(Author’s note: So it seems I won third prize in the 2024 Bethesda Magazine Essay Contest, and will be reading the bronze medalist at their Local Writer’s Showcase this Friday night at 7 at the Hyatt Regency in, you guessed it, Bethesda. It’s a shortened, 500-word version of an essay posted here a while back about how much I hate to shave. It’s a free event and all are welcome, but no heckling the first- and second-place finishers, no matter how much better my essay is than theirs. The flyer for the event appears at the end of today’s post.)
Two of America’s sturdiest growth industries of late seem to be banning and canceling nouns: people, places, and things prosecuted primarily for saying, writing, supporting or doing something unacceptable in the eyes of the professionally dissatisfied. Dozens of apparently offensive and/or supposedly sexually explicit books, drag shows, and classroom conversation topics have come under attack from the most easily offended among us. (Tip to Boy George: A stunning comeback awaits you with a new band—Cancel Culture Club.) What’s astonishing to me is how many mainstream, white bread companies, products, performers, and other cultural touchstones have been banned or boycotted by the misguided masses. The list includes such subversives as: Amy Grant, Barney, Bud Light, Chick-fil-A, Disney, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Ford, Ghostbusters (the female-casted reboot), Goodyear, Hallmark Channel, Harley Davidson, Hershey, Kellogg’s, Lego, Major League Baseball, NASCAR, the NFL, Oreos, (the former Mr.) Potato Head, Scooby Doo, Teletubbies, UPS, Wrangler, and Yoga.
Because I am politically progressive, it seems to me that cancellation from the left most often results from socially and/or morally unacceptable or criminal behavior, while those on the right seem endlessly interested in policing speech, writing, thought, and political action. As a card-carrying member of the Marketplace of Ideas Club, I’m pretty much opposed to censorship of any kind, though I have on occasion been convinced to squidgle (not a typo) on this a bit by the more progressive members of my nuclear family, which includes all of them. But I also hate to be left out, and if banning things is going to stay cool I figure why not jump into the moshpit before everybody clears out. I have, therefore, fashioned my own list of items I’d like to see piled onto history’s trash heap. It includes, but is most certainly not limited to, the following:
Parental rights movements. Among the most belligerent book banners and aggressive cancelers around, these monumentally misguided efforts at self-aggrandizement are only slightly less stupid than their all-testicular counterparts, men’s rights movements. Parents, while often well-intentioned, are pretty much the last people who should be in charge of things having to do with their children, at least when the kids aren’t home. Allowing parents in the same area code as school curricula and policies is every bit as good an idea as drive-thru colorectal surgery. In fact, every sentence ever uttered by a parent to a teacher should begin with the words “Thank you.” And at their children’s competitive events, most parents—me included—should be bound and gagged. My son had a hockey teammate who, whenever he got the puck, his dad would yell “Skate” in a manner that elongated this one-syllable, painfully obvious command to 10 and sometimes 15 seconds. And really, given that he was on a sheet of ice, the poor child’s only options were to obey his dad or fall down. On the other hand, given that he wasn’t a bad hockey player, it was likely the easiest time he ever had pleasing a parent.
Gnocchi. Recently, a friend with serious culinary chops made what were likely the best gnocchi I’ve ever had, which only reinforced for me the many reasons that, whether made by hand, machine, or AI, gnocchi should be retired from the list of desirable human foodstuffs. I don’t get who decided that taking mashed potatoes, cutting them into little turd shapes and boiling them was a good idea, but it so isn’t.
False/moronic advertising. Friends invited us over for takeout a while back from the Moby Dick House of Kabob, and imagine my disappointment when a close look at its menu yielded not a single whale-based dish. Then there’s virtually every ad for every pharmaceutical ever devised. I won’t bother with the peculiar necessity of advising people not to take a drug if they’re allergic to it, or the unnerving omnipresence of death as a potential side effect. Instead I take issue with the lyrics to their jaunty jingles, songs clearly designed to make everything from diabetes to eczema seem cause for a flash mob dance party. There’s “Jardiance is really swell, the little pill with the big story to tell.” When, since the days of Andy of Mayberry, has anyone tabbed anything “really swell”? Worse, and almost poetic, as it comes in a commercial for Cologuard—a poop-on-paper cancer screening method—some copywriting wizard decided a good rhyme for “make me queasy” was “be more easy.” Even in a society far less litigious than ours, that should be actionable.
Named generations. This simply should not be a thing, as all it really does is offer the intellectually lazy yet another categorical stereotype to bitch about, and yes, I get the irony of complaining about someone else’s opportunity to complain. As one, I found “Okay, boomer” pithy but unimaginative, but I’ve also tired of listening to my fellow boomers bitch about millennials and Gen Z-ers wanting to be in on every workplace decision despite their low-rung ladder status. How dare they express their opinions and feelings after we raised them to believe that all of their opinions and feelings were worthy of expression? Seems to me we’re already full up on walls that divide large groups of humans, so I move we shitcan these.
Pinatas. With all due respect to the artistic, cultural, religious, and historical splendor of these traditional Spanish and Mexican creations, they’re a children’s birthday party menace. Parents who won’t let their kids take a bath without a life jacket will let them lean their heads into areas where hyperactive, blindfolded five-year-olds with Barry Bonds fantasies swing bats of various densities at these garish, overhead tire swings. Our daughter once tried to soothe a birthday girlfriend’s sorrow—understandably occasioned when she realized not all the candy was for her—by offering some of her booty, only to get a sugar-and-sadness-fueled boot to the chest for her generosity.
Overly long shorts. I’m hardly a proponent of greater exposure of the male knee, but the seemingly endless trend of capri pants masquerading as shorts seems a cure far worse than the disease. Admittedly, every time I see film of a 1980s NBA game or run across some of my tennis shorts from that era I understand why the pendulum swung the other way, but there’s a happy medium to be found a couple of inches above the northern terminus of the patella; there just aren’t many pairs of men’s shorts to be found in that sweet spot. And I’m pretty sure it doesn’t say wondrous things about our society that while most men’s shorts are shin-length, many women’s shorts barely make it past the south end of butt curvature.
Neckties and high heels. The late, great comedian Mitch Hedberg said he didn’t like turtlenecks because they made him feel like he was being strangled all day by a really weak guy. To me, wearing a necktie is like being strangled by a guy who’s been working out but is relatively disinterested. And yet I’m guessing most men who wear ties every day because the gods of the workplace, who don’t exist, say they have to, wouldn’t wear a turtleneck for a host of reasons every bit as stupid as the ones they wear ties for. And here’s a tip: nobody needs a directional arrow to find your penis. I want there to be a woman president if only so there’ll be one fewer diagonal-striped monstrosity at the State of the Union. Speaking of women, high heels were worn exclusively by men as height amplifiers from the time they were invented in 10th-century Persia until 17th-century Europe, and I think by now we should all agree that it’s long past time they went the way of the corset and leisure suit.
Airplane seats that recline. These airborne blights should have been banned along with smoking 30 years ago. Given the tiny space allotted passengers these days, basic human decency dictates not expanding your empire—most often without warning or consultation—at the expense of the unseen and apparently unworthy of consideration carbon-based life form behind you. Even me and my 29-inch inseam feel sardine-slammed these days everywhere but the emergency exit row, but I’d estimate that half the time I fly I sit behind one of these reclining reprobates. I’d be lying if I said I’d never responded by taking my frustrations out on the back of the miscreant’s seat; it’s what parenting books call a “natural consequence”, and doing so enables me to restore balance to the in-flight ecosystem.
Large (or even small) things hung from rear-view mirrors. This one makes me feel an angstrom or two nanny state-ish, but justifiably so. Driving is the most dangerous thing most of us do, and that we do it so often and for so long makes it even more dangerous, for who can be alert that often? Cell phone use in any other than hands-free, eyes-on-the-road fashion is as ubiquitous as it is illegal, and that toothpaste is not re-entering the tube. But allowing drivers to dangle swinging obstacles in their field of vision is a sub-prime-mortgage-level bad idea. I don’t wish in any way to impinge on an individual’s freedom to express their love for Jesus, fuzzy dice, national flags or anything else, but isn’t that what bumper stickers and back seats are for? My admittedly anecdotal experience leads me to think most drivers aren’t so excellently aware of their surroundings that non-essential visual challenges are necessary.
The ever-irritating need to devise clever, life-affirming endings for essays.
And congrats on placing in the Local Writers Showcase!!
I’m 100% with you on the gnocchi, Jonathan!