Just because I don\u2019t write Introspection anymore doesn\u2019t mean that I don\u2019t often think in terms of quick updates. This blog format affords the luxury of doing both short blippy quips about my life like the old days, as well as the longer, more thoughtful pieces…<\/p>\n
One of the grand ironies of the American experience is that some of our greatest themes and anthems for revered concepts are actually songs lambasting said concept.<\/p>\n
The least subtle example of this may be Peter, Paul & Mary\u2019s \u201cI Dig Rock-n-Roll Music\u201d. This is a more obscure case, but it remains PPM\u2019s only really fully legitimate radio song. With lines like \u201cBut if I really say it, the radio won\u2019t play it, unless I lay it, between the liiines,\u201d it\u2019s not really hard to see exactly where this song\u2019s loyalty lies. And yet it made the radio and remains there to date as a sincere tribute to rock-n-roll (as opposed to folk music, which PPM were actually advocating). I\u2019m sure the even crueler irony of this being their one radio hit when it complains that the radio won\u2019t play folk music\u2026 yeah.<\/p>\n
The most damning example may be Bruce Springsteen\u2019s \u201cBorn in the USA\u201d. This tune has become third only to \u201cProud to Be an American\u201d (a song guaranteed to induce vomiting within 30 seconds) and the national anthem itself as the theme music to flag-waving jingoistic American patriotism. And yet the song was written as an indictment of American hypocrisy and the Vietnam War. The non-refrain lyrics are just hard enough to understand and the chorus is just loud and brash enough to ensure that this song will always bring a smile to the face and a cheer to the voice of those who are unaware they are celebrating an anti-American tune. \u201cSo they put a rifle in my hand, sent me off to a foreign land, to go and kill the yellow man.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the song that\u2019s stuck in my head from this category today is \u201cTakin\u2019 Care of Business\u201d. Office Depot or a related office store has become the latest in an unending string of businesses using this anthem to explain how productive you\u2019ll be when using their products. \u201cIt\u2019s the work that we avoid and we\u2019re all self-employed, we love to work at nothing all day.\u201d Yeah. This song is about quitting your job and starting a rock band, which is explicitly stated to be a lazy sort of scam on those who actually slog away at day jobs. Business indeed.<\/p>\n
The song is stuck in my head because it\u2019s one of the rotating theme songs for my baseball video game of choice these days, the 2007 mod of the greatest baseball game of all time, MVP Baseball 2005. My Mariners are getting massacred in this game on a regular basis, but any time I win makes it all worthwhile.<\/p>\n
And speaking of the Mariners and winning, last night offered a glimpse at the best inning of the year for the (real-life) Seattle Mariners. Raul Ibanez had 6 RBI in a 10-run seventh inning that catapulted the M\u2019s from a 6-1 deficit to an 11-6 win. When I tuned in around the fourth or fifth inning, it was 6-0, Twins. I wasn\u2019t even sure why I tuned in when the score was already that lopsided. The M\u2019s haven\u2019t exactly been specializing in comebacks this year. But Ibanez hit a grand slam that made it 6-5 and the M\u2019s proceeded to tack on and on and on, all the way to bringing up Ibanez again<\/em> in the inning as the 14th man to come to the plate, and again<\/em> with the bases loaded!! He only smacked a single up the middle to plate two and the inning only ended because Willie Bloomquist tried to score too on a throwing error and got barely tagged out.<\/p>\n It\u2019s funny how just an inning like that can redeem a mood and a perspective for a day or so. Even in a hopelessly lost season.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the sun that\u2019s hopelessly lost here in San Francisco, and it\u2019s looking like my trip to Las Vegas (Thursday evening departure) couldn\u2019t be coming at a better time. The 10-day forecast in San Francisco does not get above 65 degrees (high temperature). The same 10-day forecast in Las Vegas does not get below 81 degrees (low temperature). I am a little nervous about \u201cFlorida Syndrome\u201d in LV, wherein people will air-condition casino interiors to the point of being as cold as August highs in San Francisco, but then I may just cancel half the poker to go sit outside on the Strip and bake. I desperately need to feel the illusion of some sort of summer.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, my job continues to be my job. Slightly more livable than two weeks ago, ebbing and flowing, constantly leading me on only to crush my spirit. If nothing else, it\u2019s giving me great fodder for future books and stories, future tales of how the American work model fails its people on all levels. And I know that where I\u2019m working is better than 95% of what else is out there. We\u2019re not even driven by a profit motive.<\/p>\n And speaking of profit (and even prophet), is it too early to declare the End of Capitalism? Today, Wall Street wants to think so. It\u2019s just so exciting<\/em> to have a negative net interest rate! To just feel that money devaluing in your pocket. I mean, how often does your pocket burn a hole in your money? That\u2019s just nifty. Let\u2019s buy financial stocks before they fail.<\/p>\n What surprises me is not that people are revealed to lie, cheat, steal, cut corners, and fabricate in pursuit of almighty profit. What surprises me is that people are surprised by the revelations.<\/p>\n Work out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just because I don\u2019t write Introspection anymore doesn\u2019t mean that I don\u2019t often think in terms of quick updates. This blog format affords the luxury of doing both short blippy quips about my life like the old days, as well as the longer, more thoughtful pieces… One of the grand ironies of the American experience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,9,18,10,17,21],"tags":[5,53,61,54,60,64],"class_list":["post-296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-day-in-the-life","category-all-the-poets-became-rock-stars","category-if-youre-going-to-san-francisco","category-lets-go-ms","category-quick-updates","category-video-games-killed-the-free-time","tag-a-day-in-the-life","tag-all-the-poets-became-rock-stars","tag-if-youre-going-to-san-francisco","tag-lets-go-ms","tag-quick-updates","tag-video-games-killed-the-free-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}