Well, now that Jimmy Kimmel is back on TV and all the conservative affiliate stations refusing to air his show have backed down from their “crusade,” all is well with the world.

Right?

Isn’t it?

I mean, even one of my favorite contemporary writer-directors, Paul Thomas Anderson, has a new movie out in….theatres. 

No, I haven’t seen One Battle After Another yet, but the NY Times calls it exciting, goofy and a deadly serious big screen nod….to complacency, to oppression, to tyranny…A carnivalesque epic about good and evil, violence and power, inalienable rights and the fight against injustice…

So count me in!

Also, because they say IT’S ALSO  a…LOVE STORY.   

And I love… love stories.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Way We Were, La La Land…

Never mind that not one of them has a happy ending.  At least by traditional standards. 

They’re satisfying. 

Because they’re both real AND larger than life at the same time.

An escape from the world AND a pink hued reflection of the world.

Cue Blanche DuBois and her paper lantern so the harsh glow from the lightbulb of reality can at the very least be partially…diffused.

I was listening to one of my music/life heroes – singer/activist Joan Baez – speak on Nicole Wallace’s podcast, The Best People (Note: Bad title but good program) about the events of the day.    Yes, even she’s scared and no, even she’s not “optimistic,” but her advice to us is that we might not be able to turn the tide from disaster but what each of us can do is save some fishes. 

Meaning, pick one thing.  One issue.  One thought.  One action.  And do it.  You make a ripple.  You make a difference.  You perhaps change or save a life in a way you may never exactly know.  But, well, as a writer I KNOW that it happens, and in moments where you least expect it.

It might not seem like traditional, happy ending to all of the problems we face right now. But if traditional means something out of biblical lore or the soft glow of a faux 1950s that never existed, well, I’d rather be a radical or an atheist or both right now.

Wouldn’t you? (Note: That was rhetorical).

But guess what?

So would my students.  Through no prompting from me, the majority of my writers this semester are writing about hell, earthly dystopia and supernatural problem solving to both.

Can’t imagine why, can you?

But fear not, I do know how each of their fictional stories end.  And while not one of them have that traditional happy ending, like most memorable film and TV stories, their endings are more than…satisfying.

Which at the moment, is not only a personal victory but perhaps even a societal one.

At least on the horizon.

Joan Baez – “We Shall Overcome”