NAPALMY SHADE OF FALL
That Ain’t Haze And This Ain’t Winter.
I always dislike this time of year. I’m a summer baby and I’m at my best and happiest when the sun is bright and the salty water is warm and near me. I grew up on beaches, after all, in Southern California, and a few years ago I moved to an east coast beach where I knew I would have a peaceful place to work and write and live. And look at dolphins. There is nothing better for the soul than being near water. (That, friends, is a life lesson. Make a note of it).
But ugly often beats beauty and we are sadly in a season of extreme ugly. Perhaps the most extreme ugly that we as a nation have ever known. So with the loss of my beloved Summer comes our Fall of massive discontent, making it all the more distasteful and harder to bear.
I get it. I do. People are off-the-charts pissed off for reasons that are real and for reasons that aren’t so real. Everyone feels like they have to be outraged about something — real (mostly) or imagined (sometimes) — as if it is some sort of social obligation. We are fed this. Unless you are a raging asshole — I mean really raging — it is not on you, man. It’s on us.
This anger, this misguided anger-passion that we are collectively spewing into our atmosphere, must be harnessed. We must pause. We must breathe. We must reject the social media driven bullshit narrative that has become ingrained in so many of us dictating falsely that if you don’t go to sleep at night plotting someone’s destruction then you are somehow failing…
I can’t even write about it anymore. You know exactly what I mean. Finish the sentence yourself.
I’d finish it thusly: if you don’t go to sleep at night plotting a better nation and better relations with your fellow Americans then you are failing. Or you hate your country. How’s that one?
I beg some understanding here, as I live in the middle of the home base of many of our most elite forces and largest ships. I know a lot of widows / widowers. I know and a lot of wives and husbands alone with children on a meager budget trying to make ends meet whilst their spouses are underway for months on end keeping us safe and free. I know their love of country, imperfections and all, and I sure as hell share it.
Here’s what I am personally looking at as we enter this Season Of The Poisoned Leaves.
I am making travel arrangements to be at the side of my friend, mentor and co-author of the upcoming book Trump Your Life, Roger J. Stone, Jr. as he stands trial on a bullshit, politically-motivated charge which I am apparently not supposed to talk about.
This is not freedom. This is not what we are about. This is Deep State, agenda-driven, score-settling nonsense which none of us — color, religion, persuasion, what have you — should have to abide nor should allow.
We can disagree. We have for the life of our nation, and we need to do so to keep ourselves in check. But we have come too far — crossed too many bridges — to give up on each other.
Hunter Biden, another name in the news, is also a friend of mine, and he and his Dad have my support and love.
If anyone has done wrong, let our justice system sort it out. Not Twitter, not MSNBC, not Sean Hannity. How’s that sound?
I was watching Chuck Todd’s Meet The Press Yesterday. I don’t think Chuck would be all that bothered by my disclosing here that we have been friends for a long time. I’ll take it a step further and say that he’s actually one of my favorite people in Washington and actually a friend and not just a contact which is, in DC, really unusual.
Anyway, Chuck and I go back and forth on this stuff. I fully expect him and the rest of the DC press corps to be brutal on Roger as his trial approaches. I expect him and his colleagues to go hard on the president and the administration as this season of ugly heats up.
As for me, I will be sitting behind my dear friend Roger in court next month, I will be thinking of my friend Hunter, and will be praying for our Commander-in-Chief whilst hoping that my friends like Chuck will look upon them all with the humanitarian compassion that they all deserve.
We are ALL Americans. Thick or thin. God only knows if we can save ourselves.
