The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/audio-Surfs-Up-For-Zombies.mp3[/podcast]audio —Surf’s Up For Zombies

Of course it had to happen! What did you think: the South End would be immune? The South End is quarantined from the cultural diseases of the Outside World?? That the contamination couldn’t spread down to here??? Get a grip! Look around. The world has grown real small since you last took off your Google Glass, man. Or since you put em on….

The Zombies are here. That’s right, here on the South End. They’re everywhere else, right? They’ve long overstayed even a teenager’s infatuation and now they’re in the same category as skateboarding or Dungeons and Dragons, passing fads that never pass, they just lobotomize the immature brains of their adolescent hosts, then stick around into what we euphemistically call adulthood. Science can’t explain it. Science doesn’t even try. The Johnson boys have been slinking around the Diner’s nicely sloped blacktop parking lot since about 1995. Big Larry put a stop to their truck surfing where they’d grab a tailgate, crouch down behind the bed out of sight, then ‘surf’ their way onto the highway. He assured them he’d drag their crazy asses clear to Stanwoodopolis if he caught them at it one more time. Nobody doubts Big Larry’s follow-through on threats.

Except the zombies. They came in one Friday night, all goobered up in whiteface make-up and blackened eyes, smeared Hunts ketchup all over their mouths and giggled over their French fries at the customers’ reactions, mostly boredom, but a little bothered the teens couldn’t take their antics into town ‘where they belonged’. “Wuz up?!” Big Larry asked when he stepped out from back behind the grill, looming over the table of kids like Godzilla over Tokyo. All he got back was snorts and chortles from the guys, averted black sunken eyes from their dates. “Halloween early this summer?” he tried again.

Zombies, as every yahoo in America knows after years of movies and books and cable programming, don’t communicate verbally much. They make guttural sounds, they smack their lips on the bloody meat of their victims, they just don’t remember English. Larry said menacingly, “You ghouls better clean that ketchup slop up before you go, otherwise I’ll be cleaning YOU up, comprende?” The zombies suppressed their laughter, the zombies left a mess the way zombies always do. So yeah, the zombies are among us, even down here. When they learn to skateboard, we’re all in serious trouble. Even Big Larry.

[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/audio-Tea-Party-Bedfellows.mp3[/podcast]audio –Tea Party Bedfellows

Talk around the Wheelhouse, the Marina’s Lounge, was nothing but the IRS for awhile this month, holding up the Tea Party 501-c-4’s non profit, non political applications. “The damn Government,” Cap’t. Bill recited in a litany of obscenities, “they’ve gone too far this time. Tea Party’s got rights too, you know.”

“Gee, Bill,” Two Toke smirked behind a 12 oz micro brew bottle, “I can’t imagine why they’d think maybe it was a political action group. Or why you Tea Party boyz want to hide the donors if you’re just making educational ads.”

“We got rights too, Mr. I Want to Sell Dope to Kids.” Two Toke runs the South End Greenworks Medical Marijuana Dsipensary down at the old Tyee Store. Perfectly legal, Tom argues, even if the law is pretty fuzzy.

“Gimme a break, Bill,” Harold, the night bartender says, not one usually for advocacy positions of any sort other than drink recommendations. “They don’t want to pay taxes any more than you do. But what’ve we got a damn IRS for anyway. They don’t pay, you pick it up. Me too.” “I don’t mind paying taxes,” Two Toke chimes in with salt for a wound. “Just doing my civic duty, boyz.”

Cap’t. Bill is practically gnawing the top off his Bud bottle he’s so mad. “What are you talking about??? NOBODY likes to pay taxes! The illegal aliens don’t pay taxes.! The welfare queens don’t pay taxes! You drug addicts don’t work so you don’t pay either!!” he scowls at Two Toke menacingly. T.T. grins over his micro.

“That’s right,” Bill slams his Bud down sending an indignant foamy froth over the top. “I pay more because all you freeloaders get off Scot free.”

Harold, wiping a glass with a bar towel, starts to speak up, but Tom says cheerily, “A Bud for the Cap’t., Harold. On me. But don’t tell him who donated it. He wouldn’t want anyone to know who his friends are.” Harold pops a Budweiser, slides it to Bill. Bill tips it toward Two Toke and takes a swig. “Thanks, Tom,” he says and winks. “I promise not to tell.”

[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/audio-American-Accountant-Audition.mp3[/podcast]audio — American Accountant Audition

Billy Nashville was wailing on a red Gibson he’d put stick-on gold letters up the body that read B-I-L-L-Y  S-I-X G-U-N. His real name, William Cosnosczski, wouldn’t fit in neon, he claimed, so he changed it to a stage name he thought better suited to his debut in Nashville. None of us figured Billy had ever owned a gun, certainly never shot one, but Billy 6-Gun only had to write ballads of bad marriages, drunken brawls, truck driving romance, heavy drinking and hard living. He didn’t know anything about those either and Nashville wasn’t waiting for him to learn, not when most of the songwriters came in from Hard Rock County, Tennessee or Whisky Creek, Kentucky, practically born with a guitar in their pudgy little hands and bottle fed Jack Daniels.

Poor Billy grew up in Olympia, Washington, then ended up on the South End when his parents moved here, not exactly an early retirement. We all thought maybe his Daddy shoulda gone to Nashville. With or without a 6 string.

Billy 6 Gun or Billy Nashville or William G. Cosnosczki, he wasn’t half bad on that cherry red Flying V Gibson. The trouble is, half the damn males in America aren’t half bad either. And some of them write decent songs. And every now and then, one of them looks good on stage. Unlike Billy …

Music is like any art medium, it’s hard — very hard — to make enough money to keep above water while you learn the ropes. And trust me, there are ropes. Some to hang yourself by, but some to swing to another level. If we made accountants work this hard for so little money, well … maybe this would be a world filled with song instead of one painted by numbers. Just my opinion, of course. Not based on scientific data. Or even much research.

Billy still plays the open mike down at the South Grange every Wednesday night. He’s talking about a Try-Out with American Idol. Good luck, Billy, I say. Just don’t be too disappointed. Don’t quit playing, don’t quit singing. And if you ever get despondent, consider this: there is no, and never will be, an American Accountant. Because, really, why would anyone with a soul care? Just my opinion. Of course.

[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/audio-starving-the-beast.mp3[/podcast]audio –starving the beast

I must be bored lately cause I’ve been reading the Letters to the Editor page, sort of on par with following the aptly named Yahoo News, which mostly thinks news is the fashion faux pas of movie stars or the recent exploits of the Kardashian Klan.  I guess this may just be the pulse of the nation.  Yesterday an aggrieved writer weighed in on Camano’s ballot measure to build a permanent library.  Waste of money, he concluded, when we could just do it privately.  “Like they do in lots of places.”  Big community fundraiser is what we need, he said.  Privately operated.  Gather up bequests.  Do it ourselves.  Anything but a tax supported quasi-governmental library.

I guess the $40,000 we raised to pay the rent for two years at the current pilot library wasn’t ‘community’ enough for this guy.  That, and the volunteers manning the phone banks for weeks at a time don’t qualify either.  Or voting to tax ourselves isn’t what he considers ‘community-minded.’  Just another example of Big Government.

Some folks just want everything privatized, I guess.  They think that way they won’t have to pay for it.  Fire departments used to be private.  Sign up, they’ll fight a fire when your house catches; skip the payments, they’ll watch it burn.  If you’re poor, tough luck ….

I wouldn’t mind, maybe, all of us community minded yahoos banding together, raising funds, auctioning off art and the usual items, baking cookies for the Bake Sale, organizing a board, volunteering to work for gratis so my tax averse friends can save a dollar or three then use the services for free, but I’m worried we’ll want fire protection privately funded next and police services based on donations soon to follow and road repairs done only if given enough bequests that year.  My guess is this is how you Starve the Beast, but you ask me — and I know you didn’t — this is how you make a jungle.

Skeeter’s actually got to stop for a few days here and go up to Alaska for a job.   I know, I know, it’s disappointing to have to leave a life of sloth and indolence, but if done occasionally, it adds a fresh perspective on what could easily become the rut and routine of  life.  At least that’s what I tell myself.  I’m traveling without cellphone or laptop.  Practically like the pioneer explorers and trappers of old….  Oh, it’s dangerous and more than a little scary, but hey, living on the edge is the South End Way.  With any luck I’ll be back before the polar bears are extinct and the glaciers are big goopy puddles.   Alaskans don’t really buy into that global warming stuff anyway and I sure don’t plan to bring em any news they don’t want.  After all, they’re my new paycheck.   Hopefully.  Wish old Skeeter luck and I’ll be back down here in the 48 sooner than you can say Drill Baby Drill.  Meanwhile, Sarah Palin has an insightful little blog you might check out.  Or you can rummage through the trash bin here and see what you can wrap old fish in.  Me, I’m off to the midnight sun.