[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/AUDIO-FREE-SPEECH-AT-THE-ASYLUM2.mp3[/podcast]AUDIO —FREE SPEECH AT THE ASYLUM
So okay, we got these folks who set up shop outside the Stanwoodopolis Post Office and prop up posters of the Prez with an Adolph Hitler moustache and wait for hostile reactions. They’re not Nazis or Republicans and they sure aren’t Democrats unless they’re monumentally disappointed. I’ve got pals who became so infuriated with this deplorable mockery, they jumped right into the fray, sounding off and ending up at High Decibel.
All I can figure is this is the reaction they’re hoping for. Kind of the political equivalent of the church that goes around the country protesting at the funerals of fallen soldiers with signs saying GOD HATES FAGS and BURN IN HELL SINNER.
Bring in the clowns. Hire some serious psychiatrists. Consult the Talking Heads on PBS and Fox. But this seems like Goofball Inchoate Rage to me. Go down to the sea and rifle ping pong balls into the wind with messages like Your Mama Isn’t!! or The Chinese Are Still Inscrutable!! Or Doctors Are Torturers!! Let the current take them to all the beaches of the world. The new message in the bottle is this: IF YOU FIND THIS, MAIL IT TO THE UNITED NATIONS. EXPECT BLACK HELICOPTERS TO FIND YOU.
I’m no paragon of sanity myself, I’ll grant you. I believe we all skate on a thin layer of reality that can crack and shatter any time, plunging us who knows where into what dark depths. But I try not to encourage my fellow travelers to venture out into the unsolid middle.
There seems to be a vicious perversity afoot, a loathing that wants all of us to pitch into chaos, flail and fight with ourselves. The goblins are among us. If I had an antidote, believe me, I’d offer it. My only advice is turn the other way. Don’t make eye contact. Fall down and play dead if necessary. Short of that, avoid mailing letters down at the Post Office….
[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/audio-grange-gig.mp3[/podcast]audio — grange gig
We got a Grange Hall on the South End. Still got members even. Okay, not many, just a few Die-Hards holding on by a toenail, trying to keep the place from sinking into the tideflats or falling into the hands of some fast buck developer bent on high rise condos that face the Sound. The South End String Band threw in with these Grangers back in ’04, sold $5 tickets that got you a dinner and an aural onslaught by an 11 member ensemble. Made nearly 4 grand and kept the place open another decade.
But …. Times being what they are, the good folks at the South Grange need a little help once again. So the Band, now as downsized as the Grange is, decided to throw in once more. After all, these are the folks who organized and built Camano State Park with 1000 volunteers from the island and Stanwoodopolis back in 1949. And they did it in one day!
We’d like to make this an annual event, tie it in with the Harvest Jubilee and keep Tradition moving into the 21st Century. Come on down Saturday Sept. 22nd and listen to the South End String Band regale you with a night of Camano backwash roots music and plenty of tall tales, exaggerations and outright lies. Where else you gonna get that outside of a political rally? And all for a $5 suggested donation. Good cause, good people, good band (we warned you there’d be bald-faced lies) plus we’ll be offering a full meal deal of beer and wine plus snacks and dessert offerings.
Mosey down and help us out. The South Grange — still standing. Just like us.
Saturday Sept. 22nd 6 pm to when the cows come home. 2227 South Camano Drive (just south of Elger Bay Store) Shoes and shirt not necessary.
www. southendstringband.com
It’s harvest time on the old South End! Big doings, oh yeah. The whole Harvest Jubilee weekend is going to build to a Grand Finale and you KNOW where we’ll be having it —- that’s correcto, amigo — at the South Camano Grange. After you’ve toured the farms and listened to the speeches, after you’ve petted goats and ogled alpacas, after you’ve tasted Smokey Point butter squash and tried to spell arugula, after you’ve driven all those miles on not-so-sustainable gasoline, after all the nettles are harvested and the free range crabs are rounded up, there’s only one last stop, one final jubilation, one Monster Party you should NOT miss.
The South End String Band is cranking up the volume, serving adult beverages and offering up a foot stomping, toe-tapping, barn burning, old fashioned SOUTH END HOEDOWN. We’re going to help the Grange with your $5 suggested donation and we’re going to show you what Sustainable Partying is all about.
We’re going back – way back – to when the Grange rocked, when the entire community hauled on down and shook the moss off the roof. We’ll have snacks for sale and we’ll offer up some moonshine wit and wet powder wisdom for anyone wondering why the South End is the Shangri-La-La of the Western World. You show up, we’ll make you a certified (or certifiable) citizen of the South End. No ID necessary. And no credit check required. It isn’t called Harvest Jubilee for nothing. SOUTH GRANGE HOEDOWN 6PM – to when the cows come home Satuday Sept. 22nd South Camano Grange 2227 S Camano Dr. (just south of Elger Bay Store) “Where the Past isn’t Prologue, It’s just Prolonged….”
[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/audio-cyber-rage.mp3[/podcast]audio — cyber rage
One of the hazards of scribbling nonsense in these 21st Century blog sites along with about one billion other yahoos is that there are folks out there who really – and I don’t mean maybe – REALLY don’t like what they read in Skeeter’s pantheon of purpled prose. Maybe some search engine sends em by mistake, hooks on a key word, next thing you know, instead of a self-help forum, they got some chucklenut waxing profane about a subject they couldn’t care less about. And now, instead of Helpful Tips from Tom on how to turn their unhappy life into something swallowable, they got precious time wasted scrolling down South End Babble and boy howdy, somebody needs to reimburse them!
So they write to me in the anonymity of the internet. Which is the digital highway equivalent of road rage on the interstate. Flip me off, swerve into my lane, jam the brakes. They’ll show me who’s who and what’s what. And the best part: they’re untrackable, anonymous as drive-by shooters. Splatter my windshield with shotgun pellets and don’t look back, just speed away to the next unlucky target.
These are some very Very ANGRY! people out there with us. More than you think. Way more. I suppose we’re lucky they shoot from the lip, not the hip, but if you ever made the mistake of commenting on a forum or some issue that meant enough to you that you weighed in, then you probably learned firsthand what I’m talking about. Civility is most definitely not a valued trait in Cyberville.
I’d like to see the volume and vitriol dialed back a bit. I know, probably won’t happen, probably get ratcheted UP even more if anything, But personally, I’m weary of the ranting, the hysteria, the apoplexy. And hey, you, the guy who sells antiques and read the blog by mistake on cleaning out my storage shacks, maybe hoping for bargains: I’m sorry you thought this offered no insights for living your life. And I’m doubly sorry if you thought I was so self- centered I used the blog to make myself look attractive. I guess we won’t be dating.
I don’t have anything to sell, pal. Not the junk I cleaned out, not the ideas in my head. And .. .sadly…. it sounds like we’re all a little late to offer you tips on living. Let’s both just figure it out on our own.
[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/who-is-ayn-rand.mp3[/podcast]who is ayn rand