Leave them wanting more?

By DAVID GREEN

I've searched and searched, but cannot find any reference to the origin of the show business axiom "always leave them wanting more." I believe it comes from Vaudeville days.

Whatever its origin, it certainly represents an anachronism nowadays. I wonder, really, how many people who may read this have, in fact, heard it (or, for that matter, know what "Vaudeville" is). About the only application of the concept of "restraint" that is used in contemporary society is that people restrain themselves from being restrained. Sports is a particularly apropos example.

The latest example: National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell wants to expand the NFL regular-season schedule from 16 to as many as 18 games. There is no possible motivation other than to exploit the opportunity to make more money. The plan is to get rid of some exhibition games, which generate less revenue, and replace them with "real" games.

In auto racing, Formula One -- which in recent years has added venues in Malaysia, China and the Middle East -- is wrestling with overtures from new-money (not only new, but very large money) folks in such diverse locations as Russia and India. The schedule, which had stabilized in the 1990s at about 16 races per year, is pushing 20 now. Some historic tracks have been dropped, and more are likely to get the axe.

And then there's the current NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule which keeps teams on the track 38 times over a 41-week span.

Sports, and racing in particular, are about excess -- about stretching one's limits, expanding one's capabilities, measuring those things in competition. These activities have become popular, in cultures from the ancient Greeks to modern times, because this competition can be highly entertaining and enjoyable.

So maybe there's a disconnect between sports and the notion of "always leave them wanting more." Maybe there's a chronological disconnect, as even show business no longer seems to subscribe to that policy (if, in fact, it ever truly did).

Then again, maybe lack of restraint explains the doldrums NASCAR was beginning to experience even before the slide toward our present economic condition began. And it might represent a red flag (or at least a cautionary yellow one) for F1 and the NFL.

Sure, NASCAR and F1 can schedule more races. Sure, track owners can build more grandstands and new owners can build more tracks. Sure, the NFL can schedule more games.

The question is, should they?

Nobody perceives the NFL or F1 to be in any "slump" the way NASCAR appears to be. Which begs the question -- does that mean "yes, add more games," or does it mean "no, don't mess with something that's clearly not broken"?

A once-popular country song affirmed that, according to the singer, "I ain't never had too much fun." At the opposite extreme, some say the universe itself is finite. So is there such a thing as "too much"?

As regards human existence, my own philosophy is that yes, there is. More is not always (perhaps not even often) better. In support of my attitude, I offer the seven deadly sins -- the second of which is gluttony. I don't believe that applies solely to the intake into the body of food.

Quite often, things that happen quickly -- rash decisions, automobile accidents, 24-hour engagements -- are bad. As technology expands, it also mandates a faster pace of life. The logical extrapolation is that we're going to make more bad decisions.

But they won't always be based on the pace of life. They will be based on other sins -- greed, envy, pride.

"Leave them wanting more"?

Nowadays, about the only thing I want "more" of is peace and quiet and serenity.