I Approve Of This Message

 When I came home on Thursday, my ballot was waiting in my mailbox. 

I wasted no time. 

I voted. 

Admittedly, there were a number of candidates and issues that I felt I needed to gain some clarity before I sealed that envelope and sent it off to be counted, but before I sat down to dinner I went to the first page and filled out, emphatically, that bubble next to the names of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. It was the first time I ever voted for anyone younger than me for President and Vice President. 

I did it without hesitation. I did it in a flurry that was urged on by months of waiting to make this decision. Months ago, I would have felt similarly rushed, but I would have been mostly acting on my need to vote for anyone but Donald Trump. My Democratic lineage would have brought me to that decision regardless, but over the past few months, my enthusiasm for Kamala Harris has grown to a fever. 

She is not the first person of color for whom I have cast my vote. Nor is she the first woman I have chosen to be our President. I believe that fundamentally our leaders should look like the people for whom they serve. Last time I checked, Americans come in a lot of shapes, sizes, and colors, but there's only one big orange one. 

Kamala Harris has had one client for her entire professional life: The People. I like that. I like that when she laughs, it sounds like she's asking me to join in with her, not to deride someone else. I like that she stands for things in which I too believe: Possibility. Change. Moving Forward. 

Hope. 

When I put my ballot in my mailbox, I thought about how I felt four years ago. That dread has been replaced by a light that feels like we can finally pick up the pieces of our divided nation and start to put them back together. School shootings, climate change, and all the fear and hate can be tamped down to the dull roar that it used to be. We do not have to live our lives wondering what crisis needs to be negotiated because someone in the Oval Office couldn't keep their slimy business practices out of the affairs of state. 

I feel pleased and happy to have the chance to once again follow a leader: Kamala Harris.

How?

 The slogan is: Make America Great Again. The first thing to note is that after four years in office, the MAGATs managed to do little to make good on that claim. A more divided country. A rising tide of xenophobia. The elimination of a woman's right to choose. An increase of the national debt of almost eight trillion dollars. A bunch of happy billionaires.

The rest of us? Not so much. And after four hundred thousand Americans had lost their lives to the mishandling of the COVID Pandemic, the MAGA show packed up their bags and left town. But first, they made a stop at the Capitol, where they beat police officers, broke windows and threatened to hang the Vice President of their own party. 

Now this merry band of pranksters would like to move back in. Part of their argument for being reinstated as the folks in charge is their insistence on putting America First. In order to support their efforts, they are selling Bibles. For sixty dollars you can get yourself the revealed word of God, printed in China, to help further the cause. If sixty dollars won't do it, you can always through down one hundred thousand dollars to own a watch that, like that "God Bless The USA" Bible was probably also made in China. 

Are you sensing a trend here? 

But let's hop back a bit for a recent revelation: During the height of the pandemic, the former "president" and game show host sent COVID tests to his pal Vlad "The Inhaler" Putin in Russia. COVID tests that were in short supply here in the God-Blessed USA. This was confirmed by the Kremlin. It makes sad sense that a man whose understanding of winning friends and influencing people begins and ends with empty gestures to his own country. It also raises all kinds of questions about why a man who has failed at so many things would be allowed to be considered a front-runner for any office in this great land of ours.

And yet, here we are, with less than a month to go before the election in a dead heat. The dividing line between those that understand the grift taking place and the hapless marks who continue to line up for the continued abuse. Like the Superintendent of Oklahoma schools who had initially insisted on putting a Trump Bible in every classroom in his state. The constitutionally defined line between church and state had already been wiped clean by Superintendent Walters, but then to be sure that the MAGAt agenda would be further enhanced, he decided to insist that the revealed word of God would be mixed in with historical documents like the Declaration of Independence and The United States Constitution. 

Make America A Bizarro World Filled With Contradictions And Lies. MAABWFWCAL!

The Dating Game

 One of the biggest challenges in these troubled times is finding someone with whom you feel comfortable navigating them. For all my single friends, this one goes out to you: 

“I’m married now and I have children, but I wasn’t married that long ago. I was single and I was on the market. If you are a young man—it’s very important in an election season—who’s looking to impress the ladies, to be the alpha, to be attractive, the best thing you can do is to wear your Trump support on your sleeve.” 

“Show that you are a real man, show that you are not a beta, right?. Be a proud and loud Trump supporter, and your dating life will be fantastic.”

The preceding advice comes to us from MAGA's favorite propaganda minister and Nosferatu impersonator, Stephen Miller, who appeared on Jesse "Hold Your" Watters Faux News show to share his tips for picking up chicks. Jesse is the guy who has described Kamala Harris as "a frightened woman," and Count Stephen once referred to his big orange boss as "a style icon." 

What I am suggesting here is that these men might be the perfect reverse barometer for just about anything. While I applaud the fact that both of these men seem to have found love in their own particular idiom, Mister Watters having divorced his first wife after having an affair with a producer on his show and then marrying that producer suggests that finding women may not be his problem as much as staying with them. Pale Prince of the Night Miller found the love of his life just down the hall in the former Vice President's communications office. Katie Miller nee Waldman was working for Mike Pence before she was whisked away to Trump Tower for their dream nuptials. 

I would imagine that MAGAfilliation had a lot to do with all of these couplings, but I am not sure that this strategy would be successful with anyone who might have the slightest objection to the way the Big Orange Boss has carried on his romantic life. But, if Jesse and Stephen have their way, Project 2025 should clear the decks of any of those obstacles to happily ever after once women have been returned to their proper place in our society. Like Stepford. 

Happy hunting, boys!

Catching Up

 Sexism.

Misogyny. 

Patriarchy. 

This is the sliding scale I see at work here in the early stages of the twenty-first century. Certainly one could point a finger at certain other countries whose theocracy burdens the women of their cultures not only with the social constructs but also with the religious beliefs that have been installed to oppress women. But, as we say in the teacher biz, that leaves three more fingers pointing back at us: The good ol' US of A. 

Like the way we "fixed" racism back in the 1960s, there were those who figured that sexism was over once Gloria Steinem showed up to make everything alright. Back in 1984 Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman to run as Vice President for a major political party in our nation's history. Before that, Shirley Chisolm, a black woman, ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1972. The fact that it took almost another fifty years to get a woman of any color anywhere near the Oval Office. 

That's what we call progress in a patriarchy. In a time when the pendulum for equal rights seems to have swung back farther than ever, ignoring the laws of physics. As the number of women in this country continues to be greater than the number of men, we continue to watch the rights of the majority controlled by the boys' club that started that whole nonsense about "all men" being created equal. 

We're still very afraid of what women can do. Men can wage wars and topple markets. But they cannot create life. Men like to kid themselves, pardon the expression, but they are actually a pretty small part of the equation. This is why there is such a rush of males gathering together in cabals to try and control female anatomy. For fifty years, along about the time Shirley Chisolm was trying to break that gentrified ceiling, the law of the land was that a woman had a right to choose what happened to her body. Fifty-five percent of Americans consider themselves "pro-choice," which suggests that there are at lest a few men who are thinking outside their box. And just a few women willing to give up control of their bodies to the government. The government dominated by men. 

The patriarchy. 

Which makes all this fuss that Republicans are making this election cycle about women who don't have "children of their own" are somehow less than their counterparts who have even more ridiculous. Women should be allowed to take care of their lives, liberties and their chosen path to happiness without the interference of 

Wait for it

The patriarchy. 

Time to let women make some choices for a while. They have a lot of catching up to do. 

The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself, And That's Plenty

 I spent the weekend with a friend from high school. Not my oldest friend, but he is certainly in the running. The moment that bound us together was our first viewing of the movie Halloween back in 1978. Another time. Another century. Disco was in its death throes along with the King of Rock and Roll. Jimmy Carter was president. We had only recently stopped going to see Star Wars, later to be known as "A New Hope" in theaters. Video tape was something that television stations used to record news events. The preview my friend and I received was a nearly shot-for-shot retelling from an upperclassman who had seen John Carpenter's classic the week before. 

Seeing the seminal babysitter-killer movie with my friend remains one of my all-time favorite movie-going experiences. Even though we were prepared for the events of the story, we were not prepared for the manipulation we were about to encounter at the hands of a master. We had, since the coming attractions rehash we got in the band room at Boulder High School, spent days leading up to our trip to the movie theater pushing ourselves ever closer to the brink of terror. 

We had prepared ourselves to be scared. 

And we were. 

Coming out of the evening show, the sun had gone down, and walking around the block to where my friend's car was parked was eerily reminiscent of the streets of Haddonfield, Illinois on that fateful night. "The night HE came home." We were sure that Michael Myers was laying in wait in the back seat, or hiding behind that big tree just across from that dimly lit house. We had succeeded on burying the needle on the fear-meter, and it wasn't clear just when we might recover. 

Decades passed. We watched many more movies together. We went to college in different places, but whenever we got together, watching a movie was almost always on the menu. 

But none of them could touch our encounter with one of the most frightening films of all time, a bond we share today. My father joined the army with his high school buddy who would eventually become my godfather. My son's godfather and I lived through that one night of terror. It's interesting to see what things stand the test of time. 

Days Go By

 What would it mean to celebrate my cultural heritage? 

My wife gathered up all her creative impulses and shared them with a receptive crowd at Oaktoberfest, our city's tribute to German roots and beer. And polka and beer. And bratwurst and beer. And souvenir T-shirts and beer. Not unlike the annual  festivals held in cities like Munich, Berlin and Mountain View. These events are not dissimilar to the celebrations of Cinco De Mayo that break out across the globe, primarily in Estados Unidos, where anyone who can lift a cerveza can be an honorary Mexican. 

Saint Patrick's Day used to be my opportunity to shine on my blarney stone and go Bragh for Erin. I made quite a fuss about my roots back in the old country: The Emerald Isle, Ireland. Then somewhere along the line my mother did a bit of genealogy for my older brother's fiftieth birthday and discovered that what we though was a load of Irish turned out to be a bit of Scottish and a whole lot of English paste holding a wad of white European together. For his part, my older brother was content to shift gears and take on the whole Robert Burns Night with its haggis and whisky. He does draw the line at wearing a kilt, however. 

Me? I watch my wife of the Baumgardner clan embrace the enormous nouns and glottal stops that are her birthright, along with all those stein-carrying denizens of the Bay Area willing to put on their Oktoberface. I wandered through the crowds with full knowledge that for most of these folks this was only a day trip. I know that my wife and my mother-in-law will continue to share German phrases and stories throughout the calendar year. A celebration of their ancestry. 

This is not my experience. I might decide to feel bad about the relative void in my life without any sort of festival marking the significant accomplishments of those who came before me. Except every holiday or party that venerate white guys like myself that litter the calendar pages. So maybe I should be satisfied with that.

Your Song

 It occurred to me this past weekend that I do not think that I could accurately name The Song that my wife and I would agree is "ours." Not because we don't share musical tastes. We do. I have been expressly involved in generating a playlist of tunes that create a tapestry of our lives together. The mightiest challenge in this process would be winnowing down all of those sounds to one specific and special song. 

There was a time, when I was a much younger man, that I could have told you the song that I shared with my high school girlfriend, but she might disagree with me. Time has a way of making sentiment a syrupy and unfortunate thing. Add to this that I made dozens of mix tapes that described the arc of that relationship, and I was also privy to the songs that defined her relationships prior to ours. I was not above capitalizing on that fact by replaying bits of her history before me for context. Then adding my own layer of sonic frosting to that mix. 

Once upon a time I referred to those mix tapes as "an opera I was too lazy to write." A love story described in popular music of the day. With the occasional spoken word bits and themes to movies that made an appearance in our timeline. 

Eventually that romance ended, but the tapes kept being made. Rehashing musical references to what once was and a friendship that bloomed in the wake of that breakup. When love came back into my life some time later, that urge to document that new relationship with music could not be shaken. The fact that most of the time I spent courting my wife was done to a prerecorded group of songs some of which had already been road tested in my prior affair. I already knew the power of Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic," for example. 

But there was still so much to be learned. Rush, for example, is a very much acquired taste and in the process of wooing a potential mate should be avoided at all costs. I am pleased and happy to report that after decades of wearing her down, my wife no longer reaches for the volume control to turn down compositions by Geddy Lee and the boys whenever they appear either in the wild of forced upon her in a CD mix. No matter how clever that segue you thought you were making. 

There was music that showed up during the initial dates my wife and I took after years of being just good friends. There was music from the bin of surprise that came from the discovery that after all those years of hanging out that we might end up being, well, married. And of course there were those moments of revelation that occurred when we both realized that the snickering we had been doing about couples and their sentimentality was just a tad hypocritical. We played Etta James' "Always" at our wedding, for example. 

But if you're asking me to pick one or even a dozen songs that would define the rough outline of our relationship? Never mind. You might as well ask me to describe the colors of a rainbow. Easy enough until you start looking more closely. So if you're asking me now, I'll have to say that it would have to be "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy" from the Ren and Stimpy Show. Meet me back here in a couple hours and the answer will be different. See you then.