How Long Can This Go On?

 I tried to imagine how I could stand the next eight months of leadup to the 2024 Presidential Election. I am already at saturation point for the level of ridiculousness. Last week saw both candidates making an appearance at our southern border. It was what we have become attuned to: a photo opportunity. A chance for everyone to see these elderly gents amble about, being shown rocks and dirt and barbed wire. Each was shepherded about by handlers and given ample chance to be seen. Then they shared some of their thoughts about the situation down there before they ignored obvious questions and left. 

What effect did any of this attention have on border policy? Absolutely none. It would have been shocking if either of the major candidates for President of the United States would have said something along the lines of, "You know, I had a look around down there and what I saw was profoundly disturbing. We are treating human beings like cattle. Those who are simply trying to make it across what is inhospitable territory are doing so at the risk of their lives. Just for a chance to have a little of what we here in our great nation." Or even, "What I saw down in Texas made me sick. Why aren't we simply executing those who make the mistake of crossing our border illegally? Send a signal. Try to enter at your own peril. America for Americans!" Nothing so clear cut. Just more of the same old same old. 

One old guy says that the current border policies are an attempt to overthrow our government.

The other old guy says he is just trying to undo all the harm done by the other guy. 

Across the river, desperate lives and conditions wait for their chance to be part of the problem and its solution. 

Which makes me flinch in the extreme. How awful do things have to be for you to line up for the opportunity to be handled, mishandled, shoved and pushed and managed in hopes of a better life for you and your family? Where is the compassion for the wretched refuse? And would you be willing to sign a release for us to use your photo as an example of "wretched refuse?" If it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you please sign an oath of allegiance to the country that tried to kill you on the way in?

Eight more months.  

When The Stars Aligned

 Back in early 1985, a group of singers gathered in a studio to do their part to help those starving in Africa. A very cool idea, but it wasn't theirs originally. Bob Geldof, lead singer for the one-hit wonders The Boomtown Rats, brought a bunch of English pop stars together and recorded "Do They Know It's Christmas," an all-star charity single that was the fastest selling single in British history until Elton John reworked his "Candle in the Wind" for Princess Di's funeral. Elton's record made more money, but it was split up among a variety of charities favored by the late royal. The English supergroup sold more than two million copies across the globe, raising more than twenty-four million dollars for famine relief. They called themselves, with traditional Brit irony, Band-Aid. 

When all those American pop stars crammed into A&M recording studios on January 28, 1985, they had to walk under a sign taped over the entrance that read, "Check your ego at the door." Many of them had come from a night of celebrating at the American Music Awards, hosted by one of the authors of the song they were going to record, Lionel Richie. Bruce Springsteen showed up. Cindy Lauper came. Huey Lewis was there. Bill Joel and Ray Charles participated. The list of who sang "We Are The World" read like a Who's Who of mid-eighties pop. Tina Turner. Diana Ross. Stevie Wonder. And Michael Jackson. 

There were some notable no-shows: Madonna couldn't fit it into her busy schedule. Prince and his ego couldn't agree on the circumstances under which he would stand in a room with "the competition." Eddie Murphy didn't show, but Dan Aykroyd did. Sheila E was there, as an enticement to lure her boss and paramour Prince to the gig. It didn't work. Waylon Jennings walked out for a while as the artists argued about including some Swahili lyrics. 

In the end, they finished the record just about the time the sun was coming up the following morning. People drove back to their homes, hotels, or the airport, and waited for the release of the record two months later. March 7, 1985 we in the world got to hear "We Are The World" for the first time. The single sold more than twenty million copies. It might have gone to the top of the charts sooner if not for the ubiquitous Phil Collins, whose song "One More Night" slowed the charity single's rise. But since Phil sang on the Band-Aid record, I suppose we should forgive him. 

Thus began a period of musical activism. In the summer of 1985, a global event called Live Aid featuring most of the acts from both sides of the pond, occurring simultaneously in London and Philadelphia. Phil Collins played on both sides of the Atlantic. Madonna showed up for this one, but Prince still stayed home. Not long after that, Bruce Springsteen's guitarist Little Steven Van Zandt together ro record "Sun City" with an assemblage of many of the same conscientious folks to form Artists Against Apartheid. Bob Dylan, who showed up that night at the A&M studios wondered aloud “Wouldn’t it be great if we did something for our own farmers right here in America?” And thus Farm Aid was born. 

Thirty-nine years ago, music was going to change the world. Looking around the planet these days, I can't help but think that there's just not enough music. 

Rock Of Ages

 "Never trust anyone over thirty," was the adage that was tossed around frequently when I was eight or nine years old. But I do think it's important to consider that age and wisdom are often found in the same place, if only because a person makes enough wrong turns that eventually they start making the right ones and suddenly the know exactly how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. 

That being said, I would like to point out that last week Roger Daltrey celebrated his eightieth birthday. He has been married to his second wife for fifty-three years. He outlived the drummer in his band by forty-six years and counting. He was diagnosed back in 2015 with viral meningitis, and after a lengthy convalescence, he was able to go back into the studio with the other surviving member of the Who and record a new album in 2019. Then he and Pete went out on the road one more time. 

That was way back when he was in his seventies. 

I bring this up because this is the fellow who, at the ripe old age of twenty-one, declared "hope I die before I get old." 

Ah, youth. 

Here was are, pushing the limits and definitions of age around to suit ourselves, complaining about putting an eighty year old man in the White House. Mick Jagger is eighty years old. He and some of the other Stones just put out a new album that is as good as anything that the have released in years. They are hittng the road to play stadiums full of fans from eight to eighty. With a guitar player who is also eighty and has looked it for the past forty. 

I have tickets to see a seventy-four year old Bruce Springsteen later this month. I would have seen him some months ago, but a bout of peptic ulcer disease kept him from making that date. Age is just a number we tell ourselves. Those of us who are over thirty, anyway. 

All In The Family

 Recently there was some talk about "crime families" in reference to the leadership of our nation. It was made by everyone's favorite theatre critic, Lauren Boebert, the Colorado Congressperson currently in search of a district to represent. She let this tweet fly on February 27: "The Biden Crime Family will go down as the most corrupt political family in American history."

This assertion was and continues to be in keeping with her search for a moral high ground in her attempt to disgrace the current president. No matter that her lord and master is the one who is currently involved, along with his sons, in multiple litigations against their family. Never mind that she really should think more than twice about hurling stones around the glass house in which she finds herself living.

We'll skip the review of the "Beetlejuice" incident, and the ugly divorce proceedings and skip right to Representative Boebert's eighteen year old son. While her own crusade to impeach Joe Biden has been all but evidence free, authorities in Rifle, Colorado picked up young Tyler Boebert last Tuesday afternoon after a string of recent vehicle trespassing incidents and property thefts in the area. Ms. Boebert's son faces twenty-two counts altogether, five of which are felonies. The charges include criminal possession of ID documents with multiple victims, conspiracy to commit a felony, first degree criminal trespassing and theft. Investigators identified the teenager  in part because he was caught on surveillance footage wearing a hoodie with the name of his mom's recently closed gun-themed eatery.

So, not exactly the Sopranos, but not the Cleavers either. 

All of which makes me glad that my public profile does not allow a lot of curiosity about the skeletons in my family's closet. The bus numbers and stop signs I borrowed from the city when I was a teenager. My recreational research into the effects of alcohol and various other chemicals from my college years. That time I stole penny candy from the neighborhood Ben Franklin. And the list goes on. Never arrested. Never charged. Embarrassed and guilty in front of my parents, but have tried to leave a clean slate in my adult life, including trips to the theater when I was able to keep my hands to myself thank you very much. 

And for the most part, able to avoid screeching hypocrisy. 

Poor Richard

 There was a time, back in a previous century, when Hollywood was handing out sitcoms to any standup comedian who had a solid ten minutes and did not want to be on Saturday Night Live. Come to think of it, if memory serves me right, there was a time during which no one wanted to be on Saturday Night Live. 

But in the late eighties, it became something of a goal for the standup set to find their way to a three-camera taped in front of a live audience half hour showcase for their talents. Some of these succeeded far beyond expectations. The gold standard being Seinfeld, which told the story of a young comedian named Jerry Seinfeld and all the wacky situations a young comedian might encounter. Like the time he and his buddy decided to pitch a sitcom to NBC about the adventures of a young comedian who...

Well, you get the idea. In spite of this lazy brilliance, there were a lot of misfires. Not everyone remembers that Ellen DeGeneres had a sitcom before she started being everyone's happy talk host. And if you do remember the cleverly titled "Ellen," you probably remember the TV milestone she and her producers generated when they decided to have the character of Ellen come out to a prime time audience. But you may have pushed the fact that this was a somewhat desperate attempt to attract viewers to a show that was floundering in the ratings. That shining moment could not keep the show from collapsing under its own weight one season later. 

From the ash heap of this period, from the rubble of Brett Butler, Jeff Foxworthy and Robin Williams, I pull the discarded remnant of pop culture known as Anything But Love. The draw here was not the standup, but rather the star of all those slasher films from earlier in the decade, Jamie Lee Curtis. Her romantic interest was Marty Gold, played by the intensely neurotic Richard Lewis. For me, Richard was the draw. Having watched Richard come of age during regular appearances on David Letterman's show, I was a fan. Richard was definitely an acquired taste, with his nearly constant fidgeting and fits of anxiety that flirted with the edges of pain. The pain that he turned outward from inside. All the hypochondria, the social fears, the threat of failure. That was appointment television for me. 

Jamie Lee Curtis would eventually win an Oscar. No Oscar for Richard. No Emmy either. But he did land a plum role on his pal Larry David's show Curb Your Enthusiasm. He played an older comedian who was friends with the guy upon whom the character of George on Seinfeld was based. He was a natural. 

Richard went to that big open mic in the sky last week. While he was here he trembled and shook and kvetched on the Terra, and he will be missed. Aloha, Richard, see you in my fever dreams. 

Breaking All The Rules

 I'm going to break the first rule: I'm going to talk about fight club.

Then I'm going to break the second rule: I'm going to continue to talk about fight club. 

I'm going to continue to break rules one and two until something changes.

And don't think that somewhere down deep inside the anarchic piece of me that reveled in the novel and the film of that name isn't completely at odds with me about this decision, but I'm talking about fourth graders here. 

Nine and ten year old boys who arranged an afterschool rumble in the bathroom for the expressed purpose of recording and streaming it to their nine and ten year old audience. That anarchic piece was shouted down immediately when my common sense teacher brain kicked in. Safety was my first concern. Right after that came this question: "What do you suppose gave them idea?"

It would be easy enough to toss a blanket over social media and be done with it. Then again, it says right there on the Tik-Tok website that you must be thirteen years or older to have an account. Isn't someone at home monitoring their child's use of their space age telecommunications apparatus? It would be disturbing enough if the boys had arranged a bout in the bathroom over some perceived slight or lunchroom transgression, but the added level of broadcasting it for the prurient interests of a group that would most certainly reach beyond our school walls made it much worse. 

In my mind. 

The mind that had been occupied at the time that this was all going down by a meeting about posting pictures and videos of our students online and trying to discern exactly what tack to take when deciding which kids and whose faces we were allowed to put on Al Gore's Internet for everyone to see. The school district has recently moved to an "opt-out" policy where at the beginning of the year parents are asked to check a box only if they objected to having their children's image put out there for all to see. Everywhere. All the time. 

I can guarantee the same parents who flipped on past that box on the questionnaire are the same ones who don't bother to check on their children's tech use. The outrage I felt as an educator and a parent was not mirrored by the reactions of the parents of the boys involved. None of them had the words "victimless crime" at hand, but that was the overriding expression of their concern. Kids, after all, will be kids. 

I heard that little voice in my head start to speak up, but I told it to shut up and go back to 1999.  

Incident Report

 A few days ago, our cat got out. This happens periodically, but not enough that we have erected any sort of barrier or gate to prevent such an event. We have a general response which is to stay calm and assume that the crisis will end in much the same way that it always has before: our cat back inside the house. 

When this most recent breech occurred, I arrived home to the news after the cat had a half hour head start. We adopted him from the neighborhood, and don't expect that he will wander too far afield. There are about four places where he might land, all of which are a short walk from our front door. 

Nevertheless, I went into house protection mode. I become unsettled easily when things are not in a particular order. The cat not being inside is one of those elements of chaos that set my nerves on edge. I went outside to check on those places where I have often seen the cat making good on his moments of relative freedom. Not the back fence. Not in front of the apartments next door. His two landing spots across the street were devoid of his presence as well. I returned home to stare out into the front yard alternately with trips to the back door to see if he had showed up there. 

My wife kept a calm vigil, reminding me that the cat has been with us for three years and has always found his way home before. Usually this return has accompanied meal time. But as darkness began to fall her composure began to slip as we each pondered all the possible fates that lay outside our control.

This is when I started thinking about the pending government shutdown. This happens all the time. We expect that common sense will prevail and once Congress reminds itself that they need to come home in order to eat they will do the right thing and make the budget work. Even though all kinds of danger exists for us all if a compromise is not reached, the cats on Capitol Hill will stay out as darkness falls. They have all kinds of cat concerns to look after beyond the obvious one: providing a budget to keep the government from shutting down. 

Eventually, the phone rang and the neighbor across the street let us know that our cat had come by to hang out on her back porch. My wife walked over to retrieve our pet, our house pet, who seemed less than pleased about being dragged back to the confines of the place where he has been kept warm and fed and safe for the past three years. Where there is always a warm lap in which to sit, and any number of places to rule from his roost. Crisis averted. 

For now.