A Private Letter For You In Public

Someone posted something about MTV being 40 years old and it made me think about the first videos I saw on it. Got part way into memory and saw something about a camp I went to in Canada and remember some guy from Cleveland playing Joe Jackson’s Stepping Out.

And then I remembered the same guy singing Is She Really Going Out With Him and wondering if he really thought that would work and then I saw a bunch of girls staring at him and thought maybe it would.

Didn’t bother trying to pull that trick because I don’t play guitar and my singing isn’t going to make you swoon but I can write a line or two.

Hell, I wrote a letter to someone that summer who promptly started dating someone else named Josh. He never thanked me, maybe I’ll send him an invoice for services rendered and a note asking him if he ever confessed to not having written the letter.

Makes for a good story now and it is absolutely true.

Cue Star Wars music and watch me write a private letter for you in public telling you to put your hand in mine and that I know you read this twice.

See, the Jedi Mind trick works which is why some of you will travel to other places to see if what that crazy man was walking the line elsewhere.

Drive-In Movies/Shared Experiences

Someone asked me if I remember the last time I saw a movie at a Drive-In and I shook my head and said it might have been in Santa Barbara.

I am not certain because I would have been in my early twenties and that is a couple of years ago, long enough that it is harder to recall things that would have been mundane then.

If it is when I think it was there was a group of us and I am not sure I was watching the movie, but I might have been.

Thought about hitting one of the joints here in Texas just to give my kids the experience but didn’t want to pay a chunk to see what they were showing.

At the time the flix were all repeats of things I had no interest in watching a second or fifth time.

****

The riot at the Capitol and the disgusting attempt by some to whitewash it and pretend it didn’t happen or wasn’t serious has me thinking about shared experiences and shared goals.

Most of us aren’t looking for anything more than a fair opportunity to provide food and shelter for our families with the knowledge that our basic needs won’t bankrupt us.

But the fear mongering and bombastic rhetoric given by some sure makes it sound like the other guy wants to kill us all.

I don’t believe that is a fair description except I keep coming across posts from Twitter, Facebook and Parler in which those very things are said.

Are they representative of the feelings of large groups of people or just a few?

I need more data to give an accurate answer.

Given the response of multiple social media platforms to Trump it has become clear his actions have finally scared people into responding and that has me thinking too.

More than a few are crying censorship as if he cannot hold a press conference or give an interview on television/radio.

That has me wondering if the people crying understand the First Amendment or how ridiculous it is to suggest he has been silenced.

Nonetheless I am thinking about it because I want to think through what the ramifications and consequences of such an action is.

I don’t know if we can classify it in a black/white context of solely good or bad but it doesn’t prevent me from asking the questions.

Doesn’t prevent me from wondering if this is a slippery slope don’t want to go down or if it is a necessary step in trying to modulate the outrage. Can’t please everyone and if we are trying to calm down the rhetoric maybe it helps.

Or maybe it causes more outrage.

Epilogue

Got far more to say but going to have to wait to say some of it and not just because we need to wait and see what comes of some of these most recent developments and changes.

Time to see if we are entering the thick of it or coming out the other side. Whatever it is, it will be interesting to see.