Ep. 111 Walruses Politicians Integrity Eggmen and gun insurance

Welcome to another episode of TMM…where you can also find us at “The Old Man-dot-show”... try it!  Also,  happy post 4th of July.  I have WAY too many tabs open in my browser most of the time.  It’s as cluttered and messy as the rest of my house.  I leave these tabs open because I think they contain something I want ot share with you, which is another way of saying something I want to complain, rant or brag about.  

I have a few items I’d like to complain about before hopefully getting to something hopeful.

Item #1: Forth of July Message from California’s Governor

Gavin Newsome 4th of July message: In it he starts off by saying let’s talk… translation: let me talk… about what’s going on in America… translation: let me bag on Florida Governor Ron…ald McDonald Desantis.  Governor Newsome, don’t start off saying you want to talk about America and then attack another Governor, the images contained Desantis and the graphics were about Desantis.  It’s this kind of rhetoric that actually contributes to the divisiveness in our country and it is not taking the high road.  Mean what you say and say what you mean.  In other words, if you tell your citizens to wear masks, YOU wear a mask.  Even in Napa Valley.

Don’t get me wrong,  I am not defending Wrong Desantis.  I am NOT a fan of that egomaniac.  However… of the numerous laws Desantis has signed, the “Parental Rights in Education law, which prohibits discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade classrooms.”  This is going to sound like I’m a crazy conservative, but is that all that bad?  Kindergarten through 3rd grade.  Four and five year olds to what… eight years old?  There shouldn’t be ANY sexual education talk of ANY kind in those grades, should there?  What a great bargaining chip to use to look for compromise.  And if there’s a kid having sexual identity issues in those grades, can’t we deal with it on a case by case basis with some compassion?  Do we need a law for that.  My recollection of grade school was a one night presentation with fathers and sons in attendance in the auditorium.  That was it.  My biggest takeaway from that was on the ride home I was able to get away with saying the F-word in front of my dad.  And I said it with a little pause before adding the “i-n-g” so it seemed like I didn’t even now how to pronounce it.  And my dad said, “yes, yes.  This is fucking.”  Man, I felt so victorious that night.  I’d pulled a major coupe.  

Back to Gavin Gruesome… at the end of his message talking about America… if America was Flrorida, he invites Floridians to join us here in California.  Hey Gavin, we’ve got 39 million people in this state plus a housing crisis.  And you want more people to come to California?  Seriously?  We’re driving wealthy residents out of the state and you want to bring disenfranchised poor Floridians to California?  You think the rich ones that can afford housing on the beach in Miami are going to come?  No.  We’ll have even more homeless….oops, unhoused people than we already have.  Why?  So you can win your reelection campaign?  That’s who paid for the message by the way.

Silicon valley isn’t the only place where businesses are leaving California.  I’ll get a Netflix, Stranger Things plug in here and I’m sure that if you’ve been watching Stranger Things you don’t watch the credits.  You think that show was shot in Hollywood?  Even the scenes that were supposed to take place in Los Angeles were filmed in and around Albuquerque New Mexico where a LOT of productions take place as well as Wilmington, North Carolina and Vancouver, British Columbia for that matter.  And it’s rarely for the landscapes.  I’m sure you know that Southern California can provide damn near any landscape you want, except maybe a rainforest. Heck that’s what a soundstage is for.  So, there’s a whole other industry besides high tech that has left California.  

Okay, see how my rants just swirl around and don't’ really go anywhere? (toilet)  I guess if I had a point, it’s that California’s Governor shouldn’t be inviting a population to come to California when we can’t house the ones we have already.  And if it was a political stunt for his reelection campaign and he’s calling out Florida’s Goofy Governor “Wrong” DeSantis, then I’d have to go with “Shame on You Gavin Gruesome”.  Chucking barbs at your opponent or the other party is just perpetuating the horrible divisiveness we’re already bogged down in.  Find another way to craft your message.

What was I talking about? See?  Okay, horrible politicians on the left and right. All that for only item #1!

Item #2: C.S. Lewis and Lewis Carroll are not the same person.

I obviously have way too much computer time.  I try to keep my daughter from it but at the same time I can spend hours sitting in front of my computer… accomplishing, what?  Am I fooling myself into thinking I’m educating myself? To what end?  So I can take some information that’s little more than trivia, and regurgitate it in a conversation (or a podcast) to make people think I’m educated and worldly?  Please.  So here’s how I went from C.S. Lewis to Lewis Carrol to the Beatles to The Animals to… what?  It really led to nothing.

I was initially trying to find the origin of the saying, “Don’t judge a person before walking a mile in their shoes.”  I still don’t think I have it but it led me to some very random places.  The oldest origin I found was from a Native American prayer that goes:

“Great Spirit — Grant that I may not criticize my neighbor until I have walked a mile in his moccasins.”

While that rabbit hole didn’t lead me to a satisfying end it somehow got me on to C.S. Lewis and the Christian metaphors he used in his books, specifically “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe”.  But instead of C.S. Lewis, I thought it was Lewis Carrol who wrote Alice in Wonderland, no… Through the Looking Glass.  And in that book, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, who would be perfect guests for this show, recite the poem, “The Walrus and The Carpenter” to Alice…

The poem tells of the Walrus and the Carpenter luring young oysters out of their beds and on to the shore where they are all eaten by the Walrus and the Carpenter, even when one of the older oysters warns them.  In the Disney movie the Walrus eats all of the oysters and the Carpenter doesn’t get any.  In the book it appears both eat some of the oysters but it appears the Walrus gets most of them.  Their untimely end comes when the Walrus says: 

"The time has come," the Walrus said,  "To talk of many things:

Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax— Of cabbages—and kings—

And why the sea is boiling hot—    And whether pigs have wings."

"But wait a bit," the Oysters cried,  "Before we have our chat;

For some of us are out of breath,  And all of us are fat!"

"No hurry!" said the Carpenter.  They thanked him much for that.

Even there at the end of that stanza the Carpenter cuts them some slack.  Many have analyzed Carrol’s work to look for hidden meaning an metaphor including the Walrus and the Carpenter represents Communism vs. Capitalism or that one represents Christianity and Western religion while the other represents Buddhism and Eastern Religion OR… that Lewis Carrol did drugs when he wrote Alice in Wonderland.  The general consensus on that is NO, he was simply writing for children to entertain them and their imaginations. If fact, one of the illustrators for a later edition of the book said that the original illustrator had the choice of a butterfly, a carpenter or a baronet (the holder of a rank of honor below a baron and above a knight, oh my god the rabbit holes people, I’m gonna break an ankle).  Because,  you see, butterfly, carpenter and baronet all have the same number of syllables and would keep the cadence of the poem.

But what I did find interesting is that The Walrus from the poem is what John Lennon refers to in the Beatles, “I am The Walrus” from their Magical Mystery Tour Album, and if I play one second of that song this whole episode will get deleted from most platforms it’s published.    Oops!

Her is an excerpt from the 1980 Playboy magazine interview with John Lennon: 

LENNON: "The first line was written on one acid trip one weekend. The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend… 

PLAYBOY: "What about the walrus itself?"

LENNON: "It's from 'The Walrus and the Carpenter.' 'Alice in Wonderland.' To me, it was a beautiful poem. It never dawned on me that Lewis Carroll was commenting on the capitalist and social system. I never went into that bit about what he really meant, like people are doing with the Beatles' work. Later, I went back and looked at it and realized that the walrus was the bad guy in the story and the carpenter was the good guy. I thought, Oh, shit, I picked the wrong guy. I should have said, 'I am the carpenter.' But that wouldn't have been the same, would it? (singing) 'I am the carpenter....'"

So this got me to thinking if John was the Walrus from a Lewis Carroll peom, then who is the eggman?  It turns out the Eggman is Eric Burdon.  Please don’t say who is Eric Burdon.  Did you just say who is Eric Burdon?  Shame on you.  How about Eric Burdon and The Animals, does that sound more familiar?  How about the band WAR?  That Eric Burdon, who Rolling Stone named #57 on their list of top 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.  

Why is Eric Burdon the eggman?  Apparently, Mr. Burdon had this sexual fetish that involved cracking a raw egg and I won’t get into anymore details on that.  However, Eric relayed the story to John Lennon and Lennon nicknamed Eric “Eggman” as in, “go get it Eggman.”

How’s that for a rabbit hole?

The rabbit hole continued by the way as I found an interview of John Lennon speaking of the Beatles songs he liked personally…

It also led me to this bit from Lennon not long before his assassination on being 40, on not being the person his fans wanted him to be, on what it’s like being in your 20’s and having people hang on your every word

Basically the message is that we all need the time to grow out of our misconceptions about life.  Many teens and twenty-somethings are full of energy and piss and vinegar and it lacks focus and direction because they haven’t figured it out yet.  It comes with a lot of frustration and even anger.  And the last thing this age group needs, particularly males… particularly white males… are guns… particularly assault rifles.  I had to do it, didn’t I?  I had to ruin a nice nostalgic romp by bringing in politics.  

Here it is: you shouldn’t be allowed to purchase a gun, particularly an assault style weapon until you are 25 and here’s why: leave it to experts in assessing risk and see what they do.  The insurance industry.  They don’t let anyone rent a car until they’re 25 years old.  Why?  Because when it comes to a vehicle that travels at high speeds and can kill someone, they are relatively irresponsible, they make bad decisions and they are a bad risk when it comes to renting a car.  Bad risk, bad business decision, so they don’t do it.  No one complains about that.  It’s a fact of life and it’s common sense.  So do the same with guns.

And you might say: “Oh but I can get drafted and then they GIVE me a gun!  Very, very different situation. 1) they train you very specifically and thoroughly on the use of said weapon, 2)  You are not allowed to carry it around wherever you go unless, #3) You are going into combat where there will be many others with the same weapons.  It’s called our military or militia which we did not have… at all, when the 2nd amendment was written, including all that stuff I said in another episode about how many shots could be fired per minute when the 2nd amendment was written.  It’s 3 shots per minute by the way, maybe 4 if you’re an expert at reloading a musket.  Not 40 or 60 or 100 or whatever number you come up with.  Okay, I apologize for ruining a nice story about a poem with politics.  Actually, the first story was about politics too only I was mainly bagging on the other party.  I try to be an equal opportunity offender.

Well, I might as well make it three for three… 

ITEM #3: the Saturday Night Massacre - What the heck was that?  I’m sure you guys know because you’re not morons but I had never heard of it and it was brought up as a parallel to the January 6th shenanigans of our former idiot in chief Donald Dump.  On October 20th 1973 Nixon ORDERED his Attorney General AND his Deputy AG to fire the guy investigating the Watergate break-in.  Not only did they not fire him, they both resigned in protest which left the role of attorney general to the Solicitor General.  This poor bastard went along with Nixon’s  request and fired the special prosecutor Cox. Less than a half hour later, the White House sent FBI agents to shut down the offices of the Special Prosecutor, AND the Attorney General AND Deputy Attorney General.  Can you believe that shit?

Well, the 1970’s version of the internet blew up, that being Western Union telegraph.  Have any of you ever sent a telegram?  Me neither.  Over 50,000 telegrams came in to Washington DC from citizens.  I wonder what the equivalent number of tweets would be?  Members of Congress, presumably democrats, called for Nixon’s impeachment.  So… Nixon had to appoint another prosecutor for the Watergate scandal named Leon Jaworski, remember that name?  No, not the Eagles quarterback, that’s Ron Jaworski.  Well, Jaworski pressed for the release of those tricky Dick tape recordings… the one’s that mysteriously had like 17 minutes missing?  And he got them released and the following August tricky Dick took a final trip… home…

Touching.  Well, it appears our favorite reality show president, how’s that for irony,  literally held an episode of the apprentice in the oval office and considered pulling the same stunt.  He had his AG and his Deputy AG along with the nutty  environmental attorney Jeffrey Clark.  Clark is the one that was told to go back to his office and they would call him when there’s an oil spill.  Trump was told he would face massive resignations and he knew this Clark guy would not make it happen for Donny boy.  But it’s an interesting parallel between the teflon Don and tricky Dick.

ITEM #4: NPR wants you to make them your only news source.  I heard this just a few minutes ago.  No Emmie Martinez No, Ari Shapiro.  And even a no to, “Oh goodness gracious It’s Scott Simon”.  The days of trusting one news source is gone and if you are using only one news source, then shame on you.  Go and read some news from a site that’s a little bit to the right or left of where you normally sit in your comfort zone.  But no single news sources anymore unfortunately.

Wow, I got through that last one pretty efficiently.

CLOSE - In closing, I think one thing is very obvious…  I need to find guests for this show.  Otherwise It’s too much.  Too much of me, too much opinion, and way too much work.  At least twice as much work, probably more and it’s not as enjoyable for either of us.  

Also… an addendum to try and correct my moronoscity, did a quick search and it seems you can rent a car if you are under 25 these days, but you will pay a premium to do so.  Drivers under the age of 25 can expect to pay an “underage fee” and depending on the location that is around $25 to $30 a day which adds up.  But the rationale is the same: younger drivers are less experienced at driving (or life) and and are more likely to take risks and this holds especially for males as they are generally more likely to take risks in terms of health and the enjoyment expected from risky activities.  See the University of Pennsylvania research paper at the end of the credits… sorry to blather on so long, see you next time!  

John Lennon Interview: Playboy 1980 (Page 3) - Beatlesinterviews.org 

What Was the Saturday Night Massacre? -  History.com

How Old Do You Have To Be To Rent A Car? -  jdpower.com

Gender Differences in Risk Assessment: Why do Women Take Fewer Risks than Men? - University of Pennsylvania 

Music by Coma-Media from Pixabay