Are These the End Times for American Democracy?

Are these the end times for democracy in the United States? According to recent articles people who have been identified  as “celebrating” the recent passing of an individual who shall here remain nameless, are being subject to doxxing. That is the release of private information with malicious intent. Some people, such as MSNBC analyst Matthew Dowd, have been sacked for expressing a negative opinion about the murdered activist. So you can just forget all that nonsense in the Bill of Rights about free speech, it's an anachronism. None dare do anything save praise the name of a white supremacist who once called Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. an "awful" person. 

You will note that I have not used the name of the assassination victim  Why? Am I afraid of retribution? Yes, as a matter of fact I am. Long time readers of this blog (both of us) are well-used to me speaking my mind on any and all subjects including (maybe especially) politics. I’ve not hesitated to express strong opinions about the current resident of the White House. Is that all changing? Need I fear….what, exactly? Being smeared by right wing groups? Deportation? Slander? I don’t know. Also, will this continue? Is this the new United States? Are we never to feel free to make our feelings known again? Again, I don’t know.

Here’s how bad things are in the U.S: From the New York Times — “U.C. Berkeley Gives Names of Students and Faculty to Government for Antisemitism Probe

The University of California, Berkeley, told around 160 people that their names were in documents related to antisemitism complaints that were demanded by the Trump administration.”

In other words the university named names. McCarthyism 2.0 and the purges are next. American institutions of higher education have been under attack since Trumpy’s second term began in January. Like health and science they are deemed dangerous. Likely because they are sources of knowledge and information. A well-informed electorate is dangerous to an authoritarian regime and that’s we’ve got today folks. Look at the militarization of law enforcement with the national guard invading U.S. cities. We’re a burgeoning police state. One of the leading forces of that police state will be ICE which is already in the business of rounding up immigrants of all stripes and sending them to “detention centers” in other countries. Our streets aren’t safe from….law enforcement officials? 

African-American history is being erased, the latest on this being reported today by the Washington Post, the removal of historic photograph of enslaved man from National Gallery of Art. 

Also today there are stories about how the Trumpy administration wants to crackdown on liberal groups because in a fascist state you cannot have opposition groups.

Of course it wont matter much what with vaccines being done away which will result in diseases being rampant.

The country is doomed.

Outside of Bernie Sanders, Jasmine Crockett and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez there seems to be little political opposition (oh sure, Chuck Schumer may pen another strongly worded letter). In normal circumstances one would look towards the mid-term elections but these are not normal circumstances and who knows if we’ll continue to have free and fair elections.

In my lifetime the United States has never been a more depressing place than it is today. Evil forces are entrenched in power and they’re doing the devil’s work. Would that there was reason for hope, for optimism. I don’t know where that would come from.

Darkest before the dawn? Let’s hope

Have Some Rather Unique Questions You'd Like Answered While Watching a Really Good Movie? This Blog Post is For You!

Ruan Gosling (left) in Half Nelson

You want to learn something and watch a movie at the same time? Good idea. Go for it. But stick around here for a second because I’m going to give you ten suggestions. I’ll make sure there’s a variety to suit all manner of tastes and moods. I’ll name a film and tell you what you can learn as I brilliantly (with all due humility) anticipate your desires. Sound good? Here we go.

Half Nelson (2006) Fleck. Learn what it’s like to be a dedicated young middle school teacher in the inner city while also battling an addiction problem. See Ryan Gosling star in one of his best roles (for my money his very best). Half Nelson is an underrated gem that I totally related to. Realistic as hell, believe me. The teacher's totally appropriate with an African American female student will be a lesson in itself.

Melancholia (2011) von Trier. Want to learn what it might be like to be around someone who suffers from clinical depression as the apocalypse approaches? Look no further. Kirsten Dunst here stars as a woman who exhibits classic signs of clinical depression, including emotional withdrawal, fatigue, inability to experience pleasure, and difficulty functioning. But as the end is nigh she’s the one who holds it together while everyone else is freaking out. Great stuff. 

Cabaret (1972) Fosse. Ever find yourself wondering what it must have been like to be a bi-sexual English teacher in Berlin who's involved with a self-possessed Cabaret singer shortly before the Nazi takeover? Check out Michael York’s character in this cinematic classic based on the Christoper Isherwood novel. You’ll also get to hear and see some amazing song and dance productions which is what you'd expect from a Bob Fosse film. But those damn Nazis are looming. Yuck!

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) Coens. I’ll bet you're curious about what it must have been like to be not-quite-good-enough-to-be-famous folk singer in the early Sixties. See Oscar Isaac as the title character in this terrific film from the Coen Brothers. The incredible frustration and hurt of realizing that you’re good, but not good enough, is one of the themes running through the picture. It's also a bit of an Odyssey as exemplified by a cat. At the end you’ll hear the voice of one of the lucky few who did make the breakthrough.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) Milestone. I’ll just bet you’ve spent some time trying to imagine yourself a soldier in the Great War. Wonder no more. This, one of the great war pictures and certainly one of the better anti-war pictures of all time, will give you much more than a clue. For one thing you’ll learn that a lot of your mates will die. You’ll also learn that you’ll be expected to kill. You’ll also see how those sitting it out on the Homefront  have no real sense of the horror soldiers go through.

The 39 Steps (1935) Hitchcock. What would it be like to be accused of a crime that you didn’t commit? How would you feel having to go on the run to both evade the law and prove your innocence? Frankly there are several Hitchcock films with this theme but why not go with my personal favorite of that particular sub genre? Gorgeous black and white from London to Scotland and back. People who aren’t what they seem. A pretty blonde who reluctantly helps our hero. Hitch at his best.

Beau Travail (1999) Denis. I get the sense, dear reader(s) that you’d love to get a sense of life in the French foreign legion. You also are probably the type who would like to see a film set in Djibouti. I’ve got just the thing from director Claire Denis. You’ll discover that it was not all glamour and rollicking fun in the legion. Indeed you’ll see what a brutal and unforgiving time it could be. What’s that, you ask, is this a highly regarded film? How’s this: it ranked at number seven in the most recent Sight and Sound poll of greatest films. 

Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton in Reds

Reds (1981) Beatty. So you’ve probably found yourself contemplating what it would have been like to be John Reed, the journalist and communist activist from the early years of the 20th century. I guarantee you’ll wonder no more after seeing Warren Beatty’s self-directed portrayal of Reed and his pals and wife and fellow journalist Louise Bryant. You’ll meet such noted figures as Emma Goldman, Eugene O’Neill, Big Bill Heywood and…more. Indeed you’ll learn about the Greenwich Village Bohemian radicals of the 1910s and get a lesson in the early days of the Russian Revolution. It’s a long movie, but whattaya expect given the richness of content?

Some Like it Hot (1959) Wilder: Has this ever happened to you? You’ve witnessed a mob hit and the gangsters want to shut you up — permanently — so you go on the run disguised as member of an all female band? It hasn’t!? And I guess that you’ve never lived in Chicago or been in Miami in the 1920? Before your time, I spose. Well then pal you’re going to have learn about that particular experience from this classic directed by Billy Wilder with a cast that includes Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemon and Tony Curtis. Not too shabby.

The Exterminating Angel (1962) Buñuel. I’ll wager that you and your company have been able to leave every room you’ve had a dinner party in. In fact, I’ll go one further and say that you’ve likely made it successfully out of every room you’ve endeavored to exit. But in so doing you’ve doubtless speculated at what would happen if — for inexplicable reasons — you couldn’t. I’ve just made a pretty darn strong argument for you to watch this iconic film by Luis Bunuel. Watch as people struggle to do the ordinary, can’t figure out why and wrestle with the consequences.

See how much you can learn from moving pictures? Watch one today!

The Jumper, A Story of Reincarnation

So this guy who has been totally despondent about how his life has turned out decides to jump to his death from a small city’s tallest building. He’d led a pretty dull life and wanted to do something dramatic to end it, make a big show of his suicide. An overdose in his bedroom all alone and being discovered a few days later his decaying body stinking up the joint was not what he wanted. Probably this guy didn’t consider the fact that by jumping — this was in the middle of the day — downtown he might land on someone and kill them. Hell, maybe he did consider and thought, what the fuck, so I take another person out. He’s also thinking maybe someone will have the presence of mind to take a photo of him while he’s falling. Ya know so his picture will make the papers and sort of make up for his years of anonymity. Anyway the day comes and he’s clearly not going to lose his nerve. He’s been a failure at everything he’s tried and his love life has mostly been for shit. He wants it all over with. Well, he gets to the top floor where he knows there’s an empty office ‘cause he’s scouted the place. He opens this large window and decides, what the fuck I’m gonna take a running jump and leap out of the window, that’ll really make for a show. First time he slips on a piece of paper that’s on the floor. He thinks, well that’s typical of my life, I even screw up trying to off myself. But undaunted he goes again. This time making sure there’s no paper on the floor. He gets a good head of steam and leaps out the window. He clears the window by several feet so that when he lands it’ll maybe be in the street or at least the curb. But here’s the thing, he’s midair about to start his descent, so to speak, when it occurs to him he must look like an idiot hanging for a millisecond in mid air about to fall to his death. Maybe, I didn’t think this through, he thinks. But of course it’s too late for him to, let’s say, change course. So he spends his last seconds as a sentient being feeling embarrassed — which kind of sums up the poor sap’s life.

Hold on, Bob, how can you possibly know all this? You’re trying to tell me what this guy was thinking in his last seconds of life. Was any of this true?

It’s all true. Every word of it.

You would have had to have been there in the room he jumped from to know that he slipped before making it out the window. Not to mention the fact that you claim to know his thoughts just before dying.

I’m sure of them.

How?

It was me.

Bob, evidently you’re not aware of this but you happen to be very much alive.

This is my story from a past life. I jumped to my death on October 22, 1936.

You seriously expect me to accept that you believe in reincarnation and that you remember events from a past life?

Yup.

How do you come by this….knowledge, of a past life? I’ve known you for what, fifteen, sixteen years and you’ve never mentioned anything of this sort before.

Good question. I was looking through old newspapers on line to see if I could find information on my parents who grew up in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio when I happened upon this front page story of someone jumping to his death from a downtown building. There was a photo of him in mid fall taken from not too far away. I was curious so I read the story and it all came back to me like it happened yesterday. I knew for certain I was that guy. I’d never for a second believed or even much thought about reincarnation until that moment. Then I read everything I could find about this guy’s life, which wasn’t much because he was a nobody. It was all familiar. I found a copy of his high school year book in the library. I knew his nickname and interests before even looking. I could tell you details about some of his classmates including which one were his friends. I was this guy. I know it with every fiber of my being. I know his life from a to zed.

Unbelievable. And you say you have no doubts about this.

None. I’m certain. Look, I don’t blame you for being skeptical. I wouldn’t have believed it myself before I saw this guy’s story but —-

What was his — or should I say, your —name?

Henry Kermit. He was born on the second day of the 20th century, January 2, 1900. Worked a variety of his jobs but mostly, up until his death, as a data entry clerk for the biggest company in town.

Sounds boring.

It was. Remember I was this guy. I was Henry Kermit. A real loser. I got no breaks in life. Pretty ordinary looking fellow who had no luck with women.

It must be depressing as hell to remember his, or your, past life.

Yeah, it kind of is. You know me, I’m a pretty confident guy. Don’t let things get me down. I’ve always done really well with the ladies and of course I’m engaged now. In many ways I’m the opposite of this former self. But interestingly we both played high school baseball and both are Civil War buffs. I’m thinking maybe in another life old Henry and I were Civil War vets or maybe we died in the war. Who knows?

This is an amazing story, Bob. You gonna try to find out other past lives you mighta had?

I would but I’ve no idea where to look. Maybe I’ll look into it. I just picked up a book on reincarnation, maybe that’ll give me a clue where to start.

This Henry Kermit, did he have any sort of success in life? Any happiness?

Like I said he played high school baseball and one game he hit a two-run homer in the last inning with two outs to win his high school a game against their rivals, Taft High. He was hero for the day. May 4, 1917. That was the only other time I could find his picture in the paper. He had this incredibly broad grin on his face. He was quoted in the paper and everything. It might have been the highlight of his life.

You told anyone else this?

Nope. Not even Marcy. I thought I’d run it all by you first before I spring it on anyone else. I’m sure most people will think I’m nuts.

Maybe not that you’re nuts but people are going to have their doubts.

Do you? Do you have doubts?

I need to think about it. Suffice to say that I’m both intrigued and skeptical.

I understand.

You feel bad for this guy? Or should I say you feel bad for your former self?

Terrible. That’s the one bad thing about this, I mean thinking I went through all this — despair enough to off myself.

That sucks.

I suppose I’ll get over it. There was an initial shock. Eventually it’ll be part of my life.

Thanks for sharing this with me.

Thank you for listening and not immediately dismissing it. I feel better for having shared it with someone.

It’s a helluva story, I’ll grant you that.

Too bad I wasn’t more interesting in that life but then I’m enjoying this one so there’s that.

You got plenty of blessings to count my friend.

The Smart Ass Blogger Again Takes on Popular Song Lyrics

Both the Mamas and the Papas are her pictured

Regular readers (I’m looking at you Philo Von Blitzen of Thermopolis, Wyoming) may recall that in a recent post I took a few singers to task for from some of their song lyrics. Well today I’m dedicating an entire post to the subject and by god if you don’t like it you can do what everyone else does and ignore it. That said, I hope you don’t. 

I was listening to the Mama and the Papa’s song Monday, Monday which reached number seven on the year-end charts for 1967. Talk about emo. Dig this line: 

Every other day (every other day)

Every other day

Every other day of the week is fine, yeah

But whenever Monday comes (but whenever Monday comes)

But whenever Monday comes

You can find me cryin′ all of the time

Seriously pal? You cry all day Monday? You’re in need of a therapist. Imagine spending all of one day of the week crying. Get a grip. And you're what, a successful singer? What the hell does Monday mean to you? You're not getting up and going to a factory or pouring concrete. You singers can sleep in. 

Speaking of silly lyrics. What about the song, Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? From the group Chicago which hit number five in 1971.

As I was walking down the street one day

A man came up to me and asked me

What the time was that was on my watch

Yeah, and I said

does anybody really know what time it is?

(Care) does anybody really care?

(About time) you know, I can't imagine why

(Oh no, no) we've all got time enough to cry

First of all the man asked, “what is the time that is on your watch?” Not, “say, buddy, you got the time?” What a weird way to ask a question. But more importantly rather than tell him you went into this whole philosophical tirade about time concluding with, “we’ve all got time enough to cry.” Maybe the guy had a doctor’s appointment and was worried about being late, or had to pick up his kid from daycare or had a meeting at work and you lay this heavy number on him. Next in the song a “pretty lady” says her diamond watch had “stopped cold dead” so she wondered if he had the time. Again he goes into his riff about who cares about time. The lesson: whatever you do don’t ask this guy for the time.

But let’s go back further in time to a song written in 1932 by Victor Young and popularized by Frank Sinatra. Street of Dreams is lovely song but check this section of the song out:

Gold, silver and gold

All you can hold's up there on a moonbeam

Poor, there ain't nobody poor

Long as love is sure on the street of dreams

Okay so we’ve got gold, silver and what else? Gold again. I don’t get it. Why wasn’t there a third different element or why not just say “gold and silver” if there was no third item?

The rest of the song is beautiful. But that line has always bothered me. How about diamonds, sapphire even copper, anything but repeating gold.

Let’s go back to the Sixties for a song that Rolling Stone magazine once named the greatest rock song of all time. I refer to Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone from 1965. One of the most revered songs in Dylan’ ouvré. There are no silly lyrics here. But what is the song about? Kikicking a woman while she’s down is what.Here’s the beginning of the song:

Once upon a time you dressed so fine

Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?

People call say 'beware doll, you're bound to fall'

You thought they were all kidding you

You used to laugh about

Everybody that was hanging out

Now you don't talk so loud

Now you don't seem so proud

About having to be scrounging your next meal

The song continues along this vein. Dude, give the woman a break. What are the circumstances of her fall? Why taunt her? These lyrics are borderline misogynistic. Maybe you could give her a hand instead of reminding her she's fallen on hard times. Downright cruel.

But let’s conclude with the really stupid. One of the dumbest popular songs of all times comes — not surprisingly — from the world of country and western music. I refer to a gentleman (I”m using the term loosely) named Charlie Rich who in 1973 had a song that topped both the C&W and Easy Listening charts. It was called, The Most Beautiful Girl and included these ridiculous lyrics:

Hey, did you happen to see

The most beautiful girl in the world?

And if you did, was she crying, crying?

Imagine the possible responses to that. Such as:

I saw a beautiful girl but I don’t know if she was the most beautiful in the world. Could that be her?

As a matter of fact I did a woman crying but she wasn’t anywhere near the most beautiful in the world. 

Yeah I saw her but she wasn’t crying, she was glad to be shed of you.

Later in the song he asks that if one does see her to let her know he’s sorry and that he needs her. Find her yourself. Sheesh, some people.

Rich had another unintentional knee slapper called, Behind Closed Doors. It also hit number one on the C&W charts which tells you all you need to know about the people who listen to country and western music.

Here are a few lines:

Cause when we get behind closed doors

Then she lets her hair hang down

And she makes me glad I'm a man

Oh, no one knows what goes on behind closed doors

Yeah we know exactly what goes on behind closed doors. You two get it on. Maybe we don’t know the details but here’s the thing: we don’t want to. Why? Because we don’t care. In fact, for all we know when you get behind closed doors maybe you can’t get it up and you both lay there frustrated. Also, she makes you glad that you’re a man? Don’t you make her glad that she’s a woman? 

I’m sure Mr. Rich had many other popular songs with silly lyrics but these are the ones I was occasionally exposed to in my youth. Poor guy. More to the point, poor listeners.

Here’s a bonus one before I go (go where?). Also from 1973 (what a great year for bad music) and also a top charter. Written and performed by Tom T. Hall. It was called, I Love.

I love little baby ducks, old pick-up trucks

Slow movin' trains and rain

I love little country streams, sleep without dreams

Sunday school in May and hay

I’m with you on the ducks, trains, rain, country streams, not a big fan of hay, don’t like Sunday school and don’t care for pick-up trucks. But what bothers me here is liking sleep without dreams. What kind of mind doesn’t welcome dreams? They’re great fun and interesting to analyze. I’m quite frustrated if I wake up unable to remember any of my dreams and you don’t want ‘em? As if.