Hearing about these things initially gave me what I’ll call a “Generation X Superiority Complex”. Mind you, from everything I can gather about my fellow Gen X-ers we’ve been feeling at least somewhere superior for a while now. I give myself and others a lot of grace on this front. We’re entitled to our own moments of “We’ve been right all along.” Heaven knows we’ve endured those moments from Baby Boomers all our lives. We’re still enduring it on multiple fronts — culturally and politically — because there has never been a generation so unwilling to let go of high seats of power and influence, all while distrusting the next generation to take the reins. But that is for a whole different rant… er… column… or whatever.

Younger people embracing things that were ‘new’ when we were that age — VCRs, DVD players, CD players, early cell phone tech — seems very focused on the technology itself and not so much the pop culture we took in with it. Sure, there are some Gen X staples that seem poised to stand the test of time — certain albums, certain movies — but by and large this is not phenomenon where Millennials or Gen Z are loading some admittedly misogynistic albums (re-listen to Guns `n Roses Appetite for Destruction) into that Discman or watching Sixteen Candles on DVD and ignoring the… *checks list*… overt racism, homophobia and, oh right, date rape played for laughs, and then saying to themselves, “Gen X really had it right.” Embracing simpler technology doesn’t mean they’re forgiving content that hasn’t aged particularly well.

Apparently part of the motivation for 2026 teens and twentysomethings leaning into something analog or an earlier, simpler form of digital is to calm the noise that comes from constant access to information for as long as they can remember or quite possibly for their entire lives. That reality truly struck a chord with me and I hope it might with you. One of the better things I believe Gen X-ers can offer in any ‘now vs. then’ conversation is perspective derived from our own unique circumstances. Among all adults on the planet, we are the only ones where our adolescent and early adult years have feet planted firmly in both the analog and digital era. We can remember when a computer was nowhere to be found in our classrooms. But we can also remember when the first one or two appeared or when we got to use one for the first time. We were the guinea pigs or the OG’s or whatever you want to call it. The Commodore 64 pups. We had floppy disks and tape drives to boot up The Oregon Trail. Outside the classroom we were the joystick gamers on Ataris, marveling at the evolution of 8 bit cartridges. We were there for the first wave — Atari, Coleco, Intellivision — and we were there when those products sank and dropping quarters into arcade games was all the rage. When Nintendo hit in the late 80’s our version of gaming with friends was radically different from what kids have now. If we wanted to play Mario with a friend we had to be in the same room. The internet? Most of us didn’t have our first regular access to that until late in our primary education years or until we hit college. But if you were born after 1980 you very likely never knew a classroom or school that didn’t have computers as part of it. If you were born after 1990 your education more than likely included internet access. It might sting a bit for us X’ers to admit it but our formative years look more like that of our parents than our kids’ experiences resemble ours.

When I’ve read about this embrace of the analog experience there are inevitably comments from readers that say things like, “We had it so much better!” or, on the more snide side, “Kids today would never survive what we went through”. In response to that all I can say is “No, we didn’t” and “Yes, they would”. If you think your experience was tougher or more challenging because of the accessories and tools we didn’t have, you’re overlooking the new obstacles and drawbacks of what those changes have brought to the table. I understand the motivation to default to, “It was harder and you kids who have no idea”, but then I have to check myself and remember, “It’s still really hard. It’s just different.” For example, think back to some of your ‘firsts’. The first date you ever went on. The first time you wrote a note to someone you liked. The first time you asked someone to a prom. The first time you were the subject of a rumor, be it true or false. The first time you suffered some kind of embarrassment or defeat. Now imagine all of that with today’s accessories that can amplify all of that. Social media posts. Photos or videos shared not just with your classmates and close friends but pretty much anyone in the world. Think about the number of arguments or disagreements you had with someone where a misunderstanding came via a poor choice of words. Words you spoke out loud or put in a note. Now imagine all of that accelerated or blown up, forwarded or re-quoted at rapid speed and, again, open to more eyes and opinions than you could ever have experienced as an 80s or 90s kid. We didn’t have it easier. We had it different. When I think about all the different degrees of difference I completely understand why a CD player, no smart phones, or a board game with a group of people instead of a group chat would hold a lot of appeal.

Nostalgia is always a powerful drug but I don’t think that is what is at play here. You can’t be nostalgic for something you never experienced, right? A kid today can no better explain what it was like when Nirvana swept in a musical revolution than someone like me can talk about The Beatles playing on Ed Sullivan. We look to pop culture’s past for a variety of reasons but usually an older album or movie gets introduced to future generations because something about it still resonates. If the analog experiences of X’ers, Boomers and the Silent Generation hold appeal to a younger set I hope it’s because they find in it what we may have taken for granted: A simpler or more deliberate listening or viewing experience lending itself to a deeper connection to whatever you’re seeing or hearing. The simple action of ejecting a DVD or VHS tape, placing a needle onto the vinyl, or opening the jewel case to get the CD out and slide it into the tray or the car stereo? Prior to hitting ‘play’ you had to go to a store, rent or buy, take it home or at least get as far as the car stereo. There were more steps required. I may very well be falling for the nostalgia dopamine hit myself but those added elements expand the experience of an album or a movie.

As a member of a….gasp…older generation I’d love to see this trend become a norm. To see the revival of physical media or at the very least the idea that when you really come to love an album you want to truly own it. If a movie becomes a favorite for whatever reason it hits you that if you have a physical copy it won’t ‘leave’: You’re your own streaming service. I’d love to see Hollywood recognize that some of their new movies absolutely should be seen in theaters and to promote them not just as big screen events but as something that creates common pools of experience. I’m encouraged that recent hits like The Odyssey and Project Hail Mary got pushed in that way. Heaven knows we have enough niche corners in our lives, not just in entertainment but also our politics, news and media silos, and more. Anything that can give us more common experiences is worth embracing.

One final note, and this is a direct suggestion to my fellow X’ers… let’s not do that thing where after engaging with someone under 20 about the joys of music on CD or movies on DVD we hand them a copy of Nevermind or an 80’s movie. Instead, if you have an old CD boombox around, give it to them. Encourage them to go into a record shop (preferably a local, independent one), and buy the new Phoebe Bridgers (or another modern performer they like) on CD and listen to it that way. None of this should be about their movies or their music versus ours. We all had that experience with a Boomer at some point and if you’re like me you never won the debate. Pearl Jam could never top The Stones. Prince was not their genius, just ours. So, yeah, let’s not be that, okay? Let them love what they love. But champion a different way of experiencing it. In the spirit of what we once told ourselves, let’s do it differently and change things for the better through small, collective actions.

And then, of course, we can go back to pretending we don’t care (or whatever.) Even when we really do.

My social media feeds reminded me that today marks 15 years ago since the music world lost Jani Lane.

There is a very good chance you have no idea who that it is. And that is perfectly fine because as a complete and total music nerd I learned long ago that the things my memory banks store, like what song came out when, who sang it, what album it was on, who wrote it, etc., are not things perfectly sensible people label as important data for the hard drives that are our brains when it comes to pop culture. But if I opened this all by saying, “The guy who sang the song ‘Cherry Pie’ died 15 years ago today’ there is a slightly better chance you’d remember the tune or perhaps the rather of-it’s-time risqué music video that went with it. Or maybe if you are one of the many people that made the recent Amazon Prime series Off Campus a hit you might have been introduced to the song via actress and singer Ella Bright’s character serenading her romantic interest with it in a karaoke bar scene. When I watched the show (total guilty pleasure) I definitely had a Gen X-er moment of, “So this is how Gen Z or millennials are going to be introduced to this song?!”

Jani Lane was the lead singer and main songwriter for the late 80’s, early 90’s hard rock/glam metal band Warrant. (They are still an active band, with most of their original members and a new lead singer). At their peak, Warrant sold a few million records, scored some hits (“Cherry Pie” and the power ballad “Heaven” highest among them) and were part of some massive arena tours. And like a lot of bands in their genre they got wiped out of the mainstream in very quick fashion in the early years of the 90’s. As music fan that witnessed the zenith of that arena rock era and many other trends since, I can honestly say I’ve never seen a tidal sea change in rock on the level of what happened to bands like Warrant, Motley Crue, and Poison when newer names like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and others caught fire. It was more than just changes in what is cool or what catches on. Bands and trends have always shifted but acts like Warrant went from popular to laughing stock within a matter of months. The genre that was hair metal became like the post lip sync scandal of Milli Vanilli; bands who were part of it, especially those who were new or about to drop their debut albums, couldn’t get arrested. It was like the music Gods decided that for a band like Smashing Pumpkins to exist a band like Warrant didn’t just need to be removed from the charts but also become a joke for ever having been on them. The same base of young fans that had sung along to “Cherry Pie” got haircuts and then attempted to grow soul patches and goatees. Warrant definitely caught one of the many waves that gave a lot of bands fame but they were also one of the ones that crashed hard at the shore.

Warrant released a thid album (1992’s Dog Eat Dog) after grunge and alternative broke and it sank like a stone. In the years that followed Jani Lane quit and then rejoined the band. Then quit again. In one of the various “Where are they now?” style documentaries that would later appear on MTV and VH1, Lane told a rather sad story about his biggest hit. It turns out that he and his band handed in their 2nd album — the one that would give them a monster hit — at a time when hair/arena rock still ruled the world. They had scored hits from their 1988 debut (Dirty, Rotten, Filthy, Stinkin’ Rich) and were looking for that ‘next step’; to build their popularity and move from arena show openers to headliners. Their record label executives at Columbia told them the album needed a stronger lead single; something akin to songs like “Love in an Elevator” (Aerosmith) or “Pour Some Sugar On Me” (Def Leppard). So Lane went home and crafted “Cherry Pie”. The label loved it. Suddenly that was the lead single and the name of the new album (the band intended it to be titled something else). A silly ditty he was told to write became their identity for their sophomore album. The sad part of it all, according to Lane, is that he was trying to evolve as a songwriter. He was still part of a fun, hard rock party band but he hoped to be at least a bit more mature or eclectic and maybe build longevity. And as someone who owned the album Cherry Pie when it was released in 1990 and still having a copy today, it is considerably stronger and better than their debut. There were songs that told stories (“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”). There were heartbreaking ballads that expressed relatable themes (“I Saw Red”). And yet it was still a fun album with light, fun party songs. The song “Cherry Pie” was far and away the dumbest thing on it. But also the catchiest. It wasn’t a complete outlier but it definitely had that ‘novelty song’ vibe right out of the gate. And while I can’t prove it, I’d be willing to bet the song that got bumped to make room for “Cherry Pie” is a truly great song called “Thin Disguise”, which captures the bittersweet realization a relationship has reached its end and there is nothing either person in it can do. It was and remains one of the most mature songs Lane ever wrote. It wound up as a B-side and was later included on a “Best Of” set released after the band was dropped from their label. I share all this ‘behind the music’ nerd stuff because what Lane also said at one point, quite sadly, is that he could shoot himself in the head for ever writing “Cherry Pie”. He was ashamed of his biggest hit. If he is remembered at all it is for a song he didn’t really want to create.

Lane died in 2011 from acute alcohol poisoning. He was found in a cheap hotel room. He was only 47. A rock star falling from the charts and from grace is not new or unique. In many ways it’s cliche and predictable. He also had failed marriages and bandmates he had a very love and hate relationship with. And from everything I’ve ever read about him he carried a lot of resentment toward how his career had faded. He wanted to evolve to be a singer-songwriter akin to a John Mellencamp or Tom Petty but was forever the guy who wrote a very silly but wildly successful rock anthem. He did eventually find some peace with that song, walking back the suicide comments and appreciating that fans liked “Cherry Pie”.

As I think about the 15 years since he passed, I am first and foremost sorry for the daughter, family and friends he left behind. Age 47 is very young. I am also disappointed that he didn’t get to be part of what eventually happened for bands like his. He didn’t stay with us long enough for what often happens with any kind of scene or era of music that was successful: Nostalgia. Had he hung in there and if we could have ironed things out with Warrant, he would have seen his fans come back around. Those of us who were teenagers when Warrant and Motley Crue, Poison and Def Leppard, Ratt and Tesla, and many others ruled our car stereos? We grew up. We had kids. We went through years without disposable income for concerts and package tours that many of those genre bands have launched. But eventually we did get older, got some disposable income, and while we may not buy the ‘comeback’ album by Great White or White Lion (a lot of these bands had a ‘Color’ + ‘Animal’ thing going!) we do go see them if they roll through town. There are tribute bands all over the country for bands fro that era! There are so-called ‘Genre Tribute’ bands that play a variety of songs from those wild, pop metal years. If you go see one there is a better than average chance “Cherry Pie” is part of the setlist.

I remember when I got the news he died. I jumped onto Facebook and posted, “I think the best tribute we could give Jani Lane would be for every strip club in America to play ‘Cherry Pie’ at 11pm EST/8pm PST”. I suppose that kind of remembrance could make Lane roll over in his grave, given his documented feelings about the song. Or maybe it would make him laugh? How we’re remembered is can be both a wholly accurate and wholly inaccurate reflection of who we were.

His bandmates in Warrant, still active in 2026, have posted a lot about Off Campus using “Chery Pie” on the show and they seem to have gotten a kick out of it. An actress singing it an episode of a popular series actually made the song climb the i-Tunes charts for a hot minute! It is yet another reminder that the life of a song or what gets remembered as cringe or with a smile can be very unpredictable.

I wish Jani Lane was here to see the small revival of “Cherry Pie” I’d like to think it would be some validation. He didn’t want to write it but the ‘bosses’ told him he needed to. How many of us have been in that situation in our respective careers and lives? Tasked to do something we’d rather not do but knowing for the sake of our livelihood we have to do it anyway? I envy you if that scenario is not familiar to you. And even if the results from the actions we don’t want to take ultimately get us or those we work for a win there is still that lingering feeling that it may not actually have represented your best work. What is required is very often now what is truly excellent. That said, I hope the late Jani Lane knows it worked out. That we’re still singing. That new people are finding the song for the first time. And maybe they’re finding it in what the original audience found so great about it: It’s fun. It’s got a big hook. It’s also pretty stupid. But it’s damn easy to sing along to. It turns out we never stop needing those.

My summer memory flash today was 39 years ago. The summer of 1987 was a nervous one. But a pretty magical one, too. In June, while on a family vacation, I made out with someone for the first time. Not just one kiss. That had already happened. And not sex, because like every 80’s movie will ever tell you, that takes time. I met a girl also vacationing with her family. I lied to her about my age, telling her I was a year older than I was. And then we lied to each other when we shared our addresses and phone numbers, complete with promises to stay in touch. I never called, never wrote, and neither did she. And, honestly, I wouldn’t want it any other way. Why let the next thing ruin the one thing, right? Because listening to Heart’s Bad Animals on a boombox and then rather spontaneously kissing each other repeatedly was, in a word, cool. It gave me, a soon-to-be high school freshman, a confidence boost I can legitimately say made a difference. I was just shy of 14 and I’d heard some of my friends tell their stories — some of them quite possibly outright lies and most definitely all of them containing massive exaggerations — about their first make out with someone. I had lies of my own to cover for the fact that such a thing hadn’t happened to me yet. Not having to lie anymore brought a comfort I couldn’t explain at the time. Mind you, my tale of kiss and tell started with, “I met this girl in Montana”, which sounds like the beginning of every story we all knew was a lie if we heard someone say it. But the fact it was true made me less inclined to share it. I didn’t need to prove anything. At least not about that. The way we gain even the smallest doses of youthful swagger is funny that way. A way I hope hasn’t changed for kids today. But like with some many things I worry it has.

“Kids today”. It’s a term I once swore I’d never use. When I was a kid there was always some older person at the mall or a movie theater eyeballing me and my friends, and their body language or occasional out loud comments were all laced with disapproval and implications they didn’t understand us or were judging our appearance or behavior. We laughed it off because they were old and we weren’t (dammit). And then we’d swear we’d never become like that. We’d never have sentences that included, “These kids today. Let me tell you…when I was their age…” But here I am. Here we are. Older and doing just that or some version of it. Even if you have perspective or context, wiping away as much judgement from it as possible, you have surely looked at today’s youth and had a moment or two of, “I just don’t get these young people.” It’s okay to admit it. When I do I remember the acknowledgement is as much about my own resistance to getting older as anything else. And sometimes these moments become a mix of empathy and judgement, like “They wouldn’t have survived my youth” or “So much has changed and not all of it for the better.”

I do try to empathize. Because the reality is the vast majority of things I went through that I think some modern teenager couldn’t navigate is immediately offset with a counter of “But that’s because they don’t have to.” For example, they don’t know how to read a map or ask someone for directions the way we did. But they don’t need to. They have it in their palms. They’ve heard of a mix tape but they’ll never know the real time commitment it took to create one unless they set out to do it as part of some oddball class assignment they’ve dubbed “Life as a Gen X’er and Why It Sucked”. I’ll be the first to admit they can make a superior mix if they are so inclined. If they have the desire they aren’t limited by the music in their own private library of cassettes, CDs, or records. They have the entire universal jukebox as their disposal. I’d have killed for that! I joke with my sons and my younger coworkers that they are “soft” because technology and innovation have made things easier. I leave out the part where I am envious. And I’ll be the first to admit that innovations that on the surface make things easier can also make parallel experiences of youth harder. There is rarely a better or worse or even an easier or more difficult. It usually just comes down to “Things are different now.”

But this week — starting on August 3rd, 2026 — as I mused then vs. now I was reminded that there are at least a handful of experiences I can point to at least one specific thing and say, “I don’t know any 14 year-old kids in 2026 that are doing what I did 39 years ago in the first week of August.” Because in that week I had a cassette copy of Def Leppard’s just released album Hysteria. I’d loaded it into my Walkman, clipped that device to my waist, hit play, and hopped on my bike to deliver copies of The San Francisco Examiner to the customers in my suburban subdivision. Why am I confident there is no modern version for this? Well, first of all that newspaper doesn’t exist as a printed daily anymore. So that is a simple one. And even if Walkman devices are a retro thing in 2026 — and it’s possible because cassettes have inexplicably made a bit of a comeback — there isn’t the afternoon delivery gig to go with it. So even if a 2026 version of a kid like me exists, i.e., they have a bike, it’s a hot day outside, they have a Walkman and the good taste to pop in Hysteria, I can’t imagine they have the paper route to go with it. If I’m wrong I’ll be the first to applaud the idea and I’d be thrilled to find out there is someone out there at mirroring my experience or coming very close to it. [I say that even though I recognize listening to music while on a bike in any kind of traffic is dangerous! The delivery route of my youth didn’t have a lot of vehicle traffic but I’d be lying if I said “Pour Some Sugar On Me” or “Animal” cranked up to 11 didn’t lead to distraction and almost being struck a time or two.]

Paper routes, be they morning or afternoon (at one point I had both; a teenager with a split shift!) have largely gone away for perfectly logical, market based reasons. We don’t read our news that way anymore. I am not nostalgic for newspapers any more than I’d want to spend the time and energy making a 90 minute mixtape for someone when I could burn them an 80 minute CD in a fraction of the time. There is aging and nostalgia and there is being a luddite. The former cannot be dodged but the latter most certainly can. But a daily hour or two of work for a young teen or a preteen? A responsibility? The kind where there are people actually relying on you to get something they want delivered on time to their doorstep? I hope there is some kind of modern equivalent that I simply haven’t thought of. And whatever it is, I hope it also comes with ‘collecting’; the follow-up task of knocking on your subscribers’ doors with their bill and hoping they will round it up to the nearest dollar or more and give you a tip. If I could find a modern equal to that I’d champion it loudly.

My paper route in Summer 1987 was powered by Def Leppard. The good news for a young person in 2026 is there are plenty of great albums that they don’t need to go back 39 days to find, let alone 39 years. The good music is easier than ever to come by. Devices to play it on are ubiquitous. A reliable bicycle is, I hope, obtainable without too much of a cost barrier. So all that is missing for a kid today is the job itself: That lowest rung that teaches us more than we appreciate while it’s happening but find ourselves grateful for in the long run.

Great music, perfect weather, strange desires and unpredictable hormones, responsibility and earning some money. I hope like crazy that young people are still getting all of those things in their own unique way with whatever modern twists this summer or any summer can supply. That wish isn’t for my own nostalgia. It’s for their future version of it.

I was already of a generation that by and large is considered to be among the first who didn’t just go to movies, but went to them multiple times if we loved them enough. I saw Star Wars at least six times in the theaters, my big sister saw Grease just as many. One of my proudest claims at this time of year is telling friends and family that I not only saw A Christmas Story in theaters in its 1983 theatrical run (it actually tanked at the box office before becoming a classic) but I saw it twice in that run, with each of my two best friends. But seeing a movie over and over — something I think Gen X’ers can make a claim to being the first to do — was also a byproduct of the rise of cable and especially with the earliest version of HBO. The latter had a model of playing movies 24–7 and adding new titles each month, but often those movies would get 2 or 3 plays a day and close to a dozen times in a week. There is a reason people my age can recite the lines of John Hughes movies, why my older brother and our circle of friends could probably table read Fletch without even having a script in our hands, and why movies that didn’t even make big dollars in the theaters eventually found a new life. Fun fact: The fictional rock and roll story of Eddie and the Cruisers was a box office flop. Its repeated airings on HBO made one of the songs from it — “On The Dark Side” by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band — rise up the charts over a year after the movie itself failed. Our ‘classics’ were born of affection and repetition as much as from overall quality, originality or innovation.

But sometimes it was all of the above. And that is what I will always think of when I think of Rob Reiner. Yes, I got to see “Stand By Me” in theaters, even though it was rated R and I wasn’t old enough to get into the theater without a parent. My Mom, an avid watcher of Siskel and Ebert and shows like Good Morning America that would review movies, heard that its R was for language and themes, not nudity or sex or gunfire. She heard it was a brilliant coming of age story and she had three kids, the youngest of which was coming of age so she not only took me to see it, she insisted on it. She thought I might like it. And I did. I loved it. When it hit HBO about a year later it wasn’t enough for me to catch it during the times it would air live. I set up our family VCR to tape it. I watched it over and over. I had friends over to watch it, some of whom had parents who wouldn’t let them watch anything rated R. I loved the story, loved the characters, and I loved that this story it told — set in the 50’s and adapted from a story by Stephen King. It was something even my father — not a huge movie fan — watched with me and could relate to. He grew up in that era, he genuinely grew up with friends and siblings that were like Chis and Gordie, Vern, Teddy, Ace, Eyeball, and all the other characters that made that movie pop. My mom bought the soundtrack on cassette. Watching that movie over and over, memorizing the lines from it, sharing the experience with friends… it left such a mark. The repetition of it, loving it the same way that one loves an album or a song was everything.

If that was the only movie Rob Reiner ever made that did something like that it still would be the kind of legacy most of us should envy. But he didn’t stop there. Or even begin there. I didn’t come to his first movie, This Is Spinal Tap until later in life (my late high school years) but The Princess Bride was literally the next movie he made after Stand By Me. I saw that in theaters and then again and again via HBO and cable channels. He made those back to back! That is some serious game. Think the one-two punches of Rubber Soul then Revolver, The Joshua Tree followed by Achtung Baby or To Pimp a Butterfly and then Damn.

It is actually tough for me to say which of Reiner’s first three movies I love most. It might depend on the day or the moment in life I’m in. In middle and high school it was Stand By Me. In college, with evolved tastes, an obsession with music and new friends, Spinal Tap was a late-night fave.

But lately its The Princess Bride. At present, my son and daughter in law are literally days away from welcoming their first child, my granddaughter, into this world. I’ve daydreamed about the fun things they are going to get to do with her in the years to come. I’ve thought about the kinds of experiences I get to have as a grandparent and, like with my two sons, what pieces of pop culture I can pass on or introduce. What movies? What songs? What are some true ‘classics’ that will still resonate? And I can think of at least two.

I know at some point I’m going to be in a position to try to sing this child to sleep or follow reading a storybook with a song in the same way I did for her father. My go-to when he was little was to read one of a handful of picture books he loved and then sing Ben E. King’s classic “Stand By Me” before telling him to close his eyes and go to sleep. When did I first fall in love with that song? After hearing it in the movie of the same name.

When my granddaughter is old enough to have the attention span for a great movie? There is no way I can imagine my son not introducing her to The Princess Bride, that is if he can stop his little brother/her uncle from doing it first!

These are the ripple effects of a filmmaker who walked this Earth and was taken from it tragically and too soon. My memories and reflections on him and what he left behind are not unique. I imagine there are thousands of people who had a similar experience with those movies I’ve highlighted. Again, if that was all he ever made it would be so much. But he gave us rom-coms and thrillers, courtroom dramas and more. He also gave us an idealized version of the U.S. Presidency, via a screenwriter (Aaron Sorkin, who would continue that kind of story to the small screen via The West Wing), with The American President. After spending so much of yesterday thinking about Stand By Me and The Princess Bride I remembered that Michael Douglas and Annette Bening romance tale that wasn’t Reiner’s best movie but was still pretty good. In it, Douglas portrays a U.S. President finding love again after losing his wife years earlier to cancer. It plays on the fallout of a serving President trying to have a private or personal life, leading his political foes to call into question his conduct and character. At one point this fictional President, Andrew Shepherd, has this quote: “For the last couple of months, Senator Rumson [his rival] has suggested that being President of this country was, to a certain extent, about character, and although I have not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I’ve been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being President of this country is *entirely* about character.”

I thought about that movie, that portrayal, and that quote after our real-life President posted a tasteless, thoughtless, and disgusting set of comments about the deaths of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer-Reiner, allegedly at the hands of their own son. I won’t quote President Trump’s full words because it doesn’t deserve to be repeated beyond noting that it was the opposite of character or class. It was narcissistic, cruel, heartless, inaccurate, and irresponsible. Some member of his own party called him out for it. And yet all of them should have. Everyone should.

After feeling outrage and riled up about it I eventually found a comforting reminder of what the future will hold. Someday many years from now, when this granddaughter I’m so excited about is old enough to take in songs and movies and books, initially via introductions from the people that love her, they will include tales of hope and bravery, choruses with lyrics of friendship, love and faithfulness, of being there for the people we care about, and standing up when called upon. And some of those songs and stories will have correlations and connections to this actor turned filmmaker named Rob Reiner that her parents, her grandparents, aunts or uncles never personally knew but knew of in the best ways. She’ll get “Stand By Me” sung to her by loving voices. She will get to learn the word “Inconceivable” from a story of unlikely heroes that include a farm boy, a swordsman, a giant, and a brave woman that doesn’t want to be a princess but instead ride of into the sunset with someone she loves. I hope like hell she will grow up to hear me say to her, “Have fun storming the castle!” and actually get the reference. These things may not come to pass at all but I certainly hope they will. Yesterday I clung to hope because in the face of yet another round of President Trump’s hate I needed it.

If and when she likes The Princess Bride or “Stand By Me” I am proud that I am old enough and nerdy enough to share when they came out, who made them possible, what the people behind them were about, and also how these movies and songs came into the lives of her family. They are ultimately just movies and just songs, of course, but they’re also more. They are timeless when done right.

‘Timeless’ is defined as ‘not affected by the passage of time or changes in fashion.’

And that is why this President couldn’t stop himself from disparaging Rob Reiner. It wasn’t just because Reiner was a critic of this President — which he outspokenly was — or that he stood by causes and beliefs this President opposes. No, President Trump hated Reiner for the same reasons he has shown disdain for former President Obama or the man who defeated him, former President Biden. He hates people who genuinely give the world something and anything they receive back is a reward, not an expectation.

Rob Reiner drew great performances from talented actors and crew. He took words that were already great on paper and made them even more powerful when spoken and seen. He inspired others and I hope his family finds comfort in knowing his legacy will carry on in ways that make people smile and think of people they love.

This President has none of that. He never has. He never will. And somewhere under all that self-congratulatory bullshit and bluster is what lies behind anyone of that same level of narcissism and arrogance: A deep insecurity. A hidden truth that haunts them. And when the ghosts never get purged from them — as is the case with this President — it manifests itself via a hatred for anyone who has or had the things they never will. If he didn’t hold such a high position of power and influence and use that position to wield the kind of hurt, violence, and hate that have led to physical, emotional, and financial harm to so many over the past decade, one might almost feel sorry for someone like that.

Almost.

But we’re far beyond that. I won’t even say that you shouldn’t feel contempt for him because to feel that is a waste of time and energy. I think at this point you should feel that. We all should. He is contemptuous. And I look forward to the day he is gone from office. And even more so I hope he is eventually gone from all traces of our memory except for one: To never let a person like him anywhere near that office again.

To circle back to The Princess Bride: No one cares what happened to Humperdink after the good won out in the end. We just remember him for the coward he was.

2012 was when a relationship I’d been in for nearly 20 years (18 of it a marriage) came to a screeching halt. Big deal. People get divorced all the time. Sometimes it involves a lot of lying and deceit and some things you later wish you hadn’t said. That’s not unique either.

My former wife and I also filed for bankruptcy. Another not-terribly-big deal. People go broke all the time, too. But our particular brand of belly up also included defaulting on a mortgage. Not unheard of. It happens. But experiencing all three of those things in the same calendar year? I’m not sure how often that happens but, regardless, it is not a trifecta I recommend for anyone. You will emerge from it poorer in both literal and metaphorical senses.

I was 38 years old and, quite honestly, it was the first time I was overachieving at anything, only I did it in reverse. My version included a fallout that rolled right on to our sons, a then-teenager and pre-teen. Resilient as they were, the respective rebuilds and reinventions their mother and I embarked on were not just ours. We had passengers on our planes, all while they were tasked with learning how to pilot their own selves and futures.

So yeah, 2012 was a lot. The years that followed were, too.

My banking and checking account right after the divorce was final in 2013 started from near zero. I still had a good job but a very modest income. I was like millions of others paycheck to paycheck with no wiggle room. Over 90 percent of my 401k was handed over as part of the divorce settlement so there was no safety net. A word to the wise: Your credit score can get so low that the only kind of credit card or creditor that will touch you comes with an interest rate you should never want to touch. It’s a porcupine loan or an alligator card. Avoid them if you can. I couldn’t. I needed a car to get to work and there were months when emergencies hit and I needed to go in debt to cover it.

I had my sons living with me on a week on, week off basis in an apartment that always felt too small. When I was married, they had their own rooms. Now they were sharing one. Even with our 50/50 custody I also had a child support bill and spousal support. To compensate, I found side hustles to go with my side hustles, ranging from plasma donation twice a week (my arms have the needle entry spots to prove it) to one time when I answered an online call out and found myself sampling new Taco Bell menu items and rating them, all for $25 cash and a $5 gift card. That particular one was a low point in my pride and for my intestines. But the money sure came in handy that particular week (it filled my gas tank) and my older son was grateful for the $5 gift card to get himself multiple items off the value menu when hanging out with his friends.

Creativity and resiliency were high, wise decision making on a personal level (aka dating) was a work in progress, and it took a few years to find my footing all around. Even when I did, I once again found myself in the red. One of life’s mysteries I still can’t wrap my head around is why getting my post-bankruptcy credit score out of the 500s back into the mid to high 600s meant acquiring new debt. But at least by then I had a plan. A half empty nest helped (my oldest graduated high school and started living off campus year-round) and when it was fully empty, I was able to kick things into high gear. It didn’t hurt that spousal support expired and child support ended. With that money freed up I did the kind of things you once saw infomercials about or maybe can still hear podcasts about: I erased 5 figure debt (lower end) and turned it upside down into savings and some low-risk investments. For the last 5 years I’ve been in the black every month and every year, by healthier and growing amounts. I’ve contributed larger pre-tax sums to my 401k, saved up liquid assets to the point where I feel I have a safety net and I’m the rare American consumer with zero debt beyond a manageable car payment. What all that has meant recently is that for the first time since 2013 I am ready to exit the rental market and, at 51, take on a mortgage. Solo this time. Just me.

I actually started thinking about it in 2023 but, of course, that was right around the time interest rates started spiking and home and condo prices didn’t budge one iota to compensate. Since 2018 I’ve had the good fortune to be in a rental I came upon that started cheap and has stayed that way. Part of it is a landlord who says he values stability and quality of a tenant over making the maximum he can month-to-month and the other is that I live in one of only a handful of states with pretty strong rent control provisions. By law, my landlord can only increase my rent so much each year and since I started at a lower than market amount it has stayed comparatively low. My friends’ jaws drop when I tell them what I pay. I feel lucky but I also was the savvy, fast moving person who got the cashier’s check in for the deposit within hours of knowing I’d found a good deal. This low overhead for many years now has allowed me to hit goals faster than I thought I would. I attribute this to some good luck (I won the landlord lottery), having a career that didn’t get upended by the pandemic, and also still keeping an eye out for those side hustles. The same things I once did to fill the tank I now do for play money (concerts, travel, etc.). The stars aligned for sure but I was also ready with a telescope to spot them when they did.

As 2024 turned to 2025 and with another lease renewal on the horizon I decided that this year, barring some other impossible to miss sign from the fates or the markets, I was going to buy something, stubborn interest rates and property prices be damned. On a single income the only suitable properties in my price range are condos, so I’ve been doing my due diligence on prices, location, HOAs and what they do and don’t include and if they have good value, and if mortgage calculator websites could run out of batteries, I’d have drained a few.

Earlier this month I signed on with a realtor I trust and for the first time in over 15 years I was touring places to live with an intention to take out a loan to live in it and at least in some way call it mine. When I found one I liked and could afford my reaction wasn’t what I expected. I was anticipating excitement, joy, and a sense of accomplishment for getting to this place that I honestly wasn’t sure I’d ever get to. But instead, I found myself unable to sleep, panicked at all the worst-case scenarios that could come with doing this. I could lose my job and therefore my income. That was one. Another was more personal. My partner and I have been together close to 9 years now and one of the secrets to our good relationship is that we live near each other but not with each other. So one of my anxious thoughts became “What happens if I live 5 miles away instead of our current 2?” or “What if my living in a different neighborhood breaks us!?” That is the thing with irrational thought cycles and panic spirals: Once they start they just keep going.

Once I calmed myself down it became clearer: If something goes sideways with this mortgage or losing my job or my relationship ending or any combination of those things, I’m scared of having to repeat the process of rebuilding my life again. It took a lot out of me the first time and it took literal time. It defined my 40’s, which in hindsight was perfectly fine because it fast tracked life lessons and experiences I’d missed by getting married and having a family so much younger than most of my peers. But here in the early years of my 50’s I am ever more cognizant of human mortality. Yes, I theoretically have plenty of time left but I know far more now than I did then about the amount of energy, focus, and hustle it took to bounce back and, quite frankly, I’m not sure I have that in me in the same way I did over a decade ago.

My other epiphany — a positive one — is that the first time I went broke it wasn’t solely my fault. As Post Malone recently said on the pop and country charts, I had some help. As I’ve said many times to friends and family over the years, I’ll take my share or more of the responsibility for my marriage crumbling but the bankruptcy and the default? Not so much. In fact, while I wanted the divorce I didn’t want the other two. When the bankruptcy became inevitable I accepted it as such. But walking away from the mortgage? I looked for every possible way to hold on to the house. My lawyer advised, “The only way to swiftly get out of this marriage is to get out of everything that came with it except for your sons.” She was right on that front and her other repeated refrain was accurate too: “Divorce is expensive because it’s worth it.”

Finally, with my focus back and my better senses firing, I went back to the simplest thing I could: The math. While it is not a practice I recommend renters do more than maybe once in a very blue moon, I fired up my phone’s calculator, entered the average rent I’ve paid per month in my current apartment, multiplied that number by 12, and then that number by the years I’ve been here. (I didn’t even count the previous apartment I was in for 5 years.) The number was… well… a lot. All for something that the moment I walk away from it I get nothing back for in return. At best a portion of the security deposit and that isn’t much. There are, of course, benefits and upsides from renting. But for me? They all ran out a long time ago. I’ve known it much longer than just the last few months. While I’m grateful for the good deal I described earlier (it allowed me to save money at a faster clip, after all) it has outlived itself. With caution, research, humility, and a “small c” conservative approach in mind I knew it was time for me to take the leap. To talk myself out of it would, at this point, feel like an insult to all I’ve done to get this far.

And the dirty secret of all the challenges and rebuilding I’ve tackled? Even when it’s been tough, it’s also been a series of lessons in gratitude, forgiveness and grace. And, well, it was also a lot of fun. There are belly laughs in the struggles and head shaking chuckles at the little things and mistakes I made, and I hope I am not alone in that experience.

I started this by saying I don’t recommend severing relationships and going broke in such rapid succession. But sometimes you have to. I’m glad for all of it. I wouldn’t trade it. And that is ultimately what erases the fear of taking some risk, shelling out a lot of what I worked so hard to save up, and betting that it’ll all work out. Like I had to do back then, I’m betting on myself. But today I’m holding a much better hand.

I’m also writing this with another tab open on my browser to a property that as of earlier today says “Sale Pending”. And I need some boxes. Wow… I need some boxes.

Does Uncle MAGA get to come?

Will Aunt Portland and Cousin Dallas get into an argument?

What if we seat them away from each other?

Part of the problem in all this is the calendar, of course. We get an election on the first Tuesday of November and we gather for Thanksgiving on the third Thursday. It doesn’t give us a whole lot of time to process or depending on our feelings about the outcome accept it and move forward. The real or imagined drama of these moments make for an easy 5 minutes on Morning Edition or a few hundred words in a column. (The irony of the latter is not lost on me here.)

Reaching an age just north of 50 has brought me to a place in my life where I’ve either burned enough bridges or obtained enough wisdom (probably both) to no longer break bread with people who have a knack for pissing me off. It is easy to avoid political conversations or embrace them in full when the person next to you at the table and the person across generally agree with you on candidates or issues. Don’t undersell the comfort of dining in an ideological bubble. It can make even Jello salad more palatable.

Over the course of my life I’ve come up with a few rules for myself around politics at Thanksgiving or, quite frankly, for any meal in a large group, be it with family, friends, or combinations of both.

The first stems from how I was raised: If you’re a guest in someone’s home you owe it to the generous hosts to bite your tongue more than you might normally. If they have explicitly requested that you specifically or everyone in attendance not talk politics then honor that. If they haven’t laid out specifics and someone says something you disagree with? Let it go. If you’re the guest err on the side of, “I hear you” or “Well, I don’t agree entirely with that but I understand why you might feel that way. I was going to go get another drink? Can I get you anything?”

The second is both practical and a little cynical: If someone from an older generation, possibly even two generations older, says something that makes your eyes pop, pop them back in. It’s an annual dinner. They may not be here next year. My addendum to this rule, based on a real experience and with no cynicism at all, is to give due deference to that older person’s lived experiences. I was the guest at family Thanksgiving once and the host’s grandfather said something that, had it been out of the mouth of almost anyone else, would have caused me to offer a counter view. But I also knew this elderly gentleman was a World War II veteran. When the host said to me later, “I hope my grandpa didn’t offend you” I said in reply, “He fought Nazis. He can say whatever he wants. He gets a lifetime pass from me.”

The most contentious political Thanksgiving I was ever part of was in the aftermath of Election 2000. That is the only Turkey Day in my life where the buffer between Election Day and the holiday simply didn’t exist. We were in essence still in the thick of it. Votes were being counted in Florida, court challenges were being heard, networks had foolishly called it for one side, the other candidate conceded too soon and then walked it back, and unlike the MAGA herd and their two years worth of false claims after 2020, the supporters of Vice President Al Gore had an argument circa 2000. There were poorly designed ballots, a Florida Secretary of State that clearly couldn’t be objective, arguments and counter arguments, and our annual feasts had a backdrop of the unknown.

Half of our gathering that year was pro- George W. Bush, the other half was pro-Al Gore and the loudest voices among us were those of us in our twenties. Armed with still relatively fresh college degrees, just starting to make a living and starting families, and my oh my were we ever full of opinions.

“Gore is going to want as many recounts as it takes to get him to where he is the winner,” my sister-in-law said.

“I don’t care what the ultimate count is,” I countered. “The fact is that the butterfly ballot in one county caused thousands of votes for Pat Buchanan that clearly were an error and hundreds of voters said they were confused by the design and likely voted for Buchanan in error.”

“Well, if people are confused by a stupid ballot then they probably shouldn’t vote at all!” she fired back.

“I’m sorry but what?! Are you really saying people shouldn’t vote?” I asked.

“If people aren’t smart enough or up to speed on the issues then they shouldn’t,” she argued.

“Oh, I see. Or maybe we should only let people vote if they’re married. Or own property. Or they have to pass a poll test,” I replied with full snark.

“That isn’t what I meant and you know it!”

“But you just said people should have to be smart enough to vote. So who gets to decide that? You? Me? I certainly don’t want that responsibility.”

It got pretty heated. My father ultimately broke up the argument, which was noble of him and laced with a bit of “Seriously?!” because, God rest his soul, he was one of the loudest, most stubborn debaters I’ve ever known. He would later tell me that, in debate terms, my sister-in-law had fallen into a ‘trap’ with her argument and that I exploited it. He was enjoying the back and forth right up until he could see it turning ugly.

Such moments can, I suppose, lead to lasting wounds, canceled invitations, not gathering the next year or at the very least not getting together in the even numbered years. It certainly wasn’t the first or last time my sister-in-law and I would argue politics or social issues. But time and experience do have a nice way of leveling out the disagreements or, more to the point, how we lay them out or the ways we disagree. The debates with her over the years made me respect her incredibly high intelligence and passion and, I hope, did the same for her. I don’t dare speak for her but I do know this: She is one of my favorite people on the planet. In addition to her political sharpness and verbal chops, she, along with my brother, is one of the most generous, welcoming hosts you’ll ever be lucky enough to receive an invitation from. Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, my father’s memorial service, graduation parties… She brings people together on a level the United Nations should envy.

I am still willing to engage in debate with her but it tends to come after “How can I help?”, “Is there anything I can get from the store while I’m out that would make any of this easier for you?” or my go-to:“Yes, ma’am. What next?” She especially likes it that if in the midst of hosting, on the 50–50 chance my older brother is disagreeing with her about something, I always take her side. We get each other. In those situation I’ve got her back, I watch in admiration, and I love her to death for all of it.

All of this is to say as we come off yet another very divisive election ignore the Thanksgiving etiquette advice; mine or anyone else’s. Don’t be afraid to just confront it all. Avoid the arguments if you want but if they rise up then face them. Hopefully as politely as possible and if you happen to have a mediator like my father was (usually armed with a Maker’s Mark) don’t be afraid to enlist them.

I don’t advise avoiding conflict with family over red versus blue or right versus left. In fact, I say bring it on. Especially if you’re younger, maybe still in the first decade of adulthood and voting at all, and perhaps not even totally concrete on everything you believe in. By all means, don’t make others around you uncomfortable or make your mother or grandmother cry from seeing people disagree, but a spirited conversation doesn’t have to ruin a holiday or by extension a relationship.

After all, how else are you going to find out whether or not the family member you disagree with most is also the person you’d move mountains for if asked? Sometimes the person you don’t see eye-to-eye with on everything is actually very well aligned with your spirit.

Granted, that is probably rare. But it does happen. And when it does you’ll always have it on your list of things to be thankful for. In any year.

Given that we’ve been split over 10 years and our two sons are in their mid to late 20s, our exchanges usually fall into two categories: The first is to wish each other respective happy birthdays and wish each other happy Mothers and Fathers Day. The others are what I’ll call courtesy texts near major family holidays to keep each other abreast of our respective plans to see our boys and to not step on each other’s schedules. Her extended family does an annual get-together, I try to schedule something with our sons and daughter-in-law and we compare calendars accordingly.

She and I have come a long way. Like so many couples that go through a separation our texts were once pretty high on the contentious and cruel scale. We both said things — verbally or digitally — that we’d take back. I consider myself to be one of the luckier divorcees. We healed up better than most. We laugh when we see each other, can roll our eyes at one another the way only people that once lived together can, took a selfie at our older son’s wedding, and if we’re ever blessed with grandchildren I am one hundred percent confident we can do birthday parties and holidays in the same room and get along like old friends from college. Fitting in that without school we don’t have anything to share.

Her text on November 6th said: Today feels so surreal. That classic line from ‘Star Wars’: “This is how democracy dies, with thunderous applause…”

My reply was short: “Damn, you’re quoting the prequels?! That’s dark, but I feel ya.”

Like with many things in our marriage, I botched it. I made light of the pop culture reference and then I dismissed it. My only defense, albeit not a good one, is that I was reacting to a lot of messages, posts, expressions of grief and disbelief at a rapid pace. I hope it says something about the company I keep that the women (and some men) I know were having a deeply felt reaction to Donald Trump returning to power. Everyone was having a bad day after not sleeping well the night before, with worries for what the future could bring.

As they damn well should.

The next day I replied in full, sending a text that first apologized for the short, casual response and then offering greater empathy. I told her that I was also disappointed by the election outcome but that my own sadness would never be on the level she, my mother, my aunt, my partner, our daughter-in-law or so many other women we know were feeling.

It took me a full day to better grasp that amid the many emotions someone might feel about a convicted felon and admitted sexual assaulter who was a catalyst for women seeing their rights stripped away being returned to power might result in needing to reach out to anyone they know who shares their view. That could include someone they share children with. Someone who remembers the first ultrasound that showed some concerns and then the hard conversation and what-if’s that followed. Even with two healthy pregnancies we were never so naive as to think something could change at any time.

I forgot for a moment that her circles may be quite different from mine. She may not have as many like-minded people to turn to. Like I said, we don’t communicate all that much anymore. We don’t know the ins and outs of each other’s day-to-day, who we know or don’t. But I do know that at the very least she is an outlier in her family. Her parents, her sibling, and others on the family tree were likely celebrating Trump’s victory; one of a variety of reasons I don’t miss those annual holiday gathering. (The other is I think white elephant gift exchanges are awkward as hell.)

What I do know is she reached out as a friend and I initially failed. I made up for it, she thanked me, shared more of her reaction, thoughts, and concerns and I came away from it confident that if she ever needed to vent or the proverbial port in a storm she would know I am here and a safe sounding board. Yeah, she and I have come a long way. So long that I don’t dare speak for her. But I do hope she feels as lucky as I do that we got to this imperfect but mutually supportive place.

Honestly, I don’t even have enough close male friends to feel like I’m qualified to give my fellow men advice but I’m going to give it a shot anyway.

Recognize that many of the women around you are on edge and for reasons that are constant. Moments like the Dobbs decision or abortion bans on the state level, or the return of Donald Trump heighten that anxiety. They likely know, as my ex does because she is enlightened and a constant learner, that our shared history contains multiple chapters of women having to fight for rights that we men never had to. Worse, they had to hope we’d align with them and grant, give, or approve rules, laws, or societal changes that we should never have had the right to grant, give or take anyway. She, much like someone you very likely know, saw a right they thought was concrete either diminished or stripped entirely. It is more than measurable enough to make them worried which right comes next. So there is that, all while making less on average in their profession than males in the same job, doing more of the child raising, and having external forces still tell them it’s not enough.

You shouldn’t be surprised to hear that most of them don’t expect you to solve this problem or take care of it for them. They already recognize if you’re with or against them. As an ally, a friend, a supportive partner or spouse, they know you’ll stand with them in the days, weeks and months ahead. They know you’re in the fight. You’re not being attacked. What the high court did and how those Justices got there in the first place? That isn’t on you. You’re not to blame. So what do you do?

Well, for starters return the text sent amid all the distress with more than one sentence. Do better than I did. That’s a start.