“L.A. Where there’s never weather, and walking is a crime. L.A.: where the streetlights and palm trees go on forever, where darkness never comes, like a deal that never goes down, a meeting that’s never taken. The city of angels where every cockroach has a screenplay and even the winos wear roller skates. It’s that kind of town.” Ian Sholes
I admit to liking LA. I lived there for 35 years, made a career and raised two sons. It was hard to give it up but now 400 miles away, my wife and I love to visit even for a few days and even if LA like the rest of California has been declining. My LA is from the 70′ when I arrived, fleeing from the stifling conventionality of my Midwest home and the pretentious cultural snobbery of the East coast. LA represented freedom; Anything goes; A fantastic freeway system and parking on the street – anywhere and every where. Alas all that is gone now, destroyed by Jerry Brown and his acolytes. His goal was to stop building infrastructure so that people like me would stop coming to California. It took 30 years but he has finally done it. People have stopped coming to California and I am primed to leave as well.
L.A. Is dead and unworkable and all of California is not far behind. LA freeways are impossible. The politicians are out of control. Living in LA means denying the reality that you see on the overcrowded freeways and overpopulated, urine-infused underpasses. Still it is great to get back from time to time and live the fantasy that LA used to be. You can do that when you visit because you can avoid rush hour traffic – to a degree- and enjoy getting from one part of LA to another quickly. You can remember the relaxed and casual feeling of shopping in Beverly Hills on a Saturday afternoon or finding a place to park at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. You can remember the ticket books at Disneyland.
We will be reliving our L.A. History, visiting museums and some of our old haunts as well as spending some time with our older son who still lives in LA. LA isn’t what is used to be; it isn’t what it wants to be; and it isn’t quite dead yet but L.A. Is unique and American to the core. It may be an acquired taste but once you get L.A. In your heart, you never get it out.
Making a Silk purse out of a sow’s ear is a life mission.
The Old Coot (Photo credit: goingslo)
One of our principles here at Cantankerous Old Coots is not to hold back. We believe in straight talk, calling a spade a spade and facing the music. We understand that those are the behaviors embraced by a man of integrity and we firmly support the notion that in the English language, at least, a man of integrity is generic, encompassing both major sexes and even a few of the minor ones. Cantankerous Old Coots aspire to be men of integrity but we also modestly confess that telling it like it is is also a direct product of the aging process.
What else can you do when all those bodily functions and physical abilities desert you? You rant. And when ranting just doesn’t satisfy you start picking the world around you to pieces. You notice it’s failures and you tell is like it is. You can’t change reality or bring back your youthful energy, physical prowess and libido but it serves notice that you have had it up to here with old age and you aren’t going to take it any more. You channel Howard Beal. Of course, it doesn’t fix anything but, at least, it distracts you for the moment.
Which came first? The cantankerous or the coot.
One of the explanations for the existence of cantankerous old coots is the aging process. Getting old makes you just naturally turn cantankerous and, of course, when you turn cantankerous what is more natural than being called a coot. Most people will accept that as a straightforward explanation. Most people are fools. This is a very superficial perspective on aging , the kind that you develop when you are a youngster and don’t know any better. When you are young and everything works like it is supposed to, you just don’t know what you don’t know. Youngsters imagine that they understand life when, in fact, they are clueless.
Aging is one of those facts of life that we learn early on and think we understand. We observe old people but can’t fathom that life will take us all there- if we are lucky. The young mind sees old people and can’t truly believe that they were once young. They also have no way to understand their future; what it is like to be old. They believe it is all cosmetic, wrinkles and gray hair with the body still willing..
The Young don’t get it.
Youngsters can’t get their heads around the physical reality of aging. They don’t believe that it will actually happen to them. The young mind refuses to acknowledge it’s own aging . The young mind denies the physical deterioration of his body but each year that denial becomes harder to justify.
At some point the reality hits. Denial become impossible and the true test of life begins.
You begin to ask the important questions. What good are you? What justification can you find in struggling on? Who really cares? This is a painful and humiliating process: accepting old age after decades of denial. Some deal with it better than others. Many wilt with this acceptance and meekly surrender to decrepitude and dependence. Others just give up and expire. A few refuse to go quietly into the dark night of senility. They get mad. They fight back. They protest and complain. They get noticed. Sometimes they even matter. Those are the Cantankerous Old Coots.
But you never win.
Of course in the end, it makes absolutely no difference. Life on earth is finite. At some point the perceived advantages of continuing to exist start to lose out to the difficulties. Cantankerous Old Coots might hold on longer just for the sheer, good-matured fun of messing with Mother Nature but that is an individual decision. Cantankerous Old Coots aren’t in it to win. Nobody wins. For a Cantankerous Old Coot it is the battle. Did you give it all you had? And did anybody notice?
So where do you stand?
Are you a Cantankerous Old Coot, a foolish youngster or in denial? Going down easy or hard?
/ˈvɪttriəəl/ [vi-tree-uhl] noun, verb, -oled, -ol·ing or ( especially British ) -olled, -ol·ling.
–noun
1. Chemistry . any of certain metallic sulfates of glassy appearance, as copper sulfate or blue vitriol, iron sulfate or green vitriol, zinc sulfate or white vitriol, etc.
2. oil of vitriol; sulfuric acid.
3. something highly caustic or severe in effect, as criticism.
Got Vitriol?
I’ve been seeing a lot about vitriol lately. I always liked the word. I think I first stumbled upon it in high school. In those days I was always seeking words that would make me appear sophisticated- not such a difficult feat in my hick town. Lately I’ve been hearing the word so often that I seem to be fixated on vitriol.
What’s the fuss?
If you look at the meaning :Vitriol – acidic, caustic, it doesn’t seem so bad. Why all the fuss? What is so bad about vitriol? Here is this Coot’s take. I say that vitriol has gotten a bad rap. Vitriol is something to value and encourage because vitriol is the mother’s milk of American politics.
It’s really about growing up!
There has been a lot of hot air dissing vitriol lately. And that’s all it is, just hot air! It is all BS because vitriol is merely a highfalutin word for insults. Those vitriol-dissing pussies are moaning and whining about somebody calling them names. Where did these mama’s boys and girls grow up? In their mama’s apron pocket? Didn’t they ever go to school wearing that embarrassing shirt from Aunt Agnes? Did they somehow miss facing the peer review of their classmates? Didn’t they learn to deal with it and move on? Didn’t they grow up? Apparently not!
America raises wimps.
OK, I get it. The wimps that are complaining about vitriol grew up in the new America- the one where everybody has a God given right to feel good about themselves and bullying is illegal. Back in the frontier days when I grew up, you had to be tough. There weren’t any laws saying that you had to feel good about yourself or else somebody would pay. The nanny state was still a dream in those days. If you wanted to feel good about yourself, it was all up to you to make it happen. Even your mamma couldn’t do it for you. And if she was worth her salt, she wouldn’t think of it.
We used to take it- and give it back
In those old days there was a system. You gave back what you received. You learned that sobbing and whimpering didn’t get you much.
Sobbing and whimpering only convinced your tormentors that they were right – and all the bystanders as well.
If you wanted to survive in those primitive days, you honed your verbal skills, you toughened your fists and you turned everything right back on your tormentors. And then you felt good about yourself!
Today, self reliance is considered mean.
These days, the only thing worse than being a bully is fighting back. Win or lose, the nanny state frowns on any uncivil discourse or worse physical abuse. Victim or bully are equally punished in our modern enlightened America.
It all started in the schools where education has long been abandoned in favor of self-esteem no matter how little you actually deserve it. Now that the products of this coddling are entering adult life, they can’t believe that perfect little bubble of self worship doesn’t protect them now they they have left the education system. Since they never developed defensive skills either physical or verbal, they are reduced to blubbering inanities and demanding that the nanny state protect them in the real world just like it did in school. What can I say? Those sniveling, whining cowards are dedicated to destroying what is left of the American way. All in the name of ending vitriol. Well, I say bullshit! @##& too.
So I say ‘Up with vitriol!’
I say a little vitriol is good for the soul; keeps a man on his toes both verbally and physically; and oils the skids of a diverse, dynamic, creative country- like we used to have here in the USA. Vitriol is the mothers milk of a vibrant democracy and democracy is no place for wimps. They belong somewhere else- maybe back in the USSR with John Lennon. Take a good look at anybody you see disparaging vitriol and you will see an enemy of democracy and free speech. It doesn’t matter whether they are red or blue, R or D. They are nothing but wimps and wimps are determined to destroy this country, its traditions and freedom just so that they can feel good about themselves. Don’t let them get away with it!
Click the link below if you are still vitriol impaired
So let your fangs out and savor vitriol. Enjoy its caustic tang when you are the recipient and then spew it right back. Remember what your mother told you (This is an exception to Coots Lesson One). Names can never hurt you. The only thing that can hurt you is making it illegal to insult someone. Don’t laugh., We are almost there.
I love October. This is the month when it finally begins to cool down, (see last Wednesday’s post) and of course there is Halloween at the end. I am not going to get into details about Halloween yet, that is another post.
October is a time where everything is wrapping up for winter. It is a time when the trees start to change and get ready to sleep, when the bears begin to eat like crazy so they can make it through the winter, and the NFL is in full swing.
Raking leaves seems like a chore but as the paperboy lands the paper square on the porch and tips his cap to you can only smile and nod, because you are dreaming that you are in a Norman Rockwell painting. Leaves are on the tree, and then they are on my lawn and hopefully my neighbors lawn. I am just glad I have kids who are old enough to rake now.
Still October is a great time, the nights are cool, the days warm, deer season is open. You can break out your jackets and wear knit caps to the local High School Football game without looking like a complete loser. (there are some kids that I have seen wearing knit caps when it was over 100 degrees this summer. I think they have cooked their brains.)
I look forward to October every year. I really like the fall. September is still like late summer and November starts to get grey and blah looking. October has to be one of the best months of the year.
Go out and rake some leaves, breathing deeply and letting that crisp air into your lungs. See if it doesn’t make you want to head to the hills and do some hiking, or hunting. Rabbit season is on here in Utah (check local regulations) too.
As for me, I think I will head outside too. Let me know what you think of October in the comments below.
