We're Going Backwards

Late on Friday nights when I’m safely home (admittedly after a few beers) I like to play music videos on the DVD player. Often they're 80s videos, some are hard rock, i.e. AC/DC (which annoys the neighbors because you have to play those loud), or sometimes just a few “chill music” vids because I need to calm down.

However, one of my favorites is Lionel Richie's “All Night Long.” Invariably though this depresses me. It reminds me how we are going backwards nowadays.

The song is about how you can be so strongly moved by something (music) that you just have to keep going. Party all night long. The dancers wear very colorful outfits, surely meant to make a subtle point, and are multi-racial. The dancing includes a wide range of styles with various mixtures of couples.

This was back in the 80s where it was slowly becoming common and acceptable to see a black man dance with a white woman, a white man tango with an Asian female, two males breakdancing together. It made it seem like things were progressing to where we could all live together in harmony.

Then Trump came along and infested the White House. 

Although we knew there were a lot of racists in our country, they at least had become reticent to express it in public. Unlike the old days where Jim Crow was normalized, racism had become a social deviation, something kept quietly amongst a person's cohort or family. Not something you could bring out in public without facing public derision.

Trump enabled racists. Emboldened them. He has tried to make it acceptable in polite society, and criticized those who challenge him as weak-wristed Libtards or overly PC elites.

Thanks to him, we see an increase in right-wing, racist organizations, demonstrators who are unafraid of public shame chanting abusive, racist slogans and public displays of offensive comments to anyone who looks foreign or of a different race than Anglo-Saxon whites. Even the Republican Party seems to have embraced the Trump vitriol and become largely the party of white males.

Although we've had problems with police interactions with civilians, as I noted in my blogs “Tips for Tourists” and “Police reform Part I & II” I don't think we've seen this level of police violence toward minorities since before the 70s. It's as if they are acting as Trump's agents of violence that he often spews at his pep, excuse me, "campaign" rallies.

I long for the days when we could dance the night away regardless of our race, religion, political affiliation or whatever.  

Sure, the video is a make-believe world, but it was a world where people lived together peacefully, where differences were immaterial, where people could dance together in harmony. A world we need to find again.

Ahh, James Thurber

Okay, yes, this is a rerun from August 2019. However, racism, misogyny and hatred of others has gotten worse. It's because the guy in the White House (I don't like to use his name) has made it all acceptable. He's made it so that people who would have been ashamed to express or act in such a manner find it okay to come out of hiding. In the 80s it seemed like we were making so much progress and now it's like we're set back decades. So it is worth sounding the alarm again if it might help slow down this devolution. Make America tolerant again.

 

 

We're Going Backwards: A trumpian rerun

 

(With the new Orange regime taking power, it seemed appropriate to rerun a blog that showed how his previous reign of terror was taking us backward.)

 

  Late on Friday nights when I’m safely home (admittedly after a few beers) I like to play music videos on the DVD player. Often they're 80s videos, some are hard rock, i.e. AC/DC (which annoys the neighbors because you have to play those loud), or sometimes just a few “chill music” vids because I need to calm down.

However, one of my favorites is Lionel Richie's “All Night Long.” Invariably though this depresses me. It reminds me how we are going backwards nowadays.

The song is about how you can be so strongly moved by something (music) that you just have to keep going. Party all night long. The dancers wear very colorful outfits, surely meant to make a subtle point, and are multi-racial. The dancing includes a wide range of styles with various mixtures of couples.

This was back in the 80s where it was slowly becoming common and acceptable to see a black man dance with a white woman, a white man tango with an Asian female, two males breakdancing together. It made it seem like things were progressing to where we could all live together in harmony.

Then Trump came along and infested the White House. 

Although we knew there were a lot of racists in our country, they at least had become reticent to express it in public. Unlike the old days where Jim Crow was normalized, racism had become a social deviation, something kept quietly amongst a person's cohort or family. Not something you could bring out in public without facing public derision.

Trump enabled racists. Emboldened them. He has tried to make it acceptable in polite society, and criticized those who challenge him as weak-wristed Libtards or overly PC elites.

Thanks to him, we see an increase in right-wing, racist organizations, demonstrators who are unafraid of public shame chanting abusive, racist slogans and public displays of offensive comments to anyone who looks foreign or of a different race than Anglo-Saxon whites. Even the Republican Party seems to have embraced the Trump vitriol and become largely the party of white males.

Although we've had problems with police interactions with civilians, as I noted in my blogs “Tips for Tourists” and “Police reform Part I & II” I don't think we've seen this level of police violence toward minorities since before the 70s. It's as if they are acting as Trump's agents of violence that he often spews at his pep, excuse me, "campaign" rallies.

I long for the days when we could dance the night away regardless of our race, religion, political affiliation or whatever.  

Sure, the video is a make-believe world, but it was a world where people lived together peacefully, where differences were immaterial, where people could dance together in harmony. A world we need to find again.

 Ahhh, James Thurber.

During the Orange One's (I hate using his name) first reign of terror, racism and hatred became more common. However, it was subtle. People still worried that if they openly expressed racist views/ideas, they'd be ostracized. As his time in office continued, it slowly became more overt, largely because people looked at him as a role model. Now, there is no restraint at all. Racism and hatred toward those who might be different is all out in the open. Because he got reelected despite his obvious flaws, people believe there will be no personal harm to them. As he dismantles any vestiges of diversity and inclusion, it will become worse. That's why it's important for those of us who see racism as evil, to not remain quiet. We need to push it back into the closet where it belongs (I think it's impossible to get rid of it completely). So this is one of my ways to try to claw society back to morality. I will continue to use my blogs and social media posts to sound the alarm. Join me.

The Swift Years

In colonial times, a popular way to spread the news and your opinion was through pamphlets. One of the most famous American pamphleteers was Thomas Paine and his renowned “Common Sense” pamphlets. He was instrumental in informing the public about why they should resist the British and embrace a new way. That radical liberal idea was that they could be a country not ruled by a god-ordained king, but by free thinking men.

In the 80s I decided to embrace this form of writing. I started publishing “Swift's Eye.” Named after Jonathan Swift, an English satirist who probably did a few pamphlets himself besides writing clever books like “Gulliver's Travels.”

So while I scribbled witty satirical short stories and labored on numerous blockbuster books, I took time to pen some clever and biting political rhetoric and put them in a handy, user-friendly form. A paper pamphlet.

As a side note, I thought I was really clever because part of their charm was that I tried different folding techniques for the pamphlet. Most were fold in half, then in half again, but I once tried a tri-fold, often set a page up that required it be completely unfolded and often ran typed across folds. Okay, it might not have been that clever.

I created them on a typewriter so I always had to have a mock up in order to know how far to type and whether I needed to turn the page upside down to type the next page (because of the fold). There were some pages I used what is called “press type” as you have to press it down with a special tool. It's a real slow process and you had to use something to make sure it was level. So this pamphlet was pretty labor intensive. Nowadays it would be so easy with the use of a computer, but back then about the only people with those were engineers, computer programmers and a few rich people.

Like the colonial time pamphleteers, Swift Eye was political. I mainly attacked Reagan, but often had something about the environment or other hot topics of the time. Of course, as a satirical short story writer, most of the time it was funny or humorous. My favorite one was the one that made fun of Reagan's wife penchant to turn to astrology for answers.

In total, I think I only had five to six issues of Swift’s Eye. I liked doing them, but because they were so labor intensive and I never thought they made as big of an impact as I desired, I lost interest in the mode. Instead, I just hunkered down and put more energy in putting the same ideas and concepts in my short stories. Many of those got published and to keep them alive I included them on my web site so they’ll live on in the electronic world for years.

James Thurber would have approved of my pamphlets because not only were there clever articles and statements, but many interesting images. Maybe not as good as his cartoons, but still fun for the reader.  Yes, you guessed it. This blog not only acts as a way for me to put my pamphlets in the electronic universe, but it’s also a way to look fondly back at the 80s. Ahhhh, the 80s.

Ahh, James Thurber

Set Your Soul On Fire

Back in the 80s, AIDS protestors (protesting lack of funding/concern by the government) took to the streets across the country. Police were so afraid they might get the disease—even though the protestors may not have it and ignoring the science that stated you couldn't get it by mere contact—that they wore gloves in case they needed to touch one of the demonstrators.

Obviously, this enraged the protesters even more as it showed how they were treated as less than human. I remember seeing newscasts about these and the image stayed in my subconscious. When I thought about a follow up to my book TAX BREAK, these images came back. My mind played around with it all and finally suggested to me “what if these protestors decided to kick it up a notch?”

So SOULS ON FIRE tells that story. These activists decide to resort to terrorism to make their point. They embrace the Viking belief that it's better to die fighting for your beliefs than whither away in bed. They attack banks to get money to support themselves and attack the police to get revenge.

In a way, it also reflects the mindset of the people in the Warsaw ghetto during WWII. The people knew the Nazis would inevitably kill them, so they might as well fight back to the best of their ability.

 AIDS is a major theme of the book, but a more subtle one, albeit just as important, is PTSD.  I modeled the story a bit like “Soldier's Home” by Ernest Hemingway. An engrossing (and depressing) story about a young man who returns from WWI and is drastically changed from his prewar self.

This doesn't hit you in the face, but you can begin to see it in the character by the flashbacks he experiences. I won't say much more about this as I don't want to spoil it for you (and it's important when you read any book that you discover what the author is saying) but when you read it think about whether anything is odd or if his judgement has changed.

This book also delves more into Austin then the previous book. I'm in love with this city and you get to learn about its politics, environment, well, the nature of the city. Of course, I also had to mention a great musician who graced the city (and one of its great music venues from the day).

A writing point about the book: it's really short. According to one book seller you should be able to read it within three hours. As I wrote it I kept having this weird internal battle that on one hand said go into more detail, but on the other said, well, the kids today have an attention span of five seconds, so keep it short buster. Okay, I admit that even I sometimes skim books these days so I can get to the grist. So it was for me too.

On a personal note, this took me a long time to write.  I began the project in 2008 and slowly worked on completing it over the next 10 years.  I could blame that because a few years before beginning I got hit by a car while biking and my house burned down, but I am not sure those still weighed on my thoughts. 

It might have also stemmed from being depressed about lack of sales for my other books or how difficult it had been to get short stories published (I have quite a few that succeeded).  However, I have a feeling it’s more likely that it’s that I seem to get distracted easily these days.  Oh, is there a football game on right now?  Maybe.

I hope this insight into SOULS ON FIRE intrigued you enough to give it a try.  Think of it as a great distraction you can complete reading on your next long flight.  Or that you believe you’ll be dragged into this action-packed novel because it delves into important social issues. Whatever your reason, I hope you enjoy it and that it does more than entertains you, but also causes you to pause and think.  It sure did that to me as I wrote it.

Ahhh, James Thurber

 A short description of SOULS ON FIRE:

In 1985 AIDS activists slaughter police and terrorize Austin in the new blockbuster mystery SOULS ON FIRE.  Buy it now to discover if a movie-addicted police detective and his former CIA agent and bar-owner friend can stop the violence that engulfs the city.

FaceBook page:

https://www.facebook.com/SoulsOnFire.JayW/

We're Going Backwards

Late on Friday nights when I’m safely home (admittedly after a few beers) I like to play music videos on the DVD player. Often they're 80s videos, some are hard rock, i.e. AC/DC (which annoys the neighbors because you have to play those loud), or sometimes just a few “chill music” vids because I need to calm down.

However, one of my favorites is Lionel Richie's “All Night Long.” Invariably though this depresses me. It reminds me how we are going backwards nowadays.

The song is about how you can be so strongly moved by something (music) that you just have to keep going. Party all night long. The dancers wear very colorful outfits, surely meant to make a subtle point, and are multi-racial. The dancing includes a wide range of styles with various mixtures of couples.

This was back in the 80s where it was slowly becoming common and acceptable to see a black man dance with a white woman, a white man tango with an Asian female, two males breakdancing together. It made it seem like things were progressing to where we could all live together in harmony.

Then Trump came along and infested the White House. 

Although we knew there were a lot of racists in our country, they at least had become reticent to express it in public. Unlike the old days where Jim Crow was normalized, racism had become a social deviation, something kept quietly amongst a person's cohort or family. Not something you could bring out in public without facing public derision.

Trump enabled racists. Emboldened them. He has tried to make it acceptable in polite society, and criticized those who challenge him as weak-wristed Libtards or overly PC elites.

Thanks to him, we see an increase in right-wing, racist organizations, demonstrators who are unafraid of public shame chanting abusive, racist slogans and public displays of offensive comments to anyone who looks foreign or of a different race than Anglo-Saxon whites. Even the Republican Party seems to have embraced the Trump vitriol and become largely the party of white males.

Although we've had problems with police interactions with civilians, as I noted in my blogs “Tips for Tourists” and “Police reform Part I & II” I don't think we've seen this level of police violence toward minorities since before the 70s. It's as if they are acting as Trump's agents of violence that he often spews at his pep, excuse me, "campaign" rallies.

I long for the days when we could dance the night away regardless of our race, religion, political affiliation or whatever.  

Sure, the video is a make-believe world, but it was a world where people lived together peacefully, where differences were immaterial, where people could dance together in harmony. A world we need to find again.

James Thurber believed in harmony and love.

Stuck in the 80s

At the end of December and into the New Year, you can't avoid countless news stories, personal essays or organizations' reflections upon the year that just ended.  

However, I invariably drift further back.  Back to the 1980s. My favorite decade.

Music was very eclectic ranging from the glam, such as Adam Ant, to the anti-glam of Dexy's Midnight Ramblers (they wore overalls to express their disdain for the previously mentioned glam set).

Films advanced from the 70s films bashing the 60s films (hippies are the evil enemy) to instead focus on personal introspection (why were we doing all those drugs back in the 60-70s?)

I was so 80s oriented, I set several of my books back in the decade. TAX BREAK and WINGS OF HONOR both occur back then largely because I remembered the time so fondly.

The decade began roughly for me.  I was a struggling, starving student (and eventually unemployed college grad).  However, it ended well as eventually I found gainful, satisfying—and long term—employment and stability.
 

However, I think I am stuck in the 80s because of the women.

My most notable “near misses” happened back then.  For example, I previously blogged about Nancy, who I tell everyone would have been my wife of five kids if my roommate hadn’t ruined matters. 

One other “close encounter” blog dealt with Sue, who never came to relationship fruition due to a missing napkin.  She was yet another 80s woman who may have been destined to birth the hockey team I longed for.  Well, maybe not that many.  To this day, when I see the 80s music video by Semisonic, I dream about her.

Of course, my ultimate 80s crush female was Pat Benatar.  Yes, I blogged about her too because she not only inspired my love of 80s women, but also helped lead to me benching a soccer player.

The 80s women were special. They exuded a special sensuality that lured you in but were also some of the first strong female types that let you know that you better treat her right.

So keep your “last year retrospective” because I’m just going to plug in my “I love the 80s” music video DVD, watch Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long,” and remember back when women were wild and men were crazy.