{"id":741,"date":"2019-09-13T16:45:43","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T16:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=741"},"modified":"2019-09-13T16:45:43","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T16:45:43","slug":"the-rise-of-the-codgers-or-casey-kasem-saves-the-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=741","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of the Codgers — or, Casey Kasem saves the universe"},"content":{"rendered":"

September 13th<\/sup> 2019<\/i><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t bother watching the debate last night because I\u2019m thoroughly fed up with the \u2018loaves and fishes\u2019 approach in which each candidate gets fifteen minutes to discuss eight or nine separate items in answer to questions the moderators pose, not to shed light, but to to show \u2018impartiality\u2019 by being the sort of assholes who put bugs in jars to \u2018make them fight.\u2019<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve been hearing plenty about one incident; Joe Biden was hit with a gotcha question and fumbled the response. Perhaps not a \u2018hold the presses!\u2019 moment, but once the uproar died down, it lay bare a problem Joe, along with all the other major candidates for president this year, share.<\/p>\n

One of the moderators asked Joe about an intemperate remark he made in 1975. Now, I\u2019m sure you all remember 1975: disco, Whip Inflation Now buttons, endless rumors that the Beatles were getting back together, and Jaws<\/i>. Cassette players were the hot new thing, and people speculated that it may cut into the popularity of vinyl LPs and turntables.<\/p>\n

Joe\u2019s remark, made a mere 44 years ago, was pretty vile. He was asked then about reparations, and said he would \u201cbe damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago.\u201d The moderator, who apparently had never read a news story since then, wanted to know what Biden had to say about that now. Biden decided to deflect, admitting that \u201c…there is institutional segregation in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, so-so. He wasn\u2019t going to address reparations, but he was at least willing to admit that race remained a central problem in the country.<\/p>\n

I sure wouldn\u2019t want to be held to account for some of the stupid stuff I said in 1975. Or even stuff that wasn\u2019t particularly stupid at the time, but was just the sort of crap people said back then. So I understand how Joe handled it, am even a bit sympathetic.<\/p>\n

But then, Joe got more tangential, arguing that black kids should have better educational opportunities, and saying that parents needed to play a bigger role in home instruction. To that end, he said, \u201cPlay the radio, make sure the television\u2026 make sure you have the record player on at night.\u201d<\/p>\n

OK, some people are saying that the deflection and trivialization of the issue was racist, but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the case here: it was just Joe running his mouth and being a numbnuts. The answer was facile, and would have been condescending if Joe were able to understand he was talking down to people.<\/p>\n

Well, Joe is the safe and uninspiring candidate. If you want to be safe and uninspired next year, he\u2019s your man.<\/p>\n

But his answer, aside from being tone-deaf and simplistic, revealed a bigger problem that Joe shares with Trump, Warren, and Sanders: they\u2019re all codgers.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re all older than Reagan was when he first ran for president, and Reagan\u2019s age was an issue\u2014as was the fact that he had pretty severe dementia going on in his second term. More and more people are arguing that in addition to being a narcissist and a sociopath, Trump is also suffering from dementia, an argument that get more persuasive every time the man opens his mouth (or taps his phone) and utter nonsense spews out. Bernie obviously had a bad case of laryngitis going on last night, leaving me to wonder what kind of voice he would have by the end of the primaries. Warren was the only one of the four who appeared vigorous and up-to-date.<\/p>\n

Joe\u2019s codgerhood really came to the fore with the \u2018record player\u2019 remark.<\/p>\n

First off, how many households with young children even HAVE a record player? Could a typical five year old know how to operate a record player, or would he be trying to jam the disk in a slot in the side, because he remembers seeing an old movie where people did that with their \u201cCD players\u201d?<\/p>\n

For those of you born after 1968 who bother reading a codger like me, you played a record by dragging a needle along grooves in the disk. This created vibrations in the needle, which were converted to electrical impulses. It was all very 19th<\/sup> century. The sound quality was actually pretty good, and you could tell the gender of \u201cBing\u201d, \u201cDoris\u201d and \u201cFrank\u201d if the record wasn\u2019t warped.<\/p>\n

Even \u201cradio\u201d is dated. It\u2019s what my grandfather used to call \u201cthe wireless\u201d (nothing to do with the internet or computers) and your grandpappy called \u201cthe ray-dee-oh\u201d. It\u2019s still around, and you can buy radios that pick up signals right out of the air broadcast mostly by religious nuts, scammers and neo-nazis.<\/p>\n

Well, at least Joe knows they play music on the television, but then, MTV has been around since the early 80s. I\u2019m not sure what Joe would make of a Roku player; I have a vision of that one ancient Star Trek<\/i> movie, the one with the whales, where Scotty is trying to talk to a computer mouse.<\/p>\n

The incident is trivial. I\u2019ll talk about \u201cwinding a clock\u201d or \u201clooking at the road map\u201d. I\u2019m a codger myself. \u2018Course, I\u2019m not running for president, and compared to any of the three Democrats running, I would be a shit choice. (Compared to the incumbent, well let\u2019s just say I\u2019ve dropped turds that would make a better president than him).<\/p>\n

My own speech is peppered with anachronisms. Hell, I still wear a wrist watch. (I took Douglas Adams\u2019 hint and got a digital watch. It\u2019s pretty cool.) This doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m ready for \u2018assisted living.\u2019<\/p>\n

Nor does it mean any of the Democratic frontrunners are ready for what we used to call \u201cthe old folks\u2019 home\u201d. Joe might be a numbnuts, but he was a numbnuts in 1975, too, and if he isn\u2019t showing much in the way of progression, at least he isn\u2019t showing signs of mental decline.<\/p>\n

So don\u2019t read too much into the \u2018record player\u2019 thing. It isn\u2019t a red alert; it\u2019s just a reminder that all these guys are within hailing distance of their 80th<\/sup> birthdays, and it\u2019s gonna catch up to them, sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for us baby boomers to let loose of the reins (a dated reference to a type of self-driving device before Tesla) and pass the torch (which was not carbon-friendly or LED) to the next generation, who by now have to be feeling a bit like Prince Charles, late middle-aged with nothing to do except wait for us to kick off.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like we did such a wonderful job of running things.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of potentially great leaders in their 50s and even 40s out there. The Constitution thinks the right persons would be ready to be president by age 35.<\/p>\n

A codger will probably win the presidency next year. But hopefully, he or she will be the last of the codgers, and we\u2019ll then start considering candidates born after the rise of the cassette tape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

September 13th 2019 I didn\u2019t bother watching the debate last night because I\u2019m thoroughly fed up with the \u2018loaves and fishes\u2019 approach in which each candidate gets fifteen minutes to discuss eight or nine separate items in answer to questions the moderators pose, not to shed light, but to to show \u2018impartiality\u2019 by being the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Rise of the Codgers — or, Casey Kasem saves the universe”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,2,60],"tags":[876,874,198,778,875],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-psyche","category-humor","category-politics","tag-anachronisms","tag-codger","tag-humor-2","tag-joe-biden","tag-record-player"],"yoast_head":"\nThe 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