Passing the baton

After a turbulent week that brought both a Wolf Moon (the biggest, and allegedly most provocative full moon of the year) and the iPad (a great name for something to catch the eFlow.  Period.), the Grammys brought a healing, wii are the world, unity.  Although I can’t say I’m a huge Lady GaGa fan, when s(he) sang with Elton John at the Grammys I have to admit I thought it was very sweet and packed with poignant potential portent.

I was a big Elton John fan as a kid (a natural high school follow-up to digging Alice in Wonderland in elementary school); and even though I was hetero, I was rather partial to French Nouvelle Vague, Rocky Horror Picture Show, neon colored clothes from punk boutiques and all manner of second-hand-store anti-conformist statements in a time and place when wearing a beret to school in a working class Chicago high school could be grounds for an ass-kicking.

And so it warmed the cockles of my heart to see Elton singing across from GaGa, a complicit and knowing passing of the torch that seemed to bookend the later moment of Stevie Nicks and Talyor Swift singing together like they were a groovy mom and daughter just back from a Montana Ave shopping afternoon (where they might have ran into Elton and his daughter, LGG and all shared a single muffin).

In a world where we need to stop labeling, pathologizing and pigeon-holing everyone and instead see the beauty in diversity, the brilliance in learning differences and the luminescence of the autism/Aspergers spectrum, I see the evolution from Elton to GaGa as evidence of growth.

After all, the big weaving and dodging thing Elton danced around for years was whether or not he was gay (back when he and I were skipping down that Yellow Brick Road or Up on the Roof and life was wonderful because we were in this world), and so debate about what sort of equipment the Lady who doth protest too much might be packing may one day also seem but a quaint question from an almost Victorian past when today’s kids grow up to hopefully go past such twittering and tiring needs for clarity and certainty.

While many have blazed the trail of androgynous ambiguity (and perhaps, in my old-school opinion, with greater talent) from Bowie to Iggy Pop and many others, Ms GaGa is selling a lot of records and I think Elton’s nod of respect to her said something about collectively widening our embrace.  If she’s good enough for Elton, she’s good enough for me.

So, let’s dedicate today to decreasing judgment and conformist insecurity in favor of a little flair and a better time—serving all our collective children by giving them a much wider berth in which to be splendidly true to themselves.

Namaste, Bruce