Hello, friends.
Last week I wrote:
Oh, and there’s an election this week that will decide the fate of the United States. We’ll either wake up on Wednesday with the plan to continue democracy or with the knowledge that we’re about to go full authoritarianism. Either way, there’ll be violence, lies, and we’ll be one step away from our expiration date.
You know how it turned out.
I’ll be writing about it. I will likely make enemies. I will likely put myself on the line. But I have an obligation as a writer and a truth teller to say what I think. You, my Patrons and subscribers, deserve it.
Before I go there, though, let’s talk about the updates.
Welcome to the 95th installment of Gauthic Times, the newsletter about my writing, my life, and fear for my loved ones in a country that has gone wrong.
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Anyway, let’s do this!
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I got to page 272 in Project: Amusement Park this week. I didn’t do as much as I would’ve liked because G’s birthday was Wednesday and we were together as a family. I finished the 1994 section and am back in 2024. Bad shit that made me uncomfortable when I wrote the first draft is about to happen. That’s the way it works with stories, though.
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Like so many others, I’m at a loss for what the hell happened in the United States this past week. I thought for sure that intelligence and empathy would come through. Instead, stupidity and hatred won. Within the first 24 hours, I unfriended two people. One for gloating and one for a laughing emoji when I shared a meme about how now we know how the Germans allowed an angry little man to nearly destroy their country back in 1933. Both of which, sadly, are in law enforcement.
As I look back at what got us here, there are markers. Nixon appealing to the Christian extremists in the 1960s. Ronald Reagan’s deregulation, followed by Bush’s. Bush II’s reign of foolishness that allowed the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, to happen, and the subsequent fake patriotism that would eventually lead to Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. Those delusional, angry fucks morphed into the horror show that is the MAGA movement, much of which was quietly funded and pushed by Russia.
Social media is another issue. Humans with social media is like placing a chimpanzee behind the wheel of a Lamborghini and expecting him to get from point A to point B in one piece. It’s too much technology for a species not intelligent enough to use it.
And here we are. D—-d T—p (aka 🍊💩🤡) is about to take over again. I hope I’m wrong but I believe this is it. The United States as we knew it is over. I’m not in the correct money bracket or political standing for this to bode well for me. I cannot keep my mouth shut.
The fact that there were teachers in my school gloating and suddenly–and proudly–displaying their MAGA flags troubled me. These are people who should be smart enough to know this is bad. They work with students from a multitude of backgrounds. But then, several of them are the kind of people who say, “I remember when this school was….” Maybe it’s because I work at a vocational-technical high school. Maybe it’s just that my area of Massachusetts, which at one time was a Blue as they got, now swings Red. Or maybe that too many people fell for the okey-doke.
Either way, it’s disheartening.
And then you have the people who wouldn’t support Harris because she backed genocide. Specifically, the “genocide” in Palestine. Suddenly, people care about what happens in that part of the Middle East? Friends, they have been fighting for thousands of years. Why do you suddenly care so much? Is it horrible? Yes, it is. So was Hamas going into Israel and butchering 1,000+ people at a concert. No, civilians should not be targets. But this is what they’ve been doing forever. And now, because the best candidate for the job somehow doesn’t fit your litmus test, you let a fuckin’ dictator-wannabe get his wish? I have my suspicions on how you were played.
So, anyway, I can keep raging but what good would it do? The 9/11 terrorists got their wish. They helped destroy our nation. But they had help. They had the help of the very people who spouted patriotism in the days and weeks and years after that terrible day.
I’m angry and I’m scared. I’m angry that the citizens of my country didn’t care enough about others to stop this. I’m scared for my family, myself, and for all of us.
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All right. I had to go for a walk after writing that. Let’s get into music. I like to analyze things. It’s the English major in me. Anyone who’s read my work for any length of time knows I love Bruce Springsteen’s work. This week, two songs of his were in my head a lot. Because of Veteran’s Day this week, let’s do one about the Veteran’s. Maybe we’ll do another one, too.
“Born in the U.S.A.” is a song that propelled Bruce Springsteen to superstardom. The album of the same name was released on June 4th, 1984. Almost every song on it was released as a single or got radio play. The title song became an instant classic, and also subject to instant misunderstanding.
Harboring synths, guitars, piano, organs, and the rest, “Born in the U.S.A.” sounds like a patriotic song about a person who is a proud American. Ronald Reagan made reference to it. Politicians have attempted to play it many times over the years. Let’s look at it, though.
Born down in a dead man’s town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
End up like a dog that’s been beat too much
Till you spend your life just coverin’ up
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
It took me a long time to figure out what a “dead man’s town” was but I think I finally have it. Every town is a dead man’s town. In other words, we’re born into these places that stood before we got there and, maybe, will be standing long after we’re gone. What do we truly owe that place?
The first kick is probably the life you’re born into, again, without choice. Born poor? Born sick? Born to criminals? Born rich? You have no choice. If you’re born in a place that’s depressed then you will be a byproduct of that, which brings you to living a life where everything can seem like a threat and where you feel the need to hide, to cover up.
The narrator was born in a town where things were probably not great, and that town was in the U.S.A. Like the narrator of John Fogerty’s/Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortune Son,” the narrator is given the accidental gift and curse of being born in the United States.
Got in a little hometown jam
So they put a rifle in my hand
Send me off to a foreign land
To go and kill the yellow man
Born in the U.S.A….
Because the song is about a Vietnam veteran, Springsteen uses the experiences of his youth and early adulthood–and that of many young American men in the 1960s–to point out how many of the soldiers who were sent to Vietnam were chosen. Not only were young men drafted, but if you got into any kind of trouble with the law, you were often given the choice of jail or Vietnam. Because some of those charges were overblown to get more soldiers, the choice didn’t seem like much of a choice. So Springsteen’s narrator gets in trouble and chooses war. He’s sent to a place he doesn’t know to kill people who don’t look like him. Unlike World War II, when there was a true threat, Vietnam didn’t have the same sense of urgency. But, the character was born in the U.S.A., and you’re supposed to be proud to serve your country to defend freedom.
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says, “Son, if it was up to me…”
Go and see my VA man
And he says, “Son, don’t you understand?”
After serving his country, Springsteen’s narrator comes home and tries to get a job. It’s not a white collar job but a blue collar, working man’s job. But he can’t get one. He’s given the run around by those in charge. When he goes to his person at the United States Department of Veteran’s Affairs, he’s basically told that this is what happens. There’s no money and no real help to be offered.
The narrator then tells a little bit more about his time in Vietnam.
Had a brother at Khe Sanh
Fighting off the Viet Cong
They’re still there, he’s all gone
A soldier he befriended was there, doing what his country asked of him, trying to stop the tide of Communism in a country around the world. The Communists were still there even though so many soldiers never came home.
He had a woman in Saigon
I have a picture of him in her arms
Even in the hellscape of war, the friend found love. All that the narrator has now is the memory of his friend and the woman.
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I’m ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run ain’t got nowhere to go
So now he’s here, in 1982, with the spectre of prison looming. The refinery is burning like hell and he can’t get a job, all he can to is look. In ten years, nothing has changed. The U.S.A. has birthed him, used him, and discarded him. Just as it has done to many, many other soldiers over time.
“Born in the U.S.A.” was written in 1982, released in 1984, and is just as relevant today as it was forty years ago. If I could play music, I’d change the lyrics a little just to accommodate the vets who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq in Bush’s war.
With Veteran’s Day this week in the U.S., I think listening to this song isn’t a bad thing. But let me suggest this version, which takes out the bombastic and fills it with heartache and soul:
Paid-Patrons get to see what my minor changes to the lyrics for “Born in the U.S.A.” would be if I played music.
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That’s it for this week. Please take care of yourself and your loved ones. And be ready to rebel.
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Gautham: Bill Gauthier.com 
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