Just an off-the-cuff rumination about taking our sweet time to get it right.

Being a contrarian is a house specialty of mine. I persevere, but it's a thankless task.

My resolution for the year 2019 is that whenever prompted to breathlessly participate in our short, social media-driven collective attention span, I'll do my very best to opt out, remain calm and seek space sufficient for deliberation.

Want me to hurry up? Sorry, this only encourages me to stop and think harder about it. Pour yourself another drink, because my musings might take a while.

Want me to scroll through the image carousel and indulge in the national flashcard kaleidoscopic consciousness? Nah. I'd rather slow down and mull the topic in depth -- and look at the pictures later, once I'm familiar with the context.

I'm embracing the notion of waiting and getting it right, of thinking carefully for the long haul, rather than for scattershot short-term gains. This isn't political or intended as veiled commentary about anything at all apart from who I am as a person, because I don't care for what we're becoming as a people.

Calendars don't lie, and this may seem ironic. I'm 58, and there's far more time elapsed than one might reasonably expect to come. Perhaps I should be racing to cram as much as frenetic activity as possible into the time remaining.

But sheer volume and the logic of the tilt-a-whirl don't matter to me. It's about value and content, and as always, it's about what is undervalued, because what is undervalued can only gain in value.

Let's not frantically run somewhere for a beer.

Let's walk there, and make time to drink three while meticulously solving the world's problems.

Let's establish an ethos of timelessness, rather than the ephemeral.

Life is short, and the counter-intuitive way to lengthen it is to go for the deep vein, not the surface sheen.

Hello Wendy, Part Two: "Are dissidents born or made? A humanities major examines his life and locale."

Gibberish, isn't it?

Previously: Hello Wendy, Part One: In which we are properly warned not to heed the oligarchs' call to discount the value of liberal arts degrees.

As originally published on May 18, 2017, this column explains why I feel this need to say hello to Wendy Dant Chesser, the president and CEO of One Southern Indiana ... and why I have no plans to "let it go" anytime soon.

Note also that many of the same thoughts were repeated a few weeks later, prior to the council's annual rote approval of One Southern Indiana's tithing request.

(2 of 2) My comments at tonight's city council meeting, during public speaking time prior to A-17-02 (funding for One Southern Indiana).

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ON THE AVENUES: Are dissidents born or made? A humanities major examines his life and locale. 

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Since my mother died in mid-March, I’ve experienced periods of intense introspection.

Are these signs of depression?

Maybe, although I don’t think so. In all likelihood, periods of reflection are natural manifestations of the grieving process. The cosmos can be disorienting even in the best of times, and our reactions change with them.

I believe that it’s never too late to learn something, and accordingly, these past few weeks have struck me as an opportunity to relax and see where these evolving thoughts are leading.

One very big question has moved to the front of the cerebral queue. It’s something I’ve often asked myself through the years.

Why am I here?

Mind you, not here on Planet Earth. There’s no need for existential musing about the nature of origins, at least yet. I’m perfectly content to allow theologians, philosophers and even humanities majors to earn their meager pay, but looking through old photo albums is evidence enough for me.

My parents met, and one thing led to another. Suddenly there I was, all created, pouring pints of Guinness for a living and plotting a beer revolution.

Rather …

Why am I still here, continuing to live in New Albany when I might be residing in another part of the state, country or world?

(Reader’s note: The axiom known as Thrasher’s Razor fully applies to this rumination, because now more than ever, we’re all here because we’re not all there.)

As the missus reminds me on widely scattered occasions -- basically, every morning at breakfast -- I’ve never been much in sync with the sort of polite poseur’s society mores craved by the likes of Bob Caesar. They're far too banal an ordeal for me.

After 57 years of give and take, it’s evident that I have lots of buttons – and the reigning poltroons have even more fingers. I’ve never been able to swim a lick unless it’s against the metaphorical tide. Contrarianism fits me like a well-tailored suit, which of course I’d refuse to wear, because you can’t trust anyone who does.

They’re just hiding behind those fashionable costumes (seriously?), anyway.

I trust it isn’t time to face the final curtain, and yet the years dwindle down. Wouldn’t I be happier elsewhere, in a place with a cultural climate more in keeping with my personal value system, as opposed to one that prompts severe allergic (read: aesthetic) reactions?

Might I manage to find the zip code for peace and harmony, even at the advanced age of “I can remember the first moon landing”?

Haven’t “they” always told me to leave town if I didn’t like “their” toxic farrago of ignorance and anti-intellectualism?

To which I’ve always succinctly replied: “You first, my dear Gaston.”

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The most recent resurgence of these locational culture reflections came during our April visit to Portland, Maine.

It was a Friday morning at the estimable Tony’s Donut Shop at the corner of Bolton and Congress, and we were equipped with cream horns, black coffee and the bakery’s gnarled regulars seated at an adjacent table, talking current events.

As noted previously, Tony's is somewhat reminiscent of New Albany’s venerable Honey Creme Donuts, albeit three or four times larger, with more production capacity as well as a half-dozen cozy tables for visitors to sit and converse.

It was impossible to avoid overhearing the amiable patter as locals came and went with their carry-outs, nor to ignore the booming voices of the senior citizens seated nearby. They were talking hockey when we sat down, then shifted to politics -- and I caught myself cringing involuntarily, as though expecting to be savagely beaten.

After all, back home again in Indiana, where I’ve insisted on remaining amid the raging right-wing proclivities, this conversational shift inevitably would have segued into the parroting of conservative talk radio bromides.

Or, just the thing inspiring me to respond loudly from the left side of the aisle, a scenario usually culminating in rancor, disharmony and “if you don’t love it, lump it” -- or worse.

And so there I sat at Tony’s Donuts like Pavlov’s drooling mutt, conditioned to imagine a fine day about to be ruined, all the while thinking that I can’t seem to escape the mentality of Redevelopment Commission meetings no matter how far I travel – except this time, it wasn’t that way at all.

Instead, these retirees in Portland fiercely criticized Donald Trump’s buffoonery. They mercilessly ridiculed the Republican Party, and scoffed openly at the very idea of a theocratic creature called “Mike Pence” reposing within spitting distance of power.

Me? I’m from Chicago. Never heard of Indiana.

Awestruck, yet aware it would have been impolite of me to kiss these strangers, I settled for stuffing another nut-encrusted Bismarck into my gratified pie hole. Still, it started me thinking.

I’ve lived in Floyd County my whole life, and in the city of New Albany during the latter half of it. Even when Barack Obama won the state of Indiana in 2008, John McCain beat Obama more than comfortably in both my county and city. So did Mitt Romney in 2012, and of course Trump easily carried them, too.

Yes, so-called Democrats have “controlled” municipal government for much of the same period, although it is painfully clear that the retirees at Tony’s would take one pained look at Caesar and accurately place him somewhere to the right of George Wallace.

Back to my original question. If I’ve never been into S & M, why have I punished myself these many decades?

As an old-school Red (Commie) marooned in a new-age Red (Conservative) sandbox, and generally outnumbered, I’ve been compelled for thirty-five or more years to inflict my liberalism on the prevailing Falangist orthodoxy by means of guerrilla warfare, destined almost always to lose, and just as often reluctant to compromise.

Why am I like this?

I don’t know. After I’m dead, the psychoanalysts can study my brain for causes of contrarianism. In my experience, it’s incurable.

All I know is for as long as I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with the notion that opposing points of view deserve a hearing, especially as they pertain to politics, civil rights, religion and individual conscience.

The bland respectability of Babbitt-style conformity invariably tramples “other” competing sides of the story, and so when disposed to tilt, my windmill of choice flies a banner reading “we’ve always done it this way.”

On the other hand, if I’ve been of assistance just once to someone by helping them see that it’s okay to be different, and it’s possible to be responsible, productive and ethical without being duped and hornswoggled by delusions, fantasias and superstitions foisted by the usual suspects, then my career in contrarianism has been well worth it.

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As a relevant postscript, I cannot attend Thursday evening’s city council meeting owing to a conflict with my Leadership Southern Indiana graduation ceremony. As you may recall, I’m a proud member of the Discover class of 2017.

Leadership Southern Indiana’s mission is to engage, develop and mobilize regional leaders who will serve and transform our community.

Ironically, the council’s Thursday evening agenda includes A-17-02, an ordinance documenting our legislative body’s annual tithe to One Southern Indiana – and coincidentally, 1Si’s President and CEO, Wendy Dant Chesser, spoke to my class last week during our concluding Community Leadership Day.

Ostensibly Dant Chesser was there to outline steps for effectively leading a non-profit organization, and this she managed to do with requisite efficiency.

However, the second half of her presentation quickly digressed into the customary advertisement for 1Si, although this time with a novel twist.

According to Dant Chesser, the large manufacturing conglomerates most eagerly courted by 1Si (as opposed to independent local businesses and grassroots entrepreneurs, who must settle for trickle-down) prefer employees holding one of the six “top earner” university degrees, including engineering, computers and electronics.

However, according to her PowerPoint slide, higher education insists on disgorging twice as many graduates who’ve been awarded the six least “useful” (and lowest paying) degree choices: English, philosophy, history and the like.

It would seem that both Dant Chesser and the fluffed and subsidized multinational beneficiaries of the neoliberal order, upon whom 1Si depends to make payroll for 14 staffers, are offended by this ratio.

She made no effort to conceal her disdain for those viewing education as anything other than glorified vocational training, and considering the fact that I wasn’t the only humanities major in the room, her summarizing anecdote of choice was tellingly errant.

Dant Chesser told us of her recent chat with an art history major who was having trouble in the job market. Well, what did he expect? Art history? What sort of guidance counselor would recommend studying subjects as perennially useless as art history?

Well …

Perhaps those guidance counselors grasping that the object of education isn’t always to match obedient hamsters to their proper wheel, but to produce humans capable of thinking. The fact that “fake” news is such a concern these days might enter into this paradigm, wouldn’t you … think?

Seemingly nowhere in Dant Chesser’s narrowly defined (read: confined) world exists the type of broad, individually tailored choices of human aspiration that depart from economic development of the “we’ve always done it this way” variety, which by breathtaking coincidence is the type best calculated to advance the specific capitalist format to which 1Si has attached itself like a leech – hence the blood money of its council funding request.

The real problem might be that humanities majors have been made aware of different trends in the history of thought, and as such, they’re the ones most likely to question Dant Chesser’s premises.

Which I did, aloud and joyfully.

Bizarrely, another of her slides testified to the critical importance of every Southern Indiana resident meekly accepting 1Si’s version of the Regional Cities Initiative, so as to provide unanimity in pursuit of a “collective” path forward – and yes, “collective” is precisely the word this crony capitalist enabler used.

Irony is dead, but Trumpolini didn’t kill it.

As a direct result of past concerns proffered by anti-establishment dissidents, at least the money 1Si is requesting of our council will be put to a specific, directed use: WorkHub, a workforce training initiative.

That’s all well and good, but is this workforce training available to art history majors, or must we collectively denounce the pursuit of non-vocational education before disbursing the dollars to applicants?

Until Dant Chesser answers this question (a contrite public apology would be more suitable, but I’m a cynical realist), I recommend to council that the money be withheld. It won’t, and I can hear the backslapping already.

This admittedly has been a long read, so thanks for persevering.

You know, if dastardly parasitic humanities majors like me didn’t combat the angst with alcohol and stick around places like Nawbany, confident that any reasonable definition of leadership includes transparency, the ability to hear opposing viewpoints, to weigh available options and to filter the incessant bilge before charging across open ground toward the machine gun nest – tell me, would anyone bother challenging Wendy Dant Chesser and Bob Caesar when they begin spinning those “our way or the highway” whoppers?

That’s okay. You needn't answer. It’s my conscience, and it’s not for sale. However, I’m not going anywhere, and you can buy me a beer any time you like.

ON THE AVENUES: Confusion, exile, ignobility and resistance amid various other Chronicles of New Gahania.

ON THE AVENUES: Confusion, exile, ignobility and resistance amid various other Chronicles of New Gahania.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

I'm feeling really upbeat about today’s encore presentation of a column originally published on November 5, 2015 – just two days after the municipal election, when the Resistance commenced in New Albany a whole year prior to the advent of Trump.

2016 was when the rest of America belatedly awakened to the necessity.

I’m happy because resorting to a column rerun means I’m up to my ears in work pertaining to the arrival of something far more important than either Deaf Gahan or The Donald, this being Pints&union. Gradually the necessary pieces have fallen into place, and we should be ready to debut next week.

Meanwhile, I'm reminded that resistance begins right here at home. What was the original Public House in 1992 if not the local opposition to the nationwide stranglehold of wretched mass-market swill?

Perhaps amazingly, that particular battle was won, and now the world of better beer is overdue for some sprucing up and remodeling, hence the notion of putting a stop to the revolving door of on-premise beer selection.

Quality, reliability and dependability as revolutionary doctrines? Life's a pendulum, folks, and if you wait around long enough, when it finally swings back the effect is not unlike a fastball right down the middle of the plate.

Returning to the local political scene, it is forever instructive to read old commentaries and compare them to now. I was wrong about Trump's accession and Gahan's statewide political ambition (at least in the short term), but much of the remainder stands up nicely.

I'm not sure that anyone foresaw Gahan's acquisition of David Barksdale, flipping a presumed Republican into a sycophantic mayoral piss boy.

Just remember that when it comes to manipulation and money, the mayor can be trusted to exploit the weak and vulnerable by finding and tapping their jugulars. Gahan simultaneously milked Barksdale for a crucial fifth Reisz Mahal vote and neutered a Republican. The historian blithely handed the charlatan power on a silver platter.

Barksdale's abrupt collapse might be sad, except it's all hamartia and hubris to to me: "Hamartia is the (fatal) flaw, hubris is the behavior that does not acknowledge it."

Gotta go order beer now.

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Confusion, exile, ignobility and resistance (2015).

Recently I overheard a conversation at the coffee shop about the point of no return, the last straw – the time when one decides to jump ship.

In this instance, the precise topic was the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency. Would such a revolting development merit moving to another country?

Would it mean exile?

To be more precise, would it mean self-exile?

Self-exile is often depicted as a form of protest by the person that claims it, to avoid persecution or legal matters (such as tax or criminal allegations), an act of shame or repentance, or isolating oneself to be able to devote time to a particular thing.

Granted, Trump’s elevation is unlikely, and any conceivable notion of exile remains problematic in the absence of any substantive tradition of asylum for gravely disillusioned Americans seeking refuge in the civilized world – places like Bamberg, Poperinge or Copenhagen.

Even so, I still believe that a plea for asylum accompanied by a few photos of New Albany's slumlord properties, one-way streets and economic dishevelment cadre just might do the trick. Any self-respecting resident of the Netherlands would be utterly appalled, and offer his spare room.

It so happens that I was reading The Economist on the very same day, specifically, an obituary for the Irish playwright Brian Friel.

Interviewers sometimes suggested he might have stayed in America longer. It was ever the land of liberation for him, the place his characters would leave for as soon as the potato crop was in. But he knew that, if he went, homesickness for green Ireland would gnaw away at him as surely as at them. Exile was not the answer. There was a strange dignity in staying but wavering, trying to balance emotions that would not be reconciled. Confusion, he insisted, “is not an ignoble condition”.

Emigration is a recurring motif in Ireland. During the Great Famine, Irish men and women left the island in droves, primarily to avoid starvation. In the decades that followed, and right up until the recent times, consistent patterns of self-exile continued owing to Ireland’s anemic economy and the absence of reasonable prospects for a life at home.

Over time, it’s the sort of reality calculated to produce torment and melancholy in a country’s cultural milieu, to be expressed in art, theater, music and writing. The playwright Friel decided escape was not the answer, and while he explored more universal themes in his work, we can guess that a certain intrinsic stubbornness played a role.

I can relate to that. Of course, there are other reasons for choosing exile, including war, pestilence and political vicissitude. It is the latter that concerns us today.

To be blunt: Does our recently concluded municipal election constitute one of these “jump ship” moments?

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Or, is this a pertinent juncture for progressives to face the cruel facts about New Albany’s perennial hopelessness, and choose exile in a locale where the “A” students rule?

I don’t think it is, but these are bleak times, indeed. Book readers have almost as much reason to be scared as sheep during a second Jeff Gahan term in office. However, there are a few reasons for optimism amid the gloom, and his looting goons.

First, although you wouldn’t know it in the absence of detailed analysis by any traditional local media source, Gahan’s victory was not a landslide. It’s undeniable that a win is a win, but the incumbent lost 11% of his decisive 2011 mandate. 53% of the voters opted for Gahan, and 47% expressed a preference for his two challengers. It’s bad, but closer than before. Another $50 million in TIF bonds and he's toast.

And we'll be broke.

The Republicans made incremental gains, picking up two seats on the council. Along with independents Scott Blair and Dan Coffey, three Republicans occasionally might be able to throw a spanner into Gahan’s luxury palace construction plans.

Unfortunately, the winner as usual was apathy, with more than 70% of the city’s voters refraining from participating in the election. They’re about to get what they deserve, good and hard. So are the rest of us, especially the dissidents who challenged the re-coronation.

Still, I’m not giving up, primarily because giving up is something I resent having to do. For one thing, "love it or leave it" is a false dichotomy in my contrarian’s cosmos.

There’s a third way, by staying and continue trying to change this bastion of underachievement for the better, in whatever way can be mustered, great or small, if for no other reason than to prove that old white males need not be angry quasi-fascist reactionaries.

They can be angry muckraking leftist malcontents.

It isn’t as though I lack for experience in such endeavors, because however one might describe my clan, it was outnumbered long before the 2015 election took place. I’ve been a dissenting thorn in the side of presumed propriety since the 5th grade, and I’m not finished yet.

(See what I did there?)

Underdog defines my life. Among other things, I’m a humanist, an atheist and a heretic. Hereabouts, roughly nine bad beers are sold for every good one, and so that’s the one I drink. My diet includes more pickled herring than hamburgers. I took the Bernie Sanders test, and got 95%. Pro sports mean more to me than college, and education always trumps athletics. A car is an onerous appendage to be regrettably accepted, not exalted as an extension of one’s tumescent genitalia.

I support local independent business, level playing fields, the rank and file, walking and biking, human rights, diversity and fundamental decency. I oppose cliques, boorishness, time servers, cowards and willful stupidity.

At least simple ignorance is correctable.

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Make no mistake, taxpayers: Gahan’s going to come out spending, and as before, it’ll be for those otherwise senseless capital project "wants" best calculated to preserve the Democratic Party’s stranglehold on power, and never as intended to alter any fundamental problems in the city. Too many people profit from decay management and pretend-decay-rectification, and Gahan needs his share of their money.

If nothing else, he’s really good at that.

Once the customary flagellations and reprisals take place. Gahan’s insipid cult of personality will be propagated even more heavily in preparation for the next step in his ambition, perhaps a State Senate run in 2018. Gahan’s team of acolytes is in place, its arrogance undoubtedly stoked by victory.

But it’s a machine with numerous holes, more illusion than substance. That’s because Gahan’s only palpable objective is political self-aggrandizement. Like most cults of personality, the aura doesn’t extend past the shadow of the chieftain, and his narcissistic need to be viewed as the fount of all wisdom is so ludicrous that it cannot survive dismemberment.

I shall continue writing the dismantlement manual, and soon enough, the curtain will be parted to reveal the great and mighty Oz, pulling at his levers. Meanwhile, let’s remember that Gahanism itself is no political doctrine.

It is a giant sucking sound of a well-tuned fundraising mechanism that never met a book.

Gahanism is neither defined by concrete ideology, nor illuminated by transparency. Rather, it is measured by crass transactions made in back corridors, rubber-stamped by co-opted functionaries, and executed to produce maximum monetization for candidate and political organization alike. It’s a pyramid scheme, and it might well crash and burn even before Gahan declares for higher office.

His political prospects will return to room temperature soon enough. Meanwhile, I’m not going anywhere, because Gahanism doesn’t frighten me. It is soulless, anti-intellectual, and so much the personification of unalloyed mediocrity that if the mayor did not exist, a reanimated Ayn Rand would have to invent him, so as to be denounced by John Galt over social media.

I can hear the bleating of the dullards now, just as I’ve heard it before: “BLAH BLAH BLAH if you don’t like it here, why don’t you move somewhere else BLAH BLAH BLAH.”

Ah, but you see, jumping ship is the one thing I cannot do, because I’ve got to be myself … and self-exile isn’t me.

Like Friel, I'm staying put. If you agree, start stockpiling paint, sit tight and wait for instructions.

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Recent columns:

July 12: ON THE AVENUES: Thanks to Joe Phillips, there'll be pints, union and good times downtown.

July 5: ON THE AVENUES: For Deaf Gahan and the Reisz Five, their luxury city hall will prove to be a Pyrrhic victory.

June 28: ON THE AVENUES: Said the spider to the fly -- will you please take a slice of Reisz?

June 21: ON THE AVENUES: Government Lives Matter, so it's $10,000,000 for Gahan's luxury city hall clique enhancement. Happy dumpster diving, peasants!

Paine & Pleasure, Part 2: A design for life.

Part one of "Paine & Pleasure" urged you to think about Thomas Paine on July 4. In retrospect, this repeat of a column written in 2016 has little to do with Paine, but I already brought it up, so here it is.

It's a good snapshot of my mood in the run-up to Pints & Union, about which there'll be more to say in the next few days. My period of exile is just about over, and it's going to feel a bit odd having a regular spot to hang my hat.

Baby steps. Get back in the saddle, and ride.

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ON THE AVENUES: A design for life.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Throughout my decidedly mediocre high school basketball career, members of the coaching staff often administered what they surely imagined as damning criticism of my uninspired performance.

“Baylor, you’re always on the outside, looking in.”

They were right on target, and it didn’t really bother me, because I’ve always felt like an outsider, even when making conscious (read: doomed) efforts to conform.

These efforts to fit in almost always fail. High school athletics were merely an early example of the pattern. I tried to take sports seriously, but couldn’t. Reviews were scathing. You’d think I’d clubbed baby seals, or urinated on a grave.

Perversely, many years later there emerged a role model who might have inspired me to work harder at basketball. When Dennis Rodman took his rebounding-first attitude to its most ludicrous extreme and refused to shoot even uncontested layups, at last I saw how it might have been for me.

Alas, by then it was too late.

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Contrarianism, especially as it pertains to embracing positions that offend the majority, is a quality associated with dissent and radicalism. It’s no surprise that of all the “founding fathers” we Americans are taught to venerate – often mistakenly, in my view – the one who made sense most reliably was Thomas Paine.

Paine was brilliant when it came to documenting the need for revolution. He was less adept at contributing to principles of governance following the revolt’s successful conclusion, but this difficulty in transition isn’t uncommon.

Welcome to my life in “craft” beer.

If I have any single regret about my life as a contrarian, it’s that a pesky sense of fair play causes me to consider the other side, and at periodic intervals, to make ill-fated efforts to go with the flow even when I can foresee the dismal outcome.

Owing to my lifelong mathematical ineptitude, this cannot be attributed to a gambler’s instinct for statistical improbability. Maybe I’m just too nice a guy to avoid “reaching out” here and there.

By high school graduation, many of the various threads of my disgruntlement were exposed, and others were revealed during college – which ended with a philosophy degree, of course.

By 1985, and the high water mark of Ronnie RayGun’s incessant theatrical blather about what it meant to be patriotically American, I’d been to Europe and realized that the waylaid stork made a tragic error dropping me here.

Accordingly, intemperate arbiters of style back home in Indiana greeted me with a fresh new message:

“Baylor, if you hate it so much here, why not just go to Europe and just stay there?”

As usual, they completely missed the point. To be a contrarian is to understand that you can’t ever truly belong, and making good on this realization logically requires staying put, not leaving, so as to inflict your opposing viewpoint on the wider, somnolent community at every turn, forever more.

Perhaps the real reason I never tried playing the role of expatriate in Europe was fear that my contrarianism wasn’t continent-specific and would follow me wherever I went.

In other words, having felt like a European stranded in America, I’d move to Europe, only to find myself becoming attached to Harley Davidson, Bud Light and Mitt Romney.

I couldn’t risk it.

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The Public House provided the chance to fine tune this approach. A quarter-century ago, I stumbled into the pub and restaurant game quite by accident. It was something I’d never done. My only core belief at the pub’s commencement was that the only way to succeed in business without really trying was to pretend the barroom’s four walls delineated completely different worlds.

Outside them, it was insane Indiana. Inside was a classroom somewhere in Europe. I stayed upright only by self-deception, generally too busy to think, though unfortunately not to drink. There was plenty of alcohol, and while I’m bright enough to know it wasn’t always a good thing, it was a good idea at the time.

However, there was plenty of teaching, too. In retrospect, my expectations were profoundly naïve, but the plan was to be as European as possible within the space allotted, with which I’d be able to locate others of like mind for commiseration, and to educate those who weren’t simpatico.

I genuinely thought of myself as an instructor, and at times it almost seemed to work. The lesson plan called for a period of dependence on European beers, following which America would reclaim its place as a beer country.

We called it microbrewing then, and I was sure that when it got off the ground, the ensuing dialectic would produce the best of both worlds. We’d have good, local beer and a European-style community in which to enjoy it. I could declare victory, and collect consultancy fees happily ever after.

Like I said, I drank a lot in those days, and it may have altered by cognitive function.

I thought better beer could presage a better life, and it was this conviction that started me asking questions about New Albany, because after all, it isn’t as though anyone else would be doing it, especially Alabama-based newspapers.

In turn, this led through Bank Street Brewhouse to two-way streets and a mayoral bid, and the scoreboard shows that none of these have turned out particularly well for me, but isn’t disappointment always a potential outcome when you decide to drop the shield and for once, lead with your heart?

You might win, you might lose, and there’s a reason why sweet dreams are made of this. It’s because they’re dreams, and dreams, you see … well, dreams just aren’t real.

They’re unreal, though bizarrely, with my plans for world domination doing double duty as bird cage liner, those dreams I had aren’t any more unreal than the current spinning wheel marketplace for “craft” beer, or the present brain-dead shape of “two-party” political solutions.

Satire is neutralized, and contrarianism threatened with extinction. We’re living in a skit.

Contrarianism can be exhausting, even more so when you’re older, and never more so than the present time. I find myself becoming reacquainted with my former tactical device, that of an expatriate in my own country, a willful stranger who keeps his eyes fixed on the pendulum, waiting for it to come near again, close enough to hold on for another ride.

But is that what I really want?

A very long time ago, it became obvious that a contrarian can’t be a prophet in his own time. An asshole, yes, though I’m serene about my talent at it.

Live by the sword, die by the sword, and when the local hacks, vandals and poseurs approach you with wilted mutton javelins in hand, you always have the option of throwing the ultimate haymaker in return: A six syllable word.

Okay, that felt better.

Looks like I’m not going anywhere, after all.

When the final buzzer sounds, all a contrarian really has left is the satisfaction of knowing that he fought the bastards good and hard, right down to the last possession … and this I propose to do.

My coaches would be proud.

You're adept at making tons and tons of money? That's nice. Now, get off my porch.

A few weeks back, I began to compile a list of the idols that get extremely short shrift in this contrarian's world.

These are the tenets of conventional Americans wisdom that I refrain from worshiping. If allowed to bop along unprovoked, I also generally don't openly disdain them, but today I'm feeling a tad challenged.

Among the concepts I refuse to worship are the narrow (automobiles as genital extension mechanisms, big-time college sports, Miller Lite tastes great) and the broad (gods and religion; flags and patriotism).

Capitalism's pretty high on my list of conceptual conscientious objection, especially the way we've come to practice it in contemporary America.

I accept that it takes all sorts to make a world, and for someone to be good at running a business is fine by me. I've even done it on an often unintentionally non-profit basis.

However, to me this skill exists alongside musical aptitude, vocational ability, linguistic prowess, and so many other components that define a human being.

When it comes to elevating capitalism to a value system I'm supposed to accept without question and venerate as the highest aspiration of a man or woman, then you can count me out. If memory serves, neither the Constitution nor the Bible stipulates capitalism, although as noted in the space only recently, a case can be made for Buddhist Economics.

The morning Constitutional: "It is capitalism that must be overcome to solve its inherent inequality problem."

The reason for today's rumination stems directly from a conversation I had yesterday, in which it was deemed an item of central importance that a wealthy man had been born poor, and raised himself up to praiseworthy status as a billionaire -- verily, a "self-made man."

Please.

Tellingly, even an obvious disciple of "the business of America is business" is capable of seeing through the fallacy of the "self-made man," as here:

Self-Made Man - No Such Thing, by Mike Myatt (Forbes)

Do you view yourself as a self-made man or woman? If you do, you may want to take another look in the mirror. What’s wrong with the “self-made” theory? Everything. If your pride, ego, arrogance, insecurity, or ignorance keeps you from recognizing the contributions of others, then it’s time for a wake-up call. If your hubris is overwhelming your humility then the text that follows is written just for you.

An article at Slate takes the debunking considerably further.

The Self-Made Man: The story of America’s most pliable, pernicious, irrepressible myth, by John Swansburg

I’ve always admired what my father accomplished, and how he accomplished it, while not quite sharing his confidence that his experience was repeatable, especially in our current economic moment. The yawning gap between the dearly held ideal of the self-made man and the difficulty of actually improving your station in America, particularly if you’re poor, made me wonder about the utility of the rags-to-riches story. Is it a healthy myth that inspires us to aim high? Or is it more like a mass delusion keeping us from confronting the fact that poor Americans tend to remain poor Americans, regardless of how hard they work?

The reason I personally refuse to worship the idol of the "self-made man" (note the traditionally and annoyingly masculine usage) parallels my unwillingness to fetishize capitalism, because in both instances, the common denominator is the accumulation of money and wealth to the exclusion of other characteristics that might be plausibly applied to a definition of adult success.

Put another way, we're all self-made to an extent in terms of our interests; taking into account the Forbes columnist Myatt's valuable listing of the ways we've all been helped by others along the way -- teachers, coaches, mentors, friends, co-workers -- most of us discover nuanced interests, and even when deprived of material resources, these are honed into what delights and defines us.

Impoverishment surely closes off certain of these avenues of self-development, and I'd be a fool to deny it. But I'd be equally foolish to say that the impoverished might choose at any point to embrace capital accumulation and lift themselves to wealth and influence. It plainly isn't so in most cases, and to push the analogy even further, some of us aren't inclined to be capitalists, just as I'm not equipped (or inclined) to sing Pavarotti's arias.

All the same, there might be a very poor 50-year-old man who can sing these parts because he's been practicing them on his own, passionately, his whole life, and to me, such a man would be eligible for lauding as "self-made" as much as any billionaire.

He's more likely to be denigrated because he remains poor. It always has to be about money, right?

Not in my world.

I may know how to play a game, and I may be good at it (or not). It doesn't mean it's the right game to play.

THE BEER BEAT: "The Drinking Bout in the Cathedral Porch," or why it's time to make the Feast of Fools great again on New Year's Day.

For a long time on New Year's Day, I've tried to set aside an hour for listening to this compact disc from way back in 1992 -- although the subject matter is far older.

New London Consort/Philip Pickett ‎– The Feast Of Fools (La Fête Des Fous • Das Narrenfest)

Make no mistake: "Lux Optata Claruit," from the section called "Mass Of The Asses, Drunkards And Gamblers," is drinking music equal to "Gimme a Pigfoot" or "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight."

One need only observe an expanded context.

For all those years at the Public House and later Bank Street Brewhouse, I always wanted to adaptively reuse ideas like the Feast of Fools -- and Boxing Day, Curry Night, May Day and Walpurgis Night -- although usually these schemes were thwarted by environmental incomprehension, or defeated by logistics reflecting the over-sized scale of my contrarian ambition.

One answer might be to refocus, narrowing one's expectations and striving for the attainable and sustainable.

With the advent of Pints&Union later in 2018, perhaps Joe Phillips and I can get back to the basics of beer, wine, liquor and merrily subverted liturgy. Maybe a special keg of abbey ale on New Year's Day, some cassoulet ... and medieval music.

The New Year’s Feast That Transformed Fools Into Popes and Kings, by Sarah Laskow (Atlas Obscura)

In medieval churches, hierarchy was inverted for a day.

THE FEAST OF FOOLS, AS described by the French theologians who condemned it in 1445, sounds like a ton of fun. This New Year’s Day celebration, they wrote, caught up high-ranking church officials in a bacchanal unworthy of their exalted positions.

“Priests and clerks may be seen wearing masks and monstrous visages at the hours of office,” the theologians recounted, presumably with a sniff of horror. “They dance in the choir dressed as women, panders or minstrels. They sing wanton songs. They eat black puddings… while the celebrant is saying mass. They play at dice… They run and leap through the church, without a blush at their own shame.”

Officially banned in the 15th century, the Feast of Fools had its origins 300 years before, in the 1100s, and continued as a tradition well into the 16th century. It was memorialized in church documents condemning its excesses and in paintings depicting streets full of merry chaos. It appears in Victor Hugo’s famous 19th century novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, when Quasimodo is swept up in the festivities and crowned King of Fools ...

ON THE AVENUES: Are dissidents born or made? A humanities major examines his life and locale.

ON THE AVENUES: Are dissidents born or made? A humanities major examines his life and locale. 

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Since my mother died in mid-March, I’ve experienced periods of intense introspection.

Are these signs of depression?

Maybe, although I don’t think so. In all likelihood, periods of reflection are natural manifestations of the grieving process. The cosmos can be disorienting even in the best of times, and our reactions change with them.

I believe that it’s never too late to learn something, and accordingly, these past few weeks have struck me as an opportunity to relax and see where these evolving thoughts are leading.

One very big question has moved to the front of the cerebral queue. It’s something I’ve often asked myself through the years.

Why am I here?

Mind you, not here on Planet Earth. There’s no need for existential musing about the nature of origins, at least yet. I’m perfectly content to allow theologians, philosophers and even humanities majors to earn their meager pay, but looking through old photo albums is evidence enough for me.

My parents met, and one thing led to another. Suddenly there I was, all created, pouring pints of Guinness for a living and plotting a beer revolution.

Rather …

Why am I still here, continuing to live in New Albany when I might be residing in another part of the state, country or world?

(Reader’s note: The axiom known as Thrasher’s Razor fully applies to this rumination, because now more than ever, we’re all here because we’re not all there.)

As the missus reminds me on widely scattered occasions -- basically, every morning at breakfast -- I’ve never been much in sync with the sort of polite poseur’s society mores craved by the likes of Bob Caesar. They're far too banal an ordeal for me.

After 57 years of give and take, it’s evident that I have lots of buttons – and the reigning poltroons have even more fingers. I’ve never been able to swim a lick unless it’s against the metaphorical tide. Contrarianism fits me like a well-tailored suit, which of course I’d refuse to wear, because you can’t trust anyone who does.

They’re just hiding behind those fashionable costumes (seriously?), anyway.

I trust it isn’t time to face the final curtain, and yet the years dwindle down. Wouldn’t I be happier elsewhere, in a place with a cultural climate more in keeping with my personal value system, as opposed to one that prompts severe allergic (read: aesthetic) reactions?

Might I manage to find the zip code for peace and harmony, even at the advanced age of “I can remember the first moon landing”?

Haven’t “they” always told me to leave town if I didn’t like “their” toxic farrago of ignorance and anti-intellectualism?

To which I’ve always succinctly replied: “You first, my dear Gaston.”

---

The most recent resurgence of these locational culture reflections came during our April visit to Portland, Maine.

It was a Friday morning at the estimable Tony’s Donut Shop at the corner of Bolton and Congress, and we were equipped with cream horns, black coffee and the bakery’s gnarled regulars seated at an adjacent table, talking current events.

As noted previously, Tony's is somewhat reminiscent of New Albany’s venerable Honey Creme Donuts, albeit three or four times larger, with more production capacity as well as a half-dozen cozy tables for visitors to sit and converse.

It was impossible to avoid overhearing the amiable patter as locals came and went with their carry-outs, nor to ignore the booming voices of the senior citizens seated nearby. They were talking hockey when we sat down, then shifted to politics -- and I caught myself cringing involuntarily, as though expecting to be savagely beaten.

After all, back home again in Indiana, where I’ve insisted on remaining amid the raging right-wing proclivities, this conversational shift inevitably would have segued into the parroting of conservative talk radio bromides.

Or, just the thing inspiring me to respond loudly from the left side of the aisle, a scenario usually culminating in rancor, disharmony and “if you don’t love it, lump it” -- or worse.

And so there I sat at Tony’s Donuts like Pavlov’s drooling mutt, conditioned to imagine a fine day about to be ruined, all the while thinking that I can’t seem to escape the mentality of Redevelopment Commission meetings no matter how far I travel – except this time, it wasn’t that way at all.

Instead, these retirees in Portland fiercely criticized Donald Trump’s buffoonery. They mercilessly ridiculed the Republican Party, and scoffed openly at the very idea of a theocratic creature called “Mike Pence” reposing within spitting distance of power.

Me? I’m from Chicago. Never heard of Indiana.

Awestruck, yet aware it would have been impolite of me to kiss these strangers, I settled for stuffing another nut-encrusted Bismarck into my gratified pie hole. Still, it started me thinking.

I’ve lived in Floyd County my whole life, and in the city of New Albany during the latter half of it. Even when Barack Obama won the state of Indiana in 2008, John McCain beat Obama more than comfortably in both my county and city. So did Mitt Romney in 2012, and of course Trump easily carried them, too.

Yes, so-called Democrats have “controlled” municipal government for much of the same period, although it is painfully clear that the retirees at Tony’s would take one pained look at Caesar and accurately place him somewhere to the right of George Wallace.

Back to my original question. If I’ve never been into S & M, why have I punished myself these many decades?

As an old-school Red (Commie) marooned in a new-age Red (Conservative) sandbox, and generally outnumbered, I’ve been compelled for thirty-five or more years to inflict my liberalism on the prevailing Falangist orthodoxy by means of guerrilla warfare, destined almost always to lose, and just as often reluctant to compromise.

Why am I like this?

I don’t know. After I’m dead, the psychoanalysts can study my brain for causes of contrarianism. In my experience, it’s incurable.

All I know is for as long as I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with the notion that opposing points of view deserve a hearing, especially as they pertain to politics, civil rights, religion and individual conscience.

The bland respectability of Babbitt-style conformity invariably tramples “other” competing sides of the story, and so when disposed to tilt, my windmill of choice flies a banner reading “we’ve always done it this way.”

On the other hand, if I’ve been of assistance just once to someone by helping them see that it’s okay to be different, and it’s possible to be responsible, productive and ethical without being duped and hornswoggled by delusions, fantasias and superstitions foisted by the usual suspects, then my career in contrarianism has been well worth it.

---

As a relevant postscript, I cannot attend Thursday evening’s city council meeting owing to a conflict with my Leadership Southern Indiana graduation ceremony. As you may recall, I’m a proud member of the Discover class of 2017.

Leadership Southern Indiana’s mission is to engage, develop and mobilize regional leaders who will serve and transform our community.

Ironically, the council’s Thursday evening agenda includes A-17-02, an ordinance documenting our legislative body’s annual tithe to One Southern Indiana – and coincidentally, 1Si’s President and CEO, Wendy Dant Chesser, spoke to my class last week during our concluding Community Leadership Day.

Ostensibly Dant Chesser was there to outline steps for effectively leading a non-profit organization, and this she managed to do with requisite efficiency.

However, the second half of her presentation quickly digressed into the customary advertisement for 1Si, although this time with a novel twist.

According to Dant Chesser, the large manufacturing conglomerates most eagerly courted by 1Si (as opposed to independent local businesses and grassroots entrepreneurs, who must settle for trickle-down) prefer employees holding one of the six “top earner” university degrees, including engineering, computers and electronics.

However, according to her PowerPoint slide, higher education insists on disgorging twice as many graduates who’ve been awarded the six least “useful” (and lowest paying) degree choices: English, philosophy, history and the like.

It would seem that both Dant Chesser and the fluffed and subsidized multinational beneficiaries of the neoliberal order, upon whom 1Si depends to make payroll for 14 staffers, are offended by this ratio.

She made no effort to conceal her disdain for those viewing education as anything other than glorified vocational training, and considering the fact that I wasn’t the only humanities major in the room, her summarizing anecdote of choice was tellingly errant.

Dant Chesser told us of her recent chat with an art history major who was having trouble in the job market. Well, what did he expect? Art history? What sort of guidance counselor would recommend studying subjects as perennially useless as art history?

Well …

Perhaps those guidance counselors grasping that the object of education isn’t always to match obedient hamsters to their proper wheel, but to produce humans capable of thinking. The fact that “fake” news is such a concern these days might enter into this paradigm, wouldn’t you … think?

Seemingly nowhere in Dant Chesser’s narrowly defined (read: confined) world exists the type of broad, individually tailored choices of human aspiration that depart from economic development of the “we’ve always done it this way” variety, which by breathtaking coincidence is the type best calculated to advance the specific capitalist format to which 1Si has attached itself like a leech – hence the blood money of its council funding request.

The real problem might be that humanities majors have been made aware of different trends in the history of thought, and as such, they’re the ones most likely to question Dant Chesser’s premises.

Which I did, aloud and joyfully.

Bizarrely, another of her slides testified to the critical importance of every Southern Indiana resident meekly accepting 1Si’s version of the Regional Cities Initiative, so as to provide unanimity in pursuit of a “collective” path forward – and yes, “collective” is precisely the word this crony capitalist enabler used.

Irony is dead, but Trumpolini didn’t kill it.

As a direct result of past concerns proffered by anti-establishment dissidents, at least the money 1Si is requesting of our council will be put to a specific, directed use: WorkHub, a workforce training initiative.

That’s all well and good, but is this workforce training available to art history majors, or must we collectively denounce the pursuit of non-vocational education before disbursing the dollars to applicants?

Until Dant Chesser answers this question (a contrite public apology would be more suitable, but I’m a cynical realist), I recommend to council that the money be withheld. It won’t, and I can hear the backslapping already.

This admittedly has been a long read, so thanks for persevering.

You know, if dastardly parasitic humanities majors like me didn’t combat the angst with alcohol and stick around places like Nawbany, confident that any reasonable definition of leadership includes transparency, the ability to hear opposing viewpoints, to weigh available options and to filter the incessant bilge before charging across open ground toward the machine gun nest – tell me, would anyone bother challenging Wendy Dant Chesser and Bob Caesar when they begin spinning those “our way or the highway” whoppers?

That’s okay. You needn't answer. It’s my conscience, and it’s not for sale. However, I’m not going anywhere, and you can buy me a beer any time you like.

---

Recent columns:

May 11: ON THE AVENUES: Would a Canon candidacy compromise Deaf Gahan's and Mr. Dizznee's shizz show? A boy can dream.

May 4: ON THE AVENUES: Under the volcano in Catania, Sicily (Part One).

April 27: ON THE AVENUES: Dear Mr. Dizznee: Can you hear me now?

April 20: ON THE AVENUES: The Weekly Wad? It was a modest start.

ON THE AVENUES: A design for life.

ON THE AVENUES: A design for life.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Throughout my decidedly mediocre high school basketball career, members of the coaching staff often administered what they surely imagined as damning criticism of my uninspired performance.

“Baylor, you’re always on the outside, looking in.”

They were right on target, and it didn’t really bother me, because I’ve always felt like an outsider, even when making conscious (read: doomed) efforts to conform.

These efforts to fit in almost always fail. High school athletics were merely an early example of the pattern. I tried to take sports seriously, but couldn’t. Reviews were scathing. You’d think I’d clubbed baby seals, or urinated on a grave.

Perversely, many years later there emerged a role model who might have inspired me to work harder at basketball. When Dennis Rodman took his rebounding-first attitude to its most ludicrous extreme and refused to shoot even uncontested layups, at last I saw how it might have been for me.

Alas, by then it was too late.

---

Contrarianism, especially as it pertains to embracing positions that offend the majority, is a quality associated with dissent and radicalism. It’s no surprise that of all the “founding fathers” we Americans are taught to venerate – often mistakenly, in my view – the one who made sense most reliably was Thomas Paine.

Paine was brilliant when it came to documenting the need for revolution. He was less adept at contributing to principles of governance following the revolt’s successful conclusion, but this difficulty in transition isn’t uncommon.

Welcome to my life in “craft” beer.

If I have any single regret about my life as a contrarian, it’s that a pesky sense of fair play causes me to consider the other side, and at periodic intervals, to make ill-fated efforts to go with the flow even when I can foresee the dismal outcome.

Owing to my lifelong mathematical ineptitude, this cannot be attributed to a gambler’s instinct for statistical improbability. Maybe I’m just too nice a guy to avoid “reaching out” here and there.

By high school graduation, many of the various threads of my disgruntlement were exposed, and others were revealed during college – which ended with a philosophy degree, of course.

By 1985, and the high water mark of Ronnie RayGun’s incessant theatrical blather about what it meant to be patriotically American, I’d been to Europe and realized that the waylaid stork made a tragic error dropping me here.

Accordingly, intemperate arbiters of style back home in Indiana greeted me with a fresh new message:

“Baylor, if you hate it so much here, why not just go to Europe and just stay there?”

As usual, they completely missed the point. To be a contrarian is to understand that you can’t ever truly belong, and making good on this realization logically requires staying put, not leaving, so as to inflict your opposing viewpoint on the wider, somnolent community at every turn, forever more.

Perhaps the real reason I never tried playing the role of expatriate in Europe was fear that my contrarianism wasn’t continent-specific and would follow me wherever I went.

In other words, having felt like a European stranded in America, I’d move to Europe, only to find myself becoming attached to Harley Davidson, Bud Light and Mitt Romney.

I couldn’t risk it.

---

The Public House provided the chance to fine tune this approach. A quarter-century ago, I stumbled into the pub and restaurant game quite by accident. It was something I’d never done. My only core belief at the pub’s commencement was that the only way to succeed in business without really trying was to pretend the barroom’s four walls delineated completely different worlds.

Outside them, it was insane Indiana. Inside was a classroom somewhere in Europe. I stayed upright only by self-deception, generally too busy to think, though unfortunately not to drink. There was plenty of alcohol, and while I’m bright enough to know it wasn’t always a good thing, it was a good idea at the time.

However, there was plenty of teaching, too. In retrospect, my expectations were profoundly naïve, but the plan was to be as European as possible within the space allotted, with which I’d be able to locate others of like mind for commiseration, and to educate those who weren’t simpatico.

I genuinely thought of myself as an instructor, and at times it almost seemed to work. The lesson plan called for a period of dependence on European beers, following which America would reclaim its place as a beer country.

We called it microbrewing then, and I was sure that when it got off the ground, the ensuing dialectic would produce the best of both worlds. We’d have good, local beer and a European-style community in which to enjoy it. I could declare victory, and collect consultancy fees happily ever after.

Like I said, I drank a lot in those days, and it may have altered by cognitive function.

I thought better beer could presage a better life, and it was this conviction that started me asking questions about New Albany, because after all, it isn’t as though anyone else would be doing it, especially Alabama-based newspapers.

In turn, this led through Bank Street Brewhouse to two-way streets and a mayoral bid, and the scoreboard shows that none of these have turned out particularly well for me, but isn’t disappointment always a potential outcome when you decide to drop the shield and for once, lead with your heart?

You might win, you might lose, and there’s a reason why sweet dreams are made of this. It’s because they’re dreams, and dreams, you see … well, dreams just aren’t real.

They’re unreal, though bizarrely, with my plans for world domination doing double duty as bird cage liner, those dreams I had aren’t any more unreal than the current spinning wheel marketplace for “craft” beer, or the present brain-dead shape of “two-party” political solutions.

Satire is neutralized, and contrarianism threatened with extinction. We’re living in a skit.

Contrarianism can be exhausting, even more so when you’re older, and never more so than the present time. I find myself becoming reacquainted with my former tactical device, that of an expatriate in my own country, a willful stranger who keeps his eyes fixed on the pendulum, waiting for it to come near again, close enough to hold on for another ride.

But is that what I really want?

A very long time ago, it became obvious that a contrarian can’t be a prophet in his own time. An asshole, yes, though I’m serene about my talent at it.

Live by the sword, die by the sword, and when the local hacks, vandals and poseurs approach you with wilted mutton javelins in hand, you always have the option of throwing the ultimate haymaker in return: A six syllable word.

Okay, that felt better.

Looks like I’m not going anywhere, after all.

When the final buzzer sounds, all a contrarian really has left is the satisfaction of knowing that he fought the bastards good and hard, right down to the last possession … and this I propose to do.

My coaches would be proud.

---

May 5: ON THE AVENUES: Getting back, moving forward, drinking coffee.

April 28: ON THE AVENUES: You know, the two-way streets column I wrote -- 7 years ago, in 2009.

April 21: ON THE AVENUES: The Green Mouse tells all.

April 14: ON THE AVENUES: Forever NA, the wrong way ... from 2012, through 2014, to 2016 and beyond, forever more.

ON THE AVENUES: Confusion, exile, ignobility and resistance.

ON THE AVENUES: Confusion, exile, ignobility and resistance. 

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Recently I overheard a conversation at the coffee shop about the point of no return, the last straw – the time when one decides to jump ship.

In this instance, the precise topic was the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency. Would such a revolting development merit moving to another country?

Would it mean exile?

To be more precise, would it mean self-exile?

Self-exile is often depicted as a form of protest by the person that claims it, to avoid persecution or legal matters (such as tax or criminal allegations), an act of shame or repentance, or isolating oneself to be able to devote time to a particular thing.

Granted, Trump’s elevation is unlikely, and any conceivable notion of exile remains problematic in the absence of any substantive tradition of asylum for gravely disillusioned Americans seeking refuge in the civilized world – places like Bamberg, Poperinge or Copenhagen.

Even so, I still believe that a plea for asylum accompanied by a few photos of New Albany's slumlord properties, one-way streets and economic dishevelment cadre just might do the trick. Any self-respecting resident of the Netherlands would be utterly appalled, and offer his spare room.

It so happens that I was reading The Economist on the very same day, specifically, an obituary for the Irish playwright Brian Friel.

Interviewers sometimes suggested he might have stayed in America longer. It was ever the land of liberation for him, the place his characters would leave for as soon as the potato crop was in. But he knew that, if he went, homesickness for green Ireland would gnaw away at him as surely as at them. Exile was not the answer. There was a strange dignity in staying but wavering, trying to balance emotions that would not be reconciled. Confusion, he insisted, “is not an ignoble condition”.

Emigration is a recurring motif in Ireland. During the Great Famine, Irish men and women left the island in droves, primarily to avoid starvation. In the decades that followed, and right up until the recent times, consistent patterns of self-exile continued owing to Ireland’s anemic economy and the absence of reasonable prospects for a life at home.

Over time, it’s the sort of reality calculated to produce torment and melancholy in a country’s cultural milieu, to be expressed in art, theater, music and writing. The playwright Friel decided escape was not the answer, and while he explored more universal themes in his work, we can guess that a certain intrinsic stubbornness played a role.

I can relate to that. Of course, there are other reasons for choosing exile, including war, pestilence and political vicissitude. It is the latter that concerns us today.

To be blunt: Does our recently concluded municipal election constitute one of these “jump ship” moments?

---

Or, is this a pertinent juncture for progressives to face the cruel facts about New Albany’s perennial hopelessness, and choose exile in a locale where the “A” students rule?

I don’t think it is, but these are bleak times, indeed. Book readers have almost as much reason to be scared as sheep during a second Jeff Gahan term in office. However, there are a few reasons for optimism amid the gloom, and his looting goons.

First, although you wouldn’t know it in the absence of detailed analysis by any traditional local media source, Gahan’s victory was not a landslide. It’s undeniable that a win is a win, but the incumbent lost 11% of his decisive 2011 mandate. 53% of the voters opted for Gahan, and 47% expressed a preference for his two challengers. It’s bad, but closer than before. Another $50 million in TIF bonds and he's toast.

And we're broke.

The Republicans made incremental gains, picking up two seats on the council. With nominally independent Scott Blair a fiduciary milquetoast and Dan Coffey always eager to flip to the highest bidder for an extra acorn, three Republicans occasionally might be able to throw a spanner into Gahan’s luxury palace construction plans.

Unfortunately, the winner as usual was apathy, with more than 70% of the city’s voters refraining from participating in the election. They’re about to get what they deserve, good and hard. So are the rest of us, especially the dissidents who challenged the coronation.

Still, I’m not giving up, primarily because giving up is something I resent having to do. For one thing, "love it or leave it" is a false dichotomy in my contrarian’s cosmos.

There’s a third way: Stay and continue trying to change this bastion of underachievement for the better, in whatever way can be mustered, great or small, if for no other reason than to prove that old white males need not be angry quasi-fascist reactionaries.

They can be angry muckraking liberal malcontents.

It isn’t as though I lack for experience in such endeavors, because however one might describe my clan, it was outnumbered long before the 2015 election took place. I’ve been a dissenting thorn in the side of presumed propriety since the 5th grade, and I’m not finished yet.

(See what I did there?)

Underdog is my life. Among other things, I’m a humanist, an atheist and a heretic. Hereabouts, roughly nine bad beers are sold for every good one, and so that’s the one I drink. My diet includes more pickled herring than hamburgers. I took the Bernie Sanders test, and got 95%. Pro sports mean more to me than college, and education always trumps athletics. A car is an onerous appendage to be regrettably accepted, not exalted as an extension of one’s tumescent genitalia.

I support local independent business, level playing fields, the rank and file, walking and biking, human rights, diversity and fundamental decency. I oppose cliques, boorishness, time servers, cowards and willful stupidity.

At least simple ignorance is correctable.

---

Make no mistake, taxpayers: Gahan’s going to come out spending, and as before, it’ll be for those otherwise senseless capital project "wants" best calculated to preserve the Democratic Party’s stranglehold on power, and never as intended to alter any fundamental problems in the city. Too many people profit from decay management and pretend-decay-rectification, and Gahan needs his share of their money.

If nothing else, he’s really good at that.

Once the customary flagellations and reprisals take place. Gahan’s insipid cult of personality will be propagated even more heavily in preparation for the next step in his ambition, likely a State Senate run in 2018. Gahan’s team of acolytes is in place, its arrogance undoubtedly stoked by victory.

But it’s a machine with numerous holes, more illusion than substance. That’s because Gahan’s only palpable objective is political self-aggrandizement. Like most cults of personality, the aura doesn’t extend past the shadow of the chieftain, and his narcissistic need to be viewed as the fount of all wisdom is so ludicrous that it cannot survive dismemberment forever.

I shall continue writing the dismantlement manual, and soon enough, the curtain will be parted to reveal the great and mighty Oz, pulling at his levers. Meanwhile, let’s remember that Gahanism itself is no political doctrine.

It is a giant sucking sound of a well-tuned fundraising mechanism that never met a book.

Gahanism is neither defined by concrete ideology, nor illuminated by transparency. Rather, it is measured by crass transactions made in back corridors, rubber-stamped by co-opted functionaries, and executed to produce maximum monetization for candidate and political organization alike. It’s a pyramid scheme, and it might well crash and burn even before Gahan declares for higher office.

His political prospects will return to room temperature soon enough. Meanwhile, I’m not going anywhere, because Gahanism doesn’t frighten me.

It is soulless, anti-intellectual, and so much the personification of unalloyed mediocrity that if the mayor did not exist, a reanimated Ayn Rand would have to invent him, so as to be denounced by John Galt over social media.

I can hear the bleating of the dullards now, just as I’ve heard it before: “BLAHBLAHBLAH if you don’t like it here, why don’t you move somewhere else BLAHBLAHBLAH.”

Ah, but you see, jumping ship is the one thing I cannot do, because I’ve got to be me … and self-exile isn’t me.

Like Friel, I'm staying put. If you agree, start stockpiling paint, sit tight and wait for instructions.

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Recent columns:

October 29: ON THE AVENUES: A year later, the backroom politics of pure spite at Haughey’s Tavern still reek.

October 28: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: How many businesses already have died because of City Hall’s street grid procrastination?

October 26: ON THE AVENUES EXTRA: Gahan says speeding sucks, but street safety can wait until after he is re-elected.

October 22: ON THE AVENUES: My career as a double naught capitalist.

October 19: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Courtesy bicycle to the Hotel Silly (2010, 2013).

October 15: ON THE AVENUES: To the New Albanians, each and every one.

October 8: ON THE AVENUES: There’s an indie twist to this curmudgeon’s annual Harvest Homecoming column.

October 1: ON THE AVENUES: No more fear, Jeff.

September 24: ON THE AVENUES: Almost two years later, Mr. Gahan has yet to plug in this clock, and so it's time for him to clock out.

September 17: ON THE AVENUES: Dear Neighbor: If you’re tired of the same old story, turn some pages.

September 10: ON THE AVENUES: Lanesville Heritage Weekend comes around again.

The contrarian's Thanksgiving and Black Friday observances.

In the context of real American history, to the exclusion of mythology and wishful thinking, the holiday we term "Thanksgiving" is ironic, to say the least, and as noted here so often, Americans and irony generally maintain separate residences.

Each year around this time I like to play the role of thorn in the side of those Pollyannas among us who are prepared to give thanks for phenomenons like the slaughter of Native Americans and the doctrine of "manifest destiny" that eased the consciences of those pulling the trigger.

And, although my business probably will profit from the commencement of the shopping season on the day after Thanksgiving, it's always useful to lampoon the idea of consumerism as cardiovascular exercise and/or religious attainment.

Two postings from 2007 make the case. I gotta go paint. Unless Bluegill or the Highwayman have anything to say, we'll probably be taking the blogging day off tomorrow ... unless, of course, my annoyance level peaks. Don't forget: If you're shopping, shop local. Bentonville already has enough, don't you think?

Are they selling giftcards down at the 2 Horseshoe pole dancing emporium?

Black Friday, Part Two: “Literally millions of native peoples were slaughtered.”

Black Friday, Part One: "Any world that I'm welcome to ... is better than the one I come from."