Acid Flash...

As a child of the Sixties, I always heard people talking about "Acid Flashback". Acid Flash was supposed to be an unpredictable return of the symptoms of LSD ingestions. It could happen anytime, any place......and like happened to Art Linletter's daughter, the acid head could find him or herself in that strange psychedelic zone between realities, and possibly flying out a sixth floor window.

I experienced LSD a couple of times back in the day.....but luckily, like Bill Clinton, I didn't inhale....so I think I am OK, safe from the Flashback. Acid Flash is the Green Flash at sunset...a device to sell cocktails with paper umbrellas.

Or I thought so until yesterday.

I closed Sunday Brunch a little early to go home and try to deal with jet lag and get a nap. I remembered the Stupid Bowl was on, and flipped past what I thought would be its channel: Fox, right? Where else would the most American of events be broadcast?

We are soccer people....way to ADD to sit through four or five hours of a game that stops and starts every few seconds, with long pauses for silly ads. Soccer lasts almost exactly one hour and forty-five minutes, including the break for halftime. The only ads are on the sideboard of the field and the action never stops. Brendan and I were reduced to limp rags by the Tottenham/Man U game on Saturday morning when we were supposed to be packing for a party....and depressed all day when the Red Devils tied in the last possible second. But hey, we are wimpy Anglophiles.....not real Americans.

Anyway, when I turned to Fox....I thought I was mistaken about the Super Bowl broadcast because what I found was short clips of large, very fit, mostly black men.....no women......each reciting short clips about revolution.

Stern face: "Whenever any form of government because destructive of these rights......"

Next face: "....it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it....."

Next face: "....and institute new government......"

Next face: "...laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such a way as to most likely effect their Safety and Happiness....."

Next face: "Prudence indeed shall dictate that governments should not be changed for light and transient causes....."

Holy Crap! It is like the Black Panthers got fit, and started taking steroids!

Next face.....Don Shula: "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism....."

Next face.....Ronny Lott: "..... it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Holy Shit!! The walls started melting and this weird sense of euphoria came upon me.

These are football guys!

The National Football League was using the Super Bowl as a pretext to overthrow the Bush Administration! Fucking A!

Ronnie Lott once had his own broken finger amputated so he could play in a certain game the coming weekend. Take THAT Mr. Lobbyist!

The presentation continued.

"He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

Yippee! Maybe I like football after all! Take that George Bush!

"Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren......"

Huh? The British? Did they invade? Did the Muslims take over? Is this soccer related? Six Premiership teams are owned by Americans now......

"That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved...."

Aww, Jesus.....the damn Declaration of Independence. These guys are being patriotic....or they think they are.....

I remember now. I had to memorize this thing in high school....I just missed the giveaway first paragraph.

Somehow the NFL missed this paragraph:

"He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions."

What with all those ads for the Indian Gaming Propositions.....don't want to piss off the Red Brothers.....

So......no Football inspired Revolution in Arizona.

Ours takes place tomorrow.....more prosaically....at the ballot box.

I remind everyone who has ever worked for us, or is planning on working for us, or maybe hung out with us once.......VOTE!

I don't care who you vote for, just vote.

We will pay for taxi fare if your car breaks. We will make up lost wages at your new job. We will pay for the babysitter. We will send you $25 for you to buy yourself a congratulatory drink....or we will buy you one ourselves...

Just VOTE!

This is the way we keep out of messes like the one described above......and the way we get out of them once we are in them.

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

See you at the polls.