The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Now, a lot of us South Enders look a little dubiously at Dad’s Day. It sounds suspiciously like one of those STING operations for deadbeat dads delinquent on child support payments. Get us all down here, then throw the net. We can already see the headlines in the Conway Chronicler: South Enders nabbed in Paternity Sting.

NOT that I’m saying I’m a deadbeat dad. I know being an artist and a banjo picker sort of doesn’t help the image, but we all been down on our luck. Little Jimmy understands that. His mom’s a little less forgiving, but when the CD sales start rolling in and the big art commissions, she’ll change her tune.

What with all these studies proving that more than a quarter of men in this country aren’t the genetic fathers of their children, Fatherhood on the South End has taken on a whole new meaning in these modern times we live in. DNA tests take all the romance out of relationships, you ask me. The old family tree’s got some extra branches now. And I guess that’s good, but it sure takes some of the mystery away from sparking and courting. Personally I don’t care to find out half the South End String Band is related.

But it IS father’s day coming up. Won’t be long before dear old dad is just a Test Tube in some sterile lab. Sample # 74 Double X, blue eyes, dark hair, long fingers for the banjo. I like to think I got more to offer than a Petri dish. Although, Little Jimmy’s mom might not agree.

The Band was thinking of maybe lobbying for Father’s Day being a day of amnesty. You know: Give a Dad a Break Day. Or even a whole month. NOT that I’m saying the boys down here are looking for a way to skip the June payments. We were just thinking a little breathing room ….. you know, til the CD sales pick up.

‘Well, I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, Tell me, where are you going?’
‘Woodstock’

It’s been 50 years since the hippie uprising bloomed in San Francisco and wilted shortly after. I went out to Haight-Ashbury in 1975, only 8 years too late. By then Flower Power was dried and pressed, steel bars were on the storefronts and the streets were filled with zombies too drugged to leave in time. I left in a few hours, scratching my long haired head where to go next.

Hunter S. Thompson famously said in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas that there was place in the foothills above Frisco where a person with the right kind of eyes could see where that bohemian utopian tidal wave crested and finally broke. I’m pretty sure I found the archaeological proof of that highwater mark. Just turned the truck around and headed ‘home’, a fictional place as it turned out, an old Polish farmhouse with a barn, summer ‘kitchen’, well and hand pump, plus an outhouse. Cut wood for the hard winter to come and settled in to work on a divorce. We wore icicles in our hair, not flowers. We picked at our marital wounds and by spring the Summer of Love was long since dead and buried.

But — and yeah, Virginia, there’s always a caveat — but some of those seeds from that era, passed bong to bong or secreted away in the short stints at communes, something remained fertile of those ill-formed dreams we had, some lyric or other took root and grew in my personal darkness until finally it emerged, a full blown song, tentative at first, I realize now, then more vigorous in the damp country air of the Pacific Northwest. We did go back to the land, we did set our souls free. We did realize, in the end, we are stardust, we are golden. And we finally got ourselves back to the Garden.

Camano Island 50 years later

For some strange reason I’ve been struggling lately to define ‘insanity’. The other day the former chairman of the GOP called the President crazy. This is grim news. The Roman emperors were ruined by a few insane leaders, whackos like Caligula who tried to put his horse in the Senate and declare Mr. Ed a priest. Trump hasn’t got a horse so we’re spared that sorry spectacle.

I live in a country now where half of us no longer believe in facts, or science, or can tell the difference between what is truth and what isn’t. This seems to me to be one definition of insanity. But when a majority of those around me are insane, then where does that leave the rest of us? Isn’t insanity the state of mind that’s abnormal? Or is that just a different definition?

I’m a little disoriented. It’s a bit like Alice walked into 1984, the Wonderland of Big Brother. History is being rewritten tweet by tweet, hour by hour. Nothing is as it seems and most everything I see is different from the Presidential Vision. We seem to be voting based on social media more than logic. The former arbiter of news, PBS, The NY Times, the Washington Post, all are accused of phony facts. Not much room here for investigative journalism, that’s for sure. If everything is skewed and twisted, if there really is no ‘fair and balanced,’ we all get to believe whatever we and our Facebook friends want.

There might not be Global Warming, evolution may be a fraud, the moon landing was staged, the government is dropping chemicals on us, Santa is real, the Matrix is here, the world is a digital construct. Believe me, it’s hard to get up in the morning wondering what’s waiting out there now that the earth’s solidity is in question.

What I do think is true is that there are a lot of insane people among us. The question is whether they’re the ones who are crazy. Or us.

Trump invited his cabinet today to go around the room and take turns praising the job he’s doing. Each poor schmuck took his or her turn heaping accolades on the President who started the meeting crowing that he had accomplished more in his brief term of office than almost any other president with the possible exception of FDR. And this in less than six months when all the others had had at least four years and some eight. And in the case of FDR, three terms. Forget Mt. Rushmore, this President will get his own mountain.

You got to wonder, are we in a 3rd world dictatorship where fear of execution keeps the lackeys in control? And I have to wonder, what kind of people value their job so much that they’ll jump through the hoops this fruitcake of a Commander-in-Chief sets up for them. Nothing seems too embarrassing, no deed seems too ignoble, no screw-up goes unpraised as high achievement. The world inside the Oval Office is square and the peg fits only with the utmost effort. Black is the new white. Truth is whatever the man thinks it is. The little goof in North Korea pretty much runs his show the same way. Welcome to government by the insane.

We were always told: we too could one day be president of the United States. Well, I never really believed that, but all the kids in my 6th grade Social Studies class would probably be a better Leader of the Free World than this guy in office right now. Okay, maybe not Jimmy Sutton, the kid who used to pick his nose and eat his own snot. Didn’t even try to hide doing it, just dug out a finger full and plopped it into his disgusting little mouth. Course, Jimmy probably has his own tech start-up and makes billions now down in Silicon Valley. Still, I bet he wouldn’t go around the conference table and make his staff take turns regaling the gathered assembly how much they liked snot eaters. Trump, of course, would make them eat his.

Paul Ryan, head apologist for the President, told reporters that he thought Trump should be given a pass for what appears to be obstruction of justice in the Comey firing. I always thought ignorance of the law was given pretty short shrift in a court of law, but apparently in the GOP Congress, it has legs. Trump, the neophyte Commander-in-Chief who relies on no one’s advice in these matters, pulled Comey aside, asked the others in the room to leave, then told him he hoped he’d drop this Flynn/Russia investigation. When he didn’t, Trump did what he does best, he fired him then demeaned him in the press. Now he’s calling Comey a liar.

Of course we expect new Presidents to GPS their way around D.C. in the rough beginning, learn the ropes, figure out how the swamp is laid out. Maybe in Trump’s case, a couple of years, two terms even. The poor guy. And believe me, he’s not. High crimes and misdemeanors don’t count in Ryan’s rule book. They tried attacking the messenger, Comey, but geez, the guy comes across as pretty high minded and when he says he knew exactly what the President meant when he said he hoped that investigation would end pronto, you can bet one of those boyz has cornered the market on Integrity and the other, well, one is a liar. Not a dissembler, not an exaggerator, not someone who’s still learning the difference (it’s so hard!), but a Liar, capital L.

The hammer is going to come down on this sad affair in American History and there will be those who stood up with courage and those who saw their hopes for political agendas slowly going up in smoke and did nothing to keep the fire from spreading. It’s sad, Very Sad! believe me, to watch this pathetic reality TV show play out day after day. There won’t be winners at the end of the series, but trust me, there will be plenty of losers. And not just the jokers who couldn’t figure out the rules of the game….

The good folks of Portland, Oregon are on the march. It’s the whitest large city in America and they want to keep it that way. Seattle plans to march too now, no doubt realizing those pesky Arabs want to subvert their city council and impose Sharia Law on the citizens of their fair city. We apparently are Under Siege and all this time you’ve been sleeping during MSNBC.

You ask yourself maybe, what are these people smoking? And what’s next? A march against polio vaccinations? A protest against outer space intruders? Rallies to defund science? A pre-emptive strike against Mars?

Whoa, we’re already defunding science. And folks already think vaccinations cause autism and even Liberal thinking. Space intruders? Okay, let’s march against aliens. Why not? Well, I’ll tell you why not: half the protesters will probably be Them, that’s why!! They’re probably the ones who advocate for vaccines. And you know, you have to know, they believe in science, the Real Science, if they managed to get here from Solar System X. Or Mars!!!

Ignorance used to be bliss. Now it just seems like ignorance is anger. Probably caused by gluten! I was sitting in the tire shop the other day, chatting it up with a couple of fellow customers, waiting for my tire to be repaired, some screw jammed in its treads causing it to leak (go ahead, take this as a metaphor for America). You know, if I believed in that sort of cause and effect. My fellow inmates were discussing everything from health care to nuclear testing, global warming to wheat pesticides. God only knows where they glean their information, but not from scientific journals or the lying media, that’s for certain. There were multiple conspiracy theories, from the government testing nuclear bombs next to Las Vegas to Monsanto poisoning the wheat just before harvest. The government, the chemical industry, the pharmaceuticals, the United Nations, you name it, all evil, all pervasive, all out to get them.

I listened politely, asked a few questions, volunteered some replies and prayed to Allah that my tire would be fixed ASAP, before the rubber industries could imbed brainwashing devices inside the sensors they already got in my radials that would render me as ignorant and pissed off as my already doomed compatriots there in the waiting room. Sharia Law? Hellfire, I got bigger issues than that to worry about now….

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don’t do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she’s ten feet tall — Jefferson Airplane “White Rabbit”

The man who formulated LSD died recently, no doubt an event that caused few raised eyebrows outside Haight Ashbury or the ground troops for the War on Drugs. But … I definitely felt a strong disturbance in the Force. For those who never partook and knew the drug only by the sensational stories in the press, the man was a nameless villain, a purveyor of a very heavy pharmaceutical that made madmen of their children and ruined many a poor boy. For those of us searching for an expanding universe, hoo wheee, the man hit the cosmic jackpot. If I had a tab of windowpane tonight, I might just put it under my tongue and slip off into the Milky Way on a passing comet as a final salute to this unsung chemist.

The Army tried using LSD-25 as an experiment in mind altering interrogations back in the psychedelic 60’s, brought a few soldiers in for a dose, then watched to see how it affected them as reality sheared off into a lateral spin over an abyss the volunteers never saw coming, just a headlong drop off the curve with no guardrails and no bottom. Frightening? Yah, shure, you betcha. Like waking up in the morning with brakes out paranoia lost in a funhouse with no doors out. You’d probably find it a queasy experience. You might not find your way back.

LSD is not for everyone, let’s make that clear to the Army docs. Pulling the rug out from under the unsuspecting, well, you ask me, that’s pretty criminal. For those who say LSD is a gateway drug, all I can say is it’s a gateway all right, but not to more drugs. More a doorway into places few folks have been and most wouldn’t want to visit. But for the adventuresome, hoo-boy, there’s a glimpse into the cosmos, inner and outer, that will last a lifetime. Reality is relative and that’s not a truth most of us want to accept. Insanity is right next door, admittedly, but so is ecstasy. Once you’ve been to either, the world will never be the same. Go ask Alice … when she’s ten feet tall.

Down here on the wild wild South End, rugged individualism still reigns supreme. Little wonder there were cheers from the trailer parks to the gated communities for the fast exit from the Paris Climate Accords. “We have to take care of our own,” Fairlane Freddy, one of the regulars at the Diner, said the morning the news broke. “I’m tired of babysitting the rest of the world.”

“That’s right,” Jerry chimed in. “This isn’t about coal jobs, it’s about independence. The Chinese got off easy and we’re supposed to pick up the heavy end.” Two Toke Tom, his fork halfway to his mouth with a load of biscuits drenched in gravy, stopped suddenly and I shook my head no, but too late. Tom and I were badly outnumbered by this mob of Flatheads here for the vintage car club’s breakfast meeting. Why is it, I thought, that we can’t just leave well enough alone?

“You think maybe driving those carbon spewing old Hudsons is a God given right, I suppose,” Tom asked, his gravy dripping onto the formica of our table, eliciting an involuntary groan from me and more than a few raised eyebrows from the Flathead tables. I began to calculate an escape plan, something to do with a trip to the rest room then out the back door to my waiting beat up Toyota pickup. With a little luck I could toss a ten dollar bill for my tab without undue notice.

But Tom was suddenly smiling. “America first, that’s the deal!” With that he lofted his fork into his grin. Freddy was caught off guard a moment. “That’s right, Tom, us first. You got a problem with that?”

Two Toke was chewing languidly now, a cow with her cud, unperturbed. “Not me,” he finally said. “Trump knocked that president from Montenegro out of his way for a photo op. Got to look out for himself, I guess. The days of courtesy are over, eh? New sheriff in town.” That bathroom near the exit began to look like two miles away.

Anita suddenly appeared with a steaming coffee pot. “Boys, how many times I got to tell you, NO POLITICS at breakfast. Take that to the Pilot Lounge, they don’t care if you drink and run your mouth. We got families here, gentlemen, paying customers. So zip it up, that’s all I’m gonna tell you.” She turned to
Two Toke. “You want a refill or the bill?”

Tom chuckled sheepishly. “I apologize, Anita. I’d prefer a refill.”

“How about you, Fred?” she asked, still holding the pot. Fred nodded yeah. “Fill Tom’s first, why don’tcha, Anita.” And Anita did just that.

Michael Steele, former Republican National Committee Chairman, when asked why no one wanted to work in the White House, said he didn’t expect Trump to finish his first term in office and that his ‘clients’ should look forward to Vice President Pence’s ascension to the throne. Why? Because, he said, no one wants to work for ‘crazy’. This is harsh news for the Prez. More faux news, maybe, or just another Republican calling the kettle black, hard to tell.

But the buzzards are circling, Donald, and not just the FBI. Who knows, maybe they’ll drag you out in a strait jacket, not handcuffs. You can plead insanity. If I were on that jury, and please, God, put me on that jury, I’d find it a plausible defense. I might be inclined toward leniency, something like 20 years of public service. Real public service, Mr. President, not Self Service. But I wouldn’t bet on my fellow jurors feeling so compassionate. Treason, after all, even if it’s only for profit, not politics, is a vile crime and when you’re hauled in for those Russian payoffs, you and your son-in-law and a few accomplices, don’t count on me to step in front of the lynch mob arguing that they should pity you because you’re batshit crazy.

No, high crimes and treason do not engender compassion or forgiveness. You fooled a lot of us a lot of the time, but those times are over soon. I don’t really know how federal prison works things, but maybe they’ll let you Tweet once a day. You can profess ignorance, you can cry foul, you can howl that justice was not served. You can hire the best attorneys money can buy. You can hope to get your case taken to the Supreme Court where you got a Justice or two on the bench. But it won’t help. Crazy, isn’t it?

We’re taking down some of the statues in the South of all those Rebel heroes, maybe about time after 150 years since the Civil War. Kinda sad news for the folks who still fly the Confederate flag back up the dirt roads where history got written a little differently. Stone Mountain, the second largest chunk of granite next to Gibraltar, has those 4 generals on horseback large as the presidents on Mt. Rushmore. Yankee presidents, to some.

I’m all FOR putting those Civil War statues in a museum somewhere in Mobile or Vicksburg or Chattanooga. After all, they are historic. But as heroes? I can’t say the folks who fought for slave-holders should be honored any more than the Grand Wizards of the KKK. Call me politically correct and slap me with a New York Times Sunday edition, but c’mon, the South needs to accept defeat with that much touted grace they claim as theirs. I know, Washington and Jefferson and the boyz had slaves too. And they’re on Rushmore. And we should all acknowledge their part in perpetuating the stain on this country. The Constitution, that document the Supreme Court originalists wants to cling to like lichen to a hard rock, deemed blacks as only partially human. Women, not even a mention.

Maybe there’s too many statues anyway. Obscure generals, folks we’ve long since forgotten even though the statues were spozed to help us remember them into perpetuity. We live in an era where fame is fast and furious, about the length of a mayfly’s mating period. Wouldn’t bother most of us if we replaced them with People Magazine’s Sexiest Man of the Year or the Academy Award winners for best actress and actor. Or just vote on Facebook, see who gets the most Likes, then put statues up in Times Square or the Washington Mall.

And just to make it interesting, we could put a few Shaming Statues up too. Course, that might mean keeping those Reb generals around a little longer….