The Never-Ending Open Mike (Two Surreal Case Studies)

<Yer Empty Room Awaits...

...This Ain't The Magical Mystery Tour!>

<i.>

Whether it's spoken word, standup comedy or singer-songwriter (to name the Three Obvious categories). if you've got a talent, you've probably encountered The Open Mic (or Open Mike). You know, those revue type of affairs where all comers strut their stuff for whoever's crying in their beer (or coffee), usually for 10 to 20 minutes. 

Under the right conditions, this proposition can pay off, especially if you hit the sweet time slot spot. That's an art in itself, as any performing lifer knows. Sign up too soon, and you'll break out that flamenco-flavored Rod Stewart cover as people straggle in. Sign up too late, and you'll stare down an empty room as fumble through your opus about Amelia Earhart's last flight.

Grab the halfway mark of a three-hour night, however, and chances are, you'll still have a packed crowd -- or at least, a decent-sized, halfway enthusiastic one -- for whom you'll pull out all the stops. The response may help you land a paying gig, if not the promise of one. If you're just starting out, there's no better way to develop the skills you'll need to win people over.

That's the positive side. Now let's examine the flipside, with two surreal case studies, drawn from hard-fought, hardbitten experience.

<ii.>

It's 5:30 p.m. Sunday, in Small Town Indianaville. October has settled, crisp and cool, here. You've just rolled up to the venue, a small, boxlike coffeehouse that you've played this summer to about 50 people. The response to your half hour set proved encouraging enough to get invited back, though as a hoist.

Things come unstuck right off the bat. Tonight's headliners, the all-instrumental Pitch Black Troika, ask to play first. Something about another gig that they've booked somewhere else tonight, that requires some travel trime. You think they'd review their calendar more keenly, right? 

But the promoter says okay, so you duly introduce them, and get out of the way. Pitch Black Troika sounds hot, loud 'n' crunchy, though your mind circles back to that nagging question: why do they want to leave so early?

Once their allotted 45 minutes is up, they slide out the door, and their following slides out with them. The house shrinks from about 80 people, give or take, to just half that number. Now the promoter asks you to play. Huh?  

Guess what? He must have seen his headliner's alibi coming, because he's apparently booked several solo guitar performers, just in case. None of them have arrived yet, so he's got time to kill. Lots of time. You grimace, but agree. Don't want seem like a bad sport, right? Which is you end up getting your own 45-minute set.

The penny drops as the last-minute additions finish straggling in. Seems you were the only one who brought a real, working microphone -- but none of the stragglers did, which means ...they want to borrow yours. The promoter asks if you mind. 

You do mind, because 10 p.m. is creeping up fast. You have an hour-long drive home, and a couple interviews to do tomorrow. The crowd has dwindled to about 30 diehards and their reluctant boyfriends or girlfriends drafted to film or record so-and-so's set for posterity. What started as a gig, at least theoretically, has wound down into...the never-ending mini-fest. Or never-ending open mike.

"C'mon," you plead, gesturing at the sea of empty tables. "I've got stuff going on tomorrow." You gesture again. "This is painful. Why don't we just call it a night?"

Nothing doing. The promoter claims he that promised to provide everybody some sort of adequate sound, so your mic is Plan A, B and C. You slump into a chair as far from the stage as possible, as the minute hand drags toward 11:00 p.m., and then....midnight, and finally...1:00 a.m. 

Only a dozen diehards are left. You finally get the high sign to pack and leave, gritting your teeth through the usual after show BS ("Yeah, I really enjoyed myself tonight. Sure, I'll come back any time."). At least you won't have to beat the traffic, right? That's a positive, though it's the only one, after tonight's train wreck.

<iii.>

On the ride home, your mind flashes back to a similar experience. This one happened about five years before tonight, at a legendary venue in downtown Ann Arbor. It's a reliable schedule filler for alternative folk/rock legends like Alejandro Escovedo. So it's definitely got the Cool Factor going....if you can crack the usual gatekeeping stuff.

At the time, you lived 90 minutes south of Ann Arbor, so heading there didn't seem like a stretch. Maybe you could make a semi-regular gig of it, depending on your work schedule -- but there's a catch, as you and your small circle of musician friends find out, after you arrive.

A few questions are all it takes to fan the dismay. Yes, the host confirms, we're technically open at 6 p.m.. But open mike doesn't start till 8 p.m. (There's usually a "but" in the music business.) You guys will have to wait for signup until then. The giant double doors shut with a thud, leaving you all sprawled across the giant staircase and its imposing steps.

Time grinds slowly enough at work. Now this scenario, once you've exhausted the standard topics (what shows have you caught, what are you listening to, just why are we sitting here again?), the minute hand creeps toward its usual soggy conclusion.

At last, the appointed hour arrives, the doors wheeze open, and the jockeying begins for the best time slot -- a forgone conclusion, though, now that the regulars have arrived. They flash a knowing look: don't you know this setup works? Poor, poor pitiful you.

You end up playing between 10:30 and 11:00 p.m.-ish. You're tired and stiff, and once again, the usual hustles make themselves felt. The room feels smaller and smaller, as the favored regulars do their 15-minute bit and leave, taking (yet again) their mini-entourages with them.

Though your set got a decent response, it doesn't feel like a victory lap. That 90-minute drive home still beckons, followed by another workday at 10:00 a.m. As work schedules go, that's a civilized starting time (one of the few perks of working at a small town paper). The only problem is...you still have to act bright and cheery, after a late late night.

You kid yourself a little bit on the way home. Maybe it wasn't a typical night. Maybe they weren't prepared for so many performers. Maybe they new to the game. Maybe maybe maybe...indeed.

A couple months later, you're back for more, this time without your friends. Once again, you spend two hours camped out on the stairs. Once again, you don't go on till 10:30 or 11 p.m. Once again, the room slowly empties out. You now draw a new conclusion: man, I can't do this. I gotta make a living, and if they're gonna pull this kind of stunt, I should find somebody who does this to me at home.

So goes the never-ending open mic: a never-ending bad joke searching for a punchline to give it a home. Only it never arrives. Take heed, and proceed accordingly. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,
Before The Room Empties Out):

Katie Ferrara
10 Types Of Open Mics You Will Encounter:
https://katieferrara.com/busking-diaries/blog/10-types-of-open-mics-you-will-encounter-as-a-singer-songwriter

Soundfly
Why You Should Probably Avoid Open Mics:
https://flypaper.soundfly.com/hustle/why-you-should-probably-avoid-open-mics/

VICE.Com:

An Aspiring Standup Comic
Shoots Empty Open Mics Across NYC:
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bnpqa4/first-person-shooter-an-aspiring-stand-up-comic-shoots-empty-open-mics-across-nyc

Punk Rock Art Photos: "Whose Shoes, Exactly?"

<Take I>

<Take II>

<Take III>

<Take IV>

<Take V>

<Take VI>

As soon as I spotted them, I had to take the picture. Simple as that. Just imagine the scene that greets you: it's Christmas Eve.

You're driving around town scurrying to get those last-minute mindless errands done, before the sidewalks roll up for good, and you're left to await December 26th...when it's back to the regular crap for 95%-plus of the populace.

You pull into the Family Dollar parking lot, and your eyes flit to the outer edges. There it is, a pair of shoes, seemingly arranged in some surreal image to the Rapture, that oft-cited, yet apocalyptic, eternal game changer...in which the deserving float upstairs to Heaven, minus the obvious sign or two of their former Earthly presence.

In other words, here's an art photo opportunity that's too good to pass up, right? But there's a hitch: you don't have your camera, which means you'll have to run home, and grab it, now that your errands are complete. Sure, that means running back out again. But those are the breaks, right? Wait too long, and somebody will toss those shoes into the dustbin.

So that's what I did. I ran home to grab our camera, prompting The Squawker to wonder: "Just why are you taking a picture of somebody's shoes, exactly?"

"I can't spend a lot of time explaining it," I responded. "Trust me, when you see the photos, you'll know why I snapped it."

About 20 minutes later, I came back, and showed my resulting efforts to Squawker, who got it, right away.

Darkness was closing in fast, since I'd spotted the shoes at around 5:30 p.m.. Fortunately, the parking lot ls right next door to McDonald's, which meant I could use one of their lights to enhance my work.

So what happened here, once we've ruled out the supernatural aspect? Had somebody just bought a new pair, and didn't feel like taking those old clogs to the trash can? Did they have enough of their current here and now, and opt to leave their shoes -- their past, essentially -- behind? Or did that someone stumble out of their car, drunk and disorderly, shedding those shoes without a care about tomorrow, waiting for their ride to show up? 

Whose shoes, exactly? You choose. You decide. --The Reckoner

Outsider Art Gallery #2: 2 x 2 (The Reckoner): "Cityscape: Interrupted"/"Let Me Be Who I Am"

2 X 2 / The Reckoner

"Cityscape: Interrupted"

<The Reckoner>

<i.>

As artistic mottos go, "First thought, best thought" ranks near the top of my personal favorites. Not just for the obvious reason, either -- sure, working off the cuff is a terrific skill to cultivate, since you won't the luxury of a second thought in most life situations. "Fake it to make it" is an equally inspired motto, but if everyone tried to plot that ideal out...you'd never seen too many fakers, let alone makers.

The best reason to go with your first take, or first thought, boils down to energy. The longer you beat an idea to death, the more tired you feel, and the less inspired you get. Honestly, unless your creative antenna's highly attuned, the more likely you'll stray from what made that first thought so good in the first place. That's my take on it, anyway.

Which is how I wound up with these two pastel artworks and the following journal entry below. I did both as part of a Saturday afternoon art journaling session, built around the following idea: "This practice is about developing that muscle of mindfulness. Research shows that spending two hours every week in a creative process will reap mental health benefits." I'll go with that one!

So I duly spent an hour putting my free associative powers to work, followed by a half hour of writing about the works I'd just created. Though I no longer live in an urban area, I can't seem to stop drawing those types of landscapes, which is how "Cityscape <Interrupted>" emerged. "Let Be Who I Am" nods directly to a line from the MC5's "Kick Out The Jams," in which I imagined how one of their full-throated shows might look like, once they'd finished.

Funnily enough, the latter work coincides with the original band's last major milestone. Forty-six years ago this, week, the MC5 took its last bow on New Year's Eve, 1972, at the Grande Ballroom, the scene of their initial success -- where their epochal debut album, Kick Out The Jams, had been recorded, among other early triumphs.

This time around, the thrill had evaporated in a haze of broken corporate promises, missed opportunities, and substance abuse. Instead of thrilling a sold out house of 1,000-plus fans, the band would collect a mere $500 for entertaining a few dozen diehard fans. The situation left lead guitarist Wayne Kramer feeling so distraught, that he left halfway through the gig.

The night marked the last one for the  MC5 and the Grande, which both disbanded after the dust had settled. Dreams of subverting the world through the power of rock 'n' roll had taken a back seat to the grim existence of the journeyman, unsung and unmissed, left to toil in the shadows.

That's where matters would rest, until 1992, when the first of several resurrections ignited ... but that's another story, for another time. My impressions about these artworks, and the emotions they conjured up, follow below. 

<"Let Me Be Who I Am">

<ii.>

TIRED, TIRED, TIRED -- spent loads of time massaging my keyboard, tap-tap-tapping away on the old transcript circuit, so I can make those figures go round and round a bit more. It's the old in-out, in-out of money, isn't it, that they've got us all dancing to, the powers that be, so we don't get round to doing anything else, making no other mark in particular...but it's either that,

I guess, or resign myself to the grind of this part-time job, 'n' that part-time job, patched together like so many crazy quilt fragments of time, sweat 'n' tears, another piece of your energy pushed out the door, dribbled one corpo-suggestion at a time ("Did you find everything today?", they're supposed to say, even as you hold one particular blue bag of potato chips in your hand).

Anyway...all jokes apart, all that aside...lots of mini-mountains to move, lots of individual hills to climb, campaigns to mount, and schemes to launch.

That's what it's all about, for me, anyway, the energy of confederation, the rhythm of subversion: how do we set the world alight this week, exactly? These are the thoughts that have run riot in my mind, over the past week and a half, as I struggled with back pain, muscle pain, gout pain, all brought on by a cold and/or flu, seemingly imported from the ninth or tenth circle of Hell.

The Squawker curled up, sick, too, which made equally bad. But now that I'm over it, I hope Squawker gets across the finish line, too, in short order. We have so many different orders of business to discuss, so many projects to launch, even if our energy only allows us the luxury of rolling out one at a time.

But we will get three, I think. This is what it's all about, and how it's done. --The Reckoner <12-15-18, circa 145-245 PM>

Outsider Art Gallery #1: 2 x 5 (The Reckoner) / 3 x 5 (The Squawker)

<2 x 5 : The Reckoner>

<"I Can't Explain (M-M-M-My Generation)">

If you've followed this blog any length of time, you'll have sussed that Mod culture is a major artistic influence of mine. This effort started with an idle thought ("What would all those smashed guitars and amps have looked like, once the Who were done with 'em?"). 

In the process, that opens up a window to ponder other questions, like the meaning of autodestruction, and whether it leads to the desired catharsis (or doesn't).

Not everybody got it, though. One older lady I used to know said, "Oh, what are all these tulips doing in this?" To which I said:

"Tulips? F#ck#n' tulips? 

You must be joking!!

"They ... are ... not ... 

f#ck#n' ... tulips!

"They are:

Guitars!! Guitars!! Guitars!!"

At that point, though, I decided i

t might be wise to make the connection

 a tad more explicit 

(hence, the Hi-Watt amp brand 

in the top left corner, 

ferinstance).

<"I Am" (Number Two)>

Squawker and I did collages for an art therapy group. 

The idea was to create a collage 

summarizing your best qualities, 

without getting long-winded, 

or giving the game away.

Which brings me to...

3 x 5: The Squawker

<"I Am (Number One)">

Squawker finished before I did, 

I think, hence...the title.

Titles in art can be

 quite an arbitrary business,

as Renoir proved, with one of 

my all-time favorites:

Woman Looking At A Vase Of Flowers.

<"Life">

A nice little 5" x 7" work from Squawker, 

reminds me of a softer take on the style of, 

say, Raymond Pettibon. 

What is the woman thinking, 

or feeling, 

or going through? 

You choose.

<"Club Scene">

Spot the personalities in this one: 

Andrew Eldritch, Noel Gallagher, 

Jimi Hendrix, and Iggy Pop,

 to name the male figures here 

enjoying a fantasy-fueled night 

on the tiles...

always loved this one!

Support Outsider Art:

*

& Send Us 

Some Of Yer Own...

**

If Ya Dare!!
***

Cheers!

Today's Post-Midterm Message: Health Inequity Can Kill You

<Word Cloud:

University of New South Wales Sydney School Of Medicine>

<i.>

I feel like I've been leveled by a bulldozer. For the past week, Squawker and I have been flattened by some kind of monster flu bug, that's become one of those grim winter traditions: "Welcome to this, buddy!" At least The Squawker and I have been spared what my sister just endured -- the chronic diarrhea and puking bouts that often accompany with these bugs.

However, though I'm mostly over the sniffling/snorting phase, I'm struggling with back pain, which has migrated from my right side, to the center to my left side. Which is rather terribly inconvenient, as our Brit cousins might say, when one is spending a great deal of time under the covers. Or sitting to do a post, like this one. It is what is, so I'll just have to carry on.

Still, in light of the flurry of interest in my last post ("Today's Midterm Message: Life Is Not A Pre-Existing Condition"), I thought it made sense to follow up with a related topic: health inequity. Put bluntly, where you live can literally determine how long you live. Or how soon you die.

That's the thesis of Dr. David Ansell, of Rush University Medical Center (Chicago, IL), who's spent 30 years studying how racism and social inequity impact life expectancy -- one of the simplest, barest metrics of human existence. I stumbled on his YouTube presentation, and his work, while letting my fingers do the Googling (so to speak).

Ansell's presentation, "How Inequity Kills: Health Systems And Health Inequity" (September 27, Lake Michigan College, Benton Harbor, MI) is linked below in its entirety. I haven't seen it in full yet, but what I have caught is pretty disturbing, as you might imagine. Simply stated, the gaps between rich and poor -- which, one might argue, have grown into canyons, if not outright chass -- are also revealing themselves in who lives, and who dies. A lot of this information is deeply disturbing; as Ansell says at the beginning, "I always tell people, 'Wait till the end to clap. You may not like what I say.'"

The venue where Ansell spoke is a case in point. Life expectancy in Southwest Michigan's Twin Cities -- better-off, white St. Joseph, MI -- is 19 years longer than in its largely African-American, poorer neighbor, Benton Harbor. Put another way, you can bank on living to 86 or 87 in St. Joseph, and its equally lilly white neighbor, Stevensville;. However, if you live in Benton Harbor, 67 is the average life expectancy. Across the board, the gap between rich and poor is 15 years nationwide.

Ansell calls this phenomenon "the death gap," which is driven by access to healthcare, as well as structural racism that's often built into policymaking, particularly at the local level -- where the gaps are most glaring, he asserts. Those phenomenons have led to death gaps between rich and poor of four (Ireland), eight (Great Britain) and 30 years (Michigan). "Now, every developed country has a gap, but no country has a gap like the United States," he says.

<UNSW World Cloud, Revisited:

The Reckoner>

<ii.>

Of course, such concerns are hardly new. People have bandied them about endlessly since the 1980s, when "trickle down" economics and flat wages became, with rather few resceptions, deeply embedded instruments of public policy. However, all this wealth only seemed to flow largely in one direction, to an inner ring of elite overdogs, who wasted little time finding the best representatives that money could buy.

And they're not shy about the privileged cocoons they inhabit. Far from it, as this ever-so-tasteful anecdote from Business Insider's November 12017 interview with billionaire Sean Parker suggests: 

"So ... I'm going to be like 160 and I'm going to be part of this, like, class of immortal overlords. [Laughter] Because, you know the [Warren Buffett] expression about compound interest. ... Give us billionaires an extra hundred years and you'll know what ... wealth disparity looks like."

Sensitive, isn't he? With more than a whiff of moral bankruptcy to boot. If Satan does exist, and he's up for crafting a special air-conditioned room -- well, I've got a fair idea of his first candidate. Let's leave it at that. You can read the whole nauseating business for yourself below. Enough said there.

Even so, it's interesting that Facebook's first president has a qualm or two about letting his kiddos consume the offerings of a social media conglomerate that hungers 24/7 to exploit their time and attention ("God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains"). 

Guess that makes him a trifle hypocritical, too, so...well, once you finish selling your soul, you may well as tick all the wrong boxes, right? It's like Jays Potato Chips: you can't stop with just one (sellout), right?

Of course, there's a school of thought that suggests we're silly to get so upset. Sean Parker only spouts publicly what people like him intone, mantra-like, behind closed doors, and hey, who cares? He's only a billionaire, so why would anybody believe him, anyway? No harm, no foul. It's all good, right?

<iii.>

But here's the problem with that logic. As Ansell's presentation clear, if we don't undo all those corrosive practices that shorten an average person's life -- whether it's credit checks to get a job, or restricting their living spaces to the neighborhoods, or making insurance conditional, at best -- we'll slide ever further back into the pre-New Deal dark ages. Or, as Ansell observers, "What we tolerate, we promote. So, if you tolerate unsafe conditions, we're promoting unsafe conditions."

You can assign whatever metrics to the problem you wish. One nugget that stands out from the Business Insider article is this one: in 2016, annual healthcare costs reached $10,345 per person. Plugging that back into Ansell's Twin Cities example, that figure chews up about 3 percent and 54 percent, respectively, of a person's average income in St. Joseph ($34,985), and Benton Harbor ($18,962).

Granted, Michigan was one of the few Republican-led states to expand Medicaid to its most vulnerable citizens, though time will tell how many actually keep their coverage, once those long-threatened work requirements kick in. In the end, though, it's fair to say that healthcare issues are often a question of numbers. Review the above statistics, again, if you wish, and watch Ansell's presentation. Then ask yourself: "Who really comes out ahead here?" If that doesn't rally people after the Democrats' midterm successes, nothing will. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry, 

Before Your Medicaid Evaporates):
(Cut 'n' paste in your browser, if needed):

Business Insider

Dr. David Ansell:

How Inequality Kills:

Health Systems & Health Equity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uMCy9j8ubU

Ex-Facebook President 

And Billionaire Sean Parker Reveals...

https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-facebook-president-sean-parker-billionaire-advantage-better-healthcare-2017-11

Today's Midterm Message: Life Is Not A Pre-Existing Condition

<All Photos: The Reckoner>

<i.>

Here's what happens when you lose medical coverage for a decade. Study this photo, and you'll notice the reddish-orange freckles dotting my feet. However, I'm not a redhead (though I've dyed my hair that shade, now and again).

Those spots are from blood pooling in my feet, due to a condition called DVT (deep vein thrombosis). DVT occurs when a blood clot develops in the deep veins of your legs, which lead to pain and swelling, though it often occurs with no symptoms.

I got diagnosed in 2005. Like most conditions, DVT sneaked up on me. Suddenly, all those late night journeys at work -- from the layout computer, to the printer, and back again -- became exhausting. My steps felt heavy and lumbering. 

I felt spooked enough to call my sister, because she's the kind of person who reads medical journals for fun. She advised me to hit the ER immediately, where they told me what was going on.

I underwent a procedure to close the clot in my left leg, but was told it would reopen, at some point. That's simply how the procedure worked then. That's why they call them "side effects." But when that moment arrived, I couldn't capitalize, once my next job evaporated, along with my employer-paid coverage.

As I've chronicled here, I couldn't to address that issue until last summer, when I finally qualified for expanded Medicaid health coverage. Only then did I get the surgery to close the vein -- after it reopened, just as the doctor predicted. 

My surgery coincided with the Republican Party's failure to undo the Affordable Care Act, via its last-ditch option -- the so-called "skinny repeal,' or pulling the plug on the individual mandate, as we all watched that drama unfold on national TV.

During the follow-up visit, I asked the doctor: "What would have happened if I'd had to wait longer, or couldn't get this procedure done at all?"

He answered: "Well, the blood would have kept on pooling down there, so you would have definitely felt worse. You got this done at a good time."

<ii.>

We've been hearing the phrase "pre-existing conditions" a lot on the campaign trail lately. On one hand, it's stupid jargon, the kind that insurance companies invented to deflect attention from their dubious practices. Whenever I hear that phrase, I'm tempted to shout: 

<"Pre-existing, 

my ass!>

<"Life is NOT

a pre-existing condition!">

<"Stick that 

in your balance sheet, 
and smoke it!">

That's hardly surprising, given the Republicans' animosity toward anyone -- aside from themselves, and their kind -- getting theirs. Wait, you say, isn't my wife entitled to care for heart disease, or diabetes?  The answer rings back, hollow and predictable as always: Sorry, kid. You're on your own. Maybe the marketplace will take pity on you.

We're not at that tipping point yet, but make no mistake -- the GOP elephant is gunning for all of us, and aiming those giant tusks aimed straight for our jugular. 

One example came in last year's attempts by the GOP-led House Of Representatives to strip the Affordable Care Act's 10 essential benefits -- like prescription drugs, for example -- from the law. I'm referring to the verbiage that insurers may not "design benefits in ways that discriminate against individuals because of their age, disability, or expected length of life."

This is crucial language, and it's no surprise that Republicans keep barreling to kill it -- as 20 states ruled by them are vying to do, via their federal suit, Texas v. the United States. The suit argues -- since the GOP-dominated Congress has killed the individual mandate, effective next year -- the law cannot stand, including those protections for pre-existing conditions.

If the U.S. Supreme Court hears the case, its newly-minted far right majority could well give their gubernatorial buddies a free pass to do throw us all back in the Dark Ages -- when people struggled to get even basic health needs covered, or  raise money, against all odds, to cover the related costs of dealing with them.

I think back to my high school days, when one of my fellow classmates, and Drama Club members -- let's call him Rob -- got diagnosed with cancer. He was a junior, and only a year behind me, which meant that he was only 17 when he heard those dreaded words, followed by the knot in his stomach.

Rob's family ended up taking him to Wisconsin, the closest place where he could get the more sophisticated treatments that his condition demanded -- once he'd exhausted all the initial care that our area had to offer. 

But, in doing so, he also exhausted his insurers' bottom lines, an event that forced out of the "decent" hospital, and into the "affordable" one (read: below average).

Rob's decline came a few months before my sister graduated from high school in June, where -- somehow, against all odds -- he took his final walk with her, and his classmates, with a surgical mask clamped around his mouth.

Of course, his hair was long gone, and he leaned on the person ahead of him for support as he went to his designated folding chair, just ahead of the track. Rob died a few weeks later. 

His mom and dad -- who'd been left destitute by their ordeal -- were now living with my high school chemistry teacher, who readily took them in (being an in-law, by marriage). Without that sense of loyalty, and blood tie, I don't know what Rob's parents would have.

I thought of Rob again this year, when I spotted an obituary for his mother. I can't imagine the heartache that dogged her life -- first, from burying her son, then outliving him by a good 30-plus years, not to mention the financial stress that turned her and her husband into virtual beggars. 

Sad and distressing as this story sounds, it was also totally commonplace. It's not a new one, either, as we know from the 1950s, when Oliver Hardy -- the bigger half of the famed comedy duo, Laurel & Hardy -- suffered a stroke that ended his working days forever, and forced him to sell his house to pay off (you guessed it) those mounting medical bills.

Imagine if the ACA and that list of 10 essential benefits had been in effect. Think of how much suffering could have been alleviated in both situations -- because the people trapped in those webs deserved so much better than the hand life dealt out them.

It's why I often feel a great deal of cold, coiled, pure hard-boiled anger -- and, though much of it is directed against the Republicans, they're not the only ones who'll feel it, even as I head off in today's midterms...first, to protest them, and then, to vote against every goddamned one of them.

As usual, I digress, but let me explain.

<iii.>

Mike Braun's campaigning outfit -- an open-necked shirt, plus dark pair of casual pants -- ranks among the cutest pieces of political theater we've seen lately. From looking at him, you'd never realize that the Republican gunning for  Democrat Joe Donnelly's seat is yet another uber-millionaire, with a net worth variously pegged at roughly $33 and $95 million per year. But at least he dresses like the common man, right? Therefore, he's just like you, maaan...right?

If you buy that, then you think the Washington, D.C. swamp looks like the Sahara Desert. But that's hardly my biggest issue with Braun, whose cut 'n' paste GOP platform might well be summed up as -- hey, whatever Trump wants, I'll do. To me, the most pressing reason is a look at Braun's claims of solving the healthcare debate at his company, those pesky career politicians be damned.

What does the record actually show? In essence, as the Politco.com story details, Braun stuck his employees, 900-some of them, with hefty deductibles -- $5,000 per person, $10,000 per family -- before he covered their bills. A worker at Meyer Distributing wound up no better off than, say, his counterparts at Walmart, with all their endless copays and deductibles that chew up what little income they earned.

Anyone who treats his employees this way can hardly be expected to make a great Senator, never mind a mediocre or passable one. Yet I've seen a fair amount of commentary in print, and online, from people who complain about Donnelly's lack of progressive cred, moan about how much they hate both parties, and wish for the perfect candidate to come and sweep them off their feet. It's the political variation on that old TV battle cry: Camay, take me awaaay!

<iv.>

But here's the problem with that kind of thinking, and where it gets us. Yes, I'm not keen on Donnelly bragging in his TV adverts about his readiness to side with Trump on delusions like the oft-threatened border wall. But, let's also remember: this is freakin' Indiana, the state that gave you Vice President Mike Pence. Like it or not, sometimes, it pays to tread carefully, especially in a state that Trump won by 20 points in 2016. Need I say more?

I don't live in the Hoosier State, but I'm well aware of what Donnelly has to deal with there -- so I'll give him the benefit of my doubt. What he says in a 30-second ad matters less than where he stands, and what he does, like last summer, when he proved decisive in blocking the GOP drive to kill the ACA. I don't want a creep like Braun playing that role. Need I say more?

Wait, I almost forgot, there's a third option. Lucy Brenton, that plucky Libertarian businesswoman who -- despite getting off some well-placed debate zingers -- has yet to break out of the political subsoil of support, where she hovers between 3 and 8 percent. I support third parties, but in a race this close, I also feel the "no shots" have a public duty to drop out -- as the Green Party candidate has just done, in Arizona's Senate race -- rather than play the designated spoiler. We all know how well that worked in 2000. Need I say more?

Simply put, we're living in a continual state of emergency, one that would feel far more unbearable without the energies of the anti-Trump resistance to counteract the worst effects. I, for one, am tired of people trying to elegantly rationalize their way out of the situation -- both parties suck, I hate all the ads, politics is a dirty business, yada-yada-yada -- that, if it's left to continue corroding and spreading unchecked, will eventually allow them no such luxuries. Need I say more?

The above-mentioned logic -- or lack of it -- reminds me of a statement attributed to Winston Churchill, the World War II-era British Prime Minister: "An appeaser is one who gives food to a crocodile--hoping it will eat him last."

Or, as my sister so acerbically put it a couple weeks ago, when she talked about canvassing college students who hadn't followed any of the issues, pre-existing or not: "People need to stop acting as though this is like 'The Dating Game.' You're not having them over for coffee. You just want to elect somebody that will put your own interests first, for a change."

And that's why, today, I'm off to protest, and then, to pull the Democratic lever on everything. I know that the world won't change overnight, because there's so much work left to do, even if they get one (or both) congressional majorities back. I know that I won't agree with every candidate on every issue. But now that we've spent two years under the shadow of Trump and company's darkest labors, it's time to set aside those worries, and focus on the bigger picture.

Otherwise, all those elegantly nuanced arguments, however appealing they sound, won't mean anything. I don't want to cling to a nuanced life raft -- it's not going to help me survive the frigid North Atlantic waters, once the Titanic slides down for the last time into its murky black depths. So let's proceed accordingly when we pull the lever in the voting booth, shall we?

In other words, I want to get across the finish line, and bring others along with me -- pre-existing or not. And maybe, just maybe, that'll give us the first step in taking our country back. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,

Before You Eat That Five-Figure Deductible):

Politico.com:

"It Was Not Real Insurance":

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/05/it-was-not-real-insurance-830385