Consciences happen when you need them

I haven’t always had an easy time distinguishing wrong from right. Or more accurately, I haven’t always been good at identifying why I should care between the two. For quite a while, as long as I felt the end justified the means, I slept like a baby at night.

Of course, a lot of that could have been the wine.

Mostly, I have required someone along the way to assist me in keeping my feet pointed in the right direction. The path of least resistance always looked like the shortest distance between two points to me, no matter how many innocent bystanders I had to run over to stay on course.

My first external conscience was a girlfriend in my late teens. She challenged me on just about everything and made me ask—and answer—lots of uncomfortable questions about myself. Unfortunately, Serious Crazy came along with that deal, so I had to cut her loose. I already had plenty of Crazy to go around without her.

Then a succession of friends, mostly one after the other over the years, has served the same purpose in my life. The most recent fellow is a perfect foil for Bad Fang in every way, including political affiliation. There is good reason for me to refer to him as The Last Boy Scout.

So TLBS is a Facebook pal with my wife. The Missus has been attending lots of pro-gay rights events here in our adopted state of Suburban America Circa 1949, and Facebooking about it. Yesterday, TLBS teased me about my wife’s increased level of activity, inquiring as to whether or not attending such events was her new full time job.

I wrote back:


I am proud of my little gay rights agitator. From what I’ve heard, a person can be legally terminated from their job here in this stupid state just for being suspected of being gay.

You will agree, that is pretty fucking stupid. And definitely not in the spirit of “All men are created equal.”

I’m glad she’s out there representing the family, leaving me free to avoid the front lines for the front room with a clear conscience. (The Boy got his fourth “stripe” today, making him eligible to test next weekend for Orange Belt. Whoo!)

Besides, working at a university is tantamount to a ticket to protest. Has been as long as I’ve been alive, anyhow. Plus, The Missus is being a great role model for The Boy. The world needs left-wingers to fuel its human rights machine. Many will get chewed up and spit out along the way, but in the long run, history proves that progress tends to favor the progressives.

When our kids are adults, I wonder what their generations’ civil rights battle will be? Whatever it is, I hope our kids are at the forefront of fighting for equality for all people, regardless of location or accident of birth.


TLBS responded, including a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that we ought to move back to a state where the political climate is less offensive to us.

Ooh, if only we could! He accidentally sucker-punched me in my Achilles Sore Spot.

I climbed immediately up on self-pity high horse (“Winged Empathy”), and fired off the following epistle:


That’s an interesting philosophy, “Move to where the civil rights already exist.” It was funny when Sam Kinison said the same thing during the Ethiopian famine, “Move to where the food is.”

It always got big laughs then, too.

In our case, however, we would have happily stayed in a state where gender equity is at least on a fast-track, if dire financial circumstances hadn’t conspired to move us back to the 1950s. People don’t have a choice where (or how) they’re born, and we don’t always have a big choice where we end up, especially in a shit economy.

But all that is besides the point.

Clarence Darrow said it as neatly as I’ve ever heard it: There will never be justice until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are.

And there you go. Relegating otherwise useful members of our society to an arbitrary second-class status because of the consenting adults they choose to fuck is a) a losing strategy business-wise, the same way, say, ostracizing minorities from the workplace never works out well for those who try it, and b) the practice is at stark odds with the letter and intent of America’s foundational documents. They don’t say “All men except pantywaists are created equal” or “all men are created equal in some states, but not in others.”

It’s an open-and-shut case. Gender equity is the school-integration issue of our times.

Finally, and on an unintentionally related note, I’ve been pounding away at creating a sufferable version of “Man In Black” for Johnny Cash’s 80th birthday this weekend. I will append the lyrics below.

Dude, this guy is my role model. He never failed to take up others’ fights; it’s a big part of what makes him a heroic figure to me. Even in the depths of his meth-fueled junkie depravity, Cash never stopped caring more about The Little Guy than himself, whether it was the plight of the American Indian or the lifer on Death Row.

One time in the ’80s, during his career downturn, Cash was booked to play a one-nighter in New Zealand. But it was for a benefit and Cash had time on his hands, so he went. It turned out it was an outdoor gig and it rained cats and dogs that night. Nobody showed up. After he did his full show, the promoter came up to him backstage in a cold sweat. They didn’t have the expense money they had promised Cash and his road crew; the promoter fell all over himself promising to make good on the debt. Cash stopped him and asked him how much they had needed to raise that night to meet their goal. The promoter told him. Cash turned to his manager and told him to cut the guy a check for the full amount.

So you see, all the cold, hard logic in the world will never convince me that doing the right thing isn’t its own reward, no matter how counter it may seem to run to my own short-term best interests.

Jimmy Stewart said it as well as I’ve ever heard it said in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, “[Lost causes] are the only causes worth fighting for.” Well, in Idaho, championing gay rights is as close as a left-winger—or any American of conscience—is going to get to a good, solid, lost cause these days.

I say, cry fabulous and let slip the poodles of social disobedience!


After I sent the email, it occurred to me that another seminal piece of American pop fiction was ringing around in my brain. It was part and parcel of my rant on Johnny Cash, and it goes right to our responsibility as Americans to the least able of our society. Not because they deserve it, but because we do. Cash instinctively understood that to live in the kind of civil society in which it would be safe to raise one’s own family, justice had to be meted out equally to everyone’s family.

And that by extension, we are all family.

In John Ford’s 1940 film adaptation of Steinbeck’s The Grapes Of Wrath, Henry Fonda says,

“I’ll be all around in the dark. I’ll be ever’-where – wherever you can look. Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad—I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise, and livin’ in the houses they build—I’ll be there, too.”

Except for all the apostrophes, that could be a clause from the Declaration of Independence, or the Bill of Rights.

Or a Johnny Cash composition from any period of his career.

How we treat the downtrodden of our society is not a referendum on their merit, but is rather a reflection on our own humanity. We don’t owe it to them to do the right thing, we owe it to ourselves. 

That is the late-in-life lesson that Johnny Cash finally, eventually taught me. When Cash died, Bob Dylan was quoted as saying, “Johnny Cash was like the north star; you could chart your course by him.”

A person could do a lot worse for a role model, or a conscience.

Happy birthday, Johnny. As always, love to my Dad, Elvis, Jesus and June…

-=fang

[Addendum Disclaimer: Yes, wearing one color exclusively—even black—isn’t going to solve a damned thing. However, having the balls to sing this song on his prime-time network TV show when everybody else who was opening their mouths about political subjects was getting cancelled, that counts for something. It’s also worth nothing that his show was cancelled two episodes later!] 

Man In Black 
by Johnny Cash



Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone?
Well, there’s a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he’s a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you’d think He’s talking straight to you and me.

Well we’re doin’ mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin’ cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we’re reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought ‘a be a Man In Black.

I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin’ for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believen’ that the Lord was on their side,
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believen’ that we all were on their side.

Well there’s things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin’ everywhere you go,
But ‘til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You’ll never see me wear a suit of white.

Ah, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything’s OK,
But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
’Till things are brighter, I’m the Man In Black.