Oh, the iniquity of the fathers upon their children!
Fuck me. It was with great resignation that I awoke this morning to the soft sound of Rush Limbaugh’s unmistakable tenor dancing out of my alarm clock radio. For today, April 15th, is the very day that I was born in 1975. Meaning, your old friend Tanner Dobson today officially feels middle-aged. I think about all of the amazing things that historical figures have accomplished by the time that they were my age, and I lament my own life arc for being ostensibly disappointing. Christ himself had been martyred by the time he was 33, dying a slow and terrible death upon Golgotha, flanked on either side by common criminals whose mortal minds could not fathom the sacrifice he in their company would presently make. If your humble critic today seems reticent, consider this: I have spent the better part of my life trying to bring a fair and balanced perspective into contemporary culture. I’ve hosted my own radio show, been interviewed by some of the major players in the media, scoffed in the presence of dragons and minotaurs… and here I am, blogging.
At 35, the body is degrading more quickly than it is generating new cells. What this means is that I, the Tanner Dobson, am dying. Sure, I know the age-old adage – we’re all “dying” in some capacity. But it is this day, the thirty-fifth anniversary of my own birth, that I am first feeling it in my own bones. Where do I go from here? Isn’t it laughable to constantly attempt to make a dent in the liberal-fascism of a town like Portland? Woe is me, woe are our souls. Vancouver, WA is the Sodom to our Gomorrah. I spend every day digging through this wasteland of hipster culture, trying to glean meaning out of watercolor images of wolves, crystals, skulls and that weird lock of hair that Adam Baz always draws. I’m confused by people eager to jump on the lefty bandwagon with Obama swag affixed to their hybrid Toyotas. Do you know who his Vice President is, people? Joe Biden – one of the architects of the War on Drugs.
You know very well, dear reader, my stance on illegal substances. But I imagine that you could also understand how, as a staunch fiscal-conservative, I’m diametrically opposed to overtly irresponsible spending to combat something as abstract as drugs and the culture surrounding it. It is a war without a physical enemy, one that I question fighting at all. Something tike the War on Terrorism has legitimacy because it combats a real enemy – Muslims. Until drugs are legal, I’ll oppose indulgence in them with the utmost conviction. However, if we become able to market and tax them to incorporate drugs into our functioning economy, I’ll stop demanding that people refrain from tripping on pot. This is why the War on Drugs – and Joe Biden, and subsequently Obama – are ludicrous. There is money to be gained and a market to develop – this is not the case with Terrorism. Because all terrorists are Nihilistic Muslims, they do not value money or economy. We’d be hard pressed to figure out a way to market and tax suicide bombing.
Good Lord, am I becoming senile? This post is already horribly tangential… I’ll refrain from meandering any further now. Just know that today is a sad day in the life of an incredibly intelligent, confident, attractive and sexually virile cultural critic.
I am still accepting gifts though.
