The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Remember when folks cheered the confirmation of generals to cabinet posts, hoping they would be the ‘adults’ in the room with our bratty, narcissistic boy President? Now, of course, they’re all gone, leaving Trump with mostly himself as advisor and apologists like Mick and Rudy to come out and explain what the infantile Commander-in-Chief really meant to say. James Mad Dog Mattis left his post as Defense Secretary awhile back, citing irreconcilable world view differences, but like the other good soldiers, declined to criticize his boss.

That was before Trump called him ‘the world’s most over-rated general’ while trying to defend his precipitous withdrawal from Syria, leaving the Kurds to a certain slaughter. Most soldiers, Mattis included, would bristle over a cut-and-run like this, an act of cowardice that even the Republicans found repugnant, not to mention a complete lack of foreign policy by this administration that leaves in its wake head-spinning implications for the Middle East.

“I earned my spurs on the battlefield,” the General said at a gala fundraiser, “… and Donald Trump earned his spurs in a letter from a doctor.” Later he added a few further commentaries. “I think the only person in the military that Mr. Trump doesn’t think is overrated is Colonel Sanders.” And if that wasn’t enough, he added, “A year, according to White House time, is about 9,000 hours of ‘executive time,’ or 1,800 holes of golf.” Well played, General, well played.

So it has come to this, the Commander-in-Chief ridiculed by his own generals. And the question that should be asked of the folks who support the President in light of such open mockery, how much more can we take, how much damage can we sustain, how long before we say enough is more than enough? Judging by the response to the impeachment hearings, I’d say his defenders are willing to become the laughingstock of the world. The trouble is, there’s not much funny here.

Now here’s an idea for a fun get-together. Bring the parents of the kid who was killed by the wife of our diplomat in England and have them all attend a press party with Trump to work things out after Mrs. Hit and Run fled the scene, left England and claimed diplomatic immunity. Best of all, don’t tell the grieving parents of the victim left to die on the street that his killer will be there too, not just Donald. Bring plenty of balloons and photographers, this will be a surprise party.

Admittedly the plan would be a winner for the guy whose impeachment hearings are gaining speed, maybe deflect mention of Ukraine or Syria a few hours, just another gambit to keep the failing press off balance, perfect for a few minutes of an undeclared truce and give the Prez some much needed accolades for bringing closure to this tragedy, maybe even put him in the running for next year’s Nobel Peace Prize or at least an opportunity to replace Dr. Phil on the feel-good chicken circuit.

It sounded just whacky enough to work. Probably how he felt about the Syrian pull-out, surprise the Kurds and the Russians with a full evacuation. Immediately. This is the joy of Commander-in-Chief. You don’t need to ask anyone’s permission or advice. You make the call, you take the credit. The parents weren’t too sold on the party, even though Donald’s point man asked them three times to consider coming to the White House to talk things over. They smelled a rat, I guess, cause who in their right mind would turn down a chance to have Donald J. Trump serve as their grief counselor. I know he’d be my first choice.

In a way it’s too bad. Great reality TV stuff, dark and richly comic, just the sort of thing the Brits could appreciate. Now we’re left to wonder what that meeting might have been. What looks of horror on everyone’s face when they dropped the big surprise. Rudy clapping his pudgy hands and smiling his cadaverous toothy smile. Melania nodding approvingly. Everyone forgiven and forgiving. Is this a great Leader or what? So much for the movie rights….

I can remember when the Fuller Brush salesman came clear down to the South End. My neighbor bought her cleaning supplies from him. Not so much because they were cheap; she just felt sort of sorry for the guy. Not so many traveling salesmen down our neck of the holler these days — other than religious salesmen. A dead profession, gone the way of tinkers, the wagoneers who sold pots and pans. I got neighbors who still sell pot, but not the pans.

The new Willy Lomans down here are selling on E-bay. They find an item cheap at the garage sales, snap a digital photo, paste a description and then folks bid on it from Utsalady to Hong Kong. It’s a testament to the mighty consumer instinct down here that we still have junk to sell after years of shipping goods off island over the internet. You’d think garages would be empty, sheds bare, grown kids’ bedrooms an echo chamber of only memories. I guess not.

Trouble is, WE shop on E-bay now. Used to be one UPS truck burning up gas past Elger Bay Store, delivering to the dot.com retirees. Now there’s a whole fleet, brown shirted, short pants boyz, always in a major hurry. Add to that the Amazon Prime deliveries, Fed Ex, the USPS one day deliveries, what you got here is a product stream day and night and Sundays too.

The guy I bought my shack from in ’77 was a mail order salesman. Kind of a scam back then mostly. Snake oil through the mail. Satisfaction guaranteed. Just pay the shipping and handling, some unspecified amount slightly less than what a new car costs. Late night TV still does this, probably where my shack salesman ended up if not jail or a church somewhere economically distressed. Seems like folks like to prey on the poor. That, or just pray with them.

If you’re like me, and I bet you hope you’re not, you can scarcely keep up with the fast moving events in this witch hunt impeachment investigation. Seems like just yesterday we had that phone call with the Ukrainian president, Zorro or Zapruder or some Z, where Donald makes it clear there will be no military assistance to fight the Russians if he doesn’t get the goods on Biden and Biden’s kid. He figures, I guess, that the voters in 2020 will be so outraged over possible nepotism that they’ll re-elect him. Forget about the business dealings of Eric and Don Jr. all over the world. That’s totally different. They’re real biznessmen, that pair, bright as new pennies, no influence peddling on Daddy’s name, not with their brand of fiscal acumen.

And we won’t even mention emoluments or Jared and Ivanka. Good kids. Sharp, savvy, barely related to the President of the United States, surely not playing the Trump card for enterprises across the globe. But Biden, hoo boy, that Biden. What can you say? Benghazi maybe.

But no, there was no quid pro quo. No mention of that military assistance mandated by Congress. It was, if you recall, a perfect phone call. Perfect enough to sequester in a top secret data vault. But you can read the transcript, only slightly redacted, and imagine for yourself telephone perfection. Course, then came Rudy who admitted that yeah, they were asking for some help in our elections. Big deal, so what, it’s done all the time. Looking for corruption. Wanting a little help. You got a problem with that?

But of course Rudy turns out to be funneling money from foreign sources back into Trump’s election PACs, sort of illegal. A couple of his cronies were arrested fleeing the United States and now Rudy’s the target of the same investigation. Corruption, sometimes, is right up your nose. With a lawyer like Rudy, you don’t really need enemies. And now we have the spectacle of witnesses parading one after the other into the House Impeachment Investigation Hearings, pretty much incriminating the President for, yeah, quid pro quo. Not that you need it to prove a crime, asking for foreign assistance in the election should be enough.

Today Mulvaney said yeah, ok, there was a quid pro quo. Everybody does it, big deal, get over it. ‘Get over it’ was the part I liked best. Deny deny deny, attack attack attack attack, admit admit admit, then finally just turn the board over and say the game is over. What’re ya gonna do, impeach us? Sure, we’re crooks but everybody’s a crook. Everybody would do what we did. You’d be stupid not to.

Well, we wanted a so-called biznessman to run the country. What did you expect? Morality? Fair play? Adherence to some bullshit set of rules like the Constitution? C’mon, that’s an old playbook written by folks half of em you couldn’t name. You wanted change in the country. You wanted to tear down the government. You wanted to break some furniture. Okay, you got it. We can put the game board back on the table and play another round if you want. In a year we’ll get that chance. But the rules aren’t what you think and it’s definitely okay to cheat. Just not you.

America’s mayor, once the toast of the town, is once again toast, probably the whole country. Rudy Rudy Rudy, where did you go so wrong? Toadie for Trump, what were you thinking? You were a federal prosecutor, did you think you could outsmart your colleagues? Trump hasn’t dumped you under the Greyhound yet, but trust me, in a day, maybe less, he won’t remember who you were. Sure, there are some photos of you two jibbering fools together, but hey, lots of folks have selfies with the Emperor. Usually with one of them wearing clothes, not both naked as orangutans.

The noose is tightening and the wolves are circling. Soon the canaries will be singing at the bottom of the mineshaft we call the White House, a dark dungeonous place these dreary days, walls closing in, the mirrors no longer saying he’s the fairest king of all. Former cabinet chiefs will soon respond to subpoenas, maybe hoping to clear themselves of wrongdoing, if not pathetic idiocy. Too late for redemption, but nobody wants to go to prison for lying under oath.

You can almost hear the knives being sharpened down in the White House kitchen from here. The Trump Brand, the one so carefully honed through false bravado and sheer chutzpah, will soon look more like cheap copper than gold, tarnished and pitted and ready for the trash heap of history. The man can re-start his own reality show on Fox when the blood is mopped up and he’ll get plenty of viewers, the same ones who think there’s nothing to see behind the Wizard’s curtain, who think impeachment is just a political game and crimes and misdemeanors just a leftist chant.

Trump is right about one thing: we used to shoot traitors. Whistleblowers, naw. Men who sold their country down the drain for money, you bet. The man will make his 30 pieces of silver and a lot more, welcome to it as far as I’m concerned. He gave us a lesson in government, in politics, in Machiavellian intrigue that was worth the price of admission. What he also showed us, at a terrible cost, was how much citizens in this country will sacrifice, in honor, morality, national security, to keep a thug in power. We won’t ever be as certain this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. That quaint notion has been forever erased.

Even our holidays these days have become political footballs. Today is Columbus Day. But it’s also Indigenous Peoples Day. Kind of like Christmas also being Satan Day. Or Martin Luther King Day coupled with a David Duke Holiday. Keep both sides placated. It could be a trend for political correctness. Valentine’s Day could share time with, oh, Hate Yer Neighbor Day. Labor Day might have Welfare Day and July 4th (Independence Day) could link with Donald Trump Day.

Well, okay, maybe I’m taking this too far. Can’t we just celebrate Columbus landing on the New World, bringing the natives trinkets and smallpox, without turning it into a puny jubilee for the survivors? Next thing you know we’ll be taking down statues of old Christopher and lobbying against exploring Mars and Jupiter. Jeez, is nothing sacred?

We don’t want religious holidays, we don’t want politically sensitive holidays, we don’t want Confederate statues, we don’t want to step on anyone’s toes. I get it. I’m a bleeding heart. I just don’t want to make my holidays a total muddle. Keep it simple, stupid, that’s my life’s motto. Complexity? I don’t need no stinking complexity. Two names for one holiday? Don’t think so. The banks and the libraries will close up for two days. Or half a day for each. Or …? Well, who knows?

Columbus Day was kind of an odd holiday anyway. He didn’t land on the shores of the United States, did he? And he probably landed after the Vikings so why get all big headed about the second arrival. Indigenous Peoples Day? C’mon. Really? Which ones? All of them? Might as well have a People of the World Day.

Maybe we need to have a Commission look into this holiday thing, make some recommendations for brand new ones. Equinox Day would work for me, although I know some evangelicals would protest that it was kind of Druidy. I guess no matter what we choose to honor these days, there’s going to be backlash. So I’m recommending we just take 7 or 8 days, scatter them across the calendar and call them To Hell With It Day. And if you need to, couple it with To Heaven Day. Jeez.

We will look back on this era, years from now, as a dark and twisted time where paranoia and suspicion ruled the land. The robots and the immigrants were coming, our nostalgia for all things dear was robbed from us, our values were twisted by liberals and Hollywood. Women were running for President. And gays too!! The world was warming up, both climate and politics. Wars were breaking out everywhere and events moved with ever increasing speed. Future shock was here.

Maybe the man is nothing but a Sign of the Times. Or worse, a Harbinger of Things to Come. He was a sputtering, fuming, bellicose ball of ignorant fury. Perfect for the era. Dictators usually are. They feed on the inchoate anger of those who feel forgotten, those who were disenfranchised by the changes that they will never understand, those who hate strangers and people who are not like themselves, those who fear the future will be a downward slide. They want a strong man, even if he’s cruel, even if he twists the truth, even if he shoots someone on 5th Avenue. They want someone who will express what they are feeling and can’t express themselves.

Bigotry, misogyny, racism, religious intolerance. Bullying and shaming. Oh to put the boot to the throat of their enemy! The mob unleashed. The capitol sacked. The dirty bastards getting their just desserts. These are the worst of times, these are the best of times.
The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Trump is no Hitler and the world will not be engulfed in a total conflagration. The evangelicals will be disappointed. Armageddon may not be at hand just yet. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. I suspect we will survive this national aberration. After all, we survived McCarthy, the KKK, the oil wars. But … what doesn’t kill us doesn’t make us stronger, I don’t care what the aphorism says. We’ll survive Trump, but we’ll be a lesser nation for it, and that isn’t fake news.

So close. So very close. The Chosen One was almost guaranteed a free pass through the Pearly Gates. No less an authority on such ecumenical matters than Pat Robertson, the worldly conduit for the Lord’s intentions, fretted that Trump’s unleashing of the heretic Turks on the Christian Kurds might just close the door on celestial entry for the Prez. Cavorting with porn stars, hush money cover-ups, illegal business ventures, chronic lying, political smears, infidelity in marriages — none of that mattered to the Lord God Almighty or Pat Robertson. No, the evacuation from Syria was a red line. A bridge too far. Call it what you want, God’s not happy with the Donald. God is righteously pissed off. And that Go Directly to Heaven card, fuggetaboutit.

There are even plenty of Republicans who feel the same way. I know, hard to believe their boy can do something so egregious they will risk their careers questioning it. Nothing up to now has evinced even a mouse squeak from these courageous legislators. Obstruction of justice, collaborating with foreign governments to win an election, tax fraud, hush money payments, sex scandals, extortion of military aid to Ukraine for an investigation into Biden’s son, nothing to see here, all fake news and even if it were true, Biden might have done something similar, maybe, back when and why don’t we investigate that instead.

God loves the Kurds. We probably should too since they fought the war we were unwilling to fight. Trouble is, the Kurds hate the Turks as much as the Turks hate them. Which means diplomacy of the highest order is required, nothing new there in the Promised Land of the Middle East, a minefield for any and all, but not exactly a strength of our current President. One phone call from his pal Erdogan and next day we’re pulling out of Syria, let the chips fall where they may. No need to consult the military, no need to get advice from European allies, no point talking to Senators. Trump isn’t big on loyalties, not to allies, not to surrogate fighters, not to his wives, not to those sycophants around him (pay attention, Rudy).

Maybe he doesn’t hear the doors of Paradise closing on hinges of gold. Or maybe he figures an eternity in Trump Tower would be even better than sharing glory with Jehovah. Only room for one Big Guy where Trump comes from and that guy is Trump. Heaven will just have to take a back seat.

My little guitar is done. Finished. Strung up and sitting in the livingroom. Along with the other three I made. And so it’s time to ask myself a few obvious questions. Okay, one obvious question: Why?

I’ve always thought boredom was the mother of creativity. Give a person enough time pondering their navel, they might decide to get off the couch and find something interesting to do. Beats TV any day of the week. And scrolling through You-Tube or Yahoo News too. So maybe that was my rationale. Be an excuse to maybe play an instrument more often if it was one I made myself. Naw, that might explain one. Not four. And I’m not going to mention the four banjos I built too.

No, something else is at work. But hell if I know what it was. Some virus I picked up that lodged in the brain and flares up occasionally, maybe. It’s not like I had the skills to make a really fine musical instrument. Or the tools. Course if I had known I would make this many I might have bought a few specialized luthiery tools, not whack and whittle with a jackknife and a chisel. I did buy a steamer and built a steam box to bend wood after restoring a hundred year old rowboat with rotted ribs, which, in hindsight, set me off to bending guitar sides, which, at the time, seemed like the tricky part of guitar building.

And there was this book, ‘Clapton’s Guitar’ a friend gave me about a guitar builder in the Appalachians, kind of inspirational at the time, a curse maybe in the rearview, that convinced me it would be a worthwhile enterprise to embark on my own guitar and possibly a book, ‘Skeeter’s Guitar’, a darkly comic account of one man’s quixotic attempt to build the Stradivarius of guitars with virtually no experience or understanding of what gives guitars their unique sound.

My guitar gently screams. Actually, my guitars gently mock me. I guess if I was a twenty-something, I might keep going, learn from my mistakes, up my game, buy the appropriate tools, improve with the accumulation of 10,000 hours. But I am too old now. And I don’t know that I was getting better by the 4th guitar.

Still, they are unique instruments. Art pieces more than musical, each different in sound and playability. This last one, the black limba with the old growth redwood top, plays well and the sound is good, bass not huge, trebles nice, mid-range nicely balanced. It’s a keeper. Trouble is, they’re all keepers. You want to make guitars, you need to sell some. It was how I ended up in glass work, mostly necessity if you want to keep doing it. That, probably, is the mother of invention, not boredom.

I was chatting it up recently with one of the zillion artists we got proliferating on the petri dish of the South End.  Vanessa’s just discovered her bliss now that the kids have gone off to college and her husband has retired early with his dot.com stock options.  He apparently has found his bliss too, not as an artist, but as a gentleman farmer.  Which qualifies him as a definite minority down here.  Not the farmer part, just not being an artist.  I only know a handful of folks who aren’t.  Or who say they aren’t.  A rebellious kid in these parts, if he really wanted to rattle the cage, would smash sculpture or burn a couple of canvasses.  Declare himself passionate about accounting and wear button down collared shirts from the Gap.  Rad!

We got art tours on Mother’s Day weekend, we got plein air painters planting easels on bluffs and beaches any days it doesn’t rain, we got art guilds and art associations and art clubs and art scholarships and art meetings and art sales and art co-ops and art in all the public buildings and art in all the shops and restaurants and cafes.  There’s art in the parks, there’s sculpture parks and the Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center was built by artists so they could advertise, guess what?   Right… art.

Vanessa was going great Gonzo about finding her spiritual center through her watercolor explorations.  Muse this, muse that, painting her way to Nirvana.  Being a cynical sort, I was NOT amused, no pun pretended.  Folks around here, like a lot of places, think artists are somehow special beings, a breed apart from the more common variety homo sapien.  They suffer more, they’re more sensitive, they’re more attuned to nature, they ‘feel’ more deeply.  They are entities set apart from the other, coarser beings who live a life less examined.  Or at least less explained, if I can extrapolate from Vanessa’s hymnal.

No wonder they have nervous breakdowns, these artists.  If I thought about myself and dwelled awhile with my deep sensitivities all the live-long day, I’d spend more time at the pharmacy than pushing a paintbrush.  Luckily, at least Vanessa and 90% of her hypersensitive hobbyists, art doesn’t walk hand in hand with poverty.  She’s happily unencumbered by fiscal anxieties.   Finding your bliss without sweating the groceries seems infinitely easier than digging for it under a stack of unpaid bills.

When the paintings fill her guestroom, she’ll just add another room or two to the hacienda for storage.  When all these Matisses we got filling garages and attics and basements leave their mortal coil for true Nirvana, the sudden inflation from all these masterpieces of deceased artists should make us the envy of Western Civilization.  Practically got the left coast annex of the Louvre tucked away.  That, or the thrift stores better get ready for a tsunami of donated art…. I know I got more than a few to give.