The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I know I shouldn’t get all Big-Headed about this, but … the White House called today and asked if I would consider an appointment as Secretary of State. I was so taken by surprise I said I would have to take a day to consider this. Especially given the fact that I have no actual experience or expertise in world affairs other than a short stint teaching 8th graders American History. And, full disclosure, I taught them a version of Sociology 101 since that was my major and not history.

But when your country calls, can you really ignore the request? Sure, I realize the position is only open because no self-respecting State Department employee would take the job. Not when the employer is soon to be under indictment for felonies and possibly treason. And yet … isn’t this the moment for patriots to step forward? Nobody said a cabinet position would be easy, even if it looks like it might be a given that most of them lack the same experience I do. I haven’t even been a pundit on Fox News like most of them. But I would be after my term, guaranteed, I’m told, six figures, no background checks.

It’s bottom of the barrel time in America, obviously, but it’s also a golden opportunity to rise to the occasion, help make it Great Again, maybe turn the ship of state around, help Kushner solve that sticky wicket of a peace process in the Middle East and finalize a deal with Little Rocket Man over there in whatever country he’s running, Japan? Sure, I’ll have to bone up a bit, but that’s what Wickipedia is for. (I just looked up LRM’s country, it’s Korea, one or the other of the two.) And yeah, I know the Boss is hard on his employees, but I’ve been working for myself most of my life and my boss is a jerk most of the time, so big deal, I’m used to abuse. But the pay would sure look better!

So I’m thinking about taking the job. If I don’t, chances are you’ll get a call tomorrow. Maybe you should start thinking about it now. Chief of Staff is opening up this week and that cutie he just picked for Ambassador to the U.N. won’t be there long. Zinke is a dead man walking over in Interior and Mnuchin or Munchkin or however you say it probably should be checking his emails.

History makes great men, not the other way around. Might just be time to take your place in the pantheon.

In these twilight years of mine where most of life is in the rearview fading into an increasingly foggy memory, I find myself waxing nostalgic more and more often, sometimes happily so, sometimes regretfully. It’s my movie, I suppose, and I hate to lose too many of the early scenes to haphazard editing that’s the result of cobweb saturation. This morning I woke up thinking about my ex-wife’s friend back in my Seattle days, the year I decided to pick up stakes and make a fresh start on the Left Coast, probably the hardest year of my life, certainly the darkest.

Maybe you’ve had periods of your own life where the past seems like a dead end, the future seems bleak and the present, well, you’d just as soon stay in bed with the covers pulled up over your head. Me, I had no job, a busted marriage, an empty calendar, a house full of crazy ass roommates and no direction home or anywhere else. I felt like I was treading water and running out of steam. Sinking wasn’t a good option, but it seemed like the only option. At 26 years of age I felt like I’d screwed up my life. Irreparably, maybe.

So when I get introduced to my then wife’s friend who had worked with Edward R. Murrow for CBS back in TV’s heyday, a woman who had traveled the world and been a part of those exciting television days of journalism in its infancy, she embodied a version of what life could be if a person such as myself had a goal and maybe some directed energy. After meeting me she tells my X that I’m one of those sorry souls who has a fear of success. She ascertains this from a half hour conversation over a cup of coffee. I’m apparently an open book. The title: Loser. Her advice to my wife: ditch the slacker and move on with that new lover she’s taken, the one with ambition and drive who wants to sell real estate and make a million by the time he’s 30. She knows a losing horse when she looks one in the mouth. Or over a cup of joe.

Of course she was probably right. I wasn’t going to make a million, not in a dozen lifetimes. I didn’t even like the idea of being rich, that’s how much of a loser I was. My wife, on the other hand, liked the idea very much. That’s how much of a winner she and her boyfriend were. They went to seminars on how to ‘visualize’ success. They were on their way. Me, I was little boy lost.

But even now, some 40 odd years later, it grates on me this notion of being afraid of success. In America, success is the goal. Doesn’t really matter what kind of success, just something that smacks of winning. American Idol, retirement at 35, prom queen, yo-yo champion of the South End, something to hang your hat on, doesn’t matter what. My problem, of course, was finding something worth giving my time and my interest to, something I could be passionate about. The thought of working some brain draining job was horrific to me. But I didn’t see much option other than NOT working some brain draining job. Maybe you see my dilemma. It wasn’t fear of success, it was fear of accepting a life spent pursuing a goal without passion. Sure, who wouldn’t want to be yo-yo king of the island, but c’mon, that’s kind of thin gruel.

So to the woman who worked with Edward R. Murrow who is probably dead now and her signed photos distributed to her progeny like trophies, I say you should have kept your advice to yourself. We all have to find our way in this tangled mixed up world and the last thing any of us need is unsolicited criticism, just one more obstacle on the hard paths most of us have to travel. And as for my ex … well, I hope she made a few million.

So I’ve been thinking this morning maybe I ought to consider designing a kid. After all, I’m an artist, so-called, and now that this Chinese Dr. Moreau has violated all pretenses of genetic restraint and introduced altered genes into a human embryo that was born a week ago, we might as well accept the future Right Now. The lid is off, the genie is out, all wishes are granted. Designer babies are here and why not embrace the future instead of fearing it?

I’m thinking a boy, big fella with quarterback physical talents and an IQ to match Einstein. Blond hair, blue eyes, Aryan. No, maybe not, too Nazi. Make it brown hair, hazel eyes, maybe a bit Eurasian, nothing you could definitively say was ethnic this or ethnic that. The New Man. Or Boy. Although, maybe that’s too overtly sexist, almost 3rd world to want a male child. Kill the opportunity for the girls to come into existence. Okay, make mine a female. Tall, not too sexy, not too smart. Smart women do fine but some feel the societal curse too greatly to be happy. And sexy, I don’t want a cheerleader daughter. Prom queen. Stuck up and all too aware of her powers over men. End up some Aryan asshole’s trophy wife.

Course, I want her to be highly intelligent, curse be damned. Then again, everybody will design kids to be highly intelligent and breathtakingly good looking. Sure don’t want my kid to be just like everyone else. Maybe I’ll add some attractive flaws, you know, something to set my daughter apart from the Ken and Barbie crowd. Design in a nose that crooks oh so slightly off center, maybe add a sarcastic sense of humor, give the kid a hitch in its stride. If everybody’s child is a superb athlete, make mine disdainful of sports. Wait, that’s me. Maybe go for some niche quality, the perfect proportion for rollerblading or ping pong, shoot for a gymnast’s balance.

Tough call. Maybe I’ll focus on the intellect. A creative gene combined with an engineer’s focus. A sensible but imaginative kid. Although … I don’t have an engineer’s bone in my body, much less a bunch of genes. I probably wouldn’t like her. Better skip that trait or tone it way down. And if I make her artistic, aren’t I just dooming her to a life of poverty and probably depression? The New World won’t need artists, it’ll have Artificial Intelligence for that. So business acumen, that might be what we go for. But geez, does the world need another MBA? And would making a pile of pesos make my progeny happy? Course, how would I know unless I get a GoFundMe so I could find out.

I suppose all those folks working on Artificial Intelligence have the same problem as me. What traits do you want your Replicant to have? Too human, too mechanical, too this, too that? Too complicated, that’s for sure. I see I’m going to have to give this way more thought, maybe just let nature shake the dice. So many variables, too little time. To paraphrase the President, Who’d have thought this gene stuff would be so hard?

A Wisconsin glass making company that specializes in drinking glasses with an actual bullet imbedded in their sides has forgone the usual Christmas bonus and offered each employee, instead, a handgun. I personally am all IN on this as THE perfect holiday gift, especially in Wisconsin, my old hunting ground where the Packers and deerslaying are the unofficial state pastimes. And really, what says Christmas more eloquently than a pistol? What was it Jesus said, turn the other cheek but carry a concealed weapon? Something like that, if memory serves me.

I suppose if you’re the type of holiday shopper who might enjoy the humor in a wine glass with a .45 slug sticking out the flute, you probably aren’t troubled by Glock Christmas bonuses. And if you work at the factory, well, all the merrier. Now you can take out your co-worker issues with something more than spit and curses. Although the boss declared that he was pretty happy about a fully armed workforce. You want to go postal on that factory floor, you might want to think twice. Or get an AR-15 with a bump stock to even the odds. Maybe next year’s bonus.

I got a few friends who blow glass for a living. Art glass, they call it. The bullet drinking glass company probably calls theirs art too. Martial arts, anyway. And if you look up their product line like I did, you’d have to admit there’s a statement in their work that might qualify as artistic if they wanted to promote it that way. It’s a free country, so they tell me, and if a company wants to sell beer mugs with a slug poking through their sides, who am I to object. We’re a violent society, we all know that, so what’s wrong with making Christmas less about yuletide carols and a little more, oh, stand your ground. Something about a warm gun that just speaks Christmas these days.

One of the traits of great leaders, I suspect, is the ability to distill complex problems to their simplest core, examine them without the distractions of critics and solve them in an expetitious manner. This, you may have already deduced, is Donald J. Trump’s genius. The man can wade past annoying facts, barking journalists, pesky Congressional opponents and drive directly to the easiest solution available. Usually denial. Fake facts, uncomfortable pseudo-truths, troublesome investigations — he can bounce them off his magic shield like Captain America before astounding his enemies and supporters alike with yet another avenue to making this country great again.

Today he proposed a government global television network to rival the failing CNN. Brilliant! Just positively brilliant! He didn’t mention banning the rivals to this station, but you know that’s next. And yeah, I know, Fox News is basically a government television network already. At least for this particular government. And okay, I guess if you want to shrink bureaucracy down to a size you can drown in the bathtub or a toilet, maybe adding another agency is counter intuitive. But c’mon, you gotta give the man credit. If you hate the news coverage of your administration and your family and your business dealings and your ties to Russia and Saudi Arabia, all those damnable lies coming at you from every side every hour every day every tweet, what’s the solution? You gonna keep answering every phony question these yammering yahoos throw at you? He tried throwing out reporters from the briefing room. Big mistake. All Acosta’s buddies came to his rescue screaming First Amendment! First Amendment! Geez, you’d think he’d waterboarded the guy.

No, better to create Trump Network. Only the news that will make America great again. And maybe some programming to entertain a country desperately in need of more entertainment. Forget Oprah, we got the Ivanka Show. I! Bring back The Apprentice, only this time we call it The Cabinet. One week McMasters gets the hook, another one Tillerson bites the dust, next week who will it be? Tune in to Trump Network News to find out. Half politics, half reality TV, all advertisement, 24/7.

Be honest with yourselves, the man could sell shoes to amputees. He knows how to market the Brand and if the Brand is America, what’s not to love? He’s a marketing machine, Trump is. If he could rename America most of our problems would dissipate in a single network season, trust him on that one. Trumperica? Okay okay, maybe not quite it yet, give him some time. Meanwhile, Radio Free Trump and Trump Television Network. A government network that is more fair and balanced than anything you’ve ever seen. CNN, you’re fired!!

Maybe you haven’t set up your funeral arrangements yet, nothing you really want to spend time thinking about while you’re healthy and mobile, not when you need every spare moment to cruise the internet. Chances are you haven’t even drawn up a will or one of those Do-Not-Resuscitate living wills so the Hippocratic docs won’t keep you on life support until the relatives are bankrupt. I haven’t done any of that either so I’m not casting the first stone, believe me.

But I was reading about a woman who wanted to be planted under a Gravenstein apple tree, her favorite fruit, great for pies and so she was launching a company, Recompose, that would compost your mortal coil, dust to soil, then spread on the garden you may or may not have. Nothing like a Grammy Pie, you’re thinking. And yeah, I get it, waste not want not, but it seems like an idea whose time has maybe not quite arrived if it’s even left the station.

We have a compost pile by our garden, toss in the kitchen scraps and the last of the garden when we do the fall cleanup, maybe some leaves and occasionally some manure, some wood ash and there’d still be room for grandpa. The squirrels forage there and probably some rats who check out what offerings we tossed in today. A lot of red worms, plenty of bugs that like decomposing vegetable matter. A regular ecosystem down there. And when it’s done composting, we spread it on the flowers and vegetables and fruit trees. Part of the cycle of life.

I kind of like the idea of returning to the earth, not with a silk lined casket, just toss the shovels of dirt directly and let nature do its job. Cremation, well, it’s cheap and sanitary and for those who like keeping a bit of the Loved One on the mantle, probably fine. We have a glassblowing buddy who makes little glass vessels using some of the ash, very elegant, nice paper weights. My mom is in a cheesy urn at the old man’s house. Kind of gives me the creeps, tell you the truth. My neighbor, Guitar Bob, keeps his papa in a coffee can, says he’s going to take him back to North Carolina someday. He won’t. His dad will end up in the Camano Island recycle with the bottles and cans and plastics, count on it.

It’s good, I guess, to have alternatives. No doubt the funeral homes will get a jump on this before the Gravenstein lady, show the bereaved the Cadillac compost bin with the imported French worms and the sterilized manure mixings. Maybe even provide the favorite fruit tree or an indoor house plant if eating dear old Uncle Fred makes the client queasy. If you can’t afford the Top End, they’ll have something akin to our own compost bin, sort of a mini-Potter’s Field. Hopefully without the rats, but then again, part of the Cycle of Life, right?

They just auctioned off a painting done by a programmed artificial intelligence. Not real good, not exactly a Master, probably not of much interest other than the beginning of the Next Big Thing. Art by Machines. For me and my ilk, this is probably bad news, very bad news. Throw away those paint brushes, forget about learning to draw, quit kidding ourselves. The computers will do it faster, cheaper and maybe even better. All those galleries with watercolor paintings of boats in the harbor can replace those prints and originals with mass produced ones with beautiful sunsets and lighthouses at a fraction of the cost. And even better, to the untrained eye, no different than the one painted on an easel.

Photoshop can make a photograph into a watercolor or a pencil sketch with one keystroke. All my pals who paint from photographs should be looking for new careers. We can even print on watercolor paper now. Or on canvas. I spent a weekend this past few days with a friend whose daughter’s husband has a father who’s a sculptor. He even has a commission here in Stanwoodopolis. When he’s done, he makes a digital image and makes smaller versions using a 3-D printer, then sells those by the dozens to make real money. That, my paint-spocked amigos, is the future.

Oh sure, for awhile we’ll have a niche market, peddling our wares to the folks who want authentic, hand made art. But good luck when Wal-Art comes to town with a warehouse of mass-manufactured sculpture, paintings, crafts and design-it-yourself computer assisted artworks. Want a Picasso-like painting for the TV room, maybe in a slightly different size and color, just plug in the variables and scan a credit card, voila, head right over to the Pick-Up section for delivery. Stained glass window? Might take a special order, but UPS will have it at your doorstep next day.

The entire collection of paintings, music, literature is being uploaded bit by byte into the hard drives of super computers around the world, then analyzed, replicated, modified and eventually figuring out how to be ‘creative’. Remember those jobs being eliminated by robots and artificial intelligence? Well, add a few more to the list. Robo-art, why not? Why not let the computers have a shot? After all, it’s going to be their world soon. Human art, put it in a museum. Roll over Beethoven, let Siri give you the news….

So the Tech Boyz have developed a spiffy little software that can identify people by the way they walk — Gait Recognition. Great news if you’re a cop or a spy, not so much if you’re a criminal or maybe just an ordinary mind-yer-own-business citizen. Apparently we all have very unique signature walks, ones not disguisable by pretending to limp, gimp or amble like a drunk chimp.

I know these folks have taken the bounce out of MY step, not that it will keep them and their ubiquitous surveillance cameras from spotting me in a crowd. Admittedly I’m rarely in a crowd, but with facial recognition, Gait I.D., voice recognition and soon-to-be-developed Hat Recognition, I might just as well tattoo a name tag on my forehead. Or just a barcode.

Nice to know our individual uniquenesses can be used against us. Or … if you’re a Law & Order type with nothing to hide, to use against the miscreants. Not YOU, of course. Just that neighbor you never really liked or trusted. Probably me.

Lately I’ve been stumbling across surveillance cameras strapped to trees here on the crowdless South End, camouflaged units with solar cells, probably for tracking deer or the Barefoot Bandit, I figured. Until I found one pointing at me in my little park. I ambled up to it with my one-of-a-kind hop jump one step forward half a step back gait, waved, said hello and now, no doubt, I’m in some data bank where my walk is being analyzed and stored. Half my neighbors have CostCo security systems, half a dozen cameras that can be monitored from their damn cellphones. I’m sure they sleep better these days, secure in their sleep-number slumber beds.

At least until they learn what the response time is for the Island Sheriff’s Department to answer a distress call.

A lot of folks don’t know this, but Black Friday originated on the South End. Tyee Store came up with an innovative marketing scheme back, oh, shortly after dinosaurs went extinct and the Southendomish Tribe gave up on ever getting their treaty rights to hunt pterodactyls. About 1977 it was.

They held a sale day after Gobbler Day, all you could carry half price. Folks camped all night in the rain to get first in line. Terrible cold, hard rain, horrible indigestion. Next morning shelves cleared in about half an hour. The food supplies for the entire South End dried up, hoarded by the lucky few.

Pretty soon the rumors started. Unspeakable rumors really. The denizens of the starving South End began to realize the pizzas were gone and the frozen burritos too and the Hungry Man’s were gonna prove prophetic now that they were missing from the puddling freezer chest bottom. The food riots were a harbinger, I guess. And then the rumors started drifting over to our west side, whispers at first, then full blown howls. Cannibalism, ladies and gentlemen. Cannibalism.

Eventually Tyee restocked their shelves and those delicious deli rotisserie gourmet hotdogs revolved anew. And the rumors? We don’t mention this any longer. We just advise the newcomers to stock the pantry with more than a day’s supply……..

And since then we South Enders traditionally stock up on ‘Black Friday”.

Every Thanksgiving — without fail — our little nuclear unit would belly up to a dining room table loaded to the ceiling fan with a banquet Mom had slaved for two days to cook …. And we’d wait for the Old Man to raise a glass in toast. He’d give a short somewhat sincere thanks, and then he’d ask his predictable, inevitable question, the one his mother asked every Thanksgiving up in the most economically depressed region in Northern Maine where we all were born: “I wonder what the poor folks are doing today?”

You want to put a dull edge on the carving knife, I can’t think of a much quicker way. I know most of us this year are just thankful the elections are over, the mudslinging and the distortions are finished for, oh, a few months before the 2020 election cycle, the interminable TV and radio spots are blessedly replaced by pharmaceutical and car and deodorant ads and we can just return to our dreary monsoonal lives of quiet desperation. We can ratchet down the angst and the anger now. We can start shopping for Christmas. We can hibernate a bit.

But my Grandma, bless her kindly heart, was right to worry about those less fortunate, even though she wasn’t all that fortunate herself. Not by our modern standards that we simply take for granted as our God given American right. A full belly can lead pretty quick to tryptophanic complacency.

So when you say a prayer this Thanksgiving or make a toast over that fine Chablis and dive in for seconds on the turkey dressing, leave a little room. Not just for the desserts but for the folks who might be eating alone, who might not have much to eat, who might not have a lot to be thankful for. After all, they’re part of the family too.