​Hunter S. Thompson and Kurt Vonnegut were two of the people most responsible for me wanting to become a writer. I was a teenager, and couldn’t believe you could actually get paid to be so rude, irreverent, and just plain weird.

I used to love to turn people on to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It was especially fun to see their reactions to the arsenal of drugs Duke and his attorney kept in the trunk of the big Shark. Hilarious. The Back Door Beauty scene in that book is one of the funniest things ever written.

In later years, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Hunter was friends with Warren Zevon, another madman/genius who is sorely missed. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when those two hung out.

The Jihad Insurance Connection

I’ve been thinking a lot about my Work-In-Progress Jihad Insurance even when I’m not working on it, and last week I wrote about John Cleese. The Monty Python legend got himself in a bit of hot water when he made reference to the “sanctimoniousness and narcissistic posturing” of “the wokes,” and I commented that.

The reason this resonates with me goes back to my teen years listening to Frank Zappa, reading Vonnegut and HST, and hanging out with some other rude young fellows.

And it’s funny: although I agree in principle with about 99% of what “the wokes” want, I object to their methods probably as much as John Cleese. If you’re trying to affect social change, using guilt and shame as weapons is a pretty crappy method of going about it.

So, Buckle Up, People

In Jihad Insurance, Hollywood movie director J. Edgar Schnatz decides to make a “classy” porn film using real actors performing real sexual acts. This leads him on a series of misadventures which could only happen in a novel like this, which is basically Blue Movie meets Gargantua and Pantagruel.

What does that mean in practical terms? It means the easily offended, and those with no sense of humor, had better either stay away or buckle up for a wild ride.

Just as my last novel was the most spiritual and autobiographical work I’ve ever done, this next book promises to be the funniest, and the most profane. I’ve laughed out loud while working on it already. Wokes, you’ve been warned.

Ordinarily, I’m on the side of the poor, the beaten-down, the marginalized. In short, the outsiders.

But this week, what’s on my mind is something a little on the opposition side, or what I’d like to think of as the middle.

Most everyone who knows me would describe me as a Lefty, or a progressive. And God knows I’ve taken some risks in the name of my belief system. However, I’m seeing more and more evidence that some of my fellow progressive types are so extreme, so intolerant, and so utterly humorless, that they’re nearly as bad as those on the far right.

This weekend I came across some tweet storms among people debating some comments from comedy legend John Cleese, of Monty Python fame, as well as Fawlty Towers, and movies like A Fish Called Wanda.

Now, I’ll admit I’ve got a soft spot for old Cleese. Not only was he my favorite of the Pythons, but also a favorite interviewee. The guy has always been, to me, both hilarious and brilliant. Well, evidently he got some heat because he made a comment that was dismissive of trans people. And someone on Twitter took a poke at him by implying that he was no longer “relevant.”

Woke Vs. Comatose

Look, I get it: gay people, trans people, people of color…everyone who isn’t a straight white male has been somehow marginalized in the past, and even the present. I’m on your side. But here’s the thing.

When I go on social media these days, I frequently see people fighting about pronouns at a time when we here in the United States, anyway, are teetering on the brink of collapse into a right-wing authoritarian police state. Would it be “dismissive” of me to suggest that maybe we’re focusing a teensy bit too much on things not quite as important as that?

Seriously, I do understand that these things are important. I’m 100% in favor of women’s right to choose, of people’s right to love and/or marry whomever they want, of the need for people to feel like they can be themselves. I am on board with all of that.

But man, oh man, you’ve got to be in one hell of a comfortable little safe space bubble to spend much time arguing about pronouns or what senior comedians think while we’re all in the middle of a worldwide pandemic and a possible coup that takes down the original U.S. of A.

Where I’m Going With This

So I scrolled through old Cleese’s Twitter feed, and found a few more nuggets. He mentioned the “sanctimoniousness and narcissistic posturing” of “the wokes,” but he also noted he is “not that interested in trans folks” but hopes “they’re happy and that people treat them kindly.” Fair enough.

Of course, that wasn’t good enough for a whole bunch of people, and now they’re piling on an 80-year-old man for not being progressive enough, and talking about humanitarian issues, and on and on and on. 

Where I’m going with this will become more apparent, I suppose, when I release more previews of my upcoming novel, Jihad Insurance. In it, I pay a bit of an homage to the late, great Frank Zappa, namely by being an equal opportunity offender.

You see, I kind of miss the days when you could make a career out of making fun of absolutely everyone. Now, of course, you’re taken to task by cancel culture or the woker-than-thou, unless you kowtow to their incessant demands. I mean, I’m a liberal, but I read some of this stuff and think, “That’s why people hate liberals.”

So Jihad Insurance is coming, and it will have something in it to offend just about anyone—especially those without a sense of humor. Oh, and before I forget: don’t call me cisgender. I identify as straight, or heterosexual. I don’t want to be labeled with anything that sounds like “sissy.”

Happy Monday, everybody!

Now that I’ve reached the latter half of my sixth decade, I increasingly hear myself begin sentences “Back in the day…” or “I remember when….” It’s weird. In our eternally youth-obsessed culture, growing old itself is just plain weird. 

And the current pandemic has upended so much of what we knew, or thought we knew, that things are even weirder than they were before. Let’s face it, that’s really saying something. 

Variations on the phrase “And now, back to our regularly scheduled program” have been around since at least the 70s, possibly even earlier. I use it today because in these first few post-election days, there’s a sense that maybe we’re going to get some kind of normalcy back, some time or other.

But When—And What Would That Even Look Like? 

Well, you know I don’t have a clue what the answer to that subhead will be. I’ve been virtually on voluntary lockdown for close to nine months now, so my perspective is perhaps a bit skewed. But here are a couple of my random observations, in no particular order.

1) Our entertainment is going to look a whole lot different for a while. We already see plenty of bare studios with hardly any staff. Wait until every new movie features a cast wearing masks. Even more than the post-9/11 years highlighted that terrible day, a post-pandemic world promises lots of movies and shows about the pandemic. Good luck putting it in the rearview mirror.

2) A return to some real semblance of normalcy may resemble the Roaring 20s…only I guess we’ll call them the Roaring 2020s. If a vaccine gets the world back to something like its pre-pandemic old self, we could see an absolute explosion from all the pent-up demand for live music, sports, travel, and so on.

3) The “breather” our planet got when much of the world locked down this spring will need to be replicated somehow: maybe it’s going to be about carbon capture, maybe just more attention to one’s carbon footprint. But one way another, the future has to be greener.

Bringing It Back Home

So when I think about “back in the day,” I sometimes mean the 1970s or 1980s, but these days I might also just be thinking of those far-flung pre-pandemic times…a whole year ago. I mean, I don’t know about anyone else, but I feel like 2020 has been about a million years long. It’s put some mileage on my odometer for sure. 

And who knows? Maybe some time in January, we’ll all start to breathe a little easier. Maybe we’ll even start treating each other with more kindness and respect. Stranger things have happened.

Today I’m taking a break from the regular weekly blog post—not because everyone is exhausted (which is true enough) but because we had a four-hour blackout in my neighborhood this afternoon! So now I’m too busy to create anything new, and time has run out.

Congratulations to former VP Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris on a historic win. It feels like we can breathe again for the first time in four long years.

Hmm, four-hour blackout, four years…coincidence? Who knows?

See you next week.

​In 1994, I wrote a novel called Brothers’ Hand, in which the titular character mentions that someday working class people might very well use billionaire “Duncan Scrump’s” name as a curse word one day. Of course, I never imagined such a person could become our president, but here we are.

The only funny part about all that: we actually believed he was worth a billion dollars, not in debt half a billion. Hilarious!

As I’ve watched my country devolve into a COVID-infested nightmare, hurtling toward authoritarianism of some as-yet-undefined nature, it’s been like the proverbial car crash. I see it all in what feels like slow motion, although it’s unfolding in real time. And I remain transfixed, appalled, yet unable to look away.

Please Do Your Part

Look, if you’re in Canada or the U.K., you’re probably watching this stuff with an attitude fairly similar to mine. Except you’re not voting here, because you can’t. I can, and I have. So I know you can’t do anything about it (although there is a part of me that wants to quietly whisper to you, Please…help us).

Just as I never envisioned the rampant intolerance, Islamophobia, and racism we’re dealing with today—what with the “Proud Boys” out in the street and all—I also never envisioned this guy getting a first term, much less a second one. And I understand, it ain’t over ’til it’s over.

But with less than 36 hours before the polls close on the east coast in the US, I feel like I have to do a little bit more.

You see, I campaigned for former President Obama—twice. And, less enthusiastically, I’ll admit, for former Secretary of State Clinton. I’ve stood with a clipboard in my hand, registering voters. I’ve gone door-to-door with flyers.

I knew what kind of monster we were facing. Well, I thought I did. He’s proved a hundred times worse than I’d ever reckoned.

Keep Calm And Carry On

Even if Triumph the Insult President loses decisively on Tuesday night, we will have to endure a few court skirmishes in select states at best. The chances of knowing the outcome right away, and having a normal, peaceful transition of power, are slim to none. I get that.

What can we do? In the short term, we can take that wonderful British expression to heart, and do our level best to “keep calm and carry on.” It won’t help anyone to either self-destruct or destroy other people’s property.

In the long run, I think we have a real fight on our hands. Anyone concerned with women’s rights, LGBT rights, or indeed any level of civil rights, should be concerned. And that might be what it means, going forward, to carry on.