Existentialism is a philosophy for secular humanists like me, who seek freedom from government-imposed religious practices.

Have you noticed that quite many of the anti-maskers arguing in favor of "freedom" to disregard public health measures from "big government" are the same ones who support mandatory national anthem observances, "under God" as part of the pledge of allegiance, and the requiring that atheists swear on bibles -- when these stipulations are onerous for pagans like us?

State-established religion doesn't bother them. Saving lives does. How very strange.

Existentialism: a philosophy for secular humanists, by James A. Haught (at Freedom from Religion Foundation)

... In the 1950s ... existentialism burst onto the global scene like a tidal wave of new thinking.

It said, yes, life is absurd and ultimately pointless. We find ourselves living lives, but we don’t know why we are here. We are doomed to die without ever knowing why we were “thrown into the world.” The only thing we have is our own individual lives, which are temporary. We exist — period — which provides the name: existentialism. We are “condemned to be free,” to live inside our own minds and skulls, separated from others.

And yet, no matter how much chaos and cruelty are around us, each of us has no choice but to formulate values and decide how we will behave, personally. We must craft an “authentic” life for ourselves, regardless of what the surrounding society does ...

Now more than ever, when surrounding society seems to have gone bat-shit crazy ... with my apologies to bats, which possess a high degree of "creature integrity."

Somehow, existentialism seems a perfect philosophy for secular humanists — for nonconformists who can’t embrace the majority god-chanting and war-fever chest-thumping and entrenched unfairnesses of society all around them. It’s for misfit thinkers who see the world as half-loony, so they each seek a private, personal path, outside the mainstream, trying to be honest and devoted to values that seem right to them alone.

ON THE AVENUES: On the importance of being ancient.

ON THE AVENUES: On the importance of being ancient.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

I pay little attention to birthdays, especially my own, and yet as one obsessed with history, the very idea of “age,” whether of people, objects or events, forever intrigues me.

Seldom has it seemed appropriate (or even remotely interesting) to write about my own birthday. It somehow feels selfish, and contrary to the recognition that my quality of life is far cushier than that endured by so many on this mucked-up planet.

And yet it's the only life I have, at least for the moment, so occasional exceptions are allowable, as in 2010 on the occasion of my 50th. It came in the form of my weekly column in what was then the New Albany Tribune, prior to its merger with the Jeffersonville Evening News.

By the way, it's now six years waiting for the replacement column to be commissioned. No hurry, guys, as I'm only 57.

Rounder numbers seem to play better in human consciousness, although there certainly isn’t much separating 50 from 49 and 51. In retrospect, the current year strikes me as far more auspicious and transitional than 2010. In particular, this paragraph from the seven-year-old column strikes me.

Yet, there is considerable happiness in arriving at 50 in good health, working in a growing business, enjoying the company of my mother, friends and family, and eager to give profuse thanks to my wife, my partner in life, who has been both tenderly loving and unsparingly honest in helping propel me to a new place where the rage seemingly recedes.

Arriving at 57 today, on August 3 in 2017, I can’t help noticing the many recent changes in my life, albeit not without first noting the constants. Diana and I are doing well, and since 2010 – since July of 2017 – she has added official Britishness to her considerable catalog of attributes.

Swirling around this secure core are numerous reminders of what a difference seven years can make. I’m two and a half years removed from my business, still occupying a weird space in professional limbo while waiting for a check that my former business partners seem unwilling (or perhaps unable) to write. Perhaps they’re too busy dismantling the Red Room to notice.

At least this situation can and eventually will be resolved legally (trust me on this). Rather, I’m looking forward to the new pub project, and a return to good old-fashioned beer values, conviviality and all the communal aspects that drew me to public drinking in the first place.

Sadly, the grim reaper has been busy. My mother died in March, a cousin more recently, and one of my best friends, Kevin Richards, last fall. Three of the most influential high school teachers I ever encountered died within a few months of each other in 2016. I understand that the attrition rate is to be expected, chronologically. It doesn’t make it any easier to bear.

My own health seems fine, although I might lose 20 or so pounds, and of course who in my age bracket couldn’t benefit from shedding some baggage? I’m drinking far less beer, having belatedly discovered judicious portions of various whiskies. When it comes to eating my favorite foods, few of which are likely to be recommended by the prevailing dietary sects, portion control has been found wanting.

But I like fried chicken and martinis, and hope to be consuming some of each later tonight.

Admittedly, I’ve been living at least partially in my past. All these wakes and funerals prompt sober reflection, enhanced by going through my mom’s belongings, then finally getting around to digitizing 30-year-old slides while trying to remember the person I was before the transformational experience of the pub and brewery, which had the disorienting effect at times of simultaneously broadening and restricting my outlook.

Overall, the good times still are. It’s just that they’re tempered by encroaching realities. The only choices are to live through them, get over it and at all times, keep learning. It’s too late to stop now.

Here is the 2010 column, unchanged -- except for the Ancient Rage beer Jared brewed back then.

It is long gone, and may it live forever in my memory.

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To be ancient is to be venerable. Ancient items are very old ones. In historical terms, ancient refers to dates and times long passed. In short, there is nothing novel about being ancient.

However, when considering the very concept of ancient, there are aspects of relativity and nebulousness. In the current era, ancient history generally is taken as describing periods in human civilization prior to the fall of Rome. Will this assumption still be accepted a thousand years from now?

Precisely when will our here and now become the ancient epoch of tomorrow?

It remains that an original Model-T is an ancient automobile, "Justified & Ancient" was a song performed by a defunct band called The KLF, and Ancient Age was and remains a Kentucky bourbon whisky, so called because it supposedly spends more time aging in charred oak barrels than competing brands.

Long ago, during the remote, ancient history of my life, I was infatuated with Ancient Age, although not the specific qualities of the firewater itself. Back then, the merits of bourbon flavor mattered far less than the imperative of masking it with cola and quaffing huge quantities through the inevitable grimacing. In this manner, Ancient Age somewhat ironically became a rite of youthful passage.

Actually, it was the name itself that always appealed to me. Ancient Age implied experience, dignity and respectability, but eventually I matured just enough to realize that while the words captivated me, the experience of consuming whisky did not. It’s probably been thirty years since I tasted Ancient Age -- although only thirty minutes since my last beer, which is where I stake my personal claim to knowledge.

In this quest for the higher ground, it’s time to revert to the lower case.

Only one additional letter is required to render ancient age into ancient sage, no longer a trademarked bourbon, and well beyond mere chronology, passing into the wider realm of pure wisdom: Sage as practitioner of sagacity, the quality possessed by the impossibly gnarly old man atop the high mountain, greeting exhausted searchers with impenetrable quasi-Delphic instructions for living, commandments regarded as all the more brilliant for being utterly incomprehensible.

One might turn the page, earn a wage or rattle a cage, but take away the “s” from sage and insert instead the consonant coming just before it in the alphabet, and the game changes dramatically, from ancient sage into ancient rage.

Did road rage exist in ancient times? Just ask Ben Hur.

As we commonly use it today, the word rage conjures images of furious anger, passionate intensity, and violent depth of emotional feeling. Rage comes from the same Latin root as rabies, not a condition to be confused with calm and deliberation. Whether enraged or outraged, we are primal.

Rage deriving from far-off places and times might legitimately be termed ancient rage, and for all the reasons listed here, brewer Jared Williamson of the New Albanian Brewing Company created a special edition beer for release on August 3, my 50th birthday: Ancient Rage, a Smoked Baltic Porter.

As a genial and trusting sort, I persist in believing that the half-century mark will prove to be a milestone more than a millstone. Just the same, there is the creeping perception of impending menace as calendar dates slip away and the actuarial tables inexorably turn against me … sadly, against us all.

At 40, there’s a plausible argument to be made that half your lifespan has yet to pass. At 50, that’s no longer the case. Throughout human history, life expectancy has been far shorter than today, and the age of 50 indeed has often qualified as ancient. Some days I feel that way myself, others not so much. Mostly, in a condition embracing both exhaustion and bemusement, I’d like to think of whatever length of time remains as a triumphant sprint to the finish, not a downward spiral.

What does ancient rage have to do with my 50th?

I concede to seldom being an exemplar of peace, love and understanding. Since childhood, prime motivators have been indignation, disgruntlement, exasperation and annoyance; it says something when one’s favorite writer is H. L. Mencken. I’m neither proud nor ashamed by this. It’s my psyche, nothing more, nothing less.

During hormonal days of youth, I often felt consumed by anger to the exclusion of placidity and thoughtfulness. These episodes never manifested in physical violence; rather, my verbal and written abilities evolved in accordance with a compelling need to express previously inexpressible rage.

These outbursts have been directed against stupidity and cupidity, naked power and destructive greed – against fascists and corporations, despoilers of the environment and enslavers of peasants, chain restaurants and nasty light beer, and the sadness, superstition and desperation in life itself – and maybe, on widely scattered occasions, against my own fear, impotence and inability to go a bit further than fulminate against injustice and actually offer something to the wider world in return.

Self-doubt and inner turmoil are pitiless taskmasters, and I suspect they’ll always be unwelcomed companions. Yet, there is considerable happiness in arriving at 50 in good health, working in a growing business, enjoying the company of my mother, friends and family, and eager to give profuse thanks to my wife, my partner in life, who has been both tenderly loving and unsparingly honest in helping propel me to a new place where the rage seemingly recedes.

The principles and motivation haven’t subsided, and will not. There’ll be lapses, but “mad as hell” is a poor recipe for living. I don’t look back in anger at my ancient rage. Today is the best day, and tomorrow better still.

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Recent columns:

July 27: ON THE AVENUES: Irish history with a musical chaser.

July 20: ON THE AVENUES DOUBLEHEADER (2): A book about Bunny Berigan, his life and times.

July 20: ON THE AVENUES DOUBLEHEADER (1): Listening to "Dixieland" jazz, and thinking about drinking a beer.

July 13: ON THE AVENUES: Using Deaf Gahan’s dullest razor, we race straight to the bottom of his hurried NAHA putsch launch.

Saturday random thoughts before a walk through the city.

The preceding days have been a grind, and today's temperate weather is appreciated. I’m going outside, and you should, too.

Yesterday at the Bank Street Brewhouse construction site, we learned that the kitchen’s hood fabricator measured incorrectly, and the biggest component will not fit through the doorway as had been previously guaranteed, which may result in a wall being removed. That’s a pain, and it looks like there’ll be a discount, whether or not they know it yet.

So … we’re trying to be open in a limited capacity by February 26 or shortly thereafter, with food and drink, if not the whole treatment expected to be offered when all the dust finally settles.

By tomorrow I may have finished the preview of the food offerings being planned by our chef, Josh Lehman. For now, just let me mention how much of a pleasure it has been to get to know Josh, who’s the son of my high school classmate, Lance. There are many aspects of growing older that I don’t savor. One that’s enriching is seeing life come full-circle, and working (and drinking beer) with an extremely talented younger fellow who’ll be embarking on what I trust will be a great career adventure in our employ.

Earlier in the week, we successfully placed a down payment on the brewing system. Delivery is expected to be late April, and allowing for installation and the initial brewing experiments, June probably will be the month when beer brewed at the Bank Street Brewhouse is actually served there. Until then, there’ll be as much beer as possible brewed at the Grant Line site.

We’ve retained the services of an Indy lawyer who does work for the Brewers of Indiana Guild, and he’ll be securing the federal and state licensing for brewing downtown. He told me yesterday that he’d just met Ed Clere, our new state representative, and is impressed. That’s great news, since the Guild will be hoping to make progress in educating the stat’s legislators about craft brewing in Indiana.

Getting a bit more personal, there’s been much feedback from my Thursday Tribune column about "coming out" as a European – some of it even signed and coherent. I understand and cherish the fact that there’ll be disagreement on such matters, and I believe the newspaper does, too, but sometimes one must grapple with the inexplicable.

Receiving anonymous criticisms from people I don’t know is sad, and yet it makes sense in a way. But having a longtime customer and friend tell others, not me, that he’s decided to sever ties with me and the business, and take his American money elsewhere owing to the stridency of my views, makes no sense at all.

To be sure, he's become increasingly more conservative politically as time has passed, and yes, the Public House tends toward a more liberal orientation in most ways.

Except for this: Hasn’t he ever heard of the friendship between Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch?

I can think of five good friends off the top of my head whose political views are somewhat to the right of Attila the Hun, while I'm the contrarian leftist that you all know and (love?) ... and they’ve never boycotted me because of it. We discuss and debate, sometimes agree, and sometimes agree to disagree. Then we drink together, as it should be.

I suppose it isn’t possible to predict when someone’s inner torment and perhaps even escalating anger render them unable to make rational decisions, although this surely must be one of those times. Too bad he can’t even talk about it with me. Males are like that, and I wish we weren’t … not that I’ve ever made the same mistake.

Time to walk now. I'll take the camera, and post anything that looks worthy of picturing here.

I am, we are, he was.

Saturday, circa 12:00 p.m.

Accidental 3rd district councilman and full time landlord Steve Price, as he stomped out of the room after the first meeting of the council's rental registration and code enforcement committee, of which he is also a member:

"This is all a bunch of fucking bullshit."



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Saturday, circa 10:30 p.m.

Iamis, just before their set in conjunction with a viewing of German U-boat film Das Boot:

"Hey, people. Das Boot is about to start. We're gonna play along with it. So we're gonna sing all our songs in German. We are iamis. You are iamis. Beer drinkers unite. We've been drinking all day, too."



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Saturday, sometime during the set:

A new acquaintance:

"New Albany? Hey man, I was over in New Albany a while back. Are you guys trying to get some alternative going over there?"

Time: What a concept ...

A reader has asked why there seems to be less “abundant” writing here than there was before. That’s a good question, and I’ll see if I can answer it.

The simplest response is that there has been precious little time for writing. If you know me well, you know how difficult it is for me to say no or to sit still – unless it’s time for a beer break. That’s a blessed exception, and one that I cherish down to the last drop, though not as often as people think – or I’d like.

I generally don’t kill time sitting in front of the television set because there isn’t enough time to read, learn and grow to permit “American Idol” to intrude.

I have a career that is still evolving and probably always will, an existing business to keep running and growing, a projected business expansion to get started, and what seems like two or three other lives to live somehow and somewhere within in the mix—family, bicycling, cleaning the house, planning travels, cooking dinner … you name it.

Yes, writing is essential for me; without it, I’m unhappy, but there are times when it must take a back seat, and does so, albeit grudgingly. You don’t know how hard it is to look your long overdue muse in the eye and say: “Not tonight. I must attend a performance of the Conjoined Councilmen.”

(If their tone-deaf ramblings didn't inspire sufficient bile to produce words, the free price of admission would be even more worthless than their vision of life. I suppose I should be thankful for such exceedingly small favors.)

For whatever reason, I harbor the belief that “retirement” is a concept not applicable to my life. To stop working, thinking and learning is to be waiting to die. Type “A” I’m not, though certainly manic on occasion, with more ambition than I tend to acknowledge, and consequently, leisure time is merely the tail, not the dog.

When it comes to the subject matter for which this blog has become locally, shall we say, notorious, I take the obligation to inflict my views on the city with a seriousness that reflects a fundamental work ethic that should be apparent by reading the preceding.

To look back on the past four years in the context of this chronicle and my own personal relationship with the city is to see steady evolution inward, both in the manner by which my passion has been drawn toward the urban experience downtown, and also by my involvement in matters pertaining to it.

I joined the board of Develop New Albany more than a year ago, and was appointed by Mayor England to serve on the board of the Urban Enterprise Association beginning in January, 2008. Permit me to say only that the view is somewhat different from the inside looking out, and I know now more than ever before that while freedom of speech isn’t negotiable, perception of reality on the part of others should never be taken for granted.

It’s February, 2008, and the local mood might be viewed as transitional. It’s a presidential election year, with national economic trends intruding on the disastrous Iraqi incursion as a topic for barroom discussion. Indiana’s media has been obsessed with exaggerating the dimensions of the state’s property tax “revolt,” which more than anything else is a red herring of truly colossal dimensions, but then again, both sex and disgruntlement move units, don’t they?

New Albany’s new mayoral administration and a reconfigured city council have been on the job less than two months. A handful of recent reversals aside, good things are breaking downtown. My optimism is guarded, but genuine.

That’s it for now. Thanks for coming by.

Ruminations just for the hell of it.

I feel like I've cornered the market on introspection here of late. Much of it owes to the opportunity to catch up on reading during the holidays, not only books but a backlog of magazines and newspaper articles. Fortuitously, Bluegill and I enjoyed a recent discussion along the general theme of mainstream musical and artistic occurrences versus those that are localized at the grassroots level. Several of these themes are starting to click.

It so happens that one of the books I'm reading is U2 by U2, an oral history of the band by the members themselves. I'm admittedly a huge fan of the group, and the fact that its members are my age always has been a source of fascination, but I'm trying to approach their testimony from the vantage point of learning how and why the creativity and talents of four local musicians in Dublin came to pass from micro to macro, from decidedly small time to impossibly huge.

What can be learned from their experience? One thing that leaps out at me is the group's collective insistence that they came to be what they are today precisely because they barely knew how to play their instruments in the beginning, and having no clear purpose beyond being members of a rock band, they instead did their own thing, in their own way, and learned the conventional musical language only after creating their own.

In turn, this thought echoes elements of my conversation with Bluegill, in that I expressed frustration with myself for being so preoccupied with transforming this blog into something approximating a newspaper that it seemed no longer available to me as a means of exploring other aspects of my existence. Bluegill helpfully referred to this missing element as the "being human" aspect, and as usual, he's right.

Even if local newspapers won't be what I'd like them to be, there isn't much I can do about it, and while I remain intrigued by the possibilities of blogs and blogging, my profession is beer, not journalism. Mind you, there is no desire here to forsake the editorial soapbox with regard to local politics and civic affairs; rather, there's a desire to place these into an overall context, and one way to do that is to continue writing and trusting my own instincts when it comes to what might be interesting for readers. If it's done properly, effective writing must include a component of forcibly peeling away layers of inhibition and scar tissue, and probing one's own inner recesses for fingerprints.

What could be more local than the contents of your own noggin? Comparatively, everything lying outside a individual is mainstream. Taking it a step further, into the larger circle of the community, and probing ...

How do I balance a local perspective with the conviction that I remain a citizen of the planet at large?

For as long as I can remember, it is a question that has prompted unrelenting internal debate, and there's no better illustration of the way it nags me than a brief consideration of the one thing that has confused so many people, friends as well as foes, over the years. The question comes out something like this:

Roger, how is it that someone like you who feels such ambivalence about America … an avowed Europhile, and a person who notoriously is unable to suffer fools … has lived in Floyd County his entire life – maybe traveling as often as possible, but not once moving away?

Good question. It confuses me, too. And so the interrogation proceeds:

How is it that someone taken to espousing local thinking in so many other ways fails to be better versed in local music and local art, and insists on looking abroad for inspiration?

How can someone with a “Red Room” think of himself as a capitalist?

And so on. Rest assured, these wheels spin constantly, glib answers are seldom glimpsed floating to the surface, and eventually the original question returns:

How do I balance a local perspective with the conviction that I remain a citizen of the planet at large?

All that can be said is that at some point early in life, I concluded that there was great personal value in certain areas of knowledge and ideas; that because my place of birth places a pathetically low value on education, these areas consequently are seriously undervalued here at home; and that there was a choice for me: Attempt self-growth and comprehension by playing the role of contrarian gadfly in the midst of localized incomprehension, or risk the relative happiness of placid normalcy in another place where most other people think rather like me.

Sore thumb or team player?

Hard-wired somewhere deep within my psyche is the conviction that it’s better to stay put and confront complacency and stupidity at home – to be a royal pain and a performance artist for my vision of truth whenever and wherever possible in an effort to illustrate to the few who are capable of understanding that it’s okay to be different – than to cut and run … to a blue state, or to Bamberg, or to a new career.

I don’t pretend that any of this is particularly noble, although serving as a beacon for various themes of disaffection has its merits. Like anyone else, I possess character flaws aplenty and my philosophical precepts are riddled with exceptions. At the end of the day, it’s likely that a majority of New Albanians would vote me off the island, just as if given the chance, they'd proffer the hemlock to Socrates if it meant not having to think about anything.

And that, friends, is justification enough for me in this new year. I can't really explain it, and I don't know where it's heading ... and that's the whole point.