THE GOOD GUYS NEED A WIN

Success is Resistance, Resistance is Success

Sorry that I’ve been a little lax on updating this Substack, but I’ve been churning out content at Political Voices Network five days a week, and by the time I’m done doing my job, I’m burnt out on talking about politics or looking at anything that makes me mad.

And hoo boy, a lot of things made me mad this week. Please don’t make me repeat them, you can see it all over at PVN and on my now-twice-weekly podcast, THE TARA SHOW.

But my main default setting this week was STOP THE STUPID. I’m on a mission to Make America Smart Again before we’re stuck living in a hybrid of Idiocracy and Black Mirror forever.

We’re now living through a time when the most miserable person ever wants the rest of us to feel as miserable as he does, and we can’t let him do that to us. It’s not our fault his parents never loved him and we shouldn’t have to pay for his lifelong hatefuck against the world. He doesn’t get to steal our souls along with the 2024 election.

My brain is aching for elevated content. I need to have conversations with smart people about anything but politics as part of my self-care routine, but I’m finding it difficult because so many people are in fight-or-flight mode and living at Threat Level Midnight 24/7.

I want to have long chats about music with other music nerds. I want to talk about movies that don’t have any superheroes in them. I want to talk about books, especially my book, my beloved rock and roll love story, The Sound of Settling.

Getting lost in a book was my eternal favorite escape until the monster that is social media ate away at my attention span. I still read books, but not nearly as many as I used to. And when you’re promoting your own book, even during a normal presidential administration, it’s hard to focus on someone else’s writing, although I’m always going to boost other women writers when they succeed.

That’s what we do. We show up and support each other. We know a win for any one of us is a win for all of us. We need the energy of an 80s teen movie montage where we fix up an old barn (one of us is wearing neon-paint-splattered white overalls with one strap unbuckled) and turn it into a cool clubhouse where we whip ourselves into shape to fight our bullies and it’s set to “New Song” by Howard Jones.

We need to embrace all the goodness we can and celebrate each other. According to my Substack stats, there are just over 5900 subscribers (YAY THANK YOU!), so if all of you bought a copy of The Sound of Settling, either for yourselves or for a reader/music fan, or just because your friend Tara needs some help getting the word out about her book, that would be amazing. It’s a quick, easy, and small act of Resistance as Dumb Donald is trying to dismantle the Education Department (which he can’t do without an Act of Congress).

We’re going to wring every drop of joy we can out of this time, no matter how tiny, because what happens when there are millions of drops of joy dropping? And yes, that’s sort of a Cocteau Twins reference for all the GenX Goths out there.

The smart kids always stick together and help each other out. Eventually, the bullies will fail and we’ll have our victory party back at our clubhouse and we’ll do a choreographed group dance to an 80s one-hit wonder like “Just Got Lucky” by Jo Boxers as we fade to the closing credits.

Yes, I know you forgot about this song. Anyway, the sequel will be even cooler, with celebrity cameos and a love story the audience roots for. Hey, just like my book!

I’m smart and clever like that. Now go have a proper weekend, my friends!