And Even Older

Old Guy

Okay, I wrote three pieces about becoming an ornery old person. Here is one more focusing on some of the changes that occur as one ages which, come to think of it, pisses me off.

1. Forever Cold

Now that I'm old, I'm always cold. It seems like I just can't warm up until the summer. I'm looking forward to Global Warming. Sure that will make water scarce, raise the sea level and bring fire ants up north, but at least I wont need a blanket when I sit in a chair in November.

2. The winter is going to kill me.

Incessant cold brings on an unrelenting fear. Each year, I used to look forward to the holiday season. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday even though we are celebrating the annihilation of native peoples. Today, I wonder if I will make it past the season without succumbing. I can't escape the feeling that the winter is actively trying to kill me.

3. AARP enrollment forms.

Some time after fifty, you'll start getting American Association of Retired People, (AARP), snail mail. It will be full of literature, important to seniors, which mostly amounts to lobbying the government to pay for more things. There are articles chronicling horror stories of elderly people having to make "a decision between medication or food." They'll also offer discounts on restaurants like Applebee's. With nearly 40 million people in membership, it's no wonder Social Security is going bankrupt. Their magazine offers financial advice as well as articles on the latest breakthroughs in gout. I haven't joined just yet even though I get weekly reminders in my mailbox. I think the primary function of the US Postal Service is to disseminate AARP signup forms.

4. Odd foods.

I find as I age, I like strange foods. I haven't got to a point were I have a bowl of hard candy by my favorite chair just yet, but the other day I bought whole milk. Yesterday, I had a craving for black licorice. I also feel like I should start cooking with lard. Now that the holidays are upon us, I would like to try mint jelly and lamb and maybe a wedge of cheddar with my apple pie.

5. The pills

When you get older, you must be careful what you say to your doctor. You see, today they have a pill for everything. If you pee too often at night, if your blood pressure is anything above 120/80 or if you sweat too much, they got a pill for you. They probably have a pill if your shit stinks. Doctor's love to prescribe pills because HMOs pay them to "manage" your many prescriptions. I wish they would help me manage all the meds I take. I have at least three different colors of pills I pop for various conditions afflicting me. One of them helps with memory, but I forgot which it is. If there is an apocalypse and the supply chain is disrupted, prescription pill poppers like me will be bunned big time.

6. Knowing Depends are out there.

Commercials for adult diapers always unnerve me. It's bad enough I have to shake extra long when I pee to ensure I don't leave a "water" stain in my pants, but knowing that the inevitable conclusion is that I will eventually unwittingly piss myself is horrible. I'm not ready to go back to diapers.

7. Hair.

When I shave, I take extra time to ensure I don't miss a spot. Old dudes always have stray facial or excessively long nose hairs. I take time to trim my eyebrows which for five decades required no maintenance at all. Now they grow like weeds. I'm reluctant to tell my doctor because he'll prescribe a pill that will slow down eyebrow growth in "four out of five patients." Eventually, I'll have to trim the hair growing from my ears. It's very sad.

8. Nostril stalactites.

Nothing says old fart louder than a loogie dangling from the nose. I'm constantly using my phone to check my nostril status. My wife, Christine, thinks I'm taking selfies, but I wouldn't dream of doing that. I took one selfie my whole life. The last thing I want to chronicle is my salt and pepper hair morphing into more salt than pepper.

9. Accepting that someday my gun will no longer fire.

It's gonna happen. Someday, the last bit of testosterone will drain from my metabolism and the driving force motivating me for decades will come to an end, after which I'll take up Sudokus. When my last nutshot comes, I won't take it in stride. Sure, it might be nice not to be constantly under pressure to further the human race, but I kind of like it right now. I read an AARP article which claimed sex in your sixties was way better than in your twenties. The author wrote that familiarity with your long time partner and not fearing pregnancy makes senior sex more fun. I'm not looking forward to having to take a pill to get a boner not to mention gravity eventually winning out in its relentless war with my ass.

10. Early to bed.

I already go to sleep at nine in the evening and often get up by five in the morning. Most seniors can't sleep in. I don't mind rising early because I can always pawn that off as a morning person thing. I simply cannot go to bed any earlier than I already do. It's especially hard in the summer when it's still light outside by the time I get drowsy. At least the summer isn't trying to kill me.

Oh yeah, one other thing. They tell you the results the minute you wake up from a colonoscopy. You don't even get a chance to wipe your butt before they start informing you as to what they snipped out of you anus. Although I hate waiting for test results, I would prefer a little down time after an invasive procedure.

It's a challenge not to be an ass pain as you age, but in the end you have to accept whatever life tosses your way. Getting old sucks, but it's better than the alternative.

Media Mitt

Mitt Romney

Recently, USA Today reprinted a blog post by Mitt Romney which originally appeared in his senatorial campaign website after Trump accused the media of proffering fake news. Romney acknowledged that the media is often biased and left leaning before unloading the most obvious response that a free press is essential for a thriving democracy. He brought up the First Amendment while chastising Trump by writing "no American president has ever before vilified the American press." USA Today jumped on the opportunity to highlight a republican refuting Trump's latest attack on the media as "the enemy of the people." No one could possibly deny Romney's obvious assertions about free speech, so publically palatable, but Romney speaks quite differently in private. In 2012, while at an exclusive campaign fundraiser in Boca Raton, Florida, a bartender secretly recorded Romney then leaked the clip to the liberal magazine, Mother Jones, a month before the election. Romney said,

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims. These are people who pay no income tax, and so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Damage control was performed by Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan who asserted that Romney's word choice was poor. President Obama was quick to point out that the 47% included senior citizens and disabled veterans. As a multimillionaire who paid only 13% in taxes, Romney looked like a first class asshole as he attempted to distanced himself from the overt blunder. What do you expect from a guy who transports the family dog on the roof of the car while on vacation. No one was really surprised when he lost his presidential bid to Obama.

Back then, Romney handled the situation like a seasoned politician. He presented a different face publically than privately even though his basic statement was essentially true. Few media outlets refuted the figure that almost half the "taxpayers" pay nothing at all. In fact, it is worse than what Romney had alluded to. Upwards to 40% of the people filing taxes, get more money back than they pay out through the Earned Income Credit (EIC) program. EIC is a tax break for people who don't actually pay taxes. It's a means to give low income individuals government assistance. The limit on EIC before Obama was $12,100 which was raised to $39,900 for a family of four. That move exonerated almost half the taxpayers from paying anything. Now, the government pays people to live here.

Romney paid only 13% in taxes one year because our tax code allows all of us to write off up to half of our Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) to charity. Romney gave $24 million away to charity dropping his tax burden well below the rest of us. Obama famously wanted to get rid of this tax loophole making a comparison between $100 given by a lawyer versus the same donated by a bus driver. He said the bus driver deserves the tax break, but the lawyer doesn't. Truth be known, the bus driver likely doesn't give anything at all. In fact, it's well documented that democrats donate the least to charity and are the worst tippers.

Now, we have a senior White House correspondent, Jim Costa of CNN, "challenging" the president that the migrant caravan is "not an invasion" as if Costa's role is to debate the President instead of asking questions. When President Trump had enough and instructed an intern to retrieve the microphone, Costa refused to relinquish the mic, but instead "karate chopped" the woman's arm in attempts to deflect her. The media widely reported that the White House doctored the video which clearly shows Costa's hand come down on the young woman's arm. Much less contact than that would get you and me an assault and battery charge levied against us, but Costa just lost his press pass. CNN sued on free speech and due process grounds to get it back. A judge granted CNN's request of a temporary order without ruling on the underlying case.

What the White House reporters are all vying for is the all important cross shot which offers an extended air time. The goal is to have the cameras capture the reporter asking the question, not just the respondent answering. The best way to secure a cross shot is to ask a lengthy inquiry that pisses off the President or the Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The media outlets reward reporters who tangle with Trump because they think their viewers prefer that; after all, it's Trump we're talking about here, a President who likes to call people names. White House press briefings have been turned into performances as reporters shout out, interrupt and in extreme cases assault an intern who is just doing her job. Offending correspondents are rewarded with cable news contracts for their manipulative behavior which has nothing to do with free speech or news reporting. Instead, journalists are becoming the news.

FDR's Pool
New York Times, June 2, 1933

Back in September of 2018 Ronica Cleary, a political strategist and former White House correspondent, wrote a compelling article for USA Today chronicling her experiences in White House press briefings. She was so appalled by her colleagues lack of respect, enormous egos and the "allure of celebrity" that she quit her dream job after her first child was born. Her article is buried by search engines, presumable for going against the accepted narrative. Cleary had trouble getting a seat in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, which was once a pool installed by FDR, when she was nine months pregnant because her colleagues didn't want to relinquish their choice seats which afforded them the best chance of air time during briefings.

There's no doubt President Trump doesn't employ extensive advisory editing when commenting on social media. His sentiments often get him in trouble because a vocal minority is more concerned with liking the President than what the president actually does. Friends and relatives of mine are suitably pissed off at me for "defending the President." I'm sure they've rendered their opinion of this post without reading this far. I vehemently defended President Clinton against impeachment back in 1998 because I felt it unimportant to like someone to support their agenda. I may not be fond of the occupant, but I will always respect the Office. Today, the democrats have seized control of the Congress even though that was historically predictable. Now the media reports on the possibility of impeaching Trump when democrats take over in January. The news outlets also reported extensively on a "blue wave" that they were sure was to come with the mid term elections. It never surfaced.

The republican seats gained in the Senate were also unanticipated as well as underreported. The most salient metric, preened from the mid term elections, was that every Democratic senator who voted against confirming Bret Kavanagh lost their seat. The same thing happened in 1998 during midterm elections after Clinton was impeached by a Republican Congress. Democrats gained five seats in the house, narrowing the Republican majority. The sordid, soft-core details in the Starr Report, coauthored by Bret Kavanagh, pissed off the American people who turned out in record numbers during the subsequent midterm election. The last time an incumbent party gained seats in the sixth year of a presidency was in 1822. Apparently, most Americans are rightfully unenthused by taxpayer funded witch hunts.

Federal judges have blocked Trump's executive order to eliminate Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA, an Obama era executive order, on grounds of "racial animus," or in other words, Trump is a bigot. The same tactic was employed by federal judges to temporarily block the ban on immigration from selected Muslim countries until the Supreme Court put an end to obstructing the administration based on the subjective evaluation of Trump's likability. Today, unelected, biased, federal judges are routinely obstructing the President, and no one seems all that concerned.

Is the media really the "enemy of the people?" The network news outlet's highbrow response is often wrapped in the First Amendment much like Mitt Romney's blog post. Journalists like to portray themselves as the keepers of free speech as they report on all the news they deem fit to print. The media is, first off, a for profit business that will do whatever it takes to snatch a chair at the table, even if doing so means a pregnant women must stand. Reporters should heed the warnings of history. The American people are the most well-informed populace on the planet, sometimes because of the media, but all too often in spite of the manner in which the news is reported today.

I, for one, think we should get rid of the lot of them and bring back FDR's pool.

When Writers Went Wrong

 

A friend and I were exchanging insights on recent books we read when she brought up Night Film: A Novel, a murder mystery, investigated by a divorced, middle aged, veteran reporter named Scott, and his two young sidekicks, a man and a woman. My friend loved the book, but she pointed out a few oddities. The author, Marisha Pessl, penned a scene when the protagonist first meets the young woman. Scott blathers on about her lipstick and makeup as well as lengthy commentary concerning her clothes. When he meets the young man, he elaborated on how gorgeous he is. My friend claimed,

“Men don’t say that.”

I had to agree. Sometimes authors relate a little too much to their protagonists and tend to make them like themselves. Male authors make female characters unrealistically promiscuous or aggressive while female authors make men impossibly sensitive or introspective.

My father, a well read, high school educated factory worker, was proud that he had the lowest membership number in the local public library. From an early age, he embraced books as his companions, preferring their company over a night out with his friends. When his buds came knocking at the door, my father would be comfortably seated in a chair with some good fiction in hand as he would tell my grandmother to say he wasn’t home. He much preferred reading above anything else in life.

My father never let all that reading educate him though. Like most blue collar, unionized workers in New England, he would often espouse mildly racist or misogynistic ideas. At first when I was young, I just went along with it. After college and a stint in the military, I saw things differently. When my father retired and got clear of his job, he saw the world differently as well.

But for most of his life he was fond of saying that woman authors couldn’t write believable dialog. I’m sure with his vast experience reading bestsellers, he likely came across a book or two in which a woman wrote some crappy dialog. It is in moments like this that the sum total of one’s being is measured against the steadily increasing yardstick of civility. So some woman authors gummed up some scenes. That doesn’t mean, as my father often decreed, that all woman authors can’t write good dialog.

My father would thoughtfully explain his point of view to anyone proffering a novel written by a woman. The librarians at our local library would remain silent as my father rejected their reading suggestions based on the biology of the author. He knew that it angered them and to a degree embarrassed me, but that was his opinion, and back then you were entitled to believe as you wished no matter how ignorant it was.

I thought of my father’s sentiments when reading J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Specifically, in Goblet of Fire when Harry and Ron are using Hermione as a go between during a spat in which the two were not speaking to each other. Men are not well versed in the art of cold shoulder. My mother graduated from Harvard with a degree in Ignoring People in the Same Room with honors. She taught my oldest sister so well that for my entire adult life one of them was always mad at me. Sadly, Rowling herself said that she went by "J.K." to mask her identity as a woman because many people don't like reading female authors.

Men are unconcerned with drama and will almost never act on emotion. We're mostly interested in more rudimentary things like women's anatomy and how long it's been since the last time we got any. Eve Plumb and Maureen McCormick of Brady Bunch fame hated each other on and off screen leading to the iconic line,

"Marcia, Marcia, Marcia."

 

Fans of The Brady Bunch probably are unaware that the onscreen conflict was in fact inspired by a real, ongoing spat between the two. The feud started when Eve grew jealous that Maureen’s character was romantically linked with teen heartthrob Desi Arnaz Jr. In contrast, the Brady brothers, Peter and Greg, were best buds off-screen. As proof of their lasting friendship, Christopher Knight and Barry Williams attended each other’s wedding ceremonies. So it’s doubtful that Ron would be so jealous of Harry that he wouldn’t speak to him. Just doesn't happen.

When I heard lyrics from Blank Space by Taylor Swift in which the popular singer wrote,

 “Boys only want love if it’s torture.”

I thought of my father’s assertion concerning women penning dialog. Boys are much more sophomoric than Taylor’s assessment. In fact, drama is just what we don’t want. Guys are simpletons who respond mechanically to biological coding. If men got involved in drama the human race would be one of those dead end branches on the evolutionary tree like the dodo bird which got nixed by nature. I suspect that Taylor Swift is a hugely complicated woman based on her immense success and subsequent wealth. I also bet she has stuffed animals in her bedroom.

Recently, I was surfing through the thousands of cable channels looking for something to mindlessly watch when I stumbled across an episode of Twilight written by Stephenie Meyer. Edward, a vampire, and Jacob, a werewolf, were both discussing in depth their feelings about Bella as she slept. This ran against my evolutionary instincts as a man. Two dude bros interested in the same girl are not going to tell each other how they feel. They’re more likely going to discuss what seasonal sport activity is currently featured on ESPN. I know they're both superhuman, mystical beings and all, but I think that would make them supernaturally horny, not sensitive soy boys blathering about their emotional state. I would guess that if the two rivals were alone then the vampire would comment excessively about Bella's menstrual cycle and the werewolf would express his dominance at a particular sexual position. That would capture the true jerk nature of youthful men.

Much later in life, my father learned to appreciate people for their individual uniqueness, although he never shed his negative opinion of female authors. Back then, people were not inclined to trigger on ignorant ideas as tolerance, even for stupidity, was a measure of civility. When I'm taking in a movie and evaluating the efficacy of the female characters, I think less about who the author is and instead apply the Bechdel test, that is,

1. The movie has to have at least two women in it,
2. who talk to each other,
3. about something besides a man.

The test evaluates the depth of the story, not merely the tally of actors by biology. Today, the focus is getting more roles for strong female protagonists without ensuring that such roles are relevant. While watching Charlize Theron mindlessly kick copious ass in Atomic Blonde which is based on a spy novel by Kurt Johnstad, I noted in one scene as the protagonist struts on the streets of a nameless European city that she exclaims to a male cohort,

"I don't trust you as far as I can throw you."

Clever dialog unfolding a story is unnecessary in film today where computer graphics enthralls our eyes while bypassing our ears. Watching the trailer for DeadPool, Ryan Reynolds wrote and delivered this line,

"We have to go home now."

That's dialog worthy of a movie snippet designed to make us want to part with an Andrew Jackson? My all time favorite stinker of a movie is Good Will Hunting, which everyone loved before it was revealed that the film was a project led by that fat bastard Harvey Weinstein when he worked for Miramax. The bar scene when Will mixes it up with a student over an article they both read always struck me as inane. The dude says,

"You’ll be serving my kids fries in a drive through on our way to a skiing trip." Will retorts, "That may be, but least I won’t be unoriginal."

This is a perfect example of what is called "stilted dialog," a common screenwriting criticism. I've written the only negative critique of Good Will Hunting which is often flagged by websites that inspect text for plagiarism. I speculate that students assigned to write a review of that movie, farted out by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, are copying my sentiments.

Writing well is a dying art. It's fading from our life as did many things made by craftsman long gone. As their skill was replaced by automation and superficial reproduction, we eventually accepted what we had as all that there is. My father was a skilled silversmith whose life work involved crafting intricate patterns for silverware that no one wants today. And as such, the demand for quality storytelling is fading as computer graphics with action packed sequences take center stage.

Bad writing does not discriminate, but eventually, no one will know the difference.