Avoiding the Summer Blues

Before I get into today's topic I just wanted to mention that I wrote a new Substack on the need to bring back the blogosphere. Twitter's implosion is giving us a chance to abandon the toxic micro-blogging format altogether and wrest online discourse away from corporate control. 

With that out of the way I thought I would get into a rather niche topic that's especially relevant to my fellow educators: avoiding the summer blues. Teaching is a strange job in that it packs more than twelve months worth of work and effort into ten. I don't have my "summers off" as much as I am getting leave time away from the frontline trenches. I started this summer, as I do all of them, in a state of absolute exhaustion. 

Once the shock of the end wears off and I start to recover, I am prone to getting depressed. I wondered if I was some kind of freak, since summer is supposed to be the freest, happiest time of the year. I was glad to see a recent Washington Post article about the prevalence of summer seasonal depression to know that I am not alone. Seasonal depression is more common in winter for obvious reasons: cold, lack of light, inability to do a lot of activities. As the article points out, summer has its own environmental stressors, especially as our summer weather and heat are getting more extreme with climate change. Punishing heat and humidity and horrible air from wildfires can make daily life miserable. When it gets cold outside I am still able to go for long walks, I just need to bundle up. When it gets really hot trying to go for a long walk just becomes unbearable. 

I wonder if this study noticed if this dynamic was worse among educators. It is not easy going from having almost no time to myself to having the hours of each day stretched out before me empty in need of filling up. Oftentimes I end up filling the time by spending more of it on social media, which usually just ends up making me more unhappy. I remember the summer of 2020 in particular, when COVID made it impossible for us to travel and to enjoy indoor activities. I retreated to social media, which was aflame with things like Donald Trump having protestors gassed so he could have a photo-op in front of a church. Reading about thousands of people dying a day in the pandemic, protestors being brutalized by police, and stressing about the 2020 election just made me completely miserable. On top of that, I was tasked with doing extra prep work by my school to get ready to teach under COVID circumstances, as opposed to the emergency flailing I was thrown into in the spring. It was by far the worst summer since the one in college where I worked two jobs while living friendless in my hometown. (I guess summer depression is not a new thing for me.) 

This summer I will get to travel, go to the movies, and hang out in coffee houses, but those things aren't enough. I have been experimenting with some new techniques inspired by my interest in philosophy. In the first case I have taken to heart Marcus Aurelius' advice that when confronted with a problem, you should ask yourself if it can be overcome or not. If yes, then the solution is to take care of it instead of ignoring it. If the answer is no, then stop worrying because there's nothing you can do anyway. In my daily life this means taking care of things that need to be taken care of: cleaning up the house, seeing doctors and dentists, exercise, course preparation, and yard work. I have leaned into the latter thinking of Voltaire's line "we must cultivate our garden" in Candide. Instead of doom scrolling and fretting about the world's iniquities, I am using the power washing to get the grime from my awnings. Every single day I have a checklist that includes 1. Taking care of myself 2. Taking care of the house 3. Reading 4. Writing 5. Doing something active with my kids. 

So far my mood has been much improved. For others out there getting hit with the summer blues I prescribe a lot of practical labor and regular habits. Every day I can feel like I've done something while feeling far more relaxed than I do on work days, when I am liable to pass out on the train ride home. I am beginning to wonder if this is what retirement is like. If so, sign me up. 

Getting Through the Winter Doldrums

It's late January, the grimmest part of the year, a stretch that will last about a month. It's cold and dark. The weather tends to make commutes hellish. The holidays are over and the decorations stripped. Lunar new year came early this year and is now over and marred by tragedy. There's little to do and the only real "event" is the consumer orgy of the Super Bowl, which mostly just makes me feel ill. 

It's Sunday night now, which means facing another work week after a weekend spent in the fog of this winter malaise. The end of the last year brought reflect, as the end of the year always does, and that reflection in middle age typically leads one to contemplate how dreams hoped for in youth are just never going to come true. 

If I had been wiser in my youth, I'd have gone to law school instead of grad school and now I'd be making enough money to go on a vacation somewhere warm and sunny to get away from all of this. I foolishly chose to pursue knowledge rather than lucre in a society that worships the latter and despises the former. Sometimes I can be comforted in the knowledge that my work actually has meaning but this time of year the old narratives don't work their magic like they usually do. 

I am willing to bet a lot of you are feeling the same way right now. So how do we get through this? Sometimes the only way out is through.

I lean into despair with my trusty friends music, books, and movies. Here's some recs if you are looking for them. 

Jackson Frank's "Blues Run the Game" just totally embodies that feeling that winter is never going to end and life is pretty hopeless. He also talks about sending out for whiskey and gin, which are my preferred tipples this time of year. 

Robert Altman's anti-Western McCabe & Mrs Miller is suitably bleak and gloomy. The dark rainy Pacific Northwest setting perfectly frames a story where love and passion are ultimately futile. Sometimes the bastards win and the hero doesn't ride into the sunset. 

Sad folk music is my preferred soundtrack this time of year, and no one did it better than Nick Drake. All three of his albums are superlative, but Pink Moon gets busted out on many a winter night in my house. It's eerie and dark but weirdly comforting, too. 

Sometimes a little anger helps, too. January in an odd-numbered year means a brand new Congress and brand new state legislatures. It does not exactly help my mood to read about Republicans trying to hold the country hostage with the debt ceiling or finding new and unique ways to persecute trans people and target my fellow educators. It's even worse when the people who ought to be fighting back are AWOL. That's when I put on Neil Young's "Ambulance Blues." "You're all just pissing in the wind."      

In terms of books, last year at this time I decided to reread le Carre's "Karla Trilogy." I won't do the same thing this year, but I might just give Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy another spin. Gloomy 70s London combined with Cold War intrigue is perfect for this time of year. It's also the kind of story where the "good guys" have to make moral compromises in order to win, compromises that undermine their "good guy status."

****

These are the winter days of out discontent. I'm too pessimistic to think they can be avoided, but I at least I hope we can get through them with some splendid wallowing. 

Scott Walker, "It's Raining Today" (Track of the Week)

With the Covidversary upon us I am remembering where my head was a year ago at this time in that moment when it went from a nascent fear to reality. Quarantine was strangely fortuitous, since it came right as I was hitting a stress-induced breaking point. The crisis helped wipe the old crises off of my plate pretty fast. 

Last February and early March I was listening to a lot of orchestral pop music from the 1960s. I even made a playlist called "Sophisticated Dad Chill Commute" to listen to on my way home from work. I also happened to get really into Scott Walker (not the Wisconsin politician) at the time. His early records brought an avant-garde, poetic sensibility to the sweeping symphonic arrangements.

Last weekend, right before my second vaccination shot, I suddenly got back in the Scott Walker mood. Some of it was probably due to thinking about the anniversary and what it meant on the eve of my deliverance, but a lot was also just the eternal mood of late February and early March.

This is by far my least favorite time of the year. Winter keeps holding on, and what little exists of spring sometimes only comes in the form of heavy rains and howling winds. For me it also coincides with Lenten fasting. It is a time of painful anticipation before sunshine and, importantly for a teacher, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of the school year. 

There is a dull ache forever in the background of my soul every March, and it sounds exactly like the buzzing strings of Scott Walker's "It's Raining Today." Last week I got to the city too early to line up for my shot, so I wandered around Central Park in the drizzle, listening to this song over and over again. 

It's fitting that quarantine began in March, the purgatory month. We have been in this purgatory for a year now. Every now and I then I can't imagine getting through this without losing my grip, and have to remind myself that spring is coming. In March you know it so close, but as for today, it's raining. 

Hazy Thoughts in the Summer Malaise

Too much on my mind

Summer, true summer is here now. Those days when it's so hot that I don't want to be outside despite the sunshine and when I feel constantly uncomfortable in the outdoor heat or in the unnatural air conditioned interior. The un-cooled interiors, which become unbearably stuffy, manage to bring in the worst of both worlds. Afternoons on days like this are to be endured, rather than enjoyed.

Today I had the depressing realization that I am already fantasizing about next summer, since this one is going to be a wash and the coming school year promises to be the most dangerous and difficult one yet. So much of my mental space this summer is taken up by the fall, both in terms of work I am doing for the school and in the constant churn of anxiety that dominates just about every waking hour of my day.

Even in the best of times summer brings a case of the blues. After the trench warfare of the school year, which demands every ounce of energy I can give, the indolence of summer is hard to handle. I end up with too much time on my hands and too much time spent at home. It allows my mind to wander to things I was too busy to think about during the school year. Memories of old fuckups and failures come dancing right into my consciousness, replaying humiliations and mistakes from decades ago.

This quarantine summer means being at home even more and even fewer outlets. I've tried to channel my energy into cooking, cleaning, and gardening, which has helped a little. The challenge of putting my mind at ease is harder this time around due to my constant worry about the state of the country. If I sit around long enough I just keep thinking about how the pandemic is getting worse after a hundred thousand people have died. I think about how a mass movement for racial equality has ended up with yet another culture war about statues. The economic situation is bad and I know plenty of people who have lost their jobs. At times like this I almost long to be one of those millions of vapid people so disengaged from the world to be troubled by it.

And yeah, I know it could be worse. I had a family member back home with the virus but they're fine now. As tough as my job will be next year, at least I still have one. It's been good to have all this time with my wife and kids. I was able to go out to Pennsylvania last week and see two old and very dear friends and kayak on a lake, play cards, grill meat, and drink whiskey. Music has been an important consolation, as always. It's amazing how much great new music is out there right now. Be that as it may, no song is really speaking to me as much right now as a golden chestnut by The Kinks, "Too Much On My Mind."

All I want right now is something to look forward to. I have no clue when that will ever be the case again.

The (Fourth) Winter Of Our Discontent

January and February are the nadir of the calendar year. It is dark and cold and punctuated only by the revolting holiday of vulgar American consumerism that is the Super Bowl. I am likely to fall into a depressive spiral this time of year, made worse in recent years by political events.

After coming back rested from his golf holiday, Trump likes to start the new year with his most blatant actions. In 2017 it was his post-inauguration onslaught, including the ban on travelers from majority Muslim nations. Last year it was a government shutdown over the wall. This year it is the double whammy of escalating the conflict in Iran and trying to sabotage the impeachment process.

In this fourth discontented winter of the Trump administration, which I pray will be the last, I feel like the nation is being confronted with its complete and utter loss of coherence. It is obvious for anyone to see that Trump has committed crimes. His refusal to cooperate with Congressional investigations is a crime on its face, of course. We also have clear proof that he tried to force the Ukranian government to investigate his domestic political rival, and in doing so unlawfully withheld aid to Ukraine apportioned by Congress. None of this even touches on his brazen use of his office to bring money to his properties, the many credible allegations of sexual misconduct women have leveled against him, and his campaign's links to Russian intelligence.

Despite the obvious and unambiguously clear evidence that Trump has abused his power like no president before him, we are all assuming that the Senate will not convict him. In fact, the Senate might not even allow a real trial to even take place. We are not surprised because we all know, deep down, that our institutions have completely failed. The Republican Senators don't care a whit for the law or Constitution, only for raw power. Anyone who denies this is a fool.

I don't believe we have given needed thought to the implications of this. For an openly criminal president to escape scot free with the aid of his party effectively means that we don't really have a democracy in this country. That cabal's use of gerrymandering and voter supression to win elections when they are in the minority has made this clear, but acquital will make it visible to even the most complacent person.

So what happens then? I get the feeling that the reality of the current situation will just be met with denial. I already know Republicans who never liked Trump but voted for him who have put their heads in the sand and have refused to acknowledge reality. Plenty of Democrats who want to think we can simply go back to the way things used to be, or "work with Republicans" are also willfully blind.

Like authoritarians who have toppled countless other democracies, America's conservative leaders assume that their opposition is too weak, divided and uncommited to stop them. Right now, in this fourth winter of discontent, I have to agree with them. Back in 2016 I worried that we would not learn from our mistakes, and I was right. Twitter is burning up with stupid petty arguments between partisans of different Democratic candidates while the world burns. Instead of taking to the streets we've got our heads shoved up our own asses. When the Senate refuses to convict Trump, I doubt there will be much public reaction. I think deep down most of us already know that the die was cast in November of 2016. I am going to spending this winter of discontent trying to figure out how the hell to move forward from this situation, or just giving into it myself. Maybe I'm the foolish one for believing that this country has a future.

Losing My Christmas Spirit

Current Christmas mood

The past few years of my life have been full of Christmas spirit, mostly because of parenthood. It's been a truly great thing to vicariously experience the holidays through my kids and to remember my own Christmases. I was a misfit in school growing up but I was lucky to have a very warm and loving family that made celebrating Christmas fun.

For some reason this year I am not feeling the spirit. Thanksgiving weekend will come and go without us putting out our decorations. My wife is feeling the same ennui, and our children's enthusiasm is not enough to shake us out of this.

After some reflection I think this has to do with Christmas on the meta level. Once you strip away both the consumerism, it is a holiday about hope. On the pagan level, it is the hope for the spring to arrive as we sit in the depths of winter darkness. On the more Christian level it is the hope that the birth of Jesus, savior of the world, represents. Christmas means that the broken world can indeed be saved and a kernel of that exists in even its more secular permutations. In recent years that hope has probably had a lot to do with my increased Christmas spirit, even if my children's zeal is the primary factor. In fact, the two intertwine because nothing forces me to think about the future and nothing absorbs as much of my hope as my children do. 

I think my loss of Christmas spirit reflects, deep down, my profound pessimism in this moment. In world affairs the dominoes keep falling, from Poland to Bolivia. In this country evidence that the despot has committed high crimes is out in the open and it will not lead to his removal. The 2020 election will be marred by voter suppression, disinformation, foreign meddling, and the reality that the electoral college will very likely preserve minority rule. (This is currently my prediction, btw). The world is burning up and apart from people posting Greta Thunberg memes little to nothing is being done to stop it in this country. In fact, our government's policies are hastening the apocalypse.

So what is there to look forward to? I think of the world my children will inherit and am filled with the deepest sense of helplessness and sadness. The last handful of Christmases I knew things were bad but I could still take heart in the promise of the holiday. Maybe I will eventually get there this year, but it will take some doing.

Track of the Week: Tears for Fears, "Mad World"

Right before my parents came to visit I suffered from a pretty intense attack of the black dog. The seasons have a big effect on my mental state, and this endless winter we are experiencing had me down, plus work stress and some bad news about the health of someone very close to me.

In times like these I tend to turn to the music I listened to in my youth when I wanted to wallow in sadness. (Sometimes the wallowing makes it better.) This meant Depeche Mode and New Order, since the cold synthy sound of those bands fits the purgatory of the late winter. While assembling a queue of songs in that vein I added Tears for Fears' "Mad World."

I soon became obsessed with it, playing it every day during my commute. Even though I am a child of the 80s, I still knew the song best in the form of Gary Jules' excellent cover, which has eclipsed the original in the collective pop cultural memory. Whereas his song is a quiet lament on a dark night of the soul, Tears for Fears give us a thumping 80s synth pop song. The synths are deep and dark however, more John Carpenter soundtrack than Duran Duran.

It's an incredibly bracing song for one that hit the top ten in the UK, where there seems to be more of a market for sad sack anthems. A line like "The dreams in which I'm dying/ Are the best I've ever had" which is a powerful yet oblique reference to being dogged by suicidal thoughts. It's generally a lament for the treadmill of life, and expresses the nagging doubt (which I often have) that nothing in this world will ever get better. It will be the eternal return of the same, forever and forever and forever. We will all just be stuck desperately plugging away until the day we die while greedheads lord their money over us.

In case you don't know, Depeche Mode is on tour and making serious bank. My fellow dark British 80s pop loving Gen Xers are in middle age, when songs like this have translated our teen angst into fortysomething sadness and fear. It's music that isn't talked about much in the rock or pop canons, but it has more than stood the test of time.

A Few Thoughts On The Most Depressing Day Of The Year

It may not be official, but I am now calling the last Monday in January "The Most Depressing Day Of The Year." Well, at least in the northern hemisphere.

On this day I am feeling very tired and sick at heart. Some of this is personal, some of it is political, and some of it is the intersection of the personal and political, like my shitty New Jersey Transit commute. Sometimes when I get down I try to cheer myself up by watching old music videos and favorite sit-coms from my youth. Other days I steer into the depression and let it ride, and today is one of those days.

As I sat in my grimy New Jersey Transit train today I was reading a book about the memory of the World War I in Great Britain. The author talked about how some of the battlefield monuments eschewed Christian imagery, mirroring how the war had shattered the faith of so many of its participants. While some may have sought a comforting narrative of redemption and heaven's reward, others could never believe in a God that would allow such senseless slaughter to occur.

For some reason, at the very moment I was reading that passage, a memory popped into my head. I remembered a road trip I took to from Omaha to Chicago during my senior year of high school. We left on a golden Saturday morning, and after my friend got into the car, I read aloud Carl Sandburg's poem "Chicago" to inaugurate our journey.

That memory suddenly made me extremely sad. The kind of person who did dorky, romantic, spontaneous things like that is dead. Life has made me harder, more cynical, and far less trusting. It's not a matter of wanting to restore that person, there really is no way to go back.

Then I remembered that there are places when the spirit of that person lives on, even though he is dead. In the classroom I am willing to put myself out there and be vulnerable and dorky, but not outside of the walls of that classroom when I am out of my house. I also remembered my children brought that out of me too. When my daughters got home today, about ten minutes after I arrived, I swept them up and smiled. I talked with them about their day and had one of my daughters read a book to me. She also insisted on talking in a robot voice. I played along, she laughed. On days like this such silly games are therapy.

Classic Albums: Neil Young, On The Beach

Winter has come. The leaves as gone, and the morning air has a hardness in it. It is not the best backdrop for contemplating the horrors that the next four years are about to bring us. As always, I turn to music during times of seasonal change, both political and climatological.

I have found comfort in Neil Young's "ditch trilogy" of albums from the mid-1970s. (After going to the middle of the road with Harvest, he steered things into rougher territory for a bit.) 1974's On The Beach in particular stands out. For a long time this album was out of print due to Young's insistence, which has always baffled me, since it's so good, and copies of the likes of Landing On Water and This Note's For You were always easy to find when On The Beach was languishing in the vaults. Perhaps it's because this album is a too raw reminder of a tough time in his life, but then again, the more harrowing Tonight's The Night was never swept under the rug.

The ditch trilogy began with the live album Time Fades Away, from 1973, a chronicle of Young's difficult tour that year. It started right after Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten was kicked out of his band, after which he soon died of a drug overdose. That came on the eve of the tour, and really set the tone. After hitting it big with mellow songs like "Heart Of Gold," Young was playing to stadium audiences of new fans expecting a laid back 70s folkie vibe, not the blast of chaotic noise on songs he hadn't yet released. After that he recorded the aforementioned Tonight's the Night, a supremely dark album that he shelved until 1975.

On The Beach was recorded last, but was released in the middle. In a lot of ways, it is an album of recovery. After two years of personal turmoil, Young was beginning to find perspective. In the past I have listened to this album in times of personal crisis, since it seems to show that even the worst storms can be braved, even if you take some permanent damage from them. I've recently been listening to it again as I contemplate our nation's own crisis.

It starts with "Walk On." If they ever make a biopic of my life I'd want this song playing over the opening credits. It's bouncy and sunny, like no other song on the album, which is why it's weird to hear it first. It's a song about going through a bad patch and coming out alive, and being a lot less concerned about what people think of you. I know in my own personal crisis in my mid-30s I came out of it stronger, but also far less trusting of others and their opinions of me. "Sooner or later/ It all gets real." No kidding.

Next up comes "See The Sky About To Rain," what I think of as the weakest song on the album, mostly due to the lyrics. As much as I love Young, his overindulgence in the hippie weed leads to some over-baked words. The first lines of the song are "See the sky about to rain/ Broken clouds and rain." He rhymes rain with rain, for crying out loud! I do have to say that it has a nice little vibe, and imparts the feeling of a dreary rainy day, especially the great Ben Keith's weeping steel guitar. His work on songs like "Old Man" was one of the best things about Harvest, and he's definitely the highlight on this track. This song is a leftover from that period, and it shows.

The mood changes on "Revolution Blues," where we are plunged into a deep dark canyon for the rest of the album. It's obviously inspired by Charles Manson, and is sung from the perspective of him or someone a lot like him. The groove is sinister but it swings, too, which makes sense because Band stalwarts Rick Danko and Levon Helm are on bass and drums. The former's melodic tones and the latter's back on the beat funk perfectly compliment the wails Neil gets from Old Black. One theme of On The Beach, named for an apocalyptic film, is the death of the sixties, which Manson so perfectly symbolized. The narrator of the song talks of killing "famous stars" in Laurel Canyon, home of so many of the singer-songwriter troubadors that emerged from the previous decade, including much of Young' circle. In that respect it's a kind of death wish.

The bleakness continues on the fourth track, "For The Turnstiles." The electricity and funk of the last song is suddenly gone, with only the darkness left. There's a plucking banjo, and Young singing so high that his voice breaks, the kind of raw embellishment that would show up a lot on the ditch trilogy records. This song is very countrified, with the banjo joined later by dobro in something that sounds like a hootenany in the middle of a Samuel Beckett play. The first side ends with a sloppy blues number, "Vampire Blues." It's about oil companies, and the only political song on the album. The clumsiness of its directness (so typical of Young) works because the loose feel works as a bit of comic relief amidst some harrowing stuff. Plus it's always good to have something wacky closing out side one.

Side two, however, takes absolutely no prisoners. "On The Beach" kicks things off with a long, spare, repetitive dirge that is the sound of dread personified. "Though my problems are meaningless/ That don't make them go away" pretty much sums up depression in a nutshell. He talks about needing a crowd but not "day to day" and radio interviews, referring to the drudgery of touring. This is the sound of someone who is just about at the end of their tether.

"Motion Pictures" has a twangier and more hopeful feel to it. It is a song of longing and love, and wanting to come home. (It's dedicated to "Carrie," which I assume refers to his wife at the time, Carrie Snodgrass.) It's a tour song, but one where the comforts of home feel like they are almost within sight. The whole album has a feeling of homesickness to it, less for a place than for a feeling of emotional comfort. That kind of spiritual homesickness is also pretty familiar to depressives.

Side two is pretty spare, and it ends with "Ambulance Blues," the sound of someone who after reaching the end of their rope has found a way to go on. I almost feel like "Walk On" should be played twice on the album, at both the beginning and the end, because this song is the prequel to "Walk On." Long, sparse, and meandering with an ominous title, you can hear Young working out the emotional wreckage of the previous year of his life. It's folkie at the start, and Young immediately starts recalling his folk singing youth, as if it is a time of innocence beyond all comprehension. The country fiddle that comes in has a mournful, elegiac quality to it. Like the other songs on side two, there's no drums, only understated bongos. He suddenly opines that "it's easy to get buried in the past" with the tone of voice of a man who is desperate to put a bad past behind him but also carrying around the crushing weight of memories of simpler times, of people and places that are gone and are never coming back. Perhaps that's why the album was left in the vaults for too long, it's far too personal.

In any case, his admonition that "you're all just pissin' in the wind" seems aimed at the whole hippie thing. What started as peace, love, and art in the "folkie days" had curdled into addiction and bullshit. He says that it's a good friend who tells you you're pissing in the wind, implying that Young knows that he needs to take a new direction in life. That's the kind of crisis I was in five and a half years ago, one that I wouldn't wish on anyone. But if you find yourself there, give On The Beach a listen.

Dread And Loathing In America

Feeling the spirit of the good Dr. Thompson tonight

I'm in the mood to get a bit more personal here. Yesterday I felt myself suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of dread about political life in America.

Much, but not all of it, has to do with the rise of the Trump phenomenon.  Ever since the late 80s I've viewed him as the avatar of America's post-Reagan vulgarity.  He has always represented a corrupt and selfish values system utterly corrosive in its search for fame and lucre.  He has now added to it racism, sexism, and noxious nationalism. His flacks assault journalists and his fans sucker punch protestors, but more people vote for him. He lies constantly, his mouth an open sewer of bigoted mendacity, but more people vote for him. He uses time in a presidential debate to talk about his dick size, and more people vote for him.  It is dawning on me that the vulgarity Trump has so long represented has a lot of fans, and they vote.

I also just don't understand these people. Perhaps the kid I worked with detasseling in the corn fields of Nebraska in high school who joked about nuking Mexico is a Trump voter now. I sure as shit didn't understand people like him when I was surrounded by them, either. Hell, it's part of the reason I fled my hometown. And please spare me the talk of Trumpism as the angst of the dispossessed. Plenty working and middle class folks who've fallen on hard times, both white and not, have avoided blaming their plight on immigrants.

I can't stop thinking about the fact that there is a significant chunk of this country, including prominent elected officials like Chris Christie, who actually support Trump. Celebrities and athletes have started endorsing him publicly. When Trumps speaks he just talks out of his ass, and the only coherent things he says are hateful garbage. Who is impressed by this? As far as I can tell, a large number of Americans are political nihilists. Even if Trump gets slaughtered in the general election, they'll still be around, waiting for some other demagogue to rally them.

For beneath this I see two major reckonings. The first is the unresolved consequences of 9/11. The response to that attack included an unnecessary war in Iraq, and generally the United States has failed to win a lasting victory against Islamist terror. As with Vietnam, the sense of defeat and wounded nationalism leaves many vulnerable to narratives of national renewal through violence. Reagan exploited it then, Trump exploits it now. The other major reckoning is with the economic shift of the last forty years, which has left the rich richer, the middle class shrinking, and the poor in desperate straights. Neither party has adequately responded.  The Republicans have doubled down on the very policies contributing to income inequality, while Democrats have been too chickenshit and weak to move the needle the other way. The failure to change this problem though normal means makes it easy for a man like Trump to flourish, and things aren't getting any better.

Beyond the rise of Trumpism, I despair at what's being done to education in this country. Public higher education is being gutted even worse than before. Even in flush times states are slashing budgets because schools are being starved of funds by governors hell-bent on protecting the wealthy from taxation. States like Louisiana and Kansas are making drastic cut-backs at all levels of education, and in Illinois some schools might not be able to stay open until the end of the academic year due to a budget impasse. Netflix billionaires give their money to education "reform" initiatives aiming to further limit and degrade teachers. When I was an academic and now that I am teacher I feel like I am part of a group of people who is absolutely loathed by the powers that be.

It doesn't matter who's elected president, tinpot tyrants like Sam Brownback and Bruce Rauner will keep gutting education so rich people can buy another yacht. There doesn't seem to be any way to stop the Republican juggernaut on the local or state level. The Democrats are too weak, and the post-Citizens' United reality means big money can make a huge impact, and that money is usually coming from conservative ideologues.

My dread and loathing keeps welling up. Young black people are murdered by the police, and despite the massive movements in protest, it keeps happening.  State legislatures vote to legalize discrimination against gay people, and call it "freedom of religion." A fascist demagogue approaches the presidency, and most people treat it as humorous as much as anything else. Some day I fear my daughters will take me to task for having brought them into such a world.

Pop Culture Ephemera To Beat Holiday Dread And The Winter Blues

This time of year fills me with conflicting emotions.  I'm actually a big fan of the holidays, and am lucky not to suffer from the holiday-induced depression that plenty of people suffer from for a variety of reasons (crummy family, bad holiday memories, sadness over those who've died who can't be there with you.)  However, I have a big tendency to over-think things, and while I am looking forward to Christmas and New Year's, I'm already dreading what comes after.  January, February, and March are the garbage months on the calendar: cold weather, lack of sunlight, no seasonal food (or beer), and no holidays to brighten things up.  Over the years these times have also been layered over with bad memories.  Lent begins in February, which as a child meant sacrifice and self-induced guilt.  The American Historical Association has its annual conference the weekend after New Year's, a place where I went for five years straight to either interview for a job or talk to university presses to get a book published to get me a better job, or both.  The next months would then be full of anxiety attacks and painful rejection.

It's going to take some Groot levels of strength to get through the year's garbage time.  I've assembled a list of stuff (mostly video clips) to cling on to.

Battle of the Network Stars: Gabe Kaplan Bests Robert Conrad



It starts with Telly Savalas in a tracksuit and shades smoking a cig, and just keeps getting better.  ("I'm from New York, I want the bread, baby.")  Robert Conrad is taking this way too seriously, and it makes my heart happy to see his macho bullshit not work.  Gabe "Mr. Kotter" Kaplan's victory in this competition (and getting a kiss from Linda "Wonder Woman" Carter) is a victory for nerds everywhere.

Stryper Promo Picture

How could you make hair metal even more ridiculous?  Throw in some old time religion and a yellownblack spandex getup.  *Shudder*

Ben Stiller Show U2 Rockumentary



Ben Stiller has become a a big time movie star, but I still fondly remember his old sketch show back in the 1990s, which also featured Andy Dick, Janine Garafolo and Bob "better call Saul" Odenkirk.  Stiller's Bono impersonation still kills me, as does the image of him playing a bar mitzvah while sharing a manager with the Partridge Family.

Ronald Reagan Gives The Gift Of Lung Cancer

This just doesn't need a comment.

Mets Banner Day, 1984



When I try hard to get my mind away from the wretchedness of winter I think about the ballpark.  I imagine myself on a mild early June afternoon drinking a tasty, crisp beer while sitting on the third base side, lost in a baseball game.  The Mets, me newly adopted local team, have a great tradition of fan banners, and "Banner Day" when fans get to parade their creations on the field.  This little video from 1984 shows young people pre-internet with the time on their hands needed to make an amusing creation on a bed-sheet so that they can step out onto the glorious hallowed green of Shea Stadium.  This video also makes me happy, since it helps me recall the ordinary, mundane fashions of the 80s.  (It wasn't all shoulder pads and Don Johnson suits, you know.)

The Cover of Mac Davis' It's Hard to Be Humble Album

Ah, the 70s, when a perm and bare hairy chest were the height of masculine allure.

William Shatner Sings "Rocket Man"




If I am in the lowest of moods, when nothing in the world can cheer me up, I turn to this.  This performance is truly amazing, in that Shatner somehow manages to transcend irony completely.  If only all tacky awards ceremonies had a moment like this to show what rubbish the rest of the proceedings are by comparison.