The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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I know most of you probably think I’m a red-blooded American male, gorging myself on synthetic testosterone and subscribing to ESPN so I can watch soccer matches in Brazil and tennis tournaments in Australia and Nascar anywhere they got an oval track. It’s understandable, your misconception. I probably haven’t exposed my poetic sensitive metrosexual side near enough, but it’s late in the game now and I guess you’ll have to take my word even if it brings my manly manhood down a notch or two in your estimation.

Sports. I have to confess I was never much for team sports in my youth. Oh sure, I played some Little League baseball, but I got that out of my system pretty early. And by the time I realized that proficiency in sports was inextricably connected to desirability by women, it was too late, I was doomed to lonely intellectualism. Without being very intellectual, which as you might guess, is lonely indeed.

So when Fantasy Sports reared its head this year, I didn’t have Clue One what the hell this was. I kept asking my more sports-minded buddies what this new sports craze was all about, and they kept telling me it was an on-line something or other where you could pick a team from anybody on any team and compete against folks in the world of the internet. And you could bet on your team! Gambling, that I could understand.

So now the government is looking into whether this Fantasy Sports is really gambling or is it a skill? The skill, I guess, is figuring out the odds and variables of whatever intricacies of betting on different players in different combinations you can come up with. Sort of like blackjack, you ask me. Which, if you’re a card counter, is a skill. But if you’re just a schmuck like me at the casino table, it looks remarkably like gambling. If you had to play against a good card counter, I bet (but not much) it would seem like a skill, one I don’t possess.

I saw a piece on the news last night how 91% of the money made in Fantasy Sports was made by 1.3% of the people who bet. Those, except for the Lottery addicted, are long odds. I have to say, the government might want to regulate what seems like gambling to me. The danger, of course, is they might have to take a hard look at the stock market too. I think those same 1.3% who make up the algorithms and the formulas might be the bright boys in Goldman Sachs. And I quit betting against them a long time ago.

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I got a pile of friends who claim to be envious of my so-called Lifestyle. Get up when I want, work for myself, do what I feel like doing, live off the calendar and my wits and off the beaten path. Who wouldn’t like that? Unless we factor in the poverty, the hand-to-mouth, the lack of pensions or retirement. There’s a reason hippies became extinct and it has nothing to do with an asteroid slamming Earth.

As the mizzus will gladly attest, I took this road — this choice? — because I don’t play well with others. And certainly not managers, supervisors or most any other bosses. I didn’t like the city. I didn’t like most jobs. Okay, all jobs, any jobs. And since poverty never scared me, the Path of Least Resistance led to here, a place remote and cheap, and not surprisingly, a backwash without much opportunity for employment.

Perfect! All I had to do was learn a few skills. Carpentry, plumbing, electrical, truck repair, subsistence living. Education — it never really ends. Something they neglect to teach most of us in school. The School of Hard Knocks doesn’t need a post-graduate program. Tuition’s not exactly free, but it’s reasonable.

Folks who claim to be envious of my lifestyle really aren’t. They didn’t have the appropriate skill sets. If they did, retirement would be easy for them, a hippie vibe with a fat income guaranteed. Who could ask for more? But … like I always say, it takes more than a little while to learn bohemianism. And if you’ve spent most of your life paying for insurance policies to protect yourself from the vagaries of existence, chances are it’s too late to become a latter day beatnik. Don’t feel bad, you’re probably the Lucky Ones.

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Johnny Fever’s got a cigarillo dangling from his lips, one arm out the window, one hand fiddling with the radio dial. He’s listening for clues in the song lyrics, he’s watching for numerological signs on license plates, he’s motormouthing a mile a minute flying down the interstate at 105 miles per hour, dodging semis as he weaves wildly, lane to lane. “There you go,” he shouts over the windnoise, flicking ash out the open window. “Two threes and a one, adds up to seven! Seven’s my number, man, seven’s my combination!”

I’m tightening my seatbelt, wishing I’d made my will, but it’s too late now and my only hope at survival is probably a state trooper with radar. “Hey, John, how ‘bout we slow down 50 miles an hour or so?” I say, not that I think he hears one word I say over the radio squawk. “Hear that?” he howls, hammering on the dash. “Van Morrison, man. Van the damn Man!”

Apparently this is a Good Sign. He’s smiling, hums to the words, flicks an ash and squirts between two behemoth diesels as if they were stopped, not doing their actual 65mph. They disappear behind us in the blink of a bloodshot eye. I’m white knuckling my armrest, saying between clenched teeth if I live through this I’m going to get my will in order first thing.

Johnny Fever is on a bender. He stopped taking his meds a week ago and now he’s untethered, a rocket moving into the stratosphere of his skull, homing in on Seattle, me as co-pilot. If I thought I might protect him from himself, I was sadly mistaken. I will be the victim of his unintentional suicide, more than likely.

“There!!” he bellows. “Right there!” I look to where his cigarillo is pointed, a truck license that has two sevens, a three and a four. “Triple sevens, man!! Whaddaya think of that?!”

What do I think of that? I think I’m not feeling too lucky today, is what I’m thinking … as we cut suddenly between a delivery truck and a BMW. Johnny Fever slaps the dash and dials the radio for another sign. “Gonna be a good day, Skeeter,” he yells, grinning happily. Where the hell are the State Patrol when you need em?

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The head honcho of Iran flew into Italy this week. Now that all the sanctions are dropped, he’s there to make a few deals. Lots of oil money flowing finally and everybody is rubbing hands in anticipation of some serious profits. This, in case you haven’t been paying attention, is the way the world works. All well and good. The rich can get a bit richer and the rest of us can get trickled on.

I stopped throwing myself in the gears of capitalism long ago. In fact, I am a businessman myself, registered with the state of Washington, and paying taxes just like Microsoft and Boeing. You know, without some of the breaks they got. No, my beef isn’t with the profit motive, mine is with the folks in Italy who decided they needed to cover up their art with fig leaves so that the Iranian prez wouldn’t be so offended he might turn tail and tear up future contracts. These statues from antiquity were bare ass naked. I mean, really offensive stuff. Penises and breasts, genitalia, all those body parts the Italians are worried would be viewed as a sick porn party.

David and Venus de Milo, all that degenerate art Western Culture ordinarily celebrates unless it interferes with business deals, needed to be covered. Sure don’t want to offend the mullahs and their entourage, not when multi-billion lira deals are on the line. I assume most TV stations were told to stand down as well, movie theaters closed for the week and book stores asked to censor their shelves. Been awhile, I guess, since the Iranians got out for a spin around the globe, no need to shock sheltered sensibilities.

In full disclosure, my so-called business is art. Hopefully not too degenerate, but hey, filth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Like most of my artist cronies, I get my fair share of criticism, not primarily from the mullahs but from the neighbors who have their own standards regarding art and culture. Censorship can be subtle or it can be harsh, but usually it’s honest. Censoring what you claim to love, what you say is the cornerstone of your culture, well, god forbid we offer up our own tolerance as an aesthetic. When in Rome now, apparently, they’re ashamed of what the Romans do. As they should be….

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