We go back a long way, Robby and me. Before we even met each other. My guilty secret. When the Eagles played the Raiders in the Super Bowl I was secretly rooting for the Raiders, who won colossally. Robby also roots for the Jersey Devils. I can’t go that far, but those who know me best would cheerfully describe me as a moderate. Wink wink.
He’s in Raider heaven right now. As I am, even though I haven’t watched a single game since Kaepernick took a knee.
So these clips are for Robby. And for me. The pirates who never stopped believing.
Yeah. Saw Journey as an opening act for Stones at JFK Stadium in 1981. They had the Number One album in the country at the time. Nobody paid them the slightest attention.
Who brought down the house? George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers.
And then, of course, the Stones.
But I loved this Filipino kid who sang Steve Perry better than Steve Perry could. They used him then threw him away. Fuck Journey.
David Brooks. Supposed to be one thing. Yet is another. What we used to call, in wartime, a double agent. He’s the James Bond of The New York Times. Agent 007 of the left. Somebody wrote a book about that. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Red spies inside MI-5 and 6. The scandal nearly sank the U.K. back in the day. The New York Times has never been embarrassed about apologizing for Communism. It’s their bread and butter.
So the global left is fighting back, now that Communism is cool again. Burning cars and buildings to make us rethink our Trump votes. Plotting ways of undermining the Electoral College to force-feed their totalitarian sense of entitlement down our throats. And now, David Brooks, the so-called conservative of the New York Times* (in reality, communist pimp to WAPO’s faux conservative Jennifer Rubin, ultimate Hillary whore), has a Final Solution when all of the vain car and constitution burnings fail:
“Finally, it seems important to be humbled and taught by this horrific election result. Trump’s main problem in governing is not going to be some fascistic ideology; his main problem is going to be his own attention span, ignorance and incompetence. If he’s left to bloviate while others are left to run the country and push through infrastructure plans, maybe things won’t be disastrous.
“The job for the rest of us is to rebind the fabric of society, community by community, and to construct a political movement for the post-Trump era. I suspect the coming political movements will be identified on two axes: open and closed and individual and social.
“Those who believe in open believe in open trade, relatively open immigration, an active foreign policy and racial integration. Those who believe in closed believe in protective trade, closed borders, a withdrawn foreign policy and ethnic separatism…
“Trump’s bigotry, dishonesty and promise-breaking will have to be denounced. We can’t go morally numb. But he needs to be replaced with a program that addresses the problems that fueled his assent.
“After all, the guy will probably resign or be impeached within a year. The future is closer than you think.”
Why I keep thinking of Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and chief engineeer, racing around Germany in his lavish Mercedes trying desperately to prevent the physical destruction of Germany and the buildings he had designed for the Third Reich. A vain quest for redemption, with no honor and more than a soupçon of pure ego.
Brooks isn’t a conservative. He’s not an intellectual. He’s a stooge, driving madly through D.C. to save his own sorry ass. By running away from anything remotely resembling personal responsibility. He’s just being a smug snob in a Mercedes. Trump can’t be impeached by a Republican majority house and senate. And he certainly won’t resign. He’s got way more energy and drive than you ever did, cuz.
“We can’t go morally numb.” Really? What did you do, Mr. Magoo? Running and running away you be, Albert…
*Originally said Washington Post. Corrected by my friend Aben. Forgive me.
My mother said this ended his career. She was right. But then he had another career. Compare and contrast.
Because, you know, you know, when all is said and done, he was the best ever.
Got to see him in person one time. Thought I’d be seeing a tottering shell. In Cincinnati. He was magnificent. It was open air. I was married at the time. She said, “Oh my God.” Before it was a thing. How good he was.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lvDNy5RS2eU
P.S. Have to share this because it was so cute. My mother used to dance all alone to this song. Have you ever seen your mother dance all alone? Perfect beauty in middle age.
Had a French teacher back in the day. You know. A real teacher. Navy vet. Holder of six radar patents. He heard about the reading list for the French AP exam and clapped Camus’s The Stranger on his desk. “Gentlemen,” he said. He always called us gentlemen. “I’ve been told you’re supposed to read this book if you want to do well on the AP exam. Here it is. If you want to read garbage, I offer it to you freely. But you will not read it in my classroom.” He was six feet tall, white haired, taught us in odd moments about the meaning of modern art and anything else that took his fancy, and we all feared and idolized him.
So. We hewed to the classics. No women writers, for example. (I did a search for “not very good women writers, French, and came up with this list.) One thing Mr. Miller taught us you might not know. The great moments in drama — you know, plays — are few and far between. Most critics say these moments have happened four times. Mr. Miller said only three.
The Greeks. Aeschylus, Euripedes, and Sophocles. Skip ahead a millennium and you get to the English. Shakespeare, and on his best day, Marlowe. Then came, belatedly as usual, the French. Racine and Corneille. Who really honestly actually were almost as good as Shakespeare.
Racine did Phaedra. Corneille did El Cid. Who back in the day would have looked like Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren or thereabouts.
Regardless. Racine and Corneille were both great. Not that millennials would know. Uneducated tools. Shakespeare? Who?
Why I recorded the soliloquy of Phaedra from Racine’s play. I should rerecord it, because I forgot that women’s soliloquies are always at high volume and not controlled. But I’m tired at the moment, and I’m asking you to imagine that some Phaedra could internalize her insanity. To some degree. Perhaps not. But I’ll rerecord it tomorrow. Okay? Here’s the poor English version:
PHAEDRA: Ah! cruel Prince, too well
You understood me. I have said enough
To save you from mistake. I love. But think not
That at the moment when I love you most
I do not feel my guilt; no weak compliance
Has fed the poison that infects my brain.
The ill-starr’d object of celestial vengeance,
I am not so detestable to you
As to myself. The gods will bear me witness,
Who have within my veins kindled this fire,
The gods, who take a barbarous delight
In leading a poor mortal’s heart astray.
Do you yourself recall to mind the past:
‘Twas not enough for me to fly, I chased you
Out of the country, wishing to appear
Inhuman, odious; to resist you better,
I sought to make you hate me. All in vain!
Hating me more I loved you none the less:
New charms were lent to you by your misfortunes.
I have been drown’d in tears, and scorch’d by fire;
Your own eyes might convince you of the truth,
If for one moment you could look at me.
What is ‘t I say? Think you this vile confession
That I have made is what I meant to utter?
Not daring to betray a son for whom
I trembled, ’twas to beg you not to hate him
I came. Weak purpose of a heart too full
Of love for you to speak of aught besides!
Take your revenge, punish my odious passion;
Prove yourself worthy of your valiant sire,
And rid the world of an offensive monster!
Does Theseus’ widow dare to love his son?
The frightful monster! Let her not escape you!
Here is my heart. This is the place to strike.
Already prompt to expiate its guilt,
I feel it leap impatiently to meet
Your arm. Strike home. Or, if it would disgrace you
To steep your hand in such polluted blood,
If that were punishment too mild to slake
Your hatred, lend me then your sword, if not
Your arm.
As read by me in the original Greek, here:
Oh. The fourth age of drama? Moron critics think Arthur Miller and Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams made that happen. Did I use the word morons already? Then I’m out of useful adjectives.
If she does have a link, I’ll be a proud papa. I, a lowly writer, made this tiny movie of silly news stiffs, and every image, word, and sequence was chose by MEEEEE!!!!
Or someone who looked very much like me. There can’t be that many skinny blond old guys with cool shades who don’t live in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Russia, or possibly Scotland, uh, Ohio.
THE XOFF NEWS TEAM. A book you never knew you needed. Just like us Scots. From Ohio.
Sure they do. Maybe why they should stop dismembering their babies by the millions at abortion mills and shooting each other by the thousands in Chicago.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is ready to fight Joe Biden, after the Vice President said he’d like to take Trump “behind the gym.”
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