Someone told me that I had two faults. One was that I didn’t listen, and the other was … I dunno, some crap they were rattling on about.
But I can’t worry about that. I’m under a lot of pressure here. You read this column hoping to be informed or entertained or outraged, perhaps to be brought up to speed on issues of the day. And this is week after week after week, mind you. I don’t get a break.
It’s not like I’m a comedian or a band on tour, with a new audience every night. Those people have it easy. They know what their audience likes. Play the hits. Tell that funny story about your brother-in-law. Soak in the applause. Hit the hotel bar. Job done. Piece of cake.
Not me, no sir. I have the same readers every week, and I can’t just rerun a column from three weeks ago that got a lot of Facebook likes and web traffic, no matter how brilliant it was. No, you people demand fresh material.
I know, it’s not like I don’t have subject matter. There’s an unspeakably horrible genocide happening in Europe, but I have no real insights there, other than to hope someone pushes Vladimir Putin out of a window soon.
I guess I could always rant about Tucker Carlson’s creepy and mostly traitorous television show on Fox News, which Russian television is running verbatim almost every night. This week, Tucker is claiming that American men are being “feminized” by the woke left and has been running a homoerotic promo video of sweaty, muscly shirtless guys swinging axes and other heavy items. He also discussed the possible testosterone-building benefits of testicle tanning with an “expert.” I’m not making this up. And this manly man does all this while sitting in a director’s chair, wearing a bow tie, khakis, and Weejuns loafers sans socks. Is it wrong that I want to punch his smug, entitled face with my woke little fist?
And I’ve already written at length about the GOP clowns who run the Tennessee legislature, the people whose primary concerns are hassling trans kids, setting up private schools with taxpayer money, and overturning Roe v. Wade. They do the latter under the guise of “protecting children,” but let’s be real: If they really cared about children, they’d expand Medicare (a gift from the feds), raise the minimum wage, enforce the clean air and water regulations, and quit making it legal for any mouth-breathing yahoo who can stand upright to carry a gun anywhere with no training or restrictions.
But, okay, since I’m here, knee-deep in writing about the Nashbillies, I’d be remiss in not mentioning the speech given last week by state Senator Frank Niceley. The senate was debating a patently unconstitutional bill that would keep homeless people from sleeping on public property — basically criminalizing homelessness — and Niceley decided he needed to give the chamber “a little lesson on homelessness.” Here’s how the speech began:
“[In] 1910, Hitler decided to live on the streets for a while. So for two years, Hitler lived on the streets and practiced his oratory and his body language and how to connect with citizens and then went on to lead a life that got him in the history books.” Homelessness, Niceley added, is “not a dead end.”
Indeed it is not. One can rise from homelessness to take over a country, found the Nazi party, start a world war, and murder millions of men, women, and children in gas chambers.
No doubt motivated by their colleague’s inspirational oratory, the Senate passed the homelessness bill, which makes sleeping on public property a Class E felony, and sent it on to Governor Bill Lee, who will no doubt sign it in Jesus’ name, amen. Because Jesus also hated poor people.
So, I think you see what I’m dealing with here. Trying to make enough sense of any of this to crank out a reasonably coherent column is just impossible this week. Sorry. I promise to do better next time.
