Word count: 771 | Reading time: 4 min read
Pretzel Logic
It will be hot, no doubt, on Aug. 17, and the city will be crowded.
A group of people with names like Wade and Rat are coming from California to rocket down Falls Road in Fairmount Park.
Another group, backed by people with names like Ed and B.J., is coming to rock the Criminal Justice Center, where convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal will appear for a municipal court hearing in his latest bid for freedom.
The cameras will be in both places, to capture the inevitable tumult.
Nuts doing 65 down steep hills, hind quarters just inches off the ground.
Nuts chanting “Free Mumia.” Thousands looking on. Traffic choked all over.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Why not combine the two events?
There is a natural synergy between the teenagers and twentysomethings trooping in for the X Games and the teens and twentysomethings trooping in for Mumia.
At their core, these are folks who are doing what they believe in. Skate kids who get rousted and ticketed by Philly cops the other 364 non-X Days every year. Protest kids who saw their brethren incarcerated here just for building puppets, many arrested by state police who were still hunting down the Red Menace.
There is another characteristic shared by Xers and Mumidiots.
Each digs risk.
Fractured bones, in the case of the Xers.
Fractured logic, in the case of the Mumidiots.
I would love to believe, for a moment, that if I hurtled down a steep hill on a street luge, my hind quarters inches off the ground, that I would live to tell about it.
I would also love to believe, for a moment, that Danny Faulkner — the police officer Mumia gunned down in 1981 — was not a victim of the then-Wesley Cook, but rather a hero who was rubbed out by a cadre of crooked cops on the take from mobsters on the make. Abu-Jamal (né Cook) the patsy set up to take the blame.
I love this story, because it makes about as much sense as me hopping on a stunt bike and doing loop-the-loops, which is kind of what Mumia’s former legal team tried to do. But that stunt was slammed last month by U.S. District Court Judge William H. Yohn, who yawned at the yarn, saying that Leonard Weinglass and Mumia’s other counselors waited too long to introduce this information — which surfaced in a 1999 deposition.
Still, Mumidiots believe this to be the gospel, which defies logic every bit as much as the Xers defy gravity.
It is this urge to defy that makes combining the events such a natural.
Every event needs a lineup, and here’s one for the Mumia X Games:
Sat., Aug. 11
Freestyle Logic Leap at 13th and Locust
Contestants try to prove that Danny Faulkner was killed by Bad Lieutenants working for murderous Mafiosi.
10 a.m.-3 p.m. — Practice
3-4 p.m. — Qualifying Run.
Sun., Aug. 12
Tandem BMX High-Wire Act at the CJC
Police and protesters square off on little stunt bicycles as they ride a high wire between Love Park and the CJC.
10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. — Practice
2:30-3:30 p.m. — Finals
Mon., Aug. 13
Aggressive Spin Line
Mumidiots and Faulknerettes speed down 13th Street on Rollerblades, shouting to as many people as possible their take on events.
12:30-2:30 p.m. — Mumidiots Practice (Northbound on 13th)
2:30-4 p.m. — Faulknerettes Practice (Northbound on 13th)
4-6:30 p.m. – Mumidiots and Faulknerettes Final
All kidding aside, I really do admire Xers and Mumidiots.
Not the corporate suits who see the X Games as a prime vehicle for reaching a treasured demographic. And not the Ed Asners and Mike Farrells of this world, washed up has-beens who see in Mumia a chance to stay in the public eye, even if they haven’t clue one about the case. And to whom I say, try reading the transcript, fellas, at www.danielfaulkner.com. Mumia wasn’t convicted because the fix was in. He was convicted because Mumia ultimately employed an idiot to represent him — namely, himself.
I truly admire the Xers who risk it all doing things with skateboards and stunt bikes and little sleds with wheels that sane people would shun as suicidal.
And I do admire the kids who will come here with their signs and their banners, beating drums and chanting “Free Moo-Mia Aah-boo-Jaaaah-Mahl.”
They are standing up for the Constitution.
But my admiration does not come without admonition.
I don’t believe in the death penalty anymore than you folks.
But spend your energy and enthusiasm on someone who didn’t do it.
