How did music go from That to This in two generations? Grandpa could play a guitar, but the grandson can only play video games? Is that what happened? Two hundred years from now people are going to still remember Louis Armstrong, Led Zeppelin, and Bob Dylan, but nobody is going to care about Grand Theft Auto or Madden…
Enough with these “icon” and “diva” labels. Anybody whose 15 Minutes of Fame stretches to 30 is woo-woo-woo. Hate to hurt a youngster’s feelings, but we had fifty for every one of your ones, and your One couldn’t break our Top 40. We may need your help for some Apple gizmo, but for artistic creativity, call us Sir, call us Ma’am, and be humble about it, because we were born when music was on the mountaintop and you were born when music went off the cliff…
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Political Correctness
It’s hard to tolerate the way youngsters abuse the word “intolerance.” My generation did the same thing with “discrimination.” The words were just minding their own business, just another word in Webster’s, and then pow, people strapped a meaning on them like a suicide vest, when all they wanted to do was just be in the dictionary with all the other useful words.
I’ve been tired of Political Correctness since it started, with the first President Bush. Like so many good intentions it got perverted quickly. Anything that gets in the way of telling the truth will never lead to freedom, or growth, or change. Last year this young man comes drifting around by the back dock, with his sagging pants, said, “Yo, Pops, you be hirin’?” and I was thinking, Yo, you be off to a bad start. If you want to wear saggy pants, that’s your choice, but it’s hard to hold a job when half your hands are holding up your waistband. But with PC, what could I say? Guarantee he’s still out there, unemployed, and mad at the world, because nobody can say what’s obvious – he’s his problem.
I’m tired of beards. One of the consequences of Political Correctness was a cultural castration of the only group that was fair game for scapegoating, white males, but looking like Abe Lincoln doesn’t make you a rail splitter. If you need some cultural validation, let me help you out with a boom-boom-boom: 1) the Normandy Invasion, the single greatest, ballsiest, riskiest logistical feat ever done in the history of the world, followed shortly by; 2) America’s NASA program, where they start with little beginner rockets based on shooting from one army to another, and perfect it to get man to the moon, and back, and do it in under ten years; 3) and maybe greater than all, The 1964 Civil Rights Act, where for the first time in the history of humanity, the Have’s diluted their power for the good of the Have Nots, not by having a gun to their head, but by having an ache in their conscience.
Shave your beard, keep your beard, it’s up to you, but hold your head up. You come from quality stock. Make sure your boys know that. Make sure your daughters don’t settle for less or raise less.
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Now That I Think About It…
…enough with Erectile Dysfunction commercials! Give me the days of yore when the only family awkward commercials were for tampons.
Anybody find it hard to use a credit card? You cross a state line and all of a sudden the fraud software kicks in and you wish you’d just brought cash.
Tell you something else that is creeping me out, watch the body language between the President and the First Lady. As somebody whose marriage pulled her into an uncomfortable life once told me, “Don’t!”
I’d like to go to the movies again, but they don’t seem to want me there. Enough with superheroes movies. Good lord, enough with the special effects! Technology has made this the Time of Nerds, but how ‘bout the rest of us, who actually relate with people? I want actual humans, with strengths and weaknesses, who have people to people dialogue. Have car chases, shoot stuff up, but talk first, and say something meaningful.
People going slow in the left lane bothers me. If they were texting it would be dangerous, but at least they’d have an excuse. When you finally pass them up you realize they’ve just got a serious case of clueless.
Ever notice how adults with the least qualification for parenting often have the most children?
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Journalism Has Gone The Same Route As Music
I hate how journalism went to the whorehouse. When I was a young man, thinking about the glories and dangers of going into the military, I knew that I was not wired to just go where sent. I’d only go if I believed in the cause…and if I believed, I’d risk my life for it. I did some thinking and decided that I’d risk my life for the American Revolution, for the Civil War, and for WWII. It was a shock one day, waiting in line at a grocery store, when I saw a National Enquirer, and I asked myself whether I thought dying for Freedom of The Press rated, and my answer was yes, even for the National Enquirer.
Some of you remember Edward R. Murrow, most of us remember Walter Cronkite and Watergate. We’ve seen what healthy journalism does for a democracy. Now look at our choices. On Obama’s first run Fox realized that there were ratings and money in playing the old-as-humanity Us vs Them game on America. As they went right others went left, and who is left to man the middle and speak to reasonable people? Sometimes what these networks do to journalism reminds me of what Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker did to Christianity in the heyday of TV evangelists.
True journalism, something worth living for, or dying for, is all about mining for truth. It’s a noble profession, and I don’t know where to find it anymore…
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Sticks ‘n Stones May Break My Bones But Words Will Never Harm Me
As someone who grew up in a household and community where honesty was the rule I am just pick-an-adjective at what I see in Washington. If Kellyanne Conway was a meteorologist I’d rather just stick my arm out the window to see if it was raining. I’m all for giving the new administration a chance, but how about a little something in return, like basic honesty. We’ll follow people we trust, but you lie like little children who don’t know who was throwing the ball inside the house. Every time she talks I find myself watching her nose.
And hey, you in the Big House, enough with the tweeting! You’re not some millennial on your first job; you’re a grown man with the most important job in America. Put the damn phone down and get after it.
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This edition of Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories is brought to you by Eighty-one, where we’re plenty happy to be in America and wish it well. Uncle P can be reached at 81creativity@gmail.com.
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