Eradicate Ageism Now Before YOU Too Start to Sag and Wheeze!

Among many others, God (or at least the very popular Substack writer who bills himself thus) thinks it wry to spell our utterly contemptible president’s first name Donold.

As King Charles might say, one — specifically, this one who, through no fault of his own, achieved the above-identified soulless fascist’s age this past week — is not amused.

Racism is contempt for one whose parents were of minority ethnicities. Not a single one of us on the planet was consulted as to whom he or she wanted as parents. Misogyny is contempt for those born with two X chromosomes. Have you ever met anyone a person of either sex who was consulted at conception regarding which chromosomal configuration she or he most liked the look of? Similarly, homophobia is contempt for those who, hoping in vain to try to get the attention that is oxygen for them, have chosen to embrace their disgusting, perverted lifestyle that no decent person can abide.

Just kidding. Some people naturally prefer to interact erotically with others of their own chromosomal configuration. My guess is that approximately zero percent of us was asked, pre-natally, to choose an erotic inclination.

This just in. The same percentage of humanity was asked to choose a time and place of birth.

If you wouldn’t be able to admire yourself in the mirror if you were racist, misogynistic, or homophobic, how is that you’re just fine with ridiculing someone for having been born well before you were?

©2024 John Mendelsohn. All rights reserved. (You know what’s terrifying about this song? It feeels as though I composed and recorded it around a fortnight ago, when in fact it was 11 months!)

I appreciate that in many cases advanced age robs one of multiple abilities, in a way that being gay or lesbian, darker-pigmented (or otherwise physically distinct from the dominant culture), or a woman does not. I’m not nearly as sexually irresistible as in my 20s, 30s, and even a few weeks of my 40s. I am not very supple, and my still-numb-from-the-surgery left knee precludes my running very fast. As I am reminded every time I got anywhere near an airport, I am now one to whose aid the young and abler-bodied now hasten, as I am one to whom beautiful young women offer their seats on public conveyances. But there are moments, as in the previous sentence, when I think I’ve never written as wonderfully as now. Sometimes names, dates, and other pertinent data loiter on the tip of my tongue at great length, but I honestly don’t think I’ve lost more than a mile or two per hour off my intellectual fastball. And I’m demonstrably kinder and gentler than in my days of irrepressible priapism and gorgeousness. (Low bar, you scoff, not entirely unreasonably.)

In my youth, I couldn’t imagine ever coming to resemble Grandpa Simpson, and not only because The Simpsons weren’t yet on TV. But now, at 78, I realize that the degradations of age happen to all lacking the sense to die young. As I churlishly assured that extremely nice Dr. King a couple of months ago when I trudged in with a list of new complaints the length of my forearm, “Don’t you worry, doc. It’s coming for you too.”

As it’s coming for God (the Substack writer) and all others who seem to think we haven’t enough to ridicule Donald G. Trump for without throwing in his knock-knock-knocking on 80’s door.