The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Now that most of us underlings in the American plutocracy have learned that we are superfluous beings, non-essentials and persons without portfolio, the time is definitely ripe for a spiritual renaissance. Some may receive the news that their worth is negligible with great surprise and much rending of hair, but not me. I have known that bit of information since leaving the hallowed institutions of higher learning with degrees that were, like myself, worthless. Little wonder I moved to the South End. So it may be appropriate that the New Religion for these pandemic times we live in will come full fruit from these barren nettle regions. Nonessentialism. You can have your empty existentialism, your anachronistic Catholicism, your aggrieved Judaism, your battered Protestantism, your whacky New Ageism, your even whackier Evangelicals, they’re as meaningless in the Plague aftermath as Aztecan blood sacrifices on the pyramid steps after Cortez romped across their lakebed valley in the name of God and Gold.

It’s pretty obvious the keys to the Kingdom are no longer ascertained by a person’s success or wealth. The Protestant Ethic of old is deader than Martin Luther. If you thought your money and power were signs from On High that you would be granted entrance to the Pearly Gates, think again, pal. Even the rich are exempt from those criterion now. No, this is a New Era, not a New Age, forget about Aquarius. We could choose to live in Fear. Fear of joblessness, fear of poverty, fear of coming socialism and the nanny state, fear of the Virus, fear of science, fear of what our President might suggest next from his medical kitbag of panaceas. The economy is wrecked, the virus is still growing, the Age of Reason is finished. Superstition and half cracked conspiracy theories rule the land while Dread spreads like a dripping fog from sea to no longer shining sea.

This is the time for new paradigms, new religions, new politics. But … let’s be honest here, the meek aren’t going to inherit the earth, the monk in the cave isn’t going to emerge from the Dark Ages with illuminated manuscripts, a hundred Hail Mary’s aren’t going to absolve your sins or win any more football games, the games are rigged. It’s dog eat dog now, the emperor has no underwear and no clothes, the peasants won’t get cake to eat and the promise of some bullshit afterlife is a joke.

Nonessentialism, my friend. Pick up a pitchfork and head for the Amazon offices. The boyz in the corporate towers already know what you’re only starting to comprehend. You don’t matter, just a cog in the machinery of 3-D printing currency. Wake up, buddy, and smell the rot, it goes deeper than a couple of apples, it goes to the bottom of the barrel. Nonessentialism, the belief in pretty much nada. You’re on your own and about time to face the obvious. You don’t matter, you never did, and you know what? Maybe that’s not a bad starting point. Nonessentialism. You need to make the world in your own image, not the world all those yahoos who kept you down, who underpaid you, who promised you rewards … later on. Embrace it. Same as we South Enders do and always have. Nonessentialism. Now you know where you stand. Time to do something with it.

Now that the protests against the government closing down beaches and biznesses have started to make the nightly news, we can rest assured the Defenders of Freedom will provide themselves as canaries in the coal mines they would like to keep digging. I was hoping some reporter might ask these anti-government folks if they had cashed their stimulus checks. Or applied for the unemployment compensation that offers 600 bucks extra every week. Or if the geezers in the crowd with the MAGA hats wanted to stop payments on their Social Security benefits.

To be fair, we all want to come out of this state-mandated quarantine. And eventually some poor bastard in the bureaucracy will have to decide what exactly the right time will be to open up barbershops and restaurants, ballparks and concert halls. Roll the dice and wait for the backlash from trolls and the discontented. There won’t be much winning on this bet. But plenty of losers. The Coronavirus-in-Chief won’t be making that call, that’s a bet you can definitely win.

Folks want to go fishing, dammit. And they want to get a haircut. Down in Georgia, they’re going to get their wishes and I wish em luck. Catch a bass for me, whydon’tcha. Personally, I’m real glad they get to be the guinea pigs for what might result with early withdrawal from coronavirus safety measures. If they’re right, we can all go fishing. If they’re wrong, Georgia is a long ways away from the South End. Even if I did live there as a kid. Maybe we should salute them as the heroes, even the Essentials. Like the black prison inmates in Tuskeegee for syphilis experiments. Or U.S army personnel on the front lines of the first atomic bomb detonations. Somebody’s got to go first. Right?

And not to sound too heartless, but hey, these folks who feel tyrannized by their government, who feel imprisoned in their homes, who fly the flags that say Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death, well, step right up. Us cowards salute you! And honestly, I wish you all the luck in the world. I think you’re going to need it and maybe a little more.

I live so far from reality that it’s hard for me to imagine how this Pandemic is going to alter the alignment of the earth on its axis. But I’m not so removed from the daily newsfeeds that I think we will ever return to the way we were. The virus may not beat us, may not kill most of us, may not even be as bad as our worst fears, but it will, like Osama bin Laden and his kamikaze jets crashing into the World Trade Towers, change everything. There will always be a pre-nine eleven. It will be years before we understand what constitutes post-coronavirus.

The President is slowly starting to ‘get it’ in regard to this epidemic. He got the part where the economy is going to tank, that much his inward looking brain could manage. He thinks this thing will be over by Easter, then by summer, certainly by the Republican Convention aka Trump Rally. It doesn’t take a visionary to realize the economy won’t just turn back ON. In this era of globalization the wrecked economies of countries who couldn’t pour a huge % of their GDP’s into saving themselves are going to take a brutal whipping and decades to recover. Vaya con Dios and see you at Easter, if the government’s response is any indication.

They’re on their own. Just like the states here in the Yew Ess Aye. National inventories of medical supplies? Not for the governors who didn’t show enough gratitude for the Presidential favors he’s bestowed. Not for the citizens of their states. Kommisar Kushner declares that the national supplies are national, not meant for individual states. You tell me what national means when most of these states are in lockdown. D.C.? Or maybe for the President and his family? The Republican Senators and Representatives? Maybe to offer to N. Korea and Iran as some sort of bargaining chip?

I’ve never really been a state’s rights kind of guy, but I might be leaning that way these days. If the yahoos in Florida and Kansas want to hold church services, okey dokey. If the congregation in Georgia wants to attend huge funerals, I’ll send flowers. But let’s blockade the South, Mason Dixon on down, toss in Texas. Build a Wall, I say, and put razor wire around Mar-a-Lago. And sure, charge it to the federal government, well worth the cost this time.

I got a friend who called me up asking if I had some colored glass he could get his hands on. Sure, I said, whatcha need it for? He explained that he was making mermaid sculptures and decorating them with everything from crushed seashells off the beach of Baby Island to possibly pennies as mermaid scales. He needed some glass to break into pieces and glue onto the mermaid’s tail. Okay, I said, I got some scrap glass you can use, anything to help a fellow glass breaker.

My pal is a real estate agent. Meaning, he’s in the same boat as a lot of us here on the lackadaisical South End, folks who basically are self-employed, work when we want, play most of the time. If we can handle the guilt of not embracing the Protestant Ethic, we’re fairly happy campers. But now, with this Pandemic Panic, the entire island has self-quarantined. Every manjack of us is holed up in Paradise wondering what the world will look like after the plague subsides. Whatever jobs were out there, they may not be after the dust settles and the virus leaves stunned survivors in its wake.

Whatcha making the mermaids for, anyway? I asked my buddy, thinking he was embarked on a mercy mission, maybe take a few to the nursing homes in the area since he’s a pretty philanthropic guy, the kind who takes firewood to shut-ins in the winter or organizes trash pickups alongside the roads. What do you mean? he asked. I mean what’s your plan with these mermaids is what I mean. No reason, he said, just bored.

So you got four mermaids done, now you’re making more? I was thinking about the 5 guitars I’d just made, no good reason. “You need to be careful, Zorba,” I warned. Whaddaya mean? he asked, a slight tremor in his voice. “Can’t you see, man, the thing has got a hold of you. One or two mermaids, sure, I get it. A little hobby to fill the time while the plague passes by. But the third? And a fourth? You can see where this is going. Be careful is all I’m saying.”

“It’s harmless,” he protested. “Just something to keep me from being bored. What’s wrong with that, Skeeter?

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “You’re playing with a loaded gun, my friend. Another mermaid you’ll be hooked. Sure, it’s a few seashells glued on, then it’s some broken glass, some pennies to make scales, next thing you’ll be making full size sculptures, casting bronze, there’s no telling where it leads. You’ll end up like the rest of us on this desolate hellhole of an island.”

“What do you mean? What are you talking about?” he fairly squeaked. I hated being the bearer of bad news but hellfire, someone has to speak Truth to the moths circling the flame. “What I’m talking about is falling into the trap. One mermaid okay, two, sure, but the addiction starts there and next thing you know ….” I paused to let this sink into his bald skull. “What?” he asked, “Next thing I know what??”

“You become like the rest of us, Zorba, you become an artist.”

“I’m just killing some time, Skeeter, I’m just bored,” he protested.

“That’s what we all said. If we were honest. Just … be … careful, that’s all I’m saying. We got too many lost souls here now, we don’t need some retired realtor joining the ranks.”

Next day when I took him the glass he said he wanted more colors, not just the blues he originally requested. I shook my head, sure, why not. Too late, I could tell, nothing for it but to take him the whole crayon box. Sometimes you just can’t talk folks off the ledge.