What This Election Comes Down To

#ImWitHer

 

#ImWitHerr

 

The World Series Champs' Connection To This Year's Election

I recently posted the Chicago Cubs anthem --- “Go, Cubs, Go” --- being boisterously sung as an encore by the Windy City’s current cast of “Hamilton.”

It is one of the most joyful things I’ve seen in years, a tonic in particular to all of the toxicity generated by this year’s election.

The song is a staple at Cubs games but was never a chart hit.

*

Days later, I still couldn’t get it out of my head and wondered who wrote this catchy tune.

That would be folk legend Steve Goodman, who died at 36 in 1984. In his short life, he managed to write one of those rare songs (that did chart) that will always be sung and never be forgotten. It won a Grammy and is as timeless as any Stephen Foster composition --- “The City of New Orleans.” When something you wrote is sung by the likes of Arlo Guthrie, Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson, you are rewarded with a bit of immortality.

Goodman graduated from Maine East High School in Ridge Park, Illinois, a school that has notable alumni (as Wikipedia likes to call them) like Harrison Ford.

Oh, and there was that other classmate.

Born a year before Goodman was, she was already known as a capable and ambitious student politcian. Like me, you probably haven’t met her but many of us will be voting her for on Tuesday.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Goodman

Trump Fears The Deceased At The Polls

Just where will this lead? This needs to be said.
To his loss and a miniseries: "The Voting Dead."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/18/donald-trump-rejects-election-result-before-the-votes-have-been-counted

Some Perspective On The Current Republican Presidential Candidate

Regarding Donald Trump’s GOP,
Future historians won’t talk well:
It's less the party of Abe Lincoln
Than George Lincoln Rockwell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lincoln_Rockwell

Trump Suggests Gun owners Attack Hillary

Violence against the opponent 
He hates:
Is this his plan to get out of the
Debates?

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/09/trump-suggests-hillary-be-shot-in-speech-clinton-camp-calls-remarks-dangerous.html
 

UK Leaves The EU

Expect decades-long financial repercussions.
It signals an immigrant-fearing seismic shift:
It’s the worst thing to happen to Britain since
Tom Hiddleston started dating Taylor Swift.

Go Towards The Klieg Light

Tom Gries,
a friend of my parents,
died in 1977.

After the service and eulogies
there was a good deal of milling around
at the reception back at Gries’ house.

This was sad but fairly uneventful
until it appeared that someone
had turned on a klieg light.

You couldn’t see it but what
the hell else could generate
such overpowering illumination?

And, by the way,
who brings such a thing
to a funeral?

All of the mourners
collectively closed
one eye and held

one hand up
to get a better look
but there was no klieg light.

*

Gries was a TV and movie director
(perhaps best known
for “Helter-Skelter.”)

Many people
he’d worked with
were there that day

and one of them was now
blinding all of us
by his mere presence.

His only had one acting credit
but was the most famous name in sports
for over a decade

and had the most
recognizable face
on the planet.

We were all dizzy and dazzled
by being at such close proximity to this
graceful incandescence in human form

who most people only saw
on TV, maybe in an airport
or from a distance in a sports arena.

I saw the light
and moved towards it.
It went by the name Muhammad Ali.

(How his opponents ever fought him
without wearing sunglasses
is beyond me.)