Use Me Up
Scott J. Graves Contributing Writer
M the Media Project
Ah, you get me a crowd of high class people
And then you act real rude to me…. Ah-huh and I wanna spread the news
That if it feels this good gettin’ used
Oh, you just keep on usin’ me
Until you use me up
Ah, until you use me up – Bill Withers
Andrea Edwards has a righteous cause.
Welcome to Gardner Iron – Dispatches from The Arena. This is my small contribution to the cause. Use me up.
Every other November the Citizens vote to hire or fire their elected leaders. And Miss Drea is already telling you who you must vote for, because she knows.
Unfortunately, I can’t be as perfect as Miss Drea – or as perfect as she considers my fellow elected officials to be.
Therefore, Miss Drea is forced to loot my words, and correct them herself. So, without me knowing about it, she takes my words, revises them (she has named herself my editor, without asking me), and publishes them – totally out of context – to further her righteous cause. She’s generous like that.
Ms. Drea does all this behind my back. But, first Miss Drea fixes my words so that they are not mine anymore, they’re hers. Yet, she tells the world they’re mine. Miss Drea is very generous like that.
Don’t get me wrong, Miss Drea’s thoughts are deep. Plus, she’s very popular. She has thousands and thousands of people she calls “Friends.” She is popular with all the members of the Ruling Class.
So, I don’t feel worthy of the attention she gives me. So, I decided I have to give back. And, that’s what I’m going to do.
I talk about The Arena. “The Arena” was coined by Teddy Roosevelt’s in a speech he gave called “Citizenship in a Republic.” We all read it at Gardner High School.
Here is a short portion of it:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again.”
So, I’m actually in awe of Miss Drea. Without ever being in The Arena herself, she is able to perpetually criticize me, and relentlessly ridicule me, and continuously publish to the world my human shortcomings, my human flaws and my human fallibilities. She never tires of judging me. It’s as if she knows what it’s like to be in The Arena.
Yet, Miss Drea has never been willing to enter The Arena herself.
The tenacity of Miss Drea’s sarcastic insults, and her harsh judgments against me, displays a rare righteousness. It takes a special bystander to pull that off. In fact, to her, I’ve never done anything right in my 20 years of being a City Councillor. Just ask her. That’s some brave bystanding.
But, how does she judge and criticize me so perfectly? How does Miss Drea know so exactly what it takes to be a public servant doing his best inside The Arena? Maybe it’s mysticism. Whether it’s tarot cards, or crystal balls or palm reading, it’s real.
Arm-chair quarterbacks everywhere are envious of Miss Drea. Mere mortals not born with her kind of 20/20 hindsight are jealous – and rightly so.
It’s more likely that Miss Drea’s natural righteousness comes from the Laws of Nature. Genius is merely her organic birthright. Who would doubt that? Have you seen Gardnerites United? I mean, please. Just take a gander at the deep political narrative, and the erudite political science and theory, on Miss Drea’s Gardnerites United Facebook Page.
And, if you think that that’s difficult enough – behold that all that wisdom on GU is produced with cartoons and pictures. You won’t find annoying figments of the past such as words of substance. Thoughts from words? Who still uses such prehistoric relics when you have GIFs to explain the meaning of life, and quantum physics, in 2 seconds?
Miss Drea is very clever, too. She harnesses her inner James Bond – replete with vodka, martini glasses, olives and unfunny pop culture references to the mid-century glorification of alcoholism (and, some think, the celebration of masculine toxicity).
Who else would be brave enough to humiliate a recovering alcoholic by throwing a martini, “shaken, not stirred,” in his face? Well, only a witty comedian with the level of righteousness possessed by Miss Drea, of course. John Barleycorn is no match for the potency of Miss Drea’s wrath in the furtherance of her cause.
Which is why I will be writing in Gardner Iron every day – to make good on this magnanimous relevance that Miss Drea has so generously and selflessly bestowed upon me.
No more will my benefactor, Miss Drea, have to stoop to the level of sending some out-of-town featherweight errand boy bench-sitter to come rustle through my trash for words.
Plus, Miss Drea’s adherents deserve something to talk about other than the weather, tarot cards, recipes, City Hall email addresses, Mark Hawke, Superman, Mike Nicholson and phony positivism.
I resist those stray thoughts that tell me Miss Drea and her Ruling Class “friends” are actually just trying to shut me up. But, I’ve been in The Arena for 20 years trying to help my fellow travelers in this society – I can resist bad thoughts.
I just keep reminding myself that it’s all for Miss Drea’s righteous cause. Go ahead, use me up.
Special Feature Scotts on the Rocks Politica on MA House of Representatives transparency.
Scott J. Graves last appearance on ‘Scotts on the Rocks Politica Podcast’.
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