Yes, I Still Squawk About American Politics

My fellow Dems should be hoping and praying that Trump runs again in 2024 (with Ivanka for V.P., you heard it here first).

The young-ish fascist Hawleys and Rubios and Cottons and Cruz's will talk a big game about how Trump is still the head of the party, but when the rubber hits the road in 2023 these authoritarian egomaniacs will wake up and realize that every nomination they don't win puts them four years further away from ever getting the brass ring.

To put it another way, if four years of Biden / Harris isn't enough to convince enough Americans to vote for the Dem over The Disaster in 2024, our party deserves to go die in a dumpster fire anyways.

"one of our best customers"

"'It's the hardest thing for a service like ours to put its finger on, Johnny: the human groundswell before it has stirred, the vox populi before it has spoken.  Look at Iran and the Ayatollah.  Look at Egypt in the run-up to Suez.  Look at the perestroika and the collapse of the evil empire.  Look at Saddam, one of our best customers.  Who saw them coming, Johnny?  Who saw them forming like black clouds upon the horizon?  Not us.  Look at Galtieri and the conflagration in the Falklands, my God.  Again and again, our vast intelligence hammer is able to crack every nut except the one that matters: the human enigma.'  He was pacing at his old speed, matching his footsteps to his bombast.  'But that's what we're cracking now.  This time we can preempt.  We have the bazaars wired.  We know the mood of the mob, its subconscious agenda, its hidden flashpoints.  We can forestall.  We can outwit history.  Ambush her--'

He grabbed his telephone so fast it scarcely had time to ring.  But it was only his wife, asking whether he had yet again put the keys to her car in his pocket before he left for work.  Luxmore tersely acknowledged his crime, rang off, tugged at the skirts of his jacket, and resumed his pacing."

-- John le Carre, The Tailor of Panama

Winners and Losers

So, how am I doing in the wilds of northern Bellingham?

Just fine, I'd say.  Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for Amazon.

"in a dense fog / still playing"

Rest in peace Lawrence Ferlinghetti, having reached the age of 101 (!).  Due to the talent and kindness of two teachers in high school, you were the first poet I ever took seriously, whose words I tried to inhabit.  (If he'd never written a word and only published Howl we'd still owe him a lot.)

From "Autobiography":

"I am a bank of song.

I am a playerpiano

in an abandoned casino

on a seaside esplanade

in a dense fog

still playing.

I see a similarity

between the Laughing Woman

and myself.

I have heard the sound of summer

in the rain.

I have seen girls on boardwalks

have complicated sensations.

I understand their hesitations.

I am a gatherer of fruit.

I have seen how kisses

cause euphoria.

I have risked enchantment.

I have seen the Virgin

in an appletree at Chartres

and Saint Joan burn

at the Bella Union.

I have seen giraffes in junglejims

their necks like love

wound around the iron circumstances

of the world."

"continuous conceptual drunkenness"

"But no.  That was analogy rather than homology.  What in the humanities they would call a heroic simile, if he understood the term, or a metaphor, or some other kind of literary analogy.  And analogies were mostly meaningless -- a matter of phenotype rather than genotype (to use another analogy).  Most of poetry and literature, really all the humanities, not to mention the social sciences, were phenotypic as far as Sax could tell.  They added up to a huge compendium of meaningless analogies, which did not help to explain things, but only distorted perception of them.  A kind of continuous conceptual drunkenness, one might say.  Sax himself much preferred exactitude and explanatory power, and why not?  If it was 200 Kelvin outside why not say so, rather than talk about witches' tits and the like, hauling the whole great baggage of the ignorant past along to obscure every encounter with sensory reality?  It was absurd."

-- Kim Stanley Robinson, Green Mars

Is This For Real?

My dad is no dummy, but he is pretty old and hard of hearing.  More bluntly, he simply doesn't enjoy being on the phone, let alone having to give out information.

However, on a daily basis he gets at least two robo-calls using very obvious tricks -- a long pause after answering is a giveaway -- from various grifters and assholes.

Honestly, how is any of this shit legal?  From being straight-up asked for a credit card number by "The Geek Squad" (my dad doesn't even own his own computer) to more involved scams regarding "cash for your household" I guess I have some time now to investigate this stuff, or at least get him onto a no-call list.

And if you have an older relative, you know that even Caller ID doesn't solve all the problems.  Practically, it means he doesn't pick up when my sister or his niece calls.

And that's your senior citizen protection lament for today.

Trying to rip off the elderly -- how low can you get?

Update: You can go to www.donotcall.gov to enroll or make sure you're enrolled on the national do not call list.  It apparently takes a month to kick in.

Also, 888-567-8688 allows you to tell direct marketing companies not to send you junk mail.  I'll give it a shot on Monday since it's 8 p.m. Friday night so time to get in bed with a book and read until 10 then go to sleep.

(Have I mentioned I'm getting up at 6 a.m. every morning these days?)

Where I'm At

Bellingham, Washington.

I've been back in America now, deep in the woods north of Bellingham, Washington, for over two weeks.  Over St. Valentine's Day weekend we got hit with about 10 inches of snow.  Me and the old man hunkered down and did just fine in the end.

He lives on a private road, and trees falling are always a potential problem.  As far as I can tell though, power and phone lines have been installed underground.  (This wasn't the case when he first moved out here in the 90's.)  Everyone out here seems to have a satellite dish for T.V., and they run water off of private wells, so chalk up another victory for Rugged Individualism.  Or subcontractors.

This is basically my morning walk for what it's worth, and my afternoon walk as well if I'm feeling sassy.

Re-Learning America

Just utilized "snow shoveling" muscles I haven't used in over a decade.

Plz send lower back massages, beer.

— James, Who Maybe Lives in Twin Peaks (@wetcasements) February 14, 2021

"There you go, I've softened 'em up for you"

“I was standing side-stage with Pete Thomas. Around the time that the band [Bob Dylan and co.] went from 'The Levee’s Gonna Break' into 'Tangled Up in Blue,' I leaned into Pete and said, “We’re in trouble here. We’ve got to follow this. We’d better open with something they recognize or we’ll be playing to an empty tent.”

The great Dylan songs rolled out one after another: 'High Water (For Charley Patton),' 'A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,' 'Simple Twist of Fate,' 'Highway 61 Revisited,' 'Ballad of a Thin Man' . . .

The tent was stifling in the late antipodean summer, and I stepped out onto the loading ramp as Bob and his band hit the encore of 'L'ke a Rolling Stone' followed by 'Forever Young.”

I could hear just fine from there and a faint breeze was welcome.

I was still sitting on a flight case listening to the baying of the Byron Bay crowd as the DJ put on some music to signal the changeover.

The silhouette of a gunslinger was heading in my direction with a skip and a shuffle under his big, wide-brimmed hat.

'There you go, I’ve softened ’em up for you,' he said, as he passed on.”

-- Elvis Costello, Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink

I'd say music biographies / autobiographies are my second favorite literary genre after straight-up novels these days.  Unfortunately, E.C.'s memoir really didn't do it for me.  It's long -- good god, it's long -- and flies through the eras (late 70s, 90s revival) that I really wanted to know more about.  Then again, maybe I'm just way too into his Attractions stuff, and haven't ever given the solo and solo-er stuff more attention.

I mean, keeping up the lyrical genius of "you make him sound like frozen food, his love will last forever" over 600 pages is asking too much even of Dylan.  (Speaking of music bios I have yet to read....)

Playing It By Ear

The Pixies, "Winterlong"

So I've survived my first ten days back in Bellingham.  It's actually very cold, with a few dustings of snow.

Today we got internet installed.  If you knew anything about my soon-to-be 92 year-old Dad you'd realize this was quite a milestone.

Anyhow, I'm learning to cook his favorite meals and make his coffee and bullion the right way, watching some FOX News (!) and the occasional NBA game.  I also got my Washington State driver's license, passing both the written and driving tests despite not operating a vehicle in over a decade.  (Stressful!)  I'm also taking long walks despite the freezing weather.

Things are fine.  I promise to get some pictures up soon.  (Which reminds me, I probably need to buy a new smartphone.)

Watched the Super Bowl with the old man -- will nobody rid me of this meddlesome Tom Brady?

Transition

I made it to Bellingham.

It's cold and wet.

The clouds did part and I saw Mount Baker for about 10 minutes.

Things are fine.  Haven't even unpacked yet to be honest.