Friday Musings

Gary’s back in the saddle, having successfully navigated the modern day Byzantium represented by the health care system, and for which fact we can all give thanks, each in their own way. In a mass email today (which because it was mass, I take the liberty of excerpting without the author’s permission, deciding rather to beg forgiveness) he says, “Thank you for you emails and best wishes. I have more friends I’ve never seen than those I do.” And isn’t that the truth these days for many of us, and a right good thing to think on.

The inherent incongruity of the representative democratic experiment in an era of propositional plebiscites is perhaps nowhere with more timely plangency revealed than in the Gubernator’s decision to veto a gay marriage bill passed by the state legislature. Regardless of which way you come down on the issue itself, it’s difficult to argue, as did the governor, “The matter should be decided by California’s courts or its voters.” That the courts should decide the issue is, of course, anathema to those who believe in the separation of powers. And now we are left in the absurd position of trying to define whether the people, having declared by a 60/40 margin in 2000 that marriage is an estate defined by the union of one man to one woman reflect their own will, or whether their elected representatives do. The point that Ahnuld should have made, but didn’t bother to, is that this is a perfect example of the need to disassemble and re-rationalize the state’s grotesque gerrymandering scheme, a design that puts indefeatable ideologues in indefatigueable positions essentially inconsistent with the inmost beliefs the state’s individuals.

That last sentence was a bit of a stretch, I know. But I had a lot of fun with it.

Would it be possible to point out that anytime Jeff Goldstein and Matt Yglesias, two very clever lads who come at the world from entirely different world views, happen to agree on a subject, it’s a dead solid lock that they are in the right of it and anyone who disagrees with them are doing so from reasons very far from noble? Or else that such disagreeable people tend to be of a type and nature so hyperventilated and perpetually aggrieved that nothing at all will satisfy them? Would it be possible to believe all of these things and still point out that Bill Bennett said a rather stupid and impolitic thing? The fact of the matter is, for better or worse, that there are designated speakers on the issue of race in this country, and those who are not of this tribunal should leave better off alone, or else prepare to reap the whirlwind. You could argue that it oughtn’t be so, and I might privately agree, but at this juncture in our communal life that would be like CuChulainn fighting against the sea, and if you don’t get that reference then it’s time to change the subject to Irish history and the Red Branch cycle.

I really want to see “Serenity” this weekend. I’ll do it, too. Just you watch. And if you’re not careful? I’m going to back-purchase the DVD set of the “Firefly” season. Because somehow? That whole thing just got right by me, the first time ’round. I blame it on a paucity of TiVo.

Which is not working out in entirely the expected way, by the by. I’ve got endless loops of “Barefoot Contessa” (the Hobbit) and “Forensic Files” (the Kat) but rarely more than the first 30 seconds of “Rome” or “Battlestar Gallactica” (yes, I’m a geek, and I also think ladies look nice in togas and sandals, with a bloody dagger dripping out of their hand) before they decide that, no: “Monk” would be so very much more interesting to watch. Monk, for all love. Talk about empty calories. Reminds me of the entire “Rush” oeuvre. Heard one Rush song, you’d pretty much heard them all. Monk is like that too.

(Speaking of which, how freakin’ disturbing is it to find that a band like Rush has it’s own website, 30 years on? Or the fact that they’ve put out 18 albums – 18! – since 1981′s “Moving Pictures,” the final disc, the one that sounded exactly like all the others, that finally caused the scales to fall from our eyes?)

Discs. Heard an interview with Neil Young today on NPR, on the wayhome. His voice is deeper than maybe you’d think, if you hadn’t heard him just, you know – talking. Sounds like an actual man, rather than some animal under un-anesthetized vivisection. Don’t get me wrong; I think the man is a poet. I’ve just always thought that, you know – maybe he ought to have been a songwriter, rather than a singer/songwriter. But that’s just me. Anyways, the interview was conducted by one of those painfully earnest types so common to the NPR stable – her voice sounded young, I’m thinking, what? Mid-twenties. She asked about what albums Neil bought, back in the day, man. And how he bought them. Turns out he sold chickens, and eggs and stuff. Eggs, she cried? You bought your 45′s using egg profits? Yeah, man. Eggs.

But here’s the thing: If the writer ever saw a 45, you know she saw it in an antique store. You could tell she was proud of herself for knowing the lingo. Did her research: 45, daddy-o. 33 and a third, too.

We used to actually talk that way, I mean, actual people. Not just painfully sincere twenty-something NPR producers who have done their homework.

The point to all that? No point really.

It’s only a Friday Musing.

Y’all have a great weekend!