2006 - 2016: Ten Years of The Rant

Dancing in the London Rain, May, 2010
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Ten years ago today, in the wee, small hours of June 2, 2006, I received an email from a woman in Missouri. She told me that she had been enjoying my nocturnal postings on a delightfully subversive website called "AlterNet", and that she was "a fan" (I could not even imagine such a thing). She said that I wasn't a half-bad writer, and that I should think about starting my own blog. At the time I wasn't terribly computer savvy and was only vaguely aware of what a "blog" even was.

"How do I do "that?", I wrote back.

"Go to blogger.com", she replied, "They'll walk you through it".

I did as instructed and, within about twenty minutes, I had my first piece up. It was called, "George W. Bush: The Last Republican President". At that moment, I was only half-convinced that this would, indeed, be the case. A decade later I am almost certain of it. In that first piece, I also predicted that Bush would be remembered, primarily, as the first former chief-executive to go to federal prison. On June 2, 2006, I had a bit more faith in the concept of justice than I do today. I've since come to appreciate that blind faith in a "concept" is a complete waste of one's intellectual energy. It's a lesson I should have learned long before.

There are two sets of rules. One for the Ruling Class - and one for the rest of us. The one percent need not adhere to the laws that you and I are obliged to live by. Ted Bundy murdered a score of women and died in the electric chair. George Bush and Dick Cheney murdered hundreds-of-thousands of men, women and little children. Today they dwell in comfy retirement. 

Doesn't life suck sometimes?
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May 2016
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To my eternal regret, I cannot remember the name of the Missouri gal who started this mess - or at least I think that's where she was from. If she reads this I hope she gets in touch with me. Chances are I would never have been inspired to start this site had it not been for her gentle encouragement. In the early years she would occasionally post in the comments section under the pseudonym, "Prairie Waif", and then she disappeared. Perhaps she has passed away.

Initially it was called, "Tom Degan's Daily Rant". However, after about a week I realized that trying to put these things out on a daily basis was a Herculean task that I was not up to. For reasons of practicality, I changed the title to "The Rant by Tom Degan". For over thirty years Eleanor Roosevelt put out a daily column called, "My Day". With the exception of when her husband died in April of 1945, she never missed a deadline. God bless the old gal. I don't know how the heck she managed to do it.

Four or five months after I started this site, I had an epiphany. "The First Draft" would have been a much better title, and - to this very moment - I'm kicking myself for not having thought of it on that first day. By the time I realized this, I was staring to acquire a bit of a following and decided it would be wise to just stick with "The Rant". I still regret that. Personally, I don't particularly care for the name. I chose it on the spur of the moment and now I'm stuck with it.
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Shoppin' with Dubya, 2008

I've been accused at times of being an egotist for the fact that I put my name on the title of this blog. Why I did this is simply because I was dismayed by the fact that so many writers post their opinions on the internet anonymously. We need to hold our heads high, without fear, when we speak out against this inherently corrupt system that has been bequeathed to us - and which we are on the verge of stupidly bequeathing to our children. My opinion is that we haven't yet gotten to the point where we should be afraid for our own personal safety and security for making our rage known. No, we haven't gotten there - yet. That may change someday. 

Hey! I just had the nuttiest idea: Let's all vote for Donald Trump this Autumn and see what happens!

On second thought, let's not....

This is the 643rd piece I've written for this site. Is that a prolific number or not? Is it just about right? Is it not quite enough? To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure. I think I've written more articles than Matt Taibbi has in that time-frame, but his stuff tends to be a little more detailed than mine and - let's be brutally frank here - he's a much better writer than I am. That is not false modesty on my part, that is the stone-cold truth. Read him sometime if you think I'm exaggerating. The guy is on the mountaintop.
`

Occupying Wall Street, 2012

I guess 643 pieces in ten years is about as it should be. There might have been a few more had fate not intervened. In the summer of 2012, I became thoroughly depressed thinking Mitt Romney was going to win the presidential election, and I posted not a thing for about ten days. On December 17, 2013, a young person whom I loved more than my own life passed away unexpectedly, and I was unable to write a word for over two weeks. Then in February of 2014, I was hospitalized for over ten days and almost died. Near-death experiences tend to put a bit of a cramp in one's literary style - just in case anyone ever asks you.

All-in-all, I think I've called them fairly well. About a year ago I took a merry stroll down Memory Lane to recall the earliest postings and was amused (and in one case horrified) by what I came across. A few of them I would have worded differently had they been written today, no doubt about it. That is probably a sure sign that I have "matured". However, in ten years there are only three pieces that I'm profoundly embarrassed by....

Don't bother looking at the one I wrote on September 18, 2006. I made a bold prediction that I was certain would occur by year's end. It never happened. It hasn't happened still. Pass that one by.

You might also wish to avoid the little ditty I composed three months later, on December 20. I was falling-down-drunk on the night I wrote it. In fact, I had no recollection of writing it the following day. I left it as is - an eternal reminder that I should not drink and write. Hunter Thompson, Jack Kerouac and Ernest Hemingway I'm not.

AND PLEASE, DO NOT - UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES - READ WHAT I WROTE ON JANUARY 27, 2008!!! I won't even hint at what that one was all about. I still get the dry-heaves just thinking about it.
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With cousin Madeline Degan, 2014
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Other than the three exceptions listed above, I think I've done okay. I guess I could delete the clunkers simply to make nice with hindsight, but that wouldn't be very sporting on my part. Stand by your triumphs. Own up to your errors.

As I write these words it is now 3:15 AM. The counter that I had installed a little over four years ago tells me that, in that space of time, we've had 1,269,734 hits. Not too shabby, I suppose - but I'm hoping to make those numbers a bit bigger in the future....That was an understatement. I want EVERYBODY to read this thing. I know that's unrealistic on my part - but hey! You've gotta dream, baby! You've gotta dream. You may say I'm a dreamer....

Thank you for reading!

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

SUGGESTED READING:

George W. Bush: The Last Republican President
June 2, 2006

The first piece I wrote on this site ten years ago today. Nothing particularly earth-shaking; just an introductory salutation. The only extraordinary thing about it is the title. I think I nailed it.

http://tomdegan.blogspot.com/2006/06/george-w-bush-last-republican.html 

I thought that the Republican Party hit rock bottom with Ronald Reagan in 1980. I never foresaw George W. Bush. When Dubya came along, I thought that he was a bad as it could get. Sixteen years later, along came Donald Trump. It makes me positively giddy wondering what they're going to puke up in 2020!

SUGGESTED LISTENING:

Bolero
by Maurice Ravel

It is impossible (for me anyway) to pinpoint what is the "greatest" piece of music ever composed. All of the milestone compositions stand out for a variety of reasons. Maurice Ravel's "Bolero" belongs up there with the best of them. I love this one so much that I'm barely able to put it into words. As with so many of the classics, my father turned me on to this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK23BhEQVyU

Just listen to it and let it take you away. Three o'clock in the morning is the perfect hour for this.

AFTERTHOUGHT, 7:20 AM, July 2, 2016:

The woman called "Prairie Waif" got in touch with me this morning.