Game Over

Game Over by journalists Bill Moushey and Bob Dvorchak provides a serviceable chronicle of linebacker coach-cum-pedophile Jerry Sandusky’s abuse of adolescent boys, and the listless efforts of Penn State higher-ups—none higher than college coaching legend Joe Paterno (right)—to put a stop to it. While the book is dated, going to print just before legal proceedings had begun against Sandusky, and also prone to repeating itself vis-à-vis some of the developments, it is still a worthwhile read. Its value endures on the grounds that the book is a repository of Sandusky-related public discourses that, quite frankly, reverberate with perversion, and affirm the man’s guiltiness in an intuitive way that transcends the mere verdict put forward by a jury of his peers.

Consider these examples, all of which are compiled throughout the course of Game Over. Early on, there is a quote from a former Penn State linebacker Gary Gray, who describes Sandusky as “always touchy feely” (p. 27). When Sandusky himself retired abruptly and unceremoniously in 1999, he issued a statement about how he wanted to dedicate more time to the Second Mile, the charitable organization through which Sandusky harvested many of his victims: “As the organization has grown,” he explained, “the demands for my hands-on involvement have increased dramatically” (p. 30). Upon the news of Sandusky’s retirement, Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, who would later plead guilty to child endangerment charges for failing to report the abuses, offered the following: “His achievement as a human being is splendidly demonstrated by the thousands of youngsters he touches annually through the Second Mile” (p. 31). A couple years after stepping aside, Sandusky would put out his autobiography, ghost-written by Kip Richeal and published via a vanity press. Its title, you ask? Touched: The Jerry Sandusky Story.

You don’t need a Ph.D. in discourse analysis to read between the lines here. With the emphasis on “touching” in descriptions provided of and by Sandusky, how could anyone say they were “surprised” at the allegations? It seems like everyone who spoke of Sandusky knew on some unconscious level (verging on the surface consciousness) that the man was a pervert. Everything that Sandusky was involved with (I don’t want to say “had a hand in”) became steeped in perversion via the very fabric of the words that characterized his activities. 

Even when Sandusky’s attorney, Joseph Amendola, publicly went on the defensive in front of the media, the all-pervading perversity of his client managed to seep into the lawyer’s words. Amendola was incredulous that so many onlookers believed that Penn State higher-ups like Tim Curley would not, as men of immense character and responsibility, take seriously alleged child abuse and carry it forward to law enforcement. As such, he issued a challenge: “If you believe that, I suggest you dial 1-800-REALITY.” That number, the authors of Game Over inform us matter-of-factly, was at the time a “phone service offering gay and bisexual pornography” (p. 145).

The quintessential telos of Jerry Sandusky, then, is salacious sodomy.* Once again, we see how the perverse and pornographic permeates the entire sphere of Sandusky. Sandusky’s substrate is grimy, illicit sex. So deep is the level of synchronicity between Sandusky and indiscriminate, amoral sexuality that the entire thought-universe generated around him inevitably thrums and vibrates with lasciviousness. And for that reason, I’m going to end this attempt at reviewing this book, before Sandusky’s inhering stain seeps into me now inexorably on account of having tried myself to frame the man in words and paragraphs. In fact, Sandusky’s monstrous Midas touch, where everything he handled turned savagely and unlawfully sodomic, might be reason enough not to get your hands on a copy of Moushey and Dvorchak’s book.

---

*Now, I want to be clear here that I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with gay sex. However, commodified, commercialized sex of any orientation is, I think we would all agree, at least a bit seedy. So what I’m saying here (following from Moushey and Dvorchak) is that there is something profoundly off when the lawyer representing an outwardly Christian man like Sandusky unintentionally references gay phone sex. The synchronicities are just too profound.

Resisting the Urge to Resist Tom Brady

I'm cheering for Tom Brady in Super Bowl 53, even though I might not want to.

Tom Brady is, after all, far removed from anything I embody. He is handsome; I am haggard. He is successful beyond precedent; I am mediocre on my best imaginable day. He is wedded to a comely woman; I avoid relationships. He is a Trump supporter; I am a non-voter. He is worth millions; I am a writer. I am literate, and desperately so; with his physical and technical prowess, Tom Brady has transcended language.

But these kinds of contrasts are not a reason to boo Tom Brady. Rather,  in the contrast itself lies the reason why the author (and the reader) of this blog should cheer for Tom Brady.

Tom Brady has, after all, bestowed a remarkable gift upon us all. He has so far given us the opportunity to spectate unparalleled greatness—that is, to view a quarterback winning five Super Bowls. This in itself is a once-in-all-existence type of accomplishment. To see him win a sixth (in high definition, no less) would be to witness eminence of otherworldly proportions, far beyond the imagination of the average spectator.

Contemplating greatness of this magnitude, then, you are faced with a choice. You can choose the path of the hater, besmirching the names of Brady-esque luminaries in many an online forum. Or you can acknowledge the superlative talent of any given luminary, and bow down before him or her or them as your superior. 

The more mature option is the latter. There comes a time when you can no longer deny that humans are not created equal, and that our world is, in reality, the domain of but a few ascendant superiors. The vast underclass can only be enlightened when its members acknowledge the supremacy of the true elite—athletes, capitalists, and most celebrities—and genuflect before them. In apprehending their acumen and accepting their dominance over us, we are able to make an even more crucial realization about ourselves: that we are slaves, and we work our menial jobs to consume products issued by this extremely select few—our telegenic masters who perform highly abstracted, commercially viable tasks at the highest level.

For this reason, all those who have been cheering for Tom Brady and the Patriots for the past decade-plus should not be passed off as mere bandwagon jumpers. Rather, Patriots fans are the enlightened vassals who have realized their individual inferiority and slavery and given themselves wholly to Brady's team and its licensed apparel, getting blissfully lost in that huddled mass of fandom clad in silver and blue New England merchandise. Their own haggard, lonely, Trump-voting lives are rendered infinitely more meaningful for it.

"Tom Brady is master, and I am slave." This is the mantra of the Pats fan. So this year, I will fight the urge to hate or to cheer for the underdog, and I, too, will repeat this mantra. I, too, will choose the path of the peon, and the profound self-awakening that comes with it. Rather than cheering against Brady, I will not just cheer for him, but actually supplicate before his matchless glory as it graces my television. At the pinnacle of underclass destiny—submitting to the broadcast of dominance—there is pure rapture. I will learn to love my inferiority, and to celebrate it. As Tom Brady moves the chains, I will come to adore my own shackles.

Also, I put all the money I ever made writing on New England. Thirty dollars on the Pats.