“The people have the power to redeem the work of fools.” Patti Smith
October 28
This is the final post I will make on this blog. No more after this. Twenty years or 1,000 posts, that was my promise. I try very hard to live by my word and do as little harm as possible, even in mundane matters like respecting speed limits and handicapped parking spaces; a promise made becomes an obligation. So, this is it. Time to shut it down and leave it for the vandals.
I have no idea what happens to blogs that peter out or are abandoned. Will I be able to visit this place ten or fifteen years from now, if I’m still around, and read what an obscure man in California was writing about in 2005 or 2010 or 2016? Have I etched something in stone or is it all just erasable marker on a white board?
Shouts from the Balcony has been my perch since 2004. When I started this thing my son was eight, my daughter three, and my country was at war, but not any kind of war, a deliberate, manufactured war against a country that posed no immediate threat to us. A pre-emptive war. Part of the War of Retribution, also known as the War on Terror, which I knew would be a colossal failure and strategic blunder of ruinous proportions.
I was born in 1959. The Vietnam War, Richard Nixon, and the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King were the lighting rods of my youth and adolescence. My family was working-class. I grew up reading the hokey Chip Hilton sports novels and idolizing Jerry West and Walt Frazier, and was in most ways a completely conventional American kid, stuffed full of the same prejudices, illusions, and partial blindness instilled by our national myths. A sports fanatic -- Dodgers, Lakers, UCLA basketball, USC football -- but also a reader, a voracious reader of books, newspapers, magazines. I was raised before the Prop 13 tax revolt, when public schools actually had money, and California was doing some impressive and progressive shit, like building and funding the UC system. Peach and Apple Grove, our tract home, built on the bones of a lemon orchard. Pick-up basketball games in a neighbor’s driveway. We played touch football in the street. Chick Hearn’s voice, his staccato style, lyrical and imaginative, “West pump fakes, once, twice, puts Cousy in the popcorn machine, shoots, and scores. Zeke from Cabin Creek.” And on summer nights, under the clear California sky, the voice of Vin Scully, baseball professor and poet, coming from open car windows…”a very pleasant good evening to you wherever you may be…It’s Time for Dodger Baseball…and at some point in every broadcast, quoting Dante or Milton or Shakespeare. Southern California legends. I hung on those voices, knew the sound and cadence of those voices, they were the soundtrack of my boyhood.
Anyway, as mentioned I started venting my spleen here in 2004, with George W. Bush, a man I despised, at the wheel and the country in a perpetual war. At the time, mid-40’s, a working stiff, fatherhood and husbandhood, deeply immersed in the work of writers like Henry Miller, John Steinbeck, Hunter S. Thompson, and Charles Bukowski. I was, and obviously remain, interested in the world of politics, American history, books and writers, ideas, and sports, baseball when I began but now as a football (soccer) fan of Chelsea Football Club (send help now!), and a regular watcher of the Premier League, Serie A, Champions League, Europa League, European qualifier and World Cup. Greatest sport in the world, best overall athletes, unbelievable theater, drama, and, yes, a comforting sense of belonging to a peaceful tribe of like-minded supporters. A global community. Football reminds me of how people from different countries, religious beliefs and circumstances can temporarily shelve all their differences and disagreements and mutual suspicions in order to support a group of people kicking a ball around. It’s really amazing, the instant connection and solidarity you feel, even though you might stand in complete disagreement with these very same people on everything else, proving that there is common ground. It’s a fucking beautiful game, a temporary break from the stresses and strains of daily life, as valuable, in my opinion, as any religion. Futbol.
I digress, too much. Apologies. Back to our story.
Through the Bush regime, the financial crash, the election of Barack Obama, which for me was a singular moment, a high-water mark, and on to 2016 and the unthinkable and disastrous “election” of Donald J. Trump, false populist, false prophet, conman and serial failure.
October 29
Mike Pence deserves no special credit or appreciation. He did the minimum expected of a vice-president by upholding his oath of office. He’s not a hero. He’s not brave. Had he been brave and principled, Pence would have condemned Trump in no uncertain terms, along with anyone who still supported Trump on the morning of January 7, 2021.
I worry about gun violence. My daughter is living in Philadelphia while she goes to school. What I worry about is the total randomness of being in the wrong place at the wrong moment, defenseless. You can’t defend against a random act of violence without giving up your freedom. School, church, shopping mall, night club, synagogue, grocery store, movie theater. Unsafe places. It’s estimated that there are 400 million firearms in this country.
I force myself to imagine what it’s like in Gaza today, to put myself and my loved ones in that hellish place. Worried about missiles and artillery shells, and where to secure food, water, medicine, enough electricity to charge a phone, which is probably useless anyway. I think of the darkness, with the power cut; I think of the noise of whistling artillery shells, a family huddled in the dark, bracing for impact.
October 30
Idea for satire: the first time Joe Biden meets Mike Johnson, the newly minted Speaker of the House, a truly horrifying little man, reminds me of an accountant, with views and attitudes trapped in this mythical place where white men ruled absolutely, and women, Blacks, Chinese, Mexicans, Poles, Slavs, Italians, cripples, and homosexuals knew their place in the social pecking order and didn’t dare step out of line, because the inerrant word of God, the Bible, said it was natural for white men to rule all the inhabitants of his earthly kingdom Weird fucking views, out of step with the country, with its emerging demography and broad acceptance of abortion and gay marriage and people who identify in the LGTBQ community. The majority of kids these days don’t buy what Mike’s peddling, his closed-off and retributive view of the world.
Anyway, so Joe Biden has to meet with the new Speaker, extend an olive branch and make nice for half an hour. Biden didn’t know Johnson from Adam prior to his ascension, so his White Staff prepared a briefing. Let’s listen in.
JB: Can you believe the GOP? Maybe now more people will understand what I have to deal with, a circus every day of the week, even on Sundays when they’re supposed to be in church and all-day Bible Study.
WHS: Mr. President, as directed we prepared a file on Speaker Johnson, including his family and early education, church affiliation, higher education and career prior to his election to Congress. We also spoke to a source close to Mr. Johnson, who introduced us to several people who went to junior high school with him.
JB: Start there. Should be interesting to have some background. I heard he believes that Noah managed to coax a pair of T-Rex’s into the ark.
WHS: (Stifling a giggle) Ah, yes sir, he apparently also believes the earth is only about six-thousand years old.
JB: And people complained about Strom Thurmond! Strom was many things, but one thing he was not was crazy. Ukraine. The Middle East. Donald f’ing Trump. Crisis after crisis and I have to think about T-Rex’s and Noah’s Ark! That’s why this is the toughest job in the world.
WHS: Very true, sir. Shall we proceed? Mr. Johnson’s classmates remembered him quite well, and some remain in contact with him. They spoke freely about their junior high experiences with Mr. Johnson.
JB: Give me the gist.
WHS: The most consistent descriptions of the Speaker included terms like “Self Righteous,” followed by “rigid and calculating” followed by “severe and unforgiving.” One person said it’s easier for him to imagine Mike Johnson in a Waffen SS uniform than it is in a tank top and cargo shorts. On the other hand, to be fair, someone also said Mr. Johnson is a pious man, a wonderful husband and adoring father, a Christian, and a proud American.
JB: Lovely. Continue.
WHS: Legislatively, Johnson has a reputation of being very pleasant, but shows little concern for people who don’t share his Christian world view. Relentless, often fanatical, in pursuit of laws that offend his sensibility. As far is known, Speaker Johnson seems to view the world as a battle between true Christians and heathens.
JB: (Skimming his file, frowning, then tapping his finger on the page) Full of humility, huh? Where do the Republicans find these people? I don’t get the sense that Mr. Johnson cares much for women?
WHS: That tracks with the overt Christian nationalism, sir. Basically, it’s not the place of women to compete with men or to make disparaging remarks about the size of their penis’s. In a 2017 article in “Lawfare for Christian Warriors,” Johnson wrote that it is ungodly for women to compare men’s johnsons.
JB: (Rubbing his eyes) How long do I need to meet with this guy?
WHS: Minimum half-hour, sir. Short press conference afterwards, the usual remarks about looking forward to working together on behalf of the American people in a spirit of bipartisan comity.
JB: (Cackles, shakes his head and reaches for his Ray-Bans) OK, let me summarize. Speaker Johnson is a Christian nationalist, he’s anti-abortion, an election denier, dislikes women and stands in total alignment with Trump. He believes dinosaurs and people existed on earth at the same time. He believes in a mythic America where white men ruled absolutely, and women, Blacks, Chinese, Mexicans, Poles, Slavs, Italians and homosexuals knew their place in the social pecking order and didn’t dare step out of line. He believes that the Bible contains the inerrant word of God, which justifies for all time that men of the white race shall rule all the inhabitants of his earthly kingdom. Is that about right?
WHS: Yes sir, on the mark.
JB: Any chance I can shake things up and send Vice President Harris instead?
WHS: The optics wouldn’t be good, sir.
JB: I know. It was a Hail Mary.
Author’s Note: I wound up posting a version of this piece on my Substack page, Working-Class Scribbler:
October 31, Halloween
Slow coming. For the last three days I’ve thought that that day was Halloween. But even if some adorable children knock on our door, we have no treats to hand over. My wife’s broken foot killed all Halloween plans. She wears a short boot and rides a knee scooter from room-to-room. A few of my co-workers at the Market wore costumes today; we had one witch, a viking, an elf, Little Red Riding Hood, and a couple of getups that were unclassifiable. The viking was impressive. I walked sixteen miles.
November 3
Carlos, the wonderful gardener who takes care of this property, and I talk about the olive tree that this time of year prolifically deposits small, dark olives and thin brown leaves on the driveway. We crunch over them in our cars; once a week I sweep up a pile and feed it to my compost tumbler. Later, after Carlos has gone, I go out on the secluded patio, which is my favorite place in the world right now, my happy spot, where I read and make notes and stare into the sky and breathe deeply, and watch hummingbirds jostle around the feeder, and Monarch butterflies float around the milkweed. I stand and marvel at our luck at living in this old bungalow, and remind myself that I must remain in the present moment and enjoy it while we have it. Sitting at the table in the dining room by the big window, overlooking the variety of cactuses in the landscaped front yard, the flagstone path, mesmerized by the slanting afternoon sun. In the back of my mind I know a rent increase is coming, probably in January. I don’t blame the owners. First, I have no idea of their collective financial position, what the taxes on this property are, or all the associated expenses, such as Carlos’ weekly services, none of it. If they decided to sell tomorrow how could I blame them? It’s the game, and I accept it. My hometown, the place I dreamed about when I was a young man of eighteen and nineteen, and very far away, isn’t the same town it was when I left for Japan in 1977. When I returned after ten years of wandering, it was a different place, and of course I was a different person. That’s how it goes. My little family has been lucky, and I can’t allow myself to lose sight of that. For nearly three years we’ve enjoyed living in this very tall cotton.
November 4
I read articles in the New Yorker and the New York Review about China, its politics and economy. Problems abound and the population feels anxiety about the future. There was a reference to Chairman Mao, who ruled the country from 1949 until 1976, and his Little Red Book of political and philosophical aphorisms, which was required reading in re-education camps and among the populace. Mao wrote things like, “A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another,” and “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the first importance for the revolution,” and “After the enemies with guns have been wiped out, there will still be enemies without guns.”
This started me thinking about Donald Trump -- it’s almost impossible not to think about the Orange Menace, lover of dictators and strongman rulers, including China’s Xi and Hungary’s Orban -- because he’s in the news every damn day. (Imagine if social media had existed in Mao’s day!) Trump doesn’t appear well these days, and his mental faculties are about as smooth as a rusted farm tractor; his public statements are increasingly unhinged from reality and dangerous to democracy. Trump’s real estate “empire” is in jeopardy and he’s bleeding money on lawyers.
But just suppose for a moment that Trump copies Mao and publishes his own Little Red Book of MAGA wisdom. What would it contain? I imagine, first of all, that it would be in the form of a comic book, Marvel style, with Trump portrayed as a stylized golden-haired, muscle-bound adonis. But what would the text be?
We will have the best climate!
Very soon I will show you proof that the 2020 election was rigged.
We will abolish low-flow toilets in America!
I built the wall and Mexico paid for it.
Everybody knows that windmills cause cancer.
I created the Covid vaccine!
I was the first man in history to notice that “us” is spelled US.
It was a perfect call, so perfect, completely perfect and everyone knows it.
The only way the liberals and Marxists in California can stop their state from burning is to rake the forests! Problem solved! Rake your forests, Gavin!
Trump is the greatest president in American history, far greater, stronger, tougher and more manly than George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, combined.
January 6, 2021 was a beautiful day, a celebration of love and patriotism, and totally peaceful!
Watch out for witch hunts!
If you come after me, I will come after you.
I alone can fix it.
The press is the enemy of the people.
Drink bleach, cure Covid, MAGA!
Many people say that Trump is the most ethical president in American history.
My hair is so beautiful, I have the best hair, big, beautiful hair, the greatest hair anyone has ever seen.
Author’s Note: I posted a version of this germ of an idea on Working-Class Scribbler, my Substack page:
November 7
The end.
But it’s not the end, it’s more of a transformation because I will continue writing and posting on my Substack page, Working-Class Scribbler. The pieces there will differ in character because they will have undergone my own editing, which is critical if not always error-free. With few exceptions, the posts I’ve written on Shouts from the Balcony are unedited, basically dated streams of consciousness regarding whatever preoccupied me on the day.
Today is my 31st wedding anniversary. This past Sunday my wife and I had a celebratory meal at Holdren’s on State Street, the first time we’d dined there in at least twenty years. I’m not a big food lover, in no way a bon vivant, my tastes are basic, but this was a fine meal, a large, satisfying meal. Lobster and filet mignon for Terry, a juicy pork chop for me, baked potato, steamed vegetables, salad, soup, bread. My Old Fashioned was one of the best I’ve had anywhere in this food-and-drink obsessed city. In Santa Barbara, or so it seems, only real estate is talked about more than food.
My periodicals are full of stories about Israel and Gaza. A long piece by David Remnick in the New Yorker, poignant because the author has friends and acquaintances on both sides. One such, a 30-year-old poet who left the confines of the Gaza strip for the first time at age 26, and now lives -- or perhaps lived is more accurate since he may have since been displaced by Israel’s ground offensive -- reported that the attack a few weeks ago on the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital was carried out by Israeli warplanes, not a Hamas rocket that misfired. Israel has since, as it always does, shifted attention away from its actions.
This isn’t to represent that news from the area isn’t clouded or muddled, or deliberately skewed, but why would it be considered shocking for Israel to bomb a hospital in Gaza? Since at least 2000, has the United Nations, the International Criminal Court or the United States Congress, or any other coalition of nations, ever held Israel to account for its actions in Gaza? Did anyone hold Israel to account when the IDF shot and killed upwards of 200 unarmed Palestinian demonstrators who were peacefully protesting at the border during the 2018-19 Great March of Return? Did Netanyahu, or his political allies, pay any political price for these killings? How much can the world expect the Palestinians to absorb and not lash out with the same fury and lethality with which they are attacked?
Another question is: why are Westerners told that Israelis are inherently less barbarous than Palestinians? I have a lot of questions about Hamas, its aims and strategy, and its history. What are this group’s antecedents?
I’m deeply troubled by the complicity of the American government for its decades-long blind allegiance to Israel. News stories about transfers to Israel of American-made weapons and ammunition make it seem that the Israeli military is a starved basket case at a steep disadvantage. The reality is that Israel has plenty of its own firepower to prosecute its campaign of revenge and retribution.
Well, what else? I’ve started to re-read Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, which I first encountered more than thirty years ago. Miller’s writing made an impression on me and I want to see what my reaction to it is all these years later. I might write an essay for California Review of Books.
That’s about it. The sun is shining in Santa Barbara, on the red-tile rooftops and white stucco buildings, but the Balcony is in shadow and will soon be in darkness. So long.
