12/4/2024
Hello Everyone!
It’s me, Homer Cocktail! I’m in love with the world right now! Why? I’m feeling freedom like I haven’t had in many, many years! With that said, life is far from perfect. The planets never fully align. The ducks are never completely in a row. I can look back at my five decades on this planet and reflect on moments when: I had money, but I was heartbroken; I had academic success, but I was dead broke; I had a good social life with friends, but I had heavy strife with family; I had a reliable roof over my head, but I had friends who were down and out; I had understanding of our world, but society became topsy turvy; I had my goals within reach, but my truck broke down. That sort of thing.
We are a few weeks before Christmas. I am in that situation again. I am happy that I released my autobiography this past Black Friday. Yet, I am sad that I had a big dispute with one of my sisters a couple of days later. I’m addressing you in the public for a couple of reasons:
(1) Our world has become polarized. We had a Republican president in 1984 who won his re-election in a landslide. Ronald Reagan won forty-nine of the fifty states against Walter Mondale. As lopsided as things were, relations were cordial. Ronald Reagan had liberal children. They ate at the dinner table together. Ron Jr was a speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Having different politics did not mean you were at each other’s throats.
(2) This seems to be the norm. As much as an autobiography might seem like “me, me, me”, there are life lessons. I was watching NFL football this past week. Quarterback Trevor Lawrence of the Jacksonville Jaguars was leveled by linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair of the Houston Texans. It was a cheap shot which caused a concussion, and Al-Shaair wound up being suspended for three games. But the benches had cleared. There was a brawl between the teams. When a replay of the fight was shown, an announcer jokingly commented, “That’s what happens when you talk about politics at the Thanksgiving table.”
We have these tensions nowadays. Social media gives people confirmation bias. Yesterday, martial law was declared in South Korea. Less than twenty-four hours later, it was retracted and it seems as though their president might be impeached. This is a worldwide phenomenon. We are polarized. It’s hardly avoidable.
Homer Cocktail is not my real name. Like many people, I have taken an assumed name. Homer Cocktail was my stage name when I started posting hokey music videos to YouTube back in 2008. I like the name. It helps keep me loose. I wrote an autobiography, and I disguised everyone’s names. In real life, I have three older sisters. I used to watch the Brady Bunch when I was a kid. The three sisters in the sitcom are Marcia, Jan, and Cindy. In my autobiography, I refer to my oldest sister as Marcia; my middle sister as Jan; and my youngest sister as Cindy. It keeps things simple. I do this with everyone important to me.
I am creating this web page for a few audiences: (1) the general public, (2) Blue Sky media, and (3) my friends and family. I believe in closure. I believe in anecdotes. I believe in honesty, as much as possible. I believe in humor. This means I might say I had lunch with Sasquatch at Yosemite, and I rely on your common sense to know it’s a joke. I believe in fun. If this wasn’t fun, I wouldn’t do it. I like hyperlinks to accentuate my stories. I like visual aids in the form of cartoons and infographics. I like music. I love music, as a matter of fact, and I like to post lyrics when I think it’ll help you understand what I’m talking about.
Let’s start with politics.
“I got elastic bands keeping my shoes on
Got those swollen hand blues
I’ve got thirteen channels of shit on the TV to choose from
I’ve got electric light
And I’ve got second sight
I’ve got amazing powers of observation
And that is how I know
When I try to get through
On the telephone to you
There will be nobody home…”
— “Nobody Home” by Pink Floyd
It had been more than a year since I saw Cindy. She lives in the Coachella area. It takes more than an hour to drive there. Our dad was a union electrician. In 1996, he had Clinton/ Gore stickers and buttons around his work place. We have a lot of conservative family members. Back then, people seemed to respect each other’s political beliefs more than they do today. I was actually registered Republican back then, but times were changing, and I had started attending a liberal college. I got into ecology. In 2000, my sister Cindy went to the DNC in LA. She actually met Al Gore and some people in his circle. This seemed to be a good thing. People were happy about it.
“I go to parties sometimes until four
It’s hard to leave when you can’t find the door
It’s tough to handle this fortune and fame
Everybody’s so different, I haven’t changed…”
— “Life’s Been Good” by Joe Walsh
My dad’s cousin is a millionaire. This cousin is the godmother of me and Cindy. This cousin is ultra-conservative, has had custom-built beach houses, and knew California GOP governor, Pete Wilson, and former president, George HW Bush. At some point before the Bush/ Kerry election, my dad and Cindy shifted to the political right. Bill Clinton and the Democrats were demonized. I had bad experiences with conservatives, though. I came across fraudulent ministers and politicians. It’s not to say I didn’t have a significant amount of bad experiences with Democrats. It’s just that I was learning what negation and affirmation meant as explained by sociologist, Herbert Marcuse. Sometimes, you’re presented with “pick your poison” situations. Sometimes, you learn what you don’t want. You wind up picking the lesser of evils. In today’s world, when most national politicians seem corrupt or tainted, you wind up in the camp I wound up in: Never Trumpers.
I have a bachelor’s degree from a private college. I’m proud of that path I’ve taken. Cindy, on the other hand, got a GED from a continuation high school. Her path was tougher here and there. When I talk about politics, I talk about cogency of arguments. I talk about fallacies in reasoning. Aristotle believed we are ruled by ethos, pathos, and logos. I decide my politics with a level head. I am logos-oriented. Donald Trump has admitted he caters to uneducated people. They are moved by ethos (an appeal to authority) and pathos (a stirring of their emotions).
“The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots…”
— HL Mencken
Donald Trump is a demagogue. There’s no way to have a logical discussion with certain MAGA people. I understand people’s concerns about the border, and the radically changed demographics in America over the past couple of decades, but nobody in the Trump camp is on the verge of writing a thesis about it. There are two mains types of people in my social group nowadays: (1) ones that are from my childhood, or they remind me of my childhood, or (2) people that stimulate my mind the same way students did when I was in college. I don’t need to know what your politics are if we’ve known each other our whole lives.
I’ll try to get to my point. I went to visit my sister Cindy near Coachella a few days ago. We have a brother who is part of the family through marriage. I told him that Cindy might bring up Trump and it might seem awkward. In 2020, when I first realized Cindy was part of the MAGA group, she told me stories about Democrats killing babies. They did this for adrenochrome. These are Q-Anon stories which originated on 4-Chan. I don’t try to change anyone’s politics. I really don’t. I believe in letting people talk candidly as much as possible. But like the Pink Floyd lyric about having second sight, I knew it might be an issue.
We met together for dinner, and all seemed fine. My brother took off with his wife to give me and Cindy time to catch up. She was sharing her life, and all seemed smooth. She triggered a memory and I had something to share. Recently, I had joined Blue Sky. Millions of people are leaving X/ Twitter and making their way there. I had a few great experiences and I wanted to tell her about them. Cindy is a great person. I love the memories I have of her, and over the months, we only text each other about childhood memories and nostalgia. Now and then, she doesn’t want to hear other people’s experiences. We were at the bar in the restaurant where we ate dinner, and she would finish her sentence. I would think she was done. This has happened before, by the way. I would start to talk, then she would interrupt and speak over me. Once or twice? It’s okay. This went on eight or nine times, though. Eventually I said, “Forget it.” I wasn’t mad. This had happened years ago when I had a college reunion in Hollywood. We were driving with our dad and she’d talk about an experience she had. I would wait my turn because I had partied and lived in Hollywood, but she’d interrupt, talk over me, and eventually I started wondering, “Why am I here?” This past Saturday, she did it again. She realized I gave up on telling her about my life experience. She said, “Go on! Tell me! I’ll listen.” But the moment was gone, and I realized it’s just how she is. There’s no anger, but there’s a tiny bit of disappointment. I’d get over it. So eventually, she starts talking about how Trump is going to save the world. At this point, it seemed like a one-way conversation. I told her I don’t think Trump is a good guy. I think he’s a fraud.
While taking Logic and Argumentation in college, we learned not to internalize criticism of our heroes and people we emulate. If you believe Trump is great, and I say he’s a fraud, it doesn’t mean I am calling you a fraud. Educated people in debate class understand this, but my sister became angry as I thought she might. I’ve contributed to Never-Trump.blog over the months and I sent her a link. This way, she could understand the reasons if she wanted to. She said that people who don’t like Trump get their information from NPR (which she said stands for National Press Release) and she said they’re RINOs (which she said stands for something different than Republicans In Name Only). There was a lot of anger from her, though, and she said she would stop talking to me. She basically said that unless I pretend to like Trump, she wasn’t going to be okay with our relationship.
I miss the way the world used to be. I miss the way my sister was. Netflix had a great docu-drama, “The Social Dilemma”, that explains confirmation bias pretty well. She texted me earlier this evening and said she wanted to spend time apart from communicating. I believe in closure. She’s not the only significant person who has become upset at my stance on today’s politics. These things are tearing people apart. I adhere to Soren Kierkegaard’s existential take on human action. We operate on three levels: Aesthetic, at the lowest; Ethical, in the middle; and Religious, at the highest. Politics, in my view, is in that middle range. Somehow, the MAGA crowd has made Trump out to be more than a politician, though. They treat him like deity. It doesn’t take an extensive internet search to see the imagery of this. People vote Republican because they want lower taxes. I’m okay with this. We can have civil debates about classical versus Keynesian economics. We can argue about whether or not the recent inflation was caused by tariffs, and the $8 trillion in debt added during Trump years. But there are millions of people who don’t see Trump as a failed businessman. They don’t see him as a grifter. They’re not bothered by the multiple sexual assault accusations. They see him as a savior. I’m okay with this.
“I know the reason, that you talk behind my back
I used to be among the crowd you’re in with
Do you take me for such a fool to think I’d make contact
With the one who tries to hide what he don’t know to begin with?”
— “Positively 4th Street” by Bob Dylan
As a kid, I went to many types of churches. I was raised by Republicans. In college, I challenged my beliefs. This included religion, philosophy, and other subjects. In the same way I don’t know how to any longer believe Santa Claus will land on my rooftop in a few weeks, I don’t know how to believe the same things I did when I was fifteen in regards to religion and some other subjects. I have the feeling that many, many people are going through this. I wanted to say, “You’re not alone.” If I had to give any advice, I would say it’s best not to pretend. Try to believe in your friends and family as much as possible, but these are tough times. There’s a schism going on. None of us wants good relationships to turn bad. Everything has a shelf life, though. Even our planet will not be here forever. Please, take care.
