1 Boring Old Man

Once upon a time, there was a place called "the 50’s." Lots of things happened there, mainly a collective sigh of relief from part of that place called "the suburbs" about the end of World War II. There were rumblings then that suggested that it wasn’t the final place for all times, but you wouldn’t necessarily know what they meant if you grew up here. I didn’t, anyway. Some rumblings had names like "rock and roll" or "Civil Rights" or "beatnick" or "pinko commie." I remember a book written back then. It was called The End of the Road, by John Barth – one of his several crazy wonderful novels. In this one, an empty man who was identity-less and couldn’t feel was in a failed therapy with a mad Psychiatrist. So the decision was to treat him with Mythotherapy. Since he had no life, he was sent off to to live a Myth, an imposed identity. It came to no good end, and he returned to his failed therapy. The outcome for the people he hooked up with was death and destruction. In the polarity of another place where some of us actually read Barth’s book, "the 60’s," there were two kinds of people in America – the ones who wanted to go back to "the 50’s" and the ones who very much didn’t, but hadn’t a clue what came next.

I think about that book from time to time when I think of George W. Bush. His people came from the ones that wanted "the 50’s" to be a final resting place [I expect Cheney’s people were similar]. Bush tried the rumblings – drugs, rock and roll, but those things didn’t work for him and he fell backwards [I don’t think Cheney tried those things at all]. Both ended up locked in the time capsule of corporate suits and fighting the  Red Menace  – global something-or-the-other-ism. But the part of the book that I think of with Bush is Mythotherapy. George W. Bush lived a lackluster and undirected life, so he was given a Myth to live out – President of the United States. His mentors, frowny Dick Cheney and puffy Karl Rove wrote the script. Now we’re coming to the End of the Road, and it’s turned out to be a collective disaster. Mythotherapy is like that.

I think the same things about John McCain. He’s the snappy, sarcastic grandson and son of Military Men. Most of what gets him is trouble are his irresponsible and irritated retorts when challenged. It’s not the content – "100 years" – it’s the meaning – "Get over it! Asshole!" His legacy ended him up in a prison camp for six years, and now in a Presidential race. I have no idea where he was supposed to end up, but it wasn’t where he is or where he’s been – another failed Mythotherapy, to my way of thinking.