End of the Year Onion

“Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.” Octavia Butler

I haven’t written that frequently here as I have in years past. I think I’m tired of talking to myself, tired of my own preoccupations and fears, and if I’m tired, why would any person stumbling upon Shouts from the Balcony on the Internet want to read what I’ve written, about any subject under the sun? 

Who am I? Not a simple question because most of us are like onions, which is why the onion is a useful metaphor for pondering the complexity of most people. Ironically, in my current occupation as a part-time member of the Housekeeping team at Whole Foods Market, onions, and more precisely, onion skins, are a nuisance, which can be found all over the store. Not the messiest vegetable, but certainly the best traveled. 

There’s a difference between having something to say, something beyond the ordinary, and just being a wanker with some technical skill, shouting into the void, hardly different from a street corner preacher haranguing a congregation of broken bottles, orange rinds, cigarette butts and birdshit stains. 

That’s why I gave myself a limit of 1,000 posts or 20 years, whichever comes first, and then I must stop this nonsense. This blog is like a diary. I suppose you can say it’s one of my onion skins, but there is more to me than what I’ve represented in these postings. I tend to ruminate about things that are more remote from my day to day experience, rather than describe what I had for breakfast, how I take my coffee, or what my wife and I argue about. I wander, mostly in the political and historical realm, with some sports mixed in from time to time. I used to write some about baseball, the New York Yankees, who I followed closely for almost a decade, but I completely lost interest in baseball as the Yanks phenomenal core players (Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, etc) aged out of the game, and then I got hooked on football, or soccer as some call it. What captivated me was the World Cup of 2010, played in South Africa. Something between the game and my brain clicked, and I was hooked and remain so. I’m by no means a historical or statistical encyclopedia, but I find the information I need, and I watch matches every week, Chelsea Football Club of England’s Premier League. I also watch Serie A, the Italian top flight, and loosely follow a number of clubs -- Juventas, Napoli, Roma, and lately, Lazio, AC and Inter Milan. I follow the Champions League. I spend a lot of time now on football because it fascinates me. That you can gather these athletes from all over the world, and see what they collectively bring to this very difficult, technical, and physically demanding game is to me supreme in the world of sports. I don’t watch anything else. American football and basketball don’t interest me, though when I was between the ages of eight and fourteen, I liked basketball, followed the Lakers and Celtics in the Bill Russell-Jerry West era, and was a decent ball handler and passer, but I was always too small. In the modern game, the players seem too large and the court too small, and there are simply too many stops and starts, time-outs, commercials for beer and cars and travel and phone service. 

I read a lot and write reviews for the California Review of Books for which I am paid nothing. I like history, philosophy, politics, novels, and memoirs of literary figures. I read periodicals, The Nation, Mother Jones, and the New York Review of Books; the podcast I listen to most regularly is Background Briefing. 

As I said, this is boring shit. There’s no sex, mayhem, murder, or tragedy, very little humor, more than enough snark, some good use of quotations from people I admire. I was very active in a labor union when I worked in public service for the school district. When I joined the management ranks I became a cog in a bureaucracy; though I was often bored and restless and felt the work I did was meaningless, I like the idea of public service and believe in a large public sector. The maintenance and care of public or common goods is tricky and difficult, but worthwhile, I believe. I like public libraries and parks, museums, schools, hospitals, smooth roads and clean water, and baseline services for the needy. 

In 1977 I enlisted in the Air Force and spent five years in Japan. Seems like it all happened to someone else. What strikes me all these years later was how ignorant I was of American history. I read a lot, but I was pretty dumb and swallowed most American mythology, which is why I voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980. I was only four when JFK was assassinated, but remember looking at black and white photographs from that day, and watching the Watts Riots on television, understanding none of the context, being too young, but I realize I got the standard indoctrination about Black people; meaning, primarily, that they are different and scary, prone to violence and criminality. It wasn’t always overt in the household or neighborhood I grew up in, but casual racial bigotry was always present. We learn a lot through absorption, proximity, and then we have to unlearn through direct experience or by travel, reading and study. 

I have come to the conclusion that, by and large, white Americans love Black culture but hate Black people. 

I got married for the second time in 1992 (still married!) and earned my BA in 1995. It took seven years, but I wanted to be the first person in my working-class family to graduate college. I consider myself a fairly typical liberal arts major. 

I like different kinds of music, but again, I’m not the type who can name members of a band or knows the lyrics to every song. Lately I’ve been listening to Curtis Mayfield, John Coltrane and Ludovico Einaudi. 

I lean heavily toward atheism, drink wine, beer, whisky, gin (not at the same time) and smoke pot from time to time, but never on the days I work. I worry about climate change and this country’s never-ending nightmare of gun violence. I’m demonstrative with my children and laugh a lot with my wife. My physical health is very good for a man of 63, but I now understand how performing a routine repetitive job, over the course of many years, can be disabling. 

I like to think that over the course of my life I’ve done more good deeds than bad ones. 

Argentina Wins the World Cup

 “This World Cup arrived courtesy of Western commercial capital and FIFA. The blood stains their hands as well.” Jules Boykoff and Dave Zirin, The Nation 

Super Bowl games and heavyweight title fights don’t always live up to their hype. Not so the 2022 World Cup Final between Argentina and France. The last match of a tournament that saw upsets in the group stages, late goals, penalty shootouts, Croatia knocking Brazil out, and Morocco making an improbable run to the Semi Finals, delivered, and then some. 

It was the best this beautiful, worldwide sport has to offer. The devotion and passion of fans along with the grit and skill of the players. The drama. The twists and turns and heart-stopping suspense, wild swings of emotion, from joy to despair in a matter of seconds. No other sport comes close. It’s what sets football apart.

For 75 minutes, Argentina completely outplayed France, dominating  the midfield, winning almost every duel, pouncing on every loose ball, and defending with an intensity that left France struggling to cope. It was a clinic of tactics and execution. A penalty from Lionel Messi and a stunning team goal on a counter-attack saw Argentina with what looked like a comfortable two goal advantage with fifteen minutes to play.

What happened thereafter will go down in World Cup history. After Kylian Mbappe converted a penalty everything changed for France. The players’ body language was revived as if all of them had received an injection of adrenalin. Within 90 seconds, Mbappe struck again with a bit of incredible individual skill and the match was suddenly tied at two goals apiece. Now it was Argentina’s turn to look dazed. This was a scenario they had seen in the Quarterfinals against the Netherlands, when a comfortable two goal lead vanished in ten minutes; that time Argentina escaped, winning a penalty shootout, but this was the Final against the defending champions. 

Near the end of the first period of extra time, Lionel Messi scored, and it looked like it might be enough to pull Argentina over the line for the first time since 1986. But in the second period Mbappe converted another penalty, giving him a hat trick and pulling France level. 3-3. 

Penalty shootouts are nerve wracking, gut wrenching affairs, full of psychology and mind games, and sometimes even the best penalty takers falter. Look what happened to Harry Kane when England and France tangled in the Quarterfinals. I thought Argentina would have an advantage because France’s goalkeeper, Hugo Lloris, isn’t known as a great penalty stopper, unlike Argentina’s keeper, Emiliano Martinez. Sure enough, France came out on the losing end, 4-2.

France gave everything. Making it to the final of the World Cup two tournaments in a row is a feat of which the French can, and should, be proud. 

But it’s impossible not to feel happy for Argentina and Lionel Messi. The country has faced tough economic times the past several years. For Messi, bringing the World Cup trophy home completes his set of football achievements. The diminutive magician has won everything, individually, and for club and country. As far as I’m concerned, Messi is the greatest player of the modern era. 

This World Cup was phenomenal, but while I loved the matches I can’t forget the enormous human cost; thousands of workers died building the facilities and infrastructure. According to Jules Boykoff and Dave Zirin, the financial cost landed in the neighborhood of $220 billion. Writing in the Nation Boykoff and Zirin observe:

“So why did Qatar do it? This World Cup shows that authoritarian, unchecked power can launder surplus capital—the mega-event reportedly cost some $220 billion—into reputational capital. “

One of the commercials on the Fox network boasted about Qatar’s progress and modernization, and its integration with Western institutions, including the US military. That seems a dubious endorsement. Suffice to say that a tremendous amount of money was spent, made, and splashed around. Now that Qatar has all these beautiful facilities, what will it do with them? 

Heavyweights

It comes down to two of world football’s heavyweights, France and Argentina. When the World Cup tournament started I had three teams, basically my sentimental favorites. France, because my favorite player is N’golo Kante; Croatia, because I love watching Luka Modric command the midfield; and Belgium, because of Eden Hazard and Kevin DeBruyne, both of whom played for Chelsea at one time. Belgium looked old and tired and didn’t make it out of the group stage; Croatia were defeated by Lionel Messi and Argentina, though I think Croatia deserves lots of credit and praise for making it to the Final in 2018 and the Semi-Final in 2022. How does tiny Croatia consistently produce so many footballers of the highest quality, who play in all of Europe’s top divisions? The country is a football factory. 

France is missing three key players, Karim Benzema, N’golo Kante, and Paul Pogba. Benzema is a big absence because he’s a big game player and always a scoring threat, Kante a midfield giant when healthy and in form, and Pogba is an athletic midfielder who can join in the attack and provides good passing range. Despite missing these players, the French have reached the Final for the second World Cup in a row. It’s still a very good team, an experienced team. If Adrien Rabiot is fit I will feel good about France’s chance to repeat. 

Argentina has Messi. What more needs to be said? Messi is the ultimate X-factor and this tournament has an air of destiny about it. I can’t explain it other than to say it’s like Lionel Messi is going to get his ultimate prize, no matter what France does. Messi is likely to produce a moment of sheer genius. He’s hard to contain for 90 minutes, and he only needs one opportunity to beat you. 

Messi also has quality players around him, and Argentia are a cohesive unit. They have displayed more solidity than flair, overall, which is how World Cups are won. It’s hard to bet against Argentina. In football, time is an implacable enemy, and this Final is surely Messi’s last chance to add a World Cup to his legendary list of accomplishments. In these circumstances, I give the little magician the edge against a French defense that has seemed vulnerable at times. 

No disrespect to Kylian Mbappe. Like Messi he could easily come up with one moment of magic.

Which side will control the midfield? Which side will take its chances? The French have been very clinical in front of goal. Can they do so again? 

I can’t wait until Sunday. It’s going to be a joy. 

Wandering Mind

I have a couple of days off from the Market and my body needs it. As the calendar year comes to an end I find myself bothered by nagging injuries; torn rotator cuff muscle in my left shoulder; pain in my right thumb; minor nerve damage in the balls of both feet; and there’s something creaky about my neck, a stabbing pain if I turn my head at a certain angle. This neck pain really bothers me when I ride my bike. I walked 27 miles over my last two shifts at the Market. This afternoon I had a training session in my home gym, and then took a fast walk up the hill to Franceschi Park. The recent rainfall was a boon, and the ground beneath the trees is still damp. The view was magnificent, visibility to the Channel Islands, clear blue sky, and a slight breeze moving through the Eucalyptus trees. 

As I walk my mind skips from topic to topic: rising rents and the continuing gentrification of State Street in Santa Barbara; how many more years I might be able to work at the tempo I work at now; where my wife and I will ultimately live, it can’t be our hometown. We’re on the road to being priced out as so many have been in the real estate madness and cruelty that prevails, not just in SB, but all over the country; my son and daughter will both be home for Christmas, and I’m looking forward to seeing them; my grown children are hilarious individually and brutally so together; the way MBS of Saudi Arabia toys with the Biden Administration is a clear sign of waning US influence. The US is no longer able to call all the shots. Why is the US in this unbreakable marriage with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? Oil is part of it. American military installations and arms sales are the other. It’s an unholy alliance that has gone on for far too long. Never let anyone tell you that the military industry doesn’t get what it wants, it always does. There’s no empire without it. Maybe in their lifetimes my kids will witness the dismantling of the American empire, the rolling up and shutting down of the massive worldwide network of bases and outposts and installations, which even a fraction of the annual cost could fund health care for all, housing and food security, clean water, education and climate mitigation.

And I think about the World Cup Quarter Finals. 

Eight teams left. Croatia, Brazil, Netherlands, Argentina, Morocco, Portugal, England and France.

Brazil is a ridiculously talented and deep squad, their football is creative, expressive, and athletic. Many Brazilians play in the Premier League and in Europe’s Top Five leagues. Loads of swagger, too. Croatia is scrappy, as we saw in 2018, led by 37-year-old maestro Luka Modric (I love watching Modric control the tempo and pass the ball, he’s brilliant), but they have talented players in nearly every position. Maybe a little weak up front, but sturdy in defense and their midfield is solid with Kovacic and Brozovic. Croatia will need a massive team performance to have any chance. However, I expect Brazil to prevail by a 2-nil margin. I’m sure the Netherlands will have a tactical plan for Argentina, and I expect this one to be tight. Low score, a 1-nil to Argentina in extra time? 

Every World Cup there’s a sleeper team that surprises everyone. In 2022 that team is Morocco, the only African team to earn a berth in the quarterfinals. I like Morocco very much and admire their unity and spirit; I won’t count them out. Portugal is a team with a chance to win it all, sneaking through the backdoor like they did in the Euros in 2016. A talented team, pretty stingy, and full of creative attacking talent, Bruno Fernandes, Bernardo Silva, Joao Felix and the youngster who scored a hattrick and tallied an assist in the blowout of Switzerland. In my opinion, Portugal is a better team without Ronaldo in the starting eleven. It would be incredible if Morocco finds a way through, but I expect Portugal’s experience will make the difference. The match I am most looking forward to is England-France. In Kylian Mbappe France has the ultimate impact player, but England is solid, with attacking options of their own. For England to win, Kyle Walker must have an impactful game. This one is hard to call. I think goals will be scored, and the final score might be 3-2, either way. Curious to see how England approach the match tactically. 

Our luck is holding, everyone is healthy, we have a nice roof overhead, walls around us, a lovely bed to sleep in, running water and heat, food and drink, books on shelves. Nothing is ordinary, almost everything sacred when you get down to it. My wife is still in the process of grieving her sister who died almost a month ago. Today I spoke to my 88-year-old mother, who told me about how much fruit she eats every day, and the cherries she bought at Whole Foods. The women on my mother’s side of the family live long lives, deep into their 90’s, with all their faculties intact. Stubborn French-Canadian stock, immigrants, mill workers. My maternal grandfather never drove a car. 

A Funny Old Game

 

“The net was the bridal veil of an irresistible girl. In front of the open goal he licked his chops. And in one fell swoop he stood naked, then bit.” Eduardo Galeano, Soccer in Sun and Shadow

I’m not writing much these days because of the World Cup. For more than a decade I’ve supported Chelsea in the Premier League, rarely missing a match, while also watching as many Italian Serie A matches as I can. Like many football fans, I found FIFA’s award of the tournament to Qatar bizarre and upsetting. First and foremost because of Qatar’s dismal human rights record, and second because of the human cost of building the infrastructure the tournament requires. One report I read claimed that nearly 6,500 workers died in the decade-long effort, most of them poor laborers from India and Nepal. Stadiums, training facilities, hotels, media centers, roads, all financed by some of the richest people in the world, but constructed by some of the poorest and most disposable. 

Holding the World Cup in November and December fouled up the schedules of all the major European soccer leagues, forcing compression of domestic and Champions League fixtures which undoubtedly led to injuries for players lacing up their boots every three days. Chelsea, for example, has been riddled with injuries and is so far having a forgettable campaign. 

Living in the US forces me to watch the tournament on FOX Sports, which means an unrelenting diet of adverts, news, fluff and jingoistic commentary about the US team, which prior to this tournament was ranked 16th in the world by FIFA. Call me jaded, but I simply don’t give a rat’s ass about the US team. Other than Christian Pulisic who for now plays his club football for Chelsea, and Weston McKennie of Juventas, I’m not that familiar with US players. But when it comes to US men’s soccer, and FOX Sports, Christian Pulisic is nearly a god, Captain America with superpowers in his boots and brain. This reputation is laughable for any Chelsea supporter who has watched Pulisic for the past four seasons. Yes, the young American has had moments -- against Liverpool and Manchester City in the Premier League -- but his highlight reel is brief. The physically slight Pulisic has often been injured, and unlike with the American national team, isn’t an automatic first name on the Chelsea team sheet. I’ve watched him get bundled off the ball by Premier League defenders, fail to convert clear chances in front of goal, and make the wrong decision in the final third more times than I care to remember. So, I’m not a big Pulisic fan; yes, he’s talented and still young, but in my estimation will never be a consistent top player in the physically demanding and very fast Premier League. I think Weston McKennie is a better overall talent, but McKennie doesn’t get the media hype. 

Making it out of the group stage isn’t a sure thing -- just ask Germany or Belgium or Mexico -- so I give the US credit for advancing to the knockout stage, although they got a gift from England in their head-to-head match when the Three Lions played flat, boring, and slow football. With all the attacking talent on its roster, the likes of Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford, Phil Foden, Raheem Sterling, and Jack Grealish, England managed only one or two shots on target. It was dismal, like watching Chelsea flail about. England, ranked number 5 by FIFA, didn’t appear to be playing to win. The usefulness of the FIFA rankings is suspect anyway because when the tournament began Belgium was ranked 2nd, behind Brazil, which is hysterical. Belgium were soundly beaten by an inspired Moroccan team, and their core players -- the so-called Golden Generation -- looked old and slow. Eden Hazard is a shadow of his former self after two injury-plagued seasons at Real Madrid. Belgium are due for a rebuilding period. 

The World Cup usually provides a twist or two, like Saudi Arabia beating Argentina and Japan topping Germany and Tunisia defeating France. Upsets are what make the tournament interesting and dramatic. Who would have picked Australia to advance to the last 16? 

I'm neutral in this World Cup, interested in watching competitive matches, but I do have a soft spot for France, Croatia, and Portugal. By the depth of its roster, and sheer talent, I think Brazil is the odds on favorite, even without Neymar, but as the saying goes, football is a funny old game. Anything can happen.  

Mueller Redux?

 “Never forget that under a totalitarian system cruelty and absurdity go hand in hand.” Ai Weiwei

I haven’t been writing much on the blog lately, focusing instead on pieces for my Medium and Substack pages, as well as book reviews for the California Review of Books. I began the Balcony in 2004, during the reign of the faux cowboy, George W. Bush. I’ve decided to hang it up after 20 years or 1,000 posts, whichever comes first. This is post No. 961.

We had a death in our family, my wife’s sister, Nancy, who was 63 when she passed away from complications of heart trouble and diabetes on November 15. Nancy and I were in the San Marcos High class of 1977. That feels like a million years ago to me, and I barely remember it. I knew of Nancy in high school, but had never met her until I began dating Terry. Like most people, Nancy was complicated, a bundle of conflicting impulses and emotions, likes and dislikes. She was a massive fan of Rod Stewart’s music and saw the singer in concert more than 100 times, often traveling long distances; she also loved the Beatles and knew the lyrics of many songs by heart. Her last couple of years were shot through with health issues, the inevitable complications of diabetes. Nearly legally blind, deaf in one ear, survivor of open heart surgery and kidney failure, which made thrice-weekly dialysis sessions mandatory. Still, despite it all, Nancy somehow -- and I honestly don’t know how -- managed to remain hopeful that she might one day regain a measure of independence. When she drew her last breath she was flanked by people who loved her for who she was. 

On the American political front…the Democrats beat mid-term expectations by retaining the Senate, but they lost the House by a slender margin, which will make Kevin McCarthy’s speakership a living nightmare as he attempts to temper the flamethrowers and nitwits in his caucus. In the short run, McCarthy will strut around like a peacock, preening and applauding himself for finally grabbing the gavel he has salivated after for years. He’s an empty and immoral man, devoid of soul. 

I have never been a Nancy Pelosi fan. I always perceived Pelosi as a prime example of what ails the Democratic Party; too concerned with being solicitous to corporations and the wealthy at the expense of working people, wage earners; unwilling to take concrete action on climate change; and blindly supportive of the money-sucking American War Machine. Having said that, I respect her skill and her effectiveness in the Speaker’s chair, and how she conducted herself on January 6; she remained calm and cool as Trump’s MAGA horde broke windows and beat on the walls. She is a competent and formidable woman and her tenure as Speaker will go down as one of the more effective in American history. 

So, nearly two years after the Trump-inspired attack on the Capitol, Merrick Garland has appointed a Special Counsel in the person of Jack Smith, a career DOJ prosecutor said to be smart, experienced, aggressive, able not only to run complex investigations but also bring indictments and prosecute cases. That’s Smith’s reputation, in any case, but we’re talking about Donald Trump, one of the more slippery criminals to come along in a very long time, who has proven time and again that he stands above the law. Part of me wonders why the DOJ doesn’t simply indict Trump directly, without the additional layer of a Special Counsel. My sense is that Garland would rather walk a mile-long trail of broken glass in his bare feet than bring an indictment. My fear is that we’re in for Mueller Redux, a multi-year investigation that snares a few low-level miscreants but spares the true culprits. No matter how skilled Jack Smith is, or how strong a case he might make, when it comes to a charging decision it’s still Garland’s call. The Mueller Report sits on a shelf now, gathering dust, and it wouldn’t surprise me if in a couple of years a voluminous, multi-volume Smith Report joins it. That’s how these things tend to go because the political class is incapable of investigating and holding itself accountable. 

Legal accountability is for the poor, the lawyer-less masses. 

Our best hope of punishing Trump for his crimes rests with Black women in Georgia and New York. White men can’t be trusted to get the job done. They talk in circles, render the obvious opaque and the simple complex. 

Undercurrents

Making up the blues
Holding back schools
Lot of greed, lot of temptation
Proof of one thing, we're a hell of a nation

Willie Wright, "Right on For The Darkness"

Time feels slightly disorienting, even though I’m doing my best to slow down and enjoy it like I should. Perhaps it’s because I perceive the sense of looming cataclysm, political, financial, geopolitical, or all three simultaneously. Who can say with any certainty that Putin won’t go nuclear in Ukraine? That’s one of those more distant worries, sort of like the fate of the ancient and decrepit nuclear reactors in Hanford, Washington, where material for the first atomic bomb we dropped on the civilian population of Japan was produced. Evidence of poor maintenance, leaks, and shoddy oversight by the US Department of Energy, all covered in a new book by Joshua Frank called Atomic Days. That’s closer to home, but closer still is the 23% decline in the value of our IRA. The US federal reserve seems to only have one single blunt tool at hand, raising interest rates to suffocate inflation. Many unseen hands in this one, bankers, hedge fund managers, huge pension funds like Cal-PERS (my pension fund), all beyond my control. Climate change, the availability of water, is a constant undercurrent to our lives, though often easy to ignore. 

In many ways it seems a cataclysm of Stupidity and Greed and Cruelty, dating back to the 2000 election, an election that was actually stolen, thanks to GOP judicial operatives like John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, and culminating today, with the former president acting everything but disgraced by two impeachments and the incitement of an armed attack on the seat of the legislative branch, an attempt at government by thuggery, as he continues to push his election lies, grift his gullible supporters, feed his durable base a torrent of lies and nonsense fables, and shop the state secrets he stole from the legitimate government to interested parties, possibly including Vladimir Putin. The possibilities are boggling, but again, far beyond my tiny sphere of influence. Purity tests took hold in the GOP under Newt Gingrich in the 1990’s, when Gingrich figured out how to weaponize obstinance and unyielding partisan opposition to actual governing. Party over country, raw power the sole objective. Rigid party discipline was built over the decades, and with the advent of the social disease that is social media (yes, I’m aware of the irony of a blogger who uses social media criticizing that very medium), but it has changed the game of politics, and not in a good way, putting performance over sense-making, the more batshit and outrageous and insulting the better. Get it trending and on FOX News. Repetition, like water on stone, will eventually make the truth give way. What’s true today? What’s a fact? 

The ire and outrage and sense of entitlement represented by extremists on the political right ring with echoes of the 1850’s, when this country was squaring off for separation and divorce, bitterness and hatred flowing fast, reason taking an elbow from emotion, fear on the rise, violence in the rhetoric of politicians and talking heads. Trump was the ultimate loyalty test, and he bluffed and bullied the GOP into submission. His Word had to be echoed without criticism, defended with personal attacks, invective and counter-accusations. Trump is a master of this authoritarian technique, he does it like judo, by muscle memory. I despise the man, but credit where it is warranted. 

Among the books on my tables these days is American Midnight by the historian Adam Hochschild. His canvas is World War I, with a primary focus on what America’s entry into the war meant on the domestic front at a time of widespread labor strife and violence, agitation from unions, socialists and anarchists for more fairness in a highly unequal economic arrangement. This is the authoritarian era the modern GOP wishes to return to, with everything it values -- racial animosity, vigilante groups, citizens spying on each other, cruelty against immigrants, women fighting for full citizenship, and intolerance of dissent -- in play.  This was the era that birthed the Espionage Act (still in force today) and the Volstead Act, which ushered in the nutty idea of Prohibition. Dumb ideas have the unfortunate habit of also being cruel, and they tend to proliferate. Ban books, forbid the teaching of history, demand that public schools emphasis “patriotic” education, outlaw abortion, slam the border shut. Another similarity -- it was an age with a global pandemic, then, the misleadingly named Spanish Flu, and today, Covid. Deliberate misinformation about both was disseminated widely to the public. 

Speaking of dumb ideas, look at what’s happening in the UK, post-Brexit. The people of Britain were sold a phony bill of goods that harkened back to the glory years of the empire, when Britain was a major global power. The Conservative party in the UK is as devoid of ideas as the GOP in this country. 

Cock's-Eye View

“In exactly this way, history is overwritten and redacted, cherry-picked and edited to glorify those with power and to silence those without.” Kali Holloway, The Nation

I’ve remained silent long enough, held back through the madness of these past six years; the tea I have to spill will make me the most famous cock in history, my story matters and it’s about time someone listens to me, after all, I’ve been dangling for more than seven decades between the legs of a Man-Child, forced now to spend my days enveloped in the thick moist padding of his Man-diaper while he wages legal war on multiple fronts and endless war on the Truth. Oh yes, my master, the 45th President of the United States, suffers from incontinence and flatulence, and often shits himself. From time to time he takes me out for exercise, but only after he pops Viagra, because without that magic pill he can’t get or sustain an erection. Despite his endless boasting and bragging about the legions of beautiful women who have experienced his/my prowess and size and girth, the fact is that I’m of average size and heft, nothing all that remarkable, though I suppose I appear massive in his tiny hand. Melania hasn’t touched me in years, and when Stormy fondled me I detected mirth in her fingertips. Now that I’m thinking about it, the last time Melania saw me she pointed and laughed derisively and said she gets more pleasure from her pinky finger. You can imagine how that went over with Man-Child. Threw an entire bucket of KFC on the carpet. When he starts throwing food you know he’s really angry…

Trust me when I tell you that nights at Mar-A-Lago are long. 

I’m trapped down here as Prometheus was on his mountainside, forced to endure endless hours of the Man-Child’s bitching and whining, his lies, boasts -- greatest this, best ever at that, so rich, a perfect physical specimen (this one makes me giggle) -- and constant need for attention and adoration and praise and reassurance. Frankly, it’s exhausting and nauseating. Why so many people in this country fell -- and continue to fall -- for this man’s nonsense only proves that the average man’s cock is smarter than the man the cock is affixed to. I can’t speak for women, except to marvel at those of you who refuse to acknowledge that Man-Child is a pig and misogynist. Are you blind or what? Be honest -- would you allow your teenage daughter to be in a room alone with him? 

I’m shocked at the stupidity of people, in particular people with elite educations, law degrees, every possible credential, and how they continually get Man-Child dead wrong. Why wasn’t it obvious to all of you that Man-Child was never, ever, going to accept the results of the election if he lost? He told you as much more than a year in advance -- the election was fair if he won and rigged if he lost, his usual heads-I-win-tails-you-lose gambit…had he lost by twenty million votes he still would have declared victory and fraud. How many court challenges did he lose, 62 out of 63, a legal smack-down by any measurement, yet he’s got almost the entire Republican Party and millions of people believing his Big Lie. America is certainly Numero Uno in Dumbness. Long live Idiocy!

I’ll let you in on something else that should be obvious: January 6, 2021 was the best, most fulfilling day of Man-Child’s otherwise misbegotten life. I’m serious. Even the birth of his children pales against the high he felt that January day, and I should know because when he saw all those people with their flags and buttons and hats, he/I became fully erect and stayed at attention for a long time, an impressive feat of endurance in my humble opinion. My veins popped and my head turned purple and my nuts twitched, and the only other time this happens is when he fantasizes about Ivanka. Man-Child couldn’t take his eyes away from the TV, he kept saying, “Look at that crowd, that big, beautiful crowd. They love me, they love me.” I remember that a steady stream of people, including Ivanka, who reminds me of one of those robots on Westworld, begged Man-Child to do something, get on TV, order his supporters to stand down and go home. That was like asking Satan to douse the fires of Hell. Jared lurked nearby, too (now there’s a real prick, though between Jared and Mark Meadows it’s a toss up). I know Man-Child is reported to have demanded that he be driven to the Capitol because he wanted to march with his people, but keep in mind one thing about Man-Child: he’s a physical coward, a honest-to-God pussy. Yeah, he talks tough, like a mob boss, but he’s always the first to cut and run when the shit gets real. He ducked the draft, remember? 

You’re not convinced, I see that, you want to believe in the myth, no matter how perverse, maybe you enjoy the spectacle, the chaos created by this supposedly wealthy man who is always asking others for money, the strong man who habitually paints himself as the victim, the tax cheat who trades on his claims of being a genius businessman, the anti-Semite who boasts about being as ethical as a rabbi. Still don’t get the picture? Then you should know that he despises you, all of you, in your red-hats and garish t-shirts, but for now you remain useful to him as props in his reality show. A day will come when he no longer needs you, and won’t you feel stupid then? Who likes to be scammed, conned, tricked, manipulated, used and discarded? Man-Child treats people the same way he treats condoms. Mark the words of this humble old cock! Save your mortal soul before it’s too late. 

Fear of Flying

 “Every creature is made up of both ugliness and beauty, and must be granted the time to manifest in all aspects.” Italo Svevo, A Very Old Man

Traveling by air in the US sucks -- unless one has the money to fly first class. If you sit with the paupers in coach, as I do, it all feels like one continuous rip-off. Cramped seats, endless exhortations to sign-up for the airlines’ credit card, WiFi that should be complimentary but isn’t, limited overhead storage, exacerbated by baggage fees that force passengers to carry their luggage onboard. Paupers board last, after the passengers who need assistance, those with small children, active duty military (our knee-jerk, thank-you-for-your-service obeisance), Platinum, Silver, Gold, or Bronze club members, and, of course, the elite in First Class. By the time paupers reach their seats all nearby overhead storage is invariably taken, which means you have to stow your luggage in a bin in a row behind you, a real problem if you have limited time to make a connecting flight. Good luck retrieving your bag once the plane lands, stops, and the scrum to exit begins; you might as well try to swim against a tidal wave. All you can do is sit and wait, while the minutes slip past and your chance of making your connecting flight fades. 

Then there’s TSA, that lovely gift from 9/11 and the War on Terror, still part of our lives two decades later. What I most hate about TSA is the inconsistency, and I’ll give you an example. On Saturday at the Portland airport, I was required to remove my shoes and place my Kindle in its own bin; on Sunday, at the same airport, I was ordered to leave my shoes on and keep all my electronic devices in my bag. Is the inconsistency designed to keep the terrorists guessing or just a cruel joke on passengers, decided each day on a whim or by coin flip? The TSA lines in Portland were long, snarled, slow, and maddening.  

I cursed the moon, sun and stars, Portland, all of Oregon, the god-damn late arriving Tillamook bus, TSA and United Airlines. 

The bus from Tillamook, where I went to visit my brother as I have done every September for the past five years, was thirteen minutes late leaving the transit center, and that thirteen minutes proved to be crucial. The bus was scheduled to arrive at Union Station in Portland at three p.m. and my flight to San Francisco departed at four. I knew it was going to be tight and making the flight to San Francisco and then on to Santa Barbara depended on everything coming off just right. I had to catch an UBER from Union Station as soon as my feet hit the pavement, hope the traffic to the airport wasn’t heavy, and get through TSA. As usually happens when you’re in a hurry, everything conspired against me: my UBER driver hit one red light after another and with uncanny skill got behind every slow moving car, bus or truck, and never once exceeded the posted speed limit, which I completely understood from his point of view, but his strict adherence to the law of the road was not advancing my cause. I watched the minutes pass on my phone knowing my chances of getting home were slipping away. I dashed into the airport and headed for the TSA line. When I saw the queue of people waiting to be screened I thought, “Well, I’m fucked.” I had about five minutes to catch my flight and the queue was  barely moving. TSA agents barked commands. There was a snafu with the boarding pass of the man in front of me. When I finally cleared the screening process, I grabbed my bags and shoes off the conveyor belt and hightailed it toward my gate in my socks. Too late. The flight had left. “Oh,” the lady behind the United counter said, “we waited for you as long as we could.” Fuck, fuck, fuck! I thought. Motherfucking fuck fuck. The gate agent re-booked me on a flight the next day, leaving at eight a.m. I sat down in the empty waiting area, caught my breath, put my shoes on and called my wife. It was just after four. The thought of sixteen long hours in an airport wasn’t appealing, but I also didn’t feel like spending money for a hotel room. My wife thought otherwise and said she would do some quick research and call me back. Ten minutes later I was in an UBER headed for the Howard Johnson Portland Airport on northeast Sandy Boulevard. “It looks decent enough,” my wife said. 

On the way to the hotel I saw an abandoned encampment on the side of the road, two pop-up trailers parked back-to-back, amid a bunch of debris, mangled folding chairs, tires, and a red porta-potty with a gaping gash in its side that resembled a lopsided smile. The trailers had been torched. Thoughts of a hot shower, something to eat, and a night of sleep ran through my head, but when the driver pulled up to the HoJo my heart dropped. Sketchy doesn’t do the place justice. The parking lot was full of older cars, some of them with the hoods up and the doors thrown open. The thirty-something woman behind the counter in the office looked like she had firsthand experience with hard-living. It took her a while to check me in because the phone kept ringing. “Well, we need to get her out of 106,” I heard her say. The white walls of the office were dingy, scuffed. “Breakfast Area” read a sign on the wall behind me. My room was on the second floor of Building 3. Up a short flight of stairs, through a metal door with a sign that read, “Keep Door Closed.” When I opened the door to room 231 I caught the sickening smell of stale nicotine. One king bed, nothing on the walls except a flat screen TV, a desk and office chair, mini-fridge, and a dresser with three drawers. The blue-gray carpet was threadbare and drab, the grout in the bathtub dark with mold. One towel was on the floor. I decided against a shower. I pulled the comforter back and examined the bed for bugs, hair, nail clippings, stains. Finding no evidence of any I parted the curtains and slid open the window to let some air in. There were gaps in the rusted chain link fence between the hotel property and the grungy house in the lot next door. A woman’s gruff, pack-a-day voice echoed below. Holy shit, I thought. Where the fuck am I?

I ordered some Indian food and two bottles of beer to be delivered. It was ridiculously expensive, but I don’t eat cheap fast food. It arrived about a half hour later, courtesy of a man named Chris, but when I got back to my room and opened the bag I found no utensils, napkins, wetnaps, nothing, and of course I didn’t have a bottle opener and there sure as hell wasn’t one in the room. I cursed the moon, sun and stars, Portland, all of Oregon, the god-damn late arriving Tillamook bus, TSA and United Airlines. With diligent effort I managed to pop the cap from the beer bottles with my belt buckle, spread a towel over my lap and dug into the chicken and biryani rice, eating it with my fingers like an Afghan sheep herder. 

By eight p.m. I was in bed with the lights out and the black-out curtains drawn, reading Samuel Beckett on my Kindle -- appropriately bleak material given the circumstances. Dull light spilled around the black-out curtains. From time to time voices echoed in the corridor, a door slammed, heavy footsteps crossed the floor in the room above me. The alarm on my phone was set for 4:30 a.m. I figured I’d get up, wash my face, brush my teeth, and order an UBER; better to arrive three hours early than late, and at least I could get a cup of coffee and a scone or muffin. Though I told myself not to, I kept reaching for my phone to check the time. 

9:00. 9:17. 9:53. 10:12. 10:47. 11:28.

I didn’t sleep at all, I just lay there with my eyes shut, listening to the noises. Around midnight a pattern emerged that would continue non-stop for the next three hours. First a door in the corridor creaked open and then banged shut, followed by the sound of someone in flip-flops slap-slap-slapping down the hall, through the metal exit door, which banged shut after them. Only minutes later this pattern was reversed, the exit door creaked open, slammed shut, the flip-flops slap-slapped, and I heard the beep of a magnetic key opening a room door and then slamming shut. I could have peered through the peephole to see what was going on but decided it was better not to know. Over and over I heard the same pattern of sounds, punctuated occasionally by a woman’s voice, and once by a man’s. Around three-thirty a.m. I heard three rapid bangs echo from somewhere outside the hotel, but I couldn’t tell if these were gunshots or a car backfiring, nor if they were near or far away. Shortly thereafter I heard a siren in the distance, then another and another, all which seemed to be growing closer and converging before fading away. I resumed resting with my eyes closed.

I was up before my alarm went off. I packed my stuff and ordered an UBER. The car would arrive in twenty minutes. I tracked the car’s progress and left my room when it was five minutes away, plenty of time to get to the pick-up point near the office. When I left my room the corridor was empty and silent, but once I exited the building I found myself in an active police crime scene. Red and blue lights flashed from half a dozen Portland police department vehicles and a large crime scene lab truck, and the entire hotel property was criss-crossed with yellow and orange police tape emblazoned with Police Line Do Not Cross. Cops were milling around in twos and threes, talking. Police radios crackled. My driver was due to arrive any moment and I couldn’t see a way off the property, so I stepped over the tape and hailed two cops by waving to them. “You have to go all the way around,” they said. All the way around where? I thought, starting to panic that I would miss my ride and be stuck in this Twilight Zone of a hotel. I finally made it out to the street and saw the red Tesla driven by Ivan. Salvation.

While I was waiting for my flight to San Francisco I Googled Howard Johnson Portland Airport. While there was nothing about that morning’s incident, I did discover that there had been a stabbing at the property in 2011, and that for months it had been a temporary shelter for the homeless, which explained the junk cars and downtrodden types I saw hanging around. A couple of stinging reviews described open drug dealing and prostitution, brawls and filth. The complimentary breakfast advertised with such fanfare on the hotel website was derided as a piece of dry white toast. 

I think I will stay close to home for a while. 

No Comparison

 “Whether you are the criminal or the captive, there are few things more disconcerting than learning that the rescue crew is in on the plot.” Sarah Kendzior, Vanity Fair

The way Donald Trump evades accountability for his many transgressions is astonishing. Whether this is a result of Trump’s evil genius or simply the weakness of our institutions and the people who sit atop them, I can’t say, though I imagine it’s a little of both. That the people who write and administer the laws are rarely held accountable by them, even after swearing an oath to faithfully obey and uphold them, is a maddening axiom. Maddening because average people have no capacity to play hide and seek with the law; average people can’t ignore subpoenas or demand that their case be heard by their own hand-picked judge. Only the wealthy and powerful and politically-connected are allowed to play the legal game this way. 

I sounded the alarm about Trump early and often on this blog, my long-running vanity project that resides on the fringes of total anonymity. One small voice drowned by the noise of the world. I had been aware of Trump for many years and considered him an obnoxious buffoon, the worst kind of rich asshole because of his insatiable insecurity and blinding need to always be the center of attention, even as he failed at one business venture after another. Bright lights, glitz, famous people, and braggadocio was what Trump had, and it was enough for the New York real estate world. But Trump was never the business whiz he claimed to be; you have to be a particular kind of fuck-up to run a casino into the ground. It’s telling that the only thing Trump excelled at was the make-believe of “reality” television, where he controlled the script, the lighting and camera angles, final edit approval, and all the make-up and hair people he needed. When he entered politics in 2015 he did so on the wings of television which he understood how to manipulate better than any other figure, perhaps any American, ever. The Republican field was crowded but weak in 2016, and none of the candidates knew how to deal with someone like Trump, who lied and exaggerated and accused and humiliated others as casually as a bully on an elementary school playground. The corporate media -- ABC, NBC, CBS, and the cable networks -- aided Trump, of course, because he was good for ratings and strong ratings juice ad revenue. Trump had the full-throated backing of Fox News, whose on-air “personalities” and performers rushed to defend, explain, excuse, and interpret him for its viewers nearly all day, every day. Trump was making money for the media CEO’s, so it’s no surprise that they stayed seated for the ride. After Trump’s shock victory by way of the absurd Electoral College the same media outlets bent over backwards to normalize Trump and treat him like a serious man -- like he had a clue about what being President of the United States meant. 

He didn’t. All Trump knew was that he was going to have a lot of power. 

With great solemnity many pundits predicted that the office would change Trump, temper his baser instincts and coarse behavior, but the opposite happened; Trump turned the office into a burlesque, an extension of reality television, complete with wicked villains (Democrats, the Deep State, Hillary Clinton, anyone who opposed him or said unkind things about him) and outrageous claims of his own greatness, omniscience and popularity. Better than Obama, always, because Obama was bad juju for Trump, the one man Trump couldn’t cow, bully, humiliate or denigrate. He tried to erase as many of Obama’s accomplishments as he could with his executive pen, but largely failed. There’s no comparison between the two men: one is a successful human, the other a sociopath; one is respected for his calm mind, intelligence, eloquence and reason, and the other spews outrageous lies like a busted sewer line; one possesses a moral and ethical center, the other is amoral and only admires raw power. Despite laws and norms, precedent and tradition that existed to prohibit such behavior, Trump set out to profit from his office, to monetize it as much as possible, only in scale and technique different from the kleptocrats of the former Soviet republics. Trump had no concept of being a servant of the people or the American state: he was the state, and the people were his subjects. The system of laws and norms and precedent and tradition failed to stop Trump, and once Trump saw how porous the guardrails were he knew the field was wide open. Start with relatively minor stuff like blatant violations of the Hatch Act and the Emolument clause of the Constitution, and if no alarm is raised, go further; if alarm is raised, issue a flat denial, accuse the Democrats of what-aboutism, and attack the accuser. This works very well if you have a massive social media following and a cable network willing to carry your freight. 

When Barack and Michelle Obama’s official White House portraits were unveiled this week I thought again of the contrast between Trump and Obama, the criminal narcissist and the half-black man of immense cool and class. Now, I was very critical of Barack Obama -- during the first half of his first term in particular -- that two-year period when he had congressional majorities and could have acted boldly and instead tried to play the game with the GOP, which wasn’t interested. Obama had it rough, especially after the 2010 midterms. I still think that not going after the CEO’s of the big banks for their role in the financial crash hurt him with Americans who lost their homes, jobs, health insurance, and hope. His foreign policy always disappointed me as it was in alignment with the Council on Foreign Relations, though he managed to sound more conflicted about the deployment of US power than his predecessor, the faux cowboy who plunged the US into a disastrous, stunningly stupid War on Terror, never ending, and ever changing. What I more clearly appreciate in retrospect is how skilled a politician Obama was, and how much abuse he endured. There’s more class in Barack Obama’s pinky than in all of Trump’s bloated body. 

The ground for an unscrupulous someone like Donald Trump was prepared over many years. The GOP has long harbored anti-democratic, racist, white supremacist, misogynistic and authoritarian figures, Christian nationalists and rabid anti-Communists. This is the modern GOP’s DNA, what they believe. Trump gave the entire party permission to unfurl and wave the MAGA flag of hatred.