Long dead, forever young (new Kerouac notes)

Posted on June 7, 2026 by oddmanout215

My first thought was oh no, not another article about Jack Kerouac. This one is in the New Yorker and is by Joyce Johnson, who has written well on many subjects, including Kerouac, her romantic partner in the late 1950s and her longtime friend. He’s been dead since 1969, and his life and work have been picked over by a million critics but…

I devoured the article anyway, looking for new minutia about the On the Road author, a moody guy with working-class roots who was hyped as a rebel against mid-20th century conformity and used decades after his death as a sales tool for the Gap (“Kerouac wore khakis”) and other corporations. He alienated straight-arrow types and appealed to contrarians, foes of the status quo, artists and academics, avant-garde musicians, hardcore outliers, parttime bohemians —

“And aimless, no-account bums like you,” my rowdy neighbor Swamp Rabbit said.

I tried to explain my conflicted feelings. Kerouac, only 47 when he died, was a poetic visionary, a sentimental bloviator, a keen observer of social history in the making, a pathetic victim of America’s celebrity culture. I can’t think of another author I’ve read and changed my mind about so often over the years.

Swamp Rabbit snickered. “You ain’t changed your mind. You badmouth Kerouac for becoming a drunken slob, but you still think he’s cool.”

Swamp Rabbit, a slob himself, reminded me that I still own dog-eared copies of On the Road, Dharma Bums, Desolation Angels and a half-dozen other Kerouac novels, and works by or about William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and other writers often lumped together with Kerouac as exemplars of the Beat Generation, a term that describes young men who felt beat down and disillusioned by the pervasive materialism of post-World War II American culture.

Kerouac was the Beat who clicked with the public and became what the media now calls a countercultural icon. He was on “The Tonight Show” with Steve Allen and in glossy magazines, and his cross-country adventures with the legendary Neal Cassidy inspired “Route 66,” a TV series about two young guys on an endless road trip, looking for the American Dream or the meaning of life or something. Kerouac epitomized the spontaneity that often distinguished the Beats from more conventional writers. He didn’t rely on plots or outlines but rather on his lyrical, open-ended depictions of life as he lived it.

Swamp Rabbit was laughing again. “Your big words don’t fool me. You like them Beats because they were into sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, like you.”

I told him it was sex, drugs and bebop jazz in their case. Kerouac, a Charlie Parker fan, called his writing style “spontaneous bop prosody.” He identified with outliers as diverse as Whitman and Dostoevsky and sought spiritual enlightenment through his reading and writing. He wasn’t a dilletante or a fake.

“Unlike some people I could name,” Swamp Rabbit said.

I gave him a dirty look. He asked if I’d learned anything from Johnson’s article.

“Only that the Beats should have treated women better, and that Kerouac’s best writing still reminds me of what it feels like to be young and free.”

“Free from what?” he said.

He’s my neighbor but I couldn’t resist: “From guys like you who are dead already but don’t know it.”

Footnote: Kerouac read his poetry on a bunch of audio recordings with Steve Allen on piano. Allen was the Steven Colbert of his era, except that he didn’t get thrown off TV for being a liberal.

Another: Kerouac came close to suing the producers of “Route 66” and the Chevrolet car company for stealing “the characters and theme” of On the Road.

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Scott Pelley goes down fighting for ’60 Minutes’

Posted on June 2, 2026 by oddmanout215

My ill-mannered neighbor Swamp Rabbit staggered into my shack today and looked over my shoulder as I typed. “Uh-oh, more crap about that lapdog who wrecked ’60 Minutes.’ Why don’t you gripe about something closer to home? How about them Uber Eats robots in Center City?”

I told him I wasn’t writing about Trump-approved CBS News boss Bari Weiss. This one was about longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley, who publicly shamed Nick Bilton, the underqualified yes man Weiss chose to replace Tanya Simon, the show’s highly regarded executive producer.

“Speaking truth to power” is a cliche but it might be the best way to describe what Pelley said yesterday when the remaining staffers at “60 Minutes” met the new boss. “Why should we trust you?” Pelley asked while listing all the reasons Bilton could not be trusted to help restore the show’s reputation, which Weiss tarnished months ago by shelving a story about the Trump administration’s deportation of immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

Pelley was all fired up. “You come into our house and expect to be welcome?” he said to Bilton after naming some of his recently fired coworkers.

Staffers were treated to bagels but received no convincing explanation for why changes are necessary at “60 Minutes,” which has been riding high in the ratings for 50 years. “Enjoy the bagels,” Bilton said as he slinked away from the meeting. (Weiss didn’t show up for it.)

“Your legion of readers will be up in arms,” Swamp Rabbit said when I finished typing. “They’ll grab their pitchforks and march on CBS News when they read what you wrote.”

“I don’t think so,” I said, ignoring his sarcasm. “But it feels good to write about somebody who fights back when the corporate zombies take over.”

A few hours later Pelley was fired — big surprise, right? — for standing up to the yes men and woman who make it possible for billionaires and their lackeys to control and suppress information about Trump’s fascist regime. Let’s hope this isn’t the end of the story.

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Trump’s ‘yes man’ at CBS News is a woman

Posted on June 1, 2026 by oddmanout215

Yes men, by definition, are denizens of government and the corporate world who bow to authority, no questions asked, in order to get ahead. Not surprisingly, as the fight for gender parity in the workplace intensifies, we’re seeing more and more yes women who are as eager as their male counterparts to do the boss’s bidding.

“You must be talking about Trump’s gang,” my scruffy neighbor Swamp Rabbit said as he nursed his first beer of the day. “Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, Tulsi Gabbard and so on. Girls who know how to have fun even though they work for a monster. My favorite is that wrestlin’ lady who got AI mixed up with A1, the steak sauce. The Secretary of Education.”

When he stopped laughing, I told him I actually was thinking of CBS News Editor-In-Chief Bari Weiss, who just fired Sharyn Alfonsi, the Emmy Award-winning reporter on “60 Minutes,” for exposing the truth behind the Trump gang’s deportation of hundreds of immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador. I commented on this in a previous post.

Weiss is a right-winger who is “in” because CBS is owned by Paramount Skydance, the huge company headed by billionaire David Ellison, who knew that further expansion of Paramount would be blocked unless he sucked up to Donald Trump by hiring someone who would muzzle “60 Minutes.” Alfonsi is “out” because she fought back when Weiss delayed the airing of the deportation story. Bottom line: Ellison is a yes man for Trump and Weiss is Ellison and Trump’s yes woman.

Weiss has made other personnel cuts at “60 Minutes” — staffers despise her — while professing to “widen the aperture of the stories we tell and the voices we listen to.” In practice, this will mean no investigative stories critical of Donald Trump and his authoritarian regime and abandonment of the journalistic standards that made “60 Minutes” the best-rated and most respected news show in American TV history.

Swamp Rabbit flashed a gruesome grin. “Look on the bright side, Odd Man. Trump gets more like Hitler every day. He’s self-destructing.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But that’s not keeping Weiss from destroying CBS News.”

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‘Enshittification’ — a potential hit single?

Posted on May 22, 2026 by oddmanout215

“That’s a pretty vulgar word, Odd Man. I’ll bet they ain’t using it at the Wharton business school.”

“Don’t be so sure, Swamp Rabbit. Everything’s vulgar now, including Wharton.”

The word is “enshittification,” coined by the super-prolific tech writer/novelist Cory Doctorow to describe the process through which previously user-friendly digital platforms — Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and so on — are fouled up by hi-tech and market forces as old as supply and demand.

“Do you remember when Facebook — now part of Meta — was just an easy way to communicate with acquaintances too far away to talk to in person? Or when Twitter wasn’t owned by a fascist zillionaire who uses it as a platform to promote kooks and bigots?”

My neighbor didn’t answer my questions, probably because he avoids the Internet except to order from Bilbo’s, our local beer distributor. I told him that Facebook, after it attracted hordes of regular users, became a popular destination for people who want to sell things. Mark Zuckerberg and his cronies enriched themselves as paying advertisers flocked to their platform like flies to honey, or something less pleasant. The platform is thick with flies now, no longer a fun place to hang out. Brought low by its greedy owners and their algorithms. Enshittified.

“No wonder enshittification was named word of the year in 2023 by the American Dialect Society, whatever that is,” I said. “Someone should write a song about it. All those syllables sound good if you drag them out. I’m thinking of ‘Anticipation,’ by that popstar whose father was a hotshot book publisher. Corny, but a massive hit. Before your time, I think.”

“This is the same thing you complained about a few weeks ago. Get over it, Odd Man. People like to buy things. They got nothing against being used and suckered. Enshittification is just capitalism doing what it always does. It happens to all businesses after a while.”

“It happens to governments, too,” I said.

Footnote: Doctorow introduced the enshittification concept on his blog, then turned it into a book. He wrote, “Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.”

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Trump’s flunkies — ‘willfully ignorant’ or just stupid?

Posted on May 17, 2026 by oddmanout215

I was telling my neighbor Swamp Rabbit that Doug Burgum, the Secretary of the Interior, says solar farms aren’t a good alternative to gas and coal because “when the sun goes down, they produce zero electricity.”

Swamp Rabbit’s bloodshot eyes narrowed. “The Interior boss said that? You’re putting me on, right?”

I told him that the congressman couldn’t believe it either. He ironically told Burgum about an invention called the battery. But Donald Trump’s flunkies are irony-proof; they merely repeat what the criminal-in-chief wants to hear. When confronted with the truth they respond with willful ignorance, as Paul Krugman noted.

“Willful’s got nothin’ to do with it,” Swamp Rabbit said. “They’re just stupid.”

“Au contraire, grisly man. The high-level MAGA suck-ups realize Trump always lies, but they make believe his lies are true. They know it’s not healthy to disagree with Dear Leader, they would lose their jobs. Worse than that, they might lose their share of the grift.”

Swamp Rabbit looked unconvinced, so I tried again: “Do you really think Cabinet members believe Trump’s lies? That renewable energy is a hoax, or that he can bring down grocery and energy prices and destroy Iran at the same time?”

I said Trumpers who don’t understand basic science or supply and demand or the art of the con might be authentically stupid and therefore partly off the hook for the harm Trump’s policies are doing to the world. But Trumpers who know Dear Leader is pushing dangerous bullshit — the flunkies at the top of his regime — are just as guilty of criminal behavior as he is. They’re willfully ignorant, not stupid, and deserve to be prosecuted along with him, if and when the rule of law is restored in this country.

I asked Swamp Rabbit if he accepted my premise. He snapped open a can of beer and yawned. “They’re willful, they’re stupid. What’s the difference? We’re all screwed either way.”

Footnote: Burgum defended Trump’s ballroom and other enormously expensive vanity projects while trying to minimize the damage that would result from his department’s plan to cut $1 billion from the National Park Service budget. This was at the same House hearing where he learned about batteries and responded to positive data about wind and solar by claiming “the data’s lying.”

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Can’t live with aliens, can’t live without ’em

Posted on May 10, 2026 by oddmanout215

The Trump administration just released formerly classified files related to UFO sightings, and my neighbor Swamp Rabbit couldn’t be happier. He’s hoping the new information will confirm the existence of extraterrestrials he claims have landed in Bog Water Homes, the swampy development where we live. He thinks they want to befriend us.

“You’re crazy,” I told him. “Super-advanced aliens could land anywhere. Why would they choose some swampy place in South Philly? And why would they think we’re friendly?”

I referred him to a recent satirical piece by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who noted that we sometimes imagine space creatures as benign — think of David Bowie’s “Starman” or Steven Spielberg’s E.T. — but more often make dark assumptions about them:

If we look more deeply into our own alien stories, there’s a persistent plotline that aliens are evil and want to kill us all. I suspect those fears are based not on what we believe about aliens but on what we know about humans.

What we know is that many humans are afraid of Earth aliens — more accurately, the undocumented immigrant workers that MAGA enthusiasts call illegals. Our criminal president calls them rapists and murderers. His ICE thugs jail and deport them whenever possible and would probably treat outer space aliens better than they treat aliens from other countries.

“There’s more to it than that,” my crusty neighbor said. “MAGA peeps can’t live with illegal aliens, but they can’t live without ’em.”

He showed me an article about a white state senator in deep-red Idaho who’s on the outs with neighbors who depend on undocumented workers to help their dairy farms survive. She hopes her anti-immigrant stance will generate enough votes to keep her in office, even though it hurts her neighbors and her husband, who does business with the farm owners.

It seems the senator and her supporters are living in their own private Idaho, in little towns where they can’t admit the country must use immigrant workers and OK their presence here — more of them, not fewer — or suffer labor shortages and soaring rates of inflation. They can’t have it both ways.

It’s a story most mainstream media outlets are failing to tell as part of a larger story that includes the disastrous Iran war and tariffs that are hurting everybody but the super-rich.

“I’m bummed,” Swamp Rabbit said. “If I make friends with them space aliens I might try to hitch a ride when they take off for their home planet.”

Footnote: Today is Mother’s Day, a reminder that the thriving restaurant scene in Philadelphia, my hometown, is fueled by the cheap labor of undocumented aliens. In fact, “Philadelphia’s economic vitality increasingly depends on its foreign-born population,” according to recent studies. Does anyone other than the MAGA mob believe red-state economies aren’t just as dependent on foreign workers?

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Sipping mint julips in Republican heaven

Posted on May 3, 2026 by oddmanout215

A fellow whose son was on the Camden, NJ, police force told me years ago that white officers routinely referred to Blacks as “Democrats,” a euphemism that lumped together two groups they thought of as aliens, at best. My guess is that the Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court who crippled the Voting Rights Act last week would get along fine with those cops.

“You’re makin’ a big leap, Odd Man,” my neighbor Swamp Rabbit said after hearing me out. “Just because the Supremes voted 6-3 to demolish Black voting rights don’t mean they’re trying to demolish the Dem party.”

I told him to think it through. This is gerrymandering carried to its logical extreme. It’s the Supreme Court allowing states to make sure fewer districts have blocs of Black voters large enough to elect Black candidates, who are almost always Democrats. It means Republican-dominated state legislatures can redraw districts to elect white Republican candidates so long as they can claim racial discrimination wasn’t their intention.

“So now the Supremes can kill two birds with one stone and pretend they didn’t intend to kill either,” Swamp Rabbit said.

“Very good, Swamp Rabbit. Intention is almost impossible to prove.”

The new ruling (Louisiana v. Callais) is a big win for far-right “think tanks” like the Heritage Foundation, which has been trying to kill the VRA and other progressive legislation for decades. Bottom line, we’re likely to see even fewer Blacks elected in red states now that another provision of the VRA has been neutered. The ruling, written by Justice Samuel Alito and backed by Chief Justice “Sneaky John” Roberts and the other rightwing justices, is likely to remain on the books as long as reactionaries dominate the Court. The Confederacy rises again.

On the bright side, Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas are very old and might soon be sipping mint julips with the late Antonin Scalia in Republican heaven (an antebellum plantation, probably). But Donald Trump will nominate other reactionaries to replace them if they die or retire while he’s still in office and Republican still control Congress.

Swamp Rabbit was half loaded, but he summed up the problem neatly: “The Dems better win big in them mid-terms or we’re all screwed.”

“Check out the big brain on Swamp Rabbit,” I said, patting him on his bony shoulders. “Just don’t forget to vote in November.”

Footnote: From New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie: “[The Supreme Court is] acting as a super legislature: an unelected group of people who have taken it upon themselves to revise Congress’s work.”

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Don’t think. Just keep buying.

Posted on April 29, 2026 by oddmanout215

Fans of Russian novels will appreciate the analogy Harold Meyerson used to explain why the online publication he works for, The American Prospect, has stopped running those annoying programmatic ads that interrupt the flow of website content:

Let’s say you’re reading The Brothers Karamazov and wondering if Ivan will silently decide to let his illegitimate half-brother knock off their horrible old man. It’s gripping stuff, Dostoevsky is ratcheting up the tension, and the last thing you’d want is to turn the page and encounter an ad for a big sale on samovars. You don’t want a samovar, you don’t need a samovar and, what’s worse, the tale that Dostoyevsky has so brilliantly spun has abruptly ground to a halt.

The American Prospect and a few other online publications are swimming against the tide. The corporate advertising machine is polluting the Internet as thoroughly as it polluted other mediums, especially TV. You’re trying to watch a news show. You don’t want a weight-loss drug, you don’t need a weight-loss drug, but the machine pitches it anyway because some other TV watchers will jump at the chance to buy it, even after the pitchman lists the drug’s potentially gruesome side effects. And then there are ten more ads to sit through before the news show resumes.

“What are you raving about?” my neighbor Swamp Rabbit shouted from his front porch. “Everything’s for sale — junk food, booze, cars, hair-grow pills. Why single out weight-loss drugs?”

I was about to answer but Victor Cortez, Swamp Rabbit’s parole officer, beat me to it. He said drug ads are the worst. Pharma companies are creating drugs for every malady known to Man. They’re running out of goofy names for new drugs, there are so many of them. They’re making big money, and the TV overlords get a cut of the profits.

“It used to be that pharma sent good looking women to sell drugs through doctors at the doctors’ offices,” Victor explained. “Now it’s all done remotely. The peddlers know which TV shows the old folks watch and they snow them under with drug ads. Then the old folks ask the doctors to score for them.”

“But you’re right, pharma is just the tip of the iceberg,” he added. “Junk food companies target kids’ shows. Football fans are bombarded with beer and cars and erectile dysfunction. Women’s shows push underwear and perfume — and weight-loss drugs, of course. Product placement was always important, but it’s a science in the AI age.”

“The science of constant distraction from anything that might hold our attention and compel us to think,” I said. “It’s called consumerism. Its practitioners rule the world.”

“I’m thinking of the movie Network,” I added. “The part where Harold Beale warns the audience to turn off their TV sets.”

Swamp Rabbit, who’d been silent, suddenly spoke up. “I don’t know about TV, but that book where the half-brother kills the old man is really long. A couple ads wouldn’t spoil it.”

Footnote: Go here to help keep The American Prospect in business.

Another: From the Grand Inquisitor’s speech in The Brothers Karamazov: “Yes, we shall set them to work, but in their leisure hours we shall make their life like a child’s game, with children’s songs and innocent dance.”

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Will Earth Day survive the current dark age?

Posted on April 25, 2026 by oddmanout215

“Earth Day ain’t what it used to be,” Swamp Rabbit said. “A lot of peeps don’t celebrate it. For all they care, it might as well be Penguin Awareness Day.”

I told him to stop exaggerating. Most thinking people are still eager to observe Earth Day, which took place on April 22, just as it has in every year since the first time it was celebrated, in 1970. But yes, the rightwing backlash against efforts to clean up the planet has grown to the point where many of us feel we might lose the war against Big Oil and other destructive forces.

“Look at the news,” Swamp Rabbit said. “Georgia’s on fire. A 5,000-mile-long heat wave is gonna hit the West Coast this summer. The orange hog monster and his gang are canceling wind farms and trying to bring back coal-fired power stations. We ain’t winning, that’s for sure.”

He was in a glass-half-empty frame of mind, which was understandable. Average temperatures are still rising. Endangered species are dying. Plastics are everywhere. Deforestation is ongoing. Government funding for EVs has been cut and $70,000 gas guzzlers are back in vogue.

Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator appointed by Trump, is a duplicitous hack who is making a sick joke of everything the EPA once stood for. What he’s in charge of could more accurately be named the Environmental Destruction Agency.

The Republican Congress is still an obstacle. And the U.S. Supreme Court which, in 2016, ushered in the era of the shadow docket by issuing a one-paragraph ruling that quickly derailed Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan. The driving force behind this setback for Planet Earth was Chief Justice “Sneaky John” Roberts, the so-called moderate who has since played a key role in advancing Trump’s reactionary agenda.

“But the good guys can still win,” I said, noting that the public response to the inception of Earth Day resulted in passage of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and other eco-friendly legislation that Republican yahoos have whittled away at over the years but failed to overturn.

The batteries used in EVs and clean power grids are becoming more affordable and efficient. Yahoos are less inclined to laugh at the idea of sustainability when “the market” is no longer on their side. In Philadelphia, where I live, the rivers are no longer giant oil slicks and improvement efforts are underway at FDR Park, Fairmount Park, the Cobbs Creek area and so on.

“But them greed hounds still rule,” Swamp Rabbit said. “Big Oil is bigger than ever on account of that Iran war.”

I pooh-poohed him. “The war will inspire sane people everywhere to work harder on transitioning from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources. Earth Day is a reminder to do the right thing.”

“Penguin Awareness Day is January 20,” I added. “Might as well celebrate that, too.”

Footnote: Maybe the headline should be “Will Earth survive the current dark age.”

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Pope Leo vs. JD Vance (the Faustian bargainer)

Posted on April 18, 2026 by oddmanout215

Earlier this week I asked my neighbor Swamp Rabbit to name his choice for the most odious Donald Trump underling. He started mimicking Vice President JD Vance:

“Who should I attack today, sir? The childless cat ladies are still up in arms, and those dog-eating Haitians have yet to be deported. How about the Hungarians who rejected your dictator friend Orban after I campaigned for the guy? Or I could bully Zelenskyy into surrendering part of Ukraine to Putin, your favorite tyrant. Your wish is my command, sir.”

This was my cue to pretend I was Trump. “Okay, hillbilly, your next assignment is to bum-rush Pope Leo. He’s weak on crime and he dissed me for my sneak attack on Iran that upset the world economy and raised the price of everything. It was a beautiful sneak attack, the best sneak attack ever.”

We watched the news, waiting for Vance, a converted Catholic, to bum-rush the first American pope. Sure enough, the VP took issue with Leo’s assertion that a disciple of Christ should never side with “those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.” At an event in Athens, GA, he warned Leo to be careful when he talks about “matters of theology.”

“He’s lecturing the pope on theology,” Swamp Rabbit said. “Telling him the fiasco in Iran is a just war. He don’t know shit about justice.”

I told my rowdy neighbor I was drawing up a petition that would call on Pope Leo to excommunicate Vance, a fake populist who sold his soul to Peter Thiel, the fascist billionaire who funneled $15 million into Vance’s successful run for the Senate in 2022. Later on he also sold his soul to Trump, reversing his claim that the orange hog monster was “America’s Hitler.” (Vance could have taught Christopher Marlowe a thing or two about Faustian bargains.)

“That’s medieval shit, Odd Man. The pope ain’t gonna excommunicate him. Vance might be runnin’ with the devil, but he’s entitled to his opinion.”

“I’m joking,” I said. “If Vance got excommunicated, he’d just make an adjustment. He’d join the Church of the SubGenius if he thought it would help him win an election. The pope is better off ignoring him.”

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