What kind of crazy f*cked up world do we live in where if you storm the Capitol you get pardoned, but if you say you’re not on the Charlie Kirk was a hero train you’re a pariah and lose your job?

145 people have lost their jobs so far for posts that…are nowhere near as negative and outrageous as you might think. I’ll let you do the research.

You lose your JOB???

Mail carriers lose their gigs and they shoot up the office, ergo the term “going postal.”

Happens all the time, you fire someone and there are consequences in the workplace

That’s how valuable a job is. People identify with their job. Never mind earning a living!

So now you’re busted down to zero. On unemployment, if you’re lucky. And then welfare. And you’re radioactive, good luck getting another job in your field. That’s right, they’re not going after low level service workers, but someone working higher up in the corporation, in education, for a local or state government.

You just ruined this person’s life. Maybe their family’s life. FOR EXERCISING THEIR RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH!

And it’s not like the people firing them are big Trumpers, they’re just afraid of the mob. They don’t want to get caught in the crossfire, they don’t want to lose their job, they don’t want their company boycotted.

And it ain’t hard to get someone fired. It’s not like there were big debates, court hearings, no…you were gone, just like that.

As for the individual… Good luck. Like those people SOL after the tornado in St. Louis. It might be sunny and warm where you are, the buildings might still be standing, but if a natural disaster arrives…good luck getting FEMA to come, or having your state do the job FEMA used to do.

So let me get this straight… You make a comment, usually somewhere online, and then…

Someone reports you.

Yes, there are people out there looking for what they consider faux pas. And then they amplify them. Tell me how this is different from people turning in others in Soviet Russia. Huh?

People are afraid. Of  ICE, of the online police.

I’m not even going to delve into the right’s cry of free speech when Biden was in office… All I’m going to say is you’d better shut the f*ck up and toe the line. You’d better not say the wrong thing.

And if we’re creating heroes, people to emulate…

It’s not only the rank and file, even the damn “New York Times” has bent over backward in adulation of Charlie Kirk. It was a tragedy he was shot. No one should be assassinated. As for fomenting conversation on campuses, different points of view, have you delved into the actual conversations when he was at schools? You could ask your question, that didn’t mean that Kirk took you seriously and addressed it. As for Kirk’s opinions… Better not be a minority, better be a Stepford wife.

But the left has been somnambulant here. THANK GOD IT WASN’T ME! That’s the America we now live in, you got caught in the maelstrom? The vagaries of life got you down? TOUGH NOOGIES!

Let’s cut back the welfare state… God, you’d think everybody on welfare was driving around in a BMW, eating at sushi bars and living the life of Riley. No, take away that damn money and GET A JOB!

As for health costs… Why in the hell did you get sick to begin with? You’re ignorant, you didn’t eat the right stuff, it’s your fault.

That’s the country we now live in, strict liability for all of your actions. If you’re waiting for society to give you a hand, GOOD LUCK!

And who are these people so upset about those who don’t share their feelings about Charlie Kirk that they find you and cause you to lose your job? I mean what kind of “Christian” person does this?

Creeping authoritarianism… People stood up for Kimmel, because they had a way to vote with their wallets. But not everything is monetary, not everything can be addressed so easily.

They’re coming for you if you’re not like them, if you say anything in contradiction of their agenda. And it’s not like they’re hiding it, they’re saying it, the mob wants you to to comply.

But you’re supposed to believe in the system. Let’s say you’re fired… Do you have the money and time to challenge said loss of job in the courts? In a nation where so many live from paycheck to paycheck?

So some woman named Amy lost her sh*t in Central Park and called the police on a Black birdwatcher and lost her job.

That seemed rational to many. Racial remarks are the third rail.

Then again, is that the world we now live in? One strike and you’re out? No chance of rehabilitation?

I mean if you don’t make mistakes, you’re not human.

And one can learn from one’s mistakes. That’s growth.

But it’s now a slippery slope. It’s not only racism that’s going to make you lose your job, but opining on the death of someone. Not an elected official, not the husband of an elected official, not schoolchildren, but a self-styled politico who has been deemed a hero of the right.

Yes, for all the peace…

Hell, now I’m worried about my words. I’m worried about the mob. I don’t even want to say anything that is not aligned with the national credo that Charlie Kirk was an icon, a hero, a man to be held up and emulated for all time.

Do I agree with that… Do you agree with that…

If someone worships a different God from you… Hell, that’s okay with me.

If someone likes the Mets instead of the Yankees…

But when it comes to political views…some of the people uttering them are sacrosanct. Is this the country we now live in? Is this the country we want to live in? One in which most people didn’t even know who Charlie Kirk was before he was unjustly assassinated by a delusional lone gunman?

You made Tyler Robinson shoot saint Charlie. It’s your fault. All of you people on the left. And if you don’t bow your head and utter a mea culpa.

You’re culpable.

That’s the nation we now live in. 

He didn’t want to repeat himself.

I know people my age who are doing the exact same thing in the music business they were doing forty years ago, the only thing that’s changed is the names. The acts come and go, they remain. Paid well, but isn’t it soul-crushing?

Speaking of soul-crushing… What is it like to be a grown man and have to hit the stage year after year and sing songs you wrote forty years ago? That’s what the audience might want, but it’s got to be depressing. Ultimately you’re doing it for the money and the adulation. Those aren’t nothing, bur are they enough?

Not for Robert Crumb.

This book got phenomenal reviews. But it took a long time to hook me. I ultimately figured out why, it was the art analysis. The writer is from the world of art, and just writing Crumb’s story was not enough, he had to analyze the comics and…it takes a very special person to be able to make this interesting, even live. That’s actually why I became an art history major, because of the professors. They were ENTERTAINING! I went to college because I was supposed to, I wasn’t interested in ANYTHING they were teaching, not a single thing. As for English…they didn’t want to hear my opinion, they wanted us to analyze historical takes…WHO CARES! But in the art history lectures the professor would talk about a great ice cream place around the corner from the museum and I found my mind never drifted, which it did in seemingly every other class.

Not that I’m a visual person, which is kind of funny. I can read an entire newspaper and not remember a single ad…I’m a word person. But the artistic sensibility? That’s what I learned in college.

And it’s different from a commercial sensibility.

Everybody in music wants to make it, become a brand.

That was never Crumb’s goal. He didn’t enforce his rights on merchandise and he’d rather own his work than cave to a publisher. It has to be pure, and honest, and when it isn’t…

So I never read Crumb’s comics. NEVER! I’m not a comics person. Never read the superhero work… Sure, I read some “Archie,” but once I grew up, no way. I respected what Crumb did, of course I read a strip here or there, but it’s just not my thing.

But my sister went to college with Justin Green’s brother and we were in San Francisco and he took us over to Crumb’s apartment and…what do you say to a famous artist?

At that point, 1973, Crumb was into music. Old time music. Which I knew from the music press. I didn’t know the tunes. But in the silence I picked up a spare guitar and started playing early sixties hits like “Boys” and Robert played right along. My sister’s buddy Keith couldn’t believe it, he wanted me to shut up and fade into the woodwork, but Crumb and I got along famously, even played “Gloria”…G-L-O-R-I-A!

Would Crumb remember?

I doubt it.

Have I ever seen him again? I don’t even reach out to rock stars who give me their contact info…what am I going to say? I’m too nervous.

But as a result of this experience, I’ve followed Crumb’s career and I went to see the movie thirty years ago which I could never forget, nobody could. Crumb had moved to France by that time and…let’s put it this way, underground comics had a moment and it’s never returned.

Speaking of that moment…

After it was over, after Crumb got divorced, he had NOTHING! He was broke, not even a car.

And he was not living in the Bay Area anymore, nowhere near the coast, but closer to Sacramento. He never stopped working, but he also didn’t feel like a has-been.

Now if you’re a musician and reach the peak and then fall to the bottom you’re anything but bright and sunny. You’re depressed. Everywhere you go people ask you what happened. You ultimately stay home, until you face the facts and get a day job where you’re hassled for who you used to be.

But Crumb is making music, which he quits when the band wants to take it too seriously.

Crumb wasn’t afraid of riches and fame, they’re just not what he needed. They weren’t the goal.

And Crumb knew who he was. A nerd. And when he became famous and women came on to him…

He took advantage.

But then he started to make comics about his sexual predilections. Was he sexist? Yes, he had to be hipped to the fact. But also, as years went by, he continued to reveal all his fantasies, he was honest in a way only artists can be…

And he never fit in.

And he was always alienated. AND KNEW IT!

Even when he was famous he’d take the bus hours to San Francisco. He had none of the trappings, despite being so revered.

And the work had to be pure. He turned down so many options, especially after Ralph Bakshi made the film of “Fritz the Cat.” If you weren’t going to get it right, he didn’t want to be involved.

And he’d had enough of fame. He turned down an invitation to appear with his band on SNL. Turned down Letterman too, even though his compatriot, Harvey Pekar, who he drew for, was a staple on the show and built a whole career around his appearances.

Now Crumb did not live a normal life.

He did not have a normal family.

Then again, who does?

Man, we were hit, abused by today’s standards, back in the fifties and sixties.

His father was from the military, his mother was overwhelmed. Robert got out, he escaped the family drama, he was lucky, not everybody was.

And he didn’t get into comics to make a buck, he was into it from a very young age, it was his passion. And no one had to teach him how to do it. College was unnecessary. His talent was innate, but he worked on it.

And he didn’t do what was expedient. He didn’t want to paint and be a member of the fine art world…he thought both the artists and buyers were phony.

Sounds a little like Holden Caulfield, but Crumb was always up for a good time. And he was led by women. He’d jump from one to another, had multiple women at the same time, they took the edge off, they took care of him.

And he made those with less confidence feel beautiful.

Now I’m not going to recommend you read this book. Because it’s long and at times dry and I thought about quitting once or twice myself.

But then I started to see myself in it.

There are all these questions…

Do you do what is expected of you?

Do you do what’s expedient?

Do you do it for the money?

And everybody else can’t understand your choices. Because they’re part of the flow and you’re sitting on the riverbank, outside. There are threads between you, but always a distance, always a distance.

So when I finished the book earlier today I was in a stupor. I stared off into the distance. I tried to evaluate my mood.

I felt a stronger connection reading this book than hanging with most people. So is that what I should do, just sit home and read books?

And Crumb got a ton of negative feedback, and was not always commercially successful in his enterprises, but he kept marching forward, for himself!

It’s hard when everybody tells you to go back to doing what you always did, the famous stuff, but that’s death inside, you can’t do that.

And then Crumb saying he was dying to work but was out of ideas.

Happens to me, I’m eager to write, but I don’t have anything I’m dying to say.

It’s a lonely journey, then again, Crumb always needed his alone time. Me too, I can’t party every day, even be with people every day, I’ve got to retreat and reorganize, metabolize and evaluate.

We’re all looking to be known, and I felt known reading this book.

A little.

https://www.skirball.org/programs/dinner-party-animal-recipes-make-every-day-celebration

This is why I live in L.A.

People ask me if I’m moving to Colorado. NEVER! I love to ski, but year-round? Not for me. I’ve lived in small communities…everybody knows your name and has a preconception of your identity and…I’d rather be anonymous at the supermarket.

Now in the old days, before cable TV and FedEx, never mind the internet and Amazon, if you lived in the hinterlands…you might not be completely off the grid, but you could be a day or two or three behind, might even miss things completely. But today? The people in so-called flyover country are just as informed, just as hip as those on the coasts.

But they don’t have the same cultural options.

Growing up in the suburbs I never thought I’d live in a city. We lived fifty miles from New York and went in frequently, but I had no desire to be there full time. As a matter of fact, I could have gone to college there, but that meant I wouldn’t be able to ski as frequently…

But New York is completely different from Los Angeles. In New York, on the east coast, everybody’s on top of each other, there’s a constant jockeying for position, people letting you know they’re smarter or richer or more pedigreed than you are. Los Angeles? It’s a free-flowing society where where you went to college is irrelevant, and everybody is making it up as they go, and I love that!

Also, it’s a giant suburb. Yes, the traffic is terrible and real estate prices are stratospheric, but if you compare it to Manhattan… No one owns this much property in Manhattan, where buildings spread vertically as opposed to horizontally, where you have common walls, where you’re on top of each other, whereas in Los Angeles you have room to move. You can own a car…then again, I wish we had a subway like New York, it would be great to be able to pop downtown to the Crypt or to Inglewood and the Forum on a train instead of being gridlocked in traffic, but that’s the price you pay. At least every act comes through Los Angeles!

That’s another reason I live in L.A. Everybody in the music business has to come through at least once a year.

And there are the restaurants and ready access to anything you want to buy and…

Of course, the weather, but I’d live here even if it got cold and rained.

One of the great things about L.A. is the cultural advantages.

Now in Colorado, they have many more events than they used to, a veritable plethora, I’ve seen household names at the Vilar in Beaver Creek, but…not everybody comes through, and the left field events like Dinner Party Animal don’t happen.

Felice saw a listing and bought tickets. 4 PM on a Sunday afternoon. Who has plans then? Sunday is a slow day, so okay.

So I was stunned at the number of people in attendance, I was trying to find out the exact hook to bring hundreds of people to the Skirball, which is just around the corner from where we live, with free parking and everything.

And they hit the stage and…

You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s, but if you are…

Well, actually if you are, you know there are much better places to buy rye bread, but…

We keep hearing we live in a Christian nation. As if homogenization is the goal. But it is our various tribes, the melting pot, that makes America great, all the different flavors. And being Jewish…

There was immediately a remark about the constant talking… These are my people!

I’m not saying you need to care, but it feels good to be in the pocket, amongst your cohort.

So what we had here were three roommates and a TV producer. Three guys and a girl. And one of the guys wrote a cookbook, “Dinner Party Animal.” So I guess this was kind of a launch…

When Felice first told me about the event I thought it would be cooking and eating. Then I thought it would be a cooking demonstration. Ultimately, it was four Jews riffing. As if you were at their house.

It made me envious. I wanted to be involved.

And I could see the attraction to non-Jews, and why Jews do so well in the arts.

You see we’ve been persecuted for years. And we know we’re tarred. But that does not mean we don’t have our rites and rituals, that we can’t have fun!

These three guys were talking over each other and cracking jokes (with Jenji Kohan occasionally adding flavor) and I said to myself, “That’s not my life!”

And I wondered why.

Did I just not hold enough dinner parties? Was I just not invited to enough dinner parties?

Or was it my age.

I read somewhere that when you’re seventy you don’t need new friends. It’s not like you’re going to use connections for business purposes. Everybody’s kind of settled and satisfied and it can be boring and scary.

And then you get a left field event like this.

Purely conversation. No plot needed.

What question was best to start a dinner party?

When was the last time you got into an argument with a stranger?

So many people I know want to talk to me about business, they’re trying to get ahead, they’re trying to be a good friend of mine (thanks Joni!)

But I just want to know how your relationship is going. Where you’re going to travel next. About a good meal. The ins-and-outs of people you know. All irrelevant, but the spice of life.

This is why techies will never truly rule the world, because they’ve got no soul.

This is why Black people can be happy despite being oppressed.

This is why ethnicity is a badge of honor.

It’s all about life. I’ve got mine, you’ve got yours…TELL ME ABOUT IT!

Tune in Saturday September 27th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz