The best life has to offer right here in downtown Chicago (Aug 2025)
It’s an interesting thought experiment to ask yourself what you truly want out of life. I mean pizza, wings, beer and sports all have their place in augmenting our lives. But, then again, that depends on the pizza. Let’s be honest, most are mediocre. Many sound great in description and even look delicious to the eyes while still failing to deliver where it counts, on the tongue. But pizza does, very rarely, elevate to the level of spiritual experience (fennel sausage helps!). And which beer? Or who’s playing in this hypothetical game. I’m no fan of baseball at all, but I will fully acknowledge that despite the soul-crushing boredom of regular season games, the very same structural slowness and episodic nature actually accentuate the tension in the post-season (maybe I’ll finally tune-in for game 7 of the World Series tonight). Yet these entities remain in the top soil in terms of life’s greater meaning.
Post-script: I watched my first baseball game of the year, albeit partial, beginning in the middle of the 7th inning. I was transfixed. Wow, what a finish! Your heart rate doesn’t slow during the pauses, unlike regular season apnea/bradycardia. That play at the plate was just insane. And, as my cousin’s wife aptly stated, she being a huge Dodgers fan, “solo homers add up!”
So, first question, what do we actually need for a life lived fully? Allow me to take a stab at this one and create a rough draft (one thing I like about blogging is that you can add and subtract later — and in this way it serves as a model for how me might ponder and shape our own ideas). The equally important second consideration is how we are seeking it. But first things, first. Here’s my preliminary list:
Loveand friendship
Wonderandsurprise
Purposeand goals
Trying to avoid a full-on Dr. Phil self-help vibe here but these couplets might be condensed to:
Connection
Discovery
Usefulness
What do you think so far? It might be a pushing off point to something, such as figuring out where aspects of your life fit in or what might be lacking. Too trite or obvious? I’m not sure. That all depends on what we do with it (like the ingredients of a pizza). Let’s take music, for example, which operates on so many levels. It certainly can connect us, not least to ourselves. Who isn’t familiar with the notion of “this is my song!” It links you to key memories. And mentally to the artist. Also to the person who turned you onto it. To the film in which it was used. “Fortunate Son” and “Run Through the Jungle” by CCR can’t help but evoke images of Vietnam, for better or worse. George Gershwin‘s “Rhapsody in Blue” was all but ruined for me by that United Airlines ad, until it was rescued by the terrific play “Good Night, Oscar.” But just as that familiarity has buoyancy, songs also evolve in their meaning as the context of your life changes. Those reflecting on loss take on higher valence when you yourself have lost. This establishes a wonderful cycle of discovery and rediscovery.
“Some folks are born made to wave the flag Ooh, they’re red, white and blue And when the band plays Hail to the Chief Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord“
One of the greatest joys in my life has been in the discovery of music and films and art and restaurants and cities and people. This process quickly becomes expansive with one find leading to another, and so on. Fascinating, this genealogy of treasures. I love getting recommendations about albums and shows and films, even if many don’t pan out. It’s all about the possibilities. The surprise. The hope. And isn’t something falling flat — something you had hoped would be transformative — another form of surprise? Another data point. These duds are like stray dots of paint to your personal canvas. They are the dissonant notes in jazz. We could, in a way, define ourselves by what we dislike/hate (I found the new film “A House of Dynamite” criminally boring despite the dire subject matter, which is quite a feat!)… and then, in time, somehow learn to love them and form a continuous Mobius strip of joyful absurdity (see prior post). But is any of this useful? Well, by our own standard, the music we love surely is. Plus the music we give. So, yes. And this is but a narrow slice of the bigger pie. We haven’t even considered creating things of our own. But let’s pull back and look closer at our connections.
Connection:
The great Chicago Bears running back Gale Sayers published his autobiography “I Am Third” in 1970 and it, in turn, inspired the made-for-TV movie “Brian’s Song” (1971). The book’s title is derived from his philosophy of humility in which he placed God first, his family second, and himself third. While I find this approach honorable and potentially useful, I propose a counter-philosophy that places oneself first. Before you throw food, allow me to explain. I don’t mean this in a solipsistic way. The point is not to justify Trump-like narcissism or a Gordon Gecko “greed is good” ethos. The kernel is that for you to meaningfully connect with others, to fully realize your ability to discover things, and to optimize your utility in the world and in the lives of others, you must connect with yourself. It all flows from there. I find misguided the notion of focusing primary energy on the external — God, your career, a marriage, the stock market, fashion, etc.. I had an actual epiphany once. Many years ago, I watched a one-man play about R. Buckminster Fuller, and somehow his philosophical discussion on the geodesic dome led me to this distillation:
The first task is to understand yourself to the best possible extent at any given stage. This will, by definition, be an evolving process. You must try to understand your motivations, your hang-ups, your tendencies, your fears, your hopes and dreams, your obligations. As you continue this assessment across time, your second objective is to, as best you can, accept and also love the person that you are. Only when you have done that can you truly offer yourself up to another person (or to the world) who has, hopefully, done similar work. They, too, accept themselves as they are, and they accept you in that same way and not some idealized version — with the mutual promise of continued positive exploration. In summary, you cannot gift yourself to someone without first knowing and accepting what is beneath your gift wrapping. And in this way , due to this giving intent, the initial focus on self is actually about connecting to others and not a purely selfish act.
James Caan (Brian Piccolo) and Billy Dee Williams (Gale Sayers) in “Brian’s Song” (1971), based on Sayers’ autobiography “I Am Third”R. Buckminster Fuller gettin’ geodesic wit it.
Once we have developed the skills of self-discovery and acceptance, we can pivot to connecting with other people. As readers of this blog will have gleaned, I have little time for the cloth in my day-to-day life. I do, however, take inspiration from Biblical stories in the allegorical and philosophical sense. I believe there’s genuine renewal and connection in religion, so long as it isn’t limiting or isolating (Catholics mingling only with Catholics, for example, or anything to do with Scientology). In short, I’m good with God. But I keep him in my own way, more abstracted and in the background. Beyond that we have family, friends, life partners, co-workers, neighbors, and casual acquaintances that create everyday opportunities for exercising this need to meaningfully interact. But it takes time, energy, and a willingness to be open and vulnerable. This process won’t work if you’re faking it, hence the crucial step one. And it is habit-forming. Each of us have our limits, but positive interaction becomes self-reinforcing (unfortunately, so does avoidance). In parallel, it provides a feedback loop for self-awareness when you share your unfiltered beliefs and opinions. It is also an opportunity to discover knew ideas, jokes, cocktail recipes, film rec’s, etc.. In my three-man book club, we talk mostly about things other than the text, and I’m sure that’s the norm. By regularly engaging in this way, you become an important part of someone else’s life. You, in actual fact, are useful!
Discovery:
Somehow our educational institutions have managed to suck most of the joy out of learning. Nowadays it seems kids spend their entire youth trying to build a resume’ by doing activities they don’t want to do, volunteering just to volunteer, and studying just to pass the test. SAT prep begins in second grade, as do your fencing lessons and Mandarin classes. In the twenty-five years since I entered academic medicine, the CV’s have only grown more impressive, yet the depth of understanding is comparatively shallow. They struggle to answer basic questions about the research they have supposedly done. Their answers in an interview often seem stock. The degree of cultural engagement has seemingly waned and their general knowledge of literature, film, music, and art is lacking. Cultural reference points used to be a commonality. You didn’t have to love “Mannix” but you knew who he was. And you sure as shit had heard of the Velvet Underground, even if they broke up before you were of school age. To sum, there seems to be a fundamental lack of curiosity about the world beyond what will get them to the next step. This is, IMO, nothing short of tragic. I will admit they are much better traveled at a young age than my generation, with gap years and semesters abroad now de rigueur. But are they going to Barcelona just to play video games or stare at their phones? And don’t get me started in the whole influencer racket. Social media — as I blog (but not on FB or Instagram) — is the utter apotheosis of artificiality. It’s the new red dye #2. Fake, fake, fake. “Fake and Bake”. And now I sound like an old guy ranting but, hey, I’ll own it. I am ranting here. But the good old days weren’t so keen either. Much of it sucked. I had many teachers who hadn’t a clue how to actually teach. They were boring-AF and didn’t encourage a deeper learning into what wasn’t on the damn test. This stuff should be majorly fun and interesting or else you’re doing it wrong. In history classes, they somehow managed to NOT connect major events and periods that had enormous influence in their wake. Once you crammed the French Revolution, that was that and you moved on. Same with the Civil War. The Reconstruction was barely discussed and the era of Jim Crow and Plessy v Ferguson and the rise of the KKK were all given short shrift. Yet those aftershocks are still felt today. It was up to you to connect those dots (this is something that modern journalism does quite well and doesn’t get enough credit for). Missed opportunities. It seems to me that teaching in general has gone stale. I often longed for a course that would take a unified approach to a given stretch of history and delve into the music, literature, art, and media that suffused it — while also connecting things back to influential precursor events in a nodal way. These investigations could then be overlapped. This would provide an expansive view of history and show that all things are ultimately linked, rather than the dry, narrow, soulless approach that has been the tradition.
“Inherit the Wind” (1960) with Spencer Tracy playing the character based on as Clarence Darrow and Fredric March playing that based on William Jennings Bryan (with Harry Morgan as the judge). The setting was the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee. In my imaginary course, you can connect the Bible and creation theory, evolution and its mutation into eugenics theory, first amendment law, academic freedom, separation of church and state, the political careers of Darrow and Bryan, the suspender fashion, and the long history of air-conditioning. Plus throw in some film history and maybe a clip from “The Music Man,” since there’s always “trouble (oh, we got trouble) right here in River City”… that’s something that never goes away.
Rant ended. Suffice it to say that much of this work, extracting the meat from the crab or the juice from the pomegranate, falls to us as individuals. The upside of this is that it’s fun and invigorating. You get to make up your own syllabus! Literally, you can read whatever the fuck you want to read, watch whatever the fuck you want to watch and talk about them all with anyone who will tolerate you. The only stipulation is that you also have to listen. This is a dialogue with the world, not a one-man soliloquy. We necessarily must sometimes grow tired of our own voice (even Barbra Streisand longs occasionally to sing like Johnny Rotten). We need to, as Atticus Finch might say, walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. And when someone engages you, you can hit them with your best Travis Bickle: “you talkin’ to me?!” See if they get it. And I’m talking about trying as much of the damn buffet as you can stomach. Even poetry, for God’s sake! Because it’s all poetry. Miles Davis is poetry. Richard Linklater is poetry. Julia Child, Oscar Wilde, and Neil Young are all poetry. So was my grandmother, Mimi, who opened my eyes to art. That’s poetry run amok. And my childhood best friend, David R., who taught me this little gem: “What begins with F- and ends with -uck… FIRETRUCK!!” And if that ain’t poetry, then it doesn’t exist. So bring a sense of wonder on your daily meanderings and the world can’t help but deliver you novelty and surprise… “or your money back!”
Usefulness:
What do I mean by usefulness? Several things, it turns out, that can be small, medium, or large in scope. And as before, it begins with you and spreads outward. That’s the bargain. At the mundane level, we might look at our job and ask ourselves, “am I useful here?” or, better still, “is there I way I could be more useful (without too much compromise elsewhere in my life)?” The goal being to optimize (one can’t help but trip on management-speak in this realm) on as many fronts as possible. But I don’t mean this in a strictly utilitarian way, as in measures work output or committee service. I mean it in a soulful way — am I connecting with others and having an impact on a personal level? Am I useful to other named individuals. The key here is the specificity. My job in academic medicine affords me that chance in passing along my knowledge and experience to the next generation, which is what might be called a mutual reward. And in the era of zero-sum politics, this is a useful watchword. Ideally, what helps me also helps you. I will continue looking for clever ways to be more useful at the hospital, but it has to jibe with my overall philosophy. I spent far too much time in my early career volunteering for services that were not in that vein. It’s an easy trap that is routinely laid for young hires in all industries. As Polonius is oft quoted from Hamlet, “to thine own self be true.” But best if true in the way that is also useful to others.
The ghost of Hamlet’s murdered father appears to him on the late watch. My sense is that the coaching from ghosts generally comes too late and in the confusion of night. The idea is to avoid these problematic situations altogether with early intervention.
We are also of utility in numerous other ways. In sharing life’s joy and surprises with family, friends and significant others, we are like the cast members of an theater ensemble. A mutual support and affirmation society results if we are engaged and not brooding in the wings. In looking back, anything great or small that involves the burnishing of happy memories falls into this category. Looking ahead, anything that opens a possibility for realizing such future memories is also in the mix. And so this mind-set holds a balance between forward and backward reflecting. It’s a constant churn and, in a sense, this alternating to-and-fro is happening simultaneously in our minds.
Other times, our purpose might be temporarily defined by life’s negative circumstances. Talking with a friend who is struggling. Helping out a stranger in a moment of need. Supporting a family member through a physical ailment. Easing someone’s financial burden from time to time, when tenable. And just showing up is more than half of it. Being present. Listening. Making someone laugh at a difficult moment. That’s being useful. So, yes, call your old friends that you’ve lost contact with. It doesn’t matter why you fell out or drifted apart. Just do it.
As regards our more creative impulses (jokes and bits, poems, songs, stories, artwork, conversation, texts, letters and e-mails), I would say that our utility works in several important ways. One is simply to entertain — make ’em laugh. Another is through emotion — make ’em feel. A third way is through our intellect — make ’em think. Still further we can inspire them to create something themselves — make ’em want to do. These things all have value. And beyond the momentary gains, they also serve as points of connection in the ongoing churn of mutual gesture and action, the exchange of ideas and feelings, and the formation of a personalized particle-collider for inspiration and creation. It begins in you and like an electrical charge it arcs to those around you and energizes their lives. This, in part, is what R. Buckminster Fuller was trying to tell us about the eventual connectivity of all things. That in the highly specific thing lives transcendent generalities about life.
But there are pitfalls, of course. Here are but a few of them:
As in golf, you can have too many swing thoughts that prevent you from feeling loose and just letting it fly. Try to keep things simple from day-to-day.
Since we are on golf analogies, play your own ball and forget about your score or the other guy’s. As the old saying goes, often attributed to Teddy Roosevelt, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”
On religion, beware its tendency to insularity and group-think. And also the twin evils of condescension and hypocrisy.
On self-awareness, beware solipsism. The goal is to look inward to then extend beyond ourselves. To give back, to create, to teach, to share. I’m all for therapy, so long as it enables an expansiveness and interaction with the world. Don’t spend too much time alone.
On interacting, try not to spread yourself too thinly. You’ll need time to recover and process. Do not overschedule.
Small moments, including those with strangers, can be powerful. Do not overlook their importance. Great ideas and inspiration can come from anywhere at any time (even as we sleep!).
Don’t expect perfection. If you are working on something like being a better listener, there will be set-backs. If there’s one thing Shakespeare taught us it’s that nobody is perfect, kings and cobblers alike.
Be useful but don’t be used. Keep your eyes and ears open. Over the long haul, our relationships should be mutually beneficial, not an 80-20 scenario or worse.
On creativity, try to maintain focus. I’m all about side projects and sudden inspiration, but it’s good to have an overarching goal.
Get weird. Stay weird.Don’t follow the crowd.
T. Rex, man of the world.But there’s plenty of adventure to be had in your own backyard
We are getting close to the end of this marathon post. If you are still reading, what the fuck is wrong with you?! Get outside and sample the world!
Funny enough, I just stumbled into a fragment of a poem by Mary Oliver called “Sometimes” and in it she succinctly summarized all that my bloated prose was trying to convey:
Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
Had I seen that before, it would have saved us all a lot of time.
No hand gel, no shake. From the Yoko Ono exhibit at the MCA in Chicago (Oct 2025). Also her hands were full.
This seems an apt metaphor for our times, as a man blindly extends his hand through a hole in Yoko Ono’s conceptual art piece, ostensibly to shake hands with a stranger, yet there are no takers. In the COVID era, and in the highest period of partisan divide since the 1960’s/70’s, you’ll only get dead air. Just try not to take it personally. But c’mon, seriously, look at those shoes.
The reverse in conceptual art is rarely as enticing.This work could be marketed as the official “Donald Trump Chess Set”where white always wins!Apropos, her work for me is mostly head-scratching. Plus she fucking broke up the Beatles (not really, yes really)!
They drive on the other side of the road there, which makes crossing the street dangerous. But they are nice and remind you of this even though we revolted against them like 100 years ago.
We saw a bench.
We saw a play. It was really good. I cried.
This was a musical play we didn’t see but I kinda wish we had. I saw the movie. There was a shipwreck and not enough lifeboats. The lady next to me cried but I didn’t cry, I swear.
Sometimes it rains a lot in London and you need an umbrella.
And we saw… oh, I don’t know…
… funny signs…
… and strange buildings…
… and art, lots of art…
… like this one that reminded me of lemons…
… and this giant stereo thing that played lots of different sounds at once, which is dumb…
… plus we went to Harrods where I’ve never seen so many shoes… except at the Holocaust Museum.
“Christ of Saint John of the Cross” (1951) by Salvador Dali. I experienced a vertiginous “art apoplexy” when I first saw this image.
Per Wikipedia, Dali was inspired to depict Christ at this steep superior angle by a drawing made by the 16th century Spanish friar John of the Cross, hence the painting’s name. It is an arresting perspective that provokes many ideas at once. And with this I contrast my experience at the Uffizi in Florence, which felt like an endless droning of flat/2D works of conventional religious iconography that sucked the life out of most everything. Death by art. That ticket should come with a phat line of coke. Dali’s work is, on the other hand, alive with the frisson of surprise and possibility. Life in art. And, so, I have a few loosely integrated thoughts on this work:
1. The cross reminds me of the Monolith from Kubrick’s “2001.” In that construct, the apes are us. And if the modern GOP is any tell, then the band DEVO was correct about our inevitable de-evolution. “The Enshittification of Man” would be a fitting title card for a timely re-make.
An early WTF moment in our evolution. We now experience these twice daily with Trump 2.0.
2. Dali’s depiction is notable for the absence of nails, blood and the crown of thorns. We also don’t see Christ’s face. But he’s pretty cut and his hair is terrific. Maybe it was meant for a Vitalis magazine ad, as Dali always had an eye on the market (“Touched By the Hair of God” or something such). And blood is generally bad for sales in the personal hygiene arena.
No amount of Vitalis could ever save, you know….
3. The lower portion of the painting has the look of a more traditional seascape with fisherman by a PLACID lake, perhaps off the Galilee exit. It seems to ask, “Do you believe in miracles?” Yes!!
God was smiling down on US that day!Trump was probably pulling for the Soviets while straddling Stormy Daniels.
4. There have been other unconventional takes on the crucifixion. Two of the most controversial are the iconoclastic sculpture called “McJesus” (2015) by the Finnish artist Jani Leinonen and the photograph “Piss Christ” (1987) by Andres Serrano. I love them both, and that sentiment was hard won through eight years endured in Catholic school. Apostasy is the new black, BTW.
McJesus is guaranteed to induce seizures among the religious Right.And can we please supersize that Happy Meal?! Any art like “Piss Christ” that rankles the white, Christian nationalist set (the Amoral Minority), and has that Vichy douchebag JD Vance actually “clutching his pearls,” belongs in the Pantheon.For him, however, to drop the N-word or embrace antisemitic Nazi propaganda is just breezy fun. Ha-ha!! Guess what, JD. Your garbage-heap of hypocrisy over Charlie Kirk has just officially fucking expired.
5. Getting back to Dali, that uncanny perspective from above doesn’t cease to be jarring, maybe because it forces you to imagine a greater being looking down on us. Both spooky and dizzyingly powerful at once. Just like the masterful angle in a Hitchcock scene or the slant perspective of a Vivian Maier photograph, it’s a rib punch that catches you short. Disorients. Shakes you up a bit. And maybe that’s a pretty good definition of meaningful art…
Dali’s take has me pondering, as a devoutly-lapsed Catholic, this hypothetical (if a touch heretical) dialogue between the members of the Holy Trinity:
Jesus:This is bullshit.
God: What did they do to you? Apologies, I stepped away.
Jesus:Bloody crucifixion, that’s all.
Holy Ghost: Sorry, bro.
Jesus:And it takes soooo damned long.
God: Who are those other two?
Jesus:Dismas and Gestas. Dismas is pretty cool. We chatted a bit. He’s with me. Gestas is just a dick.
Holy Ghost: I heard.
Jesus: You were watching?
Holy Ghost: From a distance. Got stuck in goatherd traffic.
God: Yeah, but anyway I’ve been trying out this new non-interventionist approach to life. You’re supposed to just let things flow. Focus on your breathing. It really works!
Jesus:Christ!
God: But don’t worry, we’ll fuck ’em up big-time now. Get pre-Medieval on their asses.
Holy Ghost: Oh, hell yes. I’m in!
Jesus: Mother Mary and Joseph… have you two not listened to one word I’ve uttered these last 33 years?!
Buddy Christ is from the 1999 film “Dogma” by Kevin Smith. Take that you fucking Jesuit killjoys!
Sent this to my friend BR, who is a learned connoisseur of music but not into the G-man. He said it was ” beyond inspiringto the point of perspiring” and he now wears a replica perm!
It’s hard to describe the unbridled joy I get from sending an out-of-the-blue book to a friend when it’s one I’m fairly sure they will utterly disdain. We are talking laugh-out-loud funny to picture them (or their spouse!) opening the package to find… wait, what?! You imagine them struggling to explain to their kids, or to a nosy neighbor, how it is they came to be in possession of Kenny G’s autobiography. Do they read it, hide it, or dump it in a panic? Maybe all three!!
Sent this to my friend RO, not a huge GP fan. Waiting for his perspectives on GOOP and the jade egg!
But I want to emphasize that if you partake of this alt-curated book gifting game, that is all the joy that need come of it. And the gift, for the most part, is actually to yourself. The positive energy thus derived has three components. First, any thoughtful gift is its own reward. It feels good to make others happy. Second, the frisson of surprise. This isn’t their birthday or Christmastime but some odd Thursday when the package arrives, and they had no idea it was coming. Who doesn’t love an unexpected present? And third, the grins and giggles that are specific to the book selection. As is the case with any inside joke, it is the sense of knowing someone and being known that closes the circuit and reinforces the connection. Joy is exchanged and another memory is created ( = future joy!).
Don’t be shocked if you get this gem in the mail someday. You’re welcome!
Of course, it doesn’t have to end there. There are many possible outcomes in this choose-your-own-adventure project. The bonus for you is the surprise of their reaction. Your friend may actually like the book and send back some of their favorite quotes, which would perhaps be the best kind of failure. They may respond in kind with some outlandish book for you to digest (a prison cookbook, for example, signed by the author). You might get a response poem, a drawing, a recorded song, or a back-story prequel they wrote based on your original gift. Or they may come back with an off-speed pitch, like a pair of used hemp underwear from Belarus. All the better. And by my calculation, that’s a damn good bargain for the price of one (silly) book…
Robert Longo’s “The Rock (The Supreme Court of the United States — Split)” from 2018 shows the harbinger of storm clouds above our divided justice system. Photo at the National Gallery of Art, East Wing in Aug 2024.
It is beyond dispiriting, to the point of apoplexy, that Trump and his rogues’ gallery of fellow travelers are trying to pass off political violence as being predominantly on the Left. Conveniently, the DOJ (under the Stepford-AG Pam “Pom-Pom” Bondi) has recently removed from its website a decades-long analysis published in 2024 by the National Institute of Justice that reached exactly the opposite conclusion on domestic terrorism: “Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far left or radical Islamist extremists.” You won’t see that quote on TRUTH SOCIAL. This is yet another false pretext by Trump, Inc. to stifle dissent and is every bit as bogus as the extortion of universities over antisemitism (which clearly exists, as does prejudice against Palestinians, people of color, women, Muslims, LGBT, etc…. another day we will address the absurdly obtuse comments by Jerry Seinfeld equating “Free Palestine” with the KKK). The key is to note how selective he/they are in their outrage. Blood-curdling rage for Charlie Kirk’s murder but barely a whimper (and even a few utterly vile jokes from Utah’s Republican Senator Mike Lee) for an elected official, speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, Melissa Hortman, and her husband. But when you view yourself as president of only half the country, what more can you really expect? And please let us not forget that Barack Obama once wore a TAN SUIT, of all things. I mean, WTF, Obama?!!
“IDIOTS OF THE WORLD UNITE!” The defining attributes of Trump 2.0 are “aggressive incompetence” and “intentional cruelty.” From left to right are ICE Barbie, Law Barbie (who should have her law-school tuition refunded for an inability to grasp basic civics) and Neurosyphilis Ken, as they share their mutual and delusional admiration in their gilded asylum. Sad!!
Remind me again whose blood-thirsty rioters were screaming, “HANG MIKE PENCE!” Remind me again who was exhorting supporters at his own rally to chant about Hillary Clinton, “LOCK HER UP!” Remind me again whose followers marched under torchlight in Charlottesville chanting, “JEWS WILL NOT REPLACE US!” and who in the aftermath found a sudden paroxysm of equipoise in claiming their were “VERY FINE PEOPLE ON BOTH SIDES!” Remind me again which president calls the free press “THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!” Remind me again who recently accused Barack Obama of “TREASON!” (yet can you commit actual treason against America if you are secretly from Kenya?). Remind me again which side was promising “SECOND AMENDMENT REMEDIES!” Remind me again who referred to immigrants from south of our border collectively as “MEXICAN RAPISTS!” Remind me again which side portrayed Haitians living in Ohio as “STEALING AND EATING DOGS!” and which candidate in a presidential debate amplified that false and bigoted claim. Remind me again who initiated the complete and utter fabrication that is “STOP THE STEAL!” which led directly to the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol that resulted in several deaths. And now Trump is attempting to revise that history by pardoning all the offenders (found guilty in court by their peers) and making Ashli Babbitt a martyr to his lost cause. But the enduring truth is that she, and those police officers, would all still be alive but for his craven, selfish fucking lie. Trump alone bears ALL of the responsibility for those tragic deaths, and no amount of gas-lighting counter-narrative will ever change that. And notice also that Trump and his sycophantic goons are not calling for equanimity and national healing. There will be no reaching across the aisle for compromise and mutual gain. They are out for revenge and repression and total domination of their opposition, which has plainly been the lyin’, cheatin’, stealin’ and pussy-grabbin’ Trump brand since the Roy Cohn era. This isn’t a pivot so much as a massive amplification. But like all things Trump, it is doomed to failure. That’s the one thing we in America have come to rely on…
Robert Longo’s triptych of the White House (pre-ballroom). In this image it looks a sad and forlorn place, perhaps because it was/is occupied by an angry and frustrated sociopath who seems to have no real friends nor any true joy in his life.I look back with wry irony on the day when Rep Darrell Issa (R-CA), himself a bloviating bully of dubious moral character, referred to the the Obama White House — based on almost no evidence whatsoever — as the most corrupt administration in American history. That’s the photonegative equivalent of calling Trump our greatest president of all time. And with both statements, the opposite is far, far closer to the truth.
And to close, lest anyone take exception with the acerbic tone of this post, let’s give the final word to the right-wing pundit and provocateur Charlie Kirk, whose sad and tragic killing has initiated an equally sad and misguided canonization. More opportunist and troll than conservative thought leader, what he did was to put the lipstick on the proverbial pig and to smear sugary frosting on a cake made of cow pies and shards of glass. But don’t take my word for it, take his:
(July 24, 2023) “Joe Biden is a bumbling dementia-filled Alzheimer’s corrupt tyrant (that doesn’t even make grammatical sense, BTW) who should honestly be put in prison and/or given the death penalty for his crimes against America.”
Yeah, this is the one guywho should be lying in state and have a glorious bust in our hallowed US Capitol. By all fucking means, please do. And given some of his flagrantly racist and sexist public statements, maybe they could have a life-size statue of him in a circle-jerk with John C. Calhoun, George (Fucking) Wallace, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Hell, make it a great streaming fountain in celebration of the many faces (and disgraces) of MAGA, past and present. I’d pay to see that shit!
And if somehow you’re reading all this Pam Bondi and/or JD Vance and/or Kash Patel and you don’t approve of it… then you can just GO FUCK YOURSELVES!!!
They say it’s the journey and not the destination. Hard to argue with that kinetic theory of life and our elusive search for happiness. And yet — to wax Zen — it seems the more complex the problem, the simpler the solution. In short, as Warren Zevon succinctly put it as he was dying of lung cancer, “enjoy every sandwich.”
There was always something so mysterious and evocative about the branches of the Yellow Brick Road not taken by Dorothy Gale, et al. To what horizons, what adventures, what dangers, what possibilities… to what-what… did those paths lead? It’s nothing any sequel could ever tell us, as the moment in time, and our own perspective, will have irrevocably changed. This is the very same reason that, as Thomas Wolfe said, you can’t go home again. Because home isn’t home anymore and you, for better or worse, aren’t the same you. Better mostly, I think.
Van Gogh’s “Wheatfield with Crows” (1890) weighs in the trilemma, although it should be noted that more options exist like stopping to shoot crows, backtracking, or blazing your own damned trail through the field.
Choices can be hard. The choosing even harder. So why don’t we leave the last word to Robert Frost from his poem “The Road Not Taken” (1915):
“Eve” by Billy Morrow Jackson (1967) at the National Gallery of Art
There’s a stillness and withholding in this scene that, for me, fondly recalls Edward Hopper. But note also the gentle breeze ruffling our national flag. It’s sunny but not exactly warm out there somewhere in America’s heartland. The house’s interior signals absence and the barren tree suggests the season’s end. There’s a lone soul on a porch swing, presumably Eve, pondering God knows what. And is that red door portending what it is that red doors sometimes portend?
Dear Eve,
It’s hard to describe how damn hot it is here. And there’s insects the size of baseballs that hurt just as bad. A guy in my unit, Clancy from Tallahassee, got himself bit so many times on his ass that Doc Wheatly had him soak for hours at a time in vinegar and water. That seemed to do the trick though he couldn’t sit down for over a week! We move out tomorrow, probably up north but they won’t say where. Most everybody seems to welcome the change. All except for the guys who’ve already seen action, but they don’t like to talk about it. I promise I’ll keep my head down like you said. Sorry for the short letter but the mail’s about to get bagged. I’ll write again first chance I get. Give everyone back home my best. With any luck I’ll be home for the holidays. I love you more than you can ever know.
Great Exudations 