We Didn't Start the "Flame"

James Paustian, the Commentator Man of the Year, is in a class by himself. Really.

"It's all about the slow, funky groove," Student Senator-elect Spencer Hamlin explained in an attempt to define the proverbial "zone" or "flow."

And oh, what a slow, funky groove Commentator Man of the Year Jim Paustian has been riding for the past twelve months. Emerging from relative obscurity, Jim took the '97-'98 school year by storm, single-handedly winning elections for two pairs of ASUO Executive candidates, scrapping his way to successful survival in the ASUO office and engaging himself to the student body Chief-of-Staff. Not bad for a young, progressive lad from humble Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji) roots, not bad at all.

Jim Paustian is the embodiment of greatness. And in a time when the hallowed halls of this great University seem riddled with the cowardice of political correctness, Jim emerges as a man unafraid to be up-front, and fearless in pursuing his dreams.

"He gets excited about that stuff," ASUO Vice President Ben Unger said. "The thing about Jim that is amazing is that he gets fired up about stuff, and if he gets fired up, he'll do just about anything for the people he really believes in."

When discussing Jim Paustian, experts can't help but mention the zone. An enigma to the average man, "the zone," or "the groove" as some people refer to it, is the element of the human condition that makes the unattainable attainable. It is the bubble a person enters from which anything is possible. "When I'm in the zone, my heart is pumping," ASUO President Bill Miner remarked. "I know I can move mountains."

Morgan Cowling, ASUO Vice President-elect and expert on overcoming odds, explains that "when you're in [the zone], there's no stopping that person, there's nothing anyone can do."

"It's amazing to watch," Cowling continued.

And it has been amazing to watch Jim all year. He has consistently baffled us with his ideas and antics. His presence was perpetually felt miles from the EMU breezeway he exhausted entire days smoking and gossiping in. Jim spent the entire year riding a wave and feeling hot.

Beginning last year as a member of the Miner/Unger campaign team, Jim swiftly imposed his greatness onto the crusade. Unger quickly noticed something special about Jim, noting that "during the elections he's really great because he just kind of feeds off that energy he has, that get-up-and-go kind of energy. That's when he kind of shines when he knows he has his job to do, it's just right there, you can see the ball of energy building within him."

That inner energy and strength is precisely what carried the campaign when Miner/Unger failed to attain the Emerald endorsement. Knowing full well that no ticket had snatched the Executive without first attaining the endorsement in over a decade, Jim refocused the campaign and led the charge against the Emerald and its choke hold over elections. In a surprising upset to everyone but Jim, the Miner/Unger campaign won outright in the primaries. It is at this point that Jim entered the zone he was to encompass for the entire year; it was at this point that Jim was elevated from being merely hot to being on fire, earning him the nickname "Flame."

So revered was his performance during the '97 election, that many a legend has been associated with his effort. The most notable legend is that of the Holy 29. A distributor of the Emerald reported to the police that 29 bundles of the paper containing the endorsement were stolen from the distribution point at the University Bookstore shortly after delivery around 7am. The distributor told police that he saw two males in a white car, with Fiji bumper stickers next to the license plate, loading the papers into the car.

Although it is mere speculation to assume that Jim played a role in the incident just because he is a white male, who owns a white car, with Fiji stickers next to the license plate, and was upset about the endorsement, it is a credit to his character that such a legend can be associated with such endeavors during that particular election season. The very fact that anyone can attribute the burglary, of an estimated $1,846.15 of newspapers, to this particular individual shows the power and effectiveness of the zone he was in. People just assumed that "Flame" would have done anything for the campaign, even risk having criminal charges pressed against him.

After the Miner/Unger victory, Jim moved from the Executive campaign to the Executive office. Hot as ever, and still in the zone, "Flame" began as the Voter Education Organizer. His original responsibility consisted of working with the Legislative Team to implement a statewide voter education plan. Realizing the ambiguity and immensity of the project, Miner and Unger refocused his position to organizing voter registration drives and debates over Measure 51. With the arrival of winter, Jim's job became obsolete again.

"When the voter registration drive was done and Jim had nothing to do, [Miner and Unger] created a new position called Visibility Coordinator," ASUO Multicultural Advocate Robert Wasson recalled. "He got paid a little bit less than me for doing a job that Bill and Ben pulled out of their asses."

As the Visibility Coordinator he made posters and organized the distribution of information about the ASUO. And although his skills were not called upon nearly as much as they had been during the elections season, he remained in the zone, and he remained the consummate professional. "He did his job, he was useful," Unger remembered.

"He'd be right there and ready to go, talking about all this stuff, talking a mile a minute, smoking his cigarettes, kind of going at it," Unger added. "He didn't casually breeze in and out [of the office]; when he came into the office, you knew it."

It was his presence and energy that kept him on payroll despite his position's bouts with obsolescence. And, like the legends attributed to his character, Miner's and Unger's insistence on keeping him in the office without a true position or role is a credit to the zone he was in. Miner and Unger felt that "Flame's" mere aura would encapsulate the entire office and drive it into the future.

After a great deal of soul searching, Jim eventually retired from his position(s) in the ASUO office. And for a few months, the intangibles of his zone were spent managing at Circle K and pursuing his fashion dreams. "[Flame] really likes fashion, that's his shtick," Unger said. "He really likes to talk about it, he loves it. He wants to be a fashion designer or something like that. He thinks fashion is dope and I would say that over and over again."

Then elections came around again, and this time Jim found himself working for the Wortman/Cowling campaign. No longer a mere volunteer, Jim was an organized juggernaut for the campaign, serving as an important mouthpiece for his candidates. Like the year before, his candidates failed to attain the Emerald endorsement. A year older, a year wiser, and in the twilight of his magnificent groove, Jim did not panic; "Flame" did not dim. He mustered up all his courage and strength and did something that no average human being would ever consider--he wrote the most politically incorrect Letter to the Editor ever printed in the Emerald.

"I never saw anyone on campus as being capable of this," Student Senator Jeff Kershner commented.

The letter accused the endorsed candidates of being spineless, self-serving white boys, and urged the student population to prove the Emerald wrong two years in a row. Many students and faculty alike took exception to his mentioning of race. Student Senator David McGee called the letter "one of the most bigoted things I've seen all year."

Student Senator Elliot Dale merely called the letter "tactless."

"Not only was it racist, but anti-Semitic as well," replied Jewish Student Union Director Angela Favaro.

Bill Miner and Ben Unger refuse to view the letter as anything more than petty rhetoric from an overly honest man. "I didn't find the letter racist or anti-Semitic," Miner remarked, "Jim is a fiery guy and he often speaks his mind."

"I don't think I'd call it racist; it definitely was fiery," Unger concurred in a separate interview.

Robert Wasson, ASUO Multicultural Advocate, questions how "Flame" overlooked one of the candidate's Jewish and Israeli heritage in calling the ticket a couple of white boys. It is within this line of questioning that the letter's brilliance is revealed and Jim's greatness solidified.

By ignoring the candidate's Jewish heritage, "Flame" grants Jews across the world a conditional acceptance they haven't been able to attain for thousands of years. By looking past the candidate's heritage, Jim disables the anti-Semitic propaganda that would have limited the candidate's ability to freely function.

Not only was the letter effective in its attempt to garner more racially based votes for his candidates, it also alleviated religious tensions across the world. If getting his candidates elected two years in a row without Emerald endorsements isn't a sign of greatness, then how about dispelling anti-Semitism?

Extended zones or hot streaks are the foundations for greatness. They are the reasons we celebrate sports stars such as Joe DiMaggio, Wilt Chamberlain and Cal Ripken; they are the reasons we support ska music, political adulterers and tragic shipwrecks. And while many can claim to have been in the zone longer than the weeks, days or minutes normal human beings are capable of. The Commentator sends its most heartfelt congratulations to Jim "Flame" Paustian--political strategist, covert operator, and historical revisionist extroardinaire--whose year-long zone carried him to greatness, and whose greatness makes him the Commentator Man of the Year.

***FUN FACT***
The Eugene Mission found thousands of bundled papers a couple of hours after they were reported stolen, Judy Riedel said, the general manager of the Oregon Daily Emerald. Had the Emerald not repossessed the papers, there was speculation might have distributed the Emerald '97 Endorsements to wandering vagrants as makeshift bibles. Imagine how empowered Eugene's homeless community would have been to have the goodness and truth of Boyd and Oberriter as the backbone of their salvation.

JIM'S OPEN LETTER TO CAMPUS