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- What Did I Learn From No Kings Bip-bop mm bee-dop bop bop, ba-beep boop bee-dop bop!!! Hey! How ya doing? Welcome to another episode of WANZOLOGY, I am your host, The Wanz, wishing you a little bit of Hump Day happiness! You good? I hope so. 'cause man, lots of things going on in this world and if you're not paying attention, you're gonna miss the water cooler talk completely. Thanks for listening. This is the episode where some of us were participants in a nationwide protest called No Kings. Now, I have learned very many things in the days since No Kings about my fellow man and woman an I thought I'd share some of that stuff with y’all!! Because boy, people are still the most entertaining thing going. I mean, movies are great, records are great, but humans, man, that that's free entertainment right there if you're paying attention. You know, I was asked to participate in the big, huge gathering downtown Seattle and to perform, that was cool. And then the fun really started after I was done because after I was done, it really then hit me how many people were in the general vicinity of my person! There was a whole bunch! Like thousands, like thousands and thousands of people! “Singing songs and they're carrying signs, mostly say hooray for our side. It's time to stop!! Hey, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down!” Yeah, it was like that! But as I looked around and saw the mix of not only male, female, old, young, many different colors, cultures, shapes and sizes, huge variety of people, and it really, really hit me in my heart of hearts/ There are more than a few things that can bind large numbers of people, and it's not necessarily because of a sports team. I mean, when the Seahawks were making their run towards the Super Bowl, you couldn't get away from people who were jazzed up about talking about football, even if they really didn't watch or like football. They were all happy to be part of the conversation about the Seattle Seahawks. Now it's kind of carried over to the Mariners 'cause baseball season has started. Lots of expectation. Which for me is dangerous, so I won't even go down that road. I, uh, got done performing and got my act together and was thinking, what do I do now? Do I wanna join in and march with everybody? Probably about a three to four mile walk downtown to the Seattle Center and as I looked around and kind of walked around and looked around and walked around some more, I really, really felt alone. Everybody was either with a partner or a group of people with their signs, and some of them were in costumes, and I mean there were groups of three to eight and larger, and then there was me by myself and I started to kind of feel some sort of way about that, 'cause I knew there were people that I knew. I knew that there were acquaintances that were attending this thing, but you know, when I really thought about it, I didn't wanna have to go chase it after anybody. So I made my way to public transportation and I came home. I didn't really think much of it until that night. Yeah, Saturday night, man, people were, people were people’n! Because there's one side that's, ‘we are feeling really good about ourselves 'cause we are gathering together and showing our strength and supporting democracy and blah, blah, blah.’, and then there was the other side who was completely and totally opposite of that. Not completely and totally, but it just kind of felt that way. “Why are you even doing that?”, “It's not gonna do any good!”, “Boy, you guys look stupid, you must be protesting the new governor 'cause he behaves like that!! He's a king!! We don't want him!!”, and I was like, “Talk about swinging a miss!!” There was a huge disconnect between those people who attended the rally and were supportive of its reasoning, and those who were the opposite, they didn't support it, and they really didn't support its reasoning. They couldn't get past anything to really determine what the reasoning was. And I was tripping terr-ip-ipin!!! Because, when I was on stage, I, I said one of the greatest realizations that I came to when writing this song, “When If Not Now”, is that there are hundreds of thousands of species of birds, millions of species of bugs on this big blue marble, but homo-sapiens, ONE!! There's only one species of homo-sapien on this planet!! I went on to say, if you look at something and it's got two eyes, a nose in the middle and ears or ‘handles’ on both sides of the head, more than likely it's a human. But here I was after being around humanity for a lot of the day, looking online at another snapshot of humanity who was completely, diametrically opposed to the other. Those who had a great time standing up for the things that they believed in versus those who were totally dismissive and somewhat rude about those people who had stood up for what they believed in, because they believed pretty much the, uh, the exact opposite. The protest now, you couldn't nail any one of them on, “What? You don't support democracy?”, they wouldn't answer that question. “What you like everything the current occupant of the White House is doing?”, well, you couldn't really get them to answer that question either, but because it was opposing what their views were, w ell, that's all they needed to know. There were no details, there was no reasoning with these people, they just wanted to out and out be against it because it wasn't with what they believed! And I was like, “Huh…no wonder this country's so messed up!!” You would think that having a difference of opinion regarding your political leanings is one thing, but totally taking a crap on the opposing opinion? To me, that's complete and total ther thing. That to me is another, how can I say this gently, it is an idiosyncrasy of human behavior people tend to display when they can't hold two opposing thoughts in their head at the same time. Now mind you, the point of the protest was not to change anybody's mind. The point of the protest was a show of like-minded people against what they believed was an authoritarian takeover of this country's democracy. That's a simple way of putting it. And diametrically opposed to that were people who thought that either the protest didn't really accomplish anything, because nothing and no one was changed by it, or, the other flavor was it was stupid because there's nothing wrong, or so they thought. They thought, there's nothing wrong with this country right now, except the people who are supporting this ‘No Kings’ thing were nuts in the head. Or as, uh, one person put it suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), and I was like, “This is amazing!! This is a three sided coin right now!! Those on one side, then the other side is split into two pieces, and none of them, none of them could coexist in the same space at all. I found it amazing. So the difference between the parade that took over downtown celebrating the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl, had thousands of people at it and everybody was there for the same reason. This event in which thousands of people took over downtown did not. It did not, and it should. Why? Because everyone there lives in this country, whether they agree with how the country is being run or whose side you're on, because we are this country, everyone would be, well, you know, I don't agree with you, but I'm happy that you have an opinion and leave it at that. So what are my conclusions? My conclusions are there is a cancer eating away at this country and it is based in selfishness and self-centeredness. It is very quick to identify the other, but not very quick to understand the similarities the other has with them, if that makes any sense. Like I said, one species of human being, right? This is on a day when part of the population of this particular city chose to meet in one place and go walk around espousing their belief in something. What I saw later were people who said it was ‘performative’ or ‘it really didn't do anything, therefore it was a waste.’ and then another group that thought, ‘these people are just backwards. They don't really understand why they're doing what they're doing!’, ‘They're just doing it because they hate something they don't understand.’, and I was like, “Wow!! I think I understand all three of these diametrically opposed opinions very well, and all of them, no two of them miss the mark!!” Two of them support segregating themselves from everyone else. If you're not with them, then you're against them. Like The Sith, only The Sith deal in absolutes! Now there's one side that wants rights for everybody. Doesn't matter what color you are, doesn't matter what sex you are, doesn't matter what orientation you are, where you moved here from, doesn't matter. You just go be whoever you like being, ss long as it doesn't keep me from doing the same, then there's these other two sides who can't stand that because there's quote unquote ‘something wrong with it.’, Huh!! Now here's the funniest thing in the world, those people who are against the group of people who support whatever it is, you as an individual support, you just go do your thing long as it doesn't bug me, you go do your thing. The two sides that are against those people claim that they know what being an American is all about. Their way is how America is supposed to be! Being a student of history, I scratch my head and go, “Nuh-uh! Nuh-uh!!” With one argument, and I'll close with this. I don't really know how to express what I'm trying to get at, but I am pointing out what I feel is the problem. I pointed out to this one person who was chastising me because, “What was the point of all these people gathering and walking around?”, I said, “You do remember the greatest generation, don't you? Those people who were of age and alive and living during World War 2? They call it the greatest generation because as a whole, for the most part, the country was unified against one thing and they gave and sacrificed comforts, amenities, riches, most of them just chose to help out people who were more down and out than they were, and from that, from the victory that was won, the sacrifices, all that camaraderie began a boom for this country! A boom, an expansion of knowledge and wealth and camaraderie and community. The greatest generation spawned the middle class, all because of World War 2, the unity that was created in the country.” I look at some people who are negatively opinionated towards other people simply because of who they are, what they believe, who they love, where they came from, and I go, “That's not the America that I know. That's not the America that I grew up becoming familiar with at all! In fact, it's the opposite!!” Isn't it strange that creatures that are so alike can be so different. Some of those creatures make it a point to be so different, even though on the outside, for the most part, they are extremely similar. Two eyes, nose in the middle ears, or what I call ‘handles’ on both sides. I challenge everybody listening to my voice right now to stop looking at other people as people and look at them as humans. Do you know the difference between a person and a human? Is there a difference between a person and a human? I think there is, and I challenge you. I challenge you to figure out for yourself not only what it is, but why it's they're different. Good luck. Good luck. That's all I got for this week. You, uh, you go on and be a really good human, okay? I'm gonna go do the same. I'll talk to you later!!