The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

The trouble with times like these where the Idiot King twitters whatever happens to spark across his busted synapses, is that there’s no one left to revel in the crazed lunacy that lies at the smoldering heart of a nation gone batshit crazy, no one who covers politics with a guano shovel rather than an Apple laptop, no one who sees the humor in the dystopian ruins of post-rational America where Medals of Freedom are passed out like consolation prizes to crooks and crankpots. Somewhere, I have no doubt, a few refugees of the drug wars must be bunkered into their underground warrens, chronicling this Mad Hatter era with a jaundiced eye and a needle still dangling in a pock-marked arm with soft chuckles at the damage done.

Slug another beer, slam a shot of Jack, skip wiping the chin and head right for the coke, the waning of Pax Americana has got to be good for another punch line or two. A reality show huckster becomes President! What satirist worth his advance would scrib a plot so preposterous? And yet. And yet. Heeeeeere’s … Donny!! He says what’s on his mind and the masses love a politician who tells it like it is. Or isn’t. Or who cares, the man is a showman, a clown, an angry bully, a narcissistic idiot whose blowhole spews gaseous venom. He’s entertainment from dawn to dusk. He’s the President of the United States, proof the syphilitic disease that’s burrowed into the national consciousness has festered and grown. Orange hair covers the tumor, the white eyes from the suntan goggles practically glow, the piggy lips pout and spit … step right up, ladies and gentleman, step right up, the Angry Rich Man, 25 cents, see him rage on the stage, watch him burn his enemies, witness the Sight of the Century!! 25 cents. Step right up! The Pissed Off President!! You voted for him, now see him snarl in person!!

A bull in the China shop, all right. He’s got a hunch the coronavirus numbers from the experts are too high, way too high. Just a hoax, folks. Stay calm, he’s got this covered, vaccines will be at your pharmacy tomorrow. Meanwhile, you got symptoms, go to work, nothing more than a cold, really, nothing to worry about. You’ll feel fine before you know it, ignore the chill and fever, the hacked up chunks of lung. He says the experts can’t believe how knowledgeable he is about medicine, about disease, about all things scientific, probably good genetics. After all, he has a relative at MIT. Smart guy, seriously smart, no wonder he’s a genius president. Genetics — beats studying. Let the morons study, he’s got hunches.

If a neighbor said this to you, you’d laugh in his face, tell him to sober up. When the Idiot King says he’s wearing really fine clothes, his attendants describe the color and fabric. We have a pandemic under way, we have economic problems, we have global warming as an existential threat, we have international crises.

But … he has a hunch.

I have a hunch that the country is sliding toward a slow insanity, where we believe only what we want to believe and the rest is phony. We follow tweets, we spend half the day on Facebook, we text rather than talk on a phone, we live in our own virtual bubble, quarantined from reality. Call the doctors, I think we’re sick…. Go to the office anyway, we’ll be fine. I’m sure of it. We’re in good hands. Everything’s okay.

If you’re wasting time reading this instead of fumigating your house and property for coronavirus, you must be one of the countless many who are reassured that the epidemic coming to a town or neighbor near you is in good hands with the new Pandemic Czar, the veep, the man himself, Mike Pence. Sure, he fought the remedies for needle exchanges to reduce HIV back when he was the Guv of Indiana, but that was more about morality and Biblical teachings than it was hardcore science. Mike, in hindsight, probably wishes he’d read the tea leaves of public opinion a bit earlier, but it was Indiana so c’mon, let’s cut him some slack. Unless you’re old enough to remember when he claimed cigarettes didn’t make smokers sick. Doc Pence, faith based prognoses.

I did notice, however, the Prez didn’t call him the Pandemic Czar, that was me. In fact, he’s not really sure this coronavirus, even if he could remember the name correctly, was the real McCoy. Might get worse, might not, who knows? But … just in case, he brought in the Big Dog, Mike. If things go wrong, if things do get worse, if this cold or whatever it is starts killing people, especially people in this country, well, you can’t blame Donald. No, he put his second in command in charge. The buck will stop there.

Sure the Center for Disease Control stated unequivocably the virus was coming, sooner, later, who knows, but it was definitely coming. The President, thinking like his Medal of Freedom recipient, Rush Limbaugh, that this was just another hoax by the media and the leftists, claimed this was the same as that Russian interference stuff. Pandemic? They don’t think so. Fake news? There you go….

Mike stated today that the risk was really pretty low for this colonvirus or whatever the scientists are calling it. No need for panic, not much to be afraid of. He’s meeting with Congress and they’ll work out the details for a budget. If that doesn’t make you afraid, nothing will until bodies are being tossed in corpse carts for incineration down at the crematoriums for the diseased.

But me, why worry? Pence and his task force have the situation well in hand. You know, if they’re right about Rush and his Chicken Little theory…. Otherwise, you may need more than a hepa mask and two months worth of Costco supplies to see you through.

I heard a study recently that said the poor are more charitable than the rich. On average they give almost twice as much of their income percentage-wise to those in need than their wealthier brethren. They also volunteer more for charities and non profits, service groups and outreach programs. Basically, if my sociology statistical studies are still in semi-working order, this proves, not quite conclusively but damn close, the South End is way more philanthropic than our neighbors up yonder ensconced behind their key carded gated communities.
I had a friend tell me in all seriousness awhile back (in regard to my bemusement over her financial plight at the time) that a million dollars just wasn’t what it used to be. What exactly do you say to a pronouncement like that? Do you work out the math of inflation vs. income? Do you shrug your overburdened shoulders and just agree? Or do you take pity and offer up a loan …. you know, to get her by until that devalued million dollars returns to its rightful place in the economy?
These are tough times. Especially, I guess, for the rich. Or, more aptly, the folks who no longer count themselves among the Gatsbys of Camano. Their stocks have slipped, the value of their two homes has dropped, their retirement funds seem inadequate now, even their hedge fund broker refuses to return their frantic calls — that vast chasm between Us and Them looks like a ditch, not a Grand Canyon. And if sacrifices must be made — and believe me, they must — a little less giving to the needy is definitely the order of the day.
Meanwhile, down here on the Lower Tiers, we kind of see we’re all in this together. So we still donate, we still volunteer and we still give. We don’t have much, but it never seemed too little somehow. Even though a hundred dollars isn’t what it used to be.

I’m sitting in the local barbershop that just opened up in town humming that song ‘Almost Cut My Hair’, but apparently I’m not going to let my freak flag fly even one more day. I got mixed feelings. My hair was down to my shoulders, first time since back in about 1980 when I moved out here and drove school bus for the little felons I transported. Don’t ask me why but I got this wild hair to let it grow, see if it brought back hippie memories.

It didn’t. Just an old geezer growing his hair long in the modern era of ‘50’s crewcuts, some kind of rebel statement, not sure for who. Whom. Whatever. Shampoo bill hitting the ceiling and drying time about two days. Longer hair than the mizzus, probably confusing sexual identities, why not?

The two guyz in front of me look like they get a trim about every two weeks. My last haircut was two years ago. Probably saved me about $400. Or quite a few gallons worth of shampoo. Without possessing any superhuman strength, I still seem to have a Sampson/Delilah complex. But growing my hair long didn’t make me any stronger either. Warmer in winter, about all.

Most of my adult life, a haircut meant I was on my way to some kind of interview. Jobs, art committees, anything where I worried I might lessen my odds looking like a refugee from the 60’s. As I got older and greyer in the beard, I figured the length of my hair was the least of my worries, considering I showed up in jeans, goodwill shirts and a battered cowboy hat so soiled I might have been an Okie lost in the exodus from the Dust Bowl. Artist chic, I liked to tell myself. Right.

The thing about haircuts is that invariably I regret getting them. The upside is that hair tends to grow back, not like an irreversible decision. Another two or three years, I’ll probably be back here in the chair. Maybe for a trim….