The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

What can a person say to the richest guy on Earth whose main goal in life is to leave the planet on one of his spaceships, making him an immigrant on Mars? He’s ranting about millions of dead people collecting Social Security while other Trump appointees are blathering on about immigrants collecting money on the entitlements, probably, so they say, they’ll vote Democrat. The billionaire makes Marie Antoinette look like a socialist. Even the most devout Trump sycophant must be getting nervous when one of the mainstay 3rd rails is about to be monkeyed with, forget about this weeks’ heavy losses on the Market thanks to the Artist of the Deal’s waffling and threats and pullbacks and more threats. Tariffs and trade wars are one thing, fooling with Social Security or Medicare is a whole ‘nother tarbaby that a chainsaw isn’t going to cut through.

Somebody somewhere, but not here on the South End, decided that if you got a lot of money, you must be smart. If you’re a billionaire, by god, you must be a genius. Trump and Musk certainly think they’re the brightest boys on the block but I’m sorry, a dollar does not an IQ point make. Tesla stock is plunging and even worse, its image is so corrupted the poor saps who bought one of those cars of the future are slapping the bumper sticker that says I Bought This Tesla Before Elon Went Crazy. You will never see a MAGA hat sporting anything similar for their boy, but wait til eggs become the new currency, replacing crypto.

When the rich decide laying off tens or hundreds of thousands of employees because they’re part of the government they hate, when their economic policies enrich themselves with tax cuts that do nothing for the poor, when their sole objective is slash and burn, what are we to deduce? Me, I laughed when the GOP called themselves Compassionate Conservatives, an oxymoron if I ever heard one. These new so-called Populists, who have no interest in anyone poorer than themselves, they need a reminder that when folks wake up, the guillotine isn’t far behind.

The stock market has the Jitters, apparently, because yesterday the Dow dropped nearly 1000 points and the NASDAQ fell over 4%. Right now the Dow is down another 500. I long ago gave up my dream of becoming a hedge fund CEO so maybe I’m not the right hombre to weigh in on fiscal policies under the new Trump regime, but I do know corporations and even small businesses like my own hate uncertainties. Will those tariffs drive up the cost of my stained glass? You bet it will. Will they kick up the price of my Canadian lead came and zinc border metals? Hell, yes!

Last night some arsonist in Seattle and Gomorrah burned a few Teslas sitting in a warehouse, no doubt venting their anger at Musk and DOGE, not sure what the thinking was there, but a message of some sort was delivered. Lately I’ve noticed a few bumper stickers that read: I Bought This Tesla Before Elon Went Crazy. Call me a hopeless optimist but I’m hoping to see plenty more of those and another one that says: I Voted for Trump Before Donald Went Power Mad.

These are very strange times in the Land of the Free, Home of the Capitalist. My neighbor dropped by today and before we could say Shut My Mouth we were debating politics, his Libertarianism to my Cynicism. He thinks tariffs might be a good remedy for what’s wrong with America because, well, because Trump is a great businessman, knows what he’s doing, knows how to handle trade negotiations and delivers a hard deal. Employment, he says, is already up. So … he missed the government layoffs and firings by DOGE evidently. Not real jobs.

I said I’d bet him a dozen eggs soon to be worth a bitcoin or two that this economy will take a hit from Trump’s recklessness, same as his casinos he drove into bankruptcy, smart businessman that he was. But … really, what do I know. These Trump Bibles might be selling faster than bitcoins and the gold tennis shoes, maybe even better.

When we finally called our debate a draw to save a friendship, my neighbor said he doesn’t pay attention to the news, too depressing. It was all I could do not to mention I pretty much assumed that.

I’m standing at the bar in the South End String Band’s latest hangout after the last couple of dive bars closed. If you want to know why they closed, consider I’ve been here five minutes already, enough to write this much this far. The bartender watched me walk in, the fry cook apparently doesn’t serve liquor to people with a hat so here I stand, still scribbling in my notebook.

Ah … here comes my bartender now to take my drink order.

Oops, no, she’s going to serve the guy who followed me in three minutes after I came in, a regular, surely that justifies leaving the occasional customer to stand another few minutes while they catch up on gossip. There are four of us total in this shotgun alley of a bar. Trust me, only one of us ever leaves a tip. Oops, make that none of us today….

This particular tavern has always been a rough joint. Bikers back in the day, crack users next, meth heads for a time, now just down and outers idling away their afternoons, their evenings, their lives. If you are an aficionado of such places, a connoisseur of the hard drinking, chainsmoking denizens of these inns that the Liquor Board keeps on its permanent Watch List, you can’t really get upset with miserable service when the bartender cops an attitude. After all, the whole place comes with attitude and isn’t that why you come in the first place? You want brass and ferns, muted conversations, white wine in a stemmed glass, the hushed tones of incessant cellphones (‘Excuse me, I have to take this.’) and bartenders who enquire occasionally if you’d care for a refill or a ‘freshening’, you definitely leave town.

There’s some kind of ruckus among the three regulars down the bar but it ends as quickly as it ignited, too early for more than verbal violence anyway. My bandmates eventually arrive and after a short wait Charlene takes their orders. My glass sits empty, but just as she wheels suddenly I try to signal for another beer since she didn’t connect the empty glass with a possible refill. She strides away without turning. My kind of place, I realize, and sure, I’ll leave a tip.

Radio Free South End was the ‘brainchild’, or lack thereof, of Wolfman Chuck, once a DJ for KRAP, the alternative music station down in Seattle and Gomorrah back before the city morphed into Tech Town. He claims he was ‘let go’ for pushing the boundaries of even those leftist programmers who decried censorship, something to do, they told him, with violating all manner of human decency.

Not to be so easily cast off the airwaves of Puget Sound, Wolfman laid his plans, moved to the politically incorrect South End, recruited a few of us slackers for his Bandwidth Comeback and launched Radio Free South End, a laughably puny low watt FM frequency so low on the dial even the FCC would have to stoop to find us. This was the Year of our Lord 1999, slightly before podcasts and blogblasts, sort of Old School but without much emphasis on the school. Wolfman had a primitive transmitter — don’t ask me the technical — and a tower he erected over his trailer’s roof. All he needed, he said, were volunteers to be the DJ’s when he needed a break. Of course we asked if this was criminal and of course Chuck said Hell No! Freedom of speech, he told us, First Amendment, he claimed. So sure, we volunteered, why not, we had some things to say, even some music to play.

I doubt anyone further than 5 miles north of the island’s head could hear us, but when you consider most of the bloggers out there on internet podcasts get half the listeners Wolfman got, who really cares? Chuck wasn’t interested in advertising revenue, he just wanted what he called, reverentially, airplay. Chuck played old rock and roll, early blues, strummed his homemade mandolin, told off color stories mostly about us local yokels, even played the South End String Band every damn day, probably as thanks for half of us band members volunteering to DJ.

I can remember like yesterday the day our music died. It was my morning to fill the 10 am to noon slot only to find Wolfman slumped over his microphone, headset off one ear, holding up an official looking paper from some government agency or other.

‘We’re signing off today, Skeeter,’ Chuck told me as American Pie was playing, I bet for the 16th time that morning, the last song on KINK’s brief but glorious existence. A week later Wolfman was gone, the radio equipment too and his trailer had a For Sale sign out by the road. Camano’s infamous and only radio station had put a thumb out and hitchhiked into legend.

Rumor has it there’s a pirate radio station operating off the coast up in the San Juan islands, some DJ on the run from the Feds, still broadcasting to any and all in listening range. I’m betting it’s Wolfman Chuck. Every now and then I crank my radio up and run the dial north to south, hoping, I guess, to hear a crackly South End Blues coming out of Canada on the magnetic waves of an aurora borealis, Wolfman still howling into the wind, the last real DJ fighting the corporate mega-stations. And some nights, maybe too much to drink, I think I hear him and his tinny little mandolin.

O Cannaba!

As most of my THC-saturated neighbors here on the South End know, Canada just went green. Marijuana is soon to be legal across the great white north. Little wonder the Trumpster has washed his hands of these hockey loving infidels and put tariffs on them in our ‘national security interests’. They’re a clear and present danger, a hostile, potential invasionary force, a nation of dope huffing, hockey crazed whackos so menacing we probably should build a border wall on our northern flank. The bastards believe in the metric system, for cripesakes, you think that’s not foreign to our American values? Wake up before it’s too late! I don’t want a hockey rink in MY backyard!!

Hopefully this cannabis legalization will serve merely to sedate these Canucks. Eh? But I’m not – and the President certainly isn’t – betting on drugs being the Answer, not when we’ve seen how marijuana has proven to be a gateway drug to liberalism, abortion, anti-gun sentiment and all manner of unspeakable sexual deviance. These tundra dwellers are so stoned right now they can barely negotiate a trade agreement to take the place of NAFTA, what kind of trading partners will they be when the stuff is legal??

Tariffs are only the first phase, believe you me. This Menace must be stopped. If a Wall won’t protect us, we have other options. A First Strike must be kept on the table. Trump should demand Trudeau surrender now. Don’t make us pull the trigger, Canada!! We just want you to be compliant neighbors. Is that so very much to ask? But if you refuse to concede to our demands, no matter how much tar sand oil you promise to deliver to our pipelines, it’s nothing compared to what you’re packing your pipes with. We have drug rehab clinics here that we can provide you. But the first step is to accept you have a Problem. Don’t make you ours.