The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Is nothing sacred anymore? Is nothing off limits to scrutiny and derision and possible legislative remediation? These are tough enough times we live in, polarized politics, polarized religion, polarized ethnicity, whatever you do, whatever you say, you’re going to offend someone. And lately, offending folks seems to be the modus operandi judging by the Man in the High Tower’s bullying tweets. Name calling, dog whistles, sneaky slurs, it’s okay nowadays.

So when the psychiatrists came out recently with an announcement that a lot of the males of the species suffer from Toxic Masculinity, I guess it should have been no surprise. But down here on the South End, the news was troubling. The news was downright scary. And I don’t mean just for the women folks. Okay, maybe us high testosterone men come off a little far end of the masculinity spectrum. We don’t cry enough, I admit, but geez, if we let loose our softer side, we’d never get squat done down here in the nettle fields, just fall into weeping spells half the live long day. I mean, you don’t think we see how depressing our lives are? How bankruptcy is just a busted axle or a broken leg away? All that bluster and bragging, it’s just a mask. What are we supposed to do, write a blog? Open up our hearts, show our true feelings? Not sure anyone would like to see that …

Next thing you know, the shrinks will want us to turn in our guns and stop socializing down at the tavern and maybe go to church on Sundays with the mizzus. Give up ESPN and kickboxing, maybe even football. What the ??@#? Is this America? Is this how we make it great again? Is this what we want for the South End, a bunch of crybaby yahoos going to prayer meetings and support groups and sensitivity training and AA meetings, our days spent watching soap operas and Oprah? Where does it end? I’ll tell you where it ends. It ends with slavery, with shackles, with emasculation. It ends, sadly enough, with us men having to get a job. A real job. Not writers and artists, not musicians. J-O-B. Job. What used to be relegated to the mizzus. Boys, I hate to tell you, but change is coming if you don’t fight it. You don’t, you’ll be crying all right. Day and night.

Compassionate conservatism finally reared its tired head this week when Wilbur Ross, the billionaire Commerce Secretary wondered aloud why these government workers forced to work without paychecks were lining up at food banks instead of running down to their local banks and applying for a loan. Trump’s economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, referred to these folks as volunteers. “They honor us. And they do it because of their love for the country and the office of the presidency and, presumably, their allegiance to President Trump.”

Where, you wonder, is Marie Antoinette these days? Have no doubt the peasants of France honored her with their love and allegiance to the King. You know, before they sliced their empty heads off in the blood-soaked streets of Paris. The Trump Court, chock-a-block full of billionaire know-nothings, makes the Parisian Court at Versailles look like a convention of physicists. The only thing sadder than this latest spectacle of insensitivity would be if the French had actually voted for Louis the 16th, hoping he’d honor his promise to bring back the Stone Age to his countrymen. Marie married the little frat boy when he was 15. Melania at least waited until Trump was a bit older. It’s no coincidence that the Trump mansion is decorated in wildly lurid French baroque. Well, maybe Louis didn’t have a gold toilet, just a nice chamber pot. Or a helluva outhouse the peasants could keep clean when they weren’t lining up for royal loans.

My favorite TV attorney of all time is America’s Mayor, Rudy Giuliani. The man gives fresh meaning to the appellation for lawyer, Mouthpiece. Trot him out on Fox every day or so and he has no problem getting both feet in there. Clarification? Of course he’s got a new clarification. Tomorrow he’ll clarify the last one. You have to ask yourself, how did a guy who waded into the Tower debris after 9-11 and become a national hero decide to make a clown of himself in no time flat? The man had it made in the shade.

Apparently he missed the big spotlight, the daily bath in self-praise, the adulation of a nation. So when an even huger narcissist than himself came along, why not hop right up on the stage and play the slobbering sychophant? And … to boot, the mayor is an attorney. A prosecutor. A person with an insight into how Mueller and his team might be strategizing. What more perfect sidekick for the Donald?

It is amazing how Clowntown continues to ram yet another Bozo into the Volkswagen. Sure, some are forced out the tailpipe; okay, most are forced out of the tailpipe, but few are given a public forum that diminishes the Trump’s face time and those few are gone quickly if the Man deems their performance upstaging. Nobody upstages the Donald. Nobody! Well, except maybe Rudy, at least so far and who knows for how much longer. Even the Prez must realize he has the absolute worst, most imbecilic attorney in the entire United States. Better, maybe, to ask for the last hire of the New York Public Defender’s office, plead penury since no one can see his tax records and hope for someone with an IQ above 80 and an attention to detail beyond a third grader.

Although, you have to admit, they make a perfect pairing. Maybe even better than Pence and his ventriloquist. Mueller could probably wrap the investigation up early, just put Rudy on the stand for a couple of days. Sure they’d find Trump guilty of a dozen felonies, but any jury you could imagine would be lenient. Nobody deserves Rudy. Not even Trump.