The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Something weird is going on down here on the techno-challenged South End. Something troubling and as yet unexplained. The weather, for one, but I don’t think this is causative. Although, since none of us believe in science anymore, the possibility is there that it could be. Make up something, anything, or better yet, imagine some conspiracy, then forward it to all your ‘friends’. Post it on your social medias. Hope the Russians amplify it on who knows how many websites. When it shows up on Fox and Friends, you know it’s probably true. Fair and balanced, at least. As good a test as any so far as the President is concerned.

We used to play a game in grade school called Telephone. At least I think it was called Telephone. Or maybe it was Gossip. Who cares, make up a name of your own. You start out with a sentence, something like: Tomorrow if it snows we’ll get out of school. The first person who gets this turns to the desk next door and whispers it in the ear of another student who then passes it on to the next and so on. By the time it gets back around after about 30 iterations, it was amazing what sausage emerged from the grinder. Nothing like the beginning and of course the whole point to us little munchkins in 4th grade was how distorted information got the more folks passed it on.

Course in our modern computerized times, the message is pretty much just copied and pasted or else forwarded whole. Not much room for message evolution. But what we got instead is all this phony baloney information being disseminated by … someone. For some unknown reason … For what nefarious purpose? The Russians pick it up, amplify it with all their phony websites that look semi-legit and voila, half the stuff you get on Facebook or Yahoo news or Twitter is really Fake News, just what the President keeps saying about anything which seems negative about him. You don’t know WHAT to believe anymore and so, in this miraculous Age of Information we live in, we have filled our brains with digital poop. Most of which makes us angry and polarized and ultimately Cynical. Which I suspect is the whole point. We don’t believe the media, we don’t believe the President, we don’t believe politicians, we don’t buy Science, we don’t believe in much of anything other than Facebook. We might as well drag our cellphones and laptops into a cave and go back to cooking with fire. If we still believe in fire.

But … and lest I’ve digressed too far from the original point, something weird is going on with this little blogsite. In less than two days its number of visitors (let’s call them Curious Minds) has spiked beyond anything reasonable. Ten times the usual and curving skyward. Hell if I know why. I suppose I should be pleased, but I’m mostly baffled. Oh sure, probably these posts are suddenly scintillating and incisive, no doubt the result of my … my … well, who knows? Maybe the Russians know.

Maybe you do.

Anyway, hopefully any day now the advertisers will be knocking on my door and I can quit my day job, just pound out this moonshine wisdom and wet powder wit until my retirement fund is full. For those of you who have made this possible: спасибо Comrade Putin!

Maybe you’ve heard the internet chatter to run Oprah for president. Aiiee Carumba! I guess I need to watch more TV. Seems to me we’re looking for politicians who are popular television personalities now. Reagan, Trump, now Oprah. Dr. Oz for Vice President. Dancing with the Stars winners for cabinet posts. Maybe we’ll like government better if we fill it with our favorite stars of screen and TV.

On the other hand, maybe we should just have a National Lottery. No skills needed, just luck. A lot of luck, the kind that might take a person a long ways with trade negotiations, arms deals, welfare reform, tax reductions, Supreme Court nominations, health care fixes, all those decisions we thought took professionals with expertise and experience. I guess we don’t need that now. We need someone with ratings. We need someone with luck. That’s all we need.

Civilizations fall. Greece, Rome, the Mayans, the Incans, Aztecs, American Idol. Way of the world. Somewhere along the line the droughts hit, food becomes scarce, plagues decimate the population, the neighbors wage war, leaders become too corrupt or too inbred or too inept. Ratings go through the bottom.

Always something as we say on the South End, yet another lost civilization. Why not take a run at TV game show hosts running the machinery? Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune. One luck, one trivial pursuit. Spin the wheel, pick a door or a curtain, go for the Daily Double. Sure you could lose it all on a single roll, that’s the fun for us in the audience. I’ll take the Middle East for $600, Alex. “What is the 6 Day War?” No???

The Oprah brand is as vast as Trump’s. As president she can recommend books, offer magazine subscriptions, dole out sympathy. We can struggle together with her weight issues, follow her tabloid accounts. We can hope she heals the country. I’ll wager $2700 on U.S. Government, Alex. “What have you got to lose?”

Good try, but sorry, that is not the answer we’re looking for, Skeeter. That leaves you with only $100. Thanks for playing Jeopardy!

You got to love the NRA. In the wake of another mass killing they roll right into the Conservative Political Action Conference, which they sponsor oddly enough, and accuse the folks who want to maybe do something about mass killings of exploiting the tragedy. Now, I love blaming the victims as much as the next whacko, but this time it feels a little like they are protesting, methinks, too much. When the kids who survived the shootings last week began to knock on legislator’s doors and organized rallies, the conspiracy theorists hit their Facebook sites with accusations that they were paid actors. Nothing is really too insane or too low for these folks. Pretty nearly all the lawmakers were in conferences and unavailable for meetings. Welcome to Democracy, kids!

Wayne (Give me a Gun or Give me Death) La Pierre, the front of the barrel of the National Rifle Association, accuses Democrats of a liberal agenda to destroy all our rights. Ban a bumpstock to make a semi-automatic rifle into a machine gun, well, that’s an equivalency of the government busting in private citizen’s doors for speaking their minds. They want to terminate with extreme prejudice their God given right to carry a firearm, their 2nd amendment rights and then it’s just a nano second away from all the Bill of Rights being taken too. The answer, says Wayne, is to arm the schools’ teachers, teach them how to use a Colt .45 Peacekeeper, give them concealed weapon permits and let them gun down any would-be bad hombres. Works in the movies!

A legislator in our area, not saying he gets money from the NRA lobby, fumed yesterday that more mass killings are done with knives than guns. He used a fictional account of a Norwegian slaughter of schoolkids by blade. Why not be more creative? Grenade murders or slaughter with swords. Murder by pesticides. Killings with trained rats. C’mon, man, if you’re going to lie outright, why not make it a doozie? And yeah, we elected this idiot.

The kids are asking the question we all should’ve been asking all along. How much is the NRA PAYING you??!! What amount of money did it take to buy you off? What are you going to do to make our school and this country safer? Or as one kid vowed, ‘I can’t vote right now, but when I can, I’m voting YOU out!’

Kid, I’m with you.

I hate a smarty pants as much as the next dumb guy. You know the type, climate scientists, Middle East experts, folks who collect data on everything from global temperatures to gunshot deaths. Who needs em? The world is tough enough without complicating it up with facts and statistics.

That’s why we got the Right Man in the White House. Facts? He don’t need no stinking facts. In fact, he doesn’t believe facts are facts. Doesn’t have to, he’s President and the rest of you are the lying media and the left wingers and those stuffy Ivy League college snobs. You want a Harvard professor for a neighbor? Correcting your bad grammar? Showing off with his command of the, ho ho, facts? Didn’t think you did. I sure don’t. Jeez, give me a guy who I can drink a beer with while we look under the hood of his vintage Chevy trying to figure out why it won’t start.

I just read today that the Commander-in-Chief has stopped reading the daily briefing reports, all that hokum the State Department and the military brass and the economic councils throw together and condense down for the President to read every damn morning. Like he doesn’t have something better to do. Fox and Friends, just to name a few. Get all he needs right there, you ask me. And if you don’t believe me, go ask him. Daily briefings? C’mon, that’s why he has advisors. And cabinet members. Experts in their fields.

Okay, they’re not experts, but hey, that’s my whole point. We’re sick and tired of these college trained, east coast, liberal smartasses. That’s why we got Rick Perry running Energy and DeVoss running Education and old Doc Carson running Housing. Tillerson runs the State Department. You think he knew anything about State Department crap? They can reinvent these departments. Move em into the 21st Century. Get rid of the pointy headed hombres who’ve been there practically since 1776. Deep State. Gonna make it shallower, that’s the whole point. Get rid of em altogether, be okay with me and Donald.

All you crybaby losers who said America would go to hell faster than you can say Woman Abuser, wake up! The economy’s doing gangbusters, unemployment is way low, the corporations are going to have a banner year. You want someone to read those daily briefings, be my guest. The rest of us have better things to do. Me, I’m going over to Roy’s next door, see what’s under the hood for problems today, maybe have a beer or three. You let me know if anything Real Important shows up.

Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammo

Seventeen dead in Florida this week. Just a routine slaughter in the Home of the Brave, Land of the Free. These mass murders come so regular now it’s hard to keep up with them. The President comes down and offers condolences then blames the FBI for being too busy trying to prove Russian collusion to stop the mayhem. The Senators offer prayers. Marco Rubio, Senator for Florida, got 3.3 million dollars from the National Rifle Association to keep his comments confined to prayers for the dead, nothing they could have done to prevent these tragedies. The Congressmen wring their hands and they all say we need to do something about mental illness. But they have offered up a budget to cut funding for exactly that. Trust me, someone here is mentally ill.

48% of guns in private hands in the world, the entire world, are in American hands. It is, according to those who receive campaign contributions from the almighty NRA, a God-given right, nothing short of the right to breathe. So what if you’re mentally ill, if you’re on the no-fly terrorist list, if you have a history of violence? You have a right to a gun. Or fifty. You might have to pass a test to drive a car; after all, it’s a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands. But a gun, not a problem. You might not be legally entitled to drink a beer at 18 but you can buy an assault rifle.

After the Las Vegas massacre there was some talk of banning bump-stocks, those neat after-market add-ons that could turn your semi-automatic weapon into a fully functioning automatic machine gun. You heard anything more of any bill that might ban those? No? Well, maybe you never heard, money talks, bullshit walks and the NRA has more money to buy off legislators than anybody else. You want to vote against anything that has to do with guns, you better want a job in the private sector.

The Sec. of Education wants to put guns in the hands of the school teachers. More guns, that’s the answer. And the power of prayer. Gloria Copeland, a member of Donald Trump’s spiritual advisory council, suggests prayer over vaccines to prevent the flu. I know what you’re asking: Donald has a spiritual advisor???? Me, I thought Stormy Daniels was maybe that advisor.

These are tough times for the Righteous Right. 17 dead and mostly kids. Versus a bucket of money from the NRA. My prayers are certainly with the victims. But my vote is going to anyone who has more sense than God gave to a turnip. Can I hear an amen to that?

My old buddy Marco is getting evicted four days from now. He’s got a court date to tell a judge why he shouldn’t be thrown out on the street for not paying his rent. He’s not paying his rent because he hasn’t worked in half a year because his knee is blown out and L&I won’t pay for an MRI to see what’s wrong in there. He has a court date with L&I too, but by then he will be evicted.

Marco’s girlfriend, his latest, isn’t working either. She has a 3 year old child that she’s taking care of for her daughter and yeah, you probably guessed it, the daughter is too drug addled to take care of her own kid. So Marco and Debbie take care of the tot. The hard –hearted among us will no doubt see this as just another story of the poor making bad decisions that lead to them becoming poorer. And they got a good case.

Marco’s planning to move his and Debbie’s stuff out of the rental house this weekend, haul it to a storage unit that costs $150 a month, then go stay with his brother out of state until they figure out which end is up. I think I already know which of their ends is up, but here’s the kicker. Marco wants to adopt his girlfriend’s granddaughter. I mean, why not? He can’t afford a place to live, he hasn’t got a job and he doesn’t have any viable prospects for one. His girlfriend, if history is any indicator, probably won’t be with him long and he wants to adopt the kid.

Marco has a good heart. His trouble isn’t his heart, although judging by his physical condition, that may not be totally accurate. His trouble is his brain. He keeps making dumb decisions. He walked away this year from a house he owned with his ex that they sold for pennies on the dollar because no one would clean up the pigsty they’d made of it. Marco probably didn’t care; after all, his ex was going to take what profits were left from any sale. And did I mention Marco found his way into opioids and finally heroin? No? Well, there you go. Gateway drugs. To poverty.

I wish Marco all the luck in the world. The trouble is, most of it will be bad. You know it, I know it, probably in his lucid moments, Marco does too. The man is 60 years old and driving off the road into the scenery. If you wonder where the homeless hail from, well, some are from the South End. I just hope that 3 year old kid he wants to adopt gets a break. But the poor, often times, do get poorer.

I don’t want you to think I’m jumping on the Trump bandwagon here, but … I do want you to know I plan to give out bonuses of up to 1000 dollars to all my employees. Sure wouldn’t want you to think I’m just going to bank all those profits from the business tax rollbacks that are coming my way. Boeing’s doing it, Pepsi’s doing it, Revisionary Glassworks, I’m pleased to announce, is doing it too. Least I could as my way of saying thanks. To my employees, I mean, not the President.

I suspect a lot of us mega-corporate types will be following suit. Good press, good will, good all around. Oh sure, I’ll raise my prices a little, cover my generosity, but that way you, the public, can share in my charitable glow. By the way, once I did a little checking, I noticed those other companies kind of cheated a bit. You got to read the fine print, maybe you didn’t know that, to find that those thousand dollar bonuses go to the folks who have worked there, oh, about a hundred years. You worked there, say, two or five, well, don’t expect a thousand dollar bonus on that next paycheck. Think a little lower. Think a lot lower. But those headlines say $1000, you say. Truth, maybe you haven’t noticed lately, is kind of slippery.

The Truth – capital T – in my case is that I plan to pay every single employee working for me now $1000 no matter how long they’ve been on the payroll. Ten years, Ten months, Ten days. Capitol T! It’s just Good Bizness, that’s all, and it’s the Right Thing to do, excuse all these capitals. No sir, you won’t see my glass company raising its prices to cover my incredible generosity. Not the way I work. And you could ask any of my employees. You know, if I had any. Right now I’m not only sole proprietor, I’m kind of the sole worker. And yes, I’m giving me a $1000 bonus, maybe more if those CEO’s are any kind of role models! And a big pat on the back!

As most of you careful readers know, political correctness down here on the partisan shores of the steamy equatorial South End is probably not one of our more valued virtues. Maybe because we’re all trapped down at this skinny dead end backwash cul-de-sac, we’ve learned — the hard way usually —- that if we want to get along without civil war, we have to disagree without resorting to a full blown arms race. And believe me, we disagree. On most everything. That’s why we all ended up down here at the end of a tilting island at the end of America on the edge of a continental shelf sliding herky-jerky under another tectonic plate.
This week the talk down at Jolene’s Beauty Salon and Boutique revolved exclusively around the passage of the same sex marriage bill. Scissors and tongues snipped and clucked, but Jolene says no blood was spilled. Ronald, her frothy new beautician, might have intentionally miscolored Mrs. Adeline’s silver perm a tad on the electric blue side when she made the comment that ‘gayness’, seemed to her, was a lifestyle choice, but mostly the banter was affable.
Rhonda Wilkins did wonder out loud if the bill’s passage meant she and her no-account husband Tom’s opposite sex marriage would be annulled now. “That’s wistful thinking,” Wanda blurted from two chairs away in the middle of a henna touch-up on the minister’s mizzus who steadfastly refused to be drawn into a curling iron showdown, and if Rhonda hadn’t been curled herself and heat-lamped into her chair, she might have stormed out, but by the end of the drying cycle she was cooled down and still unhappily married to the love of her life whose zenith of ambition was to reach retirement before cirrhosis.
So Valentine’s Day on the metrosexual South End this year promises to be a cross between Mardi Gras and a Pink St. Patrick’s Day. Maybe no parades by the Diner, but a lot of closets opened for an early spring cleaning. Believe me, the South End could always stand a little more love…. And just in case Mrs. Adeline is right, some of us should think about renewing those old marriage vows. On the outside chance there really might be a statute of limitation.

Recently I was lounging with my fellow fiscal geniuses at our latest symposium at the Pilot House. Janet, our beverage management expert, had just brought our 3rd or 4th round of malt samples when Joker Jerry asked, “How ‘bout we pay in bitcoins tonight, Janet?”

Janet had a tray full of our dead soldiers and a bellyful of our smartass remarks. “Sure, Jerry, if you can tell me exactly what a bitcoin is.”

Jerry, ever the comedian, replied, “It’s cyber money, Janet. You could take my bitcoin tip today and it would be worth 10 times more week’s end.”

“That’s great, Jerry. What’s 10 times 50 cents? Probably my retirement fund, right?” Jerry muttered something sotto voce about no tip at all, but Janet was long gone and we were left to ponder cyber currency, yahoos who barely understood what president was on a bill beyond the twenty dollar bill and I sure don’t know who it is. Trump? Scrooge McDuck?

“So okay, Jerry,” Bobbie D. asked, “you’re the fiduciary whiz, what the hell is a bitcoin?”

Joe asked, “Is it a real coin you could hold in your hand or just internet Monopoly money? And how would you know what it’s worth if it’s jumping up and down like Venezuelan pesos.”

“What do you know about Venezuelan money, Joe? “ Jerry asked and Joe asked Jerry, “What do you know about bitcoins?”

“I know if you’d bought some a few months back, you’d be buying the drinks tonight.”

“And if I’d bought some a few weeks ago, I’d be drinking heavily at home.”

Billy, who sells real estate for Windy Rear Realty said it was like buying a house. “It’s an investment, that’s all. Not like you use it to buy a burger, ya know.”

“No, I don’t know,” Joe said, “that’s the point. What do you use it for?”

“Drugs,” Two Toke Tom declared. “So the Feds can’t track it.”

“None of us can track it apparently,” I mumbled, draining my $5 dollar beer, plus 8.9% tax and a bigger than usual tip for Janet. And so our seminar reached an inconclusive finale, but we will most definitely continue in-depth research and I’ll report back soon as we have a plausible answer. In the meantime trust in God and the money that tells you to.

So this poor college student boarded her plane (name withheld under my attorney’s request) and the wicked witch of a stewardess informed her that her dear hamster wasn’t allowed to accompany her. Something bogus about not wanting rats on the jet, spreading Black Plague or frightening the other passengers. She explained to this corporate lackey that her cute little rodent wasn’t a rat, it was a hamster and furthermore, it was a ‘service animal.’

Just a few days prior a woman had been denied boarding with her service animal, a peacock. She too was quite distraught when the airline revised its policy pretty much right there in the boarding area disallowing peacocks from flying the friendly skies. Probably figured peacocks could fly by themselves with a little encouragement. The hamster, though, not going to grow wings and so, when the airline personnel barred the cute little bugger from taking its seat, the owner asked what was she supposed to do with Mickey? And was advised she could flush it in the nearest toilet.

Now … if you were the kind of fragile personality that needed a rodent for emotional support, just saying, telling you to go flush your support rat might just push you to the edge of a tall precipice. We are emotionally vulnerable people these dark days of the empire and if we need something warmer than a teddy bear or a blankey for comfort, I for one certainly understand. There are days when I can barely open up a newspaper without fearing for my sanity. Today in fact. The President the President the President. Blocking the Democrat’s answer to the Nunes memo. Defending his assistant chief of staff who, despite beating his wives, did a fine job. Or defending this abuser’s boss who knew about this months ago but also put out a statement …. Hell, it goes on and on and if I had a service animal, maybe a cute little wolverine or a school of piranhas, I might have an easier time of coping with a reality that seems to be slipping out from under me hour by hour.

And if I needed to fly someplace, maybe to a country that still held democratic values to be admirable, I’d want to take my support group with me, is that so hard to understand??? I’d keep them in a fish bowl or on a leash, whatever the jerk airline companies demanded. And don’t give me that crap about my fellow passengers complaining about wolverine bites or allergies or whatever whiney bellyaching they dream up, we all need a friend in these troubled times and I know I wouldn’t mind flying with their service animals. Might actually liven up the trip.