Where Is Everybody?

The month of May wound down with a good friend from high school returning to the area for an eight day visit. He talked about doing some fun things like going out to a bar or nightclub, attending a concert, hiking a trail in New Hampshire and treating my mother and me to a nice dinner at a local steakhouse but I knew not to get my hopes up. Experience showed that despite his best intentions, plans often got derailed by the demands of others and I'd be lucky to hang out with him for just a few hours.

While my friend might believe a week off from work should best be spent visiting loved-ones and relaxing, his elderly father views vacation time as a chance to put his son to work fixing longstanding problems around the house usually caused by deferred maintenance. Two days into this year's trip, my friend did drive up to New Hampshire to see some of his relatives but that only caused his dad to grumble, “He wastes time running around when he's supposed to be here for me.” It's pretty astonishing to hear a parent declare so bluntly that he's entitled to all of his son's free time. My friend is stressed enough dealing with a marriage that's on the rocks and a special needs son. Now he has to give up his whole vacation to be a handyman?

Unfortunately, my friend's dad is bad with money and instead of building up an emergency fund to maintain the house, he buys DVDs, collectible coins and other frivolous trinkets. After being forced into an early retirement many years ago, he refused to get a part time job to make ends meet and incurred a lot of credit card debt. Now with each visit, he expects his son to pay for everything and being a good son, my friend reluctantly complies whether it's to replace a 70 year old mattress or a set of worn out tires.

By day five of his vacation, I suggested attending a nearby restaurant's trivia night but after spending much of the day running errands with his dad and son, my friend was too tired. He decided to stay put and grill up some steaks but his dad forgot to buy charcoal briquettes. I grabbed a half empty bag of Kingsford from our basement and dropped it off. We did get together later that night for about two hours but had to put up with his dad's television viewing choices which included terrible episodes of NCIS and NCIS: Origins.

When I returned the next night, my friend and I looked online for something to do because he was eager to get out of the house for a while. Of course, the tavern I suggested which was famous for local music didn't have any performances scheduled. Other restaurants and bars we looked up closed in less than an hour. I mentioned mini golf but there wasn't anything nearby. It was now after 9 PM so we decided to drive to Salem, MA and see what we could find.

Granted, it was a Thursday but for a “happening” city, the streets were pretty quiet. We drove by one bar but the crowd inside was definitely college-aged. Feeling a bit nostalgic, we then traveled to the Salem Willows but the place was dead. There's nothing so inviting than businesses locked up tight with metal shutters. I turned the car around and after driving down Derby Street, we noticed Bit Bar. I explained to my friend that it was a bar featuring many vintage arcade games. The place's concept seemed to have a nerdy cool vibe so we decided to check it out.

I had warned my friend that the bar scene in greater Boston left much to be desired and this place did not disappoint. The handful of patrons skewed too young and their fashions were so casual, I felt overdressed wearing a nice collared shirt. On stage, an overweight couple belted out an annoying karaoke song. One entire room full of arcade games was empty except for a lone guy playing. This was why I just didn't go out all that often. After a very short time, we decided to leave. The hostess told us to have a goodnight and once we were outside, I joked to my friend, “Thank you. I won't.”

Despite all the talk of how trendy some suburbs of Boston are, most of them are overrated. I told my friend about a YouTube video where a single woman decided to patronize different restaurants in my hometown each night of the week. She mostly wound up talking to couples and didn't meet anyone she wanted to date. That sounded about right.

We then walked around the city hoping to find something to do but all we encountered were empty streets. I told him it reminded me of The Twilight Zone episode Where Is Everybody? We eventually walked back to the car feeling defeated. I complained about how people in this part of the country lauded diversity but it was a failure of diversity when you couldn't find anyone else with similar sensibilities and tastes. My friend wasn't too keen to return to his dad's house so we closed out the night by aimlessly driving around the winding streets of Marblehead. I loved catching up with him but the scene outside the car was yet another portrait of isolation.

The next day, my friend planned to visit Cape Cod with his dad and son to make good on a 2017 trip that had been thwarted by a blowout on the highway due to the junky condition of his dad's car. I had been a passenger back then because my mother encouraged me to go but this time around, her growing health problems prevented me from tagging along.

On the morning of his last day here, we all went to breakfast and my mother and I treated everyone. Then my friend scrambled to finish a few projects for his dad before leaving for the airport. I was even drafted to finish up a few of these tasks which included dropping off a package that had been accidentally delivered to the house back in December. The dad's social anxiety prevented him from driving to the correct address to drop it off.

As expected, it was another vacation filled with lofty plans that gave way to a parent's demands and the one night I really needed to find something fun to do only led to dead ends and empty streets.

A New Liberal Mascot

Each weekday, a Boston-area college radio station that I regularly listen to pauses their musical programming for an hour to air the syndicated show Democracy Now! What's labeled as underground journalism or alternative news free from corporate influence is actually nothing more than far-left propaganda. Host Amy Goodman (whose gravelly voice is unbearable) pushes a liberal agenda by not only selecting topics and guests that further her favorite causes, she manipulates the very language of her reporting so that it's biased against conservatives.

While talk show host Rush Limbaugh clearly stated his political leanings, Amy Goodman pretends to be nothing more than an objective investigative journalist just doing her job to uncover the truth. Like a coward, she often lets her guests make some of the more inflammatory statements that push her agenda while she simply nods in agreement.

Ironically, Amy Goodman's disdain for what I'd call western capitalist values regularly places her in the same camp as those who would like nothing more than to destroy many of the freedoms she supposedly fights for. Her early reports on America's involvement in the Ukraine War had her siding with Vladimir Putin because how dare the west try to secretly influence a former Soviet republic.

Of course, the biggest target of Democracy Now! in recent years has been Israel. Amy Goodman's sympathy for oppressed people is so strong, that she allies herself with those who embrace radical Islam. In her warped left-wing mind, white western people must be wrong and brown people from exotic lands must be correct. She disproportionately criticizes free western nations like Israel and the United States because she can. There's not as much zeal when it comes to highlighting the atrocities of oppressive dictatorships or intolerant Muslim fanatics, however.

Amy Goodman also links the rhetoric of President Donald Trump to an increase in hate crimes. Of course, she talks with various “experts” on the subject to hammer that point home but would the shoe fit if it were on the other foot?

In May of last year, Yaron Lishinsky and Sarah Milgrim were killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washinton D.C. by a gunman who shouted, “Free, free Palestine!” upon being arrested. The young Jewish couple had just left an event that was focused on building a coalition to support Gazans. Clearly, this was a hate crime and all the rhetoric the left had spewed against Israel played a part in their deaths but would Amy Goodman take any sort of responsibility for this shooting? Of course not. Democracy Now! featured a Jewish guest who briefly offered condolences but then proceeded to blame the shootings on Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Several comments on left-wing websites were more blunt saying Yaron and Sarah got what they deserved and more “Zionists” needed to die.

Right after this shooting, I thought a new liberal mascot could be “Not Me” from the comic strip Family Circus. When the parents in that comic accused their children of mischief-making, the little ones denied it by saying, “Not me!” and an invisible phantom by that name was drawn as the cause of all the trouble. My idea seemed to gain even more relevance with the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk.

I never heard of Charlie Kirk before September 10^th of 2025 but news of his murder really bothered me. Firstly, it was surprising to see the large audiences he attracted on college campuses because I had long written off academia as being too liberal. Here was a man who often spoke of moral values that sometimes aligned with the Catholic Church's most controversial teachings and he was actually changing hearts and minds. Secondly, the shooting was all about silencing a voice that liberals didn't agree with. How the left reacted to the death of Charlie Kirk was very telling.

In the immediate aftermath, everyone seemed shocked and saddened but very quickly, the left's ugly side would be revealed. Some mockingly asked, “Charlie Kirk who?” With the identity of the shooter still unknown, more than a few liberals took joy in posting comments and memes that said conservatives were now sweating because the shooter might be white. Then they began to cherry-pick Charlie Kirk's comments to paint him as a white supremacist, anti-woman and anti-gay. No doubt some of these statements were taken out of context and this prompted gay YouTube personality Amir Odom to create a video that debunked the biggest lies told about Charlie Kirk. In fact, Amir credits meeting the conservative speaker for inspiring him to launch his own YouTube channel. I wasn't sure what to believe since I was unfamiliar with Charlie Kirk's views, but it became clear that many on the left abandoned decorum in order to celebrate this man's death. Since he was killed while talking about gun violence, they called it poetic justice. A few people on YouTube were so disgusted by the celebration of Charlie Kirk's death, they pledged to give up being liberal.

Some on the left engaged in “what-about-isms” by noting the right's lack of sympathy for the June 14, 2025 shootings of Melissa and Mark Hortman and John and Yvette Hoffman. I think a big reason for this disparity was the fact that Charlie Kirk was nationally known and his murder was captured on video in front of a large crowd but if we are to engage in what-about-isms, what about Yaron Lishinsky and Sarah Milgrim? Their deaths were quickly forgotten by the media because it didn't fit a certain narrative.

As a clearer picture of Charlie Kirk's shooter started to emerge, the left continued to twist the facts. They claimed since Tyler Robinson was raised in a pro-Trump household and even dressed up as Trump for Halloween once, he must be an extreme right-winger. They gleefully asserted Charlie Kirk was killed by "one of his own" and that it was an inside job even though children routinely rebel against their parents' moral beliefs.

Soon they concocted a cockamamie theory that Tyler Robinson was a far-right “groyper” who followed the teachings of Neo-nazi Nick Fuentes. Amy Goodman loves to criticize many of Trump's statements by prefacing his quotes with the words, “Without proof, Donald Trump said...” In the case of the Charlie Kirk shooting, this so-called underground journalist reported that Utah's Republican governor claimed the shooter had leftist ideology but did not share any evidence then she stated, “There's also been speculation Robinson may have been influenced by a far-right movement known as groypers which is tied to the white nationalist Nick Fuentes.”  We should rename her show Hypocrisy Now! for having such double standards about things not proven.

This outlandish groyper theory was starting to fall apart as more information emerged about the shooter but that didn't stop late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel from promoting it during one of his anti-Trump monologues. With the prompting of the FCC, he was suspended by the ABC Network. Liberals saw this as a freedom of speech issue with many feeling Jimmy Kimmel did nothing wrong. The talk show host returned to the airwaves a few days later to cry crocodile tears without ever acknowledging how inappropriate his groyper remarks were. Some liberals even accused conservatives of behaving like the “snowflakes” the right often criticized. In other words, “It's okay for the left to be overly sensitive and employ cancel culture tactics but how dare the right stoop to our level.”

Society seems more fractured than ever because two incredibly large groups of people hold dear very different values but in my experience, liberals tend to think they're so much more enlightened than conservatives. When complaining about this divisiveness, they refuse to look in the mirror and consider that maybe, just maybe they're part of the problem too. “Not me!”

Self-Help Is No Help

The last blog entry mentioned how the internet has no shortage of people who feel they can offer you advice for improving your life. Some of these videos dispense self-help advice and one YouTube channel that I stumbled upon recently is called Productive Peter. His content consists of straight forward narration set to visuals of stick figure drawings. One video in particular highlights strategy on how to make the most out of life and it's broken down into several chapters. The narrator mentions “superpowers” we can acquire from his advice and he even claims to know certain “truths” about life. While this channel offers some interesting perspectives that seem to resonate with viewers, I find these videos to be idealistic and at times unrealistic.

Productive Peter warns us about getting stuck in ruts because that encourages “time blindness.” If we just go through the motions in our daily lives, our brain will check out which causes life to feel like it's slipping by very quickly. He recommends taking a new route to work or learning a new skill which will force our brains to be more “tuned in” to the moment. He also encourages us to take the “deathbed test” where we imagine ourselves at the end of our lives. Would we have any regrets? He assumes we'd choose wanting to spend more time with family over wanting to make more money. He advocates making our hours count and even suggests “ruthlessly” eliminating all social media if it's becoming too much of a distraction.

This advice is all fine and good but I don't think this kind of pop psychology is one-size fits all. Sometimes life throws us pretty bad curve balls and we wind up in places that we'd rather not be in. I have a five minute walk to my job. Can I take a different route to learn something new? Nope. I also work the night shift which means I'm constantly battling sleep. Finding enough time and energy to learn a new skill while caring for my elderly mother is next to impossible. Yup, I'm in a rut but there are good reasons why my life is like that and I don't see how changing a few habits for five minutes is going to improve anything.

Maybe if my mother found doctors who actually knew what they were doing her quality of life would improve and she'd regain more of her independence. Instead, her health continues to go downhill which means she relies on me more and more. Maybe if I wasn't a caregiver, I wouldn't have to work a menial job that's close to home...but I am a caregiver and nothing is going to change that right now. Productive Peter talks about “strategic quitting” but that's not an option.

My “deathbed test” won't ever include the regret, “I should have spent more time with family” because I don't have a family in the first place. While there are things we can do in life to improve our chances at dating, marriage and having a family, ultimately it comes down to chance. If you never find anyone to fall in love with in the first place, then what else can you do? I might be able to exercise some control over life by joining an online dating website or going out to a bar but if you never meet anyone to fall in love with in the first place then these attempts to shape life are pretty futile.

Nowhere in these videos do I think Productive Peter misses the mark more than when he talks about friendships and acquaintances. He suggests the best friendships are created when we express genuine concern for others and even show some vulnerability. Don't neglect the people in our lives with “weak ties” because often it's those relationships that help us to grow, to gain new experiences, and they even connect us with great opportunities. Engage in small acts to maintain these bonds like sending the occasional e-mail just to see how someone is doing.

In my life, very little of this is true. I do try to maintain those connections with friends but often they respond with silence. When I suggest hanging out and getting something to eat (my treat), months will slip by without them saying a word. I guess people don't like free food anymore! With most of my relationships, I'm the one doing all the heavy lifting while they rarely lift a finger to even say hi. I guess they're too busy to take ten seconds out of their lives to even post a message on my Facebook page. I've never felt my friends needed me as much as I needed them and if actions speak louder than words, their inaction actually says a lot. Once again, random chance has blessed me with friends who often take the meaning of the word friend for granted.

As far as those “weak ties” go, Productive Peter couldn't be more wrong. Acquaintances (especially friends-of-friends) have only caused problems in my life...big problems. They didn't lead to new and exciting opportunities. Rather, they took too much out of me and the only thing I learned from these relationships was that I should have avoided them in the first place.

They say in life you make your own luck. To a certain extent, that's true. When a good opportunity arrives, we might miss it unless we're armed with the necessary tools to make the most of it. However, everyone in life is also held hostage by random chance. How productive, comfortable and meaningful would your life be if you were born in the Gaza Strip as opposed to Buckingham Palace? I think some people do have good luck in life while others are blessed to be cursed. Self-help videos tend to ignore this fact and for the guy who's often down on his luck, they offer no help at all.

The Art of Somewhat Presentable

The internet has no shortage of people who feel they can offer you advice for improving your life and one type of video I checked out over the past few months focused on the gentlemanly art of dressing well. These YouTube videos are usually bare-bones productions and feature a man dressed in a suit and necktie offering advice on how to wear formal fashions. He might give an opinion on the best color neckties to wear with a certain type of suit. He might suggest paying more money for quality products that will look better and last longer. There's a pretty good chance the term “sartorial” might be used which is actually derived from the Latin word “sartor” and means tailor.

One of the hosts of these videos discussed the benefits of dressing well. While not scientific by any means, he admitted to using his own experiences to draw certain conclusions. The big takeaway from his observations was: formal wear did carry with it certain psychological power over ourselves and others. Firstly, he noticed people treated him nicer if he was wearing a suit and tie. Formal wear improved his social interactions with strangers and often people just wanted to engage in small talk with him even if it was to say, “You look sharp.”

He theorized dressing well set a certain tone on a subconscious level. It sent the message that here was a man with the discipline to be polished and well-groomed. If he had to attend a function, his fashion sense let the people there know that he took them seriously enough to actually put some thought into how he looked.

Secondly, dressing like a gentleman boosted his own self-confidence. He claimed that if you dressed well, you stood a little taller and you walked with a little more swagger in your step. He even claimed that people would respect you more and you'd get increased attention from women.

I had to take all of this with a grain of salt because the man hosting these videos also traveled in social circles where a suit and tie weren't so out of place. For a side hustle, he's a motivational speaker for businessmen and is often surrounded by those who dress formally as part of their workplace uniform. One of the places where he had been treated nicely by total strangers was of all things...a luxury hotel. I wondered how the public would react if he found himself riding a dingy subway train to the inner city.

I make good use of the area's thrift stores and love finding nice clothes for very little money. Some of those fashions do include suits, blazers, dressy shirts and ties. The problem is, I have very little opportunity to wear such fancy outfits. Even at church not very many people get dressed up anymore. About ten years ago, our pastor tried inspiring us to look more formal by presenting the same argument that YouTube host made: We were here to worship Jesus so our clothes should be an outward expression of how seriously we took that endeavor. Wasn't the almighty worthy of spending a little extra time to be more thoughtful with our fashion choices? Only a few parishioners decided to give it a try and after a while, our pastor abandoned this effort. The tidal wave of causal dressers won out in the end but would Jesus really care about such things anyway?

Contrary to what the YouTube host said about dressing like a gentleman, I often feel awkward wearing a suit and tie because almost everyone else is dressed like a slob. I don't make enough money to seek out the fancy locales where such fashions would blend in like that aforementioned luxury hotel. I also have a sneaking suspicion that the kind of women who would respond favorably to such fancy clothes are probably too high maintenance and way out of my league.

After watching these videos, I used my own experiences to draw certain conclusions. Despite what ZZ Top said about “a sharp dressed man” I've seen no benefit to dressing formally. A few old ladies at church might compliment me on my outfits but good luck trying to hear it from a woman my own age. Even wearing gentlemanly fashions on Catholic Match didn't get me anywhere. The fact is, the men I see with wives and kids are the ones who make no effort to dress nicely. These guys usually select fashions that make them look like overgrown children yet they're married and I'm not.

Our culture has definitely embraced that “letting it all hang out” look and several months will pass before I see another guy wearing a necktie. I can't even remember the last time I saw a woman out in public with a nice dress on. Shorts, graphic t-shirts, yoga pants, muffin tops and butt cracks seem to be the order of the day. While good Christians shouldn't get caught up judging people on outward appearances, it would be nice in a society that claims to be "diverse" if more people put in an extra effort to look somewhat presentable.

What Happened, America?

Sometimes the relationships we have with our relatives can be a bit puzzling. People you hardly see and don't really know share this connection with you that automatically allows them to enter your life even if you don't have much in common. There are many relatives I never see outside of weddings and funerals despite promises to get together sometime just for the sake of hanging out. Further complicating matters is the different family dynamic between my mother's relatives and my father's relatives.

My mom's side of the family is best described as passive-aggressive and filled with dysfunction. Gatherings with these people usually involves having dinner at a restaurant somewhere and pretending we all get along even though there are some deep-seated resentments lying just below the surface. All it takes is one wrong remark for a decades old trauma to bubble over.

With my dad's side of the family, what you see is what you get and that amounts to some pretty boisterous people who embrace life's pleasures even when it becomes detrimental. Getting together with them usually involves a big party at someone's house with lots of food, music, alcohol and cigarettes.

During the summer of 2024, my mother and I received some shocking news: One of my cousins who was only in her 50s died of a drug overdose. We had no idea she was a user but as I would find out later, some of my relatives were very aware of this fact and thought it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. We had last seen my cousin two years ago and before that, I couldn't tell you when we got together since it was so long ago.

At the funeral, my mother and I experienced some culture shock as many mourners felt it was appropriate to dress in jeans, short pants and t-shirts. I sat behind my deceased cousin's estranged husband and wound up staring at the pit bull tattoo scrawled on the back of his neck. I wondered just what kind of crowd she had fallen in with. Later, I found out the “friends” she did drugs with left her to die when they saw her in distress. The reverend's eulogy did not shy away from my cousin's drug habit and sadly, speaking at funerals like this was a specialty of his that was in demand. He acknowledged the people in the crowd who had “pre-mourned” my cousin and said the two questions most often asked in situations like these began with “What if...?” and “If only...?” Relatives said my cousin had rejected any offers for help and even denied there was a problem.

My cousin's father held the reception at his house and insisted on having everyone back a few days later for their family's annual Independence Day celebration. It was a summertime tradition that he wanted to keep going despite the recent tragedy. My mother and I never went to these parties but decided to go this time around just to show our support.

When we arrived, almost everyone was overweight and overindulging including cousins who were years younger than me. A few of these relatives didn't even have wives. They had long-term girlfriends who they lived with and had children with. So much for courtship first, then marriage, then sex and then children. Such a spectacle made me ask myself, “What happened, America?”

These people were supposedly the more politically conservative members of the family but they seemed to lack some very traditional Christian values like moderation and appropriateness. Did lust and gluttony get omitted from the list of seven deadly sins? I was torn between not judging them and being upset with their devil-may-care attitudes. In the Bible, Jesus embraced tax collectors, adulterers, prostitutes and other sinners BUT he told them to sin no more. That's the other side of the coin feel-good religions usually ignore.

Our country has lost its sense of shame. At one time, the fear of societal disapproval actually kept a good number of people from embracing such hedonistic tendencies. Now we have to accept everything no matter how inappropriate it may seem. The Church's pro-life morals are even twisted around to undermine its views on chastity with relatives being happy that my cousin's girlfriend kept her baby while looking the other way when it came to abstinence and marriage. Once again, society was rewarding people with loose morals while those who saved themselves for marriage were condemned to a life of loneliness. I wondered, “If these people weren't related to me, would I have anything to do with them?”

What happened to my relatives seems indicative of American culture these days. Society promotes excess and people lack the willpower and common sense to resist. It's not enough to have a hamburger. Now you have to put bacon, an egg, onion rings and BBQ sauce on it. So many Americans today are overweight, unhealthy, in debt...and most importantly UNHAPPY. My cousin who passed away was certainly missing something in her life.

A sermon from years ago once described us as having God-sized holes in our souls. Sometimes we tried filling that hole with drugs and sometimes we tried filling it with money. Sometimes we tried filling it with sex and sometimes we tried filling it with food. Unfortunately, no amount of gluttony can remove such an emptiness because what we really need in our lives is God's love and that's hard to find when we're drowning in excess.

Another Great Time-Waster

Last year, I was searching the internet for a certain scene in a movie but wasn't having any luck finding it. After checking again later on, I stumbled upon something called a “reaction video” where a person or persons use a camera to record their experience watching a television show or film. Such videos feature short clips of the program's content or they partially obscure the image of the TV show or movie in question to avoid copyright infringement but often the gist of your favorite scenes remain intact. To me, it was like watching an abridged version of what I had already seen with enough content remaining to still make it an enjoyable experience.

After searching around, I found the particular scene I was looking for. However, I was very intrigued by the person reacting to it because this was their first time watching the movie. They were young and had never seen or heard anything about this film before so watching them react to it was like fondly remembering my first time seeing this movie. I'd laugh when they laughed, I'd be blown away when they noticed a small clue in the film that I had missed, I'd feel closeness when they agreed with my opinion, and I'd roll my eyes if they totally misunderstood something.

After watching this reaction video, I began to wonder how other YouTube users reacted when they watched the same movie for the first time. Falling down this rabbit hole was pretty easy. I think these videos gave me a sense of validation too because these young people thought a movie made in the early 1990s was way better than anything Hollywood produced nowadays. In fact, a few of them even lamented, “I wish we had movies like this today.” Oh how I shared that viewpoint! It's been many, many years since I've gone to an actual movie theater and felt that sense of magic that was so common back in my youth. Unfortunately, most mainstream movies now are plagued by cheesy franchises, bad writing, and an over-reliance on crappy CGI.

After watching several of these reaction videos, I wondered how these people would react to other movies and TV shows that were my favorites. Soon, I was searching entire playlists on YouTube to pick out which videos I wanted to see next. Each one was usually 30 to 40 minutes long so it did take a big bite out of what little free time I had. However, with my 3^rd shift job leaving me tired all the time, this seemed to be the perfect distraction before going back to work.

Some reaction videos were hosted by just one person while others featured groups of people together. Some of my favorite videos were hosted by husband and wife teams who were a little on the geeky side and it was amazing how well they got along and were in tune with each other. I said to myself, “I'd want a wife like that.”

To make money, these people had Patreon accounts and for a fee, members could watch these videos ahead of everyone else. They could also see exclusive content not available for public viewing which often included reaction to the entire movie. Some “reactors” had day jobs while others managed to make it their full time job. Now if you had told me when I was in my 20s that there would be people who got paid to sit on their butts and watch their favorite TV shows and movies all day long, I would have thought you were crazy. My years as a couch potato back then never got me much of anything!

I sometimes wonder about the ethics of all of this. A screenwriter, a director, actors and a whole bunch of other people behind the camera put in long hours to create these movies and TV shows and now other people were making money off of their creativity under the pretext of fair use. What also started to bother me was how invested I became in these reaction videos. I probably laughed more by watching them than I had laughed hanging out with friends in recent years. I felt more emotions from watching online videos than I did from interacting with others in real life.  The internet was already a great time-waster but now I found one more thing to whittle away my days.

For Lent this year, I chose to give up watching all reaction videos. It's been manageable but not easy as new content comes out every week and Easter is still far away. I think Lent is a very important time for self-reflection that allows us to examine our faults and think about the areas of our lives where we can do better. It bothered me that these videos were filling a void in my life that should not have been there in the first place. These reactors weren't my friends but I was certainly looking forward to seeing them as if we were.  Also of great concern was this pattern of work, eat, sleep that was taking over my life and leaving so little time to do anything productive around the house especially since my job wasn't very fulfilling or profitable.

Is society so starved of meaningful connections that we have to turn to the online world? While there's no going back, I sometimes think about how life was like before the internet, smartphones and other electronic trappings. We may not have had information on demand, but we seemed to be living life in the moment more often instead of craving emotions from the strangers on our screens.

There's Always Tomorrow

A culture of instant gratification didn't exist for kids growing up in the 1970s and 1980s and this was especially true when it came to their favorite television programs.  If you wanted to watch something on TV, you had to make sure you didn't miss it because a long time would pass before it aired again.  Every year for the holidays, the television networks would periodically suspend the mostly adult content of their prime time line up to present cartoons like A Charlie Brown Christmas and Frosty the Snowman, or “claymation” wonders like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Comin' To Town.
 
There wasn't much advanced warning when these shows appeared.  My parents (who had probably seen ads for them earlier in the week) would simply tell us there would be something for my brother and me to watch just before bedtime.  CBS had a very distinctive bumper which featured a swirling graphic of the word SPECIAL.  When most children from that era saw this, they knew they were in for a treat.  As the whole family gathered around the television, some of these programs choked me up during their more serious moments which was a credit to the care the writers had for these stories.  I never did cry for fear of being embarrassed in front of everyone, though.
 

There was something “special” about watching these holiday specials and they were usually talked about in school the next day even if it was to just find out if your friends had seen them too.  Since there were only three television networks on at the time, a great number of people tended to watch the same programs.  It was one of those things in our everyday lives that we took for granted but it seemed to bind us together.  Even at that age, there was a faint sense that the television shows I was enjoying were being watched by my friends in that very moment.

Then in 1984, something odd happened that seemed sacrilegious to me.  While one of those sweet Christmas specials was airing, another network decided to play a very un-Christmas-like cartoon based on the Robo Force toy line.  I looked at the show for about a minute before changing the channel.  This was merchandising that hit a new low.  While the novelty of the program had its appeal, I wasn't about to give up seeing Rudolph or Frosty for a whole year.  The next day one of my friends said he had watched the Robo Force cartoon but was blissfully unaware of the Christmas special that aired at the same time.  When I told him what he had missed, he was actually bummed out by his viewing choice.  That Robo Force cartoon never did become a Christmas classic and today it's largely forgotten.

 

As I got a little older, I continued to watch these specials and in my freshman year of high school, our gym teacher tried his best to preserve the sense of innocence we had as children during the Christmas season.  For one quiz, he said there would be an extra credit question that would have something to do with the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer special so we were encouraged to catch it if we wanted the correct answer.  Many of us did.  A few days later he asked, “What was the name of the elf who wanted to be a dentist?”  In the days before the internet, you just couldn't look up something like that on Wikipedia.

Despite my gym teacher's best efforts, viewing those Christmas specials became less of a priority as the years passed by.  It didn't seem like a big deal because I figured at some point I would get married, have kids and then rediscover the magic of these shows through their eyes when we gathered around the television during the holidays...but life hasn't worked out that way.

Now in the digital age, kids can watch Rudolph, Frosty and a hundred other Christmas specials anytime they want much to my mother's chagrin.  When she tunes in network television and sees a commercial for these holiday shows, she'll enthusiastically call my brother to make sure his kids know about it...and every year he seems to shoot her down by saying things like, “They have that one on DVD.” or “They've already seen it on Youtube.”  For many children these days, those specials aren't so “special” anymore.

When I grew up, there wasn't much in the way of on-demand media so in addition to having longer attention spans, we learned to appreciate what we had in the moment.  This year, there seemed to be an outcry when it was announced that several Charlie Brown specials would no longer be shown on network television because Apple TV+ had acquired their exclusive broadcast rights.  A deal was eventually reached with PBS to air the specials but it came too late for It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.

A few weeks ago, I found my mother tuning in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on CBS so I decided to sit down and watch it with her for a little while.  I must have heard Clarice sing to Rudolph dozens of times but this was the first year I really paid attention to the lyrics:
 

There's Always Tomorrow,
For dreams to come true,
Tomorrow is not far away.

Oh, how those words struck a chord with me especially since my dreams seemed so far away.  I decided not to watch the rest of the program and went upstairs to my room.  In that moment, I felt like a person who chose to sleep through New Year's Eve.  Instead of having a shared viewing experience, I sulked like one of the misfit toys.  Just before 9 PM, I turned on the TV in time to see Rudolph's end credits with Santa wishing everyone a merry Christmas.  There's always tomorrow for dreams to come true...

The Lonely Game of Bowling

The shuttered Bowl-O-Mat in Beverly, MA

A special-needs teenage boy that I mentor recently took a liking to the sport of bowling after playing a few strings with his grandmother.  When he found out I was once a pretty good bowler, he invited me to tag along.

When people in New England mention bowling, there's a good chance they're talking about candlepin bowling.  This regional favorite features small balls and tall, thin pins which makes getting a strike far more challenging than ten pin bowling.  In fact, there has never been a perfect game in candlepin bowling.

In my teens, I was part of a bowling club and thanks to some lessons from my dad, had a fairly high average.  After a while, I stopped bowling on a regular basis because no one else wanted to go with me and the leagues in my town were made up of mostly old people.  Every once in a great while, I returned to the local bowling alley when a friend visiting from out of state was feeling nostalgic but the lanes were usually empty.  It was quite a departure from how popular the sport used to be at one time.

Candlepin bowling tournaments were a big deal here back in the day and some Boston television stations even had their own weekend bowling shows.  The current champion laments this loss of interest in the sport and says tournaments aren't even worth the effort now since the prize money is so low.  In the few bowling alleys that exist today, you can usually find yellowed newspaper clippings of bowling's heyday hanging on the walls.  The owners of these establishments have tried whatever they can to bring the crowds back like cosmic bowling, pool tables, arcades and kid's birthday parties but the results have been mixed.  During the spring of this year, the only bowling alley in my hometown closed its doors for good.

In many ways, the current state of candlepin bowling reminds me of the Catholic faith.  We fondly recall those glory days when parishes were packed on Sundays but over the years, the number of worshipers have significantly declined because religion no longer plays a central role in many people's lives.  Occasionally, gimmicks are trotted out to bring lapsed Catholics back to Mass but these efforts often fall short.  As churches and bowling alleys continue to close, some hope against hope that the pendulum will swing the other way while sharing their theories as to why such downturns happened in the first place.

After a couple of games with his grandmother, the teen I mentor wanted more practice to improve his score so he called me up to go bowling.  In the back of my mind, I wondered if there would be any eligible women there for me to strike up a conversation with.  The alley was surprisingly busy and I did catch a glimpse of some cute females in a few of the lanes.  Unfortunately, the owner assigned us to a lane located in the smaller private room that was mostly used for birthday parties.  To the left of us was a group of elderly men and to the right of us were a few mentally retarded people with their caregivers.  Just like that, my chance to meet a woman was cut short even before we started bowling.  Every now and then, I'd see a cute girl at the soda machine but then she'd quickly disappear behind the wall that separated the private lanes from the rest of the alley.  It was yet another reminder of the bad luck I've had over the years just meeting women.

Our next few visits to the alley were like my experiences at Mass: many old people and families with a sprinkling of young couples but no single women around my age to speak of.  Often times the only females in the alley were there just because their boyfriends wanted to go.  With the leagues on hiatus for the summer, it was not uncommon for us to be the only customers in the place.  The eerie silence intensified the noise coming from the automatic pin setters.  When the owner of the bowling alley closed the place early just as we entered the parking lot, we decided to try another alley in the next town over.  Their prices were much more reasonable so we decided to make it our new home for candlepin bowling.  While the crowds there were somewhat larger, my earlier observations about the type of people who go bowling still held true.  In the autumn, the leagues returned and we were struck by how many grossly overweight “red neck” types filled their ranks.  Of course, this is a sport where you can sit down to enjoy fried food, pizza and beer during game play.

Lately, the teen that I mentor has been busy on the weekends so sometimes I go bowling alone and one of two things happen.  Either a loud and obnoxious group of people will be assigned to the lanes next to me or no one will.  There never seems to be a happy medium and candlepin bowling continues to be one more enjoyable thing in life that also brings with it a certain amount of isolation.

Looking Sharp In Slob Nation

Many Catholic blogs discuss what to wear during Mass and since the heat of summer tends to bring out more relaxed fashions, I figured it would be a good time to address this topic.

When I was an idealistic teenager, church dress codes seemed hypocritical to me.  It didn't matter what people wore just as long as they were attending Mass.  John the Baptist wasn't too concerned with outward appearances so why should we care?  I remember thinking even if a woman showed up to church in her bathing suit, at least she was there to worship God.  The burden of sin would be on the parishioners who were checking her out.  In some beach communities, girls in bikinis do pop into the local grocery store or take out restaurant without a second thought.  Islam tends to place the burden of sin on women by demanding they cover up but this effort to eliminate temptation altogether often robs the fairer sex of their humanity.

After college, I found myself wanting to dress a bit nicer.  Perhaps getting older increased my desire to look more like an adult.  A friend who worked in an upscale clothing store gave me some fashion advice and taught me how to tie a necktie.  Soon, I was visiting various department stores to find my own sense of style.  A few years later, this same friend introduced me to a wonderful thrift store called Savers and shopping there greatly expanded my rather limited wardrobe for very little money.

Around the same time, a young priest at St. Mary's in Beverly named Fr. David Barnes was installed as our new pastor.  One of the first things he did was to ask parishioners to dress nicely for Mass because it set the proper tone.  Going to church was important, he told us and what we wore reflected that.  I figured this would be an excuse to try out my different suit and tie combinations.  While some of my fellow parishioners took Fr. Barnes' advice to heart, most made no effort to dress up for Mass.  After a while, I started to feel out of place among a sea of slovenly worshipers.

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, society started to backslide into a nation of slobs.  I first noticed this at a local fancy restaurant that used to attract well-dressed clientele.  Over the years more and more diners began showing up in jeans, t-shirts and baseball caps.  Such casual wear was once nonexistent at funerals but now it's not so unheard of.

Today, flip flops, yoga pants, dad jeans, graphic t-shirts, short pants, and sandals are common fashion choices for Mass because society has forgotten what it means to dress appropriately.  (At one time, the public used to dress up just to travel on airplanes.)  The most common excuse for dressing down is comfort.  Well, even if it's hot out, some fashion choices can keep you cool and looking good as well.  Ditch the wife-beater and wear a nice cabana shirt instead.  I'm not calling for a return to the 1950s but people can make more of an effort to dress appropriately for the situations they are in.  Jeans and t-shirts are fine for the ball game or doing yard work but not so much during Mass or a funeral.  You don't need to wear a suit and tie all the time.  How about putting a belt on a fancier pair of jeans and wearing a crisp collared shirt?

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2wqwe1

I don't usually agree with talk show host Bill Maher but he had a wonderful segment on the country's current slob culture and how dressing nice can actually make you feel good about yourself.  While visiting the Madonna Shrine in East Boston, I noticed a sign that advised parishioners to dress correctly.  The teen-aged “me” would have bristled at this term because who were they to say what correct was?  The adult “me” actually appreciates this sign because I feel our slob society has gone too far.