Just when everyone thought that 2020 was easily going to be the Worst Year Ever, January 6th happened.

That was, I believe, the Worst Day in recent American History. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were attacks from outside. What happened on January 6th, we did entirely to ourselves.

(Or maybe the Worst Day was February 13th, the day the Senate acquitted Trump for inciting the insurrection.)

Perhaps I should say: January 6th was the Worst Day in recent American history SO FAR.

January 6th was a Fort Sumpter. There’s more violence to come, guaranteed. How much? That’s still up in the air, but people are buying guns and body armor, and the suffering in the US is increasing. Dangerous nuts are making noise about action on March 4th. Or, on the night of the State of the Union. And they have allies in Congress.

At least the Second Impeachment of Donald J. Trump happened. And even if the Senate Republicans gave him a pass, his name will be forever written in our history books in blood. Watching the events of January 6th unfold on TV (or as much as I could stand) and watching the impeachment trial and those videos (or as much as I could stand) was a deeply depressing experience. I’d flip from MSNBC to CNN to Fox and back again until the TG told me to turn it off. And she was right; I could only take so much.

Fortunately, Trump is, at the root, a fuck-up, or his coup might have been successful. “Fortunately,” he never effectively organized the chaos he created to actually hold the presidency. Maybe someday we’ll find out about that meeting at Trump’s hotel on the night o January 5th. “Malevolence tempered by incompetence” (the forever-apt tag created by Benjamin Wittes of “Lawfare”) actually saved us. And our democracy. And who knows how many lives if not for the bravery and courage of Capitol police officers.

The rioters desecrated the Capitol, and the Senate – specifically, seventeen Republican senators (of the “law and order” party, with the ever-present American flag pins in their lapels) – had an opportunity to re-consecrate the Capitol by convicting Donald J. Trump for inciting the riot that killed people, trying to steal an election that he lost. But that didn’t happen.

Remember the First Impeachment, when Trump was caught trying to strong-arm the leader of the Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, or else they wouldn’t get their foreign aid?

That seems like so many Trump scandals ago. Trump could have been impeached for so many things: soliciting foreign influence in the 2016 election … obstructing justice (when he fired James Comey) … profiteering from his office … violating campaign finance laws (remember Michael Cohen went to jail) … violating due process and failing to execute the law faithfully … abuse of power … not to mention that call to the officials in Georgia, leaning on them to “manufacture” votes to win him the state. It was impossible to keep track of all the scandals and misdeeds, like trying to catch confetti.

But they nailed Trump on the Ukraine call because there were so many witnesses who heard him commit a “high crime” (using his office corruptly by withholding military aid from an ally in order to personally improve his political fortunes) that they couldn’t stay silent. This crime was just too public, too obvious, and was committed in front of government officials who took their jobs and oaths of office seriously.

I was proud of my representative ADAM SCHIFF. He performed admirably and honorably as one of the House Impeachment managers. His name will be praised in history books. Even if the Mueller probe failed to get Trump removed from office (and failed to get to the real bottom of Trump’s involvement with the Russians: no testimony from Don Jr., for instance; no examination of any of the emails of any of the principals involved), it showed who he was … a two-bit hood from Queens.

Let’s heal, they say. I say you can’t heal until the Infection is removed. The problem is that the infection within the GOP runs deep. It started with the dumbing down of the party in the Reagan years. The sad, corrupting course followed, led by Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. And it ends with a GOP that disciplines Liz Cheney, not Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The Right bemoans the “cancel culture.” I say what’s wrong with cancelling racism? Cancelling Nazism? Cancelling hate? Or, at least, why not try?Why not try to right wrongs and correct past injustices? We can’t pretend anymore that we don’t know what we know about white supremacy and oppression in this country.

I don’t want “unity” with people whose ideas are wrong. These days in the GOP, you can believe, repeat, and retweet any stupid thing you can imagine: a ring of Democrat/Hollywood, flesh-eating, child-molesters? that the Mueller investigation was a “hoax”? and the Big Lie -- that Trump won the election? Not to mention No Climate Change, No Systemic Racism, and Covid-19 was no worse than the common cold.

The Democrats need to fight these people, not bend to them. Most GOP representatives and senators are now complicit in the January 6th coup attempt. If they didn’t invite or incite it, they now want to excuse it, cover it up, or just plain lie about it.

But the Democrats don’t just bring a knife to a gunfight: they bring a BUTTER knife. Let’s see if Biden, the House, and a 50-50 Senate can change things. But, as of now, Trump still owns the GOP. We are not dealing with rational people.

I was talking to a financial professional the other day who told me that “the market” had factored in the pandemic and resulting depression into its transactions and found a way to make money during a time of mass death, poverty, and despair.

I admit: all this chaos is paralyzing. I can’t keep up. Every day I could write a furious blog about some injustice or outrage (usually by someone in the GOP or right-wing media), but then I let the feeling pass. That’s why I’ve taken such a long pause in blogging.

Is it better to keep one’s rage in, or let it out? Maybe if I let it out more productively….

But life goes on, and we have to make the best of it.

To finish off My Top Ten Gumbo of 2020 seems almost meaningless beside the death, destruction, and calamity of 2020 … and 2021. But on the other hand, we have to keep our private lives – as insignificant as they are – alive. I don’t know why, but we do. As Rick Blaine says in CASABLANCA, “It doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”

Isn’t that the truth?

But, on the other hand, as Frank Drebbin said in THE NAKED GUN, “This is OUR hill, and these are OUR beans.”

So, since I’ve been doing this for a few years and don’t want to break “tradition,” here are the rest of my beans for 2020:

BEST TELEVISION: THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT and THE CROWN (Tied)

No surprises here. I wish I could come up with some obscure treasures to recommend but I can’t. These were two of the most acclaimed shows this year, and for good reason. Excellent writing, acting, direction, and production values made them easy to watch. And the right length, too.

As far as THE CROWN, I don’t particularly care about royalty. I’m reflexively, almost viscerally against the concept of an aristocracy or anyone thinking they’re better than anyone else by accident of birth. Why should anyone bow down to anyone? The whole royal thing is a relic of our primitive, tribal past, and is now really the province of history, legend, literature, culture, and the travel industry.

I’ll admit it: the TG and I went to Buckingham Palace the last time we were in London. (Our travel agent booked it for us.) And it was interesting to see, as much for what we were allowed to see, especially the 42 acres behind the palace – the largest private garden in London.

And I can testify: THE CROWN looks like it was shot on location. The Palace in real life looks exactly as it does in the series, or vice versa. It’s a miracle of CGI and post-production magic because I kept saying to the TG, “Are you sure they didn’t shoot some of it at Buckingham Palace?” It’s that true-to-life.

The first seasons of THE CROWN – the Claire Foy seasons – got me hooked. And the Olivia Colman seasons have been just as good, even as Elizabeth has become a better monarch and worse mother and mother-in-law.

I didn’t follow the whole Princess Diana phenomenon closely when it was happening (though I distinctly remember feeling horrified, waking to the news that she had died in that car accident that day in August. An accident, yes, but dying? And someone so young and vital!) In the years afterward, I became aware of her problems and how horrible the royal family was to her. But this season of THE CROWN really opened my eyes to Diana’s tragic story. She was a child (19!) when she was “thrown into the deep end” of worldwide scrutiny, extraordinary demands, general lack of support, and a fiancée who loved someone else. Poor girl: no wonder she cracked.

Season after season, THE CROWN shows the Windsors, privileged people who should know better except they were raised in a completely abnormal, emotionally deprived environment, doing thoughtless, hurtful things to each other. I can’t wait for next season. And the seasons in the future when the great Imelda Staunton takes over the role of Elizabeth.

-- and --

The advance word on THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT was that it was sensationally good, and the advance word was correct. It had everything I like in a series: good acting, good writing, an interesting story, and the sense of something different.

Mixing a classic dramatic trope – rooting for an orphan to succeed – with a left-field subject: chess, the creators fashioned a series that kept me involved. I loved the heroine Beth (played by the unusual Anya Taylor-Joy) who was never entirely likeable: a brave choice. Special kudos to Scott Frank for writing and directing every single episode. He wrote one of those movies that I can never turn off when I come across it – “GET SHORTY” –and I’m happy to see him triumph with this “limited series.”

There’s so much good television out there. I’m sure that I missed many excellent shows, but these were my two favorites.

BEST MOVIE: NOMADLAND

Honestly, I haven’t seen many movies this year, but I have seen Chloe Zhao’s NOMADLAND -- and it is a knockout. It’s the story of a woman who takes to the road after becoming homeless (or “houseless” as she calls it) in the Great Recession and lives in her camper as a nomad, as do many other poor Americans these days. Based on the journalism of Jessica Bruder, the film uses real nomads in some key roles, giving it an unusual and at times unnerving sense of authenticity. Fascinating and frightening, NOMADLAND is a look at the ugly underside of what capitalism has become in the USA. Frances McDormand is at her most intense, and that’s saying a whole lot.

The trailer for NOMADLAND

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sxCFZ8_d84

BEST STREAM: THE METROPOLITAN OPERA ON-DEMAND

Every day I log onto my Metropolitan Opera On-Demand account and check out the free Opera of the Day from the Met archives. With my membership I could watch almost anything I wanted from their considerable library, but I like to see the Freebie of the Day – in case I want to recommend it to a friend.

Opera has been my steady listening – and viewing – during the Virus. And before that, too. But now that I’ve subscribed to the Met’s On-Demand service ($13.99 a month), I have access to more than 700 operas performed by most of the great singers of the last forty years. I see old favorites and new stars, operas I know by heart and some I don’t know at all. (I admit that I lean heavily on the familiar Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, and Donizetti operas I’ve loved forever, but this year I’ve listened to and learned more about Wagner’s Ring cycle than I ever knew before.)

Anytime I want, I can click my way to the relief/release/distraction/ fulfillment of Great Art: Leontyne Price singing Verdi … Renee Fleming singing Mozart and Strauss and “Eugene Onegin” … Natalie Dessay singing anything … Jon Vickers’ Peter Grimes … Teresa Stratas’s Mimi … Pavarotti … Netrebko … Florez … Di Donato … Radvanofsky … and new singers, too.

In 2020, the Met has made my quarantine a little easier. Opera was and is my anti-virus, anti-quarantine, anti-Trump medicine. I take it everyday, and quite often it work

Every day, a free opera. Right here.

https://www.metopera.org

BEST THEATRE: “WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME” by Heidi Schreck

One of the things I missed most in 2020 was live theatre. I’m used to a regular diet of good theatre, and I miss it when I don’t get a frequent refill. (YouTube and TV can only do so much.)

Fortunately we saw one wonderful play in January before the Virus hit: WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME by Heidi Schreck at the Mark Taper Forum. Written and performed by Ms. Schreck, it was a surprise hit in New York, a Pulitzer-Prize finalist, and was later made into an HBO special. By the time it reached LA, the part was being played by an actress Maria Dizzia. (Apparently Schreck tweaked the text, to reflect that the part was being played by an “actress” and not the woman who lived it.)

Mostly a monodrama recalling the playwright’s real-life teenage years competing in public speaking contests at American Legions halls across the Midwest for scholarship money, the play had an easy way, moving between the past and the present. The subject of the play – and her competitions – was the Constitution and her personal connection to it, just as the play’s title plainly says. The play artfully weaves the story of Schreck’s teenage travails, the history of her family (especially the lack of legal protection and reproductive freedom her abused female ancestors received and), our current constitutional issues, and the adult-Heidi’s view of the whole experience in a flowing, emotional, intelligent whole.

It’s also a canny piece of crowd pleasing entertainment, ending with a debate-and-colloquy with a bright, adorable teenage girl who takes a role, somewhat like the one taken by the young Heidi, this time arguing for or against abolishing and replacing the Constitution.

I especially enjoyed the play because I spent lots of time in my teenage years on my high school debating team, in a vaguely similar kind of public speaking setting as the teenage Heidi. The play brought back some good, strong memories: preparing one’s knowledge of a topic, teenage nerves, etc.

I was on the debate team from seventh to eleventh grade, and had a great time, winning some trophies and getting all the way to the New York State championships in Albany. I made some strong friendships on the debate team, and some of those guys – they were all guys in those days – remain friends. Or, at the very least, Facebook friends. They were extremely smart and funny; some became big-time academics, some I lost track of, some died young, one wound up as a famous “disgraced media mogul.”

BEST NATURE: A RAINBOW CLOUD

In the year of Mostly Inside, I was lucky enough to have regular contact with Nature. I have a nice backyard and a pleasant, uncrowded neighborhood to talk around. I’ve made visits to our nearby Descanso Gardens (during early Members Only hours) and one stolen trip to the beach for a picnic at Playa del Rey with my daughter and the Pacific Ocean.

And in my life I’ve seen some beautiful Nature on this miraculous planet of ours: Big Sur … the Yosemite Valley … the west coast of Ireland … New Mexico at sunset … the Berkshires in the fall … the Cotswolds … Plitvice Lakes in Croatia … Dartmoor National Park in Devonshire …

But I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite as spectacular from Nature as an ultra-rare “rainbow cloud” that the Tiny Goddess and I saw a few months ago on one of our regular walks.

It was a bright, sunny, ordinary/beautiful late morning in southern California, with blue sky and lots of fluffy clouds, when suddenly a small cloud, hanging in mid-sky, came alive with bright, almost electric colors. The colors ricocheted inside the cloud, changing kaleidoscopically, over and over. The TG and I were astonished. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as beautiful – and surprising -- in the natural world. The effect lasted a few minutes, the colors changing slower and slower, until the cloud dissipated into the blue.

When I got home, I researched a little into “clouds” and found out that what we saw was called a “rainbow cloud.” They occur very rarely – only when the sun strikes the drops of moisture or ice crystals in a cloud at just the right angle.

I wish I had brought my phone to take a picture, but I didn’t. Instead, I’ll have the picture of that amazing cloud in my memory for the rest of my life.

It’s intoxicating to see something absolutely new and absolutely beautiful after all this time on Earth.

Sometimes I have to remind myself: life offers infinite surprises. Around any corner, there could be something wonderful.

AND THE LAST BIT OF “THE WORST” ….

While there were so many bad things about 2020 that they are impossible to list, one especially disheartening, totally unnecessary, relatively insignificant but nonetheless depressing development was the emergence of my favorite popular musician VAN MORRISON as a completely irresponsible, very public jerk about the lockdown and the virus.

Van released a few mediocre, silly songs attacking the lockdown in the name of artistic freedom, free commerce, and liberty while thousands and thousands of people were dying. Van has always been known as a bit of crank, grump, sourpuss – whatever. But he was never known as an asshole with ideas that would endanger the health of his audience.

There was a lot of blowback against him (and Eric Clapton, another of my favorite musicians, who was his ally in ignorance), and the songs were an embarrassment.

One particularly painful counter-attack came from Jason Isbell, my favorite current musician. He called out Van directly, even ridiculing his “That’s enough!” in CARAVAN as coming from the same cranky, contrary, nasty space in Van’s small mind. So that was another rotten thing about 2020: my favorite song got “ruined.” Thanks, Jason.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – covering Van Morrison’s INTO THE MYSTIC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1rDKgAxISM

We’ll get past this, but the damage will be huge.

I apologize to the future.

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