Writing: Rites To Right Wrongs

I don't really know what that means--or at least don't feel like expounding on it at great length just now--but given my punchant for wordplay, it sounds good to me.  I had a piece (and show) all planned for this week, but the Tea Party wrecked it when they shut down the Federal Government.  In a rare instance of trickle-down theory "working,"  that shutdown has led to, effectively, a gag order on the piece and show I had planned.  I hope that in the next couple of weeks I'll be able to get back to it; in the meantime, then, this.

I could write more about that, the shutdown and the jerks who perpetrated it, but I think I'm sick of that, for now.  I seem to have developed a reputation as a "ranter;" people send me suggestions for post material.  I guess that reputation may be deserved, but it surely wasn't what I intended, if I intended anything, when I started writing this foolishness.

I heard David Sedaris, who (O, blasphemer!) I don't love, and don't get other people's love for, interviewed (again) by Terry Gross on Fresh Air recently.  He talked about how he spends his time now that he doesn't need a day job.  He lives in England with his "boyfriend," Hugh (Really?  "Boyfriend?"  That's the way he chooses to characterize his relationship, at the age of 57?  I really hate the term "lover,"  but how about "partner"?  That seems leagues preferable to "boyfriend.");  anyway, he said that he spends lots of his time picking up trash along roadsides.  Apparently, in Great Britain, or at least England, they are still prone to throwing trash out of their car windows as they motor about the countryside.  Not that we don't do that, too, here in the colonies, but I thought that maybe the Brits would be different.  So Mr. Sedaris spends his days walking or riding his bicycle around his self-designated neighborhood and picking up trash.

That's wicked admirable, but it has had its ironically amusing consequences.  He wrote a piece for one of the London newspapers about this habit; Hugh was in a shop after it came out, and was asked if he were the one who'd written the piece.  He replied that, no, it was his boyfriend (ugh, again) who had done it.  The questioner then said "Well, tell him that there's a road near my house that's filthy, and needs to be cleaned up."

So I write, although I am not a writer, and sometimes try at least to point out the trash in my neighborhood.  Perhaps I am a ranter, though I am not thrilled by what that connotes, perhaps a polemicist, although I think that's just a ranter who's taken a shower, which I do do, occasionally.  At any rate, here are some self-referential-ish songs I'll play this week:

Writer In The Sun                                                                           Donovan
Songwriter                                                                                       Van
Paperback Writer                                                                             Fabs
Lady Writer                                                                                      Dire Straits
Ghost Writer                                                                                     Garland Jeffreys
Denouncing November Blue (Uneasy Writer)                                 Avett Bros.
It's All In The Game/You Know What They're Writing About        Van
Writing In The Margins                                                                    John Gorka
Writing's On The Wall                                                                      George Harrison
Wide World Of Novel Writing                                                          Monty Python
Skywriting                                                                                         Montreaux
Ghost Writing                                                                                    Neko Case
Write You A Letter                                                                            Bobby Whitlock
Write Me A Letter                                                                             Aerosmith

Write Me A Few Of Your Lines                                                         Bonnie Raitt
Write Me A Few Of Your Lines                                                        John Sebastian/J-Band
Why Don't You Write Me                                                                 Simon & Garfunkel
When I Write The Book                                                                    Nick Lowe
To The Ghosts Who Write History Books                                        Low Anthem
Songwriter                                                                                         Van
Rewrite                                                                                              Paul Simon
I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter                   Madeleine Peyroux
I'll Write A Song For You                                                                 Earth, Wind & Fire
I'd Love To Write Another Song                                                       Van
Every Day I Write The Book                                                            Elvis Costello
All I Can Do Is Write About It                                                          Lynyrd Skynyrd
Wrote It Down And Burned It                                                           John Hiatt
Wrote A Song For Everyone                                                             Mavis Staples
Pied Piper                                                                                          Crispian St. Peters

And remember, only 88 more shopping days until we catch up to the government-funding can that those incompetent fools in Washington kicked down the road, and 111 days until the next Tea Party debt-ceiling tantrum that threatens to throw world economies into a tailspin, at best.  "O frabjous day...."