The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Maybe you think it’s too early to declare the Death of Reason. Maybe you thought science and rationality would prove to be mankind’s salvation. Maybe you thought the Dark Ages were long gone and Enlightenment was here to stay. But now you must be growing, like myself, a bit uncertain about the long arc of history curving upward. There’s a certain irony in watching the internet undermine all those convictions, that techno trick of algorithmic miracles, bringing us an encyclopedic knowledge in a nano-second. We didn’t bargain for its dark twin, did we? We didn’t see that all the phony bullshit would wash over us in a tsunami of epic proportions, bots, fake news, tampered videos, photo-shopped propaganda, a tidal wave of misinformation by foreign countries, partisan politicos, greedy bloggers and cynical journalists.

The tribes are gathered around their campfires now and superstition reigns once more. There are a thousand Taliban sects, from the evangelicals to the Sunni, the Hindus to the GOP, Moslems to Prosperity Preachers, all with the truth, small T. No one needs Truth now, Truth is merely what you want to believe. Truth is what Breitbart spews, what Fox News repeats, what Rush Limbaugh quotes from both. Truth is what my old man sends me in emails, photos of Obama shaking hands with terrorists Obama’s never met, photos doctored and photo-shopped and obviously faked … unless you’re my old man and his pals who think a picture is worth a lot more than a thousand puny words.

Our leaders lie to us now with impunity. Without fear of fact-check or consequence. Without worry that history will judge them. History is right Now, it has no future relevance if facts mean nothing, if ends justify means, if the internet can warp proof into pretzel. Around the campfire we tell fables to our fellow tribesmen that create a new mythology, one that predicts the future, the Right Now. Our enemies tell the opposite stories. We can’t both be right. One religion must be the Only One. Ours.

But woe be you and woe be me, for we no longer have a religion. Banished to the jungle, we can only watch from the darkness the flickering of fires in the long endless night. The hunters will be coming at dawn.

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I’m not what you would call a sports fan. I don’t frequent bars with 10 TV sets the size of drive-in theater screens surrounding their patrons who would be willing to watch everything from high school ping pong tournaments to cage kickboxing. I’m not interested in my old alma mater games and I cringe when I see people wearing a jersey or ballcap for some sports team they pledge allegiance to. If you offered me free subscriptions to ESPN I’d turn you down. The fact that our cities will build mega-stadiums to put on these Roman tournaments and then make the excuse they don’t have money for the arts tells me all I need to know about the American Civilization.

But … a few years back the Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl with a bunch of misfits who didn’t mind one bit mouthing off about politics or whatever else was on their mind. They were let loose by their coach, no Vince Lombardi Nazi drill instructor, just a guy who let them play the way they wanted. They were a hoot to watch. They were irreverent, they were liberal, they supported Kaepernick when he took a knee every National Anthem, some wouldn’t talk to the press, some couldn’t shut up.

So this year I watched every damn game and yesterday when they played the Green Bay Packers, a team owned not by some rich guy but a team owned by the people of Wisconsin, I was stoked for some playoff action between two teams I actually like, let the best one win. Now, I admit, I don’t actually know the names of half the people playing, but hey, I told you, I’m not what you would call a sports fan. A fair weather fan is what I am.

What I didn’t know was that the mizzus — who is decidedly and adamantly NOT a sports fan — had invited A guest over for dinner. Also not a sports enthusiast, just a fellow artist. And dinner was when the Big Game was going to be played. Sure, I could have taken my plate into the other room and watched by myself while those two ate their meal without me. But I am not that kind of man. I wish sometimes I were that kind of man, but my mama didn’t raise me to be rude without real cause.

So I missed the final game of the season. I’m sure it was an exciting game. I’m sure it went down, like always for the Seahawks, to the final two minutes, and yeah, I’m real sure after reading about it in the newspaper a day later, the Seahawks lost and the Packers won. Here’s what I learned, and no, it has nothing to do with hiring a divorce attorney. It is, after all, just a ball game. No, what I learned is next year I’m going to find something else to do on Sunday afternoons besides watch football. Macrame or croquet or lonely walks in the woods or who the hell really cares. Because if you can’t watch the LAST game of the season, WHAT WAS THE POINT OF WATCHING THE OTHER 15 ??????

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Just when the news couldn’t get much worse – or so you thought – along comes the finishing blow. Impeachment hearings, a billion animals burned alive in Australia, the Middle East set in turmoil, the revelation that the government has known for years that Afghanistan was unwinnable, the North Korean push toward nuclear weapons, our precipitous evacuation of Syria then the return to ‘protect our oil’, sure, these were heavy lifts for those of us who need a methadone program for news addiction.

How much worse can things get, we asked ourselves, knowing, of course, that climate change is not only here, it’s accelerating. Unless you’re one of those who think burning more coal is a great way to get re-elected (and I think the prime minister of Australia may be re-evaluating that premise now that the public is asking for his head), you know the coming decades are going to be hotter. And wetter. And wilder. And possibly, in every sense of an overworked word, existential. If not for you, then for your kids and certainly their kids. You maybe even thought: it can’t possibly get any worse.

Things can always, always, write this in stone and sleep with it under your pillow even if it induces nightmares, things can always get worse.

So this week the cruelest blow arrived across the banner headlines of the internet and the dying print media. Meghan and Prince Harry are leaving the royalty. Roasted koalas were pushed to page 3. Starving polar bears didn’t make the comic page. Jetliners shot down in Iran, c’mon, who cares when the tragedy of the prince and duchess vacating their rightful place in aristocracy takes up all the oxygen of a planet stuffed with carbon dioxide. Where, in the name of all that’s holy, is a Shakespeare to lift our spirits from absolute despair to something akin to art?? Must we take the blow in isolation when a seam has been torn in the fabric of social stratification? Can we endure the suffering without some slight, if tenuous, hope for rectification? Will Harry and Meghan regret their decision? Will the Queen’s heart break in this, her 90th decade? O England! The sun is setting on your colonies! And those poor dear anglophiles, can they endure another Masterpiece Four Season anthology of Harry and Meg? Because I certainly cannot. I did my husbandly duty with that idiotic Downton Abby to the point that I wanted to force the mizzus to subscribe to ESPN and leave the channel on to whatever crapola sporting event was commercialized for the entertainment of aging high school jocks, see how she likes that! Enough is enough. And Meg, you too Harry, best of luck making a living on your own. You only got 5 million, Meg, and Harry, last I heard (and I do hope it’s the LAST), you have to make a go of things with a mere 40 plus million. I suspect you both will do just fine. If things go south, hey, buy a small country and declare yourself king and queen. Just leave the rest of us out of it.

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Mama said there’d be days like this. What she didn’t tell me is the days would become weeks and the weeks months and the months years. Welcome to the Trump Era. You might have noticed that lately I’ve steered away from politics. Not that I’m not paying attention to the nasty little tweetstorms, the mounting evidence of impeachable offenses, the constant and blatant lying and bullying, all those now familiar attributes of this petty little man. What more can you find to say about him? What more can you find to say about his Republican apologists? What more do you want to say to half your fellow Americans who think the guy is making the country great. Again. The facts are in, the jury has already made up its mind, the President might have acted in an unseemly manner, but hey, nothing impeachable. So far.

What I suspect, deep down in my roiling bowels, is this is how it feels to be black in the USA. Oh sure, we emancipated y’all, but hey, don’t start getting uppity now. Don’t figure on voting or getting paid equally. Freedom won’t make you free, boy. Or, maybe this is how it feels to be a woman. Virginia just flipped blue and ratified the equal rights amendment which provides the last state needed to certify that women are equal under federal law. Course, the Justice Department claims the statute of limitations has expired and now all those 38 states need to start over. And some of them have already voted to keep women unequal. Equality isn’t always equal, girl. Some of us are more equal than others. Or maybe this is how it feels to be a Moslem in 21st century America, the country supposedly founded on religious freedom. You know, if your religion is Protestant. If the God of some folks isn’t the God of the majority, well, can you say Heathen? Maybe if you’re an immigrant you got a first hand dose of the Welcome Wagon. Work for us, get paid peanuts, live in the shadows. . Maybe the First People know how it feels, right from the get-go, everything they had taken away, stolen, no apologies, to the victor belongs the spoils, all that claptrap. And quite possibly this is how the country feels to the LGBT community. Or to any minority. Or to the poor. Or to the Japanese interns in the POW camps. Or to any people who think different, look different, talk different.

We the People, the preamble states, but it doesn’t make it clear who We are or who the People are. Lately, a lot of us are learning it isn’t us. What we ought to learn is plenty of folks have known this all their lives. Maybe Trump and his apologists and sycophants are teaching the rest of us a valuable lesson. We the People, maybe it’s time to include everyone.

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It’s now 2020. A brand new year. Resolutions have been made and resolutions have been broken. My big one — Do Not Dwell on Politics – was made before Christmas when a bunch of us friends went out to the coast to escape not only the tinsel and mall muzak but the endless news cycle of impeachment hearings, candidate speeches, Trump Tweets and all the rest. Instead we listened to the sound of the surf on the Pacific Ocean. The same surf that has curled and broken on the same beach since time immemorial. And these things too shall pass, saith the sage, probably about politics.

But here it is, Week One about over in a new decade, fires raging in Australia, impeachment battles still being fought, elections still up for grabs … and now this Iranian general blown to smithereens by a drone missile strike. Our warrior president threatens to blow up, count em, 52 iconic cultural sites in Persia if they dare strike back, war crimes be damned! You can ignore the news, but apparently it won’t disappear.

I guess I’m already looking forward to 2021. Maybe pull the covers over my head and hibernate for a year, see if things have gotten better when Rip Van Skeeter gets out of bed. Somehow, though, I suspect they will have gotten significantly worse. I feel like a burgher in 1930’s Germany, hoping my Fuhrer isn’t really as insane and power-mad as he seems. My Jewish neighbors are disappearing but hey, more rental opportunities! And the trains are running on time. What’s not to like?

“And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died
And they were singing
Bye, bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
And them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singin’ this’ll be the day that I die
This’ll be the day that I die.”

Well, I know it’s a day short and a week late, but maybe I need a new resolution. Just what it might be, I really haven’t a clue. “A long long time ago
I can still remember how
That music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they’d be happy for a while.”

Maybe it’s worth a try….

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