The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Unknown attribution.

I have a friend down in Taos who was kind enough to send me a clipping about a musician who decided to become a guitar luthier. The guy embarks on this new career with the same gusto I did when I decided to try my hand at my own brand of wood butchery and immediately realizes, he is quoted, that this would be a 5 year project. Meaning, this would be a long, long learning curve to build little boxes that project sound. I knew exactly what he meant. The trouble was, I didn’t plan to make this a career and I don’t want to spend the waning years of my life in that learning curve to a cliff.

So okay, I built a couple of guitars last winter and spring. After the first one I told the mizzus and myself this was crazy, way beyond my meager abilities. So when I launched into the second, she shook her head but … it was nothing new to her, this quixotic tendency to obsession. After all, I’d built four banjos, not to sell, not to become a banjo luthier, just … well, just to … geez, I don’t actually know why. It’s not as if I expect to become a real luthier. The fiddler in our band makes violins and cellos, incredible things of beauty and sound. His shop is immaculate, his templates perfect, his tools razor sharp, his techniques honed from years of school and thousands of repairs and dozens of instruments he’s made. He is, in other words, a consummate craftsman.

I, on the other hand, am not. I am an errant fool when it comes to woodworking and a complete ignoramus when it comes to instrument construction. My shop is a mess, my tools are not luthier tools, my expertise is limited and my patience is non-existent. Needless to say, I don’t let this get in my way. I have no illusions that I will stumble into the Stradivarius of guitars by some quirk or accident. No, I just keep thinking one more try and maybe the next guitar will sound, I don’t know, more pleasing. Play easier. Be visually exciting.

Or, if nothing else, that guitar will be mine, built by me, warts and all. I recall a neighbor who was telling me he had built his house. I knew the guy who actually had built his house , the guy who had hammered the nails and sawed the boards and hung the doors and put on the roofing shingles. My neighbor had signed the checks and now he was telling me he’d built the damn house. I built my own house a long time ago. Sure, it’s a bit homemade, but I like that word, homemade. I’d rather have something I built myself than something I bought at the store or hired to have done for me. When I say I built this, I mean I built this.

So, I’m building another guitar. What can I tell you when I can’t really explain it myself. I told the mizzus this would be the last one. I think I said that twice before. She knows eventually I’ll lose interest and move on to something else I won’t get very proficient at. If nothing else, she assumes it keeps me out of trouble. Or at least out of her hair, anyway….

Let me start out by setting the record straight. I don’t like Trump. Actually I guess I hate the lying little ignoramus. I don’t like most of the yes-people he has around him either. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kellyanne Conway, Stephen Miller, most of his cabinet, all toadies, all the kind of folks who would condone gas chambers if the boss wanted them built, good little Nazis, all of em. These are the lowest people who ever inhabited the White House. Or infested the White House. They would happily oversee the dismantling of a democracy and they may actually achieve that sad distinction. I want them gone. I want Fox News and Breitbart to go with them. And those GOP congressional cowards, afraid confronting the President and his yo-yo policies would cost them their jobs, they give government the bad name they’ve been calling it for years. Vote me out! So yeah, I got an ax to grind, just so you know.

But it bothered me to have some restaurant owner come out from the kitchen and ask Sarah Sanders to leave. Mid-meal. And now there seems to be a call to action from some legislators to confront and harass these people I don’t like at their cafes or homes or plane rides or anywhere they can be shouted at. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to predict where this animosity leads. It leads to public beatings or even assassinations. The rhetoric is scalding hot right now and you bet, I get it. Some of us see Trump as a wannabee dictator, a bully who would gladly sell out this country if it would make him a few million richer or it appealed to his enormous ego. He needs to be voted out or kicked out or impeached.

Oh, I do take pleasure in the victims’ cries for decency, for some civility, knowing they have dragged politics down to the lowest levels I’ve seen in my lifetime. And I’ve seen the Chicago riots of ’68, Viet Nam protests, Nixon, Watergate, Newt Gingrich, an epic cast of creepy idealogues. But nothing quite like Donald J. Trump and his minions. Bullying from the pulpit, disregard for anything factual, self-aggrandizement at others’ expense, the list is numbingly long and my sympathy is commensurately short.
I can imagine worse yet to come, trust me. I’m not Pollyanna about what is happening to this country. Gerrymandering, corporate welfare, a rise in racism, a rightwing Supreme Court, union-busting, income disparity, a very uncompassionate conservatism, trade wars, economic upheavals, border walls, another list too long. Sure, it scares me. It alarms me. It makes me lose sleep and it disturbs my peace of mind. The thing is, if we stoop to these people’s level, we’re lost. We’ve become them. The Obamas always said, when others go low, we should go high. Sounds glib, sounds corny, sounds like a Sunday School sermon. But … I don’t want to wake up one morning and look in the mirror to find myself staring at exactly what I despise.

So I got a buddy who’s building himself a house. In a tree up 14 feet off the ground. He’s doing it the South End Way, skipping the permits and just grabbing a hammer. A treehouse, in case the last one you built was when you were a kid, is a little more complicated than nailing a couple of 2×4’s to a fir tree and its neighbors. You need to factor in 80 mph winds lashing those firs, racking the structure and breaking windows. Treehouses need to be engineered, in other words, not slapped up. They require forethought, not foreskin.

Treehouse Terry was a contractor so he went into this eyes open, did his homework and bought these specialized gizmos that get drilled into the firs and hold the joists out away from the tree which lets the house ride a few inches in the winds and still hold about 25 tons of structure. Terry left one fir to grow through the bathroom floor and ceiling — which should be interesting in two or three years when it starts widening the holes. Firs in these parts grow a few inches in diameter a year. I guess Terry figures it’ll just seal the hole nicely with bark instead of caulk.

The other day I stopped by. I used to like to put my county STOP WORK order up just to put the fear of government into my pals, but these days I worry they’ll do something rash when they think the building inspector has discovered them and shut them down. Sure wouldn’t want Terry calling the county to straighten matters out. If he were required to get a permit on a treehouse 14 feet off terra firma, he’d be looking at a bureaucratic fishline knot he’d never extricate himself from Plus thousands of dollars for structural engineering, probably for naught. The county isn’t good with thinking out of the box … much less up in the air.

Instead I brought him a favorite stained glass window, figuring, I guess, I’ve never installed an artwork in a treehouse and I might never get another chance. So I snuck it up to his aerie and propped it into a window opening for him to find. Climbing back down the ladder, I noticed his truck’s bumper sticker: TRUMP! RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!

I know, I considered taking my window home. Instead, I just left a small note: ART! TRUMPING TRUMP! If nothing else, he’ll be installing a small protest.

You gotta love the promotional competitiveness of our fast fat food industries. I know I do. Whoppers, Big Macs, fries and 72 oz. Cokes, what’s not to like? Especially if you’re a diabetes doctor in the time of gluttony and morbid obesity. These folks are the new Tobacco industry, purveyors of disease and possibly early deaths, nothing, they’ll testify soon before congressional hearings, they knew anything about. Just selling the public what it demanded. Junk food.

They’ve paired up with the movie industry to sell Star Wars and Jurassic Park toys to the tots in their Happy Meal deals, they’ve got games and contests, they’ve spent billions to sell us fatty foods so we won’t have to bother cooking nutritious meals at home. Thank you, McDonalds! You’ve done about everything we could ask without bragging that your saturated fats make us smarter.

Course now Burger King has upped the ante. The Russian chains have offered any woman (or girl, I guess) 47,000 dollars plus all the burgers she can eat for the rest of her life if she can get herself impregnated by a World Cup soccer star. I missed the part of the deal that spells out whatever proof Burger King needs for the pregnancy. DNA tests, video recordings of the blessed insemination, soccer star autographs?

The athletes must have been inundated with offers over there in the land of the Tsar, maybe give them half their lifetime Whoppers for a night of Whoopee. I know, it sounds tempting to me too, but then again, I’m not a world class soccer star. But I can see the ad wars heating right up. Wendy’s offering lifetime chili for babies born from golf stars’ sperm, Taco Time countering with burritos AND hot sauce for the moms and the kids born from football star trysts (unless they had taken a knee during the Star Spangled, of course). McDonalds would have to up their ante with franchises in China for the lucky woman who seduced the NBA team that won that year’s championship. Sex and fries, babies and burgers! The kids born out of wedlock in this fast food competition will be the new stars themselves. We’re all winners, looks like to me. Or as McDonalds likes to say: I’m lovin it. Although not as good as the new Burger King slogan: She’s gettin some.

We just got back from the American Outback, ready for the dreaded Chores with happy hearts, exactly what a vacation is supposed to do for ya. But life is always full of those surprises that are meant to provide an extra helping or two of Humble Pie. So we woke to find a puddle of water on the downstairs bathroom floor. After mowing some lawn I went in the upstairs bath to do the dreaded troubleshooting. I am very very familiar with the sadistic tendencies of the plumbing gods and I do not trespass lightly on their turf, not with the scars I could offer up as proof of their capricious cruelty.

No sir, I intended to proceed with Utmost Caution! The leak, it was determined by my vast experience in matters household hydrologic, was in a recessed cranny up under the pedestal sink where only hobo spiders dared lurk. I tried tightening the nut up in there, but you know and I did too, that would be far Too Easy. I sensed a trap, no fool I. Ignoring any obvious warning signs, I began to disassemble drainpipe, cabinetry, any impediment to providing clearance to that obstinate brass nut. The first water inlet valve uncoupled with some considerable effort — the second the hot water, wouldn’t budge. A bit more force, I deduced … and snapped the half inch CPVC plastic pipe right off the wall. Hot water shot out in a 5 gallon per minute stream. I reacted with alacrity and stuck a finger in the gaping wound, the Dutch Boy Dike Strategem.

Only … how long could I wait? The Dutch Kid had a town to come and help. I had old age and slow starvation before help arrived. I pulled the plug, my finger, and raced to the basement shutoff, knowing the water was spewing freely upstairs. Got back up and no let up, just the hot water tank emptying its 40 gallons. I grabbed buckets, I threw down towels, I offered my first born to these plumbing gods, I swore, I emptied pail after pail and squeezed towel after sopping towel.

When it finished disgorging the tank, I was totally soaked, the bathrooms were swimming pools, the gas hot water heater was heating air. I finally shut off the gas, not sure if this would ruin it without water.

As I write this, the pedestal sink sits in the middle of the room while I’m mowing my little park across the island. I’m drinking a beer before the next grassy section along the highway. I’ve learned these things, plumbing, I mean, they take time. Lots of time. I’m sure glad to be home. You know … if I decide to return.

Rumor has it that Ivanka and Melania persuaded the Donald to stop separating the kids from their parents down at the borders. Even the usually gutless GOP Congress became alarmed at the creepy optics of children torn from their moms’ arms, wailing and crying, something out of old Nazi propaganda films. The Trumpster declared he wouldn’t back down, but his wife and daughter made their case and lo and behold, the President did his first about-face since taking office. He takes lots of U-turns and detours, but never reverses course. This time he did.

Course, next day Melania cruises down to the sunny Southwest to take a peek at conditions at the rendition centers, maybe tour the cages where the kids sleep on the floor, a sign perhaps that compassion, even in the Time of Trump, isn’t completely dead, just somnambulistic. So she wears her fashionable jacket with the words I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U? in huge script on the back. My knee jerk reaction was it must mean something else and the liberal lying media missed the joke or chose to characterize it in the worst possible light.

I mean, who the hell would make a pilgrimage to the detention centers after convincing her husband to show a modicum of compassion, and wear a jacket that screams I DON’T GIVE A DAMN, DO YOU???? Did she think twice when choosing her attire? Was the jacket so fashionably pleasing that the message on the back slipped by her completely? Did her staff mention it to her on the tarmac, maybe just leave the coat on the plane, Mrs. T….?

It’s incomprehensible. It’s stupid. It couldn’t be an oversight, now could it? Doing a great job there, Brownie, on that Katrina windstorm! A spokesperson declared they hoped the press would focus on her compassion, not her wardrobe, that there was no message intended. No message intended? Jeff Sessions said yesterday they hadn’t intended to separate the kids from the parents. Which is a provable fib. The Prez sez no one wants to see kids taken from their moms. But now he’s back on the stump blaming anyone but himself and crowing about longer detentions. Compassion in this crowd? Melania pretty much hit it on the head. They don’t really care. Do you?

So the World Health Organization just declared a new psychopathology, Gaming Disorder, the addictive propensity to sit for hour after hour with an X-box, disdaining sleep and food and exercise. Good diagnosis, guyz! But you forgot to include Facebook, You-Tube, computer addictions, porn and cellphone. Maybe, just maybe, they’re really all one disease. Ya think?

I guess the Facebook zombies actually stop to eat. And it could even be argued that this social media is really social. A new social, I guess, no face to face necessary, just tweets and instagrams, nothing too up-close and personal. Tim Cook, the new warden at Apple, recently declared sitting at a computer terminal to be the new cancer. Thanks, Tim, for asking the troops to stand up. How about asking them to go outdoors and exercise? Or quit their carcinogenic jobs? Or get a life?

We’re rewiring our brains, no doubt about it. B.F. Skinner and the Pavlovian dogs, peck a button and the bait, I mean the reward, comes tumbling out, time after time, predictable as an IV of opiods. Try this experiment if you’re a doubter: put away your cellphone, turn off your computer, unplug the TV and peripherals and devices, see how long you can last before the shakes and the fevers start. I bet about an hour. We might be missing important stuff. You know, Trump, Beyonce, Oprah, the photo from a friend you rarely see, Trump, the latest movie star scandal, did I mention Trump? If I did, let me add Trump again anyway.

This is our reality now. We even made a reality show huckster our Leader. We get what we deserve, the old adage goes in regard to a country and its rulers. Times certainly change and now they’re changing in hyper-drive. If anyone thinks, myself included, that there will be a cure for this disorder, we got another think coming. In about two tweets.

Scientists on the South End have announced yet another major breakthrough in the genetics front. Hot off the heels of the first known cloning of old growth nettles, the labs at Tyee Technologies have grown meat from the stem cells of Wanda Davenport’s Rhode Island Reds, blue ribbon winners at the county fair three years running for biggest chickens. Dr. Frank Steinberger brought reporters from the Stanwoodopolis Gazette to witness the world’s first Hot Wings artificially grown on yo-yo strings in the sterile environment of their laboratories. From petri dish to deep fat fryer in 30 days, the zesty morsels were sampled and declared ‘hotter than a Texas abortion debate’ by patrons of the Diner where the tasting was conducted.

Dr. Steinberger, asked what the purported production costs might be, stated that to feed, say, a half time Super Bowl party of 6, would be in the range of $250,000. Or over $50,000 per person. “In other words, Bill Gates might afford this if he didn’t invite two many gridiron pals.” The scientist did say costs would drop appreciably when Full Production was reached and that Tyson Foods had already expressed an interest in the formula for the secret sauce along with Tyee Technologies’ advanced bio-engineering know-how. “Already we have teams working on Teriyaki Wings, Honolulu Lava Wings, a Cool Ranchero dip and others I’m not at liberty to divulge at this time.”

Asked what the nuggets would taste like without their grease-released flavorings, Dr. Steinberger, ever the comedian, cracked up the packed crowd of reporters by saying, “they taste a lot like chicken.” He went on to explain that artificially grown poultry would soon supplant the muss and fuss of “that barnyard mess, feather picking, manure and the ever dangerous bird flu. In a world clamoring for hotwings, we foresee a bright future. I think you’ll find the venture capitalists doing the flocking from now on,” he crowed.

This reporter hoped they were working on bio-engineered Pepto Bismol.

Well, buckaroos, Skeeter’s back. Tanned, rested and ready for the political wars of the internet. Out in the Montana backcountry, we didn’t get much news. We missed the whole Korea Summit and only just learned we won’t have to build our bomb shelter, safe now from nuclear holocaust at the hands of Little Rocket Man. What a president! What a negotiator! Maybe we’ll build a greenhouse instead.

Somehow when you’re traipsing the trails and driving the byways of America’s west, the woes of the world don’t seem so immediate. The forests go on for what seems like forever and the mountains are still peaked with snow even if the glaciers are retreating rapidly. The Missouri Breaks were our turnaround point, about where the steamers had to stop too back in the mid 1800’s from the other direction. We passed through Glacier Park, Great Falls, Ft. Benton, Flathead Lake. Huge sweeping panoramas that humble a mere human. And if you ever felt like America was on the decline, well, maybe so, but my god there’s a wealth of resources and raw beauty out there that we sometimes take for granted or forget completely.

Wide open spaces, big roaring rivers, two mile high peaks, one of the largest fresh water lakes in the world by area, the longest river in America, all superlatives, all super natural. You need a tonic for political cynicism, this is my recommended panacea. Go see America. It will make you want to step up to its grandeur. It will make you want to be Better.

Course, there are folks who can’t see a forest for the trees that need clearcutting. And those who only see land as real estate to be parceled and sold. The Flatheads sold theirs on the lakefront and now have acres of sagebrush and scrub pine. I guess maybe we’re the Flatheads now. We came for the gold and the beaver and the timber. We gave the railroads right of way and land. We killed the buffalo and that killed the tribes and if that didn’t, we finished the job by hand.

But the America we exploited is still out there, a continent more than a country. For awhile at least I’m going to live there and not the internet.

Skeeter’s burned out. What can I say, it’s been a hard week of fake news. The President ran up to Canada to piss on the legs of our (former) allies, mocked them for being upset he’d started a trade war, then for good measure called on them to include Russia and his pal Putin back in the G-7 or 6 or maybe 8. He set in motion new measures to kill Obamacare, small stuff like canceling the provision that you can’t be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions, then jetted off for a Summit with Little Rocket Man. It’s more than enough to make a bobble head’s head spin, but mine is about ready to fly off my shoulders. The mid-terms can’t come quick enough for me.

And if the country decides Trump is their boy once again after a year and a half of idiotic shenanigans, anti-democratic rantings and monkey wrench after monkey wrench in established world policies, well … maybe it’s time to admit I don’t know America, not really. I don’t understand it’s heart, it’s people, it’s love of a real estate huckster with deeply despotic tendencies. I will finally admit to being a stranger in a strange land after all these years. And make decisions accordingly.

Meanwhile, I need a break from the moronic monstrosities of the daily news. I need some wilderness. So … we’re hauling out to Montana to a cabin hopefully out of cellphone range, beyond the reach of digital TV, smack dab in the middle of nowhere, a place we won’t wonder if it’s fake or real. It’s real. It’s nowhere like where we are now.