Are we the waiting unknown?

Forget me nots and second thoughts live in isolation

I’m GenX, same as Kamala Harris, who received my enthusiastic vote, so I know where to find my solace in confusing and difficult times when leaders seem mad beyond recognition:

Punk.

The 20th anniversary edition of Green Day’s American Idiot has been in my ears for two days now, and I have been singing snippets from it for a week before that. What a prescient album. It’s gorgeous, a punk rock opera written like a stage musical, with the songs weaving through each other and calling back to each other with these triumphant or melancholy hooks throughout, as if it were Les Miserables rather than an album from the kings of Dookie.

And don’t let anyone tell you that punks aren’t poets. You can’t listen to Henry Rollins riff and say that. The title and subtitle of this post are lyrics from this album, from “Are We The Waiting”:

Starry nights, city lights coming down over me

Skyscrapers and stargazers in my head

Are we, we are, are we, we are the waiting unknown

This dirty town was burning down in my dreams

Lost and found, city bound in my dreams

And screaming, “Are we, we are, we are the waiting!”

And screaming, “Are we, we are, we are the waiting!”

Forget me nots and second thoughts live in isolation

Heads or tails and fairytales in my mind

Are we, we are, are we, we are the waiting unknown

The rage and love, the story of my life

The Jesus of Suburbia is a lie

And screaming, “Are we, we are, we are the waiting!”

And screaming, “Are we, we are, we are the waiting!”

I was going to write about how everything you can read in Project 2025, everything you are hearing from the horse’s mouth, and everything fascist that is boiling on X/Twitter is Anti-Christian, how Christian Nationalism hates the very people Jesus ran joyfully towards and championed…how the prosperity “gospel” creates evil…but I think I’ll let Billie Joe talk for me right now. The waiting unknown of women, tax collectors, fishermen, children and the sick are our example for women, the poor, children, the disabled like me, POC, and our LGBTQ brethren. No one in Jesus’ world is “garbage”, not even the men who killed him, not even the Pharisees and Saducees who kept coming for him, trying to trip him up. If you believe otherwise, you are not following the Christ, the Way. And that’s the opposite of punk rock, where everyone has a home if they are cool to each other.

If you have ever wondered what you would do…at the beginning of a genocide…in Miep Gies’ position…if you could go back in time and face Hitler…you’re doing it right now.

Don’t want to be an American idiot

Don’t want a nation under the New Media

And can you hear the sound of hysteria?

The subliminal mind-fuck America

Welcome to a new kind of tension

All across the alienation

Where everything isn’t meant to be okay

In television dreams of tomorrow

We’re not the ones who are meant to follow

So, I’m punk rock as always, and using Green Day to remind you that this podcast is TRASH-free: transphobia, racism, ableism, sexism, and homophobia. Like the teacher I follow, I just want to break bread with people who would like to do the same with me. And I hope that number grows again. If you are safe, you are always welcome. I was going to withdraw from public life for my own safety, but no one is going to stop me from telling stories. I am taking some steps for safety, and making consumption choices—no more Amazon, Audible, Goodreads, no more helping billionaires be conquerors—but the finding and sharing of cupcakes will continue. Episode this week. If you’re reading this, no matter what, I love you.

Turn it up. Loud.

American Idiot, 20th Anniversary Edition (the Tokyo crowd on the live cuts was incredible, and I’m not a fan of live albums, I want to rock out with Tokyo and crowd surf in my wheelchair): Apple Music, Spotify

I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies

This is the dawning of the rest of our lives