ON WRITING

     I'm a writer, of sorts. It occurs to me that, until a writer gets critiqued in a national publication, it's probably best to leave some daylight between ambition and attainment. Nobody pays to read what I write, and I don't have any offers, but I write anyway. 

I had a need to say something for many years but said nothing that lasted beyond a short memory. I am now finding my voice. It has not arrived quickly, but will not fade away quickly. At first I started with a memoir. It turned out to be a pretty good story, though underappreciared. I had no interest in technical writing, have no aptitude for poetry, an interest in screen-writing though not enough time to attain that dream. One famous screenwriter wrote the memorable  line about a "writ writ for a rat", if only I can learn to write lines of that quality. Writing a novel requires an ability to write about people who may be complete strangers in real life. I once said to my oldest son Quinn, who has a masters in writing but nothing else to differentiate him from writers like me, "a writer writes what he knows". Quinn responded quickly, "no dad, a writer writes". I'm still trying to work that out. Since i'm pursuing this art in the latter years of my life I think I'm going to stick with what I know. 

     I have an interest in satire. I think I know something about it. I grew up in the time of the great newspaper columnists. Mike Royko was my favorite. I became aware of him while still in my late teens, i read him in syndication. Later on while living in Portland I could find a used New York Times, less frequently the Chicago Tibune, in the newspaper stack at a local diner. The world of columnists and editoral writing opened up to me. My great friend and mentor Doug Griffin introduced me to Jimmy Breslin. He also introduced me to William Safire's Friday column On Writing. While I did not like his politics, or the president he served, you gotta like a writer who can advise a novice, "when it comes to who or whom, rewrite the sentence". Later PJ O'Rourke entered the picture. He is still one of the tiny number of conservative humorists whose humor appeals to me. While I may not rise to their eloquence, their memory guides my own attempts at satire.

     Since I'm in no danger of becoming famous, and may be closer to the end than I'm willing to admit, I think I will stay with satire, political satire, for there is a more fertile field in that area than Mike Royko could have imagined in the day of the first Mayor Daley and Richard Nixon. It is as if we are in a vast pasture of Psilocybin mushrooms, a fungus that grows in the cow plops left by grazing cattle. A satirist need only pick the Liberty caps of inspiration while trying to avoid stepping in the the shit, not a sure thing if you are high while searching. In the same way that the mushroom high presents you with insight, as well as the out of body sensation, satire opens our minds to the greater understanding of the people and events being satirized. 

     I have followed politics for many years. I started as a conservative because my dad and uncles were in that spectrum. At about 13 or 14 I had a letter to the editor printed in the Statesman on the Vietnam War in which I called Wayne Morse and Mark Hatfield, "worms in the bowels of government". Subtlety is not understood in the early teens. For many on the right today, it is still unknown, no matter how old they may be. I learned to regret that statement. Many years later, approaching my 70s, I hiked a trail with my ex-wife to the Morse farm in Eugene. I stood before that plaque and asked for his forgiveness. I can think of no other politician whom I have criticized harshly whose forgiveness I would ask. Politics is the agar medium which enriches the bacterial growth of satire in the petri dish of life (no MTG, it's not peach-tree dish). In the old days, the days of Mike Royko, you could pretty much find inspiration from both sides. Either choosing an accent to center your jokes, JFK or Lyndon Johnson, or in the occassional gaff made before a microphone. Policies were debated but not too often batshit crazy. Gradually the Democrats got boring. I mean Eugene McCarthy was an inspirational guy, but boring. Same with Hubert Humphrey, whose great legislative record was destroyed by the Vietnam War, and his being Veep during it. George McGovern inspired a restive anti-war crowd, had a notable WWII war record, and an admirable legislative career, but it was not enough to lead the nation. The Republicans at the same time were well on their way to becoming Snidely Whiplash to the Democrats Dudley Doright. Democracy is the helpless Nell, tied to the railroad tracks in this melodrama of political life. Watergate, the plumbers, and that famous "follow the money" uttered from a character named from an early porno movie, was the jackpot of satire. Gerry and Betty Ford were bland but they only served the rest of Nixon's second term and we had had too much satire by that time. The Peanut Farmer's only brush with excitement was his brother Billy's beer. And then we got 'The Gipper', who was marketed as  masterfully as if he was a McDonalds hamburger, and was as empty of nutrition. 

     Bill Clinton was a burst of excitement for a Democratic party desperate for charisma. His appeal was enhanced by his impeachment for surreptious oral sex in the Oval office. An act most Republicans had to pay for, and recieve in furtive hook-ups in airport bathrooms and such.  Barack Hussien Obama was exciting for historical reasons, but a Republican party/teaparty, filled with, blinding luminescence but not enlightenment, has become the field of cow-shit where the Liberty caps of satire grow in abundance. Michelle Bachman even tried to pass an incandescent lightbulb choice act. Louie Gohmert, Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnell and her saccharine "I'm  not a witch" speech, they built the steep slide into the underworld of stupid politics and greased the skids with cow shit. There are now so many mushrooms of satire, there's not enough time to pick them before the next day dawns and the field once more is filled with psychodelic abundance. I know there is a danger of becoming overconfident, or overdosed, but this idiocy will be around a long time, because it is frighteningly successful. We are on the knife edge of losing the democracy we have relied on for some two hundred forty years. We dodged a metaphorical bullet in the 2022 election, but the struggle is not over. Satire, sarcasm, and other forms of humor are not an even trade. But they are all we will have until sanity once more returns to a party that has spent a half century running away from it.