Category Archives: The Red, White & Blues

01.19.20
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It Begins

One of my resolutions for 2020 was to not get sidetracked by what ifs and to stop worrying about things I can’t control.

Don’t give me that look!

Aside from personal issues of life, health and death, that includes everything from who will win at the Oscars this year to the harrowing prospect that Donald J. Trump could be re-elected president of the United States.

Three weeks into 2020, I’ve already broken my vow.

Don’t judge me!

And not just once but many times over.

Still, hope springs eternal and not only because Quentin Tarantino was given Oscar’s precursor, the Golden Globe, for best screenplay over Noah Baumbach’s overrated Marriage Story.

No, what gave me hope this week was the pomp and circumstance of the Senate hearing that inaugurated the impeachment trial of Donald John Trump.

Let’s say that again.

Actually, let’s allow the actual words of the Sergeant of Arms in the U.S. Senate to say it for us:

Hear ye, Hear ye, Hear ye –

 All persons are COMMANDED – to keep silent on PAIN OF IMPRISONMENT– while the House of Representatives is exhibiting to the Senate of the United States articles of IMPEACHMENT- AGAINST – DONALD JOHN TRUMP – president of the United States…

Pete Souza’s shade really cannot be matched 🍑

Now, I’m not one for pomp and circumstance.  In high school, I finally found a real excuse not to stand up for the National Anthem due to my opposition against the Vietnam War.

Even in elementary school I remember thinking it was silly to put my hand over my heart and pledge allegiance to a ….flag?  I mean, what would THAT prove when no one could know what I, or anyone else, was really thinking?

Not to mention that to this day, whenever I see anyone bow before the Queen of England I’m still one-step short of appalled. A crown?  A scepter?  …Really?  (Note:  And yeah, that was the sound of me cheering the no longer Royal Harry and Meghan, for flying away to Canada and choosing to live in our real world of multi-million dollar endorsements.  Well, sort of).

She drives! She’s free! #ohcanada

Still…I could watch the pomp and circumstance, the formality, and the antiquated ceremonial loveliness of the invocation to the formal Senate trial that inaugurated Trump’s impeachment on Thursday every day on a loop until Quentin Tarantino’s OSCAR win for best original screenplay on Feb. 9th.

In fact, here it is now!

Hands up, baby hands up!

I suppose this makes me a bit of a hypocrite along with 63 plus million other American voters.  But after three years of immigrant kids in cages, our leader’s embrace of murderous, authoritarian world leaders over our long held allies (many of whom stood by our side in times of devastating war, most recently after 9/11), and a list of daily lies, corruptions and/or general nastiness to support his frail ego and questionable financial empire, the formality of a public ceremonial Trump guillotine in a court of law is looking pretty damned good.

Excuse me while I enjoy my tea

Our steely, and it turns out quiet prescient Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, recognized this when she finally agreed some months ago to skillfully open charges of impeachment against our Electoral College POTUS, though not for any of the aforementioned insurrections that enraged me (Note: And I would imagine “she”).

Rather, it took a rock solid case of Trump using his office to withhold billions of dollars in much needed foreign aid to a small country (Ukraine) in order to pressure them into helping him win re-election (i.e., dirt that could scandalize the potential Democrat most likely to run against him and beat him at the time, Joe Biden), that finally crossed the line.

It’s happening, it’s really happening

Rather than anger or hubris, her motivation – and lest anyone doubt it look over her many statements opposing impeachment over the last three years – were the guidelines set down by our Founding Fathers over two centuries ago in the U.S. Constitution.

As she explained to Bill Maher on his HBO series Real Time over the weekend:

…He (Trump) used the office of the president to try to influence a foreign country for his personal and political benefit and in doing so he undermined our national security.  He was disloyal to his oath of office to protect the Constitution and he placed in jeopardy the integrity of our election.  So really, he gave us no choice…

Earlier on, some of the charges, violations of the law, I said ‘he’s not worth it.’  But once he crossed that bridge it wasn’t a question of HIS being worth it.  The CONSTITUTION was worth it.  He HAD to be IMPEACHED.

My religious moment of 2020

Yet lest any of us think Speaker Pelosi, is above gloating just a smidge, it is worth noting that when asked what she’d say to Trump if he were watching, she smiled slyly, looked straight into the camera and proclaimed:

You are impeached forever.  No matter what the Senate does, it can NEVER be erased. 

That was Nancy D’Alesandro — a woman raised in a political powerhouse family where her father was mayor of Baltimore and later it’s Congressman, and her brother became city council president and later mayor — who was speaking.

A woman who not only understands the Constitution but is a maestro in the mixed martial arts of politics.

She doesn’t get sidetracked by what ifs or people and things she can’t control.

She simply stays in the moment, studies her options and then takes appropriate actions the way she sees fit, letting the chips fall where they may.

Yes she can

She also claims, and I believe her, not to HATE anyone.

One day, when we all grow up, we might to take a collective resolution to stay in the moment and be more like her.  In the meantime, let’s focus and at least try to do it until Tuesday, November 3, 2020.

Lou Reed – “This Magic Moment” 

12.22.19
by

The Purity Test

Nothing’s clean Howard.  But we do our best, right? 

 – Ava Gardner to Howard Hughes in The Aviator (2004)

This is all I could think of during and after the latest Democratic presidential debate this week.

That in speaking this one truth, the fictionalized Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale) managed to coax a fictionalized and very seriously obsessive-compulsive Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) out of  the prison of his own room and his own twisted thoughts and virtually back to real life in the superb Hughes/Hollywood biopic The Aviator.

Side note: Has Kate Beckinsale ever looked so glamorous??

Would that we had our own Ava Gardner-like figure – living or dead – to shock us all, the American electorate, back into the filth and messiness of our present reality in time to face the upcoming 2020 election cycle.

Someone who could remind us that because this world is so dirty to some degree we, every last one of us, also are unclean.

But someone who might simultaneously assure us that true cleanliness, i.e. purity, is merely an intellectual construct, one especially ill-advised when our very world is about to be engulfed and devoured by a snarling, larger than life orange Cookie Monster of our own creation.

We may need to seek alternative measures #CAROLANN

Yes, I’m talking about Trump and which mud-stained gladiator on that stage will lead us through the mess of human blood and excrement he’s gonna spew everywhere as we try and pry his cold, wet hands off  the levels of OUR power.

And sure, this is all a tad too purple prose metaphorical.

Yet what are we to make of all that supposedly serious talk on that debate stage.  All that posturing about wine caves, no big money donors, grit to stay the course, I’m safe because you know me, I’m a revolutionary because I’ve always been (Note: Just what year WAS that revolution, other than 1776?) and I’m a billionaire/millionaire who’s an innovator simply because I got rich?

Or the I’m gay, female, a person of color or am/have actively always supported the struggles of ALL of the former (and any of those not mentioned), many of whom are also my friends?

Remember my BEST FRIEND?

Not much when I drive around town and see Orangetheory Fitness Centers spreading like wildfire in my neighborhood, and not merely in a non-metaphorical way. If this doesn’t stop we might all soon be turning orange, and not in a good or fit way.

Again, too many metaphors, I know.  But desperate times call for…well, you know… anything that could possibly convince you.

It is worth noting that all the above bold-faced phrases on that debate stage were uttered by our much-ballyhooed gladiators the day after our Orange One was finally impeached by OUR U.S. House of Representatives.

He is known to be pro-coal

As the always fictional Elliot Ness was advised in the 1987 film, The Untouchables:

You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.

Yeah, another movie reference can’t hurt.  Unless it’s one where I get to confess I’m so exhausted from listening to our gladiators get so stuck in the fly paper of fine print that I may have to hate watch Cats (2019) simply as a palette cleanser.

The reviews are in!

On second thought no, not even on a screener – which, by the way, has not yet come in the mail.

All of this is to proclaim that even though yes, we need to fix health care, end global warming, get out of endless wars, address racism and the lack of opportunities for minority and poor populations, get money out of politics and………. nothing is more urgent than getting a quite literally unhinged, corrupt, crazy person out of OUR White House.

*except Mike Pence

His mental state is not metaphorical but pretty much accepted fact, even among many of his congressional supporters privately.  What is metaphorical but no less true is that the 2019 color of that House he lives in is no longer White but….well, take a guess.  (Hint:  The first letter rhymes with NO).

Talk about unclean, filthy and unsafe.

So here’s the deal.  You and I have each have our favorites, my fellow gladiator followers.  But let’s try to get beyond the Biden, Warren, Sanders, Buttigieg, Yang, Klobuchar, Yang, Booker, Castro, et. al of it all.

I’ll always love you Kamala

The future of the country and democracy is at stake and we don’t live in a perfect one, and certainly not a perfect world.  So rally behind those you feel the most passionate about but do not, repeat, DO NOT spend 2020 in your own personal dreamland when YOUR House is being engulfed by non-metaphorical orange flames.

Evergreen meme

If Biden is not your first choice but he gets the nom, find a way to get REALLY PASSIONATE about him.  Like you did about the guy or gal you dated when the dysfunctional choice you really wanted didn’t show up or merely screwed you over.

Ditto Bernie

Ditto Elizabeth Warren

Ditto Mayor Pete

And in the so far less-likely second tier:

Ditto Amy Klobuchar

Ditto Andrew Yang

Ditto the billionaires Bloomberg and Steyer

Ditto Julian Castro

Ditto Corey Booker

Except Tulsi. Move to Canada for Tulsi. #present

This also goes for all of the above or unmentioned  as possible vice-presidential candidates.

You and I and anyone else we can find on our dirtiest or, well, very less than unclean street corners, need to do this because if we don’t we will be losing A LOT more than the election.

Which is a lot LESS than has been lost already.

Elvis Presley – “Clean Up Your Own Backyard”