This past Thursday marked my first year in St. Marys. Haven’t posted here since soon after I arrived,
the decade-end lists Scott and I put together. I can’t remember how we did that, but I’m pretty sure
it was pre-Zoom. 2020: as sequels go (to 2019, to all the other years before that), not great. Anyway,
since then, I’ve been meaning to link to a bunch of things in a catch-up post.
1. A couple of weeks after the pandemic started (“started” as in the March 11 marker most people
use), I walked around town taking photos of newly closed businesses in St. Marys and posted a photo
album on Facebook. I also contacted the local newspaper about publishing the photos, but everybody
turns into the New Yorker with me.
2. Scott took the photos and turned them into YouTube clips with some new software he purchased.
3. I turned the “You Should’ve Heard Just What I Seen” blog into a book. (Title: You Should’ve Heard
Just What I Seen.) This led to much pandemic-related squabbling with Kindle.
Canada
U.S.
4. As he always does, Steven Rubio wrote about the book on his blog.
5. Jeff Pike, who did the Facebook movie countdown with Steven and I a decade ago, also did.
6. I did a phone interview with Richard Crouse.
7. Todd Burns conducted an e-mail interview for his Music Journalist Insider Substack blog.
8. Scott and I began a series of Zoom conversations based on the 107 songs listed in the book’s
“clipography.” We’re close to halfway through.
Elsewhere, the election was finally called for Biden a week ago. I’ll try to post something related
to that closer to the inauguration. Two of the election night highlights were Fox calling Arizona
days before anyone else, and John Lewis’s district being the one that moved Biden into the lead in
Georgia for the first time. After it became clear (late Wednesday?) Biden was going to win every-
thing, I suggested on the ILX message board that one of the posters there, a guy who’s very good
with GIFs and graphics and such, come up some visual with Trump and the ghosts of Lewis and John
McCain.
No--Lewis was in heaven and McCain in hell, someone immediately assured me, implying it was sac-
rosanct to even mention them in the same sentence (“otmfm” someone else just as quickly chimed
in, evidently some mysterious configuration of a silly and ubiquitous internet acronym that may
be an ILX invention, I’m not sure).
No argument with Lewis, though I did ask for some clarification on this heaven and hell business.
With McCain, a few things I know about him:
-- as a POW in Vietnam, he refused release unless those who served alongside him were granted the
same
-- he had a big role in the savings and loan scandal of the late ‘80s
-- he fell in line with his party far more loyally than his carefully managed media persona (truth-
telling, “maverick” moderate) would suggest
-- to jump-start a flailing presidential campaign, he chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, argu-
ably the most reckless thing ever done by someone running for president
-- he gave a very gracious concession speech when he lost
-- he more or less got out of his deathbed and cast the vote that saved the ACA (almost purely out
of spite, I think, which is okay by me)
Good, bad, and points in between--a mixed bag, in other words, which is the case with most people.
I’ve said this before--many have--but consigning John McCain to hell is part of why Trump was
elected in 2016. A small part, but somewhere in the mix. Because if you try to sell the idea that
John McCain is the Worst Person in the World in 2008, then casually move onto the idea that Mitt
Romney is the Worst Person in the World in 2012, then you invariably end up clearing the ground
for the Actual Worst Person in the World in 2016. Basic boy-who-cried-wolf stuff. But it’s a way
of thinking--of not thinking--very conducive to social media, a universe that isn’t big on the
grey area.