Looking inward isn't always revealing. The overinterpretation of stuff.

I've so far avoided noting the death of an R&B star that occured recently.

That doesn't mean much, other than that it fits into a recent series of comments in which I noted that I wasn't going to gush over David Bowie and I was overawed by James Taylor, who received a medal from the President recently.

If I had commented, it would have been on how it all fits into a trend in which entertainers, who are justly celebrated for their entertainment accomplishments, are elevated into major cultural icons, when they ought not to be. And everyone jumps on the bandwagon and just gushes about it.

Unless, I guess, they're blues musicians.  Lonnie Mack recently died and I really did admire his music.  Blues and jazz musicians, however, don't become cultural icons.  They're just admired for their music.  You have to cross into pop in order for that to happen.

Anyhow, this didn't quite happen in the same way that it had with Bowie, oddly, in that the public lauding didn't cross into true fawning.  And that's a good thing. And therefore I would have let it pass.

But for a New York Times op ed.

Now, some person wrote a thoughtful NYT op ed about how they weren't joining in their generations mourning as they had no cultural reference. They blamed it on, from what I'd take it, having grown up in an Evangelical household where such music was eschewed, and therefore they had no frame of reference.

Well, perhaps it just me, but that strikes me as rather self indulgent.

I didn't grow up in an Evangelical household, I'm a Catholic, and I was allowed to listen to any music I wanted to.  And did. That's why I know about Lonnie Mack.  Living far from the epicenter of the blues, I picked that up, as well as a collection of guitar heroes of all types.   So, the recently departed R&B figure didn't impress me much.

That doesn't make him a bad entertainer by any means.  Rather, I reference that here as the idea that a person grew up in some sort of isolated environment and therefore is sadly missing out on the national mourning is, well, wrong.  Lots of people aren't wrapped up in it either.  It's a big country, with lots of musical tastes.  I guess the passing immediately prior of Merle Haggard proved that.

Today, I'd note, there's somebody in the local paper who is featured noting that they wish to be a delegate for Bernie Sanders, who took the Wyoming vote in the Democratic primary (but who only gets half the delegates.)  It's noted as the person claims that they grew up in a community in the Midwest that discouraged voting for religious reasons, and this young person (early 20s) only just voted for the first time.

Okay, maybe there is some culture in the Midwest somewhere that discourages people (women?) from voting or maybe discourages their women from voting, but I need to see some input on that.  In 2016?  I can't think that's many people and frankly it just strikes me the wrong way. I'm not saying that they're lying, but that has to be such an isolated instance that it's hardly even worth noting.  Who does that?  Do the Amish or something?  Explain that, darn it, if you are going to cite that.

Which gets me to the frequent heard "well I grew up (fill in religion here) and therefore I was deprived of (fill in whatever it is here) as a kids".  Most of these claims are absolute bunk.  

As noted above, I'm a Catholic raised by Catholics.  And yet I hear this sort of stuff by people all the time.   A lot of it is baloney.  "I went to Catholic school and then nuns whacked us with rulers".  Hmmm. . . maybe they did, but you must accordingly be over 100 years old, and only look 30 . . .   Most of that is a story.  Another one is "we ate fish all the time as I was raised in a Catholic house".  Oh, you look like you are 35 and this hasn't been a rule, for Fridays' since the 1960s. . . .

The guilt one is another good one.  "Catholic guilt" or "Jewish guilt"  I'll let those who are Jewish speak for themselves, but the Catholic guilt one is pure baloney.  Catholics, having the sacrament of Confession, are amongst the least likely people to run around burdened by a sense of guilt, if they are practicing.  Its' just flat out a baloney assertion. And in this day and age when there are a lot of people who run around with the concept that every single living human being in the western world is burdened by hideous psychological problems it's just goofy.

And self indulgent, frankly.

But then, we live in a self indulgent age.  Maybe we ought to get over ourselves a bit.