Plague Journal, Drifting Away
Three more days remain in 2020. The year has been one of pandemic, and of the nation roiled by the incompetence of the Trump administration. I am offended by incompetence. A state of incompetence, the inability to carefully execute a task to completion is something expected of children. When adults are incompetent, especially when attempt is made to pass incompetence off as a virtue — that’s indication of immaturity, lessons not learned in the course of becoming an adult.
Should we not wage war against incompetence? Should we not address resistance in our own lives to facing responsibility with eyes wide open? It seems so to me. There is much in life that is unsatisfactory, “glass half full” outcomes and circumstances are the norm. Should we not make the best of imperfection, — do the homework, the research, the due diligence requisite to being the best parent, writer, __________ , that we can be? (Fill-in your role, the label for the hand that you’ve been dealt…)
I love this song. Written in 1972 as a country song, it became a hit in 1973 by soul singer Dobie Gray. Drift Away was the final hit record for Decca records in the United States. This version, a cover release in 2003 by Uncle Kracker, featured Dobie Gray singing back up vocals, the bridge, and joining Uncle Kracker on the final verse.
The video shot in Detroit, utilized a garage owned by Uncle Kracker’s brother. The point of the lyric is the seamless connection between a form-of-life, a livelihood involving physical labor, and the reciprocal effect of music, rock n’ roll in particular. At an earlier time in my life, I stacked many a Firestone tire, smelled the aroma of fresh rubber, and listened to the groan of a tire machine releasing the bead from a steel rim. There is a lyricism of touch, the body recording sensation of force, of temperature, of fatigue — a body meant for use.
Does the same logic hold with work valorized by our globally connected economy — moving blocks of code in cyberspace?
Drift Away
By Uncle Kracker
Day after day I’m more confused
Yet, I look for the light through the pourin’ rain
You know, that’s a game that I hate to lose
And I’m feeling the strain, ain’t it a shame
Oh, give me the beat boys and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
Give me the beat boys and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
Won’t you take me away
Beginnin’ to think that I’m wastin’ time
I don’t understand the things I do
The world outside looks so unkind
And I’m countin’ on you, you can carry me through
Oh, give me the beat boys and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
Give me the beat boys and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
Won’t you take me away
And when my mind is free
You know your melody can move me
And when I’m feelin’ blue
The guitar’s coming through to soothe me
Thanks for the joy that you’ve given me
The joy that you’ve given me
I want you to know that I believe in your song
Rhythm, and rhyme, and harmony
You helped me along, you’re makin’ me strong
Oh, you’re makin’ me strong
Give me the beat boys and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
Drift away
Give me the beat boys and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
Drift away
Give me the beat boys and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
Drift away
Just give me the beat boys and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
Oh, won’t you take me
Oh, won’t you take me
I wanna drift away
Won’t you take me away
I wanna drift away
I wanna drift away
Won’t you take me
Take me home
Let me drift away
Won’t you take me away
lyrics written by Mentor Williams
2 thoughts on “Plague Journal, Drifting Away”
I’m not absolutely certain that the tsunami of incompetence that has almost drowned us over the past four years is responsible my increasing intolerance with regard to ineptitude or whether it is brought about by the inherent grumpiness of creeping into old age. Most likely it is a bit of both.
Simple things such as the young man at the FedEx office, who, in taking my parcels to label, asked me the same question three times after I had prewritten the information on a slip of paper prior to even entering the building. Or the grocery clerk who watches as I unload my few groceries onto the conveyor belt from my cloth tote bag and then proceeds to place the items into a plastic bag when I clearly brought my own bag.
Actions without thought or observation. A complete inability to view, to reason, and to assess, as if they are operating in a vacuum. The people who eschew the process of observation are, for the most part, descent folks, but they have readily given up the ability to think outside the box. The routine of placing items in a plastic bag or asking insipid questions of the person with the parcels is the routine and anything that deviates from that routine “does not compute.” Just as the barely breathing automaton on the other end of a telephone can do nothing but read from the script written by a customer service VP who has no knowledge of what I might really want to know when I call a corporate 800 number about an issue I have with their product or service.
When I run across the exception, the person who can respond in real time, who has an ability to reason and find a solution, and who might even have a sense of humor, I am gobsmacked. These rarities are bright lights in the otherwise drab and frustrating experiences of attempting to communicate with the “outside world” and so I will invariably thank them for being human beings and for their help in solving a problem.
But this arc of incompetence is everywhere and I have to think, as you so eloquently noted, that the incredibly moronic leadership of this nation gives those who already have a propensity towards an inability to reason, carte blanche to create a world which blunders along without thinking. And it is indeed everywhere; on the roadways, in the shops, in the banks, in hospitals, on the phones, at the dry cleaners, and in the misplaced trust of a government in which we have no choice but to place our lives.
Yes, grumpy old guy is certainly a part of it, but the frequency of this type of behavior is also increasing and I don’t know how we change direction.
Anyone who isn’t grumpy at this juncture, has not been paying attention. Impatience with incompetence has nothing to do with aging.
In an increasingly technologized world — judgment is excised by design from the workplace, from the job functions for which employees are paid. Yet, competency is hard won, by trial and error, and by practice by permission to fail, — as long as a lesson is learned. That world is passing away if any of it still exists anywhere at all.
Also, employees generally speaking are poorly paid. This is a standard business practice and is no longer disguised because it is the norm. Employees are disposable, retained by companies no longer than they are add profit to the bottom line. This employees must accept because there is no alternative. If you wanted to vitiate the development of competency, I could not come up with a more efficient policy…..