Steve Bernard and I do not speak to each other. My best guess is that given an adequate opportunity, we might well not even like each other. This will come as a kind of surprise after the Commission meeting last night, where we seemed so well coordinated, as if we had been planning and rehearsing a show. It was, in its way, a bit like professional wrestling, where we seem to fight, but we are really acting a very carefully choreographed demonstration. So what did we demonstrate last night?
There was the build-up, of course. The pre-banter and the mutual dissing. Played out to the public over days, weeks, and months. Last night, we started with me for the evening's show. I gave my little speech, which I had written the week before and circulated, including to my partner, Commissioner Bernard. This works better if he knows what I'm going to say. So I said he was rigid, stubborn, contrary, disruptive, and uncooperative. It's the typical material he and I use. We find it works well for us. I said he would complain that he didn't have a fair chance to digest the budget, had too many unanswered questions, felt unaccommodated, was generally immature in his approach, and would ultimately vote against the budget. I threw in his junior partner as well, and Steve and I have come to have excellent confidence that the lad won't disappoint. So that was the set-up.
Then, it was my partner's turn. I only get three minutes, and he gets all night (mercifully shortened this time to 10 crushing minutes), so I think we can safely call his part of the demonstration the Steve Bernard Show, starring......Steve......Bernard! So he picks up his cues and explains that of course he has a million questions. He's already asked them, he admits, but they went unanswered. So he still has them. (We now make reference to what each other says, for thematic continuity and comic timing. Never mind; believe me, it works well.) So where I accuse him of getting ready to complain that he's been cheated out of time to study the budget and get answers to his questions, he then complains that he's been cheated out of time to study the budget and get answers to his questions. (We're trying to develop a variation where he blames me for the deprivation, but we haven't been able to come up with a mechanism. Yet.)
We had a few missteps last night, and we have to work them out. They were untidy. One was where I say he's had two months to study the budget and ask all his questions privately of the Manager and Finance Director. Well, the fact is he really didn't bother to discuss any of this with them, and I'm afraid he may have come out looking badly on this one. This is not good for the act. Also, he invokes the public interest and desire to know about the budget, and I clumsily pointed out that essentially no one came to the public workshops. In the past, he's whined that there wasn't adequate notification, people didn't know, the recording system wasn't working, or some other irrelevant or nonsensical tangent. But he sort of surrendered last night to my assertion that actually no one cares, and he's just talking to himself. We'll try to compose a better comeback for him next time.
So Steve continues on. The million questions, asked with hostile attitude; the undercurrent accusations and complaints of managerial misbehavior and incompetence; the references to inept and gullible colleagues; the disdain for the appalling lack of rigor in the entire pathetic system. Steve can do this in his sleep. He probably does. But it's not just content, which is beginning to get dangerously trite for him. He has a stage show to perform. After all, there are the imagined peeps out there. The fantasied adoring audience. The hypothetical beneficiaries of the pitbull advocacy he delivers. These aren't lines you simply read. You have to act them out. Out comes the interrupting, the badgering, the hectoring, and those trademark smirks. And the spitballs. Tom Cruise and Denzel have their mulitmillion dollar smiles. Our Steve has his spitballs. He nearly unnerved Roxy, and he threw Bob Anderson completely off track. Bob had to give up in disgust, having admittedly lost his train of thought. What a barrage. Better than Fourth of July fireworks. Al Childress was too far away, and he contented himself simply with telling Steve he had the floor. Yawn.
Then, we approach the end. Now I have to set this up right. It's way too good to mischaracterize. And I have an admission to make. I said far in advance, and in my preparatory words last night, that the Commission would pass the budget 3-2. I know: duh. But one of my friends bet me a bottle of scotch it would pass 4-1. What?!! 4-1?!! Who, I asked incredulously, is going to flinch? Cooper, said my friend. Nah, you're out of your mind. Cooper won't flinch. Cooper, "Dr No," doesn't even know what's going on. He has no reason to flinch. But no, my friend wouldn't flinch, either. He really thought he was getting a bottle off me. So here's where it gets good. Each Commissioner had his or her say, and a chance to make suggestions for the budget. My Steve started. Then it was Childress. Eventually, it was Cooper's turn. At some point, he let slip that he "couldn't vote for this budget because..." and I turned and gave my friend a smirk of my own. Now in the meantime, I'm actually getting worried. My Steve asked all his questions, and made many suggestions. But Roxy, who I thought was a friend, starts making sure Steve gets answers to his questions, and worse, she starts engineering that each of his requests is satisfied. Come on, Rox, I have a bottle of scotch riding on this. My friend didn't say the bet was about Cooper. He said it was about the vote. If it's any 4-1, I lose! And my so-called friend Roxy Ross is explicitly and completely openly trying to get Steve to find agreement with the budget. So he'll vote for it!! She said so!! You know how the car salesmen ask what they have to do to get you buy the car right now? Yeah, it was like that. Rox!! How can you do this to me? So Steve gets everything he wants. All questions answered. All requests accommodated. I'm sunk.
The vote gets taken, and it's..............3-2. Ahhhh. That's my boy. You can give him absolutely everything he wants, and he still won't be satisfied. The funny thing is, that's exactly what I said in my opening speech, but I forgot. I got a little panicked over the scotch, and I forgot the deal. This is Steve Bernard we're talking about here. It wasn't about the budget. It was just about rebelling.
So now, my friend can go buy me a bottle of Glenrothes, and everything will be right with the world. Thanks, partner.
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