Hey Charlie

Hey Charlie:

Not sure how to communicate. Blog, tweet, facetime, e mail, Podcast or Analogue phone.   Kinda like parables, but don't really know any except for maybe the story of Holden Caulfield in the Cather in the Rye; He would have seen things for what they are and called it right.  But he was 17 - I'm 3 times that age.

This is why our whole fucking generation is looking to our kids for answers.  We just don't know anymore but I used to think Holden Caulfield had the answers.  So, its a cluster fuck, we're confronted with tough choices and bad decisions and what do we as boomers do?  We bail,   or start dying off and speeding it along with a virus. 

And now its all your lousy problem.  I mean baby boomers skated.  We never dealt with any real problems.....our parents and the welfare society they created - VA bennies,senior housing, senior bus fare, senior blow jobs.  All a fabrication to allow baby boomers to grease the skids for a soft landing.  Its stuff that is outrageous and can't say, Charlie, that I would understand it if you were angry.  Thank you for letting me slide, cause you never really show that anger to me.  Its like you were the accepting parent all along.  

Which is something I always wondered about you, Charlie.  You always let  me put every decision, every life choice and every plan for myself on you're shoulders.  It was like a reverse father-son deal that was more like a 'relationship' than parental. 

Why are you so kool?  Like too kool for school.  I appreciate it because of course you know I'm not exactly the model of sobriety and yet, I don't ever feel dissed by you. But I don't feel like I can help you in any way.  I think I just amuse you.  Which leads me into my first you tube video - please see: https://youtu.be/IWINtUCshxY     Joe Pesci asking “Do I amuse you?”

So in this sort of rampling parting shot I thought I'd express what things would look like now, now when I'm 69.  Then if I make it to 70,  I'll write some stuff like this all over again and we'll get this like dairy, letter, artificial writing structure thing that like no one's has used since the 1870s to write a book with. One of us will have to published the thing….again, counting on you to do the shit work.

This time, April 1, 2020,  right here,  may be the high point just as Pandemic takes over and we still kinda really remember what everything was like before.  Ya see, my whole world view died in this plague.  I only tell you how LUCKY I feel that my life (up to now) has been great and far better than anyone thought it would be for me.   Of course, you were real luck.

I was the kid who flunked 3rd grade, had discipline issues - hated structure and like little girls.  Always liked little girls.  But I liked guys too.....I like people and have a fun life with lots and lots of people in it.  Its what I wanted for my self towards the end.   Never cared about withdrawing from anything - other than maybe the bank or....as a method of birth control.

I’m very lucky you’re my kid.  My father was a not a very respectable character and my mom was mentally challenges as in nuts.  So the likely hood of me making it to college thru an MBA program were slim (you’re namesake, Charlie Samter, said I wasn’t really college material. ).  Just like the likelyhood of me having a kid graduate from Georgetown Law School and becoming a lawyer were also pretty slim. 

So its been great til now. But now its stuff I don’t know how to navigate.   Now shows America that its sort of open society and freedom is hopelessly out of synch with modernity and all the very tough issues that must be faced now.  Climate Change, Pandemics, Income Inequality, Aging Population - and it all starts hitting now.

No more dodging the bullet.  American’s exceptional -ism is dead.  Now the deal is we have to run to keep up.  Keep up with autocratic societies that can do things we simply cannot do:  like contain a virus.   Open Societies and rugged individualism is no longer allowed for Great World Powers or whatever they call them in Orwell's book 1984.     No, my America is over and maybe it’s my fault, my generations or what the fuck does it matter who's fault.  You gotta get about the job of fixing it Charlie.  And you will,  I have no doubt.