The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

You have to tip your MAGA hat to a man who will excoriate football players who take a knee during the National Anthem as unpatriotic, but call soldiers who lost their lives in a war losers and suckers. It takes a lot of chutzpah, let me tell you, to attack veterans, although we learned the depths folks will sink to when John Kerry, a silver star decorated veteran, was demeaned by the Swift Boat folks as a fraud and a coward. Thank you, Mr. Kerry, for your service … loser.

And you folks who voted for him, thank you for your service too … suckers! You got your tax break for the wealthy but not much for you, you got rid of regulations that adversely affect mostly you, you got your Supreme Court justices who will protect the corporations hoping you might get Roe v Wade reversed, you were told Covid was no big deal and now nearly 200,000 of you are under ground and yeah,you got a Bible thumping yahoo who wouldn’t know the New Testament from the Old. Job well done! Sure, vote for him again, why don’tcha. What’ve you got to lose?

Indeed. What have you lost already? The toll from the coronavirus is still going up, the unemployment numbers are still way down, the world economy is going to take a huge hit from the pandemic, that rioting in the urban streets stoked by your hero is still going on, coal mining is on the way out, global warming whether you believe it or not is here right now, the country is more divided than any of you have ever experienced, the United States is fast becoming an isolationist nation if not the pariah of the world. Nice job!

Oh, but the stock market is setting record highs every week, you say? The economy must be doing great, you say? Most of you folks who voted this guy into office probably have the least amount invested in the stock market. The rich buy stocks, the rest buy groceries, pay the rent, try to save what you can. You notice the interest rates on your meager savings lately? Compare that to your credit card interest. If you had any money you’d place a bet on the Dow Jones too.

Oh, I get it, you’re mad as hell and you’re not going to take it anymore. You hate the damn guvmint, you hate the big corporations, you hate the Congress, you hate the BLM, you’re sick and tired of fighting wars we lose, you’re plenty fed up with the whole damn thing, whatever the whole damn thing is, and I can tell you for a non faux fact, it isn’t Qanon. You thought it couldn’t get worse, didn’t you, so why not throw the dice, see if this stuffed suit of a reality TV star, a self-made biznessman who started out with multi millions and only declared bankruptcy how many times? might be the knight in shining armor. You were sold a bill of goods, brother, snake oil by the Snake King himself. If you think the only people he thinks are suckers and losers are the military men and women, you better buy yourself a floor length mirror. Or use the money to buy stocks so you can join the 1%.

‘Convergene

People ask me all the time why would I want to donate my glass to all these public places around the area. And I used to say, it’s my way of giving back. Which is as trite and idiotic an explanation as a politician leaving office to spend more time with his or her family. Oh right. Their family probably long ago gave up on seeing them and probably stopped caring. They leave office because some scandal or the long arm of the law caught up with them so who’s kidding who? Their family probably is about as happy having them come home to their loving arms as Covid couples enjoy the kids quarantined in their two bedroom rambler.

I even ask myself why I do this, if you want the honest to god truth, not that there is such a thing in post-fact America. When I was starting out trying to make a living creating glass art, I got a job with the WA Art Commission after I was fortunate enough to be juried into their roster on the second try. My handler told me when I was selected not to expect a commission to follow, but a few months later one did. Small, but bigger than what I’d been doing. I turned that small project into a 15 foot by 7 foot curved mural, about four times what the budget would have required. I thought why not do something on a grander scale than a bathroom residential to keep the neighbors from seeing my client tinkle. Even my handler warned me I wouldn’t make any money if I scaled up. I said what, you think I wanted to be an artist so I could get rich?

The second commission came 3 years later, the required wait until us roster candidates could receive another one. Trust me, I was spoiled by that first project and small residential windows and autonomous panels seemed, oh, a lot less satisfying. My next commission was an okay budget, but I gave them a 70 foot by 20 foot mural to fill up their curved front bank of windows. If you want to become addicted to large scale formats, this is how you do it, plunge the horse syringe deep into a vein.

To compete in the world of hungry artists hoping for these commissions, you needed, back then, a slide portfolio of work, usually 10, what now is a digital portfolio. I didn’t have 10, but that 70 footer was proof the guy could do projects of monumental size. Still, I needed 8 more slides. So I donated a few glassworks to the new Visitor Center on the island, the Stanwoodopolis Senior Center, the Camano Senior Center, the Mukilteo Library, the Mt. Vernon train station, to name the first few, and voila, my portfolio was fat even if my bank account was flat. And each one opened another door to a large art project. My foot was firmly planted in that door and I was a finalist for projects from Alaska to Florida. Nothing was too far away and none were too intimidating to keep me from going after them. I was younger then and a lot hungrier. I figured whatever I needed to learn, I’d learn.

Here at home I got stoked after building the Visitor Center and the Sculpture Park that we could turn our little backwash island into the Art Island. We organized an artist group, started a Mother’s Day Studio Tour, put art in the local schools, libraries and senior centers, gave the island a new and not always welcome identity where prior there wasn’t much of one. Why not? Well, I can answer that, but not here, not right now. But in case you’ve never worked with us artists, believe me when I say we’re not good in the sandbox together and so, after too many meetings and egos that would stretch a hatband to the breaking point, I decided to just lone wolf my efforts, skip the board meetings and drop a glass mural here and there like bread crumbs to follow back to some imagined cottage, a terrific time saver and a mental health tactic I recommend highly to others.

So why would I want to donate all this glass? I sure don’t need a larger portfolio now, I’m not searching for a ‘legacy’ and I have my doubts about creating that Art Island. I guess I’m getting older and more cynical. The simple answer is I like working large and there aren’t enough projects and commissions out there now to get my fix. I know, it doesn’t sound noble, doesn’t sound high minded, doesn’t even sound philanthropic. Just another junkie in search of his high. That, or maybe I just don’t want to spend time with my family. And the scandals have yet to catch up to me….

Why on earth, the man asked, would anyone go to Viet Nam when they could stay home and make real money? This from the same guy who asked the same question about folks who went into public service. No big payoff in civil service, no millionaires in the government. Only a dope would work for peanuts. Only losers and suckers and, well, maybe patriots. Inconceivable to him, almost a kind of mental illness. Philanthropy would be a pathology to the man. Public service a neurosis. We were put here to make money, simple as that. You don’t believe that, you need a straitjacket.

Maybe that’s what people who like this guy think too. All those coal miners and farmers and small businesses. Elect a man who tells them he’s a billionaire real estate developer, a man who would lie and cheat and steal to make even more billions, that’s what we want for our President. A man who thinks soldiers who died in World War One and Two were stupid. Losers. Better to take Daddy’s money and parlay it into a bigger pile than get his butt drafted for Viet Nam, then call John McCain a loser for getting captured by the enemy. You can’t make much money in a Hanoi prison camp.

Take a good look at the crowd at one of his rallies, that sea of people with the red MAGA hats, cheering every angry word that spews out of his mouth. They look like folks who had bone spurs to avoid the draft? They look like they figured out how to make their first million? They think John McCain was a loser for getting captured and tortured and still refused to be released if he cooperated? I’m not sure if they’re deplorables or not but I know this, the guy they plan to elect one more time sure is. Fool them once, shame on him, fool them twice, man, what’s wrong with that picture?