Follow your passion

Sometimes trivial events bring enlightenment, sometimes they're just trivial events.   Take Jeremy Clarkson.

Jeremy is a CAR guy - no... Jeremy is a CAR guy.  Life for Jeremy is all about CARS.  It's understandable, he makes a LOT of money being concerned with cars.  Cars have been his passion for most of his life.

Recently he got called on the carpet for possibly, but not actually, mumbling something that might have sounded like nigger* The liberal press had a field day - the BBC threatened a good sacking.  Then the conservative blogs and press had a field day about the liberals having a field day.   The man was just thinking about cars - it's an old, old rhyme, it's old enough most people don't even remember the whole thing.   He obviously considered the issue - he even did another take trying to make sure it didn't sound like he'd said it.  Yet, Those Who Seek Offense were offend - but damn, everything offends them so who gives a crap. Really? Who?   People who want to get Likes on Facebook?  People who want to get re-tweets?   People who are so busy worrying about what other people think that they don't have an original opinion in their tiny minds.  If you care about them, well then your part of the problem and I just don't give a crap what you think :)

I came across this little essay concerning Jeremy - this fellow, Mr. Howard Jacobson, thinks all the brouhaha was - well brouhaha - good for him. I agree. He also thinks, if Jeremy is to assailed for anything, it should be because he is passionate about cars.  Apparently this guy doesn't like bicycles either - not cyclists - bicycles and bicycle enthusiasts.  For him it's all just getting from point A to point B the rest of it is obscene obsession.  So what's his complaint about Jeremy?

As for Clarkson, it has always seemed to me that his real crime is to be interested in cars. Not just interested in cars in the way he is, as though they are a definitive badge of masculinity, as though the idea of a man unexcited by cars is inconceivable, as though the din and roar of them must be of universal male appeal, as though driving a car up a slope – sorry, up a hill – represents the ne plus ultra of human achievement, but just interested in cars full stop.

Wow - isn't that just a little bit elitist.  Follow your passion! unless I don't approve.

I'm sure he doesn't think he's being elitist - just displaying common sense.   Well, I'm a bit of a CAR guy, and it seems pretty elitist to me. Cars have been part of culture in Europe and America since their beginning - What does Mr. Jacobson think of someone who expresses their passion for what is a significant part of their culture...

A motorist has an ideological relationship with his car. In a sane society you’d get eight years for that.

A criminal?   Yeah, definitely elitist.

So Back to Jeremy - is he a racist? Seems unlikely but then - WHO CARES!  Does he preach racial devision like say -  Jackson, or Sharpton? No. It's not even close to his defining quality - which is to say,  delightfully obnoxious and pompous.   Then again, I love cars too so I cut him a lot of slack.   He's said some VERY unkind things about Americans - but then so have I - and yes, I've criticized American cars, and drivers and Car & Driver magazine - even.

All this angst about someone having personal opinions which get out'ed or little slips that get turned into millions of man hours of angst... get a grip people.  If you hate him, don't watch him, don't read him - just ignore him.   Me, I find him endlessly amusing, occasionally annoying, and sometimes idiotic. I mean - a set of expensive rubber burned off in a hour on the track - that's just stupid :)



*yeah that N word - People! It's a figging word.  You think saying "He said the N word" that somehow we don't know what that word is? No the assumption is that we do know, which means you pretty much thought about that word - did you turn into a puddle of spit?  did you burst into flames? No?  Go figure.  But he said it out loud.... Oh. My. God...  Huh, still no lightning, no flames.  Sure calling someone a nigger has some very unappealing baggage - I don't recommend it. If a child of mine called someone a nigger I'd slap them upside the head - then again I don't have kids.  On the other hand, the N Word?  like somehow just saying the word nigger makes you a racist.  Unless you're black apparently - although I'm really not sure why that's the case.  Mind boggling, really.