NOT a desert island, because you need to drink, silly!

Many people list their top 10 albums, or their top 20, or whatever. I have tried this exercise and found that I can’t do it. For one, my list is never a round power of 10, and for another I always have songs left over from albums that I absolutely must have, but the albums I can take or leave. (k. d. lang’s “Pullin’ Back the Reins is a good example; I can take or leave most of the rest of Absolute Torch and Twang.)

So this list is my top albums that I absolute couldn’t do without if I were stranded on a deserted island, along with a few songs I also just have to have. Along with why they’re magnificent and why you should rush out and listen to them yesterday, or why they’re special to me, whether they’re great or not. It’s not a list of albums I’m putting here so people think I’m cool (which I think is all too often the focus of a lot of these lists), or because I think the albums are great (though I do think some of them are great), or because I think my taste is better than anyone else’s, or anything like that. This is just the music that I love, is all. So for example I sure didn’t put Miles Davis here to score points with Jazz lovers; I put Kind of Blue here because I friggin’ love it.

These albums are in no particular order at all; just as they came out of my fevered noggin.

Joni Mitchell, Court and Spark

Joni Mitchell recorded plenty of awesome music, and I won’t belabor her greatness here. Many rate Blue as her apex; some Hejira. I won’t argue with them, though I personally believe this album is a peerless masterpiece. It’s special to me because it was one that was a soundtrack to my youth, and nothing can dislodge that from my brain. Mitchell’s soaring voice, the matchless musicians backing her, the incredible orchestration, and the tremendous, crystal-clear sound engineering are just astounding. And of course it brings me right back to summer days and evenings in our little house in the rolling hills of Northern Virginia in the early 70s, when I was still a grammar school student, kids could wander the neighborhood without fear of kidnap, “playdates” hadn’t been invented, and no one had been impeached since Andrew Johnson.

Mile Davis, Kind of Blue

I’m hardly alone in thinking this album is a masterpiece. People who know Jazz ‘way better than me will tell you all kinds of things about how it birthed entire new modes of the form. I don’t know nothin’ ’bout that; all I know is it’s beautiful, and has Miles Davis and John Coltrane both on it, and is just wonderful from end to end. I’ve had it in every format from vinyl to digital and I always will.

The Who, Who’s Next

The Who’s masterpiece (yes, I know I keep using that word; sorry). From the ashes of a failed follow-up project to Tommy that almost caused Pete Townshend to have an emotional breakdown, there was this. All the songs are great, whatever their provenance, but the absolute best is “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, a song that hides an incredibly cynical and biting message inside an unabashedly anthemic sound, something Springsteen duplicated with “Born in the USA” (an equally misunderstood song). I don’t care how great people think Radiohead is; Pete Townshend does stuff on this album Thom York wishes he could do. Plus Pete had Roger Daltrey.

Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run

Yeah, yeah, yeah; you’ve heard it all before about this album, and what more can I possibly add? Nothing. The fact is, it lives up to the hype. It’s simply a great album, from start to finish, and I would have to have it on my island. And that’s all there is to say about that.

k.d. lang, Ingénue

There are people who say it’s Beyoncé. There are people say it was Whitney Houston. There are people who say it’s Mariah Carey. Some will go for Aretha Franklin (which is hard to argue). Others Etta James. Or perhaps Barbra Streisand. Or Adele. But for me no one can sing like k.d. I’ll never forget seeing her on Saturday Night Live, singing “Pullin’ Back the Reins” with my mouth literally hanging open, sitting motionless for the entire song, flat-out awed by her performance. And nowhere is her talent on such full and complete display as Ingénue (though Shadowlands is damn fine). This album sucks you in, holds you in its spell for 40 minutes, then sends you on your way, and you can’t believe it’s over. And then you have to listen again. It’s a blessing to the world, this album. I could not possibly do without it. Thank you, k.d.

King Crimson, Discipline

Robert Fripp is a prick. He is also stupendously talented, a hard worker, a perfectionist, and puts out some amazing stuff. King Crimson is his baby, and he has moved personnel in and out of it over 45+ years as if they were musical instruments themselves, and with no more thought for their feelings. The results are sometimes brilliant, sometimes IMO unlistenable, sometimes just downright weird. With this collection of musicians and on this album, he hit the perfect balance of players at just their right degree of virtuosity, and they put out a work of art. Lots of people disagree with me, and that’s fine; this one speaks to me, and that’s the point of this list. Adrien Belew’s whack, extroverted guitar improvisations are the perfect foil for Fripp’s anal-retentive, obsessively over-produced finger-picking. When backed up by Tony Levin’s non-rock-based bass and his expressive Stick playing, held tightly in place by Bill Bruford’s precise-yet-muscular drumming, it all comes together beautifully. This is my favorite incarnation of King Crimson by far, and they made two more albums (Beat, Three of a Perfect Pair) that are almost as good before Fripp got itchy balls and blew it up for something different. This is the only one I can’t do without.

Talking Heads, Remain in Light

Talking Heads popped loose and gained their hold in American pop culture with Speaking in Tongues and their amazing, exuberant, basically-perfect concert film (except, IMO, the Tom Tom Club segment) Stop Making Sense. Both are wonderful, and I love and enjoy both regularly. Sometimes I just listen to Stop Making Sense, reliving the night when I and 5-6 friends and I piled into my housemate Peggy’s boyfriends car (it was some big, giant American 70s thing; a Lincoln Continental or some such) and rolled on down to the Sash Mill, a local art film theater in Santa Cruz, to watch it with a crowd of other raucous UC Santa Cruz students. A memorable night for sure. But nothing for me tops the swirling, sometimes loopy, sometimes surreal, polyrhythmic wonder that is Remain in Light. I never tire of it. (Much to the irritation of my friend Susan; “Don’t you listen to anything else?) Bizarre, transfixing, frustrating, odd, funky, danceable…it blew my brain away and never stopped.

Peter Gabriel, Security

Peter Gabriel was in Genesis before they became a singles-making machine under Phil Collins. Now, I’m not saying they were a bad band with Phil Collins, or that I dislike Phil Collins’ work, or anything like that; I’m just establishing a baseline here, as we say in the nerd biz. Gabriel was into World Music way before it was a thing, working with African musicians and rhythms in the mid-70s, most notably on the anti-apartheid anthem “Biko” from his third album. (A live performance of which I saw at the Oakland Coliseum Arena in the mid-80s as the anti-apartheid movement was gaining momentum, the memory of which—an entire crowd of 15,000 people in Oakland standing on their feet, fists in the air, chanting “OH OH OHHHHHHHH!” together with Gabriel’s multi-ethnic band—still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up on.) His music is not for everyone, despite being prominently featured in Everyone’s Favorite Teen RomCom Say Anything. It is complex, deeply personal, often wildly weird, and lyrically (to put it mildly) obscure. But it is most definitely for me, and this album is IMO his best. (Though So, his next offering, is damn fine.)

Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin III

Yes, I’m well aware that most people will choose Led Zeppelin IV (or “Zoso” as some folks call it after the image that accompanied the vinyl album). I don’t care. Led Zeppelin IV is an excellent album and I would never argue it wasn’t, and you’ll find at least one of its songs down below, but for pure repeat listening value nothing tops this one for me. If you want your classic dose of crunching, mind-melting Zep blues-rock with mystical influence, you can listen to The Immigrant Song, but for me the strange, drifting, almost soft tone of the rest of the album is what draws me in. And while it’s hard for anything to top the intensity of “Kashmir” from Presence, “Since I’ve Been Loving You” is in my opinion their rawest and most blues-inflected song ever. I can get along without IV; I can’t get along without this one.

Keith Jarrett, The Köln Concert

If you keep an open mind, you can learn from practically any source and any person. I have been blessed by having dated a wide variety of women with a wide background, who have exposed me to lot of different cultural influences, which I am forever grateful for. From my ex-wife Sami, who introduced me to Cajun culture (music, cooking, dancing) to others who have showed me everything from Lindy dancing to Shibari, I’ve really been lucky. And in this case, it was my first college girlfriend Alison, who introduced me to the amazing Keith Jarrett and his magical playing in Germany. I couldn’t get along without it. Thanks to all of you (many of whom I’m still friends with), and to Alison for this one.

Bob Marley, Legend

It’s not really fair to include a “greatest hits” album on one’s “favorites” list, but in this case I just have to. I’m a big believer in the letting artists define their craft through an album, although there are some exceptions. Creedence, for example, pumped out singles. AC/DC is another band that was just a singles machine. And in Marley’s case, while I wouldn’t put him in the same category, I think it’s fair to collect his best together like this. And this is one of those albums that’s actually on a lot of other folks’ “best albums” lists, too, so why the heck not? And I’d need it on my island, anyway.

Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon / Wish You Were Here

I couldn’t decide whether to list two albums by the same group as separate entries, or to squoosh them together under one. I went with the latter choice; throw rocks at me if you wish. Both of these albums mean a lot to me, though for different reasons. Dark Side of the Moon because it is such a lovely, exquisite distillation of all the best of acid rock into one basically flawless album. Wish You Were Here because it served as the soundtrack for a period of my life that was both incredibly painful and yet growthful—mid-college—containing breakups and new relationships, friends made and lost, growth and discovery, that I wouldn’t trade for anything no matter how much it hurt and cost me at the time. I wouldn’t want to be without either one.

Santana, Abraxas

An album that, to me, can only be played in warm weather (as indeed all of Santana’s songs seem designed for in my mind). Santana’s first Gold record, a record on which Greg Rolie (later to become hugely successful with Journey) sang and played; the one with “Black Magic Woman” and “Oye Como Va”. Santana’s liquid, singing guitar playing (B.B. King made his guitar cry; Santana makes his sing), the mix of Spanish rhythm, Jazz, and rock, and the swirl of 60s psychedelia mixes just perfectly on this disc for me.

Donald Fagen, The Nightfly

Every time I put on this album, I think I’m only going to listen to a song or two, and every time, I listen to the whole thing. This is not by any stretch a classic album, but I just love it. I first found it through MTV, which back in my day played music videos instead of just episodes of Ridiculousness. It’s absolutely an album for Boomers, which I am not, despite my birth year; I am wedged into a very uncomfortable zone between Boomers and GenX. But somehow I really enjoy it; from the funky, paranoid-yet-horny synth-driven bop of “New Frontier” to the sweet, hopeful romanticism of “Maxine”, to the snapshot memory of “Walk Between Raindrops”, I find it compelling. And the opening hopefulness of I.G.Y, with it’s callbacks to Hugo Gernsback-driven jetpacks and space habitats, is almost specifically-designed to be Doug-bait. It’s not for everyone, but it’s definitely for me. (added 1/1/2022)

Songs

And here are the songs I just couldn’t leave behind, either:

• “Pullin’ Back the Reins”; k. d. lang
• “Air from Suite #3 in D, II”, J. S. Bach
• “When the Levee Breaks”, Led Zeppelin
• “Should I Stay or Should I Go?”, The Clash
• “Hotel California”, The Eagles
• “The Boys of Summer”, Don Henley (NOT a song for the summer, you boneheads!)

If press coverage these days doesn’t drive you to drink…

It’s an article of faith right now—and has been since at least the beginning of the Trump era in, shall we say, late 2015?—that press coverage sucks. Or to put it in the kind of language they like to use, “Has been inadequate to the task of dealing with a political system that has learned how to manipulate the press’ natural tendencies to advantage the political class.”

ie they suck.

Not all of them suck, of course. Many fight the good fight. Plenty of bloggers such as Digby (who now posts for Salon as well as running her own blog), Dan Froomkin, Professor Jay Rosen of NYU, Lucian Truscott IV, Josh Marshall, Aaron Rupar, Marcy Wheeler, and many more try to hold the feet of the Northeastern media to the fire. But they can only do so much, and unfortunately, as we can see from the coverage, it’s not nearly enough.

(By the way, I prefer “Northeastern media” to “mainstream media”, because in addition to capturing its insulated nature, it also highlights its regional myopia. When you live outside the DC-NY corridor, as most of us do, you begin to notice just how Northeastern-focused the news is. And if you live in the West, it takes something completely extraordinary to get the kind of coverage that, say, a gallery opening will get you multiple network coverage for in New York City.)

I’m not here to talk about in what ways current coverage suck—the whataboutism, the false equivalences, their perpetual and absurd efforts to achieve “balance” and “objectivity” through idiotically ignoring gross injustices on one side of the political aisle. Plenty of the above-mentioned folks have done that repeatedly, and better than I can. I just wanted to note how long this has been going on for.

One of the problems in our culture in general is the inability to look farther in the past than the last quarter, year, or election cycle. This isn’t just true in politics, but in general. We can barely remember last winter, let alone two Presidents ago. So when people talk about how the press sucks, there’s an alarming tendency to think it’s only really sucked this badly since Trump was elected. And that’s both nonsense, and dangerous. I want to offer a couple of brief case studies to show why that’s utterly wrong, and how deep the rot goes.

When George W. Bush was installed in office in one of the most jug-headed court decisions in history, one so bad the Supreme Court itself tried to hermetically seal it off from every other one of their other decisions, he had already spent several months proving the press was a bunch of easily-manipulated twits, and then spent the rest of his Administration proving it. Think about these key points.

During his campaign and his presidency, W. constantly came up with denigrating and derogatory nicknames for the reporters regularly covering his beat, and yet was punctilious about requiring everyone to address him by his title and honorifics. And they all accepted this BS. He bullied them, and they swallowed it rather than demand—perfectly reasonably, as mature adults!—that they be addressed by name. He established early on that he could bully them in public and that they would take it. And even report it a cute, colorful side-bar item!

Bush and his team repeatedly refused to release information to Congress and the press despite wide outcry, simply waiting until the immediate media storm had passed. There was never any follow-up. Don’t you think the Republicans, many of whom later worked with and for Trump, noticed this? The Bushes took advantage of the press’ short attention span.

The Bush Administration came up with the entire concept of “alternative facts”, although they did it in reverse, by sneering at “the reality-based community”. Ron Suskind wrote about this in an article in New York Time in 2004. But did the press adjust their coverage to compensate? Hollow laugh; they still haven’t compensated.

And finally—and this is the one that always amazes me—Bush bought his house in Crawford, Texas in 1999 as a pretend-ranch, and the press let him get away with it.

It is completely obvious that Bush bought this house just to fuck with the press. It’s well-known the Bush hates horses. He never kept any livestock on his property. He bought it immediately prior to his run for President, and sold it shortly after he left office. It was out in the middle of nowhere, and he went there in the middle of Texas summers “to clear brush” when temperatures regularly top 100 degrees Fahrenheit. There’s nothing to do and nowhere to go (unless you count Waco, which I don’t). This was a massive, obvious troll of the press. And yet they simply swallowed this patent BS without a quiver, calling this piece of property the “Western White House”.

What a joke.

How are we supposed to take press seriously after that? Why should politicians? Why should Trump? Why should his followers?

But the problem, and the disconnect goes back even further. I can’t say how far back it is, but I know the disconnect is pretty old. I first noticed it during Clinton’s impeachment.

If you’re too young, or can’t remember, Clinton’s popularity and approval during the impeachment hearings stayed in the 60 percent range. This absolutely astounded the press (and outraged the Republicans), who simply couldn’t believe the American people didn’t want to get rid of a President over some oral sex. That people might be disgusted by Ken Starr digging into the Clintons for years and finding nothing and then suddenly changing his mind about closing the investigation didn’t occur to them. Or that people might find Linda Tripp’s actions awful. Or that they might find Starr and the Republicans motivations more than a bit suspicious. Or the fact that the economy was doing really well meant that they really didn’t give a rip what was happening among Clinton, his wife, and a third party.

The point is, the press was wildly out of touch with what people were interested in. “Where is the outrage?” the press (and Republicans) wanted to know. I kept thinking, “Well, if you people ventured farther west than Fairfax, you might figure it out.” But of course they never did. They rarely ever do. Except to imaginary diners just outside of Philly. Where they talk to imaginary blue-collar white people.

And now the press is pretending to wake up and say, “Gee, maybe we’re a bit out of touch with the people; what should we do?” No folks; you’ve been out of touch for a long time. America told you bluntly in the Clinton Administration you were out of step; you ignored us. George W. Bush trolled you to your faces and you ignored it. Trump had to threaten your lives before you finally got a clue, and you’re still resorting to the same tired, useless, bothsideism that you always have.

Margaret Sullivan of The Washington Post frequently writes that local news coverage and local papers are in danger, and that they are a backbone of our democracy. And I agree. The problem is, if journalists can’t break out of the old molds, what’s the point in supporting them and their work? (I’ve asked Sullivan this and similar questions; she doesn’t ever reply.)

I hate it when people write “complaining” blog posts without offering suggestions, but the thing is, I don’t have a suggestion. What needs to happen is something over which I have no control: The Northeastern media needs to pull its collective head out of its shorts and start doing real, actual journalism. And I have no idea how I can effect that. Or affect it!

If you do, please let me know.

Joni Mitchell, Miles of Aisles tour

Recently two of the artists I grew up listening to—Bette Midler and Joni Mitchell—were feted with Kennedy Center honors. The music of both filled the house when I was growing up, though aside from having careers overlapping in time and both being of an era and an age, the two women could not really be more different. (They both did cover “Twitsted” within a year of each other, though!)

Bette is, of course, a flamboyant, fiery, outspoken redhead who loves to perform. An old-fashioned cabaret singer transported somehow into our era, Bette is bold, brassy, and (in her own words) a broad in basically every sense of the word. Starting from the New York Continental Baths with Barry Manilow, Bette has done stage shows, films, albums, and is currently PO’ing right-wingers on social media.

Definitely not afraid of performing!

Joni is a quiet (from a publicity standpoint), introspective singer-songwriter who always seemed to rather resent the performing side of her profession, and has said many times she considers herself more of a painter than a vocalist. Her albums explore multiple genres, but I think can be summed up as “intimate” in way that Bette rarely is. Not that Bette can’t be passionate and emotional; it’s the difference between extrovert and introvert; Dionysian and Apollonian.

It was in reading interviews with Mitchell, both recent and older ones, that got me thinking about artists, their muse, their preferences, and their disappointments. Because as I said above, despite all her fame and received plaudits as a singer-songwriter, she doesn’t consider that her main vocation; she thinks of herself as a painter. And I think this is captured best by a quote captured on a live recording back in 1974:

A painter does a painting, and he paints it and he paints it, and that’s it, you know. He has the joy of creating it, it hangs on a wall, and somebody buys it, and maybe somebody buys it again, or maybe nobody buys it and it sits up in a loft somewhere until he dies. But he never, you know, nobody ever, nobody ever said to Van Gogh, ‘Paint us Starry Night again, man!’ You know? He painted it and that was it.

Joni Mitchell

Well, I had to include it!

You’d think a woman as talented, as lauded, as universally acclaimed as Joni Mitchell would be thrilled to have millions of people familiar with her work, so much so they call out for it at concerts. But no; she wants to hang it on the wall and move on. That’s how her muse speaks to her.

And this isn’t all that unusual, if you read a lot of artist biographies or the introductions to stories or liner notes or watch interviews. You can often hear these awesome artists pining for the things they can’t do, even while producing some amazing stuff. Lennon and McCartney both chafed at being Beatles after 4 or 5 years, and yet produced an absolutely astonishing output of material. They wanted to be poets, or movie auteurs, or artists. You watch them clicking together in Peter Jackson’s Get Back, even when they’re tired of each other and Lennon is strung out on heroin and you think, “How can they not want to do that forever?” But they don’t.

In baseball there’s a famously weird (and almost certainly autistic) pitcher named Zack Greinke. He’s astonishingly good, and probably will end up in the Hall of Fame. But if you watch him in interviews and in games, he doesn’t seem to enjoy the fact that he’s one of the best pitchers of the last 20 years; he’s said, repeatedly, he wants to be a position player, a shortstop. He wants to hit in the lineup regularly. But they won’t let him, I suspect, simply because he’s too good (and valuable) a pitcher. To be honest, I feel sad for him. The man will end up historically good doing something he doesn’t really seem to enjoy.

The man in question

But I have to say I disagree with Mitchell’s assessment, and think she made it because at heart she’s a painter, and not a singer. Her disappointment isn’t that she has to keep repainting Starry Night; it’s that she doesn’t get to paint and be recognized for it, like poor Zack Greinke, and I can understand that.

Because when it comes to live performance, every night is different. The audience is different. The room is different. The vibe is different. You feel different. If performing is part of your muse—as it clearly is for Midler but isn’t for Mitchell—then you betcha you wanna paint Starry Night every night. How many times did Lynyrd Skynyrd play “Free Bird”? I’m sure they got tired of sometimes; of course they did. But I bet most nights, it really juiced them. If you watch Alex Leifson and Geddy Lee of Rush in the documentary Time Stand Still, you can see that performing absolutely lights them up. Why else would Mick Jagger and Keith Richards still be on the road 60 years later playing “Satisfaction”? God knows they don’t need the money!

And even in the visual arts Mitchell isn’t quite on the money. Famously, Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai made Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji. How many paintings did Claude Monet do of the Rouen cathedral in the late 19th Century? Or Cezanne of Mont Ventoux?

Fuji-sama in one of her aspects

The muse take you were it takes you. For Joni, hers is a one-and-done kind of thing, and that works for her. I have no issue with that at all; she’s produced an incredible body of work. But for others, the answer is different, and I think it’s important we accept that for different artists, different rules obtain.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll listen to Court and Spark again. Because whether she ever plays it again herself, I can’t get enough. God bless you, Joni.

Seriously, does anyone have more “Get off the lawn” energy?

Its a widely-observed phenomenon that people tend to get grumpier as they get older. Aside from a tiny minority that somehow seem to become nearly saintly, the vast majority move into what we shall call the “Get off my lawn!” phase of life, where random outbursts of anger at…well, whatever is irritating them, seem to come more and more frequently. The classic case being the grumpy old widower yelling at kids playing on his lawn.

I’ve given this a lot of thought as I have, inevitably, aged towards that category myself. Especially given the common wisdom that straight white cis middle-class men—a category to which I belong—are supposed to get more conservative, or even reactionary, as they age. Which concerned me as a progressive, because honestly, I really a lot didn’t want to become a reactionary. Or even conservative. “A man who has not been a socialist before 25 has no heart; if he remains one after 25 he has no head,” the old saying goes. “Hooey,” decided I when I was somewhere in my late 20s.

But I definitely have noticed something happening as I’ve aged. Fortunately, it has nothing to do with socialism, or political convictions, or even kids. It’s honestly a lot simpler.

I’m less patient is all.

Now, on a simple temporal basis, this is easy to understand; I’ve got less time. My grandmother on the side of the family I take after the most—my Mom’s mom—passed away at 90. So let’s say I’ll live to 90. Or even 100. Fine. (I don’t think I will, or that I even want to. I suffer from chronic pain controlled by morphine and regular medical procedures. I am a cancer survivor. I have a degenerative neurological condition that makes my hands shake. I mean, do I really want another 40 years of all that? But I digress!) Let’s say 90. Just do the math here.

When you’re 30 and you’re going to live to 90, you’ve got 60 more years. Two times what you’ve already lived! It’s bloody forever! You can afford to be patient! Yeah, you may need to learn patience, it may be hard, but you have the time.

When you’re 60, you’ve got 30 more years; have of what you’ve already lived. The clock is ticking, baby. Believe me, I’m not there yet and I can hear the damn noise already. And I guarantee you even for the folks who aren’t feeling the pressure consciously, their bodies are telling them. It’s a lot harder to keep that waistline in check, butts and boobs are sagging, grey is in their hair (what they have left), wrinkles abound. It’s easy to get impatient with things because your own body is betraying you on a daily basis. You get impatient with it. And that makes you impatient in general.

Not to mention you’ve seen a bunch more stuff in the world than you did 30 years ago. I saw my first impeachment when I was 11. Now I’ve seen four. And not one of those guys ended up in jail. I’ve actually lost track of how many times the Republicans have threatened (or actually have) closed down government over a budget battle where they eventually caved. Five times? Six? I don’t remember! Three different GOP administrations have crashed the economy into the ground and left the Democrats to pick up the pieces. Three!

And it’s not just politics. The tornadoes in Kentucky are a horrible disaster. And how many disasters have I lived through in my life? I couldn’t possibly remember. The first was Hurricane Agnes when I was 9. Even just counting “hurricanes that cost billions” it’s got to be over a dozen by now. Add in earthquakes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, plane crashes, wars, etc., the brain kind of overloads. I’m not saying all these things aren’t terrible; I’m just noting there’s only so many of them you can take in before some part of you says, “Right; I’m done.” It’s not that you want to tap out; it’s that you want it over. You lose patience. You’re tired of the bullshit.

Which gets me around to my main point.

I don’t hate having kids on my lawn and actually invite them. I love having kids on my lawn. Seeing kids having fun brings me joy. Jeez, grumpy old widowers, I totally understand that you want to tap out, but don’t blame the kids, they’re just playing! Blame the politicians, oil executives, callous capitalist jerks, and so on! Let the kids climb trees and jump in the leaves!

What makes me grumpy, what I’m impatient with, is what a lot of people call “being diplomatic”. Here are a couple of examples that have direct bearing on my life, one very small, the other large.

Right now my company has implemented a vaccine mandate policy where you either have to get vaccinated by a certain date and show proof thereof, or file for an exception (usually religious). Without either of these, you have to resign. It being a high tech company, the vast majority have just gotten vaccinated, though a small minority have filed for exceptions. And here’s where I get grumpy and am tired of being diplomatic.

A very, very small minority of these anti-mandate folks are either anti-vaxxers, or anti-mandates. And there’s no question in my mind they don’t want to abide by the policy just because they feel they’re entitled not to. No other reason; just because. I’ve deduced this from the (mostly pathetic) arguments they’ve put up on the internal company channels, and the bigoted “manifesto” they sent to the company executives protesting the policy.

Now, because of corporate policy, I have to be diplomatic and say things like, “That statement comes from a web site of dubious quality”, or “that argument has been proven false”, or whatnot. But because of the aforementioned lack of patience and associated grumpiness, I want to say, “OH SHUT UP YOU ENTITLED, SELFISH, IGNORANT JERKS! Get vaccinated and stop whining!” (And that’s not even getting into the fact that straight white cis Christian men are using a religious exemption created for historically marginalized minority religions not because of “deeply-held regious beliefs,” but simply because they don’t wanna. It disgusts me.)

This is my old, progressive version of “get off my lawn.”

A broader example would be Taiwan. My son is Taiwanese. He’s not Chinese. The world’s policy about Taiwan is, in a word, nuts. And it makes me nutty having to listen to it, or deal with people who try to convince me it makes sense.

[Brief aside: If you’re unfamiliar, the U.S. treats Taiwan as a separate country, but pretends it’s actually part of China and never, ever says the word “country” when referring to Taiwan. China behaves as if Taiwan is part of China, even though they have zero authority over it. Taiwan pretty much ignores this to the extent they can, except for the fact that they sit right next door to a nuclear-armed autocracy that would like to occupy them like Hong Kong and would except for the U.S. Navy and world opinion.]

No grump-old-man Doug says: Screw all this “pretending Taiwan isn’t a country just because it makes China get their knickers in a knot” BS. They need to get over it. At my age, I have zero patience with coddling to the tender consciences of politicians in general, and politicians in other countries in particular. The heck with ’em! Get off my lawn, you snowflakes!

A lot of this stems from my basic life stance, which is that I have no itch to power, and don’t understand people who do. So I don’t understand politicians in general, people like Mitch McConnell in particular, and autocrats like Trump, Putin, and whoever-the-fuck is in charge in China right now (frankly I don’t keep track because it seems to change every few years and I have enough trouble keeping up with our clown show). I do not and never will understand why China seems to get so bent about people calling Taiwan a country, and intent on grabbing more territory. Why can’t they leave Tibet alone? Why are they constantly pushing into India? Why do they need to grab even more tiny islands in the South China Sea? They have the biggest and most populous country on Earth; isn’t that enough? WTF, Chinese leaders!

Those are just examples. My point here is that men in particular and humans in general are not destined to get more conservative as they get older, but I do think they tend to get more impatient, and thus more grumpy. And this grumpiness is going to manifest in different ways. In my case, it’s a profound impatience with “diplomatic niceties”; just say WTF you mean, people! With some of those insensitive old widowers, they’re yelling at poor kids. With power-hungry straight white cis Christian men, they get more conservative because they see that as a way to get more power and money (I guess?).

But take heart, you aging GenXers; you don’t have to become more conservative! You can be like me and get more radical, and PO and whole different set of people!

And meanwhile, invite those kids on your lawn! They need a place to play!