"An era can be said to have ended when its illusions are exhausted."
Arthur Miller
"Man is conceived in sin and born into
corruption," declared Willie Stark in RobertPennWarren's All
The King's Men,
"...he passeth from the stink of the didie to
the stench of the shroud. There is always something out there that will get
you." Although he was referring to political corruption, old Willie
was on to something quite profound. Indeed, there is always something -
sinister, lurking, waiting to upset the precarious balance of our perfect
lives. From the very instant of our expulsion from the birth canal, we are
given our personal “use by" expiration date - unknown to us - that will
follow us from the womb to the tomb. That expiration date may be many decades
away - or tomorrow. Perhaps the malady is in you at this very moment, a simple
backache suddenly diagnosed by your family Doc as some malignant monstrosity
that punches your expiration ticket before you can even get your parking
validated - or worse, will signal your painfully slow descent that
initiates your ignominious final decline. Or, perhaps some external event in
the random cosmic crapshoot of life; an insurance salesman, with whom you have
no known affiliation, speeding distractedly to his weekly sexual
assignation with his secretary at a motel room - worried that his wife
has become aware of his dalliance and weighing his options - wondering what the
ultimate cost will be...just before he T-bones you at an intersection, bringing
you instantly to room temperature.
I was never a rear-view mirror guy, (unabashedly believing
the most unappreciated word in the English lexicon is next
)
- personal reflection was not in my wheelhouse - and these fleeting thoughts of
mortality seldom struck a chord of dread within me when my years on the planet
numbered, say...30 or 40. Not even being aged 50 gave me any significant pause;
indeed, those years were a fabulously crazy halcyon period of purposeless
conspicuous consumption that reached the heady hedonistic heights of first rate
piggery - old enough to know better but still young enough not to give a shit.
It was a spectacularly irrational race to the bottom when I managed to turn my
myriad drinking problems into fabulous drinking opportunities
and
my life's mantra at the time was "...nothing succeeds like excess."
By 60, however, these years were beginning to feel more than simple mileposts
along my journey and, facing the serious business end of one's mortal
existence, were no longer far off ephemeral way stations.
But finally, having reached the septuagenarian stage of my life's program, I find myself given to an uncharacteristically retrospective view of the whole mess - and what it was all about. And that reflective process would be less tasking if it were possible to recognize the country in which I currently dwell. Being a stranger in a land that one has inhabited for one's entire life has a surreal, discomfiting feel to it - an unsettling, off balance unfamiliar dissidence. Somehow, while I was growing old, the nation had engendered a subculture of vindictive violence, victim hood and entitlement that finds half the country distrusting our time-honored national institutions and the other half attempting to destroy them. As this New America mindlessly rips down the existing societal structure in this suicidal search for equity , we are left to ponder exactly who will even be left to take refuge in the remaining rubble.
To many of us this New America has become a foreign country on virtually every social and political level, the myriad pathological symptoms easily recognizable: Monuments of traditional heroes (the very people who founded the country) are thrown into the scrap pile while congressional legislation and city streets are named for commemorated career criminals. Who needs Thomas Jefferson or George Washington when you you've got All American heroes like George Floyd and Daunte Wright. Move over MLK, Rosa Parks and Medger Evers, the New America, wallowing in its modernity, has a new class of "Hero."
Fantastically, we are told that men are "birth
people" - can have babies, indeed, can breast feed (by what bizarre
biological process this could occur is never precisely explained) while sexual
groomers, posing as teachers and educators encourage minor children to consent
to grotesque body mutilation under the auspices of "gender
affirmation."
In classic Orwellian fashion, '60's and 70's Neocons of both parties, still hanging around government sewers - who have yet to see a war they didn't love - are ensuring that the country maintains involvement in constant and never ending foreign conflicts, blood lust in nameless shithole countries around the globe that has produced military leadership so weakened by social equity policies and woke-ism that it managed to lose a 20 year war in Afghanistan to a pack of itinerant goat herders. We are asked to provide unlimited funding for an unlimited time frame to protect "the sovereign integrity of the Ukraine border," one of the most corrupt nations in Eastern Europe while the "integrity" of our own southern border has been unrelentingly and flagrantly violated for the last three years by literally millions of illegal immigrants, inviting a Trojan Horse into our very backyard. And, inexplicably, with a curiously unresponsive silence from a cognitively incontinent President who, like some witless bystander, placidly watched our cultural decline into idiocy - until he was unceremoniously kicked to the curb by his own Party like some hollowed out, punch-drunk boxer. "Sorry Joe, we're going for the price on Kamala, it's not your night kid" - thereby giving the American electorate a choice between two presidential candidates who have elevated the free-wheeling, inarticulate, vapid word salad to an art form.
But wait... that's just where defining down our cultural and societal deviancy begins. Apparently we Americans, a nation once known as "The Arsenal of Democracy" - doers of great things, builder of interstate highways, armaments, automobiles and rocket ships are no longer capable of keeping trains on the tracks, on-time airline scheduling...or even managing to keep airplane wheels and hatches from falling off in mid-flight. We watch on the nightly news the shocking proliferation of a national Jew-hating antisemitism movement reminiscent of 1930's Germany that ignores the horrors of Hamas while accusing the Israelis of genocidal occupation of Gaza - when, in fact, the only territory the Jews ever occupied was Miami Beach. Can't wait to see the Post Modern Progressive celebrity game show version of Kristallnacht in prime time cable TV - " Who Wants To Be A Nazi?" or perhaps "Jew Or No Jew?" interspersed by those ridiculously cheesy commercials encouraging the adoption of Polar Bears (really...Polar Bears?) or ubiquitous drug ads depicting pre-diabetic female fatties, a chorus line - a virtual cavalcade of camel toes - waddling around singing (badly) about "...a little pill with a big story to tell" to fix something called their A1-C.
We all see these things. We know - we feel it viscerally -
that this new cultural shift does not seem to be merely the age-old
generational disconnect, the natural antipathy of elders to their impudent
progeny, but a Sea Change in our culture. Given that the road ahead is so much
shorter than the road behind, perhaps it is no small wonder that those of us,
in our dotage, would gravitate to a seemingly simpler, more familiar time and
place while coming to the late realization, regretfully, that oftentimes we did
not recognize the value of a moment until it became a memory.
Nostalgia. The Webster's New World Dictionary defines it as; "a return; a longing for something far away or long ago," a definition that barely captures the true essence of the sentiment. In Greek, the word alludes to a melancholy memory and is defined loosely as "...the pain from an old wound." The Portuguese term "saudade" is an interesting word, defined as; "an emotional state of foreboding or profound longing for a beloved - yet absent - something or someone; a love that remains." It is a delicate word that evokes the fear that one may never encounter the object of their longing again and captures the emotion of a love so powerful - so fiercely intense - only hate could truly understand it.
Yes, life is different now, sometimes incomprehensibly so. We grasp for familiar signposts to make sense of the chaos, to find some familiar touchstones that are relatable. I am part of that vaunted Boomer generation of men, born in the middle of the last century who came of age at the dawn of TV and mass media manipulation. We were the Darling Generation, admired, adored - the apotheosis of the Cambrian baby explosion of the post-war era. Deified, catered to and exploited by ad agencies, service providers and product manufacturers for virtually our entire existence...and soon to be the most despised generation as we suck up our social security checks and demand (from what primal yearning?) our Medicare while the nation circles the financial drain. No longer Cock of the Walk, Boomers will be vilified and blamed, rightly or wrongly, by younger, more progressive generations as a thoroughly selfish, self-indulgent, self-absorbed epoch - the guys that raided the frat party, drank all the beer, ate all the food, left a mess and flipped the bird to the remaining revelers.
While the idea of death was always a muted part of our lifelong conversation, it has now entered the lexicon in a more frequent and intimate manner - an old comrade, forgotten in the fog of living, come to visit. We attend more funerals than weddings, see many old friends of 55 plus years who struggle with a variety of serious health issues and ultimately succumb. I feel fortunate to have dodged any serious problems. My vitals are good and, so far, I'm not on any meds. Despite several back and rotator cuff surgeries I am in semi-fine fettle, still digging life while pugnaciously fighting a rear-guard action, making Old Age battle for every inch I concede. I still love the sound and feel of a solidly struck golf shot that moves from the club face to your hands and vibrates through your entire body - deceives you into thinking, perhaps one can live forever. I still thrill to the rumble of diesels under my feet while standing on the bridge of a sturdy vessel as it slices through a sea so blue it makes the sky jealous. I work out regularly, still climb stairs two at a time, knowing full well that a day will come when I can no longer perform even that meaningless display of bravado. A charitable explanation for my late stage-of-life health condition would be a lifelong dedication to physical fitness - which would be a colossal canard. Far from treating my body as a Temple, for years it was my own personal pool hall. Beyond good genes, the ubiquitous Progressive refrain of "Social Inequity" has convinced me that the real secret, my personal talisman of longevity, is simply my unearned White Privilege - which, they tell me, is like a Super Power.
It seems I am visited by these reflectively mystic musings more often these days as I sit quietly on my patio facing the lake of my youth. Closing my eyes I listen to the gentle sound of the water on the break wall, the balmy breeze of late Summer soft against my cheek. A lifetime of memories float by me, as weightless as moonbeams. After all the years, all the roads taken and abandoned, all the money, all the exhilarating successes, all the humiliating failures, all the jetsam and flotsam of living - all of it - I am chagrined to find that I have, finally, ended up right where I started.
I open my eyes.
I am alive.
Freddie Van
A Child of God
How do you
thank a guy for a lifetime of memories? A thousand laughs? Certainly a few
written words could never capture the essence of John Kosinski, a man who
managed to jam several lifetimes into his 71 years on the planet. But even the
gilded words of the gifted poet could not contemplate the profound void created
by the death of an old friend. But I can try.
In the summer of 1963 (perhaps the last year of relative normalcy before the cultural tectonic plates began their ponderous yet inventible shift into the dizzying, unrecognizable world of assassination, incivility and social decay), I met John for the first time on the roof of Ferry elementary school while we were engaged in throwing tar soaked rags at an unsuspecting rival gang (if a collection of boys hanging out on the mean streets of upscale Grosse Pointe could be characterized as a “gang”.) Having just moved from the City of Detroit, he was the new kid in the neighborhood, maybe a little rough around the edges, as his style of dress, attitude and language boldly announced. Smartly attired in an untucked and wrinkled mustard-stained Detroit Tiger tee shirt that barely covered his 11-year-old embryonic pot belly, khaki shorts and unlaced Chuck Taylor high tops, he was bellicose, blaringly boisterous and a charmingly deranged dynamo hurling insults to the tar stained kids below.
But John’s most commendable attribute at this tender age was his unparalleled and extensive vocabulary in vulgarity – a tour de force in profane performance art. He was a virtuoso in his employment of obscenity, using crude, shockingly indecent language and foul-mouthed idioms that stretched the limits of the lexicon and expression the way Jackson Pollock would work with acrylics on canvass or Leonard Bernstein would conduct a symphony. He was the most curious person I have ever known (a trait he maintained into adulthood) and was like nobody I had ever met; we became fast friends.
That summer it seemed like the Yankees were in town every Ladies Day, (Wednesday was Ladies Day at old Tiger Stadium – all bleacher seats $.75) and on several occasions we took the bus (Kercheval Deanhurst – one transfer) which dropped us at Michigan Avenue a few blocks from Tiger Stadium. We would walk to the stadium, baseball mitts dangling from our belts (brought on the off-chance a blast would be hit in our direction) excited to see our hometown heroes Kaline, Cash and Colavito with the bonus of seeing Mantle and Maris.
One Wednesday, Mantle, batting left-handed hit a bullet that Jake Wood actually made a leaping attempt to snag at second base on a ball that never climbed higher than 15 feet and cleared the right field fence by three feet as it was still climbing. Ski and I had a 60 year running argument on who was on the mound; Ski said the right hander Paul Foytack, I insisted that Old School Manager Charlie Dressen would never let Mantle face a right hander and the Lefty Don Mossi was pitching. I suppose we could have googled the game to determine if either one of us was correct – but then we wouldn’t have had the decades-long discussion.
The time passed. We grew up - different High Schools, interchangeable groups of friends - but our paths crossed through the years through college and into adulthood. Me to Florida to finish college and chase my fortune, he to Medical School and to his practice in Marquette where his brilliance was evident. Although separated by 1500 miles, life moved on and we would catch up with phone calls, weddings, Christmas parties and funerals, with a whole lot of living in between. Later, we found time to visit he and Kris in the UP and he made the occasional sojourn down south – despite his abhorrence of Florida – to Lakeland usually during Spring Training to see our revered Tigers.
On my last visit this summer, we spoke in his backyard garden in that soft ethereal twilight of a U.P. summer evening. We spoke of the ephemeral nature of life and - facing the end of the runway - what was all this about anyway? What did it mean? That evening there was a quiet melancholy about him, a reflective quality at odds with his explosive, larger-than-life persona, a quality that I had recognized in him even as kids. As a surgeon, John had more than a nodding acquaintance with death in all of its dreadful configurations. He was a man who had come to realize that we are all prisoners of our own reality, fair or not, and understood the limits of loss and love – and that oftentimes one is the price of the other.
He was a paradox of pluralism; he was self-effacing and vainglorious; he was impetuous and thoughtful; he was fanatically rational and fantastically eccentric; he was infuriatingly argumentative and incomprehensibly conciliatory; he was steadfastly dependable and demonstrably irresponsible; he boldly traversed the summit and plunged headlong into the abyss. He lived big. He loved big.
He was eminently human.
The past is but a shadow, a hazy penumbra eclipsed by time and the movement of the earth…but always with us. In the words of Faulkner “…the past is never dead, it’s not even past.” In the end, it is not the past that haunts us. It is we who haunt the past.
Goodbye Buddy. See you on the other side.
Freddie Van
(a child of god)
Time. Whether an artificial man-made chronographical construct of measurement or an immutable universal principle of the cosmos, the idea visits more often these days. In those seemingly halcyon salad days of puerile youth the concept of time was relevant only in the microcosm of the seasons; winters were cold and dark, spring was new life and baseball, summer was freedom and autumn was football and school. Wash, rinse - repeat. The routine, the minutia of the day-to-day business of life distracted us from any thought of the larger constraint of the concept of time.But eventually, the hours began to pass with a conspicuously ferocious velocity - the click of the clock cannot not stop. Perhaps it was the first realization as a child of how suddenly one particular Summer raced by and a flicker of consternation fluttered through our vestigial lizard brain - but did not light - chased away by our primal fear of the inevitability of time running out. The very thought was dismissed, safely stuffed way back in that deep subconscious, that dark place that allows rationalization to thrive. But in that seminal moment - that flash of reality - it lingered - lurking, waiting - confirming the dread that there is an end to everything. As Paul Newman famously said in the movie Hud, "...horses, dogs and men - nobody gets out of life alive."In many ways, the process of aging is one of subtraction - the taking away or casting off - of most things cherished. The tendency to focus on the end of the runway is inevitable at times. Seven jaded decades have molded a world view - hardened the heart - that allows adults to navigate all manner of shit that life sometimes throws at us. While life can only be understood backwards, it must be lived forwards and, despite the ravages and loss of aging, our humanness compels us to look to the future, to find those touchstones, those reminders that allow us to recreate that wonder and serendipity we knew as children. One of my touchstones many years ago was Stevie Van Elslander.Stevie was a child who marched to the beat of his own private drummer and had a remarkably whimsical fascination with flags that flied high and birds in the sky. I first met Stevie Van over 20 years ago at the Lochmoor Invitational. Along with his mom Cindy, he would follow his dad on those rare occasions when Gary would make the Sunday finals, getting ripped apart by his opponents like a sock puppet in the mouth of an angry Pitbull in his ever illusive quest for his 15 minutes of Warholian golf fame. What conceivable transgression the poor kid could ever have committed to be subjected to that sort of corporal punishment, only God knows. Thankfully, the boy was too young to completely comprehend the carnage he was compelled to witness.Stevie reminded me of Danny, a younger cousin I had growing up, also a boy who was "different", who listened to his own silent tune and, by the standards 60 years ago, he was judged to be a child of a lesser God. To many in my extended family, Danny was a problem child - except to my grandmother, who, much to the chagrin of the other grand-kids, took a special interest in the him. No doubt, the current enlightened modern medical geniuses would have doped the kid up with more drugs than a lab rat and pronounced him cured.Once, at the annual family Christmas Eve party at one or another uncle's dreary knotty pine basement - a mad house with a broken down rent-a-Santa, a besieged assemblage of stressed adults consuming vast quantities of adult beverages and a pernicious pack of 40 screaming cousins (a testament to the Cambrian explosion of prodigious, postwar procreation), my Grandmother was cleaning up little Danny, who had gotten into another little girl cousin's Christmas gift - a finger paint set. Apparently Danny used it to cover his face in brightly colored war paint in an effort to compliment his Native American Chief's feathered war bonnet, (clearly a gift that today would be considered a disgraceful form of cultural misappropriation).The 6-year old girl cousin's whose gift was pillaged was watching our Grandma clean up Danny and was understandably unhappy and articulated her outrage between spasms of uncontrollable, stuttering gasps. While she did not understand Grandma's well known solicitous soft spot for Danny, she was certainly well acquainted with our Grandmother's rigid rules of grandchild behavior and decorum. (To characterize Grandma as merely a "strict" disciplinarian would be like describing Jeffery Dahmer's cannibalism as an eating disorder.)"You love him more than you love us," blubbered the little girl cousin to our Grandma in a less than respectful fashion that would have normally elicited a stern rebuke - not simply for the tone of the statement but because it drew a clear distinction between "us" and "them" - always a no-no with Danny."Well," Grandma said softly, "if I love him more it's because he needs it more," she replied in an uncharacteristically subdued voice. That was more than 60 years ago, but I never forgot what she said that night.On a visit to the Van Elslander home in the summer of 2001, when Stevie proudly displayed his personal flag collection, giving an impressively detailed description of each flag by shape, color and function, I had an idea. On my return to Florida, I contacted a specialty store and ordered a bespoke flag emblazoned with his name in big letters specially for him along with a whimsical little poem about flags flying high and the simple joys of childhood. In turn, he sent me pictures of him proudly flying the flag high atop his lakefront flagpole. I truly got a kick out of his enthusiasm for the present.In the spring of 2002 while playing in a golf tournament in Jamaica, I saw a beautiful, island-made birdhouse in the shape of a lighthouse, hand-carved of Jamaican Cottonwood - and I immediately thought of Stevie.Upon my return to the States, I had a sign made that identified it as "Stevie's Fly-Inn Bird Hotel", wrote another simple poem about the precious summer days of youth, had it packed up and sent it off Fed EX to Stevie Van - quite certain that he would love this surprise gift and I would hear from him or his mom in short order.After several weeks, however, having heard nothing from Cindy I reached out to FedEx on several occasions. Of course they claimed the package was delivered and signed for and, as I quickly realized, arguing with Fed Ex customer service is like arguing with a Forever Trumper - unpleasant and unproductive for you and pure obstinate rapture for them. I surmised the package was signed for and inadvertently misplaced by one of the numerous Van Elslander minions employed on the grounds, and, as the gift was designed to be a surprise and never mentioned, I figured it would turn up sooner or later. So, as adults do, I got busy with the business of life - weeks became months which in turn morphed into years. From time to time I would wonder whimsically about the mystery of the missing "Stevie's Famous Fly-Inn Bird Hotel".Then, several weeks ago while standing in line with my wife at a Bed, Bath and Beyond (yes, Bed Bath and Beyond where I learned quickly that if you are so hapless to be coupon-less, the middle aged women in the queue will gaze upon you with pity one might reserve for fools and imbeciles), Jeri receives a call from Cindy Van Elslander and, after the obligatory friendly salutations, immediately hands the phone over to me."Did you send Steve a big birdhouse" Cindy asks?I'm puzzled for an instant as the cognitive tumblers click into place...Stevie's Famous Fly-Inn Bird Hotel! "Yes I did - about 20 years ago," I reply."Well," Cindy says excitedly "it's here!"Apparently, the neighbor next door, some type of hoarder, signed for the package and stashed it, unopened with the rest of his swag, only to be discovered when the old guy was moving and clearing out his house.And so, on December 1st, 2020 in the year of the Covid, Stevie Van read the words I wrote to him about the enchantment of those tender years of ageless youth, not as a child - but as a young man. Stevie is doing quite well these days. He is an Equestrian, employed at Grosse Pointe Equestrian stables, riding and tending to his cherished horses. He is, happily, living his best life.And, in an ironic twist of Kismet, the very gift meant for Stevie turned out to be, in a year so fraught with apprehension, anxiety and an appalling lack of human interaction, a gift for me - a reminder that at times when our own light is extinguished, it can be rekindled by the simple spark from another person.Freddie Van (a grateful child of god)December 25, 2020
Day #1 Coronavirus quarantine
It was only 10 days ago we laid to rest our old friend Jack, on a cool, clear and brilliantly sunny Saturday morning. The sort of morning certain Michiganders - for months subjected to the bitter deprivations of winter - may break out the clubs and hit the ill-manicured links for what passes as "winter rules" golf in this neck of the woods. I am quite certain that Jack, an inveterate linksman, would have been first in line had it not been for the decidedly inconvenient circumstance of being ensconced in the very casket I was helping to carry to the hearse. Later we gathered at Country Club of Detroit, one of Jack's favorite venues in all the world, where we drank wine and ate large shrimp and finger foods - Jack would have loved it. Later, people took turns telling Jack stories and saying nice things about him, which for me, was as effortless as slipping on an old pair of jeans: He was a kind and gentle man, whose motives were uncomplicated, navigating this world with the simplicity of achild and without a hint of guile. I will miss his laugh and his sometimes clumsy social graces, (like standing in the shallow end on the edge of Fossee's pool in Florida, reading his i-pad with his shirt on and butt naked from the waist down...full Porky Pig mode). I will miss my friend.
But that was 10 days ago, a lifetime ago, and the dissimilitude between that bright sunny Saturday morning and the world today is inexplicably impossible believe. It is a world that is going sideways in a hurry, the type of world in which my friend would not fair well. As the hyperbolic craziness progressed over that hysterical week and a half (and continues to grow as exponentially as the reported statistics of the virus itself) one wonders what, exactly, is behind all this charlatanry. Has this country simply devolved into a pack of whiny, self absorbed snowflakes, afraid of contracting a flu that, (for the vast majority of those without underlying complications), while very contagious and perhaps somewhat more precarious than a simple flu...is still the flu ?
Or, is something more sinister at work here. Not a big fan of conspiracy theories. I think Alex Jones is a crackpot, Lee Harvey Oswald probably acted alone, 9/11 was not an inside job and I seriously doubt that I'll ever run into Elvis at a CVS in Belize. All that said, are we completely shutting down a vibrant economy because of a minuscule fraction of the populace? I write this with the full knowledge and understanding that some will interpret this as a callous, uncaring, unempathetic and probably criminal, policy. Fuck 'em. It should be pointed out that we live with statistical realities every day. The actuarial guys will tell you that they cannot predict who will die, but they will proudly tell you, with uncanny an d unempathetic accuracy, how many will die.
Nearly 40,000 people die each year from auto accidents. One could accurately surmise that if legislation was implemented to reduce the speed limit to...say, 20 miles per hour, the fatality number would be greatly reduced. How about 10 miles per hour - 5 miles per hour? We could save thousands of lives.Of course, a ridiculous policy like this would have an incredibly deleterious effect on the economy, would not be tolerated by the people and would be laughed out of an governing body to which it was proposed
Established science has agreed that smoking (and secondary smoke) is the primary cause of lung cancer deaths, which exceed 140,000 per year. If we are serious about the safety of all Americans, let's outlaw all tobacco products, thereby sparing tens of thousands of lives. Forget about the fact that doing so would shut down the revenue stream to the Federal government, who still collect billions in taxes from Big Tobacco and whose DOJ attorneys chased those companies like they were a pack of ambulances leaving the scene of a horrendous accident to sue them for billions, which they are still collecting.
And let's not forget the 84,000 deaths caused by diabetes annually. If "... saving lives of Americans" (God, I am tired of that trite and meaningless banality) why not get all the overweight and out of shape diabetics off the dime and create some mandatory, federally enforced diet restrictions. Why not compel those affected to eat according to the government outlines?
And please, let's not forget the regular flu, which sends upwards of 50,000 Americans to the Grim Reaper annually.
I have yet to read or hear (with the possible exception of Facebook paranoia) any material that indicates this virus, once contracted by those individuals not at high risk, requires mandatory hospitalization, is that much longer in duration, is more lethal to healthy individuals or has long lasting consequences when contracted. Discounting, for now, any possible nefarious undercurrents in all this, (the guy who could possibly have enough juice to pull off this world wide scam would make George Soros, Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg look like a pathetic troupe of cut rate street corner grifters), and understanding the need for some "at risk" (a category in which I would be included) individuals to protect themselves, is it worth ruining this giant economic engine for our lifetime and our children's lifetime while we watch as this place turns into a third world economy? In an effort to protect an infinitesimal percentage of 'at risk" people? Really? Are we that afraid of the flu that we'll roll the dice on this plan - this poorly thought out piece of sophistry that may not even work - for a problem that may not even approach the epic and dire predictions of self-serving bureaucrats?
The question, at this juncture, is how long an entire nation of free-born people will tolerate anti-constitutional expedience and infringement on their civil liberties before impatience and disgust take over.
That's all for today, I'll be checking in with my daily diary as long as this pernicious pandemic persists. Stay calm and carry on.
Day #2 Coronavirus quarantine
Beautiful morning on Park Ave.in downtown Winter Park to meet up with my normal coffee klatch crew. Only one shows as the streets are as deserted as if a category 5 Hurricane was 20 minutes away. Our regular coffee shop indicates that "in an abundance of caution," they will be closing after today. As we are the only two patrons, this move is economically understandable, despite the fact that the proprietor just opened two weeks before after sinking a ton into the renovation of the trendy, upscale establishment. The young man will certainly take a haircut. Bad JuJu - bad luck.
Trump is on the TV again in one of his loquacious, meandering word salad attacks on the English language, struggling as always with constant repetition while employing the few adjectives he has in his limited lexicon of superlatives. He is a man, even on the teleprompter, who never read a sentence he couldn't mangle beyond recognition while boorishly applauding his own extraordinary efforts. Although at times he looks a little shaky, I have to give him credit for handling the pressure over the last three years. His sidekick, Corona Czar V.P. Pence - who has the constipated pinched face appearance of a man who hasn't taken a good dump since he came to Washington - is blathering on about ventilators, respirators, medical masks and various equipment which he squeezes in between the fawning plugs praising Trump's efforts. The reporters in the press room could give a shit; the media goons are waiting with the patience of a spoiled self indulgent brat itching to tear open his Christmas presents. They shout over the top of each other to hurl their ridiculous accusations at Trump, - clumsily disguised as questions - about (what else?) RACISM, because Trump has saddled the virus with the moniker "Chinese." This despite the fact that virtually all these viruses are named after the area of origin.
With my entire golf club shut down (course, fitness center, pool), I motored down to Dick's Sporting Goods to purchase a bench and weights for "quarantined" workouts. Dick's was shuttered along with the rest of the mall. Went to Publix and bought a broomstick and 4 one gallon jugs of water. Found a 4 foot piece of plywood and a concrete block and BINGO...my journey on the road to Adonis-ville remains unencumbered. I suppose this is how the convicts do it in prison.
The rumblings that the cure may be worse than the disease are beginning to resonate; the people are getting restless, as well they may. Prior to this Black Swan event, this generation of Boomers have experienced three watershed events in their lifetime that became part of the collective consciousness of the nation, either with terrifying suddenness - the Kennedy assassination and 9/11 - and the Vietnam War. While Vietnam gradually crept onto our national radar and severely affected an entire generation, Kennedy's assassination and 9/11 shocked the nation - but none of them caused a panicked media to lose all perspective and the Federal Government to shut down the entire country - on scientific information that is sketchier than an Al Gore movie. This phony, kinder, gentler, pseudo-morality that has taken hold of this country and brought us to this marshmallow clouds and rainbows safe space - where the naive idea that assuming any risk of losing anyone is intolerable. Let's not kid ourselves - there will be pain.
That's all for now. I'm falling behind in finishing these posts because...well, because I'm basically a layabout. I'll catch up. Please click on the link below to give you an idea of how this shutdown strategy is the greatest scam since the Clinton (Crime) Family Foundation.
Day #3
My wife was not the first person in my life to accuse me of the occasional battle with the iniquitous vice of procrastination, (although my naturally indolent nature dictates that simply postponing the battle is much more expedient than fighting it now.) So, imagine my justifiable chagrin when, finding myself with plenty of time on my hands, I made the admiral effort of cleaning the small 2nd story balcony in the back of our townhouse, (something that's been on my "mini bucket list" since moving in nearly two years ago), she was decidedly unimpressed with the effort. My righteous indignation demanded an adequate explanation, considering I had just braved the perils of the corona virus by spending the better part of a half hour in the hot sun, (who knows what malignantly lethal microorganisms are flying around in that potentially deadly air), cleaning "her" balcony - the place she frequents regularly for morning coffee.
"Well," she replied with that haughty, imperious attitude adopted by people who are convinced of the virtue of their position, "it took a potentially civilization-ending, world-wide, pandemic for you to finally get it done!" I would remind her that old aphorism that nobody likes a smartass, but for me it's kind of a "kettle calling the pot" meme.
Later in the afternoon, having accomplished the above mentioned Herculean task and finding the shelter-in-place lifestyle not only stifling but abjectly stupid, I meandered over to the only golf facility in the area still operating, Goat Hills Golf and Trailer Park C.C. to hit some range balls. GHGTPCC is a facility that, when built, ruined a good swamp. The dress code is, essentially, "clothes optional," where, if one were attired in a pair of ripped cargo pants and a bleached out "Cold Play Tour '96" tee shirt, one would be considered woefully overdressed. The golf carts appear as if they did a few tours in Afghanistan - a faded monkey-shit brown in color, replete with ripped seats and balding tires that are (as my North Carolina buddies were so fond of saying) "slicker than deer guts on a doorknob."
But they have a driving range...of sorts. The range balls are golf balls in the notional sense of the word - they were at one time round, white and once actually had some component of compression. What passed for grass on the dismal teeing area of the range was the pathetic occasional clump of dried out weeds, where every iron shot resulted in a puff of dry dust and an erratic ball flight that resembles a hummingbird dodging a shotgun blast. Gone are the good old days (day before yesterday) when I was practicing with shiny, brand new, out of the box Titleist tour practice balls at my club...that solid feeling that moves from the hands through the entire body as a nine-iron meets the ball precisely, leaping off the face. The high, perfect parabola of the shot as it gently slides a little left at the apex, hangs for an instant and falls gently to earth - a sensation so pure it makes you feel like you could live forever.
We will not, any of us, live forever. But we surely will die an ignominious, spineless and humiliating death if we hide like children from a Bogeyman that may not even exist.
Catch y'all tomorrow. In the mean time - don't give out, don't give in and NEVER, EVER, give up!
Stay Calm and Carry On.
(The lost Weekend - Some days will be condensed. When the highlight of your day is driving 4 blocks to the Publix, even Stephan King would find it a formidable task to create a compelling narrative for any protagonist.)
You wanna talk desperation? I'll give ya desperation right here...played nine holes at Goat Hills Golf and Trailer Park with my wife this weekend!. I thought the driving range was rough...until I saw the greens. In the '70's, I had a shag carpet that was smoother than these babies. Hit it three feet on a 167 yard 3-par - the putt squirted left from the giddyup - missed the the hole by 6 inches. Good news, however. Jack Nicklaus Grand Cypress Golf course near Disney (usually at least a 35 minute drive in season - now maybe 15 minutes) opened for play. Individual carts, no touching flagstick, all bunkers played as waste areas (no rakes to touch), rangers are there solely to monitor the six foot rule.
This new normal is the inevitable and logical result of the general direction technology has been driving us. Tethered to our machines and relying on them as virtually the only mode of communication has created an alarming inability to actually connect with other humans. Why go through the inconvenience of actually talking to someone when texting, while not as accurate, will suffice. And while all age groups are guilty of this behavior, Millennials and and the so-called Gen Z generations are clearly the most affected. At least with the AIDS virus in the '80's, the level of alienation was controllable; if two consenting adults wanted to get inter-personal and bump uglies, prophylactic protection was available. Is there any doubt this "no touch " culture will effect the way we interact with other humans. Will the birthrate decline even more propitiously with Millennials and Gen Z? Will they even care?
Several months ago, smoking a cigar and sipping a MacCallan's 15 on the patio at my golf club, I overheard some junior members (perhaps early thirties) excitedly recalling a round at Augusta National that apparently all three had played the day before. As I listened to them recount an extremely detailed, hole by hole replay of their round, I wondered whose ass a couple of puerile, non-partner attorneys had kiss to gain entry to the storied home the Master's. I was fortunate enough to have played it over 30 years ago (when these kids were still shitting yellow) and I understood the level of difficulty involved in gaining access. When I asked them if they had an opportunity to walk through the stately clubhouse (oftentimes part of the Augusta guest protocol), they stared at me dumbfounded; the Augusta National they played was a giant video game with a wrap around screen at the Titleist booth at the PGA show, complete with sound of chirping birds and breeze blowing through the pines, and, if you so desire, the roar of the patrons.To these kids, who have been playing video games all their lives, this seemed to be as satisfying as the real deal. What happens when the virtual reality becomes indistinguishable from truth? Which, of course, is a question better answered by someone who understands the reality of life, say...a TV Doc like Dr. OZ.
If one needs any additional proof of our devolution, if the new word abbreviation protocols for text and email isn't enough of a perversion of the language and communication skills, think about the prevalent use of emojis as a communication device. From Egyptian hieroglyphics to emojis in only 3 millennia - real progress. For those hipster individuals who think there's no difference - that a symbol is a symbol - try to convey the feeling and emotion of any of the great pieces of literature...with emojis.
Frustration with the preposterous "run and hide" reaction to this virus continues to grow as American economic viability and wealth continues to circle the fiscal drain. Congress is throwing around trillion dollar bailouts like Bloomberg buying a quarter page political ad in a high school yearbook, deceptively burying Green New Deal and carbon footprint buy backs for airlines deep in the bill. if this pandemic concludes with a fatality number that is less than or equal to previous year's death rate, who will take the responsibility for this boondoggle? Where will these possibly unnecessary trillion dollar relief packages come from? Those hopeful Democrats who believe this is the end of Trump, may be correct. But the reality is that this just the beginning of an entirely new and perilous relationship between the individual and the Federal government, which is the silent price of the bailout money. No matter how this fiasco concludes, the face of the nation will surely change as Government intrusion will be an integral component of everyday life.
Life moves on, sometimes the cultural tectonic plates shift. As much as we may want to, nobody ever promised we had the right to grow old in the same country in which we grew up. Truth be told, I don't know that I even care to coexist with a society that tolerates cheesy Medicare commercials with Joe Namath as the pitchman (YES , BROADWAY JOE ) and who don't even comprehend the significance of the hook line at the commercial's end when Joe intones, "...call the number - you'll be glad you did.. .I guarantee it! "
Oh well. As Jimmy Hendrix so eloquently prophesied - "Ain't no Life Nowhere." Catch y'all down the road.
Day # whatever
Have never been a big "rear view mirror" guy, believing that the most under-appreciated word in the English language is "NEXT"...next deal, next day, next dream. Looking back was the give-up- artist's mode of surrender, a rear guard action - a fighting retreat against whatever time one may have left. However, in this era of coerced uncertainty - when any future runway available to us grows more transitory by the quarantined day - reversion seems the only viable course available. So, who would've thought on my birthday 50 years ago today, I would be a 69 year old man under quarantine in Florida, with the dystopian media predicting the end of civilization while depicting joyless, depressing sepia colored video vignettes of the deserted streets of New York City with cheesy, melancholy background music. When not displaying these spurious Orwellian and totalitarian images, the cable networks bring on their charlatan TV Docs to help us deal with "...the anxiety and fear of isolation," as if we were children who lost their security blanket and are desperately seeking a safe space. While this Corona virus seems to play perfectly into the narrative of this new America - that is, you're nobody until you are a victim. However, this pandemic allows - EVERYBODY TO BE A VICTIM which, in turn, reduces the value of victimhood, the currency of the snowflake mentality. What the everyday, off the rack, pre-virus regular victims are learning is that when everybody's somebody, nobody's anybody.
Leaving my domicile on Saturday, (how long before "papers" will be a requisite to move about freely), to pick up a script for my wife at Costco, I notice for the first time the taped off lines on the floor indicating the compulsory 6-foot social distancing mandate while in line at the pharmacy. While the mind reels at the opportunities to contract this virus in this sad sea of humanity - even at six feet, the fear of some of these people is visceral. The woman behind me was taking no chances; although the outside temperature is pushing 90 degrees, she is ridiculously costumed in a surgeon's cap, a respirator mask, rubber dish washing gloves that cover her forearms and (I am not making this up), some sort of cotton booties over her footwear - in the event, I guess, that little viruses are leaping up on our shoes like so many fleas. A slender, rather mousy woman, she resembled those actresses from the black and white movies in the '50's when, apparently, it was de rigueur to sport pointy breasts - as if two snow cones were fastened to her pigeon-like chest.
The Latina woman in front of me, when finally arriving to the pharmacist's window only to find that her script hadn't been called in, began a rant a la Rickey Ricardo - part Spanish, part English (a form of spanglish) directed at the pharmacist, cursing the poor young man relentlessly.The rest of the Octogenarians in line, already scared half to death by, well...by fear of death from a virus and the constant dread that the conservatives (those faceless, nameless malevolent rabble) will use the Corona virus to steal all their social security and Medicare, simply cowered, averting their eyes. She was in her middle 40's, huge breasted and, at one time perhaps a genuine dark-haired beauty - but now just a chunky, high mileage, B list midnight Bootie call Senora beat up by the disparate inequities of life. A real man hater, she had the classic female "I need" line - a distinguishing crease that ran from the middle of her forehead to the bridge of her nose and let you know she could spew enough venom to make some unsuspecting man wish he had corona virus. As she paused momentarily to catch her breath, she turned around in time to see me shake my head and gave me a look she had probably used her entire miserable bullying life. I held her gaze, wagging my finger in a "make my day sweetheart" pantomime.
She turned away briskly, her stiletto heels clicking on the concrete floor. The pharmacist greeted me at the window with a sheepish smile. "Maybe," I said with only a hint of sarcasm "there's a reason for this virus."
The velocity of the recent societal transformation has a startling semi-permanent and Cambrian explosive quality to it that has perilous overtones. The arrogance, however, of a society that jeopardizes the immediate future and its children's future by tampering with the deciduous nature of life is astonishing. It is a cosmic reality; at maturity, some leaves will fall from the tree. Despite the constant media propaganda that saving every life is an imperative, I am unpersuaded.
Life is, indeed, changing. I realized many years ago that I would not significantly change the world. I am gratified however, at this stage in my my life, that the world did not significantly change me.
See y'all down the road. Stay well.
Washington D.C. 6/3/19
VandalNation Exclusive
(For Immediate Release)
In a hastily called press conference, Juan Rodriguez, campaign manager for Kamala Harris announced that the candidate will now identify as a lesbian. “In order to better serve and understand the long standing victimization suffered by the LGBTQ community, Senator Harris will, as of this date, identify as lesbian,” said Rodriguez in front of a boisterous, cheering crowd of LGBTQ, including a vocal contingent of Lipstick Lesbians.
Douglas Imhoff, Harris’ husband of 12 years, apparently surprised by the unexpected announcement, refused to comment.
The move immediately catapults Harris several polling positions in the Identity Politic Intersectionality Championship of the Democratic presidential primary race, leapfrogging both Pete Buttigieg and Cory Booker. “As a lesbian, the Senator now accumulates victimhood points in several categories - having faced discrimination as a woman, as African American and now, as Gay,” said Rodriguez. “The fact that she also has that youthfully attractive MILF appeal only adds to her likeability - while still maintaining the fundamental grievance issue,” he said.
The announcement did not go unnoticed by several other candidates. Mike Schmuhl, campaign manager for candidate Pete Buttigieg, (the only other announced Gay candidate in the race), quickly responded via twitter. “We believe it is critical that the Democratic National Committee immediately initiate an investigation into the substance of this specious and highly suspect claim made by the Senator" he tweeted. “The Senator needs to provide dispositive evidence to the American public of this claim as to exactly; 1.) when Senator Harris had cunningulus, 2.) where Senator Harris had cunningulus and, 3.) most importantly, with whom Senator Harris has had cunningulus,” Schmuhl tweeted. “The American people are entitled to know if their leaders only claim to be Gay when it suits their needs.”
In an unrelated event, Chasten Buttigieg, the husband of candidate Mayor Buttigieg, locked himself into the restroom at the Buttigieg campaign headquarters in South Bend, Indiana, weeping inconsolably at the Harris announcement, apparently distraught at the prospect of having his husband share the Gay spotlight with another candidate. Grief counselors were summoned and the situation was resolved without further issue, according to people familiar with the matter.
Under the condition of anonymity, a spokesperson for the Elizabeth Warren campaign, (which has been relying solely on female victimization and experiencing difficulty overcoming the candidate’s “whiteness"), rejected any potential Gay claim by the campaign, indicating that senior staffers are contemplating an assertion of Transexuality. “We think the Tranny route is much more believable and while we’re not ruling out a possible bi-sexual claim, it just doesn’t have the victim impact and won’t get us where we need to be polling-wise,” said the source.
Frontrunner Joe Biden, on the campaign trail speaking to a small group of somnolescent, old, white and embittered retired United Mine Workers, was asked if he had any intentions of asserting a Gay claim, responded assertively. “C’mon man. I’m old school. You guys have seen Old Uncle Joe in action on video for 30 years - grabbing’ and sniffing’ - but y’all never saw me sniff a male - just women. Sure, I sniffed a few old ladies, but that’s just politics. Any male grabbin’ was manly grabbin',” exclaimed Biden with uncharacteristic testicularity.
The Biden campaign, suffering from a lack of any meaningful grievance issues and covering no intersectionality bases, is scrambling to establish some victimhood claim. "As an old, white, mainstream political moderate, I'm in the only class of Identity Politics that is discriminated against because we have no victimization claim. In fact, we are victims of not being victims!" Biden exclaimed with circular logic.
Asked if Bernie Sanders, also old and white (in addition to being bitter) faces the same lack of victimization status, Biden replied, "at least Bernie's a Jew - he could get some discrimination mileage out of that if it didn't alienate his base," referring to the openly, virulent anti-Semitic posture of the Progressive wing of the Democratic party.
Sanders, in a lunch diner on the campaign trail making his 205th visit to Iowa, refused comment with an angry, dismissive grunt as he sent back his cold soup.
Corey Booker, reportedly furious with his campaign staff for prematurely outing his relationship with actress Rosario Dawson amid swirling rumors that he was a closeted Gay man, was heard by campaign staffers to have said “...I could have been a victim of racial discrimination, Black and Gay." Experts believed such a scenario would have put him within margin-of-error distance to Senator Harris impressive claims of racial discrimination, female, Black and Lesbian credentials - the Grand Slam of victimization.
While the White House press office had no official comment on the Harris announcement, a mid-level staffer, under the condition of anonymity, responded. "President Trump currently is lazer-focused on doing the work of the American people, ensuring that the intricately nuanced Fox News subtext continues to portray him as a beleaguered, yet unifying Christ figure and trying to figure out how to put together a three-way with Senator Harris and Stormy Daniels in the Mar-A-Lago Presidential suite."
Senator Harris will kick off her "Gay Daze" whirlwind tour, with rallies at 50 Gay/Trans nightclubs in 50 days. Venues and showtimes will be available to the public on line at: divein69@GayDaze.com