My best friend of half a century, Fred, died four years ago. He had the big C and after ten years of battle, C finally defeated Fred.
Of all the people in my long life, outside of my wife, Fred probably helped me and guided me and bolstered me more than anyone else. At his memorial, I cried through the short eulogy I gave recounting the words Fred said that changed my life, maybe saved it.
Fred and I met at ninth-graders at an elite private school in Rye, New York. That was 1971.
In all that time, we had one major disagreement.
In all that time, we had one major disagreement.
About ten years ago, maybe more, I stopped watching Fox television on principle. I saw the network--whether sports, entertainment or what they somehow call "news" as a factory of hate, lies, and a lot of -isms I can't abide. Racism. Sexism. Anti-semitism. Climate-denialism. And more. More bad.
I said to myself, and Fred, when Woolworth's (amerry-kaka's largest chain store at the time) refused counter service to Black people, I would have boycotted Woolworth's.
And so, I never again turned on and watched anything on any Fox channel, including Tubi. Not the World Series. Not the Super Bowl. Not the Simpsons. Nothing.
If they ran a seven-part mini-series on the genius of George Tannenbaum, I would boycott that as well. (Seven-parts would have been too brief, anyway.)
I couldn't give my eyeballs, and therefore my money, to the terror Fox propagates.
Fred disagreed.
"Bomber," he said (my old baseball nickname) "Life's too short. Watch the game."
But I couldn't and I can't.
Sorry. I happen to believe anger and stubborn-ness are forces for good. Or can be. (I don't care that Owen, my therapist of 40 years disagrees. I don't care that everyone disagrees.)
Sorry. I happen to believe anger and stubborn-ness are forces for good. Or can be. (I don't care that Owen, my therapist of 40 years disagrees. I don't care that everyone disagrees.)
About ten years ago, I also turned off Facebook and Instagram and about three years ago Twitter. The first two are the world's most popular and successful child-trafficking sites, not to mention their fascistic politics. Twitter might well be worse.
When I read the Athletic, the garbage that passes for a sports page from the New York Times, if I want to see a clip from a game, they force me to "X."
Why?
Why?
Why do we as a society, as a people, as a voice abide this? Why do we go gentle into a cruel abyss? Why do we give up our ethics so we can watch tall men dunk a basketball?
Why do we share sunny photos of runway-ready scallops and artisan-cocktails on Insta--a site over-run by sexual predation?
What incenses me the the casual embrace of the horror these "platforms" represent. And how difficult they are to avoid. What incenses me is our casual embrace can easily turn normal people, you and me and Fred, into willing executioners. Otherwise good people who support cruelty, hate and torture because the game is on. Or in the case of 1960s Woolworths, because they have the cheapest hair-nets in town.
These platforms make themselves practically un-avoidable. (And yes. I succumb and read Murdoch's Wall Street Journal.)
It's hard to be pure in a filthy world.
It's hard not to do business with modern-day nazis, slavers and child-fuckers.
But we have to try. I know I am a rigid, unforgiving, Old Testament son-of-a-bitch.
Sorry Fred.
Our only fight.
But I'm still fighting.
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