The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Our latest entrepreneurial entrée into the fragile economic market of the South End is Tatoo U.  Armed with dye injecting needles and a menacing array of bicep tats, ‘Biker Bob’ Kowalski opened up his ‘body art emporium’ in the cleaning supply room of Hair Today – Gone Tomorrow’s Rogaine Outlet beneath Windy Rear Realty.

The opening week alone Biker Bob adorned 30 arms, torsos and lower calves with artworks ranging from colorful butterflies and cute unicorns to snarling hounds of hell and a blood dripping dagger with the always popular logo: NO LOSERS!  Bob acknowledges that he’s fighting a long held stereotype of body art that’s a bit negative.  “Mostly it’s the old farts,” he said in an exclusive interview for the Crab Cracker.  “They equate it with a sailor’s drunk in some port town.  Next morning he wakes up with the worst hangover of his life and the wrong girlfriend’s name on his chest.”  Bob tells us he doesn’t get many sailors and he’s reluctant to inscribe current girlfriend’s names.

Scrutinizing the hundreds of graphic images posted on the salon walls, I ask what are some of the favorites of us South Enders.  He admits it’s a bit early to say, but he’d done a couple of dragons for the guys and the little butterfly is popular among the ladies. “They like it right about bikini-line or just visible below the top of the bra line,” he says, then laughs and admits, “me too.”  Not bad work, if you can get it.”

With all the artists down here, I make the mistake of asking if he plans to use any of them to create one-of-a-kind tattoos.  This rankles him.  “Why don’t you go ask THEM if they’re going to use any of the other artists’ art to make theirs, ya jerk!”

I took his point, without the dye, apologized and took a hasty departure.

Artists are hyper-sensitive people, in case you’ve somehow never stumbled down to Colony Central here at the nettlesome South End.  Biker Bob will make a fine addition.

On my way past a stack of detergent and window cleaning supplies I passed a client coming in:  about 18, pierced nose, tongue stud, 3 tiny diamonds glittering in a clean row on her earlobe.  “Go for the butterfly,” I meekly suggest.  Her accompanying boyfriend glared ominously at me and advised I mind my own business.

You know, if I had one….  Biker Bob apparently does.

Hits: 90

Hits: 21

southend theory of relativity

Hits: 29

If you was to look at the South End on a map, it would look like a gooeyduck that had basked a little too long on the beach.  Or like myself BEFORE the miracle of Viagra.  There just isn’t a lot of blood flow down here.

I suppose that explains why the Pace of Life here is a little slower than you all’s.  Stanwood’s gotten so all-fired Accelerated – being a Hub and all – they finally had to install stoplights just to put the skids on a mite.  I believe you could cram a whole afternoon on the South End into a Stanwood minute.

No, if it’s one thing we got a bumper crop of, it’s Time.  Time on our hands, time on our shoes, time on our side.  We watch the bread rise, the berries ripen, the orchards mature, the grass grow, the kids turn juvenile delinquent, the homebrew mellow, the hound dog and myself here getting lazier with every passing year.  That old chestnut about stopping to smell the roses…?  On the South End we’d have to speed it up a few miles an hour to catch a whiff.

You may not believe it, but Mr. Einstein must’ve had kinfolk on the South End cause he explained scientifically what we know in our bones  —  time is relative.  Hellfire, I had a shirttail cousin come to visit Ma and me awhile back, brought the whole kit and kaboodle, dogs, brats, tee-totalling wife, stayed a week.  I’m telling you when that week was over, me and the mizzus was two YEARS closer to the Pioneer Cemetery.

People say Mr. Einstein was a genius.  I say he had some bad relatives himself.

Hits: 27

Hits: 21

audio — chicken little avoids fiscal catastrophe

Hits: 22

Lately all I hear on the meager news that trickles down our way are stories about driving off the Fiscal Cliff.  Disaster.  Mayhem. Catastrophe.  And chaos right around the bend!!  Nobody’s at the wheel and all us chickens are screaming bloody murder in the backseat.  It’s enough to make a fella quit his job and pull his money out of the band and head back into the hills before all fiscal hell breaks loose.  You know, IF he had a job.

I thought after the election was over we’d all settle down, maybe take a break from the non-stop acrimony, get ready for an enjoyably peaceful Christmas.  I guess I was a little overly optimistic.  Or maybe just slightly naïve.  Okay, I was stoopid.  The media loves a good scare the way a TV weatherman loves predicting a blizzard a week ahead of time.  Snowmageddon on its way!!  Big low pressure barreling in from Siberia, crashing into a Pineapple Express up from Hawaii, better buy a generator and a backhoe with a plow now!!!

The economy’s gonna tank!  The market’s gonna crash!!  The sky is falling, the sky is falling, clouds are hailing down like bricks!!!  Go to your Safe Room before it’s too late!  Pray to Alan Greenspan!  Put your affairs in order!  Say adios to your kids!  Kiss your butt goodbye!!!!!

But wait … the next news story is the mania to buy Powerball tickets.  A billion dollars worth already sold with a chance to win, at this very moment, 550 million bucks.  You win, you get a Fiscal Parachute.  You could buy what’s left of a bankrupt American economy.  You could be King.  You could tell Bill Gates what to do.  You could buy the next election.  Or cancel it altogether.  You could survive!  Not just survive, you could Rule!

Tens of thousands of us a minute — a Minute! — are buying tickets.  If the government would just fake these things, pony up a happy millionaire at the end — a shill — then pocket the loot, we could turn this economy around OVERNIGHT!!

Wwe could avert the Cliff and slide back into our garage in the cul-de-sac and hit the door close button and return to daytime TV and endless sports programming.  We’d be happy.  We’d be saved.!!

Maybe I’m just being optimistic.  Maybe I’m a little naïve.  Okay … I know what you’re thinking…..

Hits: 23