Not Much Here.

I complain a lot. It's my nature.

My gf is giving up complaining for a month, or so she claims. She can, however, make "statements of fact." Which means she can complain, but not ... fictitiously? I don't get it.

And there is such a lot to complain about these days.

But mainly the thing that bugs me is the lack of cultural touchstones.

If you lived in 1950, you lived in the era of:

1. Painting. Picasso, Matisse, Pollock, Miro

2. Fiction. Hemingway, Faulkner, Ayn Rand, Nabokov, Steinbeck

3. Movies. Billy Wilder, John Ford, John Huston, Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa

4. Politics. Churchill, Lyndon Johnson, DeGaulle, a host of others

5. Humor. Groucho Marx, Dorothy Parker, James Thurber, S.J. Perelman

6. Philosophy. Will and Ariel Durant, Albert Camus, John-Paul Sartre

7. Poetry. Robert Frost, Stevie Smith, William Carlos Williams, Dylan Thomas

What I'm saying is that in 1950 you could legitimately look to a veritable legion of great figures in art, politics and even [gasp] popular culture.

I didn't even mention Einstein, Richard Feynman, Cole Porter, Oscar Levant, Noël Coward and literally dozens of others.

And these greats [by and large] were considered and recognized as greats in their own day [despite no cable TV, and really ... not much TV at all.]

The difference in my mind is that today, there is no sense of wonder and optimism fueled by the expectation for the next great work by a Hemingway, the new film by Welles, a new play by Hammerstein or Coward ... a great speech.

Aside from a few genius stand-up comedians and the resurgence of the NBA, who are the stand outs today? Culturally, what makes you want to get up in the morning? Anything?