patriotism – notes from a chair

I tried to figure out the right Memorial Day mix of pop culture and politics to opinionate on this weekend. But try as I might nothing was working.

Until Bruce Springsteen did the job for me.

They don’t call him the Boss for nothin’!

Singer-songwriters can do that. But when they’re also the superstar frontman for their own superstar band, and have just begun an international tour, well, that’s even better.

Meaning not only can they get a message out with talent and charisma but they have a humongous platform from which to do it from.

It’s difficult to live your entire life in a country that has always aspired to liberty and justice for ALL – even in decades where it has fallen far short of them – and watch it being slowly dismantled, one principle at a time, by a man who seems to operate primarily on vengeance, rage, pathological self-glorification and bottom line personal grift numbering in the many millions, and now billions, and counting.

But here we are.

One could ask the question, how much money do you need once you reach a billion plus, but let’s not. Because we all know that by the time you surpass a billion it’s not about the planes, cars, yachts, houses and hookers – it’s about the power.

As Mel Brooks once famously joked in his 1981 film, The History of the World, Part I: It’s good to be the King!

Though history and literature show us that while it might be for, well, a time, for most Kings it’s a very mixed bag. And for many it doesn’t end well. At all.

What’s that old expression? Oh, right –

Power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I generally don’t like old expressions but in this case and in this country it feels apt.

Or as I said not so famously to my husband this week, I feel like we’re in the beginning of the fourth act of a five-act Shakespearean-like tragedy where the King will be doomed after destroying parts of his country but, like all great plays, we’re not yet sure what His doom will look like or exactly how it will play out.

I know that might sound like nasty, wishful thinking but I am absolutely sure of one fact: After a lifetime of movies, books and miniseries, I can recognize a doomed, over-the-top main character in a larger-than-life modern-day tragedy a million miles away. And so could any of you with a brain.

But what most of us are unable to do is to sing and communicate it as well as Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen.

Memorial Day is a time to honor those who died while serving in the United States military for sacrifices made in defending the freedoms our country has tried to always stand for. So I can’t think of anything more patriotic in May/June 2025 than to post two clips of The Boss at a recent concert in Manchester, England. He encapsulates what it means be a real patriot by putting himself front and center on the firing line of dissent in order to push back against what seems to so many of us to be our first aspiring Oval Office dictator.

Here are the opening five minutes of his remarks from the stage:

And here are some highlights of him and the quintessentially American rock ‘n roll E Street Band.

Let freedom ring, indeed.

What do you say about someone – or something – on its 245^th birthday? I’ve been stumped other than to say –

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!!!

Which begs the question: what do you get a 245 year-old? Though it seems to me we actually gave the United States its birthday gift months ago by voting out #45 and installing as #46 someone who none other than Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) once called as good a man as God ever created.

That would be Joe Biden.

I, for one, don’t go in for the God stuff as it relates to human beings, or actually anything at all. Still, it seems like a universally appropriate compliment. Joe’s the kind of guy no one can truly bring themselves to hate or proclaim as evil, or even bad.

The best they can do is label him slow or incompetent or a puppet that is controlled by a vast left wing conspiracy of gays and Jews (Note: That’s ME!) with space lasers and indoctrination pamphlets.

Or they might say he’s at the mercy of gaggles of black and brown people bent on erasing white culture and bankrupting the country with endless financial reparations based on critical race theory.

But personally evil or bad – nah!

Considering these times vs. #45’s times, that’s one HUGE step towards reuniting these United States. And as we’ve heard Joe say so often by now – there is nothing this country can’t accomplish when we do it together and that it’s never a good bet to bet against the United States.

So —

LET’S HEAR IT FOR JOE!!!!

Well, I’m cheering, anyway.

In less than six months he’s taken a country closed down and paralyzed by a worldwide pandemic to a place where almost 70% of the population will soon be vaccinated (Note: Probably in the next few weeks). Cities have opened up, millions of jobs have been added since he’s taken office AND he signed a $1.9 trillion economic aid package into law in March that has rushed money out the door to the citizens who need it most.

What’s been the principle criticism on all of this from his opposition? Well, it’s that all those extended unemployment benefits are discouraging people from returning to work.

I don’t know about any of you, but NO ONE I know is dying to get back into an office, with or without masks, and it has nothing to do with laziness or unemployment checks.

It’s actually more like they don’t want to get sick and perhaps actually die (Note: Delta Variant, fear of the unmasked if you’re medically vulnerable) or they can’t get the child care of elder care they need to take care of those in their family that they’ve been taking care of.

Still, let’s not make this political, tempting as it is to do so on this Fourth of July in particular.

Instead, let’s consider that our 245-year history is rooted in our disagreements – political, judicial, social and way too many more to mention.

On the downside this week – Cosby’s out of jail on a technicality and the US Supreme Court says it’s okay to repeal voting rights in states with laws where the historically disenfranchised in mostly non-white areas face additional obstacles to vote.

On the other hand, at least some (and one in particular) racist cops AND Capitol Hill cop killers are getting convicted of serious crimes. Not to mention, even large-scale crime rings masquerading as hospitality businesses run by former presidents and their family members and enablers are being chased down and tried for grand larceny and likely worse.

In addition to that, my congressman, Adam Schiff (D-CA), and a Republican politician whose name I could never imagine uttering out loud without wanting to vomit… Liz Cheney (WY-R) are teaming up with a bunch of others to get to the bottom of the January 6^th 2021 insurrection.

You might not be optimistic but I will remind you that people scoffed back in 1980 when Barbra Streisand and the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb teamed up to do her Guilty album. Yet it is still her biggest selling album internationally out of the near SEVENTY she has released to this day and netted them a Grammy AND a string of Billboard hit singles.

So suck on that awhile, America!!

Of course, I josh, but only slightly. Because in America it is the unlikeliest of pairings and the unlikeliest of people that have led us out of the dark times into brighter days.

On the other hand, it is also the likeliest of people that we knew would lead us straight down into hell that did so, and then often down further into a rabbit hole of what felt like certain and eternal Armageddon.

Or so it seemed at the time.

As we writers know, these are the consistent narrative choices that await us every time we sit down to face the blank, or partially filled page. Dark vs. light, surefire damnation vs. as good of a man (or woman) that God ever created.

What was it Martin Luther King, Jr. once said?

The arc of the moral universe is long…but it bends towards justice….

In our 246^th year, let’s hope so.

Barbra Streisand & Barry Gibb – “Guilty”

notes from a chair

Tag Archives: patriotism

Be your own Boss

Happy Birthday America!