One of my favorite movie scenes is from the Untouchables, where Al Capone holds a staff meeting like no other. He explains the importance of what he calls “enthusiasms” as he espouses the merits of teamwork versus individual achievement. Both have a place in his life view, but being an enthusiastic member of a team is valued most by this legendary mobster.
It was a pretty good speech up until the moment that he used a baseball bat to punctuate his argument.
Warning: This clip is not for the squeamish.
We are only three weeks away from the midterm elections and there has been a lot of focus in the media on the supposed high level of excitement among Republicans. They are raring to go to the polls and take their country back.
They have enthusiasms!
I don’t believe that there is a correlation between being enthusiastic and making the effort to cast a ballot, but I could be wrong.
In an effort to balance the scales, I planned on attending the Obama rally this afternoon in Philadelphia. I learned of it after watching a similar rally in Wisconsin that was streamed live a couple of weeks ago. I watched the speech while tweeting. It was a lot of fun and I was excited to share my enthusiasm with like-minded people who were also watching.
I began to feel a surge in my level of excitement, so I decided that I would attend the Philadelphia rally.
My plan was simple.
Get up early. Skip my all-football-all-of-the-time autumn Sunday ritual and drive the 82 miles to my office. I’ll get some work done. Later, I’ll drive 24 miles into Philadelphia and find a place to park. I am leery of this part. I’ve seen what sometimes happens down there in A&Es reality show “Parking Wars”. I’ll make my way to the entrance of the park by about noon and sit on the sidewalk and wait to be allowed to enter. I’m sure that I’ll land a primo spot near the stage.
The doors open at 3PM and the rally is set to begin an hour later.
I’m pumped up. I’m ready to scream and shout. I would be working on a sign right now, if we were allowed to bring them. I’ve trimmed my hair so that I can look more like him. I want to be near Obama. I think that I have a severe case of man love. I’m raring to go!
No problem, right?
Um, well not exactly.
Yesterday, I worked all day on one of my other websites, Excel4BusinessOnline. I woke up late this morning with a headache, I don’t feel like driving, and it is football Sunday for goodness sake. So I’m writing this post at a time when I should be camped out on a Philadelphia sidewalk.
Oh, the shame.
I guess that I’m not as excited as the Republicans are about this election after all.
Congratulations.
We will see if that matters for anything on Election Day.
I’ll pretty sure that Al Capone would probably have bashed that guys head in anyway, even if he wasn’t feeling particularly enthusiastic about it that day.
Author Bio:
Ray Colon has written 136 posts on Ray's Blog.
He works with numbers for a living, but don't judge - boring accountants need love too. His blog has no niche (unless writing about things that are important to him is a niche). Some folks cringe when he gets “all political” on them, but he does it anyway when he's in that kind of mood. Sometimes, he writes something nice about someone, but you shouldn't get used to that. His first book, the one he hasn't written yet, is not available on Amazon. Subscribe to Ray's Blog via RSS or Email.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Ray,
What are the Democrats going to do without you, their most enthusiastic cheerleader? I’m kidding. Enjoy football. The elections will sort themselves out.
Hi Tristan,
What will they do without me, eh? LOL I watched on television and the crowd seemed excited. I felt bad for the people who had to listen from the parking lot behind the trees. It didn’t look like it would be a big enough venue when I viewed the park on Google maps last week. I guess that it wasn’t.
I’m enjoying the games, thanks. Ray