The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

So the Covid-in-Chief knew how deadly the virus was back in the beginning, just didn’t want to scare us. The Head Cheerleader wanted to paint a smiley face on the coronavirus, tell us it would fade away, tell us it was contained, tell us we didn’t need to wear masks or avoid crowded bars, assure us there was nothing to fear here. Right. This from the Town Crier whose doom and gloom messages about everything from immigrant caravans to socialist takeovers are intended to scare the pants off every undecided voter in the country.

Our cities are burning! Looters and rioters and those liberal Democrats have run amok in left wing urban enclaves. Illegal immigrants are flooding into white America, raping and killing and selling our kids drugs. Crime is rampant. The cops are being handcuffed by socialist legislatures. If Biden is elected, the stock market will crash, the economy will plunge, the coming Depression will be like nothing we’ve ever seen.

This is the stuff of a calming cheerleader? One who doesn’t want to incite panic in the population? Gimme a break, the man would scream Fire! in a crowded maskless theater if he thought it might get him some votes from the survivors. No way do any rational people, if there are any left, think Donald J. Trump wanted to spare us undue hysteria. We’ve had three plus years of anxiety, fear, terror and dread. You sleep okay at night wondering about this guy’s finger on the Big Red Button? Even his fixer, Michael Cohen, will tell you this narcissist would say and do anything to stay in office. If cranking up the fear factor would work, he’s all in.

But … in my fair and balanced way, let me add that when he met with the Californians while their forests and suburbs burned, he didn’t yell Fire! No, he assured them that global warming was a hoax and science wasn’t always right. In fact, or something he’d like to think is fact, the world will grow colder instead. Soon. You wait and see, he told us. Great Leaders sometimes have to put a positive spin on catastrophe. And if a positive spin on catastrophe makes a man a great leader, well, need anyone say more? I know I’m feeling a definite chill in the air.

These past few pandemic-filled months, the Pilot Lounge has banned Fox News on its big screen TV so rather than fight over Wheel of Fortune or the Fishing Channel, Jerry the bartender keeps the channel on old sports, Archival Football he calls it, meaning, reruns of long past playoff games and grainy championships back in the day. Keeps the political arguments at a slow simmer, if nothing else.

Two Toke and I like to take the edge off the morning occasionally with a pint or two. When the Flatheads, our vintage car guyz, hold their breakfast meeting at the Yacht Club, we end up becoming honorary Flatheads whether we want to or not. Two Toke drives a battered Ford 150 pickup, circa last century, so he sort of qualifies. You know, if the rust and the flaking paint and the missing tailgate weren’t factored in. Me, my days of wrenching on crappy cars is nothing more than fodder for tall tales and automotive exploits at my own expense, mental and financial. I have a ten year old Toyota truck now, neither vintage or new, just right. It doesn’t break down and as long as that holds, it’s the love of my life. Or was until the mizzus bought a Prius that lately is pulling 70 mpg. I wouldn’t be caught dead parking that hybrid next to Fairlane Fred’s ’57 T-bird or Jimmy’s Hudson or even Wally’s VW microbus with the opera windows. The Toyota Tacoma, okay, I’ll take the ribbing for the ‘bullet holes’ on the sides where my lawnmower keeps catching rocks and flinging them at high velocity when I mow the park I maintain, gives it a gnarly panache, if nothing else. I just tell them I have enemies and leave it at that. They don’t have any trouble believing that.

The nice aspect of a morning pick-me-up at the Pilot Lounge is the morning barkeep, usually Jason the new owner, is the TV is never on. Jason likes the peace and quiet and we do too. The Flatheads, they like the sound of their own V-8 engines rumbling, mufflers belching. “Hey, Jason,” Little Jimmy calls out the other morning when the entire parking lot is filled with antique rigs, “how about we catch a little Fox and Friends for once, get the pulse of the nation?” Two Toke laughed and I ordered my second pint. Jason shook his head, as always when Jimmy made the inevitable request. “The truth, Jimmy? You looking for the truth?” And as always, Two Toke, Jason and I hollered in unison, “You can’t handle the truth!!!”

And as always, the Flatheads filled the joint with their jocular ribbings and hooted catcalls. Two Toke and I pulled our table near theirs. You might as well join em…. we sure can’t beat em.

People ask me all the time why would I want to donate my glass to all these public places around the area. And I used to say, it’s my way of giving back. Which is as trite and idiotic an explanation as a politician leaving office to spend more time with his or her family. Oh right. Their family probably long ago gave up on seeing them and probably stopped caring. They leave office because some scandal or the long arm of the law caught up with them so who’s kidding who? Their family probably is about as happy having them come home to their loving arms as Covid couples enjoy the kids quarantined in their two bedroom rambler.

I even ask myself why I do this, if you want the honest to god truth, not that there is such a thing in post-fact America. When I was starting out trying to make a living creating glass art, I got a job with the WA Art Commission after I was fortunate enough to be juried into their roster on the second try. My handler told me when I was selected not to expect a commission to follow, but a few months later one did. Small, but bigger than what I’d been doing. I turned that small project into a 15 foot by 7 foot curved mural, about four times what the budget would have required. I thought why not do something on a grander scale than a bathroom residential to keep the neighbors from seeing my client tinkle. Even my handler warned me I wouldn’t make any money if I scaled up. I said what, you think I wanted to be an artist so I could get rich?

The second commission came 3 years later, the required wait until us roster candidates could receive another one. Trust me, I was spoiled by that first project and small residential windows and autonomous panels seemed, oh, a lot less satisfying. My next commission was an okay budget, but I gave them a 70 foot by 20 foot mural to fill up their curved front bank of windows. If you want to become addicted to large scale formats, this is how you do it, plunge the horse syringe deep into a vein.

To compete in the world of hungry artists hoping for these commissions, you needed, back then, a slide portfolio of work, usually 10, what now is a digital portfolio. I didn’t have 10, but that 70 footer was proof the guy could do projects of monumental size. Still, I needed 8 more slides. So I donated a few glassworks to the new Visitor Center on the island, the Stanwoodopolis Senior Center, the Camano Senior Center, the Mukilteo Library, the Mt. Vernon train station, to name the first few, and voila, my portfolio was fat even if my bank account was flat. And each one opened another door to a large art project. My foot was firmly planted in that door and I was a finalist for projects from Alaska to Florida. Nothing was too far away and none were too intimidating to keep me from going after them. I was younger then and a lot hungrier. I figured whatever I needed to learn, I’d learn.

Here at home I got stoked after building the Visitor Center and the Sculpture Park that we could turn our little backwash island into the Art Island. We organized an artist group, started a Mother’s Day Studio Tour, put art in the local schools, libraries and senior centers, gave the island a new and not always welcome identity where prior there wasn’t much of one. Why not? Well, I can answer that, but not here, not right now. But in case you’ve never worked with us artists, believe me when I say we’re not good in the sandbox together and so, after too many meetings and egos that would stretch a hatband to the breaking point, I decided to just lone wolf my efforts, skip the board meetings and drop a glass mural here and there like bread crumbs to follow back to some imagined cottage, a terrific time saver and a mental health tactic I recommend highly to others.

So why would I want to donate all this glass? I sure don’t need a larger portfolio now, I’m not searching for a ‘legacy’ and I have my doubts about creating that Art Island. I guess I’m getting older and more cynical. The simple answer is I like working large and there aren’t enough projects and commissions out there now to get my fix. I know, it doesn’t sound noble, doesn’t sound high minded, doesn’t even sound philanthropic. Just another junkie in search of his high. That, or maybe I just don’t want to spend time with my family. And the scandals have yet to catch up to me….

Why on earth, the man asked, would anyone go to Viet Nam when they could stay home and make real money? This from the same guy who asked the same question about folks who went into public service. No big payoff in civil service, no millionaires in the government. Only a dope would work for peanuts. Only losers and suckers and, well, maybe patriots. Inconceivable to him, almost a kind of mental illness. Philanthropy would be a pathology to the man. Public service a neurosis. We were put here to make money, simple as that. You don’t believe that, you need a straitjacket.

Maybe that’s what people who like this guy think too. All those coal miners and farmers and small businesses. Elect a man who tells them he’s a billionaire real estate developer, a man who would lie and cheat and steal to make even more billions, that’s what we want for our President. A man who thinks soldiers who died in World War One and Two were stupid. Losers. Better to take Daddy’s money and parlay it into a bigger pile than get his butt drafted for Viet Nam, then call John McCain a loser for getting captured by the enemy. You can’t make much money in a Hanoi prison camp.

Take a good look at the crowd at one of his rallies, that sea of people with the red MAGA hats, cheering every angry word that spews out of his mouth. They look like folks who had bone spurs to avoid the draft? They look like they figured out how to make their first million? They think John McCain was a loser for getting captured and tortured and still refused to be released if he cooperated? I’m not sure if they’re deplorables or not but I know this, the guy they plan to elect one more time sure is. Fool them once, shame on him, fool them twice, man, what’s wrong with that picture?

Historic preservation on the South End is slightly different than other places. Most areas restore an architecturally significant building — the way folks did in Stanwoodopolis with the Odd Fellows Hall — or you fix up a fancy theater or tidy up the old Pearson House, maybe rehab a train station. Tie a little history to art, throw in a chamber orchestra, occasional theater group, poetry reading — get some volunteers, apply for a grant, hey, we’re halfway there to creating cultural identity.

Down by us we’re toying with a campaign to save the Tyee. The Tyee Store, I mean, an iconic example of 70’s minimalist architecture done in masonry block painted a classic mildewed white with a low sloping shed roof blown off once or twice, and a fully functional outhouse. The store owners weren’t real happy with our ad hoc group to save the Tyee, but considering they’re losing money hand over fist, we plowed ahead. Jack Gunter had already restored the adjoining garage to its present pristine glory, proving that expensive restoration isn’t always necessary for the South End Historical Preservation League.

But it was the EPA that finally derailed our high hopes of creating the Tyee Opera House and Expresso Stand. It turns out those rotating rotisserie deli dogs with their infra-red warming oven carbon tracking for decades, well, apparently it created a super strain of E-coli no known agents can destroy. It was like a culinary meth lab and if they can create bio-suits secure enough to withstand the new strain of unearthly bacteria, they might have a 50/50 chance of burying the place in glass and concrete like a South End Chernobyl. That, or the Defense Dep’t. is interested in expanding it as a toxic agent lab…..

We South Enders are in no danger, we’re told, somehow building antibodies to the superbugs, but we sure couldn’t expose outsiders to the pestilence. So… for the time being our cultural aspirations are on hold. But don’t you all worry. We won’t be stopped. After all, the Elger Bay Store has that early ‘80’s shotgun stripmall architecture that will be stylish in, oh, a decade or so….

So okay, the President was wrong about this coronavirus thingy being a hoax. I know, he said he was on top of this pandemic way before anybody else. Meaning, I suspect, he realized fairly soon the hoax wasn’t a hoax and the virus wasn’t a cold. And yeah, he was off by a bit on opening up businesses and churches by Easter. He didn’t say which Easter, did he? The man is trying to put an optimistic spin on this plague, how can you fault him for that? If he looks like a cheerleader at the beginning of the bubonic, well, give him high marks for trying to rally the team. Even if they are coughing up lungs. Someone’s got to encourage us to try harder!

Just because he doesn’t practice social distancing himself and refuses to wear a mask to protect others, c’mon, that would just give folks watching the appearance that he’s afraid of a little virus. He wouldn’t even have himself tested in the beginning. No germ is gonna make him crawl!! The rest of us, those tests are coming any day now. We might not even need tests once that vaccine gets distributed. Any day now, he’s been telling us, and I know, some of you fault him for unwarranted optimism, but would you rather he told you the truth, that a lot of you and your family will probably die before that kind of discovery is made? It’s why he tells you that quinine treatment looks very very promising. It’s why he tells us a relatively untested vaccine is coming Soon. It’s why he suggests we look into drinking toilet bowl cleaners and disinfectants and maybe even shine a UV trouble light up our asses. Not because he really thinks it’s a good idea, he just thinks it might be a good idea … and then everybody jumps all over him when idiots take him seriously and drink Lysol. You can’t blame him for people’s stupidity and for godsake don’t say they voted for him so they get what they deserve, all right?

When he said Liberate Michigan! Liberate Virginia! he didn’t mean start a revolution, he just wanted to support the folks trapped in their houses with the mizzus and the rugrats. He didn’t mean what he said and he doesn’t say what he means. You could read it anyway you want, I guess, but why not be charitable? When that Georgia governor threw open the doors and returned to pre-pandemic normal, didn’t Trump berate him for idiocy? Consistency is for fools who never want to be re-elected, trust me on that one.

Course now he wants to bring the kids back to school this fall. Kids, he says, don’t really get the Covid. Positive thinking, see what I mean? He told you if the number of deaths in this country stayed below 60,000, he would declare it a victory. Now that we’ve passed that number, actually 3 times the 60,000 and more coming every day, he finally can tell you his team, Pence and Kushner and the boyz, well they kept that number from being in the millions. You didn’t need to hear how dangerous this pandemic thing was back in the beginning, but he knew. He knew before anyone else. And that, in case I have to spell it out, is what makes a great Leader. Mission Accomplished! Now go on out and party with a bunch of your friends.

Well, we are past the virtual conventions. Actually, considering Trump gave his nomination acceptance speech from the White House and his Sec. of State offered his endorsement while on a state sponsored trip to the Middle East, we are past conventions period. Laws too. So now we can go down the home stretch in what will no doubt be the ugliest of ugly elections in our history. Huugely ugly.

And in case the circus wouldn’t have three or more rings under the Big Top, we have police killings, Black Lives Matter protests, antifa rioting, white supremacists offering vigilante assistance, Post Office shenanigans, the continuing Covid plague, the whole shebang plowing fertile ground toward the November election which will no doubt take a few days to count all the late mail-in ballots. After that all hell breaks loose, count on that and take it to the bank.

Nobody is going to feel unsullied after a couple of months of mudslinging lies and horrorshow scare tactics. If this thing is close, batten down the hatches, a Cat 5 storm will flood the country until after Christmas into a bleak New Year. I’m like you, I’m really forward to what’s coming. America is going to be great. Again. What I think Mr. T meant, but misread his teleprompter, was America is going to be greater. You might even get tired of so much greatness. Our suburbs are going to be safe for white women. Again. Our employment numbers are going to be the best in history. Again. Not like they are now. Like they were back when America was great the first time. Or was that the second? The stock market is going to keep going through the roof so if you have a job you might consider calling your broker. Or get one. Use that payroll tax break. By the time you have to pay it back your stocks should double. That’s how the Big Boyz do it and now you can too. In the Greater America.

In the second term, if Mr. T wins, racism will be a thing of the past. Although in this term it doesn’t exist. Biden wants to defund the cops even though he says he doesn’t want to defund the cops. There goes the cities. And the suburbs will be sure to follow, all those looters and rioters and rapists, worse than the immigrants, wanting equal rights when we all know they have equal rights already in the pretty great America but nothing like the greatness that’s coming to this land of the free.

My friends are worried this guy will get a second term. My friends obviously don’t want a greater America. They think the election will be rigged or that the guy won’t leave the White House if he loses. Some of them think he might start a war with North Korea or who knows who, wag the dog, declare a national emergency, make Ivanka queen, send in the troops to restore Law and Order, ban MSNBC and the NY Times and lock up Bezos for distorting the truth in the Washington Post. Me. What, me worry? I’ve already seen what a great America looks like. I’ve already learned what kind of fellow citizens I have in this already great country. I know for a fact that we get the Leaders we deserve. Me worried? No, I’m scared to death….

By now you probably realize that the world you thought you lived in is not the world you actually live in. You thought the Covid Plague was keeping you from what used to be normal, that it was ravaging across the land, killing tens of thousands, 186 thousand, but now you realize the Pandemic was defeated by the courageous and farsighted actions of the President you thought you disliked. In fact, the man you thought was selfish and cruel is actually very kind, maybe the most unselfish and most kind person in this country. You thought he was racist but then you must have noticed that people of color at his convention gave testimonials to the opposite. His kids tell wonderful stories of his wonderfulness. You think they would lie?

He is the Defender of law and order but you thought he was actually guilty of impeachable acts, you thought he was in violation of a prohibition to use the White House for political gain, you thought maybe he was using the office to enrich himself and his wonderful kids, you thought the military was enjoined from being used for photo ops and you thought the Post Office was doing an okay job. See? You aren’t living in the Real World. Those riots in some of our major cities, they’re the work of Joe Biden and his gang of radicals. Bet you thought the incivility was on Donald’s watch, didn’t you? That’s because your anger blinds you to the Truth. He will make our cities safe again when he’s re-elected. Although they’re the safest they’ve ever been, but he’ll make them safer again. That’s his promise to you.

And the economy? Best it’s ever been but next term it will be even better. Those millions of unemployed? Don’t worry your faux news-filled head over it. More jobs are on the way, better jobs, higher paying jobs, maybe enough money for all of you to invest in the stock market where the real moolah is. And when you get the real payoff, you’ll also get a tax break. That’s his promise. If you’re smart, you’ll start shopping now like there’s no tomorrow … although tomorrow will be even better than it is now.

Those coal jobs are coming back, North Korea will turn over their nuclear weapons, Isis is defeated, the Taliban are on the run, Covid is cured. Miracles happen, Virginia. Santa is real. And yes, he’s in the White House and Christmas is coming to America. Again and again. Make out your list. Trust him, you’ll get everything your heart desires. You just have to believe. And stop reading the news.

Yesterday I drove over to Hutchison Park and the Little Library that has been vandalized a few times the past couple of weeks. I have been mouthing off about a mural that was airbrushed in the worst part of Seattle and Gomorrah around 1978, one where I chatted with the artist and lamented that in a week it would be desecrated. He told me it wouldn’t, that the community would respect it for what it was, Good Art unselfishly donated to them. Turns out he was right.

So I decided if I’m going to talk the talk, I needed to walk the walk. When I went over to the Little Library to board up the broken windows, the cyclone fence guyz were repairing the battered and busted up old one that had gone unfixed for four or five years, what to me was an indication that nobody cared about this little park and for that reason invited vandalism. Maybe, I told myself, this was the right time to upgrade the library, give the park a bit of new aesthetics, see if the improvements might not offer a Protective Art Shield to the place. What the hell did I have to lose other than a day or so of work building a stained glass replacement for the broken glass? Right?

Right? So yesterday a crabbing buddy of mine helped me clean up the broken safety glass, pull out the book racks and install a 2 foot by 3 foot framed stained glass replacement window. I suspect he thinks I’m a total idiot to put a bullseye on that library. And I suspect he might be right. But … I’m willing to put it to the test. If I’m wrong, okay, a day lost, a lesson learned and another notch in the belt of my cynicism. What are ya gonna do? I’m trying to put art in all our public places on our island and in Stanwoodopolis. If this is quixotic, or simply self serving, which a lot of folks think it is, then I’m kidding myself. Or I’m a fool. Or both.

But if I’m right, maybe, just maybe, this little island will become an Art Island, not just my stuff but the art of dozens and dozens of us, hundreds of us. Not everyone will be happy about that, trust me. Some folks think Camano could have stayed pristine and rural, just happy farmers tending their radish, milking their goats. This art stuff, it’s changing the pastoral ambience, it’s too modern, it’s not in keeping with the commuter crowd and the rich retirees. It belongs in the cities down the freeway, not here, not in their faces. Who’s paying for that? they’d ask when we built the Visitor Center and Sculpture Park and I would answer, not you, pardner. All a donation. And they would say, well, I hate it anyway.

I get it. Some folks wouldn’t hang a poster on their drywalled walls, much less a watercolor or an oil painting. Sure don’t need it, sure don’t want it, wouldn’t hang it if you gave it to em free. Sometimes, I guess, you just have to give it to em anyway….