I've been thinking about Mr. Haynes this week.

Mr. Haynes was a history teacher I had in high school. He cared about history and was good at tying things to our lives so we'd understand better, and he talked to us like we were adults. He was funny and he was young enough to remember what it was like to be a kid.

I don't remember this but he and I must have had some conversations about the Beatles. I liked them, especially John Lennon, whose political radicalism appealed to me. I was in the middle of what I considered a three-year sentence living in a conservative suburb we'd moved to when I was 15. Mr. Haynes was the right age to have been a Beatles fan in real time as a teenager, and I got the sense his politics roughly aligned with 17-year-old mine.

Here's why I've been thinking about him. The day after John Lennon was shot and killed, I walked into his class. He was standing at the front as we all settled into our desks. When our eyes met he shrugged, with his hands out to his sides, palms up, and his head cocked to one side. He looked pretty much like this, only in jeans and a plaid shirt rather than like a guy in a stock photo I totally stole.

The international symbol for I dunno man, what the hell can you do amiright?

That's how I've been feeling for the last two days. Like oh yeah right. This is the world we live in. I'd almost kind of let myself forget that but yeah. There will be lots of analysis-ing about why the election went the way it did, and some of it will be right, but the root of what happened is that hate — racism, misogyny, homophobia and various related phobia, especially trans — won.

You don't need me to tell you this. You don't need anyone to tell it to you I'm sure but you certainly don't need to hear it from a guy who makes up dumb funny songs. Talking only about those dumb songs doesn't feel right just yet. But there's one tiny little silver lining: Over the next few years, this joke is likely to get more and more pertinent.

Click video to play. You knew that.

I thought Rachel Maddow had some good advice Wednesday night. I'm going to follow it. Join something. She said it's important to take part in civil society — which she acknowledged is a really boring-sounding phrase. She said authoritarians hate civil society because it isn't about them:

All the organizations, membership groups, advocacy groups, professional associations, every voluntary group of every kind in the country, everything in organized American life and culture that is not business and not the government either: That is civil society.

 

If you have a strong civil society, that gives people breathing room to think for themselves, to organize in their own interest, to speak with the power of more than just one person. We need ... to participate in more civil society things than we have before to make sure that we are taking up space that otherwise they’re going to try to take for the government and the Dear Leader. And what I mean by this, in short, is join something. Doesn’t really matter what it is, but you want, right now, to be connected to other Americans and not isolated on your own. ...

 

Do you have any burned bridges in your past? Unburn them. Reconnect with people. Whether it’s your family or the people on your block or in your town, your old friends from school, that book club, that Indivisible group. Maybe reconnect or connect for the first time. Join something. Join something.

It would be cynical of me to say that coming to Saturday's fundraiser for Durham Central Park where I'm going to play two sets would count as joining something. But I'm pretty cynical, so come on out!

Durham Central Park, as you may know, is not a regular city park. It's a nonprofit community project and has to be self-sustaining. The annual Brunswick Stew and Soulful Tunes show is one of many fundraisers every year, but it's the one that's not about rich people and fancy dinners.

This is the second year I'll be playing it, and it's a lot of fun. A $20 ticket gets you Brunswick stew, cornbread, a Glass Jug Brewery beer or age-appropriate substitute, and four bands starting at 4 pm, including me at 5 and again with a short set at 7:15. The other bands are Midnight Gladness, The Simple Joy and Danlee Gildersleeve. I've seen them all and they're all as good as cornbread, which is saying something for me.

You don't have to pay. You can come without a ticket and just listen to the music and enjoy the community. You'll be able to buy beer from Glass Jug and it'd be nice if you dropped a little sumpm in the park donation bucket or QR code, but you won't have to. 

Tickets usually sell out and they may have by the time you read this, but if not, you can buy them here. (Note: This link isn't working for me on the Eventbrite mobile app. If that happens open it in a web browser or search "7th annual brunswick" on Eventbrite.com.)

There's work to do, somethings to join. Why not start down that road by feeding your belly and your spirit while helping to sustain a great example of what can happen when people come together.

Come on out coming up

Sunday, Nov. 24

The Cave, Chapel Hill

with Living Earth, The Wigg Report and Anna Weaver.

More on that in future editions of The King Teen Newsletter. Thanks for reading and listening and coming on out.

Your friend,

The King Teen

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