A fellow known as Laguna Beach Fogey recently referred to me as a "tattooed goombah from Boston who plays Preppy dress up." (the capitalization of preppy is his...I might have capitalized Goombah). This might have been funny, if only the ensuing conversation hadn't led me to this. Wow.
So I thought about how I don't like to get political here, and how I like to write about clothes, and music and stuff, and how I should probably just leave this all alone. But when I read something so ugly, ignorant and racist, I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut.
So instead of flying off the handle and likely making an ass of myself, I settled my nerves with this incredible live performance by Curtis Mayfield from 1972. Seriously, Curtis with a small band and a Fender amp, sans string arrangement, is unstoppable.
I went to a Memorial Day parade today with my wife, kids and parents. I watched veterans and marching bands roll by, and I thought about what this all stood for, and I tried to give some small idea of it to my four year old boy. Then I came home and got rolling with all this Laguna racism crap and it brought me down, but only for a minute. As Curtis says:
"of all the soldiers who are dead and gone, if we could bring back just one, he'd say we got to have peace"
Go ahead and change the subject if you like...make cracks about the ugly 1970s clothes in the video, make this a conversation about me being a typical bleeding heart from Massachusetts, call me a goombah, it's up to you. I plan to "Keep On Keeping On"
Happy Memorial Day.
p.s. we'll get back to matters more superficial tomorrow...promise.
