The Last Night Of The Year

http://spoti.fi/2ik36jf

http://bit.ly/2iBFJ2j

"If this were the last night of the world
What would I do
What would I do that was different"

Eat waffles.

I'm not supposed to eat carbs. Not the veggie kind, you know, the good-tasting kind.

And I don't. I find that I feel so much better the following day. My nutritionist says I'm insulin-resistant, which means... The sugar has a hard time getting into the cells and when it does the cells want more and I get high and then I crash and if you're laughing you're probably under thirty, maybe fifty, you survive on a diet of burgers and fries and don't think twice. But then you get old and everything everybody told you starts to come true. You don't want to die. Instead of a glowing report from your physical your doctor calls you with concerns, assuming you go to the doctor at all, you'd be surprised who doesn't, especially men. But then they get the really bad news. The heart attack, the stroke... My doctor says if I do what he says I'll never die of a heart attack, I'm counting on that. Then again, I go to see him every year. You should see yours too.

And untreated, my cholesterol is sky high. Past 350. I was cruising along just fine until my mid-forties and then my genetics kicked in and I denied it but then I started on the statins, I'm on Crestor now, I think it affects my memory, but when I went for this scan two years back the ultrasound tech said one neck artery was completely clear and then she let me listen in on the second one and she said "There goes some plaque!", it's funny, you think you're invulnerable and then you find out you're not, no one here gets out alive.

And it's been a particularly gruesome December. A good friend of mine in London had a heart attack, and he's in his forties. I got e-mail from a friend in L.A. whose wife is struggling with cancer, with little energy after a bone marrow transplant, and he had a stroke. And then not even a month later he was rushed back to the hospital to find out he was lucky to just have a seizure. And another friend had two knees replaced as a result of an old football injury and that begs the question whether we should play football at all, the injuries catch up with you, as does the smoking and so much else you did to rebel way back when only to find out today that no one is paying attention, no one cares.

So yesterday we went for BBQ. That's my go-to place in Vail. There's a smokehouse at the top of the mountain. I've decided the brisket is the best thing on the menu and it satisfied.

But today Felice wanted to go to the waffle house.

Now they used to serve burgers there too. But no longer. I told myself I'd get chicken and waffles, like at Roscoe's, and throw away the carbs.

I didn't do this.

The chicken came with gravy, including sausage. We didn't have this white sauce growing up in the northeast, nor did we have chicken fried steak, but once you venture from your domicile you find out everybody's different, yet the same. It's a conundrum. We're united, but divided. We share so much, yet diverge.

And I was stunned that the chicken hit the spot.

And then I was confronted with the waffles.

They did not skimp. The waffles themselves were tiny, but there were three or four of them, more than any rational person would partake of. And since they were included, I had them loaded up. With chocolate sauce, maple syrup and peanut butter, and whipped cream, of course.

And I was just tasting when...

Bruce Cockburn's "Last Night Of The World" started playing in my head.

Funny thing about music. It rides shotgun. Used to be we all had the same tunes in our head, we couldn't drive up PCH without humming "Boys Of Summer," but these days despite there being a chart what runs through our brains is oftentimes so different.

"I'm sipping Flor De Cana and lime juice, it's three a.m."

I've lived that life. In search of greatness. If it had alcohol in it, I'd consume it, have a few and start to rage.

"Blow a fruit fly off the rim of my glass"

I prefer the dirty places. The exotic places. A bit askew. Where no one told the bugs they could not cohabitate.

"The radio's playing Superchunk and the Friends of Dean Martinez"

Back when those were outsider bands, before just about everything became an outsider band.

"I've seen the flame of hope among the hopeless"

That's the story of today's America, that's why Trump got elected, because there's no hope, primarily for the youth, burdened by college debt, and if they didn't go to college at all, good luck. The youth led the sixties rebellion, they led the nineties/twenty first century tech rebellion, and now we've stolen their future, what are you gonna do?

When I grew up the rich were bluebloods. People who inherited their wealth yet wore chinos and Topsiders, drove old Fords and didn't spend. Today the money is made and the people believe they're entitled to it. After all, they killed themselves to get into Harvard, got good grades to work all night at the bank and if anybody's gonna question their bona fides they're gonna get an earful.

"That was the straw that broke me open"

The election of Donald Trump. I could have handled it if the press hadn't called it so wrong, for eighteen months straight. Forget fake news, who you gonna believe in anymore? The elites keep trumpeting the power and veritas of the "New York Times" and I read it cover to cover but I no longer respect it the same way, because I feel it's become unmoored, it's unconscious of the true America, whether it be reviewing records no one cares about or being oblivious to the plight of the disadvantaged.

And the right wing bugs me, because of the attitude. Which is an in-your-face bullying, with no ground given, Fox News is a scorched-earth operation based on no reporting.

And both the left and right laud Megyn Kelly as if she were Stephen Hawking. You're pretty and you read the news, SO WHAT?

"If this were the last night of the world"

Let's hope it's not. But it is the last night of a very bad year. Classic rock fell off a cliff, its proponents passed and eighties heroes bit the dust too.

Our nation can no longer agree on the facts, never mind what to do about them.

"What would I do that was different"

I decided to eat the waffles.

And I'd like to tell you they were bad. But they were strangely satisfying. Sweet and crunchy, I couldn't stop. And I was pissed-off at myself for breaking my no-carb streak, knowing that once I fall off the wagon I have a hard time getting back on, and knowing that tomorrow when I wake up I'll feel like crap, but for one moment, for the better part of ten minutes, in a year full of b.s., I felt good.

"If this were the last night of the world
What would I do
What would I do that was different
Unless it was champagne with you"

We are in this together. Some of you agree with me, some of you don't. Some say this isn't what you came for but everybody's in the same situation, everybody's got more questions than answers, if someone's sure know that they're a bloviating idiot. And we've been shocked by a world that lets us connect but leaves us without a job, noticing that our future's been sold out.

Yet a good conversation, a few waffles, they're enough to get us through.

So tomorrow it'll be a brand new year. The slate will be wiped clean. We will start all over.

Educate yourself. Have an opinion. Fight for the outcome of your desire and know...

I'm no better than you, and you're no better than me.

And the power of the individual cannot be overstated, one person can make a difference.

But it's the little things that get us through.

Me eating waffles: http://bit.ly/2iQIjAL


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