Attitude

They paid me for the holiday

And then they let me go.

It’s not as if I’ll starve to death

Thank God that doesn’t happen anymore.

But a working man without a job

That’s got to be the saddest thing I know.

And if I don’t get killed with kindness

It takes a lotta nerve to say I told you so.

With these two hands

And what I know

I earn my daily bread.

I never have that much to show

But I always keep my family clothed and fed

But these days it seems

I got to work

A whole lot harder just to stay ahead

And if I don’t get killed with kindness

It takes a lotta nerve to say I told you so.

It makes me mad

To see those fat cats

Living off the land

It makes me mad

To have them tell me

That I’m not a man

Well, one of these days

I’m gonna get my gun

And make my final stand.

And if I don’t get killed with kindness

I’ll show a little class and say I told you so.  :-{)}

That Sinking Feeling

Our kitchen sink faucet gave up the ghost the other day.  It started with a tiny drip, and grew from there into an annoying drip, the kind that shows up unannounced and hits the stainless steel sink with an audible thud that my wife can hear from the next county, or in her sleep.  It’s almost as bad as when I forget to turn off the air compressor in the attached garage, and it comes on with a basso profundo bray around 3 AM, and I get the elbow in response.

So I went down to McLendon’s, first, as usual, and bought two complete new cartridges, since I wasn’t quite sure which one was the leaker, brought them home and installed them.  That’s when I realized that I could have just bought a seal kit for one third the price. Ah, well.  The leak did not stop.  Consternation ensued.

The decision was made to toss the old one and buy a brand new faucet, the kind with the graceful swiveling neck like a swan with a funnel for a beak and a handle on each side, and a spray nozzle in its own socket over on the right.  There was nothing wrong with our spray nozzle, other than a minor tendency for the thumb lever to detach itself without warning, but a new one was part of the kit, so there you go.

I assured my wife that, despite my retired status, my assembly skills were still sharp as a tack, then shooed her off to work while I contemplated the Rosetta Stone instructions, which taught me everything I needed to know in three languages.

The hardest part was getting down under the sink and working overhead on my back in a tight space.  This would have been much more difficult, if not impossible, if I had not been attending yoga classes at Michelle Peterson’s Aspiration Community Yoga for the last few years.  The second hardest part was pulling all the stuff out from under there.  I got my son-in-law to hold everything steady while I tightened the nuts on the stems underneath and attached the hoses where they went.  Piece of cake, really.

Then, when I got up to test run the new faucet, I noticed a strange thing.  The two handles were reversed.  When I would reach for the cold tap, for example, it opened with a counter-clockwise push, rather than the pull I expected.  The same thing happened on the hot side!  Very interesting.  Must be a new design feature, I decided.  All the package said was that the spout swiveled 360 degrees, but not a word about opening the valves.

Anyway, I checked for leaks underneath and declared it good.  I decided I rather liked the new configuration, and hoped she would as well.  I announced the completion in a text and got on the next project, out in the shop.

My hopes were impetuous, as it turned out, along with my logic.  The first words out of her mouth were, “Why did you put it in backwards?  Look, the handles have a C and an H on them, and the C is on the left!”

“In the first place,” I replied, thinking fast, “You have to think outside the box here.  See this instruction book?”  I held it up.  “It is in three languages, one of which is French.  That C could also be for Chaud, which means Hot in French, does it not?  And the H could also mean Hrim, with is an Old Norse word in the Norman dialect for “Cold as the Icy Heart of a Landlord at the end of the month, could it not?”  She elevated an eyebrow.  “And furthermore”, I continued, “those letters are on little caps that can easily be transferred to the opposite sides if you insist.  But why not try it for a while?  I like the fact that while I’m rinsing dishes they don’t have a tendency to knock into the valve handle and turn the water cold this way.  But I’m willing to agree, for the sake of harmony, that, on the face of it, a good case could be made that I did indeed install the faucet backwards.  I assure you that that was not fully in my mind at the time, and I would be happy to put it back the other way, but first, why don’t you try it for a few days and see what you think?”  She grudgingly assented.  “Yes, Dear” and “Ok, Fine” work both ways.  Besides, I do all the dishes.

So I think I may have skated on this one.  My only concern is that she might decide that all the other sinks in the house should be reversed, for consistency, but I’ll deal with that if and when it happens.  It looks like the sprayer is powerful enough that I can mostly hit the dogs’ water dish on the floor next to the fridge without having to pick up the full dish out of the sink and place it on the floor and not spill too much, so that’s a bonus.  Kitchen innovation is a never-ending opportunity, I tell you.  :-{)}

Travels with Dog, pt. 2

I think I have a new favorite road, now.  As usual with these sorts of things, an accidental happenstance leads to a discovery.  When you are on the road for whatever reason, you are also on an adventure, and should be open to new experiences when they present themselves.

In this case, we were on our way home with the dog, Nash, or Fuzzbutt, as I call him, from the National Specialty show for the Bouvier des Flandres breed, held this year in a suburb of St. Louis at a facility owned by Purina Farms, maker of Dog Chow and so much else.  The factory resembled the place where Soylent Green was made, to me, but the show facilities were top-notch, even air conditioned, a rarity in the Dog Show world where local fairgrounds are the most common venues and rustic is the most common description. It turned out we were right close to Route 66, the Mother Road, and I spent some time retracing its path as I explored the neighborhood.

We were running a day late because we had gotten caught on the east side of the Continental Divide when a big storm blew down from Canada and blanketed the Great Plains with an unseasonal early snow from Alberta to northern Texas and I-70 was shut down for miles west of Cheyenne, Wyoming, forcing us to wait it out in a Hotel in Kearny, Nebraska.  This was far from the worst case scenario, given that the Seahawks were on the tube in London and the local beer was fresh and good.  We seem to have finally arrived at the way things were back before Prohibition was enacted, with small breweries in every town making great beer for the locals, and travelers lucky enough to find them on their way through.

We finally got back on the road on Tuesday morning in sub-freezing weather, but clear skies and dry pavement supported the decision, and we made good time after that.  Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, and most of their neighbors have a 75 or 80 mph speed limit on their freeways, which helps gobble up the miles.

On the morning of the last day we woke up early in our hotel in Evanston, Wyoming and beat feet out of town in the shivering darkness on Interstate 84.  I have found that when you hit the road early and wait a while before breakfast, it tastes extra good when you finally find it, as if your body is celebrating the realization that you weren’t actually trying to starve it to death after all.

We blew through the last of Wyoming and a good chunk of northeastern Utah before we stopped for lunch in the very cool small town of Baker City, Oregon.  This is an old Western town (1874, with movie-set buildings to back it up) tucked into a valley where the burnt scrubland hills of Eastern Oregon give way to trees and sheltered dales with cultivated fields and small-town cafes like the Oregon Trail, where we sat at a booth and relearned that banana cream pie is a universal language.  Okay, okay, I will stipulate any kind of pie, but banana cream is the one for me.

Of course, after lunch my wife had to get the dog out for a walk before we left, which caused all of the servers  and at least one customer to abandon their posts for a look-see.  A purebred Bouvier in full show trim is a rare thing in these parts, apparently.  You have to admire their innocence.

We finally got back on the road and drove through town admiring the architecture and the old houses, only to discover that the onramp to Interstate 84 was closed and locked with a padlocked gate!  There were no signs, and nobody standing around explaining matters as a steady stream of cars and trucks were detoured back through town to state highway 30, which at that point had become a parking lot.  We skipped back to the original offramp we had taken to get in, only to find it also locked down!  The busy freeway was as empty as a politician’s heart at tax time.

In the old days I would routinely stop at a hardware store in these small towns and buy a Metsker Map of the county, which always had all the back roads, paved and unpaved, on it, a useful source of information and a pleasure to read later and mark the roads you had taken while setting aside others for next time.  Nowadays, I just pulled out my phone and hit the Google Maps button.  It seemed to show me that State Highway 203, otherwise known as the Medical Springs Highway, which started right at one of those closed-off onramps and seemed to head straight into the surrounding hills in the wrong direction altogether, actually wandered about through those hills and came back down to 84 some 35 miles down the road, which should have bypassed whatever problem was happening on the freeway.  So that’s the way we went, up into the hills in search of another way home.  What we found was delightful.

As we later learned from an Oregon Department of Transportation tweet, “I-84 closed in both directions between #LaGrande & #BakerCity due to a roll over crash involving a semi tractor-trailer hauling cattle. ODOT attempting to round up cattle. No detour at this time. Extensive closure possible.”  Some poor cowboy bought the farm out there, along with several of the cows he was hauling to market, while we were having our lunch.  The rest of them wandered the freeway until people arrived to round them up again.  I hope a few of them escaped to live an outlaw life hiding in the canyons and gorges that populate that country.  If they only knew where they were headed, they would have all run for it.

But for us, the closure led us to this old back road that twisted and turned up and down the scrubby hills outside of town for miles, until it picked up and ran alongside Catherine Creek before coming to the town of Union, which is where we picked up I-84 again, well past the chaos caused by the accident.

There is a town called Medical Springs, out there in the middle of nowhere.  Blink twice and you’ll miss it.  It reminds us that, back in the late 1800s, most of our ancestors lived in those small towns scattered all over the West.  Baker City was a pretty big town for the times, and the idea of a Portland or a Seattle or a San Francisco was too much to think about.

The State Park on Catherine Creek was beautiful, and empty on that particular day.  Nash got to take a long walk on his leash, out over the bridge to look down at the creek, and wander through the trees.  Here’s some pictures:

Our restful interlude in a beautiful little park out in the country by a creek was the high point of a day spent flogging our new van through parts of four states toward a home that was all the more desirable for the twelve days we had been away.

The best part of any journey is the homecoming.  That, and the little adventures that soothe your soul along the way.  :-{)}

Found Objects

I’m espousing a new theory, or maybe an old one dressed up in new clothes.  It’s called, “Found Object Bracketing”.

I probably can’t claim this as my own invention, as I’ve seen many examples of the idea on motorcycles on the street, especially in places and at times when many of them gather, such as the Isle of Vashon TT, but I like to think I’m advancing the cause whenever I can.

Back in the day, which feels good to say if you’re old enough to remember it fondly, having forgotten all the bad stuff, the members of the motorcycling world, mostly including the chopper guys, were of necessity handy with tools and able to come up with ideas in solution of problems that arose.  It started with the obvious ones – drill out the rivets on that hinged rear fender and relocate the tail light to the hand built sissy bar – and proceeded from there to the far-our unrideable custom creations of today that reveal their true value when they go up for sale years later with very few miles on them.  Somewhere in the middle of that are some fancy but useful pieces that add value to a bike in the eyes of a knowledgeable viewer.

For me, it started on a road trip one time back in the ‘70s.  A few of us were headed out through Winthrop towards Glacier Park when we ran out of daylight somewhere east of Omak and decided to pull off the road by a small creek and set up the tents.  We traveled light in those days and had the capacity to make and break a good campsite, cook food, and build a small fire to sit around afterwards.

In the waning moments of daylight, I went for a wander through the adjoining field, where I spotted the hulk of an old car out by the barbed wire fence and strolled over for a closer look.  The big square bodied four door had the look of something out of the late ‘20s, early ‘30s, with the balloon fenders and the upright noses of evolved carriages.  I stuck my head in through the glassless side door and saw that everything was in the advanced stage of decomposition by rust, which had already evaporated the floor boards and most of the firewall.  But there, sticking out under the dash in the center by where the shifter would have been if there was a transmission under it still, was a hand lever that appeared to be in perfect condition, not a scrap of rust visible on its gorgeous Art-Deco style.  I reached out and pulled it loose with little effort from the remnant of the vent flap that it used to open and close and took a closer look.  It was hard, and strong, and intact, and appeared to be made of some form of cast metal with enough chrome to make it rust proof.  The mounting end had a couple of screw holes in a bent bracket.  I found a place for it in my saddlebags and drug it all over the country and back home again, where it wound up in the tub with all the other catch-alls and remnants that tend to pile up when you do things.

Some years later, that handle turned out to be the perfect choice for a hand shift conversion on an old Harley Shovelhead chopper.  All we had to do was bend the mounting end a bit to get the proper angle and weld it to that steel cover that activates the shifter on a Big Twin four speed.  So off that old vent flap lever went to a new life on the road, where it may still be, for all I know.

The idea is that every part, no matter what it is used on, contains material and labor, which gives it value.  If that part is scrapped, it only returns the value of the scrap metal to the owner.  If, however, that part can be put back into service somehow, it can return double the value, both because you already had it, so you didn’t have to go buy one, but also because you preserved the value that was already in it and enhanced that value with a new use for it.  Taking that idea to the extreme, you turn that piece into a work of art that not only works well, but looks good doing it, which thereby reflects positively on your own ingenuity and mechanical skills as a bonus.  I saw a Triumph once with top motor mounts made from modified Craftsman box end wrenches that was a perfect example of this.

On my FXR I wanted to run a Supertrapp exhaust, but the outlet for the only headers that would fit with my police floorboards was 2” diameter, and the inlet for the only muffler that would work in the back was 2 ½”, so I had to manufacture a split collared bushing out of aluminum on the lathe to take up the difference.  It is nice to have a machine shop in your garage for this kind of stuff.  Then the remnant bin churned itself and spit out two ideas, one of which, a piece of slotted flatbar with curled edges for strength,  was the perfect length and shape to bolt to the muffler, and the other was a stout length of forged square stock that needed just a slight bend in exactly the right spot with a few drilled holes that allowed it to tuck in behind the muffler and tie in to the bracket on the transmission with the use of a coupling nut from McLendon’s.  I got the exhaust pieces at the swap meet for around $60, and the coupling nut was a couple of bucks, compared to a whole new system for $800+, and this Found Objects philosophy begins to make sense.

On my Guzzi, I got a heckuva deal on new PIAA driving lights, the downside being that they came with a switch, but no mounting brackets.  The remnant bin coughed up an old solid brass bathroom towel rack that I cut the curved sections out of and put to new use under my headlight to hold the lights where I want them attached to the lower triple clamp.  All it took was a couple of strategically drilled holes and some saw work.  One side tended to loosen up, so I tied them both together with a part that looks like some form of track lighting bracket but fits in under there like it was meant to be.  For the switch, I discovered a bracket in the tub that was miraculously perfect to tuck in under the top triple clamp which I attached with a couple of Nut-Serts.

Of course, you must disregard the value of your time in a situation like this.  When you can sit at your computer and look at Ebay and Craigslist, not to mention all the facebook pages dedicated to motorcycle and parts sales, you realize there are few problems that can’t be solved by throwing piles of money at them electronically.  It may cost a bundle, but it will save time compared to the hours you may spend digging through piles at swap meets looking for the right piece.  So it’s a matter of what’s important.  Time is getting short for some of us, and getting the project done sooner might be worth more to us than the money.  But if you have the luxury of time to wait for the perfect found object to pop up in your remnant bin, you can get that extra little thrill that comes when you find something that you can turn into a work of art and solve a problem at the same time.  That’s why we rarely throw any of that useless crap away, and usually come to regret it when we do.  :-{)}

Order amid Chaos

My dad was an organized man.  He was an electrical engineer by trade, and a woodworker by avocation who in his later life produced many fine pieces of furniture that the family has kept among us.  After he passed, we found notebooks that listed every individual tool he ever bought at Sears, where we used to go as a family on Friday nights.  We would park out back in the lot where they later built the annex, and walk in the back door by the loading dock.  Mom would head over to the clothing sections with whichever kid was next on the list for new clothes, or browse for fabrics or household stuff.  There was always something on the list when you had seven kids.

Dad would head up to the second floor where the Craftsman tools were on display, and I would follow up the escalator until we got to the motorcycles, where I would peel off and spend the entire time sitting on the mopeds and pretending I was cruising down the highway (or the sidewalk), or drooling over the scooters or the big black beautiful Allstate 250, which really was an Austrian-made Puch with two exhaust pipes coming out of a single two-stroke cylinder, a “twingle”, as it was known at the time.  I think I was ten or eleven at the time, but I already knew I was born to be wild.

It was a simpler time, when a set of ¼” drive sockets from 3/16” up to ½” would be listed in the book as costing $1.95 in 1963.  The family soon learned to send my brother to collect me on the way out the door, where we always stopped by the famous candy counter back at the foot of the escalator around the corner from the exit, a place of magic where you could buy Chick-O-Sticks by the pound, and the drive home would be quiet other than the sound of chomping and the smacking of lips.

My dad was a wise man.  He knew that, when you’re in the middle of a project, and you need a particular screw for a task, it made sense to acknowledge that if you needed it once, you will probably need it again sometime, so he always bought a few extra.  Over the years, the collection of tools and hardware got bigger and bigger, which posed its own problem:  How do you find what you want when you want it?  Stuff needs storage, and storage costs money.  It’s that simple.

Storage also costs time, and thought, and organization.  In his shop, he lined the wall above the work benches with a series of hand made cabinets, all with doors made from pegboard for airflow set in birch frames.  Some of the doors would open to reveal a particular set of wrenches, say, each in its own slot or hanging from its own hook.  Often there would be a few pullout drawers in a special frame inside the cabinet that held smaller wrenches, or related things like sharpening stones in the cabinet where the planes were stored.  Like was stored with like, and the bench was always clean, other than the tins that held the parrafin-soaked rags with which he wiped down each tool every time he put it away at the end of the night.  You can see the same tendencies in mechanics in the shop.  You’ll notice the ones who lay everything they need to do a job on a handy cart to start a job, and carefully replace them in their proper place at the end of the shift, cleaned and wiped and ready for the next day.  Often, the trend continues to personal appearance, and I suspect a link between the ones who keep their coveralls clean and neat and the ones with the well-organized toolboxes.

Around the corner in Dad’s last shop, at the place they built in Port Angeles, were a series of free-standing shelves, crammed to the top with individual plastic boxes, each subdivided into sections with inserted plastic walls.  One would be full of pop rivets, another of cotter pins, another of washers of all sizes and types (I snagged that one).  You could literally stock a hardware store with his lifetime collection, but none of us were ready to take on that responsibility at the time, so we sent the entire pile off to the auctioneers, where they may very well have done just that.  They were all individually labeled with peel-and-stick labels you spit out of a squeeze gun.  All the spare belts for the lawn mowers and the string for the weed eaters, and the various lube oils and spare parts that you need to have around so you can fix anything that breaks on the spot were on those shelves, for many years in some cases.

It’s a certain type of person who can appreciate that level of organization as something to strive for and be proud of, and I think I inherited some of that from the old man.  My mother must have known when she gave me a name the letters of which can be re-arranged to spell “anal”.

And yet, much to my dismay, I discover that these values are not universally shared, even among the closest members of my own household.  When I mildly point out that, in order to get the most life out of those bath towels and extend the time before they deteriorate to the point of becoming “dog towels”, which are stored on a completely different shelf in the closet, it behooves us to carefully sort them when replacing the ones that just went in the laundry basket so the next one up is the one that has been sitting on the shelf the longest.  And if I go on to point out that the best way to accomplish this goal is to take all of them out every time and put the ones on the bottom of the pile on the back of the shelf on the towel racks in the bathroom, then replace the towels-in-waiting back on the shelf in the same order, well, would not a reasonable person conclude the obvious value of such a system?

But no, what I get instead are eye-rolls, and sneers, and snorts of derision!  I don’t understand it.  My suggestion to use post-it notes to date each towel as it went back on the shelf was rejected outright.

And look at the plates in the dining room!  Would it not make perfect sense, I ask, to always replace the currently washed plates on the Bottom of the stack, thus ensuring that each plate gets used once in turn, and no plate gets overused?  You would think they would be grateful for such insights, and eagerly agree to adopt such a system!  Especially since I do all the dishes!

But no, instead I get snarls, or amused chuckles, depending on the climate.  It’s enough to make me go out in the garage and work on sorting nuts and bolts.  I’m getting the stainless steel ones separated from the Allen heads, which are sorted differently than the cap screws, which are sorted by grade and length.  It’s gonna be great!  :-{)}

Donkeys and Elephants

The Elephants and the Donkeys both send me stuff in my email all the time, and it’s interesting in some ways to compare what they send with each other.

The Elephants sent this one today:

We have seen your strong support for Conservative values and we want to thank you by giving you an exclusive offer…

It’s an offer that’s only for the BIGGEST supporters of Trump’s agenda and Conservative majority.

We are giving you EXCLUSIVE ACCESS to the Presidential Majority Platinum membership. . . And because we know how much you’ve stood with our movement, we also want to give you a FREE American flag t-shirt.

But, we can only do this exclusive bundle today…

What it boiled down to is two things:  A Presidential Majority Platinum Member card that appeared to be made from plastic, and a T-shirt with a small American Flag on the front.  When I clicked on the “order here” button I found that the minimum amount they want is $50, and the maximum is $1,000 or more, with the option to make it monthly already checked for me!  This Limited Time Offer allows me to stand with President Trump and his House Majority today!

The Donkeys, of course, make up in quantity what they fail to achieve in quality, but I will give them this:  Most of their stuff is wrapped around a particular issue or angle.  Today, for example, to just cite a few:

The Legislative Majority PAC wants between $10 and $100 to fight gerrymandering, and they feature a smiling Barack Obama on the page.

Claire McCaskill’s campaign for Senator from Missouri is freaked out that she is now tied in the polls with the Trump guy, so please send money, $5 to $50, anything!  She’ll obviously take money from me in Washington State to run in Missouri, so what does that say about who else she will take money from, and what she will promise them in return?  Sorry, Claire, you will make it or break it in your state.  Stay there and run to them.

Then Bob Casey wants money from me to run in Pennsylvania!  Same answer, Bob, stay home. 

Then the Sanders Institute (a 501 (c) 3 organization, meaning my donations are tax-deductible), wants at least $27, up to $1,000 to boost Solar power companies and take away $20 billion in subsidies for the fossil fuel companies.

Then Patty Murray chimed in, with an offer to add my name to a petition demanding that Republicans do something about Trump, to “Hold Trump Accountable”, whatever that means.  She wanted anywhere from $5 to $250 after I clicked on the “Sign My Name” button.

I won’t bore you with the rest of them, and there are many, but they follow the same pattern.  The Elephants are completely ignoring current events and fishing for money based on a clear cult of personality and an unspecified “agenda”.

The Donkeys are more apt to bear down on one specific issue, which probably gives their data scientists a bunch of analysis of how any particular issue is flying with a given chunk of the electorate so they can fine-tune the message as we get closer to election day.  Clever people, those bit-twiddlers.

They both have one obvious thing in common:  They both have their hands out, and they both are using dollars raised as a measure of the success of any campaign.  The whole thing stinks to me of manipulation, professional image-crafting and corruption.  It’s becoming clear that both political “parties” have been taken over by scammers who are using them to extract money from us, the marks.  I bet they charge by the vote.  :-{)}

It's Over

The light bulb went on the other day, and I got hit with the obvious stick, and it felt good!

As anybody who pays any attention whatsoever to the news - or what passes for it these days - knows, the airwaves and the internet are full of arguments, disagreement, and complaints.  The finer points of axe-grinding, finger-pointing, name-calling and blaming have been raised to new heights as what seems like half the population takes on the other half in a continuing struggle to come out on top, even though nobody really knows what that means.

Well, here’s a news flash for you:  The last undecided voter, a young woman in Peoria, Kansas, finally made up her mind once and for all on April 1, 2018!  That means there is nobody left to convince on any issue!

Let your mind open and let the ramifications of this new reality sink in.  We’re done!  We don’t have to fight anymore, about anything!  It has all been decided, and there’s nothing left to talk about until the next election, which is the only place where we can exercise our right as a citizen in a way that actually does something.  We can vote.

In the meantime, we can just shut the hell up, all of us.  We don’t need to talk about politics anymore, there’s no need.  I already know who I’m going to vote for, and I don’t care who you pick, that’s entirely your business, which means it’s none of mine.

Of course, stuff will continue to happen, and people will react to it, as usual.  I’m not suggesting we give up our rights as citizens to tell the government what we expect from them at any and every opportunity that presents itself.  Far be it from me to even suggest that.  What I do suggest, though, is that we stop and consider who we should be talking to about issues that come up, and who we should not bother with.

Every one of us, at least the ones that aren’t currently homeless, has a representative who is elected to represent us.  We have City council members we can talk to, and a Mayor, if we live in town.  We have a County Council, and an Executive, and of course we have a State Representative, along with a Senator, and a Governor as well.  All of these people have to listen to us, because we live in the districts they represent and we vote for or against them in every election, if we’re holding up our end of the Citizenship Agreement.

And let’s not forget, at the national level, we have both a U. S. House member and a Senator who have the same responsibility to listen to us and respond to our concerns when we take the time to express them.  Or, you can go to the top of the line and work our way back down.  That starts with the President and Vice-President, of course, but you could extend that down to the Cabinet members if you’re a glutton for punishment.

So, as a citizen, you have many different people who would like to hear what you think about any issue on their plate, and, if you let them, will gladly send you newsletters along with never-ending requests for donations and invite you to their public events, so you can talk to them in person (don’t hold your breath on that one).

Every one else can go away.  I don’t need to discuss political issues with my cousins, my co-workers, strangers at the bus stop, people standing in line at the grocery store, or the beggar on the street corner.  I certainly don’t need to bother with trolls on Facebook.  I can smile and be pleasant, say, “Nice day, huh?”, or, “How about those M’s?”, and it doesn’t matter if the person I’m talking to is wearing a Confederate Flag T-shirt or one that says Black Lives Matter, because I don’t want to talk about their causes or hear their opinions.

If someone on the street comes up with a petition for something I would like to see adopted, I can sign it, but that’s all.  No, you don’t get any money, and no, I don’t want to hear about it.  I can sympathize if you’re all worked up about this or that cause or problem, but, in the words of an old song by Ten Years After, “Don’t ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to.”  Address your complaints and your suggestions to the only ones who can actually do something about it, your own representative.  Why are you wasting your breath on the rest of us?

“But, but but”, you say, “Look at those other guys!  Look at all the money they’re spending!  We have to match or beat them in order to win the election!  If you don’t give big now, we will lose!”  To that I ask only one simple question:  How do you measure the effectiveness of all that spending?

As to that, I think – but there I go again, don’t I?  Trying to slip in my opinion when it really doesn’t matter, does it?  Hey, how about those Seahawks?  They gonna be great this year, or what?  :-{)}

This is Getting Ridiculous

Ok, I have been thinking for some time that the way we do politics in this country is all messed up, but the onslaught has gotten so frenetic these days that it’s time to call a halt.  Let me show you what we’re up against.

And it must be said that all I did to deserve this was to donate a few bucks to Bernie Sanders last presidential election, and a little bit here and there for the few local races in which I have a vote.  I try to keep my nose out of other people’s business, so I keep my political contributions confined to this state, and my own district within it.

So here is just one day’s worth of emails alone sent to me for political reasons:

It started this morning at 9:17, when Adam Smith chimed in ask for a few bucks to help him run in the 9^th district here in Washington.  I don’t have a problem with that, I’ll probably donate at some point, he does represent me, and seems to be doing a decent job.

Then Bernie Sanders himself chimed in, at 9:40 AM, with a four page diatribe about what a pivotal moment in American History we are in right now.  He said all the right things:  Medicare for All, rebuilding the middle class and economic, racial, political and environmental justice.  At least he’s consistent.  That’s why I like Bernie.  He’s always in the thick of it and walks his talk.  I can’t donate any money to him unless he runs for president again, so we’ll see what happens.  In the meantime, you tell ‘em, Bernie!

Then at 10:43, Suzan DelBene sent me an email, or somebody named Tracy on her behalf.  She said a lot of people will be looking at her numbers to judge how strong her campaign is, so that’s why I should send her some money before the end of the 1^st quarter fundraising deadline.  There’s a theme in there to which I object, that you can keep score in a political race by counting dollars, but, for the record, Suzan, you’re not in my district, so you don’t get any money from me.  Does that make sense?

At 11:02 AM, I heard from Martin Heinrich, the junior senator from New Mexico, of all places!  Tell you what, Senator Heinrich, why don’t you just listen to the people you represent in that state, and I’ll keep my nose and my money out of your pocket.  This out-of-state money seems to be at the root of the problem, and I for one would like to see it stopped.  You say if you get 575 more $27 donations before Saturday night that will put you over the top and break last quarter’s record, proving you have the momentum to win in November?  How does showing you can beg money successfully from people all over the country prove anything about your abilities as a legislator?  Is that what it takes to win a Senator seat these days?

At 12:29 PM, Ro Khanna wanted to thank me.  I’m not sure what for, I never sent him any money, he’s running in California.  He pointed out that the corporate PACs, with their bottomless pockets, will stop at nothing to defeat us, but we can win if we finish this fundraising period off strong.

Excuse me, Ro, but didn’t the Democrats outraise the Republicans in the last presidential race by billions of dollars, something like 50% more money, and you still lost?

You say you’re bringing progressive values to Congress and boldly fighting for a future that works for all of us, but all I see is your hand out.

Donald Trump finished off the lunch hour with a message at 1:02. All he wanted was a dollar, just one lousy dollar, so he could count me as one of his official Sustaining Members.  That’s down from the $3 he wanted to get me in the sweepstakes for the all-expenses-paid dinner with him and 50 other winners at Mar-A-Lago that never happened last fall.  Once bitten, twice shy, baby…

Then, at 1:51 PM, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee sent me one, with the latest poll results from Florida, New Hampshire, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which apparently show that Democrats are winning in all those races, and isn’t it great!?  Furthermore, a coalition of progressive donors has stepped up to match every donation made in the next 48 hours by five to one!

So I wonder, how does this relate to overturning the Citizens United Supreme Court decision?  What did you say the names of those progressive donors are?  You say you are dedicated to winning and defending Democratic majorities all over the country, but you don’t say how many of them are old tired Democratic hacks that stab their constituents in the back every chance they get, as long as they keep building those pensions.

Things began to get weirder as the day spun on.  Next up was Ron Wyden, the senior Senator from Oregon, at 2:53, but he didn’t want anything for him, he wanted me to send money to a guy in Tennessee!  Again, it was all about the money, and it seems everyone these days on the Democratic side had Act Blue standing ready to tap my bank account, they had my information right there, just click that little blue button…  Bernie started Act Blue, but it seems to have expanded to everyone on the blue side.

Then Claire McCaskill chimed in at 3:12.  She’s the Senator from Missouri, and she informed me that it was mission critical that she get 4,181 supporters to chip in before midnight Saturday, because, “..if we fall short here, we WILL fall short on Election Day, too.”

She’s so grateful to have me on her team as she fights for Missouri in the Senate.  But I’m not, of course, I don’t even live in Missouri, so why is she bugging me for money in Washington?  Must be a form letter…

But I gotta ask one thing, Claire?  Why are you so excited when you don’t even know who your opponent is going to be yet?

I cut this off at 3:41, when some obscure entity calling themselves The Legislative Majority PAC sent me an email wanting to know if I supported Robert Mueller.  They identified me, and them as well, of course, as Champions of Democracy working to defend out country from Foreign Collusion!  They need 200 of us Champions to sign on and donate by the end of Saturday so they can send an open letter to Congress calling on them to protect the Special prosecutor, whose Russia probe is heating up, and Trump is Terrified(!) and can I donate to elect Democrats who will defend the integrity of our government from Trump’s attacks!  I’m like, “Do you guys actually read this shit before you send it out?”

So, here’s a couple of conclusions, and the questions they bring up:

All of these messages, every one of them, even the Republican one, used the same fonts, in the same red, white and blue colors, with the same heavy use of red ink to show how exciting it all was. 

So did each of the various campaigns from all over the country that sent me emails today just happen to have the same design elements in their messages, or did all of them come from just one company?

To each of these candidates with your hands out, including the Orange guy, what do you buy with all that money?  Can I see a financial report after you get your first quarter figures together?  You can send me a copy, I see you all have my email address.  I’d like to see how much money this technique that you all seem to share raised for you, who it came from, and how you spent it.  Name names, please.

How do you measure the effectiveness of a donation, if you’re a PAC, or an ad buy if you’re a campaign?

I have a sneaking hunch that much of the money goes to professional outfits that sit around and think up these approaches, generate the attack ads and criticism that they spread, and tabulate the results, for a percentage, or do they bill by the hour?  I have a sneaking hunch that, in many cases, it’s the same companies that do the same work for both sides.  I also suspect that those same companies employ the sales forces that convince the politicians that they have to play the game if they want to win.  It’s a game that we, the citizens, seem to lose every time.

So until I see those financial reports, you will not see any of my money, thank you.  I think you would best serve your constituents, and by extension the entire country, if you pulled your strings back within your own state borders and concentrate on taking care of the business for which they elected you.  And keep your noses and your hands out of my pockets.  :-{)}

Biscuits and Gravy

When you’re on the road on a motorcycle, there’s something about biscuits and gravy in the morning.  You may not normally spend much time in roadside cafes and restaurants when you’re at home, going about your normal existence, but when you’re on the road, it’s every morning, at a different place.  And while you might not normally order biscuits and gravy at the fern bar where you normally stop for a local breakfast, when you’re on the road on a motorcycle it’s important to eat plenty of carbs to stave off the effects of the wind and supply the increased physical demands of the act of riding.  That’s why biscuits and gravy may become your choice, even if you’re not in a truck.

My preference has always been the local joint, not part of any chain, filled with the local folks, whom it must keep happy to stay in business, and so the food they offer becomes a reflection of what the local folks decide is reasonable and good.  Biscuits and gravy is like a bellwether for small towns.
Somewhere near the Mason-Dixon line you start seeing grits on your plate every time, no matter what you order.  In California it’s an avocado.  Anywhere within 3,000 nautical miles of Boise, Idaho it’s hash browns, lots of ‘em.  But they all have biscuits and gravy on the menu.

So a memorable road trip includes not only the memories of the places you went, the people who rode with you and the ones you saw along the way, and of course the weather, but also the food you ate at the various road side joints along the way.  Not to mention the beer you drank at the end of the day when the riding was over.

And it is natural that in the course of many an idle conversation after a nice dinner and over a beer and a campfire surrounded by tents that the topics would flow to those of most critical importance, such as where to find the best biscuits and gravy in the country.

My riding buddy, Marty, says that the source of the best biscuits and gravy in the country is the Two Mile Café in Albany, Oregon, while I contend that the actual source is none other than the Tastee-Freeze in Laurel, Montana.  Allow me to state my case, if you will.

The best way to sharpen your appetite for breakfast is to roll out of your fart sack as the sun breaks the horizon over the KOA where you slept and spend the next interval breaking down your camp and getting coffeed and cleaned up, then hit the road in the early chill of an August morning in western Montana, or any one of dozens of similar places in any other state.  Ride at least 30 miles or so up the canyon, where the sunny spots almost get you warm enough to be ready for the next shady spot where the temperature drops so fast you start to shake in anticipation.

In our case it was that stretch of I-90 west from Rapid City on the way home from Sturgis on a Sunday morning, and the spot on the map was Wolf Creek, Montana.  But when we pulled off the highway and down the single main street of the town, it quickly became obvious that there was nothing open, no choice but to get back on the road and head West and see what turned up.

By the time we rolled off the freeway in Laurel, the next town down the line, we were hungry enough to look hard at the next sheep that crossed the road in front of us, and the only choice appeared to be the Tastee-Freeze.  I was consoled by the number of rigs with Montana plates on them in the parking lot, which surrounded a building that was longer than it looked from the front, so in we went, five hungry bikers who had been camped in the dirt for the last ten days, and sat down with the town for their after-church Sunday morning breakfast.

I ordered the biscuits and gravy, of course.  Nothing else was going to stand a chance against the hollow ache in my midsection, that and lots of coffee.

As we warmed up over the hot coffee, conversation in the restaurant, which was mostly full, slowly built back up from the shocked hush that had greeted our arrival.  Then the food came, and I ascended into a state of nirvana, or culinary bliss, or some equivalent spasm of delight.  The biscuits were huge, and fresh out of the oven, split and covered with gravy, oh, such gravy!  It was the gravy of kings, the gravy of huntsmen on a cold morning before a fox hunt in Staffordshire, full of big chunks of the local sausage, served at the perfect temperature and accompanied by an impressive wad of hash browns to share in the wealth.  Even the toast was home made.

As I basked in that warm feeling of perfect satiety after a feast, secure in the knowledge that I was set for the day’s hard ride to come, something came over me, and I got up and walked to the front of the restaurant.  I said to the man at the register, perhaps a bit louder than I might have intended, “Let me speak to the chef.”  He hesitated, and I repeated, “I want to talk to the cook.”

He disappeared into the kitchen and a woman came out wiping her hands on her apron and said, “I’m the cook.  Is there anything wrong?”  In the back of my mind, I noticed that the restaurant was dead quiet behind me.  I asked her, “Did you make that biscuits and gravy?”  “Yes, I did,” she said, “Is anything wrong?”  I said, with a smile, “Ma’am, that was the best biscuits and gravy I have ever had in the entire state of Montana, thank you very much!”  Her face lit up and she smiled and thanked me, as the assembled customers all laughed at their tables and my wife made faces at me from our booth.  I went and hid in the bathroom.

Of course, I realize the fatal flaw with the idea that you could decide once and for all just who makes the best biscuits and gravy in the country, which is that you can’t rightly say until you’ve tried them all, right?

So the search will go on, even if the goal remains as elusive as the rewards of the search are rich.  Any tips that could lead to a contender for the crown are welcome.  :-{)}

It's Time

It’s Time

While March is doing its lion thing

And we await what the changes bring

Our souls long for the coming Spring.

It’s time to Rock and Roll.

We’re gonna take everything we get

And on the table we’ll place our bet

You can’t go swimming and not get wet

It’s time to Rock and Roll.

We go out when it’s warm at night

To join a crowd without a fight

And raise our hands to show a light

It’s time to Rock and Roll

It’s time to Rock and Roll, my friends

Time to get up off our hands

Roll the wheels and start the band

It’s time to Rock and Roll.

Best Wheelie

For some unknown reason, I was on the back of my future brother-in-law’s 1968 Triumph Daytona, a 500cc twin-carb version of the original Speed Twin, with extended forks attached to an un-raked frame.  It was sometime in the early ‘70s, and we were headed northbound on old Military Road, poking along behind some old lady in a Rambler who apparently thought the speed limit was for radicals.  Chuck was even then known as having a short fuse for incompetence, especially that which impeded his forward progress, but traffic was heavy that afternoon and opportunities to get around the old biddy were few, so I could tell he was starting to fume as we approached the five-way intersection that marked the turnoff to Boulevard Park.

When it became obvious that the golden girl was intending to go the same way we had to go, he lost it, and made his move, just as she carefully pulled into the intersection and blocked three cars waiting for their turn.  Chuck dialed up the throttle and jumped around her left side, clearing the corner of her front bumper by a couple of feet.  I was hanging on to his jacket for dear life.

Unfortunately, the various delineators of where the lanes were supposed to go were all those plastic bumps, like upside down thick Frisbees glued in patterns to the asphalt, and we hit the first of them just as he grabbed second and gave it full throttle.  You wouldn’t think a 500cc motorcycle with two big guys aboard would be capable of such a move, but this one was a bit of a hot rod and reached for the sky.  I remember feeling the seat move out from under me, and, for a moment, my feet left the passenger pegs and I was flying, only my death grip on two handfuls of leather and my own inertia keeping me attached.  The back tire hit the same Frisbee and brought the seat back into contact with my butt, unaccompanied by the foot pegs, so my legs were waving in the air as Chuck somehow brought us back to earth in time to swerve back on line and escape the cluster of vehicles, all stopped, with uniformly open jaws on their drivers’ faces.  He never did get off that throttle till we blew through the light at Des Moines Way.  I remember roaring with laughter when the adrenaline rush hit, but I seem to recall I had to change clothes after we got home.  Ah, yes.  Young and Dumb, Young and Dumb… :-{)}

Six-Pack

Six-Pack

The church was jammed, on a Saturday afternoon, the day we laid Six-Pack to rest in the military cemetery south of Tacoma, and an overflow crowd milled about outside the chapel, drinking beer and smoking while they bullshat and waited for the ceremony to conclude.

Inside, we heard all the stories about a hard-living, hard-fisted, hard-drinking man, heard his wife allow as how he was a good father, fair husband, and all-around nice guy.  Nobody told the story about how he died, how he was at the tavern with his wife, who had shown up after work in her truck, until closing time, then decided he was going to race her home, but he was a little fucked up and high-sided into a curb just rightly to crack his skull open and put him down for good.  We all knew that, but weren’t in a hurry to think about it much.

After the preaching was done we all gathered around the gravesite for what was to come.  There was a backhoe parked at one end of what had to be a ten or twelve-foot-deep trench in the ground, easily twice as deep as you’d think they’d need, but it all made sense as it happened.  First, the preacher splashed the holy water and said all the right and usual things over the casket while it sat on the straps between the winches on both sides of the pit.  Then he gave the word, and they lowered him down into the ground.   After the straps were pulled back out, the backhoe fired up, and carefully scooped up some dirt from the side and laid an even coat of soil over the casket.

Then they unfolded a big old tarp and carefully lowered it into the hole.  Then they put a lifting strap on the backhoe bucket and proceeded to pick up his Old Lady 80, a perfectly restored in original condition 1937 Harley Davidson ULH flathead motorcycle, and lowered her gently into the hole on top of the man who built her back up, and who she was going to join up with in the hereafter.  Then they unfolded another big old tarp and carefully dropped it down on top of her, after which the backhoe casually filled the hole to the top with all the leftover dirt.  And that was his last will and testament.

Those of us who were there went away with a sense of wonder, and a feeling of some loss.  There’s only so many old motorcycles left on this planet, so it’s a shame when one more disappears.  I’ve heard idle speculation, months later, that the whole thing was a show, and that the family went back the next day and dug the Old Lady back up, but to my knowledge nobody ever went back to try and find out.  She’s probably still down there, hoping against hope that someday, somehow, she will ride free again in the wind.  :-{)}

Excuse me, Mr. Trump?

Um, excuse me, Mr. Trump?  You got a minute?

The thing is, I got another email from you today, about the immigration thing, and I’m puzzled.  I think we got our signals crossed, somehow.

The big message today was that you wanted to share the current results of your big survey you commissioned to help us tell the Senate how we felt about all the immigration hoo-rah that’s going on right now, and how you were still waiting to hear from me, and would I be sure and respond by midnight tonight (same thing you said last week, by the way).

The thing is, I already responded to that survey, a few days ago.

You said that 85% of the respondents, so far, think the Wall is important.  That wasn’t me, I think it’s a stupid idea.

You said that 91% of the respondents to that survey think it is important that we eliminate tax credits for illegal immigrants.  I guess I’m in the minority again on that one, but I did take a few seconds to look that up, and everybody says there is no such thing as tax credits for illegal immigrants, which makes me wonder if those 91% of respondents are dumb as a box of rocks, or do they even exist?  Was that, like, a trick question or something?

Then you said that 87% of those same respondents think it’s important that we end chain migration, and I’m, like, wait a minute!  Isn’t chain migration another way to say someone moves here, decides it’s a pretty cool place, then they tell their families to come on over?  Isn’t that the way your grandmother got here?  Mine was already here then, by the way, but that’s ok with me.  I wouldn’t want to lord it over you just because we were here first, just like I think anyone from anywhere who wants to become an American ought to be as welcome as your family was at the time.

But the real question is why are you sending me this latest email, where you say you still need to hear from me, when I already took it?

I must admit, though, that at the end of the survey last time, when I clicked the “submit” button, and it sent me to a donation page that asked me for at least $35, up to $2700 or more, and I clicked on the little x up in the corner instead because I wasn’t giving you one red cent nohow, I kinda had the feeling that my survey results were not going to be received without the donation.

That makes me suspect that your survey is fake, that it’s really all about those donations.  I suspect you want me to pay you money to listen to my opinions, and you’re not going to bother if I don’t.

You said at the end of your email: And I want to be able to give an exact number of how many people back each proposal. This is the Art of the Deal!

So please, take my Responsible Immigration Survey by MIDNIGHT TONIGHT.

I’ll make you a deal, ok?  I’m not gonna give you a nickel, but I will wait to hear from you just exactly how many of us responded to this survey of yours, and where you got your numbers.  I’m beginning to suspect you’re gonna pull them out of your ass, just like you did your immigration policies and the rest of your stupid, racist, misogynist ideas.  Worst.  President.  Ever.  Sad!  :-{)}

Childhood memories

Every now and then, as we get older, something triggers a childhood memory and brings back all the joy and pleasure we had attached to that memory all those years ago, which makes us wonder if those joys and pleasures can be found again if we only had one of those things just like back in the good old days.  These thoughts are dangerous, and should be resisted at all costs, lest we be reminded once again that time waits for no one.

And this is not to bring back other childhood memories, such as the time I found myself staring at an electrical outlet with a hairpin in my hand, wondering what that little slot in the plug did, and how deep it was.  Such memories can be shocking and are best left undisturbed.

So it was that I found myself perusing the latest edition of the Duluth Trading Company catalog that arrives all too frequently in our mailbox since they got their hooks into us, and found, deep in the back pages, that they had revived one of my childhood favorites, Roc’Em Soc’Em Robots.  These are two plastic robots about six inches tall that stand forever nose to nose in a plastic ring with their dukes up and a permanent sneer on their spring-loaded ratcheting faces, controlled by two hands on the plungers that slide out from under the ring and work the hands and fists of the belligerent bots.  A direct hit with an uppercut, the only punches these pugilistic paragons can deliver, to the chin of the opposing puncher will pop the head up on its extended neck and signal a victory of some sort, though often the enemy will land the same punch at the same time, leading to a vociferous argument about who struck first, especially if your opponent is your 11-year-old granddaughter who has just beat you for the eighth straight time.

The Duluth Trading Company, for those of you fortunate enough to have avoided their grasping clutch, is a small company in Minnesota who put out a catalog that shows how they are all just a bunch of good ol’ boys and girls from the Country, and all their foreign-made clothing and related stuff is very high quality (and price), just the solution for a problem you didn’t know you had, like Plumber’s pencil holder, or pants like a cheap hotel, with no ballroom.  I will grudgingly admit that I have a drawer or two full of their stuff, which really is pretty good, as does my wife.

In the back of that catalog is always a few pages of interesting tools and handy gadgets, and that’s where I found the robots.  It’s interesting that, in this Amazonian day and age, the robots are one of the few products that Amazon does not carry, probably for the same reason I discovered after I had paid thirty bucks for mine.

Because that is the dirty little secret of many of our childhood memories:  We have the attention span, in cultural terms, of a gnat, and an idea that sounded fabulous when it was first derived quickly loses its flame when exposed to the cold wind of the actual experience.  Roc’Em Soc’Em robots, like Slinkys and Hula Hoops and so many other fads, get boring real fast.  Once you have assembled the kit, which is easy, and admired the simple mechanical mechanism that takes no batteries, needs no oil, but does need an opponent to become something other than an exercise in self-flagellation, you are left waiting for the kid to come home from school, so you can demonstrate the superiority of the good old days once and for all.

Your enthusiasm is almost guaranteed to take a dive after she comes in and sees the new toy, says, “Cool!”, and then proceeds to beat the plastic pants off you with ease.  I should have known.  Today’s children are the second or third generation that has been raised from infancy surrounded by electronic devices, and quickly demonstrate a practiced efficiency with them and an innate understanding of how to make them work that is difficult to grasp for someone who remembers dial telephones with numbers that start with a word.  An eleven-year-old kid already has five or six years of joystick experience, so we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

As for the robots, they are already gathering dust on a shelf while waiting for White Elephant status next Christmas.  Our families started this tradition years ago, where you search around your house for some useless item like a Singing Bass plaque, or the Norwegian Briefcase (a pair of tightey-whiteys with a handle sewn into the waistband), wrap it up in tissue paper (newsprint works), and put it under the tree with the rest of them.  The wrinkle is that, as each “gift” is unwrapped and displayed to much groaning and laughter, the next person in line (you draw numbers) has a choice between one of the still wrapped packages or any of the already revealed items.  The best stuff changes hand several times during the course of the evening, and the loser of the chosen piece gets to pick again, with often hilarious results and comments.  It beats the heck out of Christmas shopping, not to mention the chance to return an idea to the dustbin of memory where it belongs.

So the next time you stumble across a blast from the past, and are handed an opportunity to go there and maybe do that again, think twice, then a third time.  Sometimes those things belong right where you left them, in the past.  :-{)}

Madison Avenue

As I coated my armpits with scented wax this morning, in preparation for a day to be spent mostly puttering about the house, with maybe some interaction with a store clerk later, I found myself thinking about advertising.  Specifically, about the unfortunate side effects of a successful advertising campaign.

Think about it.  What caused many us to do the same thing every morning right after stepping out of a nice cleansing shower (I suppose I must accept the idea that maybe everyone else in the world has caught on by now, and I am the last one, but the size and variety of the deodorant section in any grocery or drug store points out the impetuosity of that logic)?

Has it been thundered down upon us from pulpits across the land:  People, you stink! God wants you to do something about it!?  No. I think not.  Those kingdoms are not of this world, which sorta implies that there are no deodorant counters in the aisles of Heaven, and in Hell, the lack of same could conceivably be part of the punishment.

Has this practice been the result of a long, ordered public process, with committees and hearings and participation, all the things that have in the past resulted in the observation that getting something done in the City is like mating elephants:  It is accomplished at a high level, accompanied by much trumpeting and screaming, and it takes 3 years to see any results (the process is the same at the federal level, but the timelines are extended)?  I don’t think so.  My many years as a bureaucrat and functionary within the belly of that particular beast helped me find my true value to the City, that of making any meeting last 20 minutes longer, and I am sure I would have been notified at some point in that process.  I would have probably written the spec. for the Stink Vote, if not campaigned for its defeat.

I understand the Spanish Conquistadores never bathed, ever, and covered their funk with ever more lavish splashes of scented water or cologne, so maybe there is something to that, some idea that a clever Madison Ave grad seized upon and ran with and brought us to the way things are today.

Probably the issue came to light as more and more people were crowded together in stuffy little offices full of cubicles, with closet sized lunch rooms like on the 52^nd floor of SMT, or gathered in bunches at the local school gymnasium to protest the latest outrage.

But I think the die was cast in the ‘30s by folks like Fred Astaire, who could dance incredibly for 15 minutes at a time, yet not break a sweat in the process.  Ginger Rogers, another one, who did everything Fred did, but did it backwards in high heels, also without breaking a sweat.

But there is a danger in following this line of thought to its presumably logical conclusion.  The question becomes, “If they have convinced the vast majority of us that we smell bad, and that politeness demands that we hide our natural odor to avoid giving offense to our co-workers, thus spawning a multi-billion dollar industry ($18 Billion last year, says the all-knowing Google), what else have they talked us into?

How about mirrors?  Why do we really care about how we look at a given time?  If we’re really ugly that morning, won’t someone tell us?  And we don’t have to look at us, we’re inside these eyes, so isn’t it more important how we feel?  How often to you ask someone, “How do you feel?”, and have them reply, “I feel good, but I look bad.”  So now everyone has mirrors in their houses, with the possible exception of those few who recognize them as the leaks into alternate universes that they really are and keep theirs taped up.  We all know you can’t break ‘em.  And we all spend money on mirrors, and hair brushes, and spray, and coloring, and makeup, and foundation, and skin cream, and facial exercises, and why?  We have to look in the mirror to see if it worked, don’t we?  So if we got rid of the mirrors, wouldn’t that allow us to dump all that other stuff, too?

So what else?  How about clothes in the summertime?  You know there is only so many times you can wear that favorite t-shirt until it begins to sag and stain, especially in the armpits with the wax and all, then it gets all holey and you toss it.  So ask yourself, “Did Adam and Eve wear clothes? No, not at all, at least at first, and then only a fig leaf or three, if you believe the pictures.  And all the history books show that clothing, especially in warm climates, has always been optional, so it follows that Madison Avenue, paid by the companies that make and sell that clothing, has mounted a campaign over the years to make it logical and desireable that we wear clothes all the time, at least out in public.  When we don’t, they take pictures and spread them all over the internet without sharing the royalties with us, even.  I bet they all lost money in the ‘60s…

Any way, I’m climbing back down off this tree stump for now.  My work here is done.  I’ve planted the seed and will sit back and watch it grow and flower into a vast network of right thinking people who reject Madison Avenue and all it stands for, just like kudzu or, with apologies to Frank Herbert, sentient kelp. Just remember, next time you step out of the shower, to ask yourself, “Do I really need this?”   :-{)}

Political Courage

It takes guts…

I guess you have to admire the courage it took for those 52 Republican Senators to vote for the latest Tax Reform Bill.

In the first place, they had to know it was a con game from the start.  They also had to know that the opposition is on to them, and was going to bring the heat every chance they could from now until 2018, yet they went ahead and did it.  It’s like they have to know Trump is about to bite the big one, and they were running out of time.

It seems to be pretty much out in the open that the Koch brothers and other big donors really do get whatever they want from the Republican Party, damn the consequences.

It’s also pretty obvious, and has been pointed out as recently as this morning, by Danny Westneat in the Seattle Times, that the federal budget deficits they have created with this bill will be the excuse they will use in the future to cut Social programs like Medicare and Social Security.  What they’re trying to tell us is that we’ve gotten a little too fat sucking on the public teat, never mind where the money came from, and that things are going to have to tighten up around here.  It’s all coming together according to plan.

So the Republicans have to know a bunch of them are going to lose their jobs in 2018, unless they can somehow focus the attention of the electorate on something else, off to the side, or talk a bunch of people out of bothering to vote.  Look out, Hillary, we’re really gonna come after you this time, and we’re not kidding!

The problem is, when you get their backs against the wall, and it begins to start to look like it’s all going down the toilet, what will they be willing to try to put off the inevitable?

Pull out the Nazi shock troops that are training together all over the country right now and put them on some targets?  Maye some more mass shootings?

How about a nice hot war somewhere new, like Korea?  Maybe Iran, they don’t have nukes yet, we hope.  It doesn’t take much looking to see how many American and Global companies are making a killing these days on arms and armaments, and the related ammunition and parts supply chains.  Gun shops and tactical supply joints are popping up nearly as fast as breweries these days, and the big guns, the planes and ships, the submarines and rockets, those are coming off the assembly lines in precise order, with backlogs in the years.

The fat cats who run those companies make money no matter who wins or loses the war, or who gives up their child in sacrifice to that money, a process that has been going on since the Gilded Age, and today’s Rupert Murdoch is yesterday’s William Randolph Hearst. So a war could be in the offing

I guess you have to hand it to the Republicans this time, all right.  Their strategy seems to be: “Let’s stab the majority of our constituents in the back while we take their money and give it to our patrons, then cover up the mess by throwing huge piles of bullshit on it and see if we get away with it.  Even if we lose our seats, we’ll still have our pensions, of course.  We’re not touching those…”

You’d think it would take a lot of guts to bet the farm like they’ve done here, that if they could invent some high principle upon which they were willing to stake their political futures to achieve, come up with some new words to replace “taking away from the citizens benefits they have bought and paid for all their lives”, they’d be quick to trumpet that.  You’d think so, if you didn’t suspect they were merely acting on orders from above, which also explains what happened.  Either way you look at it, it boils down to two things:  We’re screwed, and they’re toast.  :-{)}