I had no adventures yesterday; I did not even leave the house. That’s bad. I need to get back to walking three miles a day. It is so strange, I don’t even particularly like Krispy Kreme’s glazed donuts but a free one motivated me to walk every day. I need the goal. I get 100 bonus points when I go to Dunkin on Mondays so that’s today’s plan. It’s grey outside, it better not rain and spoil my plan. I also have to do laundry and record Gord’s Gold. That should keep me busy. I don’t have the time set yet, but a school asked me to give my availability for a Zoom interview this week. Wish me luck. I think it’s the school was where I got my training for Princeton Review.
The culinary excitement was making poutine for dinner. I can pretty much eat that every day. It has beef gravy and cheese curds but that’s as close to a vegetarian dinner as I get. You are what you eat, and I’d rather be a cow or steer than a vegetable. I don’t think that’s what the expression means or else the only humans would be cannibals.
I don’t have a central thesis for today’s blog. That’s an issue. It is strangely related to one of my candidates for a thesis that I realized I don’t have that much to say about but about which I have a strong opinion. I think I’m going to try something I haven’t done in ages, a stream of consciousness. This is something personal, a blog, not an academic paper. It’s supposed to be about me, so following my mind as it takes a walk is allowed. It won’t be a Donut Walk™, there is no set goal.
Years ago, one of my favorite songwriters, told me that what she likes about me is that I’m so positive. Not positive as in sure I’m right, not positive as in electrically charged, but positive as in I have a positive outlook on music, that I all I see is the good. That’s in fact the exact opposite of what I’m like inside. I dislike most music. To find music to play on Gord’s Gold I have to wade through so much chaff to find the wheat. Making music is difficult; It’s not enough to put in the 10,000 hours and it’s not enough to have natural talent, you have to have both, and few do. One of the hardest things to write is a protest song. It’s so alluring to just say, “I don’t like what those people are doing” to people that agree with you and know that they will cheer. Isn’t that Trump’s entire political MO? It works and it’s not just people that I disagree with politically that do it. Writing a good song is difficult. Writing a good protest song is even more difficult as it’s so easy to write a bad one and still get positive feedback. I heard a songwriter discussing a new song. They said they didn’t want to just write a laundry list of grievances. They then admitted that was exactly what they did and sang a laundry list of grievances. Songs are poems. The thing that makes poetry valuable is that it allows you to say so much with so few words. A good poem or song inspires a cascade of thoughts in the listener’s mind. It inspires thinking, it is not giving facts.
The way I’m positive is that I did not call out the songwriter in question. I will gladly name Crys Matthews and SONiA as people that know how to write a great protest song, but I don’t want unnecessarily to make someone feel bad. I’m not positive, I’m considerate. I once wrote what I felt was an excellent blog on a sensitive subject. I forgot that while I’m perfectly happy talking about my personal issues academically others aren’t. I am not an expert on the subject, while I thought it was well reasoned, that doesn’t mean it was important for others to hear my thoughts on the matter. It was certainly not as important as making people I love feel bad, so I deleted the post.
For years people were pressuring the Cleveland Indians to change their name. I thought that the team was right to keep it. The name was chosen to honor a popular Indigenous American player, Louis Sockalexis. Polling showed that a majority of Indigenous Americans had no objections. The most common word used to describe their feeling was “proud.” In the aftermath of one of the tragic killings of an African American the team decided to err on the side of racial harmony and changed their name to the Guardians. While I felt that the didn’t need to change their name the team’s motivation was noble. This is the first season using the new name and it’s getting the unfortunately expected reaction from the Right. They have discovered the Louis Sockalexis and are using that to act offended at the name change. Using it as another attack on the “woke.” They went looking for a rationale that doesn’t sound racist to back their gut feeling. I’m not saying racism, people hate name changes. I hated the name Citi Field for the stadium replacing Shea. Objecting to the name change isn’t necessarily racist, but not caring that it will offend many people wrong. It more anti-wokeness than racism, but it’s also dismissing racial sensitivity. Most Indigenous Americans were fine with the old name, but many weren’t. Let them have their victory.
This was not the stream of consciousness I expected. I kept to subjects that are related in my mind. When I started blogging, I promised my readers that they would discover much of my character and a little of my history. That’s a Tolkien quote. In the prologue of Lord of the Rings he said, “This book is largely concerned with Hobbits, and from its pages a reader may discover much of their character and a little of their history.” Knowing that I quote chapter and verse of Tolkien is an important part of my character.
Wise Madness 