“I don’t think having [a family] to protect would make me act conservatively. Rather, having something to protect is what enables my becoming a radical.”

These words, spoken decades ago by Michiro Endo, have deeply resonated with me in the past five or six years. I’ve always been on the radical side and becoming a husband and stepfather has only affirmed and heightened those beliefs. Especially since concepts like inclusion and representation and racial equality and economic equality and demilitarization are considered extremely radical by the powers that be. I want to do everything I can to dismantle the systems that work against these ideologies.

Excuse me for belaboring a point but it’s depressing to watch a film like The Candidate or to hear a song like “Suspect Device” and realize a 50 year old piece of art is still applicable as criticism against our socio-political climate. Will the injustice and oppression ever end? Don’t we deserve a more enlightened world? What the fuck is it going to take?

The people running this country act like doing the right thing in any given situation is utterly toxic. Look at the pundits clucking that Trump’s indictment is a mistake because it opens up the other former presidents to indictment. Good! Many of former presidents have committed crimes and should be held accountable! Indict every single one of them and then let’s try constructing a new kind of government where a base line of criminal malfeasance on all levels can’t thrive. No more seamy underbellies.

I wish I had been more vocal and proactive about all this stuff when I was younger. To that end, I often don’t feel great that my first book is about the Misfits, a band with so many members who revealed themselves to be right wingers or conspiracy driven (one of them went to January 6th!). I’ve never wanted anyone to think I validate those beliefs or hold them myself. They sang about UFOs and werewolves. Who could have known?

Well, that’s me on my soapbox. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming. I hear the new season of “The Mandalorian” is bad.