Why I Won't "Leave the Country" if "X" Gets Elected

My older son, Joe, is, as all young people must, finding his intellectual way into the world. He is extremely inquisitive, very philosophical and he is creative in ways that make me exceedingly proud. But, as a young man, he is, of course, apt to latch on to things he has heard that stir passion in him. The other day, he echoed the ubiquitous "If Trump wins, we should leave this country."

It just so happens that this was said two days ago as we were walking away from Sankaty Lighthouse in 'Sconset, on Nantucket. Only a few minutes earlier, we had passed "Footlight," the home where my favorite writer, John Steinbeck, had written East of Eden. I had completely forgotten he had written the book on Nantucket until the tour guide pointed out the house. Of course, my heart leaped with delight and I quickly took a blurred picture as we drove past...

...but only a few minutes later, there was my son talking about "leaving the country." The proximity -- in not only inches and feet but in my heart -- to my most beloved writer caused a discordant resonance for me. My son had rung a bell that a thousand people a day ring...but this time, it sounded broken...it rattled, like I would imagine the cracked Liberty Bell would. And like the Liberty Bell (rung-again) would, it made me feel pride in a country with a deep history and with a roll-call of fine human beings who did things both great and unknown.

I saw Steinbeck, silhouetted in a window in Footlight and recording his self-doubt (someday they will figure out I am not as good as they say I am) in his journal as he wrote East of Eden. I saw Lincoln in dark meetings, his soft voice urging his cabinet to fight for the Union above all else. I saw a simple, courageous man from Philadelphia, in 1866, driving his family in a covered wagon, out past the Mississippi, to claim the land offered by the Homestead Act (an act that encouraged African Americans and single women to apply, by the way). I saw Aaron Copeland at the piano adding notes to his manuscript for "Appalachian Spring"; Elie Wiesel exorcising his demons at the typewriter; Dr. King, his tie slack, his eyes watering, pondering the next line of a famous speech. I saw boys from my generation playing dusty baseball on a weedy infield on a summer day just for the joy of it -- no thought of scholarships; no travel teams to keep up with; no pitching and hitting lessons on the schedule -- just playing until the light was too low, a prelude to the night's dreams of the big leagues. I thought of newly-married couples, with no money, making love because they had to; because love and family were a need, not a business proposition. I saw a line of heroes and inspirations: Leonard Slatkin with his baton; Barber penning the notes of his adagio; Mike Schmidt, confident and almost defiant at the plate; Vinnie Colaiuta in complete command the drumkit; my own father sitting center-chair in a big band with his magical silver trumpet; Dr. Robert Ryan, his voice cracking with emotion as he read Keats to our little graduate seminar class; my wife, Karen, exercising every single dark morning at 5:30, to stay strong; my sons growing into fine, sensitive and moral young men...

...I saw all of this as my son and I walked a gravel path under a hot blue sky, just after I heard the words: "leave this country." And it occurred to me: hell, no.

I told Joe that I am too proud of the real great people of this country to abandon it, either physically or mentally, just because of the behavior of high-profile creeps. I'll never give up hope for America. There are too many good people living good, just and sincere lives, who are the blood in the veins. The President is not the country. The loud-mouthed flag-wavers are not the country. The Tweeters and Facebookers who spend their time spreading their political agenda and un-researched claims are not the country.

We are the country. "We the people" -- the ones going to work for others or for themselves; the ones cutting grass on Saturday; the ones trying to get better at golf or music or writing or dancing or fishing or at just being people; the ones who are trying to teach their kids to be good men and women; the ones who have no time for politics and angry online arguments; the ones who would rather read a book than a meme; the ones who walk their dogs, rain or shine; the ones who stand comically in bathrooms with their spouses, brushing their teeth before bed -- we are the ones who make this country what it is.

No politician; no president, good or bad, can take that away from us or "bring it back" to us. I understand how those in charge can change our circumstances, but they don't shape our American-ness.

I have very little respect for many politicians, but they are just some of the many pimples on the beautiful face of a great country. Yeah, the Liberty Bell is cracked. It has to be. It tells the truth in its silent sound.

My son's response? "Good point, dad. Can we get lunch soon?"

Flies at the Wheel

Pieter van den Bosch:
"Old Woman Reading a Book "

If I am lucky, I have eighty-or-so years to live, in total. I choose not to live those that remain in either a state of delusion or as a slave to a popular, paradoxical notion that the freedoms I am afforded by the state make me a slave to the state. So, I am not going to sacrifice time during which I can really live in order to become either a servant of or a fighter against the state.

My life belongs to me and I am fully aware of the illusion that is created in a democracy (more specifically, a republic): that I, the common man, can live a common life and still have an impact or a "say" in the direction of governmental affairs.The position I am in (and that most of you are in) is this: If I want to make an impact on the mechanics of American government, I can give up my freedom to live life as I want in order to serve the state. Being common voters makes us into nothing more than the fly and the rat in these excerpts from Neil Peart's lyrics in "The Stars Look Down":

What I Love About Me

You know what I love about me? There's only one thing, really, that I think is perfect about Chris Matarazzo. Just one.

Before I tell you what that thing is, it's important that you understand that just because I grew up in the American generation that heard a song that told me "the most important person in the whole wide world is you" three times every Saturday morning on TV, it doesn't mean that I bought into the pervading approach to self-evaluation...

...I don't believe people can do anything they set their minds to. I don't believe positive thinking is the answer to every problem. I don't believe "attitude is everything." I don't believe that arrogance is an acceptable way to express confidence. I believe that we should be careful when we make statements like the one I am making here.

The Obligation Lie

Every once in awhile, patriotism enrages me. This is not because I don't believe in supporting and loving one's country, but it is because I think people are fooled into accepting a bureaucratically convenient definition of patriotism.

I was watching a few music videos this morning, and a song came on -- Keith Urban, who I have mentioned before, I have really come to respect as a musician. In fact, I really like this song a lot. But it still enrages me. I'll tell you why after you watch it:



Sometimes, I feel like I'm being ripped, two ways. Here is a earnest performance of a song about sacrifice for the ones one loves. It paraphrases biblical wisdom: "No greater gift has man than to lay down his life for love." I buy that -- I always have.

Cerebellar Web Post 35-6457A

15 March 6457
Cerebellar Web Post 35-6457A

Attn: Dr. Pweet
Archaeosociology Department Chair,
Bradbury University
Vallis Marinelles, Mars

Dear Dr. Pweet:

As requested, here is my report of this month's archaeosocial findings from the field study teams on Origin Planet (formerly known as Earth) on the sparsely-populated continent of North America, substation 17, in what was formerly the state of Ohio.

We have managed, through chrono-magnetic reconstruction, to recover some electronic discourse from a discussion medium "social media." These discussions took place on what used to be called a "computer" -- an extremely early form of our cerebellar interfaces. This week we have drawn some startling conclusions about the ancient practices of social and political thinking from the early twenty-first century. Based on the conversations we have re-imaged and analyzed, we have concluded that people were required -- perhaps under threat of imprisonment -- to join one of two sides: either "liberal" or "conservative" viewpoints. Each side seems to have used the other's name as a kind of profanity.

We deduced that they were required to join these factions based on the disproportionately small number of people who seem to have "crossed the line" regarding their philosophies. (A farily common exception to this rule seems to be a rather significant number of people who seem to have held the oxymoronical belief that the killing of fetuses was bad and that the killing of those convicted of crimes was good, or vice-versa. [For reference, you'll forgive me if I remind you that in this epoch of history, people actually did find reasons to take the lives of their fellow humans; some of these reasons even made killing not only lawful but laudable].)

Open Letter to Young People Considering the Miltary

[Readers: This is a grizzly piece, in spots. You might not want to read if you have a loved-one in a combat zone. It is inspired by a few days of my mulling over the loss of so many Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan.]

Dear Young Person:

If you are thinking of joining the military, you should consider a few things.

First, be careful of the sepia-toned TV ads with close-ups of craggy-faced dads in pickup trucks talking to their sons after football practice about joining the army. Yes, it's cute that dad and son are giggling about convincing mom that he should join. Sure, it shows a bond between a son and dad that might be precious if tenuous, but the decision to join up is not something to giggle about. Ever.

Second, be careful of confusing your life with a movie. Movies just end, no matter how grizzly a picture they might seem to paint of war. Sometimes lives are dragged out long after the plot ceases to be interesting and long after the main character forgets all of his lines (because he lost part of his brain to an IED). Sometimes, he survives the war but lives a long, miserable life trying to forget about it. Sometimes he walks onto the set in heroic, shiny-buttoned glory and he rolls off in a wheelchair with a bag connected to it for collecting his feces and urine because he can no longer control his own bowels, let alone an enemy attacker.

Third: Yes, you can get money for college, but you can also get dead. Or insane. If you don't go off to fight, cool. If you do? You might wind up blowing someone's face apart and watching him die a squirming, screaming, horrific death in the hot sand right at your feet. That might make it difficult for you to concentrate in Composition 101 after your discharge. It is hard to focus on topic sentences in between memory-flashes of spattered pieces of bone and muscle clincing to a clay wall.

My Son, the Sadistic Villain

The Place of Wormly Doom

Yesterday afternoon, my nine-year-old son imprisoned and brutally tortured helpless living creatures. He surrounded them in walls of stone and left the poor devils to starve and die under the sun's cruel rays. Proud, and smiling broadly, he bounded into the house to tell me about it.

"Dad!" he said. "I made a house for worms out from some bricks on the old picnic table! I hope you don't mind -- I gave them two apples."

"Apples?" I said, looking up from my book. "Worms don't eat apples . . ." Then, I remembered all of the pictures from school with the little bespectacled fellow popping out of a red-delicious. "Earthworms don't, anyway. That's a waste of apples."

The Men and Women of the TSA, Uncovered

(This ran Wednesday at When Falls the Coliseum, as well, but what the heck.)

I've got it! The solution is nigh. Listen carefully, everyone.

So, everyone is bent out of shape by the TSA's naughty little scanners. And for derned good reason. By this point, you have read enough Internet rants and debates about the issues, so I won't get into the fine points in detail here, but many of them are based on invasion of privacy, implication of guilt, etc. Maybe there is no way out of this. Maybe there is no way out of getting scanned and/or groped in airports. Fine. Here's how we make it fair (and maybe pleasant).

Wake Up, Eggheads!

Yeah, I'm talking to you, buddy! (Click for source)

In our modern world, there are people who are not too bright; there are people who are pretty smart; there are people who have slightly better than average intelligence and there are geniuses. Imagine this as a sort of Kinsey scale for intellect, instead of sexual orientation. (We'll call it the "Matsey Scale." Well, I will, anyway, because it amuses me so much.) People fall in-between each point on the scale, so not everyone is able to be neatly categorized. But the problem in modern society is that the not-so-bright spend their lives attacking everyone else for not having "common sense;" the pretty smart people tend to fade into workaday, white collar nothingness; the slightly above average intelligences run things and the geniuses climb escape ladders up into ivory towers and look down on the world, shaking their heads at everyone else's behavior but refuse to jump into the fray and help with working things out, when, in fact, they are the best qualified to do so.

So You Think You Can Be President

This is a proposal of the most grave and honest intent.

Here it is. We have two years to get ready for this. I propose that we replace our current system of electing the President of the United States. Instead of the campaign/election process, the President should be chosen based on the call-in votes of Americans during a reality competition television show called So You Think You Can Be President. I submit that we will get better, more reliable results than we get with the current system. Voters will know their candidates much more deeply and they will be more confident and informed in their ultimate voting decisions. But the show must be carefully planned to yield the most reliable results.

First, there will be no party affiliations. Let's get that done from the start, because that is an archaic idea and parties cause more troubles than they abate. Parties are a smokescreen for cowardice and laziness of thought.

Second, all candidates must be over the age of forty and they must carry a master's degree in an academic discipline. (This helps to insure their potential as learners and thinkers.) Career politicians are welcomed to apply, but so are, say, English teachers, laywers, doctors, business people and librarians, etc.

Stage one of the competition:

People from each state who want to be President will upload a five-minute video speech to their state's designated site. They will explain in this speech why they want to and think they can be President. The people in the state will vote and the top vote-getter from each state will be sent to the So You Think You Can Be President White House -- an exact replica of the White House constructed on an undisclosed site. All 50 of the Internet picks will live there until the first big elimination: the American history test.

Stage two:

The American history test will be written by a panel of history professors chosen from American universities. The lowest twenty of the contestants will be sent home after the first episode of the show. The top 30 will remain and they will begin competing.

Our panel of American history professors will be replaced, at this point, by a panel of political science professors. These professors will administer a test, each week, on the Constitution. Any contestant who scores below an 85% on the test for the week will receive a penalty of a 10% decrease in his or her popular call-in votes for the week. Any competitors who receive below a 70%, at any time, will be immediately eliminated from the competition, regardless of their popularity. The test will be as objectively oriented as possible. Interpretation will be left for the ensuing competitions.

The show will be produced, of course, by the producers of American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance. On the show, there will be a panel of commentators who will have nothing to do with the voting process -- they just comment. This panel will consist of John Stewart, Dennis Miller, Glenn Beck, Rachel Maddow and Ben Stein. These judges will comment on the contestants' performance in much the same way as the American Idol judges comment when the votes are in the hands of the public. Since no one will be part of a political party, these judges will not be swayed by preconceptions and their backgrounds should be from diverse enough places that there is a give-and-take in their evaluative process, no matter how asinine or agenda-driven some of them might have been in the past. (It will be interesting to see where they stand on things when there no pre-labeling of contestants. If George Carlin were still with us, he would have been invited to be on the panel as the unwavering voice of reason, though he would undoubtedly have turned the offer down.)

Stage three: The weekly show will consist of challenges in which the contestants have to prove themselves in the areas of 1) ethics, 2) logic, 3) current issues and 4) presidential scenarios. The challenges will be devised by professors in areas related to each of these topics. Representatives of the religions of our country will also be part of the "ethics" element. The professors, clergy and producers will create and present the contestants with challenges and, each week, the public will vote for the winners after the breakdown and commentary of the judges; the three least-voted-for contestants will be eliminated each Friday. (The producers can iron out the process, but you get the point.)

During the process, contestants will be required to keep daily blogs regarding the show's progress. Everyone in the country (and the world) will have access to these blogs twenty-four hours a day.

The winner of the show will be our next President.

The prize: being President. There is no salary. For four years, the President and his or her family will be supplied with food, clothing and a pretty nice place to live in Washington, D.C. After that, he or she is free to compete on the show again, but after the second term, that person is on his or her own. No lifelong salary, no special benefits. The former President is free to work in any area he or she wants, but is no longer to be called "President." The ultimate reward will be to have served the American public, with no personal gain.

After this process we will have a President who is well known by the people before he or she takes office and who was chosen based on a display of intelligence, knowledge, logic, ethics and performance under pressure in simulated presidential scenarios. This person will have been chosen based on his or her ideas and not based on people's prejudice against or for subjective party stereotypes. The President will have been tested by experts in their fields and grilled, publicly, by some insightful comic and political minds. And, perhaps most importantly, the American public will have participated in the electoral process with the same energy they give to dance shows and singing shows, which, by my estimation, is about three-times the attention and thought they give to elections, including those who vote.

All advertising proceeds from the show will go to the country's poor. And me.

WHADDAYOU THINK? Revisions? Other ideas?