November 19, 2024: Walkway along east end of Kenosha, Wisconsin’s HarborPark on Lake Michigan.
Another Week: Number 100
I feel like a specimen being tested by outside forces to see how much ridiculous disappointment I can swallow.
Take the Chicago Bears, for example. They actually beat the Washington Commanders on October 27 — only to lose at the last second via a 52-yard Hail Mary pass. Then they got spanked by the Cardinals and the Patriots on the next two Sundays.
This week, the Bears hosted the hated Green Bay Packers — and they would have won that game had their last-second easy field goal attempt not been blocked.
I do my best to guard against belief, but then triumph is right there for the taking … and they doink it.
On our damp and chilly Monday morning, while striding along Kenosha’s Southport Marina, I was stopped by a couple of old guys in Land’s End jackets and shorts. I was the more sensible old guy, wearing a Land’s End jacket and jeans.
Larry did most of the talking, while Gene primarily shivered. They wanted to know what I thought of Trump’s win.
I told them it was an absolute disaster for America.
Larry was delighted because he said he never gets any dialogue with the “other side.” He prodded me to continue, so I disparaged Trump’s cabinet picks and tariff plans, his narcissism, and his ignorance.
At the same time, however, Larry was also very interested in my Land’s End jacket — a hooded and fleece-lined rain shell in “rich camel” that was frankly better-looking than his jacket, or Gene’s.
After asking what I did for work, Larry said he needed a web designer, so I gave him my card. According to a 2006 Forbes article, he’s something of a serial entrepreneur. While I was still walking, he emailed me, unable to find my jacket for sale at LandsEnd.com. He emailed again the next day, offering to buy mine. I passed.
On Thursday, I wore my Land’s End puffer jacket in our first honest-to-goodness snowstorm of the season to go out and vote — again — this time in a special primary election to replace our County Executive, who died this past June. My candidate didn’t win this one either.
Showering beforehand, I stepped on my bathroom scale and found that it is now an advertising medium like everything else on earth. After using the scale for several years, I suddenly had to click an ad closed before I could record my weight to my iPhone.
My polling place is the school across the street, where every weekday morning, swarms of hopeful parents drop off innocent little humans who have no idea just how much disappointment awaits us all.
Jesus is never coming back. The Beatles are never coming back. The 1985 Chicago Bears are never coming back.
But Donald J. Trump is.
This week I walked 10.9 miles.
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Wisconsin Badgers Women’s Volleyball
Finding something engaging on TV has been difficult since the Indiana Fever finished their season — but lately, I have found myself watching a few Badgers volleyball matches and getting drawn in. The action is fast and fairly continuous, and there are some amazingly long rallies now and then.
I know nothing about strategy, rotation, or positions — but I did Google “libero” this week.
The West (1996 documentary miniseries)
So Rugged and Mountainous, the unsatisfying book I read about covered wagon trails, left me wanting a better overview of the United States’ appropriation of our western regions, so I revisited this 18-year-old series via PBS Passport.
The West runs just short of 10 hours and tells the stories of will-driven Americans rapidly swarming across real estate and just razing whatever communities or animals were already there. Native American tribes, Mexicans, and Chinese immigrants all get decimated or dispersed, the bison get slaughtered, and the Americans bring in commerce and railroads.
You know the plot, but leafing through the individual scenes is still staggering.
Joan Baez: I Am a Noise (2023)
Back in July, I watched Festival, the 1967 documentary about the Newport Folk Festival, and one of the things that struck me was how warm and fun Joan Baez seemed. Her folk music stylings have always sounded too earnest for my tastes. Then again, she stood cheek-to-cheek with Bob Dylan in his 1976 Hard Rain TV special and held her own amid his zany circus.
On Tuesday, I chose Joan Baez: I Am a Noise from my Hulu list. The hour-and-53-minute film follows Baez on her 2018-2019 “Fare Thee Well” tour at age 77 to 78, catching bits of performances and offstage moments along the way and interspersing them with the chapters of her life story and her reflections at her California home.
Joan was the middle sister of three born to their Scottish mother and Mexican father, a mathematical physicist whose work for UNESCO moved the family to places all over the world and inspired their social justice awareness.
Interwoven with the musical and the activist threads, the sisters also shared a certain emotional darkness which is gradually traced to vague events that may have taken place with their father. It’s more of a strong hunch than a clear memory, but the dread is shared and real — particularly regarding Joan’s sister Mimi Fariña.
The film also includes some lighter moments. Baez laughs at herself at times — most notably her 1986 performance of “Shout” with the Neville Brothers at a “Conspiracy of Hope” concert in Giants Stadium — and she acknowledges the difference between her ambitions as a wife and mother and the way things unfolded.
All in all, Joan Baez: I Am a Noise is a soothing recollection of a complicated but sincere and productive life.
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