The Pink Fairies originally rose out of the ashes of The Deviants, who in 1970 fired Mick Farren and hooked up with Pretty Things drummer/vocalist, Twink (S.F. Sorrow era). Farren and various Deviants members had played on Twink’s first solo album during his final days as a member of The Pretty Things. The band would gain a reputation for anarchy, free gigs, agitprop, and drugs, as well as chaotic concerts and a chaotic line-up of band members through the years [often contributing and pinching members to/from Hawkwind, Motorhead, Farren (again)], etc. For a more complete documentation of that, pick up a copy of Keep It Together! Cosmic Boogie With The Deviants & The Pink Fairies by Rich Deakin (forward by Mick Farren).
The Pink Fairies recording career had apparently come to a close by 1973 (save a 1976 single on Stiff Records), but resurfaced with Kill ‘Em and Eat ‘Em (1987) with Larry Wallace (Motorhead) at the helm. There were reunion gigs with various line-ups, but new studio releases wouldn’t come until the late ‘90s with a pair of albums that were basically Twink and Paul Rudolph and some hired hands (Pleasure Island, No Picture) and released on Twink Records.
2016 yielded Naked Radio, a Pink Fairies’ album in name only. Featuring none of the principle members or creative force (Twink, Rudolph, Wallis), fans used such terms as “sham,” “dodgy,” and “farce” to describe the less-than-stellar result.
2018 yields a new Pink Fairies studio album and another new line-up. This time Paul Rudolph is back at the helm of a three piece – the rhythm section made up of ex-Hawkwind bassist (1984-1996) Alan Davey and original Motorhead drummer (although for a very brief time) Lucas Fox. The results this time are worthy of the Pink Fairies moniker, in style, if not in membership.
Resident Reptiles starts off with the one-two punch of the title track followed by “Old Enough To Know Better.” Rudolph may not be a great vocalist, but that has never been a strong part of The Pink Fairies. Rhythmically, much of Resident Reptiles resembles Lemmy-era Hawkwind – all the thunder intact. That adds an element to The Pink Fairies missing in the earliest days where much of the rhythm was chaotic rather than driving. That carries through for most of the album, but things start to run out of steam on the last track, “Apologize.”
Resident Reptiles is a befitting title for this album - nothing new as far as style, but a welcome reminder of the vital link between hard rock and punk. The Pink Fairies circa 2018 are sounding more like alligators than dinosaurs. (B)
Back home they pass Christmas Day by killing something wild And mark the years by where they strip the soil away
(We’re All We Got, Becky Warren)
On Becky Warren’s 2016 debut album, War Surplus, she established herself as both a compelling storyteller and social warrior by documenting the fictional relationship (based on her true experience) between an Iraq veteran with PTSD and his wife. It isn’t the usual fare of a Nashville-based artist who travels the connecting lanes of rock ‘n’ roll and country music. War has both personal and universal consequences and Warren’s songs convey both.
Warren has had a checkered career as a performing artist. As founding member of The Great Unknowns, the Boston-based band had already broken up by the time Amy Ray’s Daemon Records picked up their debut album Introducing The Great Unknowns (2004). Marriage to a soldier, soon to be deployed to Iraq and the PSTD that followed, occupied the next 6 years of her life. Warren dropped out of music completely. The Great Unknowns sophomore effort wouldn’t appear until 2012, this time with a new line-up and Warren as the primary songwriter. Titled Homefront, it would be her first record to deal with the aftermath of war on returning vets and their families. It went nowhere. She would spend the next four years sharpening her skills and writing War Surplus.
With Undesirable, her sophomore effort, Warren expands the landscape to the streets of Nashville. Not the streets of travel brochures – no, not those glossy fabrications of country music glitter. The streets that Warren is travelling on Undesirable can be found in any city of the size of Nashville – streets dotted with hotels with weekly (or hourly) rates, payday loan outlets, buy here/pay here car lots, homeless shelters, cheap wine liquor outlets, thrift shops and street venders. In Warren’s words, these are the streets of “forgotten forget-me-nots.” And the language in which Warren sings wouldn’t pass muster of any tight-assed copy editor - apparent from the title of the albums’ first track, “We’re All We Got.” Or the second, “Nobody Wants To Rock N Roll No More.” And that’s a great thing. Correct grammar doesn’t occupy those streets.
Stylistically Undesirable moves between the Midwest rock style of Tom Petty and the more countyfied musings of Lucinda Williams. Thematically and lyrically she’s in a territory occupied almost exclusively by “urban” music. As small town America becomes a thing of the past, with more and more country folks being displaced to the poverty centers of big metropolises (and that includes musicians), Warren currently is ahead of the curve. Way ahead. Undesirable isn’t all doom & gloom but, in the end, hopeful and forward looking. “Ain’t nobody gonna tell us baby/ We know we’re in a real tight spot/ We’re all we got.” In Warren’s worldview, that’s enough. And it's true. (A)
[Reviews by Bill Glahn. I've been working on these on and off over the last year, but never finished up due to other writing projects. These are two of the best releases with many more to come in the next week.]
Bottle Rockets: Bit Logic (2018) From the git-go, Bit Logic finds Brian Henneman (age 57) ruminating about this modern world of technology on the title track. “This ain’t no high tech train wreck, don’t think that’s the deal… It’s the new way of keeping it real,” sings Henneman, painting a somewhat positive landscape. “Be thankful that this old machine still runs, even on these zeros, bits, and ones.” But it’s a landscape pitted with caveats.
“Lo Fi” takes the listener on a journey from the AM kitchen radio, through the wide expanse of home stereo systems, and full circle to listening to music on the telephone. And regardless of the limitations of modern music delivery, a great song can still make his day.
For the Bottle Rockets, though, a band that has built a following on the fringes of rock ‘n’ roll and country with solid albums and relentless touring, the new world has placed some substantial road blocks. Henneman addresses these on the metaphorical “Highway 70 Blues” and the more direct “It’s A Bad Time To Be An Outlaw.” How this will play out in the end is an open question. Will streaming services (the most common form of listening among young folks) cut out the passing lanes for inventive songwriting and performing? Will the pittance of income derived from streaming make it increasingly hard for upstart bands to expand their touring schedules beyond local or regional venues?
Henneman, a master lyricist with a remarkably durable band, has already built a foundation for continuing onward. But there’s that nagging question – “Will such future songwriters/bands ever see that chance?” Maybe. But it’ll be a much longer, slower, road where durability may end up being the most important component. Welcome to the new wave of heavy mettle. (A)
Grayson Capps: Scarlet Roses (2017) Part swamp, part Nashville, part Red Dirt, part outlaw, with some southern rock mixed in, Grayson Capps has the kind of voice that holds it all together as a cohesive voice of rural America. Although it takes a little longer to warm up to than Capp’s 2012 masterpiece, The Lost Cause Minstrels, it is an equally worthy effort, exploring some new musical directions. Topically, all the fears, hopes, and trials of rural America continue to find their way into Capp’s lyrics. Both albums are worthwhile companions to Muswell Hillbillies, The Kinks most Americana-sounding album – a statement on the fears, hopes and trials of urban England.
Capps hails from Fairhope, Alabama, a town located on the east side of Mobile Bay, and one with a rather unique history, having been set up as a socialist experiment in the late 1800s. From Wikipedia… “Their corporate constitution explained their purpose in founding a new colony: to establish and conduct a model community or colony, free from all forms of private monopoly, and to secure to its members therein equality of opportunity, the full reward of individual efforts, and the benefits of co-operation in matters of general concern." How well they’ve succeeded is questionable. Capps concludes Scarlet Roses with “Moving On,” a song that recognizes that. The search for a better future continues.
(A)
Trip Shakespeare’s “Snow Days” isn’t a song that would usually find its way into my rock ‘n’ roll heart. There’s the bloated, almost operatic, singing. There’s the idea that “real” rock ‘n’ roll has its origins in the streets, not the highly academic origins of the band members. And there’s the academic “wit” of some of the lyrics. Chainfields? Motor Veins? But sometimes you just have to put working class chauvinism aside. “Snow Days” has a place in my heart and has had one since I first heard it on a trip to Minneapolis in the mid-‘90s, several years after its release.
It snowed yesterday in Springfield, MO. Snows aren’t unheard of in South Central Missouri or Northwest Arkansas, my primary locations since 1989. They are this early in the year. Having spent a good deal of my growing-up and adult years in New Jersey, there is a certain nostalgia attached to snow. But nostalgia is poor fodder for a good rock ‘n’ roll song.
I’ve got a story. Several, actually.
When my father was transferred to McGuire Air Force Base in 1965, snow days were an opportunity, not an escape from school. For the children of enlisted men, the opportunity was to make some money by teaming up with other kids to shovel the sidewalks. The good money was across the boulevard that separated the officer’s quarters from the lower income enlisted families. In those days, all Base Housing (except for General’s quarters which were comfortable brick houses with landscaped yards a few miles away) consisted of town houses built in courts of 18 units each. In our court there were something like 90 kids – one of the largest concentrations of juveniles in the whole complex and with a sufficient number of snow-shoveling age to form an impressive work force. We learned quickly that the best way to negotiate wages was to team up. Nowadays some people would probably refer to us as “union thugs.” As far as I can determine, Base Housing is now privatized. Probably the snow removal as well.
After my father left the Air Force my older brother and I would team up with other kids in the Holly Hills neighborhood of Mt. Holly (mostly ex-military) and then Prospect Heights, a working class neighborhood in Trenton. Old enough now to have a paper route, my parents were insistent on “saving money for college.” Record money would still be mostly dependent on the annual winter weather. From the beginning, I used the windfall of snow day cash to fuel my passion for music. First there were new singles by chart acts like Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Mamas & Papas, Aretha, Glen Campbell – mixed with 5 for a dollar cut-out singles of older tunes. I had a lot of catching up to do, having missed the soul wave in the segregated play lists of South Carolina. During the last couple of years of my snow-shoveling days it turned to albums. The last album I remember buying with snow money was the White Album. I probably wore that one out by January.
Once indoctrinated into the world of grown up labor, snow days meant something entirely different. They meant a brief respite from the ever-increasing demands of management. In the 21st century version of labor/management relations, things have declined to a point where labor is expected to brave the weather in all kinds of storms. There are no snow days. Show up for work or else. This includes all types of labor - lower level management, industrial workers, cash-register clinkers, fast-food workers, teachers… all of us. Lower pay, lower benefits, lower safety… “We are all outlaws in the eyes of (corporate) Amerika.”
The guy I most admired at my last job before I retired was the one who NEVER came to work if there was so much as 1 snowflake falling from the sky. The supervisors would make it a point of mocking and belittling him at warehouse meetings. “So-and-so made it and they live 20 miles away. How come you can’t?” It never flustered the guy. “I won’t risk my safety for this job.” He’d been employed there for about 15 years. He was a good worker, knew his job well. They threatened to fire him – never did. Everyone knew it was just his way of throwing the finger at an employer who didn’t want to pay him anything close to his value. Still… there were those who succumbed to the pettiness and labeled him a “sissy.” The fucking guy had more guts than all of them combined. As far as I know, he’s still employed there. I’m positive he didn’t go to work yesterday.
What has all this got to do with “Snow Days,” the song?
It’s this. Despite an aura of pomposity, when it comes right down to it, “Snow Days” envelops the subversive nature that is essential to a lot of great rock ‘n’ roll – this time with a beautiful arrangement and a calming piano break. It tells the tale of a dedicated and overworked teacher on a day when the snow is falling. And the respite that a day off can provide, if she’ll only take it. "There’s a blessing on the ground. Go home." That's rock 'n' roll.
Bonus photo: These are agricultural fields between Camarillo and Oxnard in Ventura County, SoCal where HillFire & WellseyFire have been burning since last week - agricultural workers are still expected to show up for work. Photo by Irvin Camacho.
When William Elliott Whitmore began his opening set at the Granada Theater in Lawrence with “Mutiny” on Oct. 22, he was clearly in a defiant mood. So was the crowd, answering the call & response with vigor.
“Let the motherfucker burn.” “Let the motherfucker burn.”
Whitmore, armed with only banjo and bass drum, was attacking both with vehemence. And an urgency that these times call for.
Will Whitmore is a farmer by birth. He’s been planting seeds at shows in Lawrence, Kansas for 19 years by his own account. It showed. This crowd came early - no stragglers or “fashionably late” hipsters. When Whitmore took the stage, everyone who was going to be there was already there. And the joint was packed.
Whitmore has a voice that sounds like it grew up out of the dirt. There’s a welcome quality to it that contrasts to the, too often, dry vocals of too much of today’s politically oriented Americana. It’s field holler singing. And that makes sense. Whitmore still lives on the family farm in a house that has no bathroom. His albums tend to be short – more akin to vinyl length - no filler. He’s not wired for the “technological age.” His only contact info on his web page is a post office box.
Whitmore has a new record out. (cd, vinyl and download). It’s called Kilonova and is a departure from past releases in that it consists completely of cover versions. Don’t expect a “Great American Songbook” nostalgia trip, though. Some of the songs will be familiar to long-time followers from past set lists. These are songs that Whitmore finds a kinship with, interpreted in a way that is 100% personal.
There’s a wide range of material on Kilonova, songs from artists that predate his birth to songs of a more contemporary age that you might expect from a man of Whitmore’s age (40). The first Youtube release was The Magnetic Field’s “Fear of Trains.” The second was “Busted”, written by a songwriter with farming roots, Howard Harlan, and recorded by both Johnny Cash and Ray Charles in 1963.
In Whitmore’s hands, “Fear of Trains” is starker than the original, captivating the flavor of the lyrics more fully. In light of the recent Kavanaugh hearings, it’s downright prescient. “Busted” is the state of being for working class Americans in this century. But there’s more.
“Don’t Pray On Me,” “Five Feet High And Rising,” and “Ain’t No Sunshine” all capture a sense of desperation that exists today. “Bat Chain Puller,” the conclusion of Kilonova, exposes the root of that desperation, rife with metaphors that a man of the dirt can appreciate.
Whitmore concluded his concert in Lawrence where he started – with “Old Devils,” a song referenced in “Mutiny” delivered with the same fervor. The man has stamina! It’s going to take a good dose of that from his audience as well. Lawrence was up to the task.
I’ve been travelling around the Midwest with my dog, Sally, taking notes. In the last few days I passed through eastern Iowa and western Wisconsin, home turf for Will Whitmore. It’s under water. Said one farmer, "I'm about to break the first rule of farming - never complain about the rain. What started off as a '100 year rain' is now a 500 year rain. If it rains like this for another week, there won't be a crop to harvest." The preservation of the earth is high on William Elliott Whitmore’s priority list. He starts the second leg of his tour tonight with label mates, Murder By Death, in Washington, D.C. at the 9:30 Club. If the crowd responds loud enough and long enough maybe the politicians at the Capitol will hear them. “Let the motherfucker burn!”
In 1980, a man named Art Evans founded a company in Indiana that made riding lawn mowers. These weren’t ordinary lawn mowers. They weren’t even ordinary riding lawn mowers. They had a zero-turn radius and an engine so powerful that it could even overcome a parking brake, fully applied. They were (and still are) the Dragsters of lawn care for those who can afford them.
With Indiana, being the most northern of “southern states” and with a historical attachment as a Klan bigotorium*, it seems entirely logical that Evans would call his company Dixie Chopper. Indiana has competition these days. The bigotorium has expanded.
It also seems logical that Textron would buy the company in 2014. Textron is a corporate behemoth specializing in aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technologies. Read that as an instrumental part of the military-industrial complex. There would be no name change. “Dixie” sells.
This tends to set my imagination into high gear. I imagine a horror film – a nightmare-come-to-life. In this film, Dixie Chopper comes out with a new model to keep up with the times. It’s called the Trumpster. It’s top-of-the-line, able to cut down human beings at astonishing rates. It’s lubricated by Mitch McConnell Oil Products. It has a “cow-catcher” out front dubbed The Betsy, useful in stunting all but the most elitist of weeds. And those ignition problems early Dixie Choppers were notorious for? They are outsourcing the fix for that to a company called Scotus Inc. Once the machine starts, it keeps on going. The chassis is a thing of mystery. Termed the Trump Base, it is unexplainable – proprietary in nature. Scientists are befuddled. This machine seems to be built on blind faith. It’s a blessed machine that can do no wrong. Ask any Evangelist. The brakes have been disconnected. It’s out of control and can’t be stopped.
The cost of a Dixie Chopper is high. Incredibly high. Like any overpriced machine (or law) it needs a strong ad campaign. And Dixie Chopper has one. “The Trumpster -Making lawnmowers great again.” Remember that the Trumpster model is for mowing down people. No problem. “Hop on board to the land of cotton. Old times there are not forgotten.” “ Dixie” plays in the background. It’s alluring.
Chop chop chop chop chop
Coming up with an appropriate ending for my horror flick is going to take more imagination than I have. Dixie doesn’t exist anymore. It’s the land of Kudzu now. Kudzu could stop a Dixie Chopper but it’s got some pretty devastating consequences of its own. Wrong ending. If he could be found, Superman couldn’t throw this machine into the sun. There are too many distracted consumers still clinging to the undercarriage. Maybe I’ll call the Parkland students. They’re the brightest minds at script writing for horror flicks. If they haven’t found a suitable ending for theirs, they are certainly moving towards one. Or maybe the Women’s March organizers. They haven’t killed all the monsters yet. But they’re pretty effective at installing brakes. The pipeline resistors? The Poor People’s Campaign? They are growing in legion. Or maybe this is a script that requires the joint forces of ALL resistance.
I see a hand grenade being thrown into the combustion chamber – a crack in the engine block.
Chop chop… sputter sputter
But this is a music related bog, right? OK then. Here’s the soundtrack. Can you hear me?
“You want to know what my version of gangsta is? Making your family top priority. If you ain't doing that and your spending more money on drugs than you are on your kids school clothes than you definitely not gangsta. Go steal from someone that works there ass off so you can go get high. GANGSTA. Lmfao. If I hurt your feelings than this applies to you. Don't trip though I been there myself and Im still trying to get my life right. I hope that one day I make it to where I can call myself a true gangsta. To my two beautiful daughters I'm so very sorry and ill be doing my best til the day I die to earn the right just to be called dad.” (Chris Seitz, August 12, 2018 Facebook posting)
Exactly one month later Chris Seitz would be dead.
Yesterday morning at 2:30 a.m. I was awoken by a loud, persistent knock and Sally’s aggressive barking. I got up, threw on some jeans, turned the front porch light on, looked out the window. It was a cop at my front door. “We’ve had some reports from this neighborhood that someone is going from house to house pounding on doors. Have you seen or heard anything?”
Still groggy from my sleep and more than a little irritated about being woken up at the wee hours of the morning, I answered sarcastically, “Not until now.”
The cop asked my name and jotted it down on his notepad and then asked my date of birth. “What has that got to do with anything?” He didn’t ask the question again.
“So nobody has tried to gain entry to your house in the last hour?”
“I’ve got the biggest dog in the neighborhood with the loudest bark. No one who’s ever walked down this street doesn’t know that.” On cue, Sally pushed her way forward to stand between me and the cop. He took a step back from the doorway.
“Ok, We may send someone around later in the morning with some more questions.” As he started to walk away I told him as an afterthought, “My neighbors on that side of me are camping until Friday. You may want to put a spotlight on their house and yard.” He thanked me for watching out for the neighbors and left.
What he didn’t tell me was that an hour earlier a man had been killed at the house directly behind mine while attempting a home invasion. I guess that’s standard operating procedure in an investigation.
Not being able to get back to sleep, I posted the following on Facebook. “There was a pounding on my door at 2:30 this morning. It was a cop. He said they had gotten a report that there was someone going around the neighborhood pounding on doors. My first response was, "Well if there wasn't before there is now."(3:18 am)
It got a lot of laughs. But when the early news came on TV, it was no laughing matter. My neighbor, Travis, whose backyard is directly behind mine, had shot a man. Dead.
I’m not putting any blame on Travis. I’ve only met him one time and he seems to be a pretty decent guy. I probably would have done the same in his circumstances if I owned a gun. In fact, I have empathy for him. It’s one thing to have a gun in your house for protection. It’s another thing entirely to have to use it.
No charges have been filed against Travis. The media has kept his name out of the news. The focus of ALL media reporting so far has been to explain Missouri’s Castle Doctrine - similar to the “stand your ground” statutes in some states but only applying after a home has been breached.
The name of the man he shot, however, has not been kept out of the news. The inference, lacking any background, is “He got what he deserved.” And that’s the way people hear it. Put one in the “pro-gun” column.
His name was Christopher A. Seitz. He worked, for a time, with both my oldest son and daughter-in-law. “It’s pretty upsetting,” is what my daughter-in-law messaged me.
I decided to check out his Facebook page to see if there were any public posts. There were plenty.
I don’t believe you can always get an accurate picture of someone from social media. But I think you can sometimes get the basic palette. Here’s what I found.
Chris Seitz had two estranged daughters. He loved his mom. He was 36 years old, but still struggled with the stunted maturity that I see in a lot of younger men and women – trying to create an image that is packaged and sold through much of today’s entertainment media. And conflicted or confused when finding out that “image” isn’t reality. Issues that used to be resolved in one’s late teens and early twenties were still issues for Chris as he approached 40. For some people, they never get resolved. Chris Seitz hadn't at 36. And now, he won’t ever.
The pictures on Fb depict a heavily tattooed and muscular man. He spoke in “gangsta” speak. His posts depict a not so unusual tendency for drama. He had friends who catered to the same “style.” They loved him and offered support - or what passes for love and support on social media. The most profound statement on his posts was “It's okay if you take five steps forward and 10 steps back just the next time you make a move 20 steps forward.” But the reality is that sometimes 10 steps back is one step to many.
I was talking to my other next door neighbor yesterday. He was one of several people to dial 911 around 1:30 in the morning. Chris Seitz had tried to break into his house as well. Dissuaded from doing so by two Dobermans, he headed through the backyard and over the fence, where he then broke through the back door of Travis’ house. That was his one step too many.
Nobody knows what Chris Seitz intended as he went from house to house trying to break down doors at 1:30 in the morning. I asked my daughter-in-law for a summary of the 6 months that Chris Seitz worked with her and my son. This is what she wrote: “He was a really cool guy and a really good worker. He was living in a halfway house at the time trying to get himself and his life back together for his family. By the sounds of everything, he probably fell back into drugs.”
Chris worked as a low-wage temp, trying to move into a responsible adult life and failing. It seems epidemic.
Whenever a bunch of us old codgers get together, whether it be at the work break gathering place, a retirement party, or the local watering hole, you hear: “The younger generation doesn’t have any concept of work.” “People can’t handle responsibility these days.” “All they want to do is take drugs and party.” “They complain about not being able to buy diapers and then go out and get $500 worth of tattoos.” “It’s not like when we were young.” Is it just the next older generation talking?
The Westside Neighborhood where I live is something of an anomaly these days – a low-income neighborhood where crime rates are low. Tenant ownership is high. It’s an old neighborhood with an aging population – one of the oldest “suburbs” in Springfield, swallowed up by the city limits as Springfield expanded. At strategically located locations there are signs that proclaim “THIS IS A NO NONSENSE CRIME PREVENTION NEIGHBORHOOD.” They are not small signs, nothing like those “neighborhood watch” signs that you see attached to traffic signs and such in some communities. They are the size of small billboards. They’ve been there a long time, funded by an organization called The West Central Betterment Association. WCBA doesn’t exist anymore. These days it’s been split in two – the Westside Betterment Association and the West Central Neighborhood Association.
West Central is closer to the inner city, plagued with high crime, slum lords, and drugs. Lots of drugs. There are no such signs in West Central. A main corridor, Kansas Expressway, separates the two neighborhoods. In West Central very few people own their homes. Many of the residential buildings are former two-story, one family homes that have been divided up into decaying four unit apartments. In both Westside and West Central, if someone went house-to-house trying to break in, you’d probably call it suicide by proxy.
In Westside, the homes are smaller, single story, single family cracker boxes and ranchers, with a low cost of entry. Owners have kept the slumlords at bay by opting to stay in the neighborhood and apply their savings to buy up the low end of the market - maintaining them in good working order and renting out at fair market value. Travis is such a landlord, owning a house across the street from his. By taking care of his rental property, he protects the financial integrity of his own home. By taking a “no nonsense” approach to crime, he protects his family.
But, still, slumlords have made some penetration into the neighborhood. And real estate profiteers have built some large apartment complexes along Scenic Avenue, the most traveled road to the west of Kansas Expressway. Crime has come knocking at the door and people are scared.
How did we get to this point?
The news tells us that today’s wages are “stagnant.” They are not stagnant for unskilled or low-skill labor. In terms of buying power, they have been in free-fall since 1970. 50 years ago, 1 in 3 Americans belonged to a labor union. Today that number is 1 in 10 - the vast majority belonging to public sector unions with little or no striking power. For-profit colleges hand out paper “diplomas” for training in jobs paying as little as $8-9/hr. Tuition has skyrocketed for more traditional degrees. We’re left with a generation of young and middle-aged people buried in student debt.
The median length of time in a job for people aged 25-34 is 3.2 years. People are job hopping for a 25-50 cent an hour raise to make ends meet. And the entertainment industry is selling the idea that anyone can make it on “style” alone.
Suicide is at an all time high.
Did Chris Seitz deserve to die? Nobody deserves to die. That includes Travis and his family. Fearing for the safety of his family, in today’s society, Travis took appropriate action. But if we don’t take a harder look at what motivates behavior in our society and act on it, there will certainly be more tragedies like this one. A shift in a direction is needed. One to where “no nonsense” doesn’t have to mean “no future.” Literally.
