The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I was at the opening of new works by one of our local oil painters at the South End Fine Art Gallery and Expresso Shoppe. As always it’s a guaranteed large crowd, mostly us artists and a few of our friends and occasionally a patron or two. Regina, the gallery owner and latte barista, always provides liberal winepours and enough hors d’oeuvres to hold back rickets among the starving artists another week or so.

I was admiring a fine piece titled, tantalizingly enough, “Sailboat at Sunset #56”, one of a series I’m guessing of at least 56 or more, when a couple jostled me out of the way for a better view. I didn’t really mind moving on, after all, there were plenty more similar offerings, but the gentleman of the pair had caused me to spill my merlot onto the sleeve of my last presentable Goodwill shirt, then gave me a cursory ‘scuse me,’ that sounded vaguely like ‘sue me’ before steering his companion and her jangling earrings into the appropriate viewing angle. A moment later they were discussing perspective and complimentary colorations, the expressively bold brushstrokes of the sails, the minimalist way the artist had captured the shimmer of the sea, and of course, the price, anything BUT minimalist.

“I may not know art,” my jostler said, sipping daintily on a white wine from his plastic glass, “but I know what I like.” He was quite pleased at this knowledge, no doubt gained with considerable effort. His companion wagged an earlobe with a windchime banging to life, evidently in total agreement with both of us on this aesthetic declaration.

I guess I was still miffed about the impromptu dye job on my best shirt, or maybe it’s just a character flaw deeper than any fabric stain, but I smiled winningly and said out of the cerulean blue, “I don’t know much about biochemistry, but I sure know a good clone when I see one.” This caused some raised eyebrows, a rolling of the eyes and the beginning of distant alarm bells that would soon drown out the jangling jewelry. For good measure I added, “I don’t know much about history either, but hey, I love a good war. I know what I like.”

So okay, I cost Regina a commission and I should feel bad about that. Probably cost the artist a sale and I should feel worse about that, but I don’t. I do happen to know something about art and art lovers, and I know what I don’t like. I guess it’s okay to buy what you do, for whatever reason. I just don’t think we should be proud of our ignorance. Then again, what the hell do I know?

We got a little library down here at the notoriously (but proudly) illiterate South End. One of those 1960 phone booths landed in the park I care-take across the island about a year ago so I decided it would be easier to make something interesting with it than try to haul it to the dump. We turned it into a Little Library, built bookshelves and stocked it with fiction and non-fiction, even some CD’s. A week later vandals pulled the bookcase out, scattered the books, burned a few, tossed some in the woods and painted graffiti on the glass walls of the booth. Sure, I was bummed, but since I was married to a librarian, I decided to rise above the obvious desecration of literary values and try again. To that end I posted alien robots to guard the sanctuary.

Yesterday I drove by and noticed through the windows the bookshelves were gone so I pulled into the parking lot only to find the entire library, books and bookcase, scattered on the ground and left in the rain, ruined. It’s not like the burning of the Library of Alexandria exactly or even like our own evangelical book burnings, more like a senseless attack on anything intellectual or bureaucratic. Although, to be honest, it’s probably just a couple of kids who think it’s funny to destroy things. You see it all the time, not just on the South End, but it’s epidemic on the internet. Ransacking a little library is probably just our way of trolling down here.

Obviously I underestimated the intelligence of our potential Vandals. It only took them one year to recognize the alien security guards as harmless sculptures. Sure, we could bring in surveillance cameras, hire some security, lock the library up at night, set up lending hours. But … let’s be honest here. Maybe the South End isn’t ready for culture just yet. It might be better to bow to the public, acknowledge their mistrust of books and art, maybe just use the phone booth for a private vaping salon. That, or patiently wait for our hoodlums to grow dumber since pretty obviously they’re not interested in learning much of anything. Couple more years on drugs then we can try the alien robot guards again. Third time, they say, is the charm.

I understand that we humans are basically social animals. I get that. But I grew up in a family that moved from one part of the country to the next, uprooting us munchkins from our schools, our churches, our boy scout troops, our Little League teams and our neighborhood friends. By the time I was 18 we had moved 14 times. So when I started school in a new town, the teams had been picked, the cliques had formed, the lines had been drawn. I ate a lot of lonely lunches in those school cafeterias.

When we moved from Georgia to Milwaukee, the only kids who would give me the time of day were either the geeks or, oddly enough, the hoods. The hoods, despite what you might think, weren’t pretend hoodlums, they carried switchblades and some had guns. But all in all, they were friendly and I was friendless. If you want to understand why kids join gangs, this is basically the reason. My good newfound buddy Randy asked me one day if I wanted to join him and the boys for a drive into downtown that weekend. ‘What’s the plan?’ I asked innocently, thinking maybe a movie or grab an ice cream cone.

‘We’re gonna rumble,’ he grinned. ‘We go downtown every Saturday night to rumble.’ I asked, what’s rumble? Not a term we used down in rural Georgia much. ‘Fight,’ he said. ‘Kick some ass.’ ‘Fight?’ I asked. ‘Fight who?’

‘The niggers,’ he answered. ‘We got four of us, we look for a few of them walking the streets. Then we rumble.’

‘Kick some ass,’ I said, ‘ but ya know, that does sound like fun, only I’m not much for fighting. Dancing maybe. Find some girls. More up my alley. Rumble, I don’t know, Randy. And besides, I don’t have anything against niggers. I don’t even call em that, no offense.’ Like I was worried at that point of being offensive.

Needless to say, I went back to my old lunchroom cafeteria ways and my career of a streetfighting man ended before it even started. Way of the world, I guess. But along comes Facebook a few decades later, offering me one more chance to join in with my fellow tribesmen, an opportunity for social approval, acceptance and the distinct possibility of trolling, ratings, defriending, all those wonderful popularity scorings I’d missed by being a loner in my youth. Oh you bet!

So once again I’m happy enough without the thumbs up thumbs down, the like or dislike, the conformity of my extended group. If this is anti-social, count me in. I’m content being my own worst critic, okay by me.

The mainstream media, ever attuned to the pulse of America, trotted out a little article about the return of exorcism today in my two morning papers. 175 practitioners, it stated, men of the cloth who, when summoned, would cast demons from the afflicted. And no, for the record, they won’t cast Trump from office, just other demons, particularly the Devil. Don’t get me started … it’s too dark a detour.

Sixty percent of us in this country believe in the existence of Satan. Not Satan as a metaphysical construct, but Beelzebub as the embodiment of Evil. Until this President I didn’t believe in the Prince of Darkness, but now I’m not so sure. But again, let’s try to stay on topic here, no point in taking on the impeachment hearings when Schiff and Pelosi are undertaking their own exorcism. Why muddy the water?

Sixty percent of Satan believers is more than the percentage of us who think Donald should be yanked out of office. Okay, I apologize, but the devil made me do it. I will try to stay focused. My point is that if you believe in Lucifer and then start hearing horrible and angry voices or getting mysterious and ugly tweets, you might seek remedy, not in pharmacology, but in ecclesiastically based exorcism. I’m not sure if it’s covered under Obamacare, but it would be worth looking into. Even if it weren’t covered under your insurance plan, the cost of casting out demons might be worth the expense. How long before those nasty tweets eat holes in your brain?

I suppose there must be a School of Exorcism somewhere. A degree. An apprenticeship. Sure wouldn’t want to be the first guy on someone’s exorcism list and end up with a REALLY pissed off Antichrist rattling the cage inside my head because a doofus with a hankering to be a professional Demon Expeller used me for a test case. I want to see some references. I want to see proof he graduated from a certified College of Devil Extermination. I want to see that degree, buddy, before I let you inside my hell-fired brain to battle with the King of Evil.

And … forgive me here for once again violating my promise not to go all political … I’d want to know, if the Devil was impeached, exorcised, cast out, whatever term you want to apply, who would take his place? Winnie-the-Pooh? Mike Pence? Or just another satanic acolyte? A lot of us, if the polls are right, prefer the devil we got to the devil we don’t know. It might just be we need a lot more exorcists than 175. Might be time for our Sec. of Education, Betsy De Vos, to start using charter schools to churn out exorcists by the thousands. Kind of up her alley.