I’ve got a head full of ideas and they’re driving me straight to a couple of flat tires. Not much new anywhere you look in America. Zohran Mamdani can’t arrest Bibi Netanyahu if the Israeli Prime Minister sets foot in New York City; the Mayor’s silliness just points out that the United Nations is an anachronism now used solely to condemn the United States. I don’t think Zohran’s butting into international politics even merited a “breaking news alert” on Twitter.
Pick a poll, any poll, for a candidate you support because that means YOU win; it’s a re-run of a re-run of a re-run about Iran, Ukraine and fluctuating oil prices, and I’d rather watch Scott & Bailey for my re-run fill. The Atlantic, which I hope is in an “existential crisis,” declares war on the DSA, not for ideological reasons but for the purpose of retaining “establishment” Democrats. And E.J. Dionne (not old enough, but he’s precisely who Timothy Crouse had in mind when writing his fine 1973 Boys On the Bus, first appearing in Rolling Stone dispatches in ’72, along with Hunter S. Thompon’s articles) is on auto-pilot for The New York Times declaring that “folks” in the “heartland” aren’t buying all the Zohran/AOC/Abdul El-Sayed headlines. Dionne, aping other Retards On The Mocktail Circuit, asks, “Do Democrats want to win this this year’s midterm elections? Or would they prefer to indulge in self-involved arguments over the relative merits of capitalism and socialism that are irrelevant to the choices they’ll face if they win power?” At this point, this oft-parried question means nothing. More accurately, Less Than Zero.
(Tangentially, I hope antisemite Abdul El-Sayed wins the Aug. 4th Michigan Senate primary, since he’ll be easier tor the GOP to defeat than Haley Stevens; one of my sons thinks that’s a risky position, warning that the number of Abduls in Michigan are expanding faster than once-devoted Taco Bell customers are shunning the lettuce-challenged fast-food chain.)
But here’s something worthwhile! Four days after the Canadian wildfires fouled the air in the Northeast (reminding me of the “smog alerts” every hour on the hour on the radio when I was growing up in the late-1960s in New York), I finally spied a person outfitted in a mask. He was a young, white tall man, an Abolish ICE t-shirt covering likely tattoos on his chest, shuffling, or truckin’ like the do-dah man down N. Charles St. and could’ve come from a 2020 time capsule. After all the government dictums during Covid (except for open-air George Floyd protests, for that was worth the price of infection), I was certain the first day the air was, hardly an exaggeration, apocalyptic here in Baltimore, I was convinced on a long walk that I’d encounter at least 25 people in masks. Maybe the film Eddington taught Americans a lesson; probably not, but it’s still the best film I’ve seen this decade. (I passed on the Christopher Nolan extravaganza since I dislike film period pieces and can’t tolerate Matt Damon—who nearly ruined The Departed—a middling actor whose main draw is that he’s not Ben Stiller.)
What’s a swell guy like me supposed to do except daydream that I’m talking to a long-distance operator? (That reminds me: back in 1972, shortly after my dad died, my oldest brother was making phone calls from the house, one after the other, and at one point said, “Janice, this is Randy again. I’m doing fine, thanks, but can you connect me to Uncle Pete in Douglaston, Queens? Oh, great, you’ve got him on hold.”)
Meanwhile, it’s always a kick to see product placement on the op-ed pages of The New York Times, in this case an Advertisement For Himself from Darren Walker, the new chief executive of Anonymous Content, a Hollywood p.r. company that’s funded in part by Laureen Powell Jobs (who also owns The Atlantic). The headline reads “Zoomers Are Going to the Movies. This Is Great News for Everyone,” and who can argue with that? (This July 17th essay/ad is lagging; a lot of film writers, including my son Nicky Otis, have written, more capably, about this topic for over a year.)
The 66-year-old Walker, after illuminating readers that younger Americans use TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat, writes: “In entertainment—as in nearly every aspect of American life—we are dealing with the progeny of inequality: distrust and loneliness, deteriorating democratic institutions and the rapid decay of a shared identity that once knit us together.” That’s offensive, but I don’t blame Walker (or his ghostwriter) since even an ad disguised as an op-ed must go through the Times political blender. Because the Times Always Wins! And hoo-ray for our side.
Citing the success of the films Obsession and Backrooms—which reminds Walker of how “subversive” he felt upon participating in the mundane ritual of seeing The Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight when he was in college—he says, essentially The Kids Are Alright and they’re leading the way to a cultural renaissance. He writes: “We human beings remain stubbornly, beautifully starving for one another. More surprising—and heartening—we are looking upward and onward, and returning to one another after being tethered for so long to our screens.”
Never mind the obnoxious use of the third person: this garbage is standard public relations, and could’ve been published (and probably was, with a few substitutions of words) in 1958.
The picture above is me in a Manhattan photo booth when I was just shy of 16, on a forays into the city from Huntington, back when the LIRR ran like a Mussolini fleet of trains. My expression says I hadn’t yet eaten a lunch of a tuna Blimpie’s hero and a medium Orange Julius. And though I subscribed to Rolling Stone, sometimes I couldn’t wait for the USPS delivery and bought the latest copy at a newsstand.
Take a look at the clues to figure out the year: Arthur Hailey’s Wheels, Richard Brautigan’s Revenge of the Lawn, Gay Talese’s Honor Thy Father and John Updike’s Rabbit Redux are published; Elif Shafik is born and Ogden Nash dies; Paul Zindel wins the Drama Pulitzer; William Calley is sentenced to life in prison (he wasn’t behind bars for even five years, thanks to presidential intervention); George C. Scott rejects his Best Actor Oscar; New York’s Daily News had the largest circulation at 2.1 million; TV Guide was the largest-circulation magazine with more than 17 million; John Lennon leaves Britain and will never return; and The Faces release Long Player.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023