Road Rage

Last night I was indulging in one of my favorite pastimes, watching compilations of road rage fights on YouTube. It used to be that in a traffic related fight, two guys would get out, maybe with a pipe or
a bat, and duke it out. Now these guys go straight for the gun. It's horrifying to see some punk getting a well-deserved pounding from an outraged driver and instead of manning up, they dive straight for the glove compartment. Now if you find yourself in a road rage incident, they'll just shoot your ass. I must confess that I've been afflicted with road rage for about thirty years or so, and there ain't no cure for those boulevard blues. It begins during the daily obstacle course on the city streets that someone set up just for you. Here's a guy trying to make a left from the center lane. Here comes some fool barreling out of a fast food joint and pulling too far into the street where you have to swerve quickly and pray someone's not in the other lane. Here's a tiny lady who can barely see over the steering wheel driving 25 mph during rush hour. And that guy that speeds past you, cuts over three lanes, and ends up at the same red light as you. They're all just playing their parts assigned for that day to make driving a harrowing experience.

You would not believe the words that come out of my mouth that could never be used in any other setting. It usually begins as an irritant from observing another drivers' behavior. When something crucially stupid happens, I begin by saying, "You banking blank. Idiot blankerblanker. Wake the blank up and drive, you blanking blankhole." From their it only gets worse. Once I was driving east on Peabody and as I drew near S. Cooper St. where the road dead ends and splits either left or right, some knucklehead in front of me couldn't pick a lane. I thought I'd help him by laying on the horn, but he flipped me a particularly vulgar looking bird. Infuriated, I did the old trick of moving my hand in a back and forth motion near my mouth and poking my cheek out with my tongue. Certain that my gesture was far more disgusting than his, he went south and I went north. I stopped in the old record store in the Poplar Plaza and while I was perusing the CDs, this scrawny looking guy in overalls comes up to me and says, "You're the guy that just told me to "blank a blank" in the street out there. Not wishing to disrupt anyone's business, I took the gentlemanly approach and apologized. I told him that something inexplicable comes over me when I get behind the wheel of a car, but I'm really not that person. He seemed to accept my atonement and left. It was either that or throw down in the middle of the Rhythm and Blues racks. That's how I learned to keep my vulgarities and hand gestures more discreet.

My wife, Melody, has refused to drive with me for several years now. I don't mind if she wishes to drive, but I'm not that great of a passenger either. I enjoy explaining the psychology of traffic. If she passes some massive SUV,  I tell her to just watch. Psychologically, the other driver resents being passed by a smaller car and will invariably speed up. She also hates it when I stomp on the passenger's side brakes. I have noticed, however, that she'll occasionally cut loose with a tirade that could peel paint from a dry wall. I have to remind her that we don't go for the "blue" language. Still, the horror is unending. The interstates have become endless ribbons of aggravation. Believe it or not, there was a time when long-haul truckers were considered the most courteous drivers on the road. They moved over to allow you to pass and if you made a pulling motion with your arm, they might even let you hear a little airhorn. No longer. Since the petroleum industry lobbyists have stopped all railway progress in this country, the highways are choked with big rigs and the old Eisenhower expressway is too obsolete to handle it. That's why I try not to complain when the old 5:15 rolls through the center of town. I know that every boxcar is one less truck on the highway. Today's truckers pass you at eighty miles an hour, and blow your car off the road. There was also a time when you could hitchhike on the interstate and invariably a trucker would pick you up. I thought nothing of being dropped off at an exit ramp in Nashville and thumbing it to Knoxville. Even women once trusted truckers enough to hitchhike. I knew this musician who was around 5'4", thinner than a dime, with long blonde hair flowing down his back. Once, he was hitching with his thumb out and his back to oncoming traffic when an 18-wheeler pulled over. My friend jumped into the cab revealing his mustache and sternum-length beard and said, "I bet you thought I was a girl." The trucker answered, "Don't matter. Imma fuck you anyway."

If I were your president, I would begin building 21st century super-highways exclusively for automobiles and leave the old interstate to the truckers. What would it take- four more lanes? We need some auto friendly roads and not these corkscrew flyovers that claim a life a week. And the next Congress should make Drivers' Ed mandatory. That would thin the herd from some of these damn fools out there, and you know who you are. Just today, I saw some monster truck pull to a sudden stop behind me at a red light and when I looked into the rear view mirror, some slob was eating something out of a bowl with a spoon. I thought it must be ice cream but he was eating it much too fast to avoid brain freeze. I assumed it was either ramen noodles or soup and said loudly to no one, "You idiot blankblanker." Sometimes I just wish I had a giant yellow backhoe to cruise down the road, so when I saw someone driving like a selfish idiot bastard I could just crush in their roofs and push them to the curb. Oh yeah, I saw that on YouTube too.

New Years Revolution

If Bernie Sanders can somehow win the Democratic nomination and Donald Trump is chosen as the GOP presidential "Apprentice" reality show contestant, it will be interesting to see an election between a Socialist and a Fascist. Of course, most voters don't know the difference between a Social Democrat and a Marxist, but I give extra points to anyone who knows who Marx is, and I don't mean Groucho. Since the term "Socialism" is often associated with the Soviet Union, or those evil European countries where they just give away their healthcare like that, any candidate running under that label already has two strikes against them right away. Sort of like being born with a name like Barack Hussein Obama. Socialism means major industries are owned by the government rather than by corporations or individuals. Social Democrat means someone really liberal who may soon be the frontrunner of a major political party that is scared guano-less to use that term.

Discerning readers know that the United States began using socialism as soon as they set up the Pony Express. All governmental functions used for the public good are socialistic, except for all that free stuff the Democrats give away at election time like Obamaphones and abortions. I guess nothing's ironic any longer, but on the Republican side, Marco Rubio is giving away calculators, and Jeb Bush is sending out to a "select universe of influencers, donors, and core supporters," digital video players with a fifteen minute film called, "The Jeb Story." Actually, the slickly produced videos were shipped out by Bush's Super-Pac, Right to Rise USA, which sounds more like a Cialis commercial than the name of a slush fund. But that's not socialistic, that's just tiny bribes to the billionaire seraphim of the GOP. Every time I hear an update on the gangsta cowboy vigilantes up in Oregon, I'm reminded of socialism. These armed protectors of the Constitution and their nitwit anti-bird militia don't like government? Cut the power, the water and WiFi, so they can't upload any more pleas for Mountain Dew, then block the access roads and wait for the next blizzard. They even have the gall to ask that snacks and underwear be sent through the U.S. Mail. Let them sit there through February and they'll be begging for a little socialism.

Fascism is defined as an authoritarian, right-wing system of government, led by a despot, an autocracy, or a "strong man," and characterized by racism, xenophobia, and ultra nationalism. Speaking of Donald Trump, he trotted out the Vampira of the tea party, Sarah Palin, to endorse his candidacy during a campaign rally and give a long, incoherent soliloquy that was so bizarre, it brought Tina Fey back for an encore. After listening to twenty minutes of brain droppings, Trump's expression said, "Wrap that shit up, G," but his mouth said, "She's really a special person." After the Vaudeville show concluded, Trump said he would "love" to put Palin in his cabinet if elected. That should disqualify him on the spot, but nothing slows the Trump Blitzkrieg- not even the shrieking witch from Wasilla. The unemployed, half-term governor is like herpes. It's always there just under the surface, and just when you think its gone, it comes back with a vengeance. In this case, her vengeance was directed at the GOP "establishment" who mocked her last time around. Trump then announced to another rabid mob that his minions were so loyal, "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters." For a second, I thought this might be the equivalent of John Lennon's "We're more popular than Jesus" quote. It could have been worse. He might have said, "If Ivanka weren't my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her."

I'm having a heart vs. head dilemma this election. I agree with most of Bernie Sanders' positions but I know in advance that he'll be compared to Mao Zedong. I think Hillary is electable, but I've come down with a severe relapse of Clinton Fatigue. I knew it when she was slipping in the polls and brought out the Clinton attack machine. Even Chelsea was schlepped out of her new 10.4 million dollar Manhattan apartment to tell lies about Sanders' proposals and explain how he would be horrible for the working man. Suddenly, I remembered Bob Dylan's lyrics, "What price do you have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice?" I want my country back too- the one promised by LBJ, Martin Luther King and the Great Society. The country that once declared war on poverty instead of drugs. I want a country that passes legislation like the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, where voting is encouraged rather than suppressed. We're just one election and two Supreme Court Justices away, and I'm beginning to "feel the Bern." Call him whatever you want, Sanders would be the most revolutionary president since FDR. If you really wanted to shake up our broken political system, who better than an elderly, Jewish Socialist? You could do worse.

An Old New Year

We're into that twilight week of the year known as the taint of the calendar. 'Taint Christmas and it
'taint New Years. Since it's the season to be jolly and the news is so grim, I'd like to tell you about one memorable New Years' Eve. I must preface the story by admitting that Isaac Tigrett and I have been friends since high school. My band used to drive up to Jackson to play at his fraternity parties. I say this both because the event occurred at Hard Rock Café, and it's not my intention to drop names until later in the column. The Hard Rock was Isaac's creation and I was invited to celebrate the New York restaurant's first anniversary and New Years festivities. I was invited to the opening, but I had an anxiety disorder and had trouble enough going to Kroger much less flying to a packed-out gala event with a bunch of strangers. But this time, I was given an offer I couldn't refuse- Isaac was sitting next to me on the airplane. We reached New York and headed for the car rentals where Tigrett tossed two premium credit cards on the counter, turned to me and said, "Do you have any cash? I don't have any money."  I was housed in the same building where Isaac had an apartment overlooking the Hard Rock's Cadillac entrance, so he could watch the lines outside and harass the doorman.

New York at Christmas is beautiful, with lighted ornaments dangling over 57th Street like giant snowflakes. When I first walked into the Hard Rock, I was so overwhelmed, I had to open my eyes wider to take it all in. Several of the old Soul Revue posters from the sixties that I'd loaned Isaac were duplicated and hanging prominently on the wall, and climbing up to second floor, there was a giant picture of Little Richard with the tiny inscription, "To Randy, with love." When I asked Isaac how he got away with making duplicates of what might be considered copywrited material he said, "I just keep doing it until someone tells me to quit." Ernest Wither's iconic photo of B.B. King and Elvis was prominently placed in a double-arched, gilded, antique frame with a plaque above that read, "The Two Kings." I began to feel at home. Even the Bar-B-Q was cooked low and slow. I linked up with a group of my Jackson buddies who had made the trip and joined their party for the celebration. There must have been about seven of us, all single men, and we were Isaac's guests for New Years' Eve. The problem was, we were guests at what turned out to be a private party.

We were seated at a large table on the main floor, while the entire upstairs, and the rest of the restaurant for that matter, had been rented to the actor George Segal and his guests for the night. I loved George Segal in "Virginia Woolf," but he had this other shtick where he'd go on the Johnny Carson show and play the banjo. That would be bad enough, but he played songs like "Alexander's Ragtime Band," and other favorite minstrel songs of the South including, "Rufus Rastus Johnson Brown," a real rib tickler. Unfortunately, Segal was the entertainment for the evening. He had hired a trio consisting of piano, bass, and drums. I was just hoping they were being well paid. I showed up in a suit and tie, but the Jackson boys were all in tuxedo. Isaac kept bringing different women over for introductions because every time he did, we all stood in unison like gentlemen. The New York ladies were goggle-eyed. Some laughed, some were bemused, and some stared at us like we were vestiges of some lost civilization. When George Segal began regaling the assembly with "If You Knew Susie," his guests listened in rapt attention while we decided it was time to start drinking heavily. I should add here that I don't drink. Lord knows I've tried to be a proper drunk, but it just doesn't work for me. However this time, the Champaign was flowing and I didn't want to be anti-social, which is another way of saying that I got lampshade-on-the-head, knocked-out loaded.

When Segal rejoined his party, the trio began playing some cool jazz and I was suddenly hoisted from my seat from behind and propelled toward the stage. The musicians eyeballed each other warily, but the boss wanted his buddy to sing. I ran through the rolodex of songs in my head and came up with Ray Charles' "I Gotta Woman," and the crowd woke up. The bass player said, "Hey man. That was great. let's do another one." He was sort of a goofy looking guy with a big smile, a childlike face, and a baseball cap that he wore backwards. I chose B.B. King's "Rock Me, Baby," because it only has three chords and I didn't want to confuse the musicians. We got such big applause that George Segal bounded down the stairs and told the band to take a break. My new musical pal turned to shake my hand and said, "I enjoyed that. My name's Jaco Pastorius." I was sitting next to the bassist for the jazz-fusion group Weather Report and one of the greatest innovators in the history of the bass guitar. He turned to the drummer, "This is Jim Keltner," who had only worked with everyone from John Lennon to Elvis. The frail-looking gentleman at the piano with the receding hair and braided ponytail was Bob Dorough. Only recently, a friend had given me a tape of his early be-bop music and I gushed, "Mr. Dorough, we sure know you in Memphis." He slipped his arm around my waist and asked, "Would you like to get to know me better?" I politely declined and somehow managed to crawl back to my room at sunrise, still amazed that George Segal had hired some of the finest musicians in the world to accompany him on "Ain't She Sweet." The following New Year's Eve, George Segal didn't play at the Hard Rock. I did. But that's another story.

The Purge

If nothing else, Facebook was certainly interesting last week. After the horrible carnage in Paris, people changed their profile pictures to the French flag or superimposed the vertical red, white and blue stripes over their faces. We were united in solidarity with the French in their grief and anger. Then, in the aftermath of the attack, it was discovered that one of the soulless killers had a Syrian passport and had registered as a refugee in Greece.When the topic of refugees from the Syrian civil war being resettled in this country, all hell broke loose. Thus began "the great unfriending." Generally speaking, a new strain of xenophobia exploded onto social media. The most common sentiment was that this was all a plot for ISIS to infiltrate this country and kill Christians and, of course, it's Obama's fault. The ignorance and racism on Facebook was appalling. An exact quote from my comment section said, "All you liberal lesbians and out in left field democrats can take a flying fuck. Our gutless president needs to pull his head out of the sand and to be like France." He got unfriended. In fact, a social media critic claimed, "It was the largest unfriending week in Facebook history."

Of course, the crassest and most repugnant remarks came from the clavern of GOP presidential candidates. Dr. Ben Carson compared the refugees to "mad dogs." Marco Rubio said, "We can't background check them. You can't pick up the phone and call Syria." And Donald Trump out-uglied everybody. A month ago I wrote that it was never proper to use Hitler reference when discussing American politics, but Trump has gone flat-out Nazi. Saying, "we're going to have to do things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago," Trump favors a database to track Muslims, surveillance of mosques, warrantless wiretaps, and ID cards proving religious affiliation. A Black Lives Matter activist was beaten and kicked at a recent Trump rally. Asked if Muslims should wear some sort of identifying badge, he shrugged it off but didn't rule it out. Obama countered with, "perhaps ignorant racists should wear special ID badges too." Trump's new applause line, "I would bomb the shit out of them," is a sentiment held by many, but not exactly what you want to hear from the potential leader of the free world. He's still trying to find a "humane way" to round up 11 million Mexicans. I don't know, but it sure sounds like Germany in the 1930s.

While every GOP candidate is rattling a sabre for more wars with other people's children, Congress passed a bill that forces every refugee from Syria to be personally screened by the head of the FBI. Half the governors in the country, all but one a Republican, have put out the sign that says, "Syrians not welcome here." Contrast that with the sentiments expressed by French president Francois Hollande. After the bloodiest terrorist attack on French soil, Hollande said it was France's "humanitarian duty" to help refugees landing on European shores. Hollande proclaimed that France would accept 30,000 Syrian refugees and spend 53.3 million dollars to develop housing for them. Since the US pledged to stand with France, aren't we fortunate to have a Secretary of State that speaks the language fluently? And do you remember when John Kerry was mocked by the Republicans for being "too French?," Or the "Freedom Fries," and the "Cheese eating surrender monkeys?" Germany has offered to settle 800,000 refugees. The US is accepting 10,000 with hysterical resistance. Isn't it ironic that in seventy years, Germany has transformed from Nazism into a beacon of hope for the world?

The truth is that the US has resettled more immigrants than any other country. Since 9/11, the US has admitted 859,629 refugees. Of that number, three were convicted of planning attacks on targets outside the United States, none of them successful. This country has one of the most thorough vetting processes for immigrants in the world, but how do you stop someone who is both suicidal and homicidal? These savages aren't the huddled masses yearning to be free. They are well financed zealots who can afford an airline ticket and a visa. They aren't the desperate refugees who walked from a war zone in Syria all the way to Europe with their babies and grandmothers looking for sanctuary from the hell they escaped. Before Facebook, most people kept their idiotic opinions to themselves until they were drunk. Not any more. Right-wing media spews misinformation as a business plan. You might hear some Fox News quotes from an angry uncle this very week. Before sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner, we should be mindful of what the holiday is for. Once, we were accepted as refugees into this country by the indigenous population. No wait, that didn't go so well. Just shut up about the Muslims and eat your turkey sandwich.