The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Some of you grizzled up, gnarly nail pouchers maybe remember the era before Cascade Lumber.  Those terrible dark ages when we got our 2×4’s down at Copeland or Woodinville Lumber.  We were remodeling a lot back then.  Roofing, adding a deck for a new large appliance.  Prettying up the back shack for guests.  Maybe adding a skylight, couple of bedrooms.  Fixing up that grungy kitchen.

Pretty soon we were tearing down these 50’s and 60’s cabins.  Putting in new homes.  You boyz remember when they auctioned off Finistere Heights, top lot going for an unimaginable 160K??  We thought the tsunami must’ve crested up there  …..  but only a few years later and we found out that was just the low tide lapping gently against the bulkheads.  Camano Hills, Brentwood, Utsalady …. folks found Camano finally, cheapest waterfront, cheapest views, half of Seattle and a tenth of California rolled up in their Lexus SUV and paid cash.  I remember the day our assessor rolled in — old Fred — and said he had some bad news for me.  And I said we better have us a cold one then.  And he said, actually I got two pieces of bad news.  So I said, well, you know what I said, and he told me about my million dollar absentee neighbors’ evaluation across the nettle ravine.

It’s nice to rub shoulders with wealth, as you know, but it’s quite another thing to pay their same property tax.  All boats rise with the incoming tide — or so they say — but none of us ever imagined the money that was headed onto the South End’s shores and bluffs.  I just try to remember our roots, our humble beginnings, and thank our lucky stars we got property and a little shack and bright prospects from neighbors who are looking to buy our parcels so they can tear down our casas and put up fancy boathouses or an architect designed slave quarter or a simple hangar for their Cessna.

Course, that was before the real estate meltdown of ’08.  Meant we’d all have to stand pat for awhile longer.  Give us more time to clear a landing strip in the nettles for the next owner.  And to stock the fridge for the next assessor’s bad news.

I guess I’ve been working in art for about 35 years. Some of it I’ve been doing okay at, even made a so-called Living at, and most of it, well, I’m not the poster child for Starving Artist, but maybe Anorexic Artist. We artists have a tough row to hoe in corporate America, that’s the truth, and so we try all sorts of strategies ranging from art fair booths to just giving up and getting a job, a real job. But probably too late for one that pays well or offers benefits and pensions. The money belongs to the Job Creators. Us creators, well, good luck.

I went up into the mountains this past weekend with a box of the Skeeter Daddle Blues, hoping to do a book reading and maybe sell a few copies. Ever since my old outlets for book sales dried up, I’ve been headscratching how to market these babies, get them out of my basement and into the hands of folks hungry for great literature. Tyee Store closed up and so did the Copy This Mail That office supply store that sold the first book Skeeter Daddle Diaries so well I ordered a second printing. The South End String Band CD’s sold like hotcakes too at those places, but when they closed shop, the only show in town was the Snow Goose Bookstore. And now they’ve shuttered their doors too. We probably sold two to three thousand CD’s before that. I sold maybe 1000 books. Not bad for a backwash.

This past year I haven’t sold more than ten books and the band is giving CD’s away at concerts for ‘the price we finally figured they were worth’. For free. One concert alone we handed out 150 CD’s.

A high tech, fast charging friend convinced me to try Amazon. Against my better judgement I signed on, figuring I’d be sending them a box of hot sellers they could pass out faster than candy on Halloween. But no, they wanted me to send one book at a time, priority mail, to their warehouse in Maryland or someplace far far away. I spent about $5 per book for mailing envelope and postage, losing a couple of bucks on each one. This went on for a couple of months, never enough sales apparently, to justify shipping them a full box. I might have continued this brilliant sales strategy right into bankruptcy but one day I noticed Amazon, love these guyz, had used copies of the Skeeter Diaries listed at 1.99 plus shipping. This was great. Me competing against me and the only winner was Amazon. It took me awhile to get out of this crummy cycle, the company not really responsive to any inquiries. In fact, they had no way to make inquiries.

I finally just kept sending them messages on the sales requests that the book was Out of Print. Which, finally, it was. Sadly, I buy my own book back from them occasionally just to have a few copies around. Cheaper than reprints by far. Bookstores competing against Bezos, like I mentioned at the last Snow Goose reading before they closed shop, are like Godzilla vs Bambi, it won’t be long before they’re toejam. Now I see where they’d like to be my printer too, print on demand. Probably ship them to me, then have me ship them back each sale. Lose even more money on every point of sale.

So I wish I had a tried and true strategy for you prospective artists out there looking for ways to sell your wares, I really do. It was always dog eat dog, but now we got Godzilla too. My only advice is to be like the little furry creatures during the Dinosaur Era, stay low, keep a close eye out, maybe move at night. I know, not much help, but the trick is to survive.

So you wannabee an American Idol?     You’ve practiced in the shower, you’ve performed countless hours at the Stanwoodopolis Karaoke bars, you’ve taken it about as far as you can on your own.  Now it’s time to take it to the Next Level!      The Elger Bay Academy of Pickin and Grinnin, the Julliard of the metropolitan South End, now offers advanced Idol training, especially focusing on proven techniques to maximize your chances at becoming an X-Factor finalist or an American Idol winner.  Our instructors, graduates from the finest D.J. discos in the U.S. and Canada, will provide you with that ‘insider’ knowledge you need to compete at the national level.     You’ll learn  HAIR STYLING TECHNIQUES guaranteed to turn judge’s heads.   DANCE ROUTINES so easy yet effective that judges scarcely notice  wrong notes.  FASHION TIPS of former graduates and even regional finalists!  Dress for success!      Our professional staff will train you in voice stylings from rap to bebop, Sinatra to Madonna.  Croon like Crosby one song, then gangsta rap to Eminem.  Wow your friends with versatility instead of virtuosity!

Before your 2nd quarter tuition payment is due you’ll be headlining at the open mikes of Smokey Point and Mt. Vernon.  By graduation you’ll be forming your own act and performing in nightclubs and lounges where Everett talent agents water down.

Don’t spend your most productive years in the Karaoke caverns.  Let the Elger Bay Academy of Pickin and Grinnin hone your talents to a fine edge and put you on the freeway to musical success.        Enroll Now!   Call I-WANNABEE –A -STAR   today and get ready for a dazzling career in the spotlights.   Ask about our E-Z Payment Plans.   Highly endorsed by the South End String Band, 1998 graduates!!

[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/audio-skeeters-skillet-skills.mp3[/podcast]audio — skeeter’s skillet skills

A lot of South Enders, isolated from the mainland and remote from major grocery outlets, have reverted to primitive customs.  Now, don’t you northern neighbors worry — we aren’t talking cannibalism here.  Not yet.  No, we’ve gone back to ancestral roots.  We’ve become hunter-gatherers.  Most of us have small gardens, some of us have large ones, but we grow what we can to supplement what we can’t afford down at the Plaza IGA and Hardware Sales.    

  Sure, the tomatoes we planted in May don’t ripen until October and the corn won’t grow high enough to hide our medical marijuana plants and there’s really only so much a person can do with the zucchini that always threatens to escape the deer fence and become the kudzu of kamano with thousands of gourds dropping down from power lines like aerial IED’s on car windshields and the Walking Women of Mabana’s phalanx of human obstacles to unwanted commuter traffic.  

    So we’ve been forced to resort to yet another strategy for culinary survival: CANNING.  A lot of my neighbors come to me and say, Skeeter, I just don’t think I can eat another jar of your savory ZUCCHINI DADDLE DILLS, no offense.  And I say, None Taken, and gently move them to a recipe from Skeeter’s Skillet Skills (available at Addled Daddle Press for 9.95 plus shipping and handling), the chapter on food preservation.  I like to give them a Tried and True first, something like the wildly popular Nettle Kraut, a fermented in the crock nettle with maximum garlic that, once canned, can be eaten on Christmas snowgoose or Easter crab bratwurst (another Skillet Skill fave) or just a snappy side dish any occasion.  

    I’m not suggesting these pioneer skills will end poverty down here or take the place of  our food banks, but for those of us who chose unemployment over work, it has been a lifesaver.  You start canning a cellar full of nettle kraut, you might consider telling that jerk boss of yours to take a hike too.  You got the safety net now, that’s for sure.  And with a healthy diet, you can drop that health insurance.  This stuff cures what ails ya.      Next week we’ll talk Animal Husbandry.  And no, I don’t mean Tough Love Matrimony.