.

Save for the experiences of witnessing birth, combat, and death, I think a live performance with an audience of people in the same room as the performers has the potential to be the most profound experience a human being can have. And I will lump church services into the "live performance" group. Martin Luther told us God was best experienced on a personal and private level. Then why do people still go to churches and mosques and synagogues and temples? Huh, Marty? Why do we like someone, be it a priest, rabbi, imam, Joel Osteen, whoever, to direct and stage manage our religious experiences? Because we want to have the experience together.

And so as we approach the penultimate weekend of college basketball, those who control the experience of sport for the masses should remember a few things: the NFL is locked-out; the NBA is sure to be in the grips of player/owner strife in a few months, and every teenager in the developed world has access to an X-Box or Play-Station or Wii. They could play a season of NFL football every week, if they so desired, and not give a damn if the gates to your publicly-funded palaces of bread and circus are opened one stinking inch. And these youngsters are your revenue streams of the future.

If they don't care about getting tickets to your spectacle, eventually they won't care about turning on the TV to watch it. If they don't care about being in a great-big stadium or an expansive concert hall with hundreds or thousands of their peers, taking part in a shared experience, eventually they won't care about being numbered among those who watched it simultaneously, though in separate spaces, on a TV screen. Those kids will have their controllers and headsets, and eventually their retinal scanners. They'll be entertaining themselves with shadow-puppets on their ninety-eight inch LED wall-sized display. They won't need to go outside and see the fire, when the cave is so much more cozy.

I Got 99 Problems But A Front-Runnin' B!#*% Ain't One.

As you know, since surely you've been following my last couple of posts with rapt attention, I've been doing my level best to divorce myself from animosity and moralistic interpretations when it comes to Butler's NCAA games. But then I clicked on a link to the Yahoo college basketball blog and see this -

Yep, that's Shawn Carter, stage name Jay-Z. hanging with the Wildcats after they punched their ticket to Houston. Emphasis on the AFTER.

Now, there are two possible explanations for this. Either Hova is visiting with Coach Cal's Little Urban Achievers because he, as a minority partner in an NBA team might be drafting one or more of them in the upcoming months. Or he is a sports fan similar to his pal LeBron, and simply runs with the squad that is most likely to win each year. Let's not forget that BronBron, native of Ohio, professes to be a Yankee and Cowboy fan.

So Jigga has either committed a flagrant NCAA violation in contacting college players regarding future professional employment in the NBA. Or he has chosen to throw his support behind a team with no geographic relationship to his Brooklyn origins, but who does have the most championships of the four teams left and has, arguably, the greatest wealth of talent.

Would I be as indignant if H-to-the-Izzo had chosen instead to visit the Bulldog's locker room after they defeated Flo-Rida? Probably not. However, Butler doesn't have a coach with a long history of questionable financial scruples. Nor is Butler the Vegas favorite to win the whole thing, as UK now is. Whether those two things smack of illegal contact and front-running, I'll let you decide.


But I do know this, teams from Indiana love it when other teams have New York celebrities sitting courtside, rooting against them.

Up the Beanstalk, Again

The David and Goliath analogies are played out, for several reasons, not the least of which is Butler's next opponent, VCU, is seeded even lower than they are. And while VCU made an impressive run a few years back, they have nowhere near the tournament pedigree that this Butler team has. No, in any standard Israelite v. Phillistine substitutional calculus, Butler is the big hairy giant and VCU has the stone and sling.

I don't think this imagery works though. Perhaps for the small cadre of actual VCU fans--students, faculty, alumni, etc.--Butler can play the role of old Golyat. But for the rest of the country, such a loaded template might be a little ponderous.

With King David's first act of heroism comes all of the historical and theological baggage that the story has carried throughout history. It has variously symbolized the triumph of the Jewish God, the triumph of Christianity in the Roman Empire, and at some point I'm sure, the triumph of tha glahrious Bahston Red Sawx ovah the harrible facking New Yark Yankees! YANKEES SACK! YANKEES SACK!

But the most obvious allegorical implications of the nebbish over the mighty is that of the eventual triumph of Good over Evil. And I'm just not willing to make a basketball game matter that much.

Indeed, small, modest David with his leather strap and pebble felling the oncoming Giant is clearly meant to symbolize the idea that virtue will win in the end, that the meek shall inherit the Earth and that big dudes are mean-ass bullies. Goliath's height, by the way, was probably more like six foot-nine. Not even taller than Andrew Smith.

Next Saturday, as Butler begins to warm-up, I will instead be thinking of Jack and his beanstalk. Yes, I know, there is a Giant who lives up there in the clouds. And in the original telling, the Giant killed Jack's dad and took his money. So the Giant is the antagonist, yada yada yada. But the moral of the tale and the morality within, as it has come to be told today, is far more fraught.

It is a tale especially fitting for the post-modern, sports-loving, capitalist society we live in today.
Jack, lazy and a bit dumb, living with his widowed mother and a skinny, dried-up, milk cow, is told to sell the cow for money so he and his mother can buy something to eat. Jack can't even get that right and instead, gets conned into taking five "magic" beans in exchange for the cow. Business deal gone bad. The bean bubble burst. Today, he could just go file for bankruptcy, right Mr. Trump? Jack's mom throws the beans out of the window and tells him he's lucky she's malnourished or she would beat that ass.

But, lo! The next morning a giant beanstalk has grown where his mother threw the beans! Isn't it great being white in America? Organic urban farming is just the coolest. Jack decides to climb up the beanstalk and see if there are any new media ventures he can get in on. Or maybe a green initiative. And whaddya know, there is a castle with a golden harp and a hen that lays goddamned golden eggs! Plastics, Ben. PLASTICS.

So Jack avoids the giant, steals the hen and descends back down the beanstalk to show his mother how awesome he is.
"We can eat gold omelets now, mom!"
"Or we can sell the gold, you friggin' numbskull. Thank GOD your father is dead."

Eventually, Jack wants to go up the beanstalk again. Probably because he got involved in an illegal cockfighting ring and the hen got killed. So, he heads back up and while the giant is sleeping, he steals his silver and gold. He gives it to his mother, hoping she won't notice the missing hen.
"Here Ma, look at all this scrilla!"
"Great, go put it in the bank."
"Actually, I'm going to invest half in a contruction company that builds over-sized mini-mansions on acres of nutrient-rich farmland. The other half is going straight into Collateralized Debt Obligations. They are asset-backed, so they CAN'T LOSE!"

Well, a few years down the line, Jack's broke and he has to head back up the beanstalk and steal the giant's gold harp. He does and in the only truly intelligent move he makes, he chops down the beanstalk and the giant falls to his death. Jack can no longer plunder the castle of its riches, but now must live within the means that he has on the ground. And he promises his mother he won't be such a douche anymore.

The End.

Now this is by no means a straightforward analogy between Butler and Jack. Nothing about Butler Basketball suggests indolence, hubris, rashness or immaturity. But the notion that in order to finally get somewhere, the goal as it were, we might have to travel down a bumpy road full of potholes and mudpuddles, with funhouse mirrors lining the shoulder, is apt. In this case, the idea that past success can breed new and more difficult challenges is particularly useful.

Jack tastes great success, but also finds himself a victim of his own cravings for more success. He has to finally realize who he is and live within those parameters. He is continuously tempted by the beanstalk and the riches that await him above, but only when he becomes content with life below is the story allowed to end happily.

Matt Howard, who could've gone to IU or Purdue, chose the place he felt most comfortable and did just about as well as anyone could on the floor and in the classroom. THE Academic All-American of 2010-2011. How's things in B-Town, fellers?

Shelvin Mack went to a school where he would be featured and get to play a lot, even if it wasn't quite in the national spotlight. And if he gets a chance to murder the Wildcats, I'm selling every CD I own, plus a few Star Wars figures and putting all them clams on the Dogs.

I'll let you fill in the comparisons between Butler's coaches of the past and one Brad Stevens. Perhaps Brad will end up like Jack, Barry, Thad, and Todd and decide that magic beans are pretty cool and that Beanstalkland sounds pretty bitchin'. But I hope, mainly as a selfish fan, that he cuts down the beanstalk.

The NCAA tourney itself is a lumbering giant. One that seems to favor the big-money conferences in the face of damning evidence that the overall caliber of mid-level college programs has improved. Jay Bilas believes that the top-level college teams have actually gotten worse this year. He's a respected analyst (Dickie V. *eardrumsbleed* thinks Mr. Bilas should be the Tourney "Commissioner") and I'm sure one could juggle statistics to show that he's right. Hey, not a single number one seed advanced to the Final Four! Doesn't that mean that the #1's weren't all that good?

I think this might be an Ockham's moment, where we all say, "No, everybody else has just gotten better."

Kids are bigger, faster, stronger, better-trained and coached, across the board. The elite players, though amazingly talented, still have a ceiling. But the decent players, the top quartile, have gotten immensely better. And on days when the elites aren't pitch-perfect, the teams right below them will cut the beanstalk right out from under them. It's time for somebody to prove that point. I hope that those Bulldogs over on 49th Street are the tricky little sons of bitches who do it.

Elite Hate - Bulter v. Florida 2011

This time it's personal. Third time is a charm. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...

I'm going for something else, something more visceral and full of bile. I want a triumph that is merciless, a victory achieved by the letting of blood. As Dolph Lundgren once said about the former champ Apollo Creed, "If he dies, he dies." At the end of tonight's game, if Billy Donovan's bunch is weeping on the court, so be it. Matt Howard should come out steely-eyed and say, "I must break you." I want Florida to suffer.

Of course, Drago loses, and the Russkies wind up chanting "Rocky, Rocky,"  so using the villain from Rocky IV as an examplar is a wee bit flawed.

Indeed, this kind of unchecked hatred from a fan is hardly healthy or helpful. The most rabid and over-zealous fanbases are usually the ones who find themselves suffering at the end of the contest, victims of their own irrational vicarious experience. Think of fans in Philadelphia, only recently finding a salve in the Phillies world series triumph, Boston morons who still claim to be "tahrchared" despite having four of the best franchises in spahrts over the last decade, the Duke fans after Arizona came out and assassinated them on Friday.

The foam-at-the-mouth exuberance of these fans, so perturbing to the rest of us, is also the fuel for schadenfreude when their teams fail. 18-1 in 2007? Helmet catch? Sweet ambrosia to everyone not living in the Upper Northeast.

Likewise, I imagine that harboring such unabated animus for years is probably not healthy for a basketball program. Though many personnel in the Butler program were around for Butler's wrenching losses to Florida in 2000 and 2007, the institutional philosophy of Butler basketball would seem to suggest that using bloodthirsty revenge as motivation to win is not exactly part of the Hinkle tradition. And while my gut tells me that "The Butler Way" is just a little bit prissy and ivory towerish, my brain tells my guts, "Just look at the scoreboard, dumbass."

And truly, I should know better. Because though I grew up watching an endless number of IU games, and the 1987 NCAA championship is still one of the more lasting memories of my childhood, I have seen far more Butler games in person. And over the last decade I have watched and listened to fivefold more Butler games than IU. I loved IU's 1992 & 2002 NCAA runs, tournament runs that ended in heartbreak of their own, but Butler's two losses to Florida were even more anguishing. Those losses, the first on a last second shot by Mike Miller, the second in a game defined by the referees' refusal to call a foul on the Florida big men, left a taste in my mouth that was even more acrid and full of lasting bitterness than last year's Duke game. At least in the Duke game, Butler had a chance. They were inches away from winning on a last-second prayer; they didn't get jobbed by the refs or stomach-punched by lady luck like in the Florida games.

Despite real or perceived imbalances in officiating and weighted scales of fate, Butler trudged on, racking up wins, playing full-throttle defense, and doing it despite lacking the bloated coffers of BCS schools. And the progress of the Butler program has not been predicated on quick-fixes or pandering to fans and alumni with glamorous recruits.

Instead, it has been achieved by hiring people and coaches who are exceptional basketball strategists, able to create situations that allow good players to achieve great things. "The Butler Way," however dorky and corporate-sales-goal-oriented it may sound, works. It gets players to know and understand their roles and to value team success above all. A.J. Graves and Mike Green graduated and took with them a wealth of experience and a truckload of moxy. Butler just got better. They lost Gordon Hayward to the down-side of high achievement. Still, they continued to win. Without bluster, without spouting the bullshit platitudes of athletes worldwide-- "Nobody believed in us," "We just wanted it more"-- and the other mindless palaver that issues from the mouths of big-time sports stars.

So I will find moderation in my anger. I will not hate. I will cheer for Butler's success and that alone. The opponent does not matter. The only thing I will think of is my hope that the team from down the street gets to play next weekend. In the end, the scoreboard will be the ultimate arbiter and none of my rancor and enmity will do the slightest bit of good...

Al Horford though, and pardon my French, he can fuck off.

Butler v. Florida 2007 - Horford "backs down" Crone.