Let’s start with some optimism. Thursday night I hosted a wonderful last-open-mic-of-the-year at the Baltimore Christmas Village. It was a full night with lots of familiar faces and a few brand new ones. It was a rainy, blustery, nasty night – but inside the Christmas Tent, all was warm and friendly-like.
What better way to begin a rainy dreary day but with a cat on a pedestal. 
I rolled into my normal parking arena to find that though everything’s still “pay till 8pm” – allll the pay stations have been removed. Meg takes the stage after me! Melanie Avery and her brother grinning. Veronica Tsai’s last performance in the U.S. before heading home. Jasmin was who contacted me at the beginning of all this – I was very thankful that she let me run these open mics! Dancing Christmas elves? Santa’s too busy spreading Christmas cheer to catch any weird sassy dancin. Dave Benham. Brennan. Ray and Susan. Gabeielle Zwi. Julie and Summer. And Bill the service dog. And he’s the perfect way to end the day too.
I guess it’s human not to appreciate what you’ve got.
I feel strongly that I was born into the greatest nation in the world. And in the greatest nation in the world, there were great transgressions, but we made slow and steady progress and fought for freedom and went to the moon and built companies that conquered every corner of human activity.
But of course, the moment you’re on top, you start biting at yourself. I don’t have a theory on it. Part of me blames social media, a lot of me blames sheer lowest common denominator stupidity, but I was born into an era of melting pot pride and a country that seemed to believe in “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free” and have Lived to see it transform into a fearful huddled mass that idolizes a man famous for bullying and trash talk and gold plating his toilets.
I always thought the president was someone we should admire and who should lead us to aspire, and that our nation was supposed to be the platform that allows us to reach whatever goals we aim at. Imperfect, but with the stated goal of defending the defenseless and boosting the low.
But here we are. Another government shut down. A president who is the meanest of the mean and lowest of the low declaring that no, our nation has to huddle on its own. We don’t have enough for you. It’s almost Christmas so let’s build a wall and make sure we can isolate ourselves from Them. Because THAT’S Christian.
I wish this was a well-formulated post. I just // can’t.
