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A quick and dirty video by Mitchell Stephens

Donald Trump may literally have dodged a bullet in Pennsylvania a week ago, but there aren't enough ear bandages in the world to shield him from the sea change that just occurred in the 2024 presidential race.

Trump’s 'Go-Back-to-the-White House-Free' card—a clearly diminished Joe Biden—has wisely stepped aside, endorsing his take-no-bullshit veep Kamala Harris to be the Democrats' 2024 presidential nominee.

This changes everything, even after the GOP’s post-assassination-attempt love fest for Trump and his sycophantic mini-me, J.D. Vance. With a 59-year-old minority female as the prospective Democratic nominee, the “age question” now fails squarely back on Trump, a 78-year-old loser who fell asleep at his criminal trial in New York and at his own convention—and who cannot utter back-to-back coherent sentences, much less the truth. . . .

      So, it finally happened.

      These things move ridiculously slowly.

      Biden for weeks refused to throw in the towel:

• despite all the evidence of his growing unpopularity,

• despite all the evidence that he wasn’t the one who could fend off Donald Trump’s return to the presidency,

• despite all the evidence that he had (if you’ll forgive a flagrant mixed metaphor) lost a step mentally,

• despite the fact that he would be 86 by the end of a second term—the cause of much of that unpopularity.

      These things move ridiculously slowly until they move ridiculously fast. . . .

In case you were wondering whether we live in interesting times:

In the last six weeks or so . . . .

• On May 30, former President Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in his hush money/election interference trial.

• On June 11, President Joe Biden’s son was found guilty of federal gun crimes.

• On June 27, Biden debated Trump and had what was universally acknowledged to be a “disastrous” performance, one that ultimately led to him dropping out of the race.

• On July 1, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump had broad immunity for official acts as president.

• On July 13, someone tried to assassinate Trump. . . .

Aside from all we have gained as LGBT folk from 55 years of activism, we have also helped make the world a better place for everyone. From the beginning, for example, we have been allied with the women’s movement to combat toxic masculinity, so that violence and bullying and male privilege don’t go unchallenged.

Our movement is, at heart, about encouraging authenticity and openness for all people.

What helps inspire me to remain engaged is the success of the queer movement. We started with daunting odds and changed the world. As one measure, 38 countries now enjoy same-sex marriage, something that was beyond our wildest dreams. . . .

We have, of course, lived through terribly dismaying times before, times where bad news seemed to explode into a tsunami of dread. Almost the entire year of 1968 seems the exemplar, as we shuddered through assassinations, worldwide civil unrest, tanks in the streets, napalm in the air.

Nothing as cataclysmic—so far—has happened this year, but the last few weeks have felt like one sharp poke to the ribs after another. And have led—at least for some of us, at least for me—to a sense of utter despair.

That disastrous debate—the adjective seems permanently attached now—followed by the Democrats’ circular firing squad. . . .

Three Models for Active Aging

      Robert Plant, 75, Bob Dylan, 83, and Willie Nelson, 91, performed a couple of weeks ago in Bethel, New York, as part of Willie’s “Outlaw Music Festival.” These three musicians have in common being accomplished, important, very old and still active.

       So, let’s use them to consider strategies for active aging. For I think I can discern three distinct such strategies in their approaches.

Model for Active Aging # 1

“An Old Sweet Song”

       Willie Nelson took the stage last. He had recently missed a couple of shows due to illness. He now sits while he sings and picks, with his accomplished singer-guitarist son, Lucas, sitting to his left . . .

The other morning, I fell.

Isn’t that what a lot of people our age now do? Up to 35 percent of those over 65 experience a significant fall every year, according to studies. It’s nearly 45 percent among adults over the age of 70. Every year, three million older adults are treated in emergency departments for injuries related to falling. It is the most common cause of injuries among older adults.

Those injuries include stuff like hip fractures or traumatic brain damage. And the really bad news is that there’s a direct correlation between falls and increased mortality and what medical people call reduced functionality. . . .

      For those of us who were around in the 1960s 1970s and early 1980s, there was something familiar about the news on Saturday of the assassination attempt against Donald Trump. Indeed, a number of us have been getting a feeling of déjà vu with some frequency in this era when partisan politics gets ever uglier and more intemperate.

       For the American political system went through some very bad times when most of us were young.

      To begin with, the country, then, was involved in a futile and terribly bloody war in Vietnam. Mass anti-war protests, of a size not seen since, filled streets and parks.

      American politics in our youth also remained debased by an enduring and omnipresent racism. And large uprisings—or, if you prefer, riots—fueled mostly by racial injustice and poverty, broke out in many major American cities. . . .

Sixty or so years from now, do you think we—that is, our children and grandchildren—will remember where they were when bullets went flying in Butler, Pennsylvania?

Will the Butler County Farm Show resonate the way the Texas Book Depository still chills after all these years? Will we still ponder the what-ifs—what if bullets had missed in 1963 but had not missed in 2024?

The Kennedy assassination was the fulcrum, the pivotal, turning-point moment of our generation, the teetering balance wheel where everything tipped in a new direction and nothing was the same as before. . . .

      When my grandkids were young, I told them I would take them anywhere in the world when they turned 16. The first grandchild to take me up on my offer was Phoebe. She chose Milos, Greece.

      My daughter, Mariah, Phoebe’s mom, was very worried about the two of us going alone, so she decided to join us as our chaperone.

       On June 13, we boarded a plane to Athens and spent three days visiting the Parthenon and various museums studying Greek history and mythology. It was hot, very hot, and I was happy to hop on a prop plane and fly the 40 minutes across the Aegean Sea to Milos, which is an island that receives very little attention or fanfare. . . .

        The above headline, appeared in the student newspaper at the University of Virginia after the university decided to admit women for the first time. It was a quote from a 4th-year male student, and it encapsulated some of the reaction to that first class of women in September 1970.

I was one of those 350 young women who, as 18-year-olds, did not fully realize obstacles and mindsets we would encounter—and the cultural change we would eventually achieve. 

        In late May this year, I attended the 50th reunion of the class of 1974, along with half of my female classmates. All the women agreed that the university experience molded us to become successful in whatever endeavors we chose. My classmates went on to become judges, prominent doctors, authors, scientists, business leaders and so on. 

        Despite their success, many women in my class have memories of inappropriate comments, outright sexual harassment or worse. . . .

Here’s a hypothetical deal only one person I know would take:

You agree to reduce the length of your life by five years. In return you get to observe—without any chance to participate in activities or interact with people—for an extra ten years.

You’d be like a ghost for those ten years: just seeing and hearing, not acting, not helping, not being able in any way to make your presence known.

High price to pay, right? . . .

PechaKucha is a visual storytelling event where participants share 20 images and speak about them for 20 seconds each. Here is my story from last month’s event in Burlington VT.

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In 1979, friends began to get sick. In 1981, The New York Times warned of a “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals.” By the ‘90's, my entire generation of gay men was dying of AIDS. Here are stills and excerpts from my pandemic videos.

At first, people died alone abandoned by families. Medical staff would leave food outside the room afraid to come in. Community care circles, vigils through the night and writing libretti for lost lives for operatic memorial services. . . .

• Mark Twain on “the wisdom of age”

• Older voters champion “preserving democracy”

• According to a study, beginning in 2011, of the 70 and older population in the United States, the percentage living with dementia (through 2019) has declined.

• The late Jerry West on being “a wolf” among “dogs.”

Yes, they are adorable and cute and smart.

And it is indeed remarkable that the little one’s already walking and that her sister is still in first grade but reading at an eighth-grade level. Not to mention that the older one is the star of his little league team and the younger one already knows all the state capitals and did I know that one was in the school play and another has jumped from elementary school directly to Harvard or just won an Oscar? 

It’s terrific that the grandchildren are now the new centerpiece of your life. It’s great that you get to pick her up two days a week after school or that you zoom with the twins every Saturday afternoon. It really is wonderful that you just took a trip with them or are planning a trip with them. Lovely you’re taking them with you to Paris or you’re flying out to Denver or driving to Vermont to see them. . . .

Before we got to seventh grade no one paid much attention to what we were wearing to school. Then sometime around our 13th birthday we noticed that we had become junior members of society, and for the next six years we were expected to, and we expected ourselves to, look like something.

      Later, that something acquired a name: preppy; but at the time we didn't call our sense of fashion anything; we just wore it. It's tempting to believe that southern culture had something to do with our fashion statements, as the preppy clothing stores around the college campuses trickled down to the high schools.

      But for boys entering their teen years, southern culture included a new factor: there were those young ladies to be impressed. Guys in rumpled t-shirts and smelly sneakers were not likely to end up in the slow-dance embrace of an eighth-grade girl who had spent the hours between school dismissal Friday afternoon and after-the-game hop engineering her hair and picking out the perfect skirt and sweater combo. . . .

    We know so much. About most everything. We are proud of our knowledge and experience, delighted to pass along what we know to younger generations, and puzzled when we get responses like: “Yeah, OK.”

    So, today’s topic focuses on what we need to know and understand about Generation Z. These are folks who were born between 1997 and 2012, age range today of roughly 12 to 27.

    Look up “Gen Z” and you’ll find a treasure trove of information about this age group that we know and love, but about which we actually understand very little.

    These are our grandchildren. These are junior-high and high school students and athletes whom we watch playing sports and playing music, occasionally reading, excessively online, trying to find the right mix of entertainment and achievement. . . .

The first time I saw Kinky Friedman was at Max’s Kansas City, a seedy, storied music club in New York City. That night was also the first time I ever saw Billy Joel — Kinky’s opening act. Both had just released debut albums, but it was Kinky and the Texas Jewboys that we left excited about and wanting to see again. (And Billy Joel? Meh.)

When I heard the news that Kinky had died June 27 at the age of 79, I was saddened but also stunned. Kinky’s songs had been part of the soundtrack of my life since my mid-20s, and with his death it somehow felt like a part of me had just been lost.

The night at Max’s was late 1973 or early ‘74. I was an editor at Country Music Magazine . . .

On the Saturday before the 2016 election, my friend Neil passed away. A week or so later, his widow, our friend Linda, joked that if her husband hadn’t already died, the election results—Donald Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton—would have killed him.

I can only imagine what Neil would think and feel about what has happened since that dreadful 2016 day. How impossible it would have been for him to imagine that we would have elected an idiotic, swindling, incompetent, racist charlatan. How unimaginable to him those awful four years and their terrible culmination, in pestilence and finally violence.

And what would Neil think about that same cretinous liar, the one who had fomented an insurrection, a convicted felon, a court-affirmed sex offender, being on the verge of getting elected again—and having the support of a partisan, Constitution-bending, corrupt Supreme Court? . . .