Warm beer and bathos

Sitting on the dock of the virtual bay, random notes from the foamy frontlines

“In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria.”
Apocryphal quote attributed to infamous tippler Ben Franklin that is too good not to use

Pinching pesos in Mexico City, I’m nursing a pint of warm draft beer and snacking on unsalted cacahuate at a sidewalk café while a tear jerking US country music song plays in the background, some forlorn sounding guy twanging about Jesus, LA, broken hearts and she done me wrong, enervating bathos as thick as maple syrup, a maudlin invitation to uncritical self-pity.

The lyrics by this Nashville Lothario somehow triggered a brighter remembrance of Otis Redding’s classic 1968 song “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay,” a rumination on the feeling of being at the end – of the San Francisco Bay, the continent, personal relationships – but absent the beery sensibility. With the help of guitarist Steve Cooper, Redding’s song became the first ever posthumous single to top US pop-rock charts, winning Grammys in 1968 for Best R&B Song and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance.

So I'm just gon' sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watchin' the tide roll away, ooh
I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay, wastin' time

Look like nothin's gonna change
Everything still remains the same
I can't do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I'll remain the same, yes

Sadly, we can no longer sit quietly on the dock of the bay. Everyone is now pressured to have vitriolic opinions about everything, to take sides, be visible. Redding’s “ten people” telling him what to do (and think and feel) are now magnified a thousand or ten thousand fold by intrusive 24/7 social media, autocratic government diktats and divisive messaging of every imaginable variety.

Given the resultant descent of political culture into a permanent sibling food fight, it should not be a surprise that we appear to be sleepwalking into nuclear war. We’ll soon be listening to Waylon and Willie and lesser minions of St. Bathos under the toxic shade of a mushroom cloud.

Or is there hope, some possible solution on the mushroom shaped horizon?