The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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When I was a hopeless romantic … well, when I first realized I was a hopeless romantic, a state of mind that for the most part has afflicted me my entire life, I was a fan of Richard Brautigan. Brautigan was a product of the ‘60’s, as was I and possibly as were a few of you, altho you may not have scrambled the eggs in your brain the way we did. Richard eventually shot himself in those eggs, depressed that his fame hadn’t followed him into his later, sadder years. I was saddened that he couldn’t just accept the trajectory of his career and maybe make the necessary adjustments, but then, fame isn’t following me much of anywhere so why try to walk a mile in Richard’s boots.

In 1966, hot on the heels of Trout Fishing in America and A Confederate General in Big Sur, he wrote a book called The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966, which was about a guy who kept a library for anyone who wished to drop off their unpublished or unpublishable manuscripts. Kids who wrote in crayon, people writing their boring memoirs, teenagers spilling their angst-ridden guts, you name it, the librarian in the novel accepted, quote, “the unwanted, the lyrical & haunted volumes of American writing” unquote, anytime day or night, no questions asked. For a would-be wannabee writer, this was a pretty notion. Nowadays, of course, we got the internet for all that. I even have a blog … so I guess I’m the librarian of at least those slim archives.

And of course there are Brautigan Libraries all over the country from Vermont to Washington where manuscripts can be dropped off and where they’ll presumably be cared for and probably remain unread. Literature, apparently, is a lot like news in these blog-riddled days where we’re awash in unedited, un-verified flotsam washing up on the debris-strewn beaches of our consciousness. For all I know, this, like plastic, will be the defining characteristic of our epoch. Facts? We don’t need no stinking facts. Put that on the gravestone of the 21st century.

Walking recently with an old friend who’s a writer, we got to talking about our late life chapter as artists. In the course of our conversation strolling the moss and fern world of the Sauk River up north, meandering under huge fir trees and listening to the language of the river, we commiserated about the publishing world and gave voice to the usual lament of writers since time immemorial. Meaning, who reads us?

Which eventually gives rise to the question, why do we write? Would we do it if we knew pretty much nobody would read what we wrote? Neither of us have anything but a puny audience. We’re the perfect candidates for Brautigan’s Library. Haul those unpublished manuscripts in late at night and ring the silver bell at the entrance, let the attendant put them on a shelf while we walk away.

My friend may have a different answer than mine, but I would write if I were the last man on earth. For the same reason I play a song on my banjo even if no one is around to hear it. For the same reason I make stained glass windows without caring if I sell them or not. For the same reason I build furniture and guitars and too many banjos, none of which I’ve ever sold. For the same reason I built a glass studio and a sailboat and the house we live in now. Because … in the end what we’re creating isn’t just a poem … or an acoustic guitar … or a song … or a stained glass window. We’re creating our life and these are the bricks, these are the doors and the windows, these are steeples. Corny as it sounds, this is why we write, why we make music, why we dance, why we grow a garden, why we get out of the bed we’ve made every morning. Because somewhere along the line we realized life is our real canvas and the world is our creation.

The folks who tell me, and there are plenty, oh, they don’t have a creative bone in their body, couldn’t paint if they took classes the rest of their lives, well, I’ve got bad news for the artistically invertebrates. We‘re all artists. We just don’t know it yet. I was pretty old when I discovered I had more than just a funny bone and if you want to know the truth, if someone had told me I’d end up becoming an artist, I’d have laughed in their face. I couldn’t draw my way out of a paper bag, couldn’t make a decent stick figure much less a portrait, never took an art class, didn’t come from a family that appreciated art. My point is that art isn’t necessarily something you’re born with. All those stories of Mozart writing symphonies at 5 or Michelangelo painting masterpieces as a kid, forget about that, those are what stop us from even trying. Those are the myths that need to be ignored. Art isn’t necessarily the Sistine Chapel mural. Sometimes it’s just the way you arrange a bouquet of flowers or the change you make in a recipe for dinner. Art is simply … and as complex … it’s simply self- expression. It’s a way of seeing the world that’s uniquely yours. And in the end, it changes the world.

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Maybe you’ve never made a speech to a crowd of people you don’t know. If you haven’t, I’m totally envious. You have taken the right path! You have probably added a year to your life expectancy. And most importantly, you have kept your self-respect.

I’m an hour or so away from giving a speech to an auditorium full of bibliophiles and library administrators. What I could possibly say to them regarding Libraries, I seriously have my doubts. The potential seems immense that I will leave here with an omelette on my face, a long bitter drive home with a vow to never again stand in front of a crowd hoping to provide … what? Inspiration? A peek into an aberrant mind? A tutorial on an Unintended, much less Unexamined, Life?

I feel like Don Quixote on roller skates. Course I can’t tell these literary folks I’ve never read Cervantes’ little book. I can’t mention I have no idea why I was invited to be their keynote speaker at the end of their day. And I certainly can’t admit that I don’t know why I accepted their invitation.

I guess occasionally I get up on my high pony and think I might actually have something to say. Hubris, we call it. I used to do this in Stanwoodopolis at the Kiwanis or the Rotary, go on the stump to pitch public art, cultural identity, community involvement. Ho ho. We ate breakfast, pledged allegiance to the flag, prayed, collected dues and then I would do my tap dance, invariably a yawn-inducing disaster. A slow learner, I apparently am. No news there.

It takes a lot of something, courage maybe, to get up in front of people, especially strangers, to do your song. Or read your poetry. Or show your paintings. What you’re doing is actually opening yourself up, revealing something about yourself, so if folks don’t like your art, we artists feel like they don’t like an important part of us personally. Probably why we cut off our ears occasionally like Van Gogh.

I’ve wanted to cut off an ear or two in my years as a struggling artist. Course, when you play a banjo, folks want to cut off their own ears. I don’t have any ears to spare so I decided to keep at it. What I think is important to remember is you have to keep doing what you love. You may not get the loudest applause, you may not get rich doing it, you may go thru times when you question what you’re doing. But if it means something to you, keep doing it. Success isn’t so much about talent, it’s about perseverance.

I know a lot of folks who just can’t take rejection. Nobody likes rejection, but I promise you, it’s part of the deal. I used to paper my wall with rejection notices for stories and poetry I’d sent in. I compete for glass projects all over the country and trust me, I lose most of them. But I didn’t give up because I loved doing what I do and I always hoped I’d figure out a way to do it. Not saying I didn’t think about quitting a few times. Mostly I’m glad I kept my ears. Another one of these speeches, all bets are off.

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We got a new neighbor recently who apparently thinks his mansion needs architectural lighting the way airport parking lots need sodium security. We live at the end of a dark road on the terminus of an isolated island, but my fellow escapee has decided to bring 5000 watts of candlepower to bear on the night. His place looks like a Hollywood mega-star’s palace, security lights and spotlights all glaring from our quiet little neighborhood. His driveway could be seen from the international space station and if we still had a shuttle, it would have no trouble landing here even in the fog.

If any of us in half a mile of this cone of light wanted to step out on a moonless evening to catch a glimpse of the Milky Way or the constellation Pleiades, fat chance, not with the searchlights beaming up from across the road. Whether paranoia drives this lighting strategy or vanity, none of us know. But the cosmos are gone from view, that we do know. One of the boyz wandered over to ask if maybe the lights could be diminished a bit, possibly just put in motion detecting lights that turn off after a burglar or a raccoon pass by, leave the ‘hood some darkness at night instead of a blazing artificial constant daylight. Naw, not gonna happen. My lights, my business, my rights.

I remember when Ruth next door installed a night light behind her house that shone right in our bedroom window. She lived alone and she was worried about prowlers, which is sort of understandable despite the fact that the only prowler in these parts back then was probably me. It took a few years but some fir trees finally blocked that light. And when Ruth asked me to cut down a few for her, I said no, they give me darkness once again, you’ll have to find someone else to cut them. Kind of hard hearted, I know, but I like seeing the stars. And I like not having lights shining into my bedroom at night. I didn’t move to the country to have searchlights blinding me at midnight.

My neighbor will eventually move on. If there’s one thing I’ve learned after four decades here, you can outlast the bastards. Anyone that nervous about the dangerousness of our neighborhood probably won’t last long in this jungle. What he needs is razor wire, security fences, burglar alarms and probably a Doberman behind the door. All I can say is it must be hard to fall asleep over there. And even then, the dreams must be frightening.

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Golly, the election of 2020 is a long ways off and 2024 is a galaxy far far away. Unless you’re the NRA and the MAGA red hat crowd. The gun lobby is up in arms over Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ criticism of the war in Afghanistan, a war she blames both Dems and GOP for getting us mired in. Grant Stinchfield, who is a host on the TV channel of our fair minded gun lobbying group, said Ocasio-Cortez made him “sick”. “The woman whose Green New Deal promises to figure out a way to handle cows that pass gas, is now crapping on patriotism and of course national security.”

Good quote, Grant! But gee, didn’t the NRA give over 30 million dollars to the guy who said the same thing she did, that the War was a mistake, that both parties screwed up and now we’re headed toward the 3rd decade of a stalemate nobody seems to be able to win. How about Trump, Grant? You boyz helped elect him and now he’s talking about pulling out of both Afghanistan and Iran. Does he make you sick? Or are you farting out the wrong hole?

Ocasio-Cortez, give her credit, has offered herself up as the national lightning rod and she can’t even run for President until 2024. Right now she’s just a freshman legislator, one of over 400, who evidently riles the gun-toters and the coal enthusiasts to a degree that most physicians would prescribe tranqulilizers and high dose statins. The patriots have a problem. Their man is tangled up in blue. Investigations are digging deep into a lot more than Russian collusion now and every man-jack of his supporters know deep in their pea-pickin hearts the fishing expedition is going to haul in the great white whale. They’ll find a way to live with those crimes, maybe even justify them, but probably just blame the FBI, the grand juries, the lying media and the lady with the alligator purse.

That smell, Grant, is not cows passing gas … although you may be right about crapping on patriotism. Hold onto yer hat, pal, the little lady from New York might have a lot to say about guns and gun regulations this coming term. And she might have her finger, not on the triggers, but on the pulse of the nation. You feel sick now, stock up with the Pepto Bismol.

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Donald Trump is signing Bibles now. Why not? The man’s favorite book is the Bible, he famously said back before he ascended his current throne. When asked which one, he looked like a possum in the headlights of a tractor trailer, but when it was made clear the interrogator was interested which Testament he preferred, the Old or the New, he said he loved them both. His favorite passage, in case you’re interested, was the one with an ‘eye for an eye’. When Mueller is done with him, he may want to find a less vengeful verse.

When I was a kid, I tried reading the Good Book which is actually not a good read. After discovering in my Sunday School class that the thing was edited, well, that finished me on reading clear to the end, which meant I missed the good part when the editors got to Revelation. But even as a kid I thought if folks were taking a chapter from the Dead Sea Scrolls and throwing out the rest, maybe some text from Matthew or Mark, fiddling with the order, translating it into a King Jim version, what was I supposed to think? Obviously God didn’t write it and Jesus didn’t either, judging from the fact that his troops took turns. And okay, maybe the Holy Ghost could’ve, but I sorta doubted it.

In fifth grade Georgia elementary my teacher made us take turns picking a verse out of the Bible and reading it aloud to the rest of us penitants right after the Pledge of Allegiance. When my turn came I read the verse, ‘Jesus wept’, shortest verse in the Bible. Mrs. Abercrombie was furious. She asked me if I thought I was being funny, which I said I was not, just brief, and that got me sent me to the principal’s office. The principal sat me down and asked me if I thought I was being funny. I said I was just reading a verse. A short verse. Then he told me nobody liked a smartass. Which is not actually true. Lots of folks like a smartass. I myself like smartasses, especially those who are actually funny. I’ll take funny about anytime in this mean old world.

He told me again nobody likes a smartass. And I was a definitely a smartass. Worse, although he didn’t say it, I was a Yankee smartass. The worst kind, at least in Georgia. Donald Trump wouldn’t know funny if it bit him on his fat ass. He’s not funny because not only isn’t he a smartass, he’s actually a dumbass. I don’t know if Trump has read the Bible or if he might even think he wrote the thing. He probably thinks the chapter Trump is right after Leviticus. Me, I think it’s right after Revelations. Course, I’m just a smartass.

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