Jason and the Golden Fleece

I made another Jason White siting today. This time at City Bites. He had the usual small group of suits around him yammering boisterously like they're just kickin' it around the dorm room - only this time Jason is really here with us!

The hardest thing about seeing him around, and I see him alot, is the pathetic hangers-on he seems to attract. I actually met him once. I was peacefully eating my lunch when a glib securities huckster recognized me from the Last Public Place in America. I had once, as he would soon tell Jason, "saved his bacon" by getting a historical stock quote for him from back in that mystical time before the internet. So he starts yucking it up with me and before I can tell him he has nothing to gain by gladhanding me, he sees Jason stroll by and calls him over. Jace is apparently going to be a stockbroker. We're introduced and I nod and he nods, both of us hoping this is going to be short. And it is. They quickly go off together undoubtedly with Jace receiving the umpteenth free lunch of his lifetime.

So today I see him again with another group of under-30s in suits and I really fight the urge to lean in and say, "You know he's a loser, right? Not only that, but he lost famously, in grandiose fashion. Like Napoleon at Waterloo. Custer at Little Bighorn. Our children will try to convey to their children the sheer scale, the enormity of how big a loser he was." Unlike Patton's 'brave bunch of guys' he can say, "I shoveled shit in Louisiana." Because frankly, it really wouldn't inspire me to know that on the big day - when the market is shaky and it takes guts and fortitude to stay in there and make the good trades - that Jason White might be handing out my retirement savings to a bunch of defensive backs from Southern California. And yet here they are trying to identify with him. And the company that hired him - what are they thinking? You want a winner to represent you - Barry Switzer or Josh Heupel - not a big loser. The saddest thing is that the company that hired him actually says, "There's a lot of people in the state of Oklahoma who have money who like OU football." That's it. That's their rationale. That is so sad.

This isn't an attack on Jason White as a person, so don't anybody get upset. When I say loser, I mean that he quite literally lost every big game he played in at OU. I'm sure he's a fine person. This is more an indictment of those parasites. If I could, though, I would tell Jason if you want to be a winner, dust off your Sociology degree and get a job helping people. Use your name to open doors for the poor and the downtrodden who buy the OU hats and shirts, but can't afford a ticket to a game; let alone pay for college.