Is That Your Littlefinger, or are You Just Happy to See Me?

The theme to Game of Thrones was composed by Ramin Djawadi. According to Apple Music, the title is called, “Main Title.” This isn’t very original. Then again, no one asked me. If they had, I wouldn’t have given a peasant’s shit, because I wasn’t a fan of Game of Thrones up until about three months ago.

That said, another perfectly acceptable theme song for this epic series could have been lifted from the Mel Brooks musical, The 12 Chairs:

“Hope for the best,
Expect the worst.
Some drink champagne,
Some die of thirst.
No way of knowing
Which way it’s going.
Hope for the best,
Expect the worst.”

Those lyrics perfectly encapsulate the central themes of this epic series about war, sex, dragons, more sex, more war, family, more sex, political nihilism, more sex and a little magic thrown in there.

Now, I won’t try to recap Game of Thrones, because even those who aren’t fans of the show have a basic understanding of what it’s about. Like its predecessor, Harry Potter, Thrones was a cultural black hole that swallowed everything else in its orbit. Sufficed to say, it’s about a mythical world where several large and powerful houses compete to sit on the Iron Throne. It’s kind of like a grand reality television show, but with dragons, swords, graphic sex, medieval sensibilities and no Donald Trump.

My purpose in writing this is to address the conclusion of the show. When it aired on May 19 of this year, I was probably about half way through the fourth season. Yet, I couldn’t help being spoiled. My choices were either to be spoiled on the ending, or to avoid Facebook and Twitter for a solid month. Since I am a pathetic, shameless social media whore, I chose to be spoiled.

What sparked my desire to write this was a petition on the internet that actually *demands* that the powers that be rewrite and reshoot the final season of Game of Thrones. This is due to overwhelmingly negative feedback from fans over the trajectory of the final story of Jon Snow, Arya Stark, Cersei Lannister and especially, Daenerys Targaryen.

The ire of the fans is mostly righteous. The entirety of the season was not true to the original spirit of the series as envisioned by the author of the source novels, George R. R. Martin. The plotting was rushed and sloppy, the character notes rang false and the sex wasn’t nearly as gratuitous as it was in previous seasons. In short, it blew great big dragon balls! That said, the fans have about as much chance of getting a do-over of the final season as Tyrion would have trying to successfully peg The Mountain.

Look, you little wussbags just need to relax and get the fuck over yourselves. I loved The Sopranos and invested five years of my life in it. The black screen pissed me off too. But I celebrated the series by inviting my ex-girlfriend over to my apartment and nailing her on the kitchen floor. I got up, wiped off and moved on with my life. I know some of you reading this who are of the feminist persuasion, and who are pickled in your own bitter bile of rage of the ultimate fate of Dany, Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains and Fucker of Nephews, may not be able to relate to my decidedly masculine perspective on the virtues of impulsive kitchen sex as a soul-cleanser, but give it a try sometime.

You know who really needs to get laid? Some guy on YouTube named, Think Story. He actually took the trouble to rewrite the final season of the show in his head. Then, he posted it on YouTube, where it currently has 4,871,306 views. So that’s nearly five million nerds, geeks, angry feminists and a few amateur film critics who could be spending their energy burning calories with some Shae equivalent, rather than signing some internet petition that has less value than a spent condom.

So this guy rewrites the season. I won’t recap the whole thing because you can look it up for yourselves if you’re that desperate. In short, in Think Story’s version, the White Walkers win the battle of Winterfell and lay siege to King’s Landing. Dany doesn’t go mad, but kills the Night King and becomes queen, Jon Snow dies heroically in the final battle, Jaime kills Cersei, who was faking her pregnancy all along, Arya gets wounded, and Brienne never gets laid by anybody. Oh yeah…and Eleeria Sand (anyone remember her?) plays some part in it all, but…ahh, screw it!

No offense, Mr. Think Story, but I would’ve had about as much fun watching your version of the finale as Tywin Lannister would’ve had at an Occupy Braavos protest.

There are two main problems with Mr. Story’s Kelvin timeline version. One is that, no matter what they do, The White Walkers will always be the most boring characters on Thrones; with the possible exception of Bran the Broken. Yes yes yes, I know they were in the books and are therefore part of the GRRM source material, but there was absolutely nothing compelling about them. The Night King was a dull, uninspired villain who felt like a knockoff of The Walking Dead. Whether they were vanquished at Winterfell or King’s Landing, The White Walkers had not built up enough emotional capital to serve as a satisfying final antagonist for the ultimate conflict of the series.

This leads me to the second reason why Mr. (or is it Mrs?), Story’s scenario. It was even less true to the original spirit of the series than was the hot mess cooked up in a cauldron by Benioff and Weiss.

Look, if I were David and D. B., I’d be embarrassed. I mean, really humiliated. We’re talking Reek territory here. The GOT crowd wants their heads on a spike, and they did themselves no favors with the Star Wars crowd. They seemed to forget the basic idea that the central appeal of Game of Thrones is not the magic, or monsters, or even the sex. It was the machinations, manipulations and perfidy that occurred between the human characters in an effort to rest power from one house to another. My earlier commentary about reality television wasn’t based entirely in jest. Thrones really was a competition to see who the ultimate winner would be. The White Walkers, The Dornish, The Brotherhood, The House of Black and White and all of the other B-plots were instrumental in world-building, but they were mere trappings that served as obstacles along the path toward the final goal. And that goal was The Iron Throne.

That’s what makes the arc of Daenerys Targaryen so tragic. She probably would’ve been a better ruler than Robert Baratheon, or Cersei Lannister, or maybe even Jon Snow, but the seeds of her own destruction were planted centuries before her birth. The only way for fans who want to impose their politics on their pop culture would come to realize that is to watch innocent men, women and children burn under an onslaught of dragon fire. The way David and D. B. handled it was inexcusable, but the end goal was legitimate. Dany ultimately learned the same harsh lesson that many real world tyrants, and many male fictional characters such as Darth Vader and Michael Corleone have learned to their detriment. In the words of Lord Acton, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Like it or not, the universe carefully constructed by Mr. Martin is based on a deep cynicism. That doesn’t mean that individuals can’t find happiness within his giant wheel of misery, but most folks are destined to be crushed under it. If a benevolent ruler like Jon Snow, or even Tyrion Lannister, were to seize power for a while, it would serve only as a rest bit until Gendry decides that his papa had the right idea. The whole notion of a democracy with Bran the Broken as a king in partial absentia and Tyrion as his hand is just fake butter on stale movie theater popcorn. Arya the Explorer, Jon Snow the Wildling King and Sansa the drop-out queen may feel good, but they are about as realistic as The Hound in a corset.

Sidebar: Have you guys ever watched behind-the-scenes videos where Benioff and Weiss give commentary? It’s very telling. I mean it. Go watch interviews with David Chase, Vince Gilligan or David Simon. If you have two weeks to spare, go watch David Milch. Those guys are really smart guys who understand the universes they created. This doesn’t mean that the creator of an alternate world can’t fuck up his own recipe. Ronald D. Moore is Exhibit A in the bed-wetting department. But Benioff and Weiss are clearly as mentally capable as Hodor on an abacus. Without George Martin’s source material, their grayscale of the brain becomes obvious through clunky dialogue, contrived situations and climaxes steeped in Stevia.

Look, I’m not a hypocrite. As a wannabe author, I sometimes rewrite stories in my head. I too have ideas of what would’ve made the Thrones finale better. In my version, George R. R. Martin gets off the podium at whatever comic nerdfest he’s lecturing at in between glasses of wine and lobster tail drenched in real butter, and he writes the rest of the Goddamn story!

As for Thrones, we’re stuck with it. We’ve got six seasons of excellent television and two subpar seasons to wrap it up. As far as the final story itself, I would’ve done two things differently. I would’ve flip-flopped the killings done by Jon Snow and Arya Stark. Let Jon take out The Night King, and let Arya kill Dany. Had I watched the show in real time, that would’ve been my prediction based on Arya’s exit from the smoldering ruins of King’s Landing on her horse. Arya’s assassination of Dany would’ve been a fitting end to Dany’s character, all while paying tribute to the show’s ability to subvert expectations during the Martin years. Besides, who doesn’t like a little girl-on-girl action? I’m sure Littlefinger would have smiled from one of the seven hells.

Finally, I want to pay tribute to my favorite character on Thrones, Jaime Lannister. I really do feel that he had the most satisfying arc of any of them. He was a callow, incestuous, child-murdering, entitled twat when we first met him, but even before he lost his hand, we began to see the man of honor underneath. Once he became disabled and began to be rejected by his family, his true character shown through. His journey parallels that of Hank Schrader on Breaking Bad. Both men were pompous jerks at the beginning, but after they faced a life-altering disability, we learn that they were men of honor at their core. Yet, once again I have to disagree with Think Story. Jaime’s actions in season eight were the only ones I found true to character. Despite his honor, and despite the fact that she had shunned him, he loved his sister. In the world of GOT, emotion trumps all. His choice to try to rescue Cersei, and ultimately to die with her, was perfectly in character.

In closing, I should say that Think Story has millions of viewers. This blog entry will probably get two hits; Mags and maybe…maybe Dana, if she’s bored enough.

Hi, Danamonster. And hi to my other GOT buddy, whom I don’t want to embarrass by naming on this conservative-based website.

I’m off to bed. The night is dark, and full of terrors, like the next three Star Wars movies.

Hell on Ice

I wonder if any of you reading this have ever experienced real terror. I don’t mean the kind of terror you feel while watching The Walking Dead, or riding the Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point. I’m talking about genuine, piss-your-pants terror, in which you are suddenly forced to confront your own mortality. It might be the kind of terror a reporter would experience in a war zone, or that of a police officer confronted by a mass shooter with an upraised gun.

I experienced such terror on February 19, 2018, one day after my 43rd birthday.

I did not hear of the harsh weather conditions on the radio because it was tuned to KOA out of Denver. My first hint that things were amiss came as I exited my apartment building to go to work and slid across the wooden front porch toward the steps. Still, I felt that I had the situation under control.

That self-assurance evaporated as I walked down the steps, slipped, and collapsed in a heap like a sack full of used kitty litter. My white cane went flying from my hand and I scrambled on the slippery ground, trying to retrieve it and get my feet back under me. It was a monumental effort. Sure, I’d fallen many times before, but this was the first time that every single surface was covered by a glaze of ice.

Eventually, I found my cane, got up and began to walk down the middle of the street to the bus stop.

Let me correct my last statement. The place where I pick up the Metro bus is not officially a designated bus stop. It’s a spot along the street where the bus drivers very charitably ignore Metro policy and pick me up, so that I will not have to walk in the street for a block-and-a-half to the actual bus stop. The walk is hazardous because there are no sidewalks along the route to the bus stop; only sloping grass and a curb that indicates the street.

So, I collected myself and off I went, trying to recall what an O&M instructor once told me about walking on ice. I think he told me to keep my knees slightly bent and to slide my feet, rather than taking actual footsteps. I tried this approach and was about as elegant as an elephant on a balance beam. Twice more, I fell before I got to the intersection of my street. Twice more I hefted my considerable bulk and soldiered onward to my intended destination.

Finally, I made it to the street crossing that I had to forge in order to catch the bus to work. I lined myself up, waited for a break in traffic and started across…

… And almost immediately, went down again. My cane flew out of my hand and rolled away. I began scrambling for it, but couldn’t find it. I tried to get up, but couldn’t regain my footing. Every time I managed to become half-upright, I would slam back down on to my hands and knees on the icy pavement.

And then, I heard the car rolling toward me. It didn’t sound as if it were slowing down. I scrambled like a gerbil on a hot griddle, but couldn’t seem to get any traction. The car rolled closer, then sounded as if it hit the brakes. I heard the unmistakable sound of tires skidding on wet pavement. I knew I was dead.

The two thoughts that flashed through my head like hurriedly-sent texts were:

God, don’t let Mags end up in a shelter!!! Please let one of my friends take her!!!

And.

Why the hell didn’t I just take Amy to bed that night after my house-warming party?

It’s funny what we think about in times of mortal peril.

The next thing I remember was a lady’s voice saying, “Sir, you look like you’re having a hard time.”

“No shit!” I bellowed.

“Can I help you up?”

“Yeah!” I said. I threw my hand up, she grabbed it, hoisted me to my feet and helped me over to the curb.

“Here’s your stick,” she said. I felt such relief at holding my cane again that I didn’t bother to correct her on the terminology. It’s called a cane, not a stick.

“Can I help you get somewhere?” she asked.

“Nah, I’m good,” I said.

“You sure?” she asked.

“Actually, can you help me across the street? I’m gonna catch the bus.”

She took my hand and walked with me across the street. I don’t remember if I thanked her properly or not. She got in her car and drove away. I didn’t think to ask her for her name. I couldn’t look at her car to note its description, or memorize her license plate number. My head was full of an odd buzzing sound; actually more of a sensation than a sound. It seemed to reverberate throughout my whole body, making the tips of my fingers and toes vibrate like a tuning fork. After she was gone, I sheepishly felt the front of my pants, not certain if the moisture was entirely that of melted ice.

I waited for 20 minutes, but the bus never showed. So, I clinched my sphincter extra tight and skated back home, aided this time by another resident from my apartment complex who just happened to see me flailing around in the street.

When I moved from Denver to Omaha in October of 2017, I knew there would be adjustments. I knew the cost of living was lower. I knew public transit sucked. As a native Nebraskan, I knew that the winters were more brutal than those in Colorado. But I was not prepared for the lack of sidewalks in my living area.

In Denver, you can walk almost anywhere. Convenient to me in my neighborhood in Denver were all of the necessities; a bank, a grocery store, a vet for my cat, a post office, and at least half a dozen restaurants, bars and coffee shops. Here in Omaha, my coworker informs me that sidewalks become more and more scarce once you get west of 72nd Street. I live within walking distance of Westroads, but can’t walk there due to lack of a pedestrian-friendly route. Once a month, I attend meetings of our local NFB chapter at the Swanson Library, located only a few blocks from my home, but I can’t walk there because most of the trip would be in the street. Some NFB hard-liners would read this and say, “Just shoreline the curb, dumbass!” I tried that at first, but many drivers came way too close for comfort. When I learned cane travel in the early ‘80’s, I was taught how to navigate streets where sidewalks were not present. That was long before the existence of terms such as, “Distracted driving.”

Even so, curb-hugging is all well and good in the warmer months, but what about winter?

Imagine walking in my neighborhood last February, when we got one snowstorm on top of another and the drifts were piled high along the curbs. Sometimes, they can push me out into the middle of the road. Then, there’s the time of thawing, when we get slush. Cars drive by and I often get an unwanted shower, courtesy of their spinning tires.

Worse yet, the problem extends to my apartment complex. We don’t have sidewalks here either. We only have islands of grass that serve as boundaries for parked cars. When I first toured the facility, it never occurred to me to ask the manager if they had sidewalks or not. It just seemed like it would be good common sense to have them. Now, every day, come snow, rain or shine, I walk in the street to catch the bus.

The absence of sidewalks may seem a small quibble to all of those who have the privilege of driving automobiles, but I can testify that it carries a real impact on those of us for whom walking serves as a primary means of conveyance. It is far easier to either take a bus, or more often than not, to call for a Lyft or an Uber to take me a short distance to a meeting, to the mall, to dinner, etc. The problem has become so enormous, and my sense of isolation has grown so vast that I find it necessary to move from my complex when my lease expires.

There are other reasons, of course, the most glaring being that of the family of raccoons that lives part time above my head.

… But that’s another subject for a future blog entry.

In conclusion, let me deliver a heartfelt thank you to the kind soul who stopped and helped the struggling blind guy regain his feet on the cold winter morning of February 19, 2018, at the intersection of Burt Street and North 94th Plaza. Thanks to you, I got to celebrate my 44th birthday this year. I apologize if I spoke rudely to you and didn’t properly express my gratitude. God bless. The meager staff of the Radio Talking Book Service thanks you as well. Without your kindly interference, they would have had to start another search for a new station manager.

To the rest of you drivers, GET OFF YOUR FUCKIN’ PHONES AND WATCH THE FUCKIN’ ROAD!!!

“No One Gets Out Alive”

Last October, I took the time to write a blog entry about Deadwood the series, followed up by an entry in which I expressed eager anticipation for its return in Deadwood, The Movie. Well, it aired last night and, thanks to my friend Dana, I was able to watch it in real time through her HBO app, sans a television in my house. Here are my initial impressions:

First, it behooves us to ponder the usefulness of sequels. In my mind, a sequel, prequel, spin-off, reboot, or in Deadwood’s case, a revival, only has two creatively valid purposes. One is to break new ground by telling a new story, or by effectively building upon the mythology that the initial story created. Think of successful sequels such as The Empire Strikes Back, or The Godfather Part II.

The other reason to make a sequel is purely for fan service. If the fans love it and want it to continue, go for it. We all love a good story. In my view, reason number two pales in the shadow of number one. People are always going to want more of something they like, even if it isn’t good for them.

Of course, Hollywood’s main reason for making sequels, prequels, spin-offs and the like has nothing to do with either of the above. It wants to make money. That’s why our culture is engorged with 10,000 Marvel movies, 2,000 Star Trek movies and TV episodes, and we’ll soon have 50,000 Star Wars movies. Story potential for these franchises was exhausted years ago, but like the villain of Deadwood, George Hearst, Hollywood can’t help itself, so it keeps going on and on in perpetuity. This means that they have to keep recycling the same story over and over again with new polish on an old car. Think Rocky, Home Alone, Die Hard, etc.

Deadwood was not a money-maker, though at the time, it was the most expensive TV series being produced. It did not generate ratings that would translate into revenue for HBO. Nor did it generate the kind of commercial or mainstream buzz that enveloped office coffee machines around The Sopranos, Sex and the City and especially, Game of Thrones. It was sadly telling that I found many reviews on the Deadwood movie from the usual suspects such as the New York Times, Rolling Stone and Slate in the days leading up to the movie, but there was nary a word about it from the common folk on Twitter and Facebook, who had been in an angry buzz over the Game of Thrones series finale nearly two weeks hence. We can certainly blame the passage of time for this, but I think you’ll see much more excitement from the hoopalhead crowd when the Breaking Bad movie comes out. The reasons are stark and obvious. Deadwood was a niche show, adored by stuck-up cosmopolitan critics and a small-but-vocal band of devoted fans like me. It’s meandering narrative style and dense, complex language made it inaccessible to mainstream fans who found The Sopranos and Game of Thrones far more digestible.

Why then make a movie after 13 years of silence? The answer seems to be, unfinished business.

Clearly, there was more story to be told within the universe of David Milch’s historically revisionist drama. Like Wild Bill Hickok, The series was killed before its time and history provided a road map that Milch could adopt or discard at his whims. In its original series form, it was good for at least three more seasons, though it likely would have only run for one more before Milch, “Got off the bus,” as he put it.

But history rendered its judgment, fingers got leveled, tempers flared, every cocksucker abandoned the table with nothing but their pride, and the expensive sets came down. So the only reason to resurrect it was, because that small band of adoring fans and critics wanted it.

HBO certainly wants to make money, but they also have a habit of sometimes lending their might to projects that transcend mere monetary value. It wasn’t out of character for them to give Deadwood one more breath of life so that it could offer a proper farewell to its fans.

So, did Deadwood, The Movie, accomplish the goal of telling a new story with the same old characters? Did we get Daddy Vader, or Mr. T? My answer is…a little of both. Did it adequately service the fans who wanted more? My answer is an enthusiastic, hell yeah!!!

I started leaking at the first sound of Calamity Jane’s voice. It was not the last time I lost it. On Facebook afterward, I wondered if my reaction to the conclusion was because the movie was just that great, or because I suffer from a touch more emotional incontinence as I age. As I reflect upon the final sojourn of Al Swearengen, Seth Bullock, Calamity Jane, Charlie Utter, Trixie and the rest of the cast of this fine series, I do tend to think the answer is due to the latter.

Don’t get me wrong… It was a wonderful feeling spending time once again with characters whom I’d come to know and love 13 years ago, and whom I occasionally revisit. I was glad they got a send-off. We fans spent years patiently waiting and eventually, not believing that we’d ever get that movie we’d been promised. Anything surpassing Seth reading bedtime stories to his kids, or Al and Calamity Jane playing poker, would have been welcome.

That said, the movie did have its flaws; some of them quite glaring.

If you will consult my earlier entry, I wondered how the movie would treat Doc Cochran, who had been stricken as a “lunger” in the third and final season of the show. Tuberculosis was a death sentence to most anyone who contracted it in 19th century America. In the movie, not only did Doc survive, but he seemed completely healthy and normal. Not only was this not addressed in the movie, but no reviewer (of whom I read plenty), seemed to catch this obvious discrepancy. “Nobody gets out alive, Doc,” Al tells him during a coughing fit in the show’s third season. Apparently, Doc did get out alive. Others were not so lucky. What else would we expect when George Hearst comes to town?

The main thrust of the plot did seem to be a rehash of the third season. Hearst, now a senator from California, comes back to Deadwood and wants to appropriate Charlie Utter’s land so that he can string telephone wires across it. As was the case in season three, Hearst proves to be a predatory capitalist, who only knows how to grab everything he wants like a child. If he can’t get it by coercive bargaining, he tries to obtain it through violent means. In the third season, his primary conflict was with Alma Garret-Ellsworth, who refused to sell him her gold mine until the final episode. Alma’s second husband Ellsworth proved to be a casualty of their war of wills.

In the movie, Charlie Utter, former friend of the deceased legend, Wild Bill Hickok, wound up dead from bullets from two assassins dispatched by Hearst. Ultimately, Seth Bullock challenges Hearst and prevails, even though more bodies fall in their ensuing conflict, including Samuel ‘The Nigger General’ Fields. Hearst goes to jail, but we are left with the sense that he will likely walk yet again.

Aside from the obvious recycled conflict, I find its genesis problematic.

In the series finale, Trixie, Al’s former favorite prostitute, shoots Hearst in the shoulder in retribution for his murder of Ellsworth. Hearst survives and agrees to leave town, but demands that Trixie be murdered as a consequence. Since Al favors Trixie, he kills a different prostitute in Trixie’s stead. Hearst did not get a good look at Trixie when she shot him, so Al’s gamble works and Hearst leaves Deadwood amidst vocal rebukes from the town citizenry.

10 years later, Trixie is pregnant with Sol Star’s child. When Hearst comes to town to celebrate South Dakota’s official entrance into the Union, Trixie gives into an angry fit and berates him in her customary acid-tongued fashion from her balcony as he passes by. This, of course, raises Hearst’s suspicions, thereby causing him to demand that Charlie Utter surrender his land in exchange for Hearst’s forgiveness of Trixie. When Charlie refuses to sell, he gets dead, and things escalate from there.

I don’t buy for a second that Trixie would dishonor the dead whore’s sacrifice (her name was Jenn, by the way), and put her future baby and marriage in jeopardy by calling out Hearst as she did. Trixie was my second favorite character because of her sharp tongue and irascible manner, but she wasn’t a fool. I believe that impending motherhood and the welfare of the community of Deadwood, which Al killed Jenn to protect, would have suppressed her fiery temper. A moving scene between Trixie and Al late in the movie illustrates extreme survivor’s guilt on Trixie’s part over Jenn’s death, which lead to her serious lapse in judgment. I just don’t buy it. I believe she felt guilty, but I think she would recognize that the burden she carried was not hers alone.

There is a subplot involving the romance between Jane and Joanie Stubbs, but it feels hollow. Apparently, Cy Tolliver left Joanie his saloon when he died, but the circumstances are barely mentioned. I’m not sure I buy that Joanie would take anything Cy gave her, as she was trying to break free of him at the end of the series. Even so, what was to prevent Al from waltzing across the street and bargaining with Joanie once Cy had been declared dead? He may have grown soft in his old age, but he was still a pragmatic businessman.

Some fans criticize the fact that Al had relatively little to do in the movie. With respect, that was the fuckin’ point. Al tries to keep his finger on the pulse as he did in his prime, but his diminished capacity causes him to be shunted to the side, allowing Seth to take center stage.

Years of drinking and whoring had worn away Al, finally taking a toll on his liver. Remember also that he was afflicted by a stroke after suffering from a kidney stone that almost cost him his life in the second season. It is perfectly credible that, 10 years later, he would be on death’s doorstep. Some fans wanted him to go out in a blaze of glory, killing Hearst (and himself in the process) in order to save Trixie and the town. Again, with respect, that is not what Deadwood was all about. I found Al’s final scene, passing away quietly in his bed, being tended to by his close friends, far more true and fitting for the end of Al’s story arc than I did the shoot-out between Bullock and Hearst’s mercenaries.

Like it or not, Al Swearengen served as the heart and soul of the budding community of Deadwood. More than any other character, he symbolized its journey from a lawless, violent camp to a thriving town. He began as a cut-throat crime boss who abused his women, killed his disobedient underlings and hurled racial insults at any non-white person within his vicinity. By the end of the movie, he was gently urging Sol Star to run for political office and offering to leave Trixie his saloon.

Like Breaking Bad, Deadwood is the story of change. Unlike Breaking Bad, which showed the decay of one man’s soul, Deadwood shows that healthy change can be wrought through redemption and forgiveness. Seth Bullock begins the series as a man filled with rage at injustices he sees all around him. By the end, he is a husband, a father and an upstanding member of his community. The brief scene he shares with Alma demonstrates that their feelings for each other still smolder, but Seth remains a good man who stays loyal to his wife and honors his commitment to his family. Trixie becomes a mother and a wife. Charlie Utter dies defending the land that he worked so hard to cultivate. Others in the community, such as Tom Nuttall, continue to lead quiet, normal lives.

Not everyone changes. Jane is still an alcoholic vagabond, adrift on a sea of her own insecurities. Joanie appears to struggle with substance abuse and E. B. Farnum…well, he’ll always be E. B. Farnum. Hearst is also the same purple villain that drives the plot, showing less nuance than many of Milch’s other creations.

Yet, it is heartening to watch Al pass quietly, knowing that, whatever storms may pass over Deadwood, those whom he cared for in his own curmudgeonly way, are safe. That alone made the movie worth the watch.

I did have to chuckle at certain points. Many characters got very little to do. I knew that would be the case going in. Alma Garret-Ellsworth had little more than a cameo in the movie, though this was due to conflicts in Molly Parker’s own work schedule. Anna Gunn only had one or two scenes as Martha Bullock. Each time I heard her speak, I was struck at how much more like Skyler White she sounded. Tim Olyphant too had much more Raylan Givens in his delivery than he did pre-Justified. On the other hand, Calamity Jane seemed as if she’d never left the role.

At the end of the day, I liked the movie a lot. I didn’t love it. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s possible to ever wrap up a series in a satisfactory manner. Fans of Game of Thrones don’t seem to think so. Maybe finales such as that of The Shield and Breaking Bad are more of an anomaly than a real possibility. Yet, I will re-watch Deadwood, The Movie. Every two years or so, when I break out the series for a re-run, I will now happily include this final chapter in my viewing, not choosing to skip it as I do other wrap-ups such as Homicide.

Will Deadwood be back for yet another chapter. I say emphatically, hell no! David Milch’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, embodied in the story by the passing of it’s central character, assures that this series has been appropriately laid to rest. In short, there ain’t no more fuckin’ Deadwood without Al Swearengen. I believe that this is only as it should be. Let Seth, Sol, Trixie, Jane and all the others pass into the sunset knowing that a small few of us will speak of them fondly in TV heaven.

Huzzah, Deadwood! Huzzah!

Reality Check

… Good morning to all of my blind peeps; it’s post Easter, so peeps is no longer a dirty word.

When I’m 60, I expect to still be working. By then, I should be back in Colorado, my first million cooling in a bank account in the Caymans. I’ll live in a small town in the Rocky Mountains somewhere. I’ll take my self-driving car to work every day, kick my employees around all day, stab them in the back when they are not in the room, and set them against each other for my own amusement in my own little micro version of Game of Thrones. But they’ll all love me anyway because I give them incredible cash Christmas bonuses every year that they don’t have to claim on their taxes.

I’ll go home to my wife at night. She’ll be at least 30 years younger than I, but I’ll have lots of money, so no one will care. In fact, she’ll be a trophy. She’ll slip some Viagra in my beer, wait 30 minutes, then we’ll devour each other on our palacial patio in full view of the neighborhood. The hired help may be offended, but I won’t know it because they’ll all trash-talk me in Spanish. Many of my male neighbors will secretly envy the fact that I can bag a former porn star. Later, she’ll nail the gardener, but I’ll be too exhausted to care. In fact, I’ll be disappointed if she doesn’t catch at least one bone on the side.

Since polygamy will be legal by then, my other wife (the older, wiser one) will bring me a cigar and a snifter of brandy later in the evening, light it for me, and then we’ll discuss the events of the day. She’ll think she is the dominant one in the marriage because, “Girls rule, boys drool.” I’ll think I’m the dominant one because, “Men think, while women feel.” Like most typical marriages, we’ll lie to each other and ourselves, but the status quo will be so comfortable as we live behind curtains of hundred dollar bills, none of us will care.

This is pretty much what I expect my life to look like when I’m 60, which will be in 2035. So… What are y’all’s plans when Social Security becomes insolvent?

Join the Club

Today, my thoughts are with a man named Coby Mach. Most of you who live outside of the area of Lincoln, NE wouldn’t recognize the name. Coby was the host of Drive Time Lincoln, an afternoon talk show on AM 1400, KLIN radio. He was also the president of the Lincoln Independent Business Association for many years. Mr. Mach passed away this past Friday afternoon, a victim of an apparent suicide.

I didn’t know Mr. Mach personally. I never met him during my 14-year residency in Lincoln. I did speak to him several times when I would call into Drive Time Lincoln to voice my opinions on an issue, which was usually the inadequate state of public transit in the city. I found his attitude toward me and my views to be contemptuously dismissive. He ended one phone call with me by saying, “Ryan, the only thing that is a waste of time here, is this phone call.”

That served as the extent of my interactions with Mr. Mach. My only other vivid memory of him comes from a public hearing for Startran in June, 2007. The purpose of the hearing was to discuss sweeping changes to Startran bus routes that were being proposed. Mr. Mach was the first speaker at the hearing. He got up, delivered his remarks on behalf of LIBA, which took all of two minutes, then walked out of the hearing. The essence of his remarks were thus; those who rely on public transit should move into the core of the city so that they may still avail themselves of the service. I was dumbstruck by Mr. Mach’s cavalier attitude to an issue that impacts so many of us with disabilities in such a profound way. Even Dr. James Nyman, who recently passed away as well, and who was gifted with a razor-sharp intellect, voiced his bafflement to me at how someone so educated could be so oblivious to the effect of his own words on others.

In reading of Mr. Mach’s death, I discovered that he was afflicted with tinnitus, which is a disorder that affects one’s hearing. This disorder is very common among those who work in radio, due to the fact that they must wear headphones for long periods of time every day on the job. Mr. Mach’s passing is only about 48 hours old and there is still much we do not know about the circumstances surrounding it. If Mr. Mach did indeed take his own life, and if tinnitus was a major factor in his decision, then this is a tragedy beyond all measure. It is a tragedy that I find sadly ironic. When Mr. Mach chose to dismiss those with disabilities, he didn’t know that he was dismissing a club to which he would ultimately become a member. But then, every able-bodied human being eventually becomes a member of the PWD club, merely by getting older.

It may seem as if I am dancing upon Mr. Mach’s grave. I don’t mean to give that impression at all. I wonder if we in the disabled community ever reached out to Coby and others in the community to educate them on the richness of life that can still be experienced when one is disabled. He delivered his remarks in June of 2007. Three months later, I left Lincoln for a life in Denver, so I certainly didn’t try to initiate a dialogue with him. I doubt any of my brethren in the National Federation of the Blind of Nebraska did either. Sometimes, we are as guilty of an ‘us and them’ mentality as we accuse our opponents of being. It can cause us to entrench ourselves and harden our hearts toward others, forgetting that they are three-dimensional human beings with their own lives and burdens to carry. This short-sightedness is our failure and our cross to bear as well.

The cross Mr. Mach’s family must now bear is unfathomable to me. I follow several people on Facebook who have relatives and friends who have committed suicide. Facebook offers me merely a narrow gap into their pain. Mr. Mach has set the survivors of his final act upon a long, arduous journey. Some of them may never be able to complete it. I have no words for them, or for anyone enduring such pain, other than to say that my heart is sad for you. Mr. Mach was 53 years old when he died; just nine years older than I am. I cannot believe that a man who was so vibrant and alive did not have much more to contribute to his family and his community, no matter what his physical state may have been.

As for the broader body of society, I can only state that everyone has choices. When you are faced with a disability, you can either choose to adjust to it and carry on for the sake of yourself and your loved ones, or you can surrender to the darker angels of your nature and end your journey. I believe in life. On that basis, I hope you will choose the path of living.

This was a long read. I thank those of you who chose to finish it.

Pass the Popcorn

I’m gonna write about something positive because…well…I need something positive in my life right now.

On Facebook the other night, I opined that I missed the era of appointment television. This was back in the glory days when 24, The Sopranos, Deadwood and Breaking Bad all reigned supreme. I miss the anticipation of a new episode, new plot developments and new water cooler buzz the next day after Tony would whack someone, or Jack Bauer would torture another Muslim terrorist.

That said, 2019 is an exciting year for those of us who have the recent TV nostalgia bug. Three movies are due out this year that serve as codas to previous TV giants.

The first one is a series that I already touched upon last October. Deadwood was a show that was canceled before its time. On Friday, May 31, HBO will correct that grave injustice by running Deadwood: The Movie. We’ll get to see Al Swearengen and all of the gang of Deadwood one last time before they ride off into the sunset. I’ve already shared my thoughts and hopes for the upcoming movie, but of the three, this is the one for which I’m most excited. It’s probably because fans have been waiting years for this thing to drop.

The second one excites me, though not to the degree of the Deadwood epic. David Chase is filming a prequel to The Sopranos called, The Many Saints of Newark. No, guys, it won’t explain the great black screen of doom that still frustrates many Sopranos fans. Rather, it will focus on a young Tony Soprano in the late ‘60’s when the Italians were embroiled in racial hostility with African-Americans. The interesting thing about this movie is that James Gandolfini’s son Michael is set to play young Tony. We’ll see how that goes. The thing that gives me pause is that I think David Chase is going to fuck up the timeline. I just re-watched the entire series of The Sopranos and it was stated more than once that Tony Soprano was born in 1960. At one point, Carmela tells a reporter that Tony was three when JFK was assassinated. So by the time Tony was 15, Nixon would already have been impeached. I don’t know how chase is going to reconcile this obvious continuity error. Still, I’ll go see the movie and hopefully will enjoy it.

The third movie is the one you would think I would be most excited about, but I am the least excited. Earlier this year, Vince Gilligan announced that we are going to get a Breaking Bad movie. Publicists are still playing it coy, but everyone knows that the movie will star Aaron Paul reprising his role as doomed Jesse Pinkman. When we last saw Jesse, Walt had freed him from captivity from Todd and Uncle Jack and Jesse drove off laughing crazily as Walt died in his meth lab over the strains of, “Baby Blue.”

My problem is that this served as the perfect ending to Breaking Bad. Walt died, Jesse was free but scarred for life and Walt’s family may or may not have been able to live in comfort thanks to his efforts on their behalf. Those unanswered questions are part of what makes the finale so good. Not everything had to be wrapped up with a pretty bow on top.

Whereas Deadwood feels completely necessary and welcome and the Sopranos prequel may or may not work, but can’t hurt anything, the Breaking Bad movie feels superfluous. Sure, Jesse was a compelling character, but without the presence of Bryan Cranston as Walt off whom Jesse used to play so wonderfully, the story will feel hollow. Yes, I may be selling Vince Gilligan short, but he gave us Better Call Saul and, for me, the results are mixed. Maybe Breaking Bad is that lightning that only strikes once. Yet, if possible, I will be in the theater on opening night, popcorn and Peanut Butter M & M’s in hand as the credits roll.

Even if all three wrap-up movies suck, it will be a pleasure to have something to look forward to that doesn’t involve a super hero, a transforming car or a talking CGI animal. I’ll take it, and pass the fuckin’ popcorn. If you don’t have any hot butter, I’ll settle for canned peaches. What about baked xiti?

The Whip and the Bayonet

Several days ago, Speaker Pelosi announced that she supported a bill that would study the issue of reparations to the African-American community for the crime of slavery.

Before I continue, let’s have an understanding that this is never going to happen. Speaker Pelosi and many others paying lip service to the concept of reparations know that it’s never going to be a reality. They know it just as surely as they know that Mexico is never going to pay for the border wall that is never going to be built. The only difference between Pelosi and Trump is that Pelosi understands the nature of the game she’s playing, whereas I’m not convinced that Trump does.

Having said that, the issue of reparations is worth discussing. As you can guess, I am not in favor of reparations for slavery. This is due to the fact that I am a racist. I hate blacks. I don’t care that they were enslaved. Let them eat dirt for all I care!

I don’t mean what I just said, of course, but I just wrote what those of a certain political persuasion are going to read and/or hear once they get to this portion of my entry. No matter what I say, people have a remarkable ability to hear only what they want to hear and make up the rest.

The real reason I oppose reparations has nothing to do with race itself; at least, not race as we understand it today. We can take all of the well-founded conservative arguments against reparations made by Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams and others and put them aside, if we focus only on one issue. History.

In short, we shouldn’t pay reparations because America has already paid them. Not in government checks delivered to every descendant of a slave, but by the most valuable treasure any country has to offer. Blood.

The blood that served as compensation drenched the soil at the Battle of Bull Run, at the Battle of Antietam, at Chancellorsville, Shiloh, Gettysburg, Richmond, Vicksburg, Wilson’s Creek, Glorieta Pass and Atlanta. It ran in many rivers, from the Mississippi to the Ohio to the Potomac.

These were only the major battles. These were the names that we all memorized long enough to pass a test in a classroom somewhere, then promptly forgot. These names of combat sites don’t account for the thousands of people lost in minor skirmishes and encounters throughout the theater of the war. They do not account for those who died as prisoners of war. Nor do they account for the thousands more civilians who died when cities, towns, farms and plantations were overrun and destroyed by enemy forces. Nor do they account for the deaths not incurred in battle; disease, starvation, riots and general unrest in the wake of various occupations.

Not all of the blood spilled during the Civil War was life blood. Much of it gushed from wounds that resulted in loss of limbs, of dignity and morale. Many soldiers who were wounded continued fighting. Medical discharges were unheard of during that period, particularly in the Confederacy. Every lash of the evil whip of slavery was answered by a bayonet in the stomach, a musket ball splattering blood and brains upon the ground, of dead and drowning men leaping from a ship torn by cannonballs, and by the silent, agonized gasps of those dying in makeshift hospitals, bedrooms and barns all across the war-torn country. Every black family torn apart by cruel slave owners was answered by a white family being torn apart by the ravages of war. And for those who survived, there were the ghosts of four years that would go down in history as the most bloody conflict America ever endured.

And finally, America paid with it’s dearest blood when it’s president was assassinated on April 14, 1865 by a Confederate sympathizer as the war was drawing to its conclusion.

According to the National Park Service, the final estimated casualty total of the American Civil War was 1,030,000 dead. It is impossible for us to begin to grasp that number. To break it down into something more comprehensible, that figure represented about three percent of the population of the United States at the time. Both sides of the conflict suffered tremendous losses. The Union lost an estimated 853,838 souls. That number alone is staggering, particularly when you realize that they were fighting on the right side of history. The Confederacy paid even more dearly, losing an estimated 914,660 souls.

Today, the Civil War is merely a story to us. We can read it about it in books, watch it in movies, see it recreated in videogames or in some town squares in the South. But we can never really understand it. If we could, we would have no talk of reparations to a people who have already been compensated. Nor would we tolerate the emotional tantrums of a juvenile political movement that seeks short term gratification by toppling statues that represent America at its best and worst.

Perhaps the argument will perseverate past my initial premise. Maybe the opportunists, glad-handers and political parasites would not view the idea of bloodshed in war as satiation for their greed. I can already hear the greedy cries of, “It’s not enough!” I can anticipate one argument. “Ryan, what about reconstruction? What about Jim Crow? What about 20th century segregation?” Should we not offer reparations to African-Americans for that?

My reply is simple. If so, let the Democratic Party pay the bill. When it comes to the issue of slavery and post slavery racism against blacks, the Republicans are, and have always been on the right side of history.

Nancy and Chuck can sign the first check.

Maybe Baby

I was devastated the other day when I learned that Jonah Goldberg is leaving The National Review. He, more than any other writer, has helped me to maintain my sanity in the socio-political realm over the past three years. Yet, I was heartened to learn that he intends to form a new conservative platform with an emphasis, not just on conservative analysis, but hard reporting as well. And by conservative, he doesn’t mean FoxNews 2.0.

It was a happy coincidence then when I read his latest newsletter, The G-File. His thoughts on abortion are (as usual) presented in a more crystallized form than I could ever have done.

So, enjoy Mr. Goldberg; if a topic such as this, complete with blood-soaked history, can ever be enjoyed. Here he is:

I don’t like debating abortion, but every now and then I get dragooned into it. The other day, I was on Guy Benson and Marie Harf’s radio show, and we got into it because Ben Sasse’s Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act bill had just gone down in flames. I like Marie quite a bit, and I think she tries very hard to give conservatives a fair hearing, so I don’t mean any of this as a personal criticism. But she ran through all of the usual arguments, the chief of which was the old saw about how conservatives are hypocrites because they want the government out of everything, yet they want the state to regulate women’s reproductive choices.

My problem with this argument is that it suffers from a profound category error. The first obligation of the state is to protect human life. This is what Max Weber was getting at when he said the state has a “monopoly on violence.” In a decent and free society, this monopoly has only a handful of legitimate exceptions. The most important and obvious is the right to self-defense, which is an absolute natural right that is prior to any form of government. You cannot pass a just and enforceable law barring people from fighting for their life when attacked.

The other exceptions are fairly minor and still fall under the regulatory power of the state. Boxers need licenses after all. Police have discretion about how to deal with bar room fights. Whether or not spanking is good or bad for kids, I think parents have a right to do it. But we all recognize that the state has a right to intervene when parents go much beyond that kind of thing. A swat on the backside for a misbehaving child isn’t the government’s business. A parent who beats or burns their kid should have their kid taken away.

This sliding scale has an analogue in the abortion debate — not theologically or scientifically perhaps — but culturally and politically. Most Americans favor abortion rights shortly after conception through the end of the first trimester. Even larger majorities are opposed to late-term abortions.

Again, putting aside the philosophical, scientific, and theological arguments, this simply makes sense. People can understandably debate whether a young embryo should be considered a human being. But there is simply no credible moral argument that a viable baby should not be considered a human being. A late-term fetus strikes most reasonable people as a baby, not some abstracted and euphemized thing called “uterine contents” or whatnot. And a delivered baby outside the womb or in the process of delivery is, simply, a baby. The Barbara Boxer view that a baby miraculously becomes a baby only after you bring it home from the hospital is a moral monstrosity.

And this is why conservative pro-lifers are not hypocrites when they say the state should intervene on the behalf of babies. The real hypocrisy cuts the other way. Liberal abortion rights supporters — speaking broadly — have no principled objection to the state regulating the size of our sodas, banning plastic straws or regulating free speech. But going by the statements and votes of the last month — by Ralph Northam, Andrew Cuomo, Kamala Harris, and so many others — they draw the line at regulating infanticide.

Harris, a 2020 hopeful who voted against Republican Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse’s bill, would not say if abortion was ever immoral.

“I think it’s up to a woman to make that decision, and I will always stand by that,” she told The DCNF. “I think she needs to make that decision with her doctor, with her priest, with her spouse. I would leave that decision up to them.”

Harris supports the Women’s Health Protection Act (as do Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Beto O’Rourke, Kristen Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, and Bernie Sanders). It would eliminate nearly all limits on abortion from late-term bans to abortions based on sex-selection (one wonders how they would feel if transgender fetuses could be identified in utero).

This isn’t ordered liberty; it’s the freedom of the jungle which says you can do whatever you can get away with. It’s fine to argue that “abortions” of viable, healthy, babies are rare (putting aside all the begged questions implicit in the word “healthy.” Do otherwise healthy kids with Down Syndrome count as unhealthy?). But what we’re talking about is the principle. If I said, “Look, it’s extremely rare for women to kill left-handed dudes named Todd who think E.L.O was better than the Rolling Stones,” that would be a true statement. It would not be an argument for killing that poor unlucky Todd with terrible taste in music (Jack’s view notwithstanding).

Just as socialism represents an atavistic impulse to return to pre-modern understandings of politics, the new push for killing inconvenient babies — in principle — is a barbaric step backward to pre-civilized past. Infanticide in our natural environment was incredibly common. This is from part of my book that didn’t make publication:

With the exception of the Jews, virtually all ancient societies, Western and non- Western, routinely butchered, burned, smothered or otherwise slaughtered their own children (and the children of their enemies even more). The Svans of Ancient Georgia murdered newborn girls by filling their mouths with hot ashes. In parts of Ancient China, female babies were killed by submerging them in buckets of cold “baby water.” In feudal Japan, the practice of Makibi (a term borrowed from rice farming meaning “thinning out”) was widespread. Unwanted babies — mostly girls, but also some boys, particularly twins (which were considered unlucky or dangerous in many pre-modern societies) — were snuffed out with a wet cloth. In India infants were sometimes thrown into the Ganges as sacrifices or had their throats cut.

As the anthropologist Laila Williamson famously wrote:
Infanticide has been practiced on every continent and by people on every level of cultural complexity, from hunters and gatherers to high civilization, including our own ancestors. Rather than being an exception, then, it has been the rule.

In pre-historic times, which were no Eden, our ancestors often killed their offspring because they were a real burden and adoption agencies were few and far between. And when I say a real burden, I mean a real burden. Mothers often didn’t have enough milk to feed two infants, which is why the killing of twins was so common. Crying babies when enemy tribes or predators are about are as inconvenient as hungry toddlers when food is scarce.

One aspect of the amazing miracle of the environment we live in now – i.e. civilization — is that killing babies is no longer a necessity, but a luxury. This move to disguise this hideous luxury as a new form of necessity is not a sign that we are advancing as a civilization, but that we are regressing, back to when killing babies was natural and normal.

Poor Fucking Elizabeth!

I keep meaning to write more blog entries and I sit down at the keyboard and nothing comes out. It’s like a guy who eats a block of sharp cheddar, straining on the pot at two in the morning after his gut ache keeps him awake. The primary focus of this blog was supposed to be politics, but I also write about pop culture, blindness, and occasionally, some personal observations. Politics frankly depresses me right now. So, for that matter, does pop culture. Living here in Omaha with the state of things as they are means that blindness issues now depress the holy hell out of me as well.

So, I guess I better write about something cheerful like… Monsters.

There are all kinds of monsters out there in the world. You’ve got giant mutant dinosaurs and comic book monsters and the kind that derive energy from the screams of little children and you even have Cookie Monster. Then you have real life monsters, like Cardinal McCarrick, Louis Farrakhan and Nikolas Cruz. They are all very obvious monsters.

Then, you have the monsters that aren’t so obvious. Exhibit A is Donald Trump. He’s a narcissist, a bully and a chronic liar. He has cheapened the office of the president to a level that I fear is irreparable. I call him a monster because he has done a great deal to beautify the demons of our nature.

Yes, a lot of people love to hate Donald Trump, but I find the protests of his most ardent detractors to be suspect. How many of them were happy to fuel Monster Trump before he assumed the highest office in the land?

The Hollywood left are the main culprits. That is, Hollywood, New York City, Washington D.C. and the entire space of “Flyover country,” in between. They loved The Donald when he was an eccentric millionaire mogul, beauty contest magnate and a ratings-winning reality TV star. How many of them smiled and nodded and said, “I don’t judge,” when news of his rampant philandering came out. How many just dismissed it as crap from the National Inquirer, never thinking that his actions might translate so easily to, The Swamp?

I’m not saying that Trump- was always the kind of guy who ran around yelling, “Mexico sends us nothin’ but rapists and drug dealers!” If he’d done that, his celebrity goose would’ve been cooked years ago. But how many people wrote off those same behaviors; the narcissism, the bullying, the casual misogyny, the glib lying as merely, “The Donald being The Donald?” I dare say that quite a number of folks who subsequently voted for Hillary in 2016 knew full well who and what they were getting long before it really mattered. They saw the monstrous behavior, but they did nothing to stop it. Why? Maybe fear. Maybe apathy. Maybe deep down, many of those self-same leftists who wring their hands and bay at the political moon over social injustice actually liked and admired his behavior.

If you doubt me, just google old headlines featuring Trump back in the ‘90’s and the first decade of this young millennium; headlines written by journalists who now count themselves as proud enemies of President Trump? Read some of those stories and you’ll see how Monster Trump took root.

That brings us to Exhibit B; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Apparently, she’s a very pretty monster, indeed. You might look at her and say, “C’mon, Ry! You’re overstating it. She’s not a monster. She’s a principled woman who believes in what she believes.”

Faugh!

This is the young lady who said, ““I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.” This wasn’t a statement uttered in dripping sarcasm. She wasn’t speaking in error. She wasn’t even speaking in self-parody. She honest-to-God meant what she said as she defended herself to Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes. People who love to compare the Trump era to 1984 would do well to study the Orwellian concepts in that classic novel through the prism of AOC’s remarks.

Cortez is a monster because of the toxic ideas she purveys, all wrapped up in pretty paper and bows. In America, socialism is the Frankenstein monster taking it’s very first baby breath in Victor’s laboratory. In Venezuela, Elizabeth is trying to figure out how the hell she’s gonna breathe with a crushed trachea.

And why does AOC have such traction amongst the young in particular? It’s because many mainstream citizens, particularly Republicans, chose not to care about what their young were learning on college campuses, where socialism has been allowed to flourish. If little Johnny or Janie came home with all A’s, or made good on the football field or theater stage in spite of shitty grades, mommy and daddy didn’t care. They didn’t take a larger interest in what is being taught on campus, or in the classrooms of their local high schools. Just vote no on the latest school bond issue and go on your marry way.

There are many other monsters flourishing out there under the tent of ignorance and apathy. Abortion is one. A law was just passed in New York that grants a woman the right to terminate her pregnancy up to the point of birth with a doctor’s approval. Sadly, this doesn’t surprise me. If America didn’t care about Kermit Gosnell, why would they care about a post-birth baby being murdered? The same goes for the gun debate as referenced by a friend of mine. “If people weren’t moved to take serious action after Sandy Hook, nothing will move the needle.”

Sure, many pro-lifers cared. I don’t mean the nutjobs who bombed abortion clinics or shot down abortion doctors in church. I mean the true believers who go to the March for Life every year, and who hold picket signs and stage peaceful protests. Yes, the media ignores them, but that’s not the real reason why they fail. They fail because too many people just don’t care. Oh, they might be opposed to abortion in the safe space of their own mind and heart, but they are the same people who sit quietly at a dinner party when the topic of abortion comes up because they want to be invited back. Being liked is more important than being principled.

It is apathy, more than anything else, that allow monsters like Kermit Gosnell and Adam Lanza to come out from under the bed and drink the blood of the household.

There are monsters everywhere. And as I contemplate this unsettling truth, the wind rattling outside my balcony door, the thermometer dipping below zero, I’m reminded of a quote from an underappreciated TV gem, Homicide: Life on the Street.

“You don’t have to be afraid of things that go bump in the night, if you become the thing that lurks in the darkness.”

Trump, Cortez, Gosnell, Lanza, McCarrick… They are all our modern Prometheus. They are us, and we are them. We just kid ourselves into thinking otherwise because we haven’t really survived the darkness yet.

Song of Myself

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I
know it.

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe,
and am not contain’d between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and
fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)

Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female,
For me those that have been boys and that love women,
For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be
slighted,
For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the
mothers of mothers,
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,
For me children and the begetters of children.

Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be
shaken away.

Walt Whitman: “”Song of Myself”