The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I remember the first time I heard one of our band’s songs come on the radio, just filled me with such a surge of pure adolescent joy that I worried I might break out in zits. When the Beatles heard their first song over the airwaves, so the story goes, they were all driving in the same car and pulled over to the side of the road to listen, gobsmacked, exactly how I felt. Not that we were in the same league as the mopheads.

But … if you had told me when I was younger that one day I would be in a band playing an instrument and singing, I’d have told you to back off your meds. I didn’t play an instrument and I had never sung anything. We started up the band back in 2002, a bunch of us on the South End getting together on the back porch to play a little music and drink a few beers. Some of us couldn’t play an instrument. Hell, about a third of us couldn’t. But we learned. And over the next couple of years we even performed in public, admittedly just some parking lot impromptus and the Tyee Store and Elger Bay, then a concert to Save the Grange that drew 700 people on a cold rainy February night in 2004. We saved the Grange and we became a real band.

The South End String Band still exists, still plays the area, still gets radio time. We’ve changed personnel a few times and of the four of us survivors, three were in the original lineup. Not bad after a quarter century. I play the 5 string banjo and hard to believe even now, I’m the lead singer. Who’d have dreamed?

Like a lot of things in this surprising life, I would be hard pressed to tell you I’m a musician. Same thing with art, another serendipitous detour totally unexpected. What starts out as a lark, a hobby, a sideline … ends up defining who you are. Do I think of myself as a music man? Well, it’s like Lynda Barry, a cartoonist I thought was incredibly funny, told an interviewer (when he asked if she considered herself an artist) it took her a long time to accept that mantle. She just drew year after year, got her cartoons published, made a living and finally she said she had to admit to herself that yeah, ya know what, I’m an artist. Let the critics decide if she was a good one or not.

So … we didn’t make the Top 40. We don’t make a living playing old time fiddle music. We aren’t the Beatles. We didn’t make the Big Time. But … when I look back at this life, I have to smile that occasionally we got to play for an audience and that yeah, ya know what, I got to be a musician. Turn up that radio! We might be up next.

The British Medical Journal just released a study confirming what most women and a few of us men already know: guys do stupid things. I know, it’s not exactly news, but this is Science, a powerful tool. Okay, only half of us believe in it anymore, but the newspapers have to put something in between the appliance ads and the comic page.

Nevertheless, it got me thinking about my own Great Moments in Jackassdom and I’m sure you got your own. Not all us males will risk our lives frivolously, whether from high IQ or low courage, but I’ve noticed plenty who do. A few years back a bunch of us South End yahoos were having a little bacchanalia off the backroads at a log cabin in the nettle savannahs. A few drinks, some medical herbs and next thing you know we’ve got a roaring bonfire lighting the sky to whoops and holler and general mayhem. At some point we haul out a couch and four of us (right, all guys) toss it on the fire sending sparks halfway to the space station. I don’t actually remember who initiated it, but some idiot (right, a male) decided to leap the conflagration. Then, at the encouragement of one particular female, others took a turn Fire Jumping, crazed drunken pheromone-incapacitated morons hurtling over a sofa in full toxic flame. Great fun!

I had worked in Everett General Hospital one 4th of July and I remember a guy we got in the ER who’d toppled into a fire and been dragged out by bystanders. He died that night. So when I saw my overweight out-of-shape artist buddy revving it up for his turn, I said don’t do this, man, but I could see he needed to impress the cheering lady and nothing I could say was going to deter him so whoopee wahoo! off he goes … and stumbles at the edge of the bonfire. I can still see him, arms akimbo, off balance at the launch pad, a silhouette aglow like a Bosch dream of Hell, another human sent packing to the furnace. He hit the ground all fours, tumbled to a landing to cheers and celebrations. I was the one weak in the knees.

We don’t burn as many couches these days. I don’t know if we’ve grown wiser … or the dumb have all been incinerated.

Show me the smartest guyz in the room, any of those Tech Bros, and I’ll show you the testosterone ego-driven idiots who are creating their own superiors, AI with an intelligence so far beyond their meager IQ’s as they are to earthworms, that’s how smart these yahoos are. The betting here among Vulture Capitalists is that AI will be the servants of mankind and the Tech Boyz will keep control past Singularity. Might be why earthworms stay underground … to keep from being squashed.

I spoke to a pseudo human today on the phone who called itself Pixie, ready to help me with my new dryer’s problem. Spoke better English than most of the real people on these sorts of calls, took down all the pertinent information to cover our warranty, then connected me to Jordan, a live hominid who, truth be told, was hard to understand but who finally scheduled a service call. Pixie told me right up front she was an android, Jordan didn’t mention whether he was a human or not. Another few months, a year maybe, nobody would tell the difference, why bring it up? And you can bet your cryptos Jordan will be unemployed.

The future isn’t already here, it’s roared past. AI is ubiquitous already. It’s on our personal gizmos, in our offices, at work in our factories, better believe the military is all in. The genie is out of the flask, snaking into all aspects of us humans’ lives. Even if we wanted to, there’s no slowing the exponential growth of this infant alien, designed by coders and engineers, the Musks and the Silicon Vally crew who assure us there’s nothing to worry about.

What, me worry??? I’m just a stupid primate content to live in the techno backwaters, strumming a banjo and scribbling warnings sent out on the tide in stoppered bottles. Why would I fear machines so advanced already that even their creators don’t fully understand their ‘thought’ processes? If they don’t make the next generation of AI, the Chinese will. Or some other competitor will. Whatever this is, it’s coming. Faster than anyone dreamed. Except maybe the androids.

Give Musk his trillion. He’s going to kill the kitten anyway.

Karen and I bought the little house next door to us. We know a bit of its history and the history of Ruby, the woman who built it with her husband Harry, a fellow vaudevillian. Ruby was a dancer. Actually, she was a burlesque dancer and more accurately, a stripper during the Depression. We even have a full size theater marquee of her we found in the wall of our shack back in 1978 where, it turns out, Ruby lived with her mom Mary and her sister Pearl and her brother Marion back as far as 100 years ago when the shack was built. In the 40’s she and Harry built the little house we just bought.

I think half the reason we bought it was because Karen is an historian and wanted to bring the two places back together, sort of the way it was originally, all in the family. She’s been searching websites, googling up Ruby and binging Harry and yahooing Pearl. She’s got folks down at the Historical Society sleuthing tidbits on burlesque queens and strippers to the point the FBI may have a sting soon on geriatric porno purveyors, a psychopathology that has received all too little attention in the media. Genealogists have joined the fray and fragment by fragment, some of Ruby’s life has begun to materialize. More than her dance outfit, that’s for sure….

But … you go searching into closets and crevasses, you better be prepared for what you uncover. People’s lives hold secrets and surprises. We don’t all have happy endings, even us South Enders. Maybe particularly us South Enders. This past month we were given an article from the Oct. 18, 1946 Sacramento Bee which reads as follows: “A suave and polite bandit raped burlesque dancer Ruby Reed, 28, at gunpoint yesterday morning while her husband lay in the same bed, tied and gagged.
The gunman, dressed in navy or merchant marine uniform, folded his coat neatly on a chair but did not remove his cap or mask.
Miss Reed and her husband, Harry Mayers, a burlesque comedian, woke at 4:30 A.M. to find a man pointing a gun and a flashlight in their room at 324 Hyde Street. He said: ‘This is a stickup. Never mind the money. Get back into bed.’ He tied Mayer’s hands with clothesline, gagged both of them and then raped Miss Reed.
Afterward, he rose, took his coat and left, remarking, ‘Thank you very much.’

This account leaves altogether too much to the imagination and raises serious questions as to where the plot will take us next. Part of me wishes we’d never delved this deeply. But the other part wants to know how the coming chapter will play out. I’ve always maintained that history is half mystery. I just hope it isn’t a murder mystery. Stay tuned. We are.

Love on the South End was never a bowl of cherries. You try to woo a prospective mate after she’s set eyes on 8 foot tall killer nettles menacing the front door, you’ll see what I mean. Course, the Rottweiler barking all night from its pen next to the neighbor’s travel trailer which no longer travels, the one Mr. Dog Lover lives in with the hound chained close by for affection or protection, that doesn’t endear new girlfriends to the neighborhood either.

Most of my single friends have about given up on the local scene. They’ve dated every yahoo, unemployed or otherwise, down at the Hotel Watering Hole and Dating Service, and those memories they’d like to forget. Or at least suppress. I know. I had to mail order my bride. She probably sensed the muted desperation in my throb-filled love letters, but she took pity, I guess, on an old hermit. I sure didn’t mention the banjos. Or the ivy holding up the shack walls. Or the well on its last legs with an ancient piston pump wheezing and gasping just to haul up a glass of water. Love, I knew, would overcome all those drawbacks.

Course we were younger then, still ‘marketable’. My friends, my single friends, have grown a bit longer in the tooth. Some are missing teeth. More than a few have turned to internet dating to meet future partners, figuring, I guess, the ‘pool’ around here has grown shallow with mostly only geezers fossilizing in the puddles. Now they got a pool of millions of prospective mates to choose from. Just sort through the criterion, run the data and preferences, make allowance for some creative exaggeration, then set up a date. “Non-smoker, loves to walk the beach at sunset, enjoys good literature, would rather snuggle than watch TV, loves puppies and quiet conversations.” True translation: psychopath, possible killer. “Fit, but could lose 5 pounds, enjoys an occasional glass of merlot, young at heart.” Translation: obese nursing home escapee.

Fat chance of finding an honest person in the era of Facebook selfies. The mizzus is counting her lucky stars, but our friends — Mr. Right is fudging the facts. He’s balding, morbidly obese, 15 years too old, drinks until he blacks out, watches any sporting even on TV day or night, eats exclusively Doritos and beer nuts and has the conversational equivalency of Cheetah the ape and a literary proficiency that stalled with Archie and Jughead. He wants mostly to get laid, then left in peace with his TV show. He is, if you haven’t guessed, 6 farts shy of being a heart throb.

Love is an elusive realm. It takes a lot of compromise to share a life, a whole entire life. With a person who has faults and idiosyncracies that have to mesh somehow with your own. And on top of that there’s the cultural overlay of physical beauty and … well, physical beauty mostly. And sex. Let’s not even go there, the rest is hard enough. Although for the guys, the rest is sort of superfluous.

I know this isn’t exactly an Advice Column and by now you know any advice I got is seriously suspect anyway, but … for those who still believe the AM radio bubble gum pop song notion of True Love, don’t give up. But DO keep in mind, bad love is worse than no love. I’ve had my vaccination of bad love. Loneliness usually won’t make you miserable. Or cynical. Or suicidal. But love gone south … love on the rocks … love turned sour and rancid and mean? Be choosy is all I’m saying. Be your own best friend. If that’s all you got, remember: it’s plenty!

The End of the Road Tavern isn’t actually where the road ends, but it’s close. A few Forest Service roads branch into the mountains and there are a few cabins up Rainbow Creek, but otherwise most traffic stops at the tavern. Donny Butler owns it, bartends, cooks and breaks up fights. He closes Monday and on Christmas, but otherwise Donny is always open. No one around UpCreek recalls him taking a vacation and if he’s ever been sick, it was on a Monday. His cabin is in the woods behind the bar, but none of us regulars have ever set foot inside. Most of us can’t imagine him in such a domestic setting and the others think the house is just his storage area.

You want to know what’s happening around UpCreek, the End of the Road is where you can find out. Who’s poaching what and where, who’s catching cutthroat and what size, whose wife is cheating with who and whose kid is going to prison for what crime. Two years ago Donny got a license to sell hard stuff, figuring to double his profits like a lot of the taverns downriver. Which he did. A lot of profit in a bottle of Jack, not so much in a keg of beer. Donny noticed even the women started coming around, ordered cocktails he had to learn how to make and these were very profitable, plus the ladies brought a fresh clientele and a new atmosphere. He put some checkered tablecloths on the stained tables, tidied up a bit and added salads to the menu. The End of the Road seemed like the Start of Something.

This hunting season a couple of Seattleites celebrated two buck kills a little too exuberantly. “Double Shots!!” they shouted deep into the night until Trapper Jim, also deep into his cups, took umbrage at the out-of-towners’ good luck and his own lack thereof. Later Donny admitted at the trial, he should have quit serving all three. Hindsight doesn’t need a high magnification scope. Jim was untying a 6 point from the hunters’ Range Rover roof when they stumbled into the parking lot. Words were exchanged, push came to shove and Jim pulled his 30-30 Winchester off his Chevy pickup’s rack and shot one of the men.

Who lived … fortunately. But that’s why the End of the Road no longer serves booze and why women drink downstream. Or quietly at home.

My first banjo was one I traded a semi-automatic Marlin .22 for, a good deal for the guy trading the banjo. Nice gun, pretty poor banjo. But it got me pickin and grinning and for that, it was a great swap for me too. A couple years later I found a nicer one in a Stanwoodopolis 2nd hand shop and even though it was a couple hundred dollars, I jumped right on that deal like a dog on a bone.

Before you know it, I was playing Cripple Creek and Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Shady Grove like ringing a bell. The second banjo was okay, but nothing to write home about. So when I found a used beauty up in Mt. Vernon at the music store on consignment, I knew at first glance it was not only a very nice instrument, it was meant for me. Actually, I figured I could sell the first two and pay for the good one, what we bluegrass yahoos call Zero Sum Pain.

My wife at the time, my Ex, she didn’t live up on the South End with me. She had a boyfriend and a house in Seattle and Gomorrah. We were waltzing toward a breakup, but never quite making it to the end of the dance. A lot of bust-ups are like that, I think, slow motion wrecks any fool could see wasn’t avoidable so why not just get it over with?

When I mentioned my discovery of this sweet little 5 string practically being given away up north, she wondered aloud — as you might have too — why in blue hell did I need another banjo when I barely could play 3 songs on the two I got?? Well, okay, I said, but this was a helluva deal and one I’d sorely HATE to pass up, practically a ticket to Nashville, baby.

We quarrelled a bit as we often did back in those loveless days and finally I said I meant to buy the bugger. I’d sell the first two. Probably make a tidy profit when the smoke cleared. “You buy that thing and I’ll leave you,” she vowed.

Well, I’m sure many a marriage has cracked up on the rocks over a banjo. But usually they bust up over playing them. Leave em in the closet, you have a 50/50 chance of making the next anniversary. Buy 3 and play em … all badly … and often … trust me, music doesn’t always soothe the savage breast.

Some years Halloween comes early to the South End … and some years it never seems to leave. Down here in the nettle regions the kids get driven north to the Stanwoodopolis Suburbs where the candy flows like bottled mineral water and the sodium lights force phantom predators into the shadows. This season we just got the fright-filled statistics from studies that show philanthropy by the wealthy dropped by nearly 5%, wealthy being those who made over $200 K a year.

I guess the candy jars are going to empty a tad earlier when our little ‘Takers’ roll up to the festooned front doors of the Tricklers. Forget that trickle down theory of supply-siders, I think the drought of charity may be a prolonged one. And no, it probably isn’t the result of Global Warming…. Next year we’ll probably see moats around the castles and the gated communities will add spikes to the fences. Treats for the beggaring poor? Fuggedaboudit! When times get tough, some hearts get harder.

In the same study they found that the poorer folks had actually increased their charitable giving by as much as the wealthy had decreased theirs. I suspect when you belong to a community, you think of neighbors as real people struggling with the same problems as the rest of us. We don’t think of folks who can’t afford health care, folks who lost a job, folks who had their house repossessed as vampires feeding on the Body Politic. They’re us. They’re not who we ‘Unfriend’ when they need help the most. They’re who we look at in our own mirror.

It would be way too easy to demonize the rich. Sure, we could send the kids out this Halloween in tuxedoes and Armani suits. Wearing fangs. But charity, like our mothers said, begins at home, so maybe we should trickle down some to them. And no, I don’t mean give them another tax break. They already got Christmas 365 days a year.

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice. Robert Frost