There's a five o'clock me inside my clothes
The lady who is the chief of staff sent me an e-mail this morning to welcome me to The QCC. That would be the Quarter Century Club in the enterprise where I work. I'm not sure what to think about getting this e-mail. She mentions scheduling a virtual meeting with the CEO, virtual only because the company HQ is in Chicago. She continues that I can forward the invitation to as many team members as I'd like. What does that mean? To what would I be inviting them? I have no clue. Is it silly that something like this would chew on me? Parts of me want to tell me that I'm being ridiculous. Parts of me just say that this is who I am. Snarkier parts of me are quoting Groucho Marx: "I would never join a club that would have me as a member." Irony, no? Cognitive dissonance for one, please. I feel a certain anxiety. What's up with this? I know that parts of me are plenty proud to have put in twenty-five years at this company. I am proud of my contributions, my skills, my value to the company, and ultimately to our customers, and their customers, however much the latter remain largely oblivious to the fact that my efforts facilitate the keeping of the lights in their homes burning, their televisions babbling to them, their houses cool in the summer, their food fresh. Heh. Our CEO does not know me and most likely has never heard my name, although some of the people who are direct reports to him know me. Heh. Anyway, I don't know him, either. He's probably a nice guy. He seems so from what he writes in communications within the company, and from presentations to the employees. I just don't know that I have anything in particular to say to him, and not much of an idea why I'd want to do so.
Our chief of staff continues: I have the opportunity to provide a photograph to be posted in the company newsletter. Hmm. Pretty straightforward, but … really? Some parts of me are feeling resistant. I'm irritated. There is this kind of almost subliminal superstition floating around in the depths of me, the one that some primitive peoples have of photography: that it captures or traps a piece of one's soul. Why do I want a bunch of people whom I've never met to see a picture of me? This, also, is irony, coming from a man who has been a frequenter of two dating sites and maintains a LiveJournal. Still, what is this feeling?
Our chief of staff also informs me that they want to schedule an interview too, for the newsletter. Ugh. Now my brain hurts. What the hell do I want to say to the nameless legions of our company that does not involve our jobs? Does it matter? Will it matter five minutes after it's been printed, five minutes after anyone reads it? My Inner DJ interrupts The Vogues with a sample from the Beatles:
I read the news today, oh boy,
About a lucky man who made the grade,
And though the news was rather sad,
Well, I just had to laugh,
I saw the photograph…
Ah, the gears shift, she's on a roll. Now John and Paul are interrupted by a sample of Mellencamp:
Saw my picture in the paper,
Printed news around my face,
And now some people,
Don't want to treat me the same…
Ah, interesting: there's something here, that floats beneath the lyrics and the tune. All of this contrivance. I think I know at least one thing that bothers me. Stuff like this is one of those social obligations, an association that one did not choose for oneself, and from which one cannot gracefully extricate oneself, but what of the associations I would choose? DJ allows Mellencamp to continue:
Don't confuse the problem,
With the issue, Girl,
It's perfectly clear,
Just a human desire,
To have you come near,
Want to put my arms around you,
Feel your breath in my ear…
There are associations we can't avoid and those that we desire. Perhaps there is a club for curmudgeons I could join. Heh. I jest, but it vexes me, all the same. Does anyone know me? Maybe yes, probably no? Whose fault is that? Mine. Do I blame anyone else for that? No. Still, I am vexed.
Is the world not a crazy place? Every day, it seems stranger to me. The culture undergoes sea change and the few who see it mostly have five or six decades of sand in the bottom of their hourglass. I read and I watch videos of people talking about the culture - such a change has happened and it is profound and yet subtle.
Consider "Five O'clock World." How far from the world that birthed that song have we come? Third or Fourth Wave feminism have seemingly convinced or conned half of the human population of Occidental Civilization that being a wife, homemaker, or mother are demeaning, degrading and vocations fitting only slaves and second class citizens. No, to be free, actualized, respected, or powerful one must essentially be a man-oid: a brother, with a vagina, and for a woman to think otherwise, or find value in roles out of favor, reveals herself as a self-hating masochist who secretly believes Margaret Attwood's dystopia wouldn't be such a bad thing. Ha. The Vogues are another group whose music would not sell, would not probably have been written, but that it was written five decades ago. It would not work, not at all today, to my perception. How accurate is that perception?
Can anyone today even imagine, in their wildest speculations, lyrics like these being written, let alone becoming a radio hit? Look at the satisfaction expressed in this song. These guys are singing about wives, girlfriends, and helpmeets not "boss-babe" fellow working-joe "dudes" who only differ in anatomy. This is an example of art produced by men, not "man-boys" actually cherishing women qua women. Sacrilege. You want passion and romance? You can't have much of that with interchangeable "uni-sex" humanoids; you can only have that in a world populated with men and women.
'Cause it's a five o'clock world when the whistle blows,
No one owns a piece of my time,
And there's a long-haired girl who waits, I know,
To ease my troubled mind, yeah,
Oh my lady, yeah,
In the shelter of her arms everything's OK,
When she talks, then the world goes slippin' away,
And I know the reason I can still go on,
When every other reason is gone,
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
In my five o'clock world, she waits for me,
Nothing else matters at all,
'Cause every time my baby smiles at me,
I know that's it's all worthwhile, yeah,
Oh my lady, yeah,
No record executive would touch that, today. The younger ones probably would be dumbfounded, or unable to quit laughing. DO men write songs like this today, about women? I don't think so. This, and yet we decry population collapse, the birth-gap, the falling fertility, the lunar wasteland of modern dating, men and women feeling unseen, the collapse of marriage and long-term relationships, the vacuity of hook-up culture, the prevalence of aging singles. The culture is so much better today than it was though, right? Do I have my finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist…or am I hearing the sighing tide of Hoss's longing? How do I ever understand that part of me? How do I make peace with him? How do I accommodate him?