Well That Turned Out to be a Terrible Idea

Those of you who have known me longest know that I have been prone to some epic bad decision-making. Since my college days, I have made mostly good decisions on the job/family front, but my college years could best be summed up as "Bad decisions and their unfortunate consequences". This refers to academics, military endeavors, fraternity decisions, substance use/abuse, matters of the heart and (more often) matters of the groin.

Fast forward to today. We are living in the world of Trumplestiltskin. And it is an unpleasant time. The potential for civil liberty erosion, a potential war with North Korea, the increased rancor in everyday life, and the idea that I actually agree with Rob on political matters is too much for me to handle.

The 24/7 news cycle has become too much to handle, and I found myself diving down the rabbit hole every time the liberals and the never Trump Republicans wet the bed getting worked up on the fat man's latest misstep. As a result, I recently had to do a self-intervention with technology, realizing that I spend far too much evening time on my electronic devices. It is affecting my sleep, because I am now no longer reading before nodding off, something I have done for most of my life.

So I had multiple reasons to pursue distractions from CNN's 96-pt font hyperbole (BREAKING NEWS!!!) on my iPad and TV. On a recent Acela train from Boston to NYC, I started digging into The Handmaid's Tale on Hulu. On that same train, I ordered some books from Amazon, to try to re-ignite my love for the ancient hobby of reading paper books. I ordered a Winston Churchill biography, as well as Cormac McCarthy's The Road. The latter item was something I'd been itching to dig into for a while - a Pulitzer Prize winning novel that others spoke highly of. But I have to admit I knew little of the details. When both arrived, the massive Churchill tome immediately looked imposing. So I opted for the smaller McCarthy book.

What does this mean? It means I spent the last three weeks escaping the Trump presidency by watching The Handmaid's Tale and reading The Road, two extremely personal tales of tortured souls trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic America. Yep, that turned out to be a terrible idea. A really really bad one. A shiver-inducing, may-as-well-drink-scotch-while-it's-still-available kinda decision. Both works of art make me want to build a bunker and buy some guns, which is unfortunate, because the (sur)real world of Trumplestiltskin occasionally makes me want to do the same. I almost took a break from these show/book to watch Schindler's List to cheer myself up. Praise be.

After finishing The Road over Memorial Day weekend, I needed something light. Immediately. So I dug into a book I had purchased a week before, unaware how ironic the timing would prove to be. The book is the highly entertaining Gregg Allman biography My Cross to Bear. It arrived less than a week before his passing. Reading about the teenage Allman Brothers learning the blues and sowing their oats in Daytona and Los Angeles in the late 1960's is a more apt form of escapism for my weary soul these days. As my buddy Lester Burnham said in American Beauty, "At least once a day, I want to retire to the men's room so I can jerk off while I fantasize about a life that doesn't so closely resemble Hell."

Happy 6/9, gents and dames.