Cavalier

I’m not a big English history buff, so I don’t know if King Charles I was a good guy or not, but I was thinking about the word cavalier, and learned that a Cavalier was a wealthy loyal supporter of King Charles’ I and II. In my brief, recent research, I also learned that Charles I ruled for more than two decades, sold the crown jewels, which were not his to sell, to finance a war against his own people, some of which he hired foreigners to murder. He was executed for treason.

The Cavalier King Charles Spaniel was named as such because it was the chosen lapdog of the King. Cute.

The word itself can mean gallant, but mostly, when we think of a cavalier attitude it refers to a haughtiness or “lofty disregard of others.” Not just your run-of-the-mill disregard, but disregard of the lofty magnitude.

I understand the dog thing, it’s stuck with the name. But someone thought to name a car cavalier, and a whole basketball team. Now, I know nothing of professional basketball, but I loved LeBron James in the movie Trainwreck.

And that was to be tonight’s post. Yes, it’s a veiled political statement. I short jab. But as a total aside, I must take this time to acknowledge the recent death of Chris Cornell. My friend, a much younger friend, wrote on FB about the music of Soundgarden helping her get her degree, motivating her to forge on. It was a lovely sentiment I thought, but I didn’t know his name, though I’d heard of Audioslave and Soundgarden, and until this week didn’t realize how much of their music I’d heard and that I could recognize his voice. It was not music that had any impact on me, but it did on my friend and apparently many others. I do know how it feels to lose an artist that impacted my life, like Bowie, Cynthia Robinson of Sly and the Family Stone, the amazing Lesley Gore, and to a lesser extent Joe Cocker and Leon Russell. And those are just the most recent ones. What I mean is, when the art of an artist touches you in some way, and though they don’t know you from a hole in the wall, they’ve seen you through tough times and happy times as well, or just gave you a needed boost, it’s hard when you then lose them and it’s a very personal pang to the heart. Condolences friend.