1
00:00:10,279 --> 00:00:14,240
Speaker 1: I got to spend last week in California, seeing people

2
00:00:14,320 --> 00:00:19,480
doing things from Irvine up to Sacramento, and people kept

3
00:00:19,519 --> 00:00:23,280
trying to get me to go with them to vineyards.

4
00:00:24,199 --> 00:00:28,719
Though I no longer drink, I used to. And then

5
00:00:28,760 --> 00:00:32,000
I had a two year old daughter, and I decided

6
00:00:32,039 --> 00:00:35,759
I didn't want her to see me drunk. She and

7
00:00:35,799 --> 00:00:40,039
I love silliness, but that's a whole other matter. I'm

8
00:00:40,119 --> 00:00:46,920
capable of foolishness without adding intoxication to it. I went

9
00:00:46,960 --> 00:00:51,840
to Modesto, the home of Ernest and Julia Gallo wine,

10
00:00:51,960 --> 00:00:55,520
the wine that I drank in my college days, the

11
00:00:55,799 --> 00:01:00,920
cheap wine and the gallon glass jug. You poured it

12
00:01:00,960 --> 00:01:04,159
into an ordinary drinking glass, and you drank it with dinner.

13
00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:06,920
And either you liked it or you didn't drink it,

14
00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:12,799
but you didn't sit and discuss it. And now I

15
00:01:12,879 --> 00:01:18,480
have friends, bless their hearts, who are connoisseurs of wine,

16
00:01:18,640 --> 00:01:26,920
and who employ terms like well structured buttery, complex, nicely

17
00:01:27,480 --> 00:01:38,200
restrained autumnal jam, flavored rangey. What strikes me is complex,

18
00:01:38,680 --> 00:01:44,879
well structured hogwash. I am an alien in the midst

19
00:01:44,959 --> 00:01:48,560
of these people. The only wine I taste now is

20
00:01:48,599 --> 00:01:53,120
from the Sunday Morning communion cup. And maybe it's complex,

21
00:01:53,200 --> 00:01:57,239
but I just think of it as the blood of salvation. Well,

22
00:01:58,120 --> 00:02:02,480
we live in a big, democratic country where people speak freely,

23
00:02:02,719 --> 00:02:07,400
so you don't have to go far to be an alien,

24
00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:14,080
and I am an alien among Generation Z people when

25
00:02:14,120 --> 00:02:18,960
they talk digitalese. I tune in sports talk shows on

26
00:02:19,080 --> 00:02:24,120
TV to enjoy watching grown men shouting at each other

27
00:02:24,680 --> 00:02:29,719
about a game. Meanwhile, the planet is heating up and

28
00:02:30,039 --> 00:02:34,879
Los Angeles is burning, and a party has taken power

29
00:02:35,039 --> 00:02:41,159
whose members are forbidden to speak the words climate change.

30
00:02:41,520 --> 00:02:45,840
From Modesto, I went to Lubbock, Texas by way of

31
00:02:45,879 --> 00:02:50,919
Southwest Airlines, which encourages its flight attendants to do stand

32
00:02:50,960 --> 00:02:55,639
up comedy. Landed in Lubbock, one of them said, be

33
00:02:55,759 --> 00:03:03,360
careful opening the overheads. Luggage can shift. Shift happens. I

34
00:03:03,400 --> 00:03:06,360
went to Lubbock to do a stand up show myself

35
00:03:06,439 --> 00:03:11,599
at the Cactus Theater, and standing in the lobby, it

36
00:03:11,719 --> 00:03:15,719
seemed to me that I was drawing a Baptist crowd.

37
00:03:15,919 --> 00:03:19,039
I asked an usher and she agreed with me. So

38
00:03:20,280 --> 00:03:24,360
I worked some hymns into the show, not hard for

39
00:03:24,400 --> 00:03:28,879
an old evangelical like me. And when I started into

40
00:03:29,759 --> 00:03:33,759
it is well with my soul, and they joined in

41
00:03:34,199 --> 00:03:42,919
full voice, four part harmony. Suddenly I wasn't an alien anymore.

42
00:03:43,759 --> 00:03:49,479
I was among brethren and sistern. I was instantly at home.

43
00:03:50,840 --> 00:03:55,759
And then how great thou art? It was powerful. Lubbock

44
00:03:55,919 --> 00:04:00,479
is Buddy Holly's hometown. And they also knew every day

45
00:04:01,080 --> 00:04:04,199
it's a getting closer, going faster than a roller coaster.

46
00:04:05,280 --> 00:04:10,319
And they knew, you know, my love will not fade away,

47
00:04:10,639 --> 00:04:16,560
and it won't. I love Lubbock always will. I don't

48
00:04:16,560 --> 00:04:21,959
care who they voted for last November. Those people are family.

49
00:04:23,319 --> 00:04:29,279
Their singing was not a tumnaul or rangey. It was

50
00:04:29,360 --> 00:04:35,959
heartfelt and it was harmonious. Life is good even when

51
00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:42,000
we're alienated. We democrats got skunked, and so for the

52
00:04:42,040 --> 00:04:46,920
next four years were free to savor life itself. The

53
00:04:47,040 --> 00:04:53,120
victor has proudly proclaimed his contempt for our traditions and

54
00:04:53,920 --> 00:05:00,240
institutions which are alien to him. His faith is in himself,

55
00:05:01,160 --> 00:05:05,279
and I say good luck with that. I intend to

56
00:05:05,519 --> 00:05:11,160
enjoy defeat and go back and read Shakespeare, whom I

57
00:05:11,240 --> 00:05:15,879
wrote C minus term papers about in college, using terms

58
00:05:15,959 --> 00:05:21,519
like well structured and complex. And I'm going to travel

59
00:05:21,560 --> 00:05:26,839
to Dublin in Stockholm, go to Rome, where a person

60
00:05:26,959 --> 00:05:33,120
can become absorbed in the immediate surroundings, be engrossed in

61
00:05:33,240 --> 00:05:36,639
the moment. I want to hear the marriage of Figure

62
00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:41,639
again and the Foray Requiem. I want to walk in

63
00:05:41,680 --> 00:05:46,199
the park with my sweetheart and look at people and

64
00:05:46,279 --> 00:05:52,600
their dogs, and the jazz musicians who congregate to jam together.

65
00:05:54,120 --> 00:05:59,600
I want to pay attention to joyful outbursts of little kids,

66
00:05:59,600 --> 00:06:04,240
a stone by ordinary things to which I say whatever

67
00:06:05,480 --> 00:06:11,160
I love, the old hymns, face to face, friendliness, good manners,

68
00:06:12,160 --> 00:06:16,800
a limerick, a walk in the park. Some day I

69
00:06:16,920 --> 00:06:20,759
hope to shake hands with the bishop who dared ask

70
00:06:21,199 --> 00:06:25,720
the President to show mercy in her prayer at the

71
00:06:25,759 --> 00:06:31,800
cathedral the day he was sworn into office. I knew

72
00:06:31,800 --> 00:06:37,879
it could happen some way. A bowl rules the whole usay,

73
00:06:39,199 --> 00:06:45,680
but life is riskable, and I'll stay episcopal and live

74
00:06:45,759 --> 00:06:48,360
happily day to day.