‘I Have to Know the Worst’

Last Friday, September 18, I was on the verge of checking myself into the hospital. The alternative would have been to sit in my chair feeling supremely rotten. Editing and laying out the paper (which I had not yet begun at that point) seemed pointless in light of several intersecting impending doom scenarios. The Menu of Possible Apocalypses offered such delightful entrées as World War Three, AI going rogue, environmental pollution and depletion of water through ubiquitous data centers, the planet cooking to death due to human overuse of hydrocarbons, and the majority of my fellow earthlings believing none of the above was a problem—or actively leading the cheer for Armageddon as self-fulfilling prophecy. (There were no free refills.)

That was five days ago. I reached over and turned on the radio (much against my better judgment) and I heard another severe dunk on the First Amendment from the usual source. Somehow, rather than depressing and sickening me further, the attack on journalism stirred my blood. “Hey,” I said to myself, “I’m theoretically a journalist! No, I have no actual credentials, but they gave me a nice plaque once so that must count for something. And I have an actual print media platform! Yet here I am, reclining with the pensive air of a Lake Poet. Time to get cracking!”

And so it comes to pass that the October issue of The Syncopated Times is brought to you out of spite. If I curl up on the carpet (which really needs vacuuming) and stop breathing, the bullies have won. Not today, tumbleweeds! I’ve kept this paper going through the pandemic and several severe toothaches. I’m not going to get knocked down by mere dread.

I admit I’m also somewhat overwhelmed by factors within my control. I have a number of longish stories in my folder that did not make it into the current issue. I’ll hear from their authors after this comes out and offer my apologies. The main thing is that I had to fit in all the advertising, for which I am truly grateful. Some may resent the inclusion of several scurrilous song parodies to the exclusion of their more scholarly works, but a half-page beckoned with nothing else to fill it. The charitable view is that said doggerel is the work of a disordered mind (though I decline to say whose).

In the UK they have a pastime known as “trainspotting.” Here in the US we have “trainwreckspotting,” and I admit to being a practitioner, if not an enthusiast. I’ve found myself compulsively turning on the radio or checking out my favored commentators on YouTube for the latest bad tidings. Unlike other addictions, there is nothing about it that offers even the slightest thrill or euphoria. It’s a form of anti-denial, or attention-surplus disorder. Once I get the Disaster of the Day under my belt, I can go off and sulk about it. On any of the numerous days with more than one catastrophe, it feels like Christmas.

I have to know the worst, but the worst has been making me worse. On the Friday in question, I had reached my limit. Between the world coming to an end several different ways, various domestic inconveniences, and my print deadline looming, I opted for convalescence. Upon rousing myself from my invalid’s chair I realized my course was clear. Award-winning jazz periodicals don’t edit and lay out themselves. In order to be barely functional (my default setting) I would have to keep my hand off the radio knob. Paying less attention appears to have worked, in that you hold the October issue in your hand. True, it may be a disappointment compared to the issue that might have been.

I want to say here that I am grateful to the numerous readers who wrote with kind words about last month’s column. Some made generous donations to further our upkeep. That means more to me than I can find words to say. I blundered into exactly the right tone in that piece with a message of magnanimity that I don’t often express. I feel things deeply, which has always opened me to abuse and disdain since my early childhood. I tend to protect myself with sarcasm and irony. Some of what I say is patently offensive. I admit that and I’m not going to lock my inner Rabelais in the cellar any time soon. But unlike certain others, I don’t want to hurt anyone even when I find their actions and attitudes infuriating and incomprehensible.

I find it increasingly difficult to dwell in a moral universe ruled by eighth-graders. That’s the reality I wake up to every day, characterized by bullying and gratuitous cruelty. I hated the eighth grade and I’m not crazy about reliving it. But it may be that the people who gain access to power in this world stop evolving at age 14. If you evolve beyond that stage you may grow wise enough not to want more power than you know how to handle. (For example, I understand that I’m not competent enough to run more than a small periodical—if that.)

The problem is that those of us who have achieved a modicum of ostensible maturity are subject to the whims of the moral equivalents of middle-schoolers. You wouldn’t hand them the keys to the car or the liquor cabinet. Yet they determine our laws, our economy, and our health and safety. They have nuclear capability and threaten to rain Hell on people they don’t like. They cheerfully invent neat gadgets that might kill us all, but “that’s the price of progress.”

What does any of this have to do with music? Perhaps it proves that we need music and art and literature in our lives more than ever. The humanities humanize us, and restore us.

I used to joke, “Why be a Political Junkie when you can be a Musical Alcoholic?” But maybe it’s just what the doctor ordered.