The Impending Inauguration

(If you're new here, this column consists of weekly letters written to my grandchildren, who exist, to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead, and my great-grandchildren, who aren't here yet.)

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies,

The coronation inauguration of Donald J. Trump is upon us. In less than a week he will be crowned sworn in and officially become our 45th king president. The snarky cross outs in the previous sentence are not directed at the Donald. If I were being snarky about the Donald I would point out that a 70-year-old man with yellow hair, an elaborate combover, orange skin and ever-shifting political positions will soon be king our president.

But I'm not. Let he who is not a 6339-year-old with an enormous head, a lazy eye, a pedestal for a neck and a tank shaped body who is about to have a defective hip replaced cast the first stone!

I'm merely pointing out, that in my semi-humble opinion, the phrase 50 united states implies 50 relatively powerful entities united for certain purposes, spelled out in our constitution, and having much more autonomy than they currently enjoy. What we have is The Gubmint, which, if it continues on its present trajectory, will become, THE GUBMINT.

What we have is so large, complex and powerful, that the phrase permanent campaign not only means governing with an eye on the next election it means all politics, all the time, for every-one.

The chattering class, the more or less permanent bureaucracy, the Gubmint wannabes, the political industry and Gubmint dependent real industries are all carrying on as if we're about to crown a divine right monarch.

Perhaps it's even worse than that. Does America have daddy issues? And/or do we, in spite of our supposed sophistication, long for an alpha male (alpha person?) to feel safe?

Can he can't he? Will he won't he? "Of course this is just speculation on my part but...". Is it true he likes McDonald's food? Didja hear most of the major designers refuse to dress his wife?

Joe Biden, recent vice-president, who was a lawyer for a minute before becoming a professional politician whose major accomplishment is a long career as professional politician announced that he's running for president in 2020.

Mr. Obama has rented a mansion and will be the first president since Wilson (suffering from the aftereffects of a stroke) to not get out of Dodge once he was evicted from the White House.

Mr. O. sez he's sticking around because this multimillionaire champion of the little people, this former community organizer, doesn't want to pull his youngest kid out of high school because she still has two years to go. She attends the Sidwell Friends school, current tuition $39,360 per year (but that includes a hot lunch). Golly, I wonder how he'll kill time between science fairs and PTA meetings?

Can't fault a man for being a good dad, but almost every time he's given a speech in the last eight years that wasn't delivered inside the beltway he made a point of telling his audience how great it was to get out of D.C., him being an outsider and all, and hang with regular folks.

While I appreciate this sacrifice for his kid, Chicago, the town he calls home, that's run by Rahm Emanuel, a former Obama chief of staff, has a notable homicide problem that you may have heard about.

I think I'll send him an email suggesting he spend as many long weekends as possible in Chicago till the problem is solved. If he were to lend his talent and prestige to his buddy Rahm they could no doubt get 'er done. I'd tweet it at him, but Cranky don't tweet.

He could straighten out Chicago and have an excuse to leave the fever swamps of DC on a regular basis, Win-win!

Sorry, I'm obviously suffering from Obama derangement syndrome, which clearly indicates I'm a closet racist in denial. Honey, get my therapist on the phone!

Moving on...

 An inauguration ain't supposed to be a coronation. According to Merriam-Webster:

Inauguration: a ceremonial induction into office
Coronation: the act or occasion of crowning

George Washington allegedly was offered a crown and said no thanks. Historians tell us that this never actually happened, that it was no truer than that shtuff about chopping down a cherry tree and readily confessing to the crime rather than trying to weasel his way out of it.

I'm so old that I can remember being taught the cherry tree story in school and believing it -- different world. I'm so old, and cranky, that I can imagine a country without a semi-imperial presidency that's not about to spend $200,000,000 (more or less) on parties and ceremonies to commemorate the Donald solemnly swearing or affirming that he will try to do a good job and follow the rulebook, the constitution.

The presidential oath of office, the only specifically worded oath in the constitution, has 37 words. This means we're gonna' spend roughly $5,400,000 per word. I have a better idea.

When I was a kid, 25 words or less contests were a thing. "Send us a letter and explain, in 25 words or less, why your family loves Powdermilk Biscuits and win free Powdermilk Biscuits for life!"

How about a nationwide contest promoted via radio to keep the cost down?

 "Send us an email and explain, in 25 actual words or less describing why you prefer a term-limited president to a divine right monarch. Win one million dollars and an all expenses paid trip to Washington DC to be the people's official witness to the Donald's inauguration and meet the new president! Attend a potluck dinner for the POTUS, congress, and the supreme court afterward! Free carnival games and face painting for the kids!"

Savings: $199,000,000 bucks, minus the cost of the radio promotion and renting a hall for the potluck.

The commercial ends with the announcer babbling the following words at twice the speed of sound.

"All winnings are subject to federal, state and local taxes. Employees or relatives, no matter how tenuous the connection,
 of the Donald are not eligible in order to minimize the number of inevitable future congressional investigations. No emojis or social media/texting truncations and abbreviations permitted in order to weed out trolls. Only one entry per documented citizen please, violators will be tossed over the wall."

The Donald, well known for his modesty and good taste, is setting a good example. Our next POTUS will utter the 37 words mentioned above at the Capitol building (home of the people's representatives, many of whom have been selflessly serving us for decades). Next, he'll jump in an armored Cadillac limousine, one of a fleet of a dozen or so (shhh! it's a secret!) built at cost of about $1,500,000, each.

He'll then travel in a motorcade, for about two miles, to the White House while dispensing royal waves and thumbs-ups to the little people.

Little but.

The limos in the parade will not display the traditional special license plates created to commemorate inauguration day. This is giving the collectors of such plates the vapors. The Donald's camp is refusing to say why, but I think I know.

The Donald, well known for his subtlety and discretion, is quietly making the statement that he's just one of us. Make America less tacky again! Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day.






  


  

Clean and Sober, Part Two

Dear (eventual) grandstickies and great-grandstickies,

To review, part one was an encapsulated version of my adventures as a twenty-something. I revealed that yes, Virginia, Poppa did smoke dope regularly during his extended callowyute era.

Now, I'm neither proud or ashamed of this period of my life, but I was extremely lucky. In retrospect (hindsight is indeed 20/20) I wish I had moved on much sooner than I did, or that I had the same reaction to weed as I did to alcohol -- I discovered early on that I didn't much care for it.

As to lucky, I didn't start smoking weed until I was twenty. Science tells us that drinking or doing drugs by adolescents can lead to permanent neural rewiring and many scientists suspect this increases the chance of addiction in adulthood. Also, while the area of the brain that governs pleasure seeking develops early, the area of the brain that governs decision making and judgment may not be done developing until the mid-twenties. Getting baked as a teenager before your brain has finished baking naturally may cause permanent damage.

I set out to get royally drunk one night when I was 18, and already living in my own apartment. I succeeded but didn't enjoy the results. I had a similar reaction to when I had tried cigarettes many years earlier. This is stupid, I don't like this, I'm not going to do this. So you see, not smoking cigarettes and not drinking requires no discipline or muscular virtue on my part. Lucky.

[Speaking of cigarettes, science tells us that nicotine, which personally I regard as a drug with effects that are even milder than those resulting from moderate caffeine consumption, is a highly addictive substance. My personal experience tends to confirm this. Your parental units have both been trying to quit smoking for at least ten years that I know of and haven't made it, yet. I'm cautiously optimistic because ya'll are one of the most important reasons they keep trying, and they're very good parents who just spent too much money on your Christmas presents, as usual (GRIN). It would seem I'm not the only lucky one.

Please don't get hooked on nicotine, or anything else for that matter. And yeah, I know, vaping is better for you, but addiction is addiction. When my mom was in a nursing home and wheezing from emphysema and only one year older than I am now, 64 40, she was cursing her children for refusing to smuggle in her beloved unfiltered Kools.]

...and we're back. Where was I? Oh yeah, lucky. As I mentioned in part one, my nefarious activities never led to any legal difficulties, that is, I never got caught by anyone with a badge. I realize that pointing this out to you may be equivalent to one of my grandparents telling me about using alcohol when it was briefly, and disastrously, prohibited to do so. At the moment it looks like weed will soon be legal everywhere, assuming The Gubmint doesn't step in. However, I'm not talking about what should have been, but what was, the past tense of not what should be, but what is (GRIN).

[At this point in my writing, my muse, imaginary gentlereader, and imaginary grandsticky all looked up from an intense game of Monopoly and looked around at each other, puzzled. Before anyone spoke up I quickly threw a, "I got this, relax, play your game, all will soon be clear" at 'em and they returned to arguing over the subtle, legal ramifications of one of the rules.]

See, had I been caught by the wrong person in the wrong jurisdiction I could've been locked up for quite some time (many were) for the heinous crime of participating in one of mankind's (personkind's?) oldest rituals, the pursuit of a good buzz. Perfectly legally and sanctioned by the powers that be were. That's the not what should have been but what was, referenced above. The land of the free was/is not always as free as one might like.

BIG BUT.

I mentioned early on that I'm neither proud or ashamed of this period of my life. I am, however, regretful. During my extended callowyute phase I, like most twenty-somethings, many thirty-somethings, a disturbingly high (and rising I think) percentage of forty and even fifty-somethings -- thought I was bullet proof, ten feet tall, and would live forever.

[My fellow baby boomers, who, demographically speaking, range in age from 53 to 71 as this is being written, require an entire column or two to analyze because while many have discarded their rose colored glasses, many have not and are members in good standing of the not what is, but what should be club. Some of them are even counting on living forever via having themselves uploaded to a machine. Sounds boring to me, living forever I mean, please forgive the digression.]

Just as many old farts never tired of pointing out to me, just as no shortage of old farts, occasionally including me, never tire of pointing out to you -- you're gonna' wake up one day a couple of years from now and you will be, chronologically speaking, old. You will personally know several dead people even if you're fortunate enough to have managed to get through your life minimally affected by war.

I understood this intellectually long before I understood this in reality, in my heart. I hope the same is true for you. I hope that you operate under the illusion of immortality and happy endings for everyone for as long as possible.

However, I devoutly wish that someone had told me, as a young man, or that I had somehow stumbled upon, the following.

If you want to save the world, or someone, and/or
If you think that grups are boring and more dead than alive and/or
If you choose to party now and worry about so-called real life later and/or
If you've found someone/something for whom/which you can't wait to get out of bed for and/or
If you're religiously/spiritually/enlightenmentally inclined, traditional or unconventional path, and/or
___________________________________________________ . (This space intentionally left blank.)

Reality  still  rules.

Some folks can't/shouldn't "party," ever. They're called addicts. You need to constantly monitor and be brutally honest with, yourself. Question one. Am I doing this for some occasional fun or do I have to do this to deal. Question two. Is this interfering with other aspects of my life? Incidentally, I don't know what the experts advise, these two questions are what I advise.


And while we're at it:

The need for food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare is, and will remain, omnipresent.

Pay your own way if at all possible and everyone will like you more, especially you.

You are never going to wake up one day and be Happy, it just doesn't work that way. Some days you'll be happy, some days you will be miserable, most days will be a mixture of both.

Forget happiness, pursue contentment. Contentment is someone to love that loves you back (pets are perfectly acceptable) and interesting work. Getting paid to do interesting work is rare. Getting paid for doing a job and doing your work for free, um, works. Your work is anything that makes you happy just by the doing of it well, It doesn't matter what it is. Rabid sports fan, rocket scientist, or something in between. "Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work." -Gustave Flaubert                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
If you're lucky you will often be bored. As you age you will learn this is not necessarily a bad thing, particularly given the many unpleasant alternatives available.

Goals are necessary, and good, but success at anything requires flexibility and the wisdom to spot a better path. There are an infinite number of paths and yours is probably no better than theirs, just different. Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day.

Clean & Sober, Part One

Dear (eventual) grandstickies and great-grandstickies,

I am not a drunk or a druggie, nor do I play one on TV. I was a sorta/kinda (weed smoking) druggie when I was a twenty-something sorta/kinda hippie with a job.

I didn't define myself as a druggie at the time. To me, druggies were people that dabbled in, or were hooked on, addictive substances. I also didn't/don't care for people that liked/like to get roaring drunk. Not pleasantly buzzed, roaring drunk. Drunks and druggies were/are, often as not Jekyll-Hydes, people who become their own evil twin when they ingest their recreational pharmaceutical of choice.

Not me and my buds, pun intended. We were cool. Yeah, we smoked weed, but we weren't addicts, we weren't alcoholics, we had jobs.

In retrospect, I freely admit that I was a callowyute for far too long. Most of the friends I didn't go to college with couldn't get married/mortgaged/reproduced fast enough and become hipper, Depublican/Republicrat voting versions of their parents once they got their degree. Revolution? what revolution? That's kid stuff, grow up!

Maybe later. I...

[Aside for historical context: This was the early seventies when all that stuff you've heard about the late sixties was still going on but had begun to fade. The revolution mentioned above, with the exception of the relatively small handful of maroons committed to actually blowing stuff up, was a vague, ill-defined thing. It was a pampered, self-indulgent baby boomers happening to come of age when the cultural consensus collapsed and the threat of death by Vietnam loomed for 19-year-old males (some much more than others) phenomenon.]

Maybe later. I was having too much fun living a very tame version of what I romanticized to be a sex/drugs/rock and roll lifestyle. Get high and do something fun -- like have sex or go to a concert. I wasn't getting high because I was an addict or to cope with my crappy job/life/spouse/children. I was also very lucky in that my lifestyle never led to any legal problems and I had never even heard of AIDS at this point.

In my defense -- weed was way less potent, much cheaper and often hard to come by a thousand years ago. Droughts were common. I went out of my way (successfully) to not reproduce. I believed, and believe, that once you have kids, while selfless sainthood is not required, it mostly is, it's part of the job description. I didn't want that particular job, or a career, at that point in my life -- just a job, so I could pay my own way and live my life.

Truth be told -- I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. So, I figured I might as well enjoy the ride while waiting for instructions. I had two very vague notions. I would eventually meet my soulmate and then, somehow, all would become clear and we would live happily ever after. Or, I would meet my guru and spiritual enlightenment would follow. Maybe both.

[Important aside: The first time I smoked weed I was almost 20  years old. I'm so old that drug use by high school kids was just starting to take off when I was in high school. Drinking was more common but serious partying of any sort was limited to a relatively small minority. Considering that it's now common knowledge that the human brain isn't fully mature until the age of 25 or so, I'm glad I started at what nowadays would be considered a late age. More on this later.]

Eventually, in my late twenties, which coincided with the late seventies, I met and fell in love with a blond girl next door type, a college student. This coincided with Rock n' Roll hitting a wall (pun, once again, intended) that it hasn't been able to break through/climb over/go around since and the fact I was getting bored with being a callowyute and finally starting to grow up.

[Aside for baby boomer gentlereaders: By the way, just because Rock hit a wall, that's no excuse for some of you to still be listening to the same songs, over and over and over again, decades later. I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings, think of it as one of those things that somebody had to tell you. Think of it as someone meeting you for coffee at an obscure location and gently giving you a heads up about something, for your own good. They'll give you a big, sincere hug and a warm genuine smile when it's time to part ways.  

There's all sorts of music out there. I highly recommend jazz. If you would prefer to maintain your rock/pop sensibility you might think about trying to find some time to go exploring. Even if you prefer to stick with the old stuff, the "hits" were from entire albums of songs you may have never heard. Admit it, you've thought about this. Now, if you could only find the time...]

And we're back. I spent about three years in a grup with a life, wife, and 2.5 kids training program. Many requirements had to be met in order to qualify and get promoted to adulthood. In the end, she changed her mind and ran my application, and my heart, through a paper shredder. She said she was sorry. No soul mate or a guru. That sure sucked sweaty socks.

When I came to I found myself managing a fleet of ice cream trucks in Texas. One day I hired a woman to drive one of the trucks who, in short order, became my wife. She came pre-equipped with a daughter. Hey! look at me, I'm a grup! Well, more or less.

[Uh-huh. Um, is there a point you're trying to make Poppa? Sheesh, it would seem that I not only have an imaginary gentle reader and a muse living in my head, now I've got to deal with an imaginary grandsticky/great-grandsticky. For the record, my grandstickies are real, but I'm addressing them as a group and writing to them as though they won't be reading this until 20 years into the future. Please see last week's column, Sea Change. The great-grandstickies aren't here yet. So, the imaginary grandsticky is a stand in for a group of people, some of whom don't exist yet. Man, this is getting complicated.

Oh for the love of God! exclaims Dana, my imaginary gentlereader. Marie-Louise, my muse, is giggling.]

Calm down everyone. OK, listen, first some literary housekeeping. No, poppa is not misspelled. Both papa and poppa are authorized by the language police. I prefer poppa because papa looks like it should be pronounced paah-paah. Poppa -- pops. When I'm king, I will correct this situation and delete, or at least imperially frown upon, the word papa. Poppa is what my grandstickies (grandkids) call me. Please see my websites glossary for more information.

Second, sorry, I've got to go. I'm already well over my theoretical 1,000-word limit. (A snort of frustration followed by angry footsteps and the sound of a door slam. Dana has left the column.) Hey, it's not my fault that attention spans have been reduced to the point that 500 words without pictures is considered long-form writing, I'm trying to build an audience so I can quit my soul-sucking day job. Poppa loves you. To be continued...

Have an OK day.


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