Adaptive Curmudgeon

The evening snow drifted, ever so gently; less a flurry than a component of the air itself. It neither fell, no rose, but swirled about. Snowflakes in the air as there is blue in the sky.

In the distance, a rabbit grazed. The only mammal I’d seen in days. Deliberately sought quarry a month ago, now he was simply a welcome distraction. More so since the chickadees had left some hours back. When it’s too cold for the chickadees… I shivered.

I’d done my best. I’d tried hard. No lack of dedication, effort, or intent on my part. That I hadn’t closed the deal didn’t mean I’d given one inch in the struggle. My legs ached, my arms were sore; victim of hours in the cold, both hiking and stealthy near immobility. Where a suburbanite trophy wife might spend 40 minutes leotarding out yoga routines at a storefront gym (or at least she once did so, before everything came to a halt), this bearded old geezer is spending days at a time in a combination of taut alertness and relaxed immobility… yoga and meditation, while in a deep freeze.

Oh, how my knees ached. My face too. I don’t have a thermometer. I guessed it was around 9 degrees Fahrenheit (which is negative something or other in Celsius).

I sat. Still. Watching. Waiting. Never quit. Never give up until the last moment.

I waited until the earth turned. Then it was dark.

Another day, another elk not shot. I’m not too upset about it though. Hunting is not about meat. Fishing is not about fillets. Simpletons who think hunting is all about the kill probably think Jesus was worried about lanolin when he discussed sheep.

Very cold and even more tired I hiked out. In the pitch black. Grudgingly accepting the need for a flashlight on this gloomy night, I set the tiny device on “low” and trudged slowly into the narrow beam. There’s no need to rush when you’re alone; in the dark on a mountain, crunching through the icy snow.

As always, my Dodge felt like a spaceship after a day in the woods. Lights, buttons, instrument clusters, and (once warmed up) HEAT! The glories of truck dash heat to a cold soul are limitless!

Back in the mundane / online / fake world nothing has changed. Election Calvinball continues. A nation that can pipe 500 channels of shit to a pocket-sized TV hasn’t demonstrably counted accurately… not because it can’t, because it doesn’t want to.

Among my skills are that of a statistician. Not a Facebook expert of the day statistician; the sort of Dunning-Kruger monstrosity that was an epidemiologist last month and will be a constitutional scholar next month… but a real genuine, did the homework and got the degree, and fuckin’ wrecked the curve for all the muggles while I was at it, statistician.

Therefore, election farces are particularly painful to me. If I want to count anything from cans of beans in a supermarket inventory to the hairs on the average Wyoming bison’s nutsack… I can do it. I’ll get the answer, I’ll get it right. It’s what statisticians do. It’s a matter of hard work, proper sampling, actual (non-bullshit) mathematics, and WANTING TO KNOW THE ANSWER.

If it’s really important, I’ll include appropriate quality control. Why wouldn’t I? Is there any reason why votes are counted once and once only by one team in one place per State? Nope. It takes a legal battle just to check accuracy? Why, just to keep lawyers employed? We all know it’s a matter of carefully avoiding a hard look at the messy sausage making of Republic.

It could be different. Team A counts once in Shelbyville. Team B counts once in Springfield. Both keep their numbers under wraps until they reveal at the same time. Not one minute sooner. Not one minute later. They follow the rules while counting. After the reveal, while the people consider if the two counts are similar or not, transparency is provided. The video from 24/7 surveillance is released. Everyone swears under oath that they didn’t pull hinky shit and crosschecks abound. Mean lawyers prowl about while they do it. Election monitoring should be complete, total, and heartless. If ballot counter #43B from Shelbyville picked his nose at 11:43pm in the hall, after taking a dump, during the election count… it’s on the internet and released for mockery all around. If voting place 237 has 100,000 votes I’d better damn well have cctv footage of 100,000 people walking through that fucking door. Not one less, not one more. It’s possible to be that accurate. It’s possible to be that transparent. Common sense helps. Here’s a hint; taping up windows is not transparency. Anyone confused by that?

At the end, all physical ballots are carefully stored… for fifty years or maybe forever. If we need a third count… then shut the fuck up, roll up your sleeves and count again. Just fuckin’ do it. That’s why you kept the ballots in the first place.

Then keep them archived; available for research, historians, and vicious bloodthirsty lawyers. If someone cheated when John Quincy Adams won generations ago, I will find out if the evidence is properly stored and I was set to the task.

It aint rocket science. But it does require will. We have no will. Nobody on either side is particularly invested in truth. Why not count CA a second time? Why not audit all 50 states. Why not do it every damn election? It’s counting… it gets to the answer. So do it and know the truth instead of not doing it and letting the press paint pictures in the sky.

If Biden won then by God lets find out down to the gnat’s ass exactly how much he won by and find of for sure so I’ll happily shut the fuck up and pray for his good fortune on January 20th. No need for a lawsuit, curiosity ought to be enough. Instead, half the populace celebrates fishy data and argues against an audit in one out of fifty states (Georgia) and the other half has to go into sudden death overtime; just to get a check. After a full year of shoving campaigns up my ass, now, with the ballots in hand, suddenly the election needs only a nominal glance. Fuck that! Release the accountants!

I went to the woods to clear my mind of this fog. It was a good time for it. I wish I could have taken y’all with me. Y’all needed it too.

The press, in my absence, had a coronation for Biden, as it did for Hillary and Obama and Al Gore. Two wrong, one right, and one still in the weeds. Nothing to see here folks, no bias in our choices. Also, shut up peasant.

They’ve granted “president elect”, which has a specific legal meaning to a person who’s actual official situation remains “some guy”. They did this through the imagined powers of propaganda. “If we say it is true, it is true.” I’d say AP has “balls” but that would be assuming their gender orientation.

Would that I could do the same. “I say I’m rich and handsome, so I am.” Alas, I’m a resident of reality. I can no more wish an elk to appear before my rifle sights than I can wish for wings. Upon reflection, I don’t want that anyway. I prefer a real world where sometimes the elk elude me and sometimes they don’t. That’s better than a fake world where I’m served fluff and told it’s elk backstrap. No wonder the “think = reality” people seem strange and deluded to me.

In roughly a month, someone will be President Elect. It may be Trump and it may be Biden and at this point I’m not ruling out the election of Mr. Rogers from the “Cardigans for World Domination” party, with the Ghost of Stalin for VP. No matter what anyone says, mid-December is when it’ll happen and not before.

The last week was entirely gaslighting. Also, when I look at the math and statistical shenanigans afoot it bothers me. I wanted a nice clean huge obvious “Trumpslide” to preclude this mess. It looks like that may very well have happened. But “margin of cheat” seems to have grown. I don’t know is there was any possible number of votes great enough to elude what’s happening now.

Trump, love him or hate him, knew what he was getting into. Presumably he had appropriate plans. Or not. If you’re surrounded by lying cheats every day you surely have a plan for the election? I sure hope so. If he didn’t plans against cheating, he’s a idiot.

I look forward to a brutal slugfest to really suss things out. Even if Trump lost I wanna’ fucking know he lost. I’m shockingly confident still, in the face of overwhelming odds, that Trump may have Trumpslided. I know… it’s crazy right? How can I possibly have any hope left. I don’t know. Yet I look forward to the exciting conclusion of Act 3 in the coming month. Trump versus the Uniparty is indeed the ultimate cliffhanger.

Back to the truck.

I order a burrito at Taco Bell on the way home, a team of five employees can’t quite manage the drive through. That’s when I start to think Trump may truly lose. I can understand math but the folks at the restaurant can’t pour a Pepsi. How can Benford’s law be explained in a way they’ll understand? For them, it’ll be Biden, because the TV said so. It would be Spongebob Squarepants if the TV said so. Their vote is just the same as mine too.

A people without careful thought can be stampeded into beliefs without basis. I see it everywhere. I read that somewhere there’s a curfew… to stop COVID. Because a virus only stalks at night; like vampires? Slick marketers can sell this, even though it makes no sense. We have fifty states and one of them killed more COVID victims than any other. The guy from that state is on the TV lecturing how to manage the situation. Why him and not the 49 other governors who killed fewer people? Marketing! They can sell extended warranties on a toaster, they paired politics to sneaker choices, and they will never stop trying to sell me an electric car. They can probably, they can convince the sheep Jesus worried about that a nation awash in spontaneous Trumptastick boat parades voted for the walking corpse that barked speeches to a couple dozen people sitting in little circles. “I’m calling a lid at 9:00 am. Because life is hard and I’m sleepy.” Yeah that’s a winner alright. If you want me to believe that I need a very clear vote count.

These are the thoughts I have as I drive home. No elk quarters in the truck, but a soul at peace, which is what it’s all about.

2020 isn’t over. It’s the eight month of “a few weeks to flatten the curve”. There’s no end in sight. People are forgetting what life was like as recently as February. They won’t give up. Having ruined Halloween, they’ll set their sights on Thanksgiving. “If you gather with family and render gratitude to God for your good fortune, it means you want grandma to die.” Then comes Christmas. Then comes life. Put it all on pause; childhood, education, jobs, adulthood, and just sit on your ass waiting for someone else to live on your behalf. A nation of shut-ins lorded over by insufferable Karen-ific cat ladies.

I’m not really sure if I care. They can wreck society but I can still hunt. I might get another shot at elk later on. I have tag options remaining. Or maybe I’ll go back and get that rabbit. I still have firewood to cut.

My thoughts improve. I haven’t gone ice fishing in years. Maybe that’s the new plan? Is 2020 the year when I finally start sitting in a tent on an iced lake drinking bourbon and staring at a 6” hole drilled in the ice? Why not? I hope they open the border to Canada. Better fishing up there. And poutine. I’d forgive a whole lot of 2020-ish hell for a plate of good poutine.

While I’m hiding, others are doing good work. Monster Hunter happily recounts the obvious statistical mess. Trump fights now just as he has done every day for the last four years. The press lies, just they have always done… though with less subterfuge now that the mask is off. Biden sleeps. Kamilah sharpens her knives. Hillary tosses in the uneasy sleep of an angry Lady Macbeth. Obama smirks and Pence stands there like the human board he is. Act three doesn’t need me.

I stop at a gas station and hammer this post into my Neo2; a writing device with less technology than a calculator. I’ll post it when I find Wi-Fi. I used to stop at Starbucks analogues all across the great nation. Posting my contrarian thoughts conveniently from within the belly of the beast. Rants about freedom and self-reliance from the same Wi-Fi serving the Bernie-Bots and thankless unemployable Trustafarians. No longer.

Coffee shop Wi-Fi was one tiny cog in the wheels of a society that’s falling. Today there’s no Wi-Fi. Last spring, we fought over toilet paper. Next month we will fail to celebrate that most humble and honorable tradition; Thanksgiving.

All part of the infrastructure that fell. No handy coffee shops in the post-apocalypse wasteland of today. Just for a little sense of what can be lost, Google up photos of Iran from the 1960’s; you’ll find college girls in miniskirts. It looks as modern as London. Then pull up a photo from 2020. This has happened before.

I pace about and stretch my legs. It’s a long drive home. My knees are sore from the cold. I’m already thinking about ice augers and pike. It’s been a good week.

[Note: I usually spend a few days or weeks(!) ruminating on a topic. Only then do I hammer out a post. Today I’m shooting from the hip. If it has a jumpy outline, so be it. I want this to go live Friday night so I can (mostly) tune out for a while.]

When I was a kid there was a dwindling population of old people that were different than the rest of us. I call them “depression era people”. They’d been through a situation from which one cannot return unchanged.

They were fiscally careful. They saved up a long time to buy things. They loathed banks. (They remembered banks wiping out life savings. They’d seen it happen.) They saved bits of string, they re-used plastic baggies, and they always had an extra can of beans stashed. They’d keep broken stuff around with plans to fix it (rather than the fledgling at the time and now widely embraced method of “chuck it and buy another one new”).

I never mocked these people. They’d been through hell. I honored and respected them. They were elders; people who’d seen more than me.

Then a funny thing happened to my child world; everything went to shit. The economy tanked, inflation was berserk, unemployment soared, there was an oil embargo, American hostages held abroad, and America just didn’t seem to have balls anymore. President Carter moped around pointlessly; a useless fucking muppet in a cardigan. We needed a man of strength but had a weakling at the wheel.

Worse yet, society was a mess. There was disco and the AMC Gremlin. It stayed that way until a goofy actor from California showed up. His own party hated him. The press mocked as “sidekick to a monkey”. He turned the economy on a dime, and then the nation.

I remember it. I learned two things.

• Things can suck more than you’d expect. The pit can get very deep.
• Things can go from suck to awesome much faster than you’d expect. The instant we stop digging and start climbing, we’re halfway to the good times again.

I am, for this time of 2020, the current generation of “depression people”. I act like them. I fret when I throw old broken things out. Not because I have some hoarder attachment to all that shit… it’s because I know, deep in my heart, a time of wealth can become a time of poverty… it can happen fast.

When I was a kid there was another kind of people. This group was far more fun and also slightly outlandish. They were worried about Russkies dropping the bomb, or financial collapse (which was a legit thing happening in realtime), or urban crime (which was crazy bad at the time)… or whatever. They were called survivalists.

This was a long time ago. Self reliance wasn’t deliberately mocked back then. If some dude wanted a bomb shelter in his basement and six years of shitty canned “rations” then that was his (or her) business. If he had a 4×4 in a time when it was common to chain up a 2WD station wagon, that was just peachy. Make friends with him in case you need to get pulled out of a ditch.

Now, decades later, we’ve redefined self-reliance to almost a social pathology. Society mocked caricatured, and generally bred out that sort of behavior. They created a new critter. The sort of fool that’s far more comfortable being led than following their own compass. They turned the very simple and obvious and non-political word “survivalist” into the convoluted and uninspiring “prepper”. If a survivalist wants to “survive” a prepper wants to stack shit they bought on Amazon..

Sure as shit, I became a survivalist too. I don’t call myself a prepper. I never liked that word. I have a homestead. It’s a little, shitty one… but I raise bacon and eggs and leave everyone else alone. No harm in that right?

I mention all that so I can mention this. One must balance interests. No one solution suits all times. The times in which we live matter.

The depression era thinker in me would gladly starve to pay off the mortgage early. The survivalist thinker agrees but thinks maybe I ought to spend more time on physical training. I moderate all that and say life is beautiful. The mortgage will get paid in due time and exercise is good, but there’s a time and place to lighten up. I should celebrate a bit. In my case that means a nice bottle of high end bourbon. You can get drunk on cheap shitty Jack Daniels but I’ll pay triple to sip the good stuff. In that, I’ve backed “depression era AC” into a corner. While I’m sipping that drink I’ve backed “Bert Gummer AC” into a corner too. Life is pretty good.

You heard me; life is pretty good. Any time I’m not near the media, most of what I see is sunshine and good hunting weather. The masks and the empty streets and the tense scared populace… yeah, it’s there. But it’s not everything.

Take a look around. What you see in reality is nothing like what you’re told is out there.

So here it is; day three of the election that is, was, and always was going to be a total fucking shitshow. Having had time to reflect, I can live with it. If it had to happen, now’s as good a time as any for a good solid goat rodeo.

We know damn well that every election has become “the most important election in history”. We know damn well that every election has inched closer and closer to total banana republic horseshit. After all, it’s not 2020 that coined the word “hanging chads”.

So lets fight it out. Now. Today.

I went to sleep in an election that was in the bag. I woke up watching shenanigans go down. Yet another in a long line of ugly recounts. I had that feeling of Carteresque “malaise” that comes from knowing each and every time, the politicians on my side pussy out and quit. Who wants to watch that?

So I went off grid a bit.

While I was  off grid. Trump announced “I won motherfuckers. I’m fighting every inch.” NICE!

Excellent! If now’s the time then so be it. I’m in the eight month of “a few weeks to flatten the curve” and I just ain’t going to accept more resignation and weakness. Damn if I forgot that the Orange Menace isn’t a gutless RINO. I just plain forgot!

Seeing that one statement by the Orange Man, felt the same way I did when Carter slunk away or in 2016 when I realized that Hillary the Shrieking Harpy wasn’t going to crawly up the ass end of my 401(k). I felt… hope. I felt like I might have more room. I might be left alone a little longer.

I needed that morale boost.

I decided to toss a few bucks at the Trump Election Defense fund. (Not much, don’t get too impressed.) I’m not linking to it. Y’all can find it yourself. And I’m not asking you to follow my lead. Make your own decisions.

However, it’s an uncharacteristic move for me. It’s a big shift. I just broke one of my hard and fast depression era personal rules.

This is the first time in my life I have ever given a damn penny to any politician anywhere for anything.

That’s right. In a world where people can’t buy sneakers without making it political I weld my wallet shut. In a world where most people can’t go a week without a Facebook announcement that they’ve made a donation signaling their support for free vegan pizzas for transgendered Guatemalan baristas… I have never donated to a politician. Until now.

Surprisingly, the cheapskate depression era me is cool with it. He sees it as less a donation than paying for a service. “You want to go after election cheats with a sledge hammer and army of lawyers?” Shut up and take my money!

As is the survivalist. He figures I just added my name to the list of “fuck this guy over when the party of the left is in power”. He doesn’t care. If not now, when all I’m doing is dropping the price of a pizza dinner, when? Right now, Trump is going pitbull for things I support and getting beaten day after day, year after year, for not submitting. Better him than me. He loves this shit. I don’t. I wish him well. I’ll pay for the service too.

Like the fancy whiskey, both sides of my mind are in agreement. It’s worth a few bucks.

Also, this may be a last chance to resolve things with lawyers and paperwork instead of tanks in burning cities. They’ve built pressure all my life. If things are still a matter of law and rules, lets establish it right fucking now. I’ll happily ride this roller coaster as far as it’ll go.

Having done so little, there’s not much more I can do. I’ve got my own soul to take care of. I’m going off grid for at least a few days or maybe a couple weeks. I was rooting for a mellow happy ending to the 2020 shitshow. Now I’m rooting for a knock down drag out legal battle that clears the air. Luckily, it can happen without me.

Bye for now and try to avoid the media. Those assholes will do your heart no good. Steady, don’t give in to Carter’s malaise, and carry on. This sucks but it can get better and it might.

I went to bed on a world that looked very solidly like Trump had won the election. It was pretty undeniable around 2:00 EST. My last thoughts we’re “various assholes have tortured me all year, can I hope for a game that doesn’t go into extra innings. Will there be a resolution that doesn’t involve lawyers and referees rehashing the rulebook?”

By the time I poured my morning coffee the answer is clear. No. 2020 will continue to suck for another month, or year, or whatever it takes. Calvinball it is. Trump voters weren’t numerous enough to simply bulldoze clear and obvious to the end zone. For that matter, Biden voters didn’t bulldoze clear and obvious to their end zone either. As Stalin said, those who vote don’t matter, those who count the votes do.

Bummer.

I don’t watch live TV or assorted live media. This is for the same reason I step around dogshit rather than smear it on my face.

However, there times when I want information right away. It’s an election and curiosity got the best of me. How was it going? I had to know.

Hulu had live commentary. It looked like Biden was doing well but all I could think was “what language are these twerps speaking”? It was an unwatchable combination of fancy graphics and obfuscation. “Among left handed suburban Chicano single moms who voted for Hillary in 2016, Biden is doing within reasonable expectations. Also the number of Octogenarian cancer patients in Florida divided by the GDP of this particular precinct in New Hampshire is…” That’s not providing information, it’s vomiting data.

Wisely, I turned out and watched Tremors. Gotta’ love Bert Gummer.

After the movie I tried again. PredictIt wasn’t loading. The whole ‘net seemed slow. I couldn’t endure the crap on Hulu. Finally, I gave YouTube a shot.

Unaccustomed to modern “network news”, I wallowed around YouTube trying to find actual information. Lots of mask wearing yo-yos talking about anything other than electoral college votes on a state by state basis.

Then I heard it. Here’s the quote of the day:

”It’s too early to tell but it doesn’t look like Trump will have the total wipeout some Republicans feared.”

Wait… what?!? The Trump wipeout Republicans feared? What the hell are they smoking and is it legal outside of Colorado?

I fiddled with the remote, failing to rewind to the money quote. I started thinking I’d somehow mis-heard.

Then I saw a brief flash of a map. There was a smattering of encouraging red blobs on the east coast. More importantly there was a tally showing Trump with an inconclusive but not insignificant lead in electoral college votes.

OK, this is what I was looking for. At least I’d found the mute button. Maybe I’d get the feel of things.

Then, with a flourish they called the entire west coast for Biden… with zero votes counted. It was in mute but I put the words out for them; “Trump was looking ahead so we decided this is a good time to call half the map with zero votes counted… enjoy this brief respite before Orange Man Bad stomps Biden like Godzilla doing the Can Can on top of Tokyo.”

I poured a nice drink and settled in to watch. I tapped this post into a tabled. Then I decided to watch old Wile E. Coyote cartoons instead. At the time some talking head was yammering on “it’s important we don’t jump to any conclusions before every fucking mail in ballot is counted sometime next week…”

Ha ha ha… the things the media says are true in terms of what they won’t say. I can tell what they’re not saying.

Have a great evening y’all. Time for me to see what my favorite coyote does with his new rocket sled.

A.C.

P.S. If tomorrow dawns and everything is ashes, I’ll rethink my optimism. For now “not quite the total wipeout Republicans feared” sounds like a punchline.

It can be done. Watch the video. It’s good stuff. It’s a sketch from 6 years ago… you know, as we were winding up for that year’s “most important election ever”.

I included the first sketch because it’s related to today’s political moment. The one below has no politics at all… and it’s perfect.

It’s almost over. The year dawned with a roaring economy, cheap fuel, the lowest unemployment in a lifetime, and relative peace abroad. So, of course, we fucked that into the ground and created hell from thin air. The relentless slog of propaganda, pissing matches, bitching, bickering, blithering bullshit, cognitive dissonance, constant clusterfucks, con jobs, and endless hyperventilating hissyfits makes me wonder if humans prefer chaos and poverty to peace and prosperity?

For those among us who are still sane; take heart! It’s near an end. Today is the precise local maxima; the ultimate point of peak stupid.

We’re almost through this.

There’s no surprise in anything that’s happened. The calendar has always had November 3rd marked as the date of a catharsis for the hysterics. It is, was, and always will be, the crescendo of stress.

It doesn’t have to be this way. All we need to do is grow a pair and stand on our own two feet. So long as we ask DC to mandate and control everything from our choice in breakfast cereal to the money in our wallet… shit will always be dumb. If we trim DC back to its original form; a nest of part-time paper pushers who don’t have much to do with our lives; then these periodic psychotic nightmares will cease. But being an adult is hard. Attending to our own affairs is the burden of freedom. It’s easier to pretend the president is God and then blame him for everything. Thus, every election is the most important election.

Luckily, the spastics have gone all out. They’ll soon need a period to rehydrate. Even the strongest Kool-Aid only lasts so long. Since 2020 was an unhinged ten round circle jerk of asshattery… the wingnuts are going to have a hell of a hangover. Honestly, they still have one from 2016. Can you imagine a life so pointless and unfulfilling that an election 4 years ago is still causing angst? I can’t. And I write stories about talking squirrels!

Hopefully the adults in the room, folks for whom every year isn’t year zero, will get a little peace. We need it. This isn’t our first rodeo. We’ve been through this before. Unlike the freaks in the streets, we know we’re going to have to go through it again. We’d like a nap first.

The good news is we might get a bit of comic relief. Perhaps we’ll happily laugh at the antics of the woke. Everyone likes watching While E. Coyote buy another shipment of crap from ACME.

I will vote tomorrow. In person. Like citizens have done in every American election since the founding.

I refuse to pay footsie with whatever “trust the mail/it’s too hard to leave the house” horseshit was brewed up in 2020. I didn’t vote by FAX in 1990 and I won’t vote by mail in 2020. That’s just me. Statistically, many readers chose a different route. That’s OK. I’m talking about my choices. Unlike the woke, I’ve no desire to make other people be like me.

Regardless, I will drive my privately owned truck, pilot it without a self driving AI, to a polling place that hasn’t changed in decades. If it rains I will get wet. If it snows I’ll engage 4×4. No big deal to me. If I have to… I’ll fucking walk. I’ll get there.

That’s how it was meant to be. I will get up and leave the house and wear pants and take care of one of the obligations of a true citizen just like an actual adult.  If I were overseas or infirm I might make other arrangements, but if I’m ever simply unable to get to the polling place because of mental limitations or simply a lack of gumption; I’ll probably just stop voting. Privately, I have said of one of the candidates “If you won’t leave your basement, you don’t get to be president.” I apply that to myself. “If I won’t leave my basement, I won’t vote.”

At the polling place, I’ll check in with the nice old ladies that seem to like volunteering. I’ll wait in line between 5 minutes and 3 hours. I won’t care one bit how long it takes. I’ll be among other fellow citizens. I’ll hear all the local gossip. Did you hear that Bill got a new truck, I think the wolves ate my neighbor’s calf, did you see that Frank’s combine caught on fire? The elk seem to be moving. Where? Still up high or along that one old road? Here’s a picture of my grandson…

When I’m done, the little old ladies usually give me a cookie. I fuckin’ love living in the country. I get a cookie! There’s no urban light rail/world class opera/concert venue that compares, in terms of culture, to a cookie made by Maude at the polling place.

I’m feeling optimistic about America! Are you? Can you feel it? Turn off your media devices and look around. It’s a good time to be alive. The misery of 2020 came from people… not from the universe. We’re doing OK.

The break in the storm is clear on the horizon. I can smell it on the wind. I can hear it in the addled voices on the hostile political ads. The freaks who airbomb into every media sound… terrified. I smell their desperation. I see their eyes.

I’m going to vote and there’s not a single fucking thing they can do to stop me. If the press reports there’s radioactive space lizards and angry unemployable pierced millennial half wits burn the cities down… doesn’t matter. I’m going to vote and enjoy it. I will experience renewal. I will eat a homemade cookie.

In 24 hours the situation will be obvious. We’ll be pretty sure where things are going. In 36 hours whatever’s going to happen will have happened. Maybe my meager PredictIt bets will get wiped out. Maybe the “polling reports” in the media are true. And maybe I’m a Chinese jet pilot.

If you haven’t already. Go vote. Do in person. Or don’t. I don’t give a shit.

Voting is only “building society” for the Fischer-Price crowd; politics is a “near accomplishment” for the fools and youths who haven’t actually done much. The rest of us are civilization. We keep things standing by just being who we are. Electing any particular turd sandwich to clomp around DC won’t change that. People who build are why we’re not living in mud huts. People who set cars on fire when their team doesn’t win lack the moxie to build anything. A movement of future cat ladies and miserable half-men. They know they’re pointless and it drives them mad.

If my guess is right we’ll have a few days to enjoy watching folks who are not on a first name basis with “real” discovering reality. Just as they did in 2016 they’ll face the choice of leveling up as real people or screaming at the sky in their cult-like self-prison. Pray for them… mock them if you wish… but also pray. “I shriek at everyone about politics. Why am I so alone?” What a sad way to live. Perhaps in time they’ll calm down and join us at the adult’s table. If not… fuck ’em.

Ya’ ready for a story with absolutely no specific details? Has the political season inured you to that yet? Great, here goes:

Consider society as a whole. We live in a sophisticated interlocking network of skills and technologies the likes of which has never before existed. The average person may have an iPhone but virtually none of us have the slightest fucking clue how it operates. Or why. Or how to fix it if it breaks.

We all sense that someone somewhere does know. Some smart motherfucker in a labcoat somewhere can make the chips that drive it. Some other smart person knows the chemistry of the batteries we bitch about. A group of smart people setup the communication network for which the phone itself is merely an access point. A smart but devious group create the code-based wiring harness that lets Facebook jack straight into your cortex. Etc…

From there it goes downhill. An army of not quite as clever but still very competent people keep the towers standing and the system powered. Others code stupid games and make sure you can track your pizza delivery. The lowest group picks the box color and try to convince us to embrace immense monthly payment plans. A final loud and annoying group of drooling morons scheme to call it a “human right” so politicians will subsidize free phones for the livestock on the vote farm.

The point is… I always imagine a smart fraction that really does know how this shit is done. It’s important they’re still with us. It matters to me. I want them to exist. I need them to exist.

Unfortunately, they might not. I keep looking behind the curtain. I do some odd thing that most people think is “impossible” and start realizing the good and bad of it. The good: nothing is impossible. The bad: if there’s a magic tiny fraction of geniuses… they’re not taking my calls. Are they merged in with the rest of humanity? Maybe they’re skilled in only one thing? Fuckin’ wizards at making cell phone chips, but otherwise just as clueless as anyone else? A one dimensional 185 IQ savant/dweeb that fights against Moore’s Law like a boss but can’t drive a stick shift car. A powerhouse of technology who just bought an extended warranty for their toaster.

Maybe the wise ones don’t exist! Holy shit!

The mind boggles! I feel the firmament give way. Count to ten. Breathe… OK I’m all calmed down now. I can continue…

Let’s start with the good. You can have the same experience as me. Just do something that’s “impossible”. It’s not really that hard. The world is awash with people who carry lists in their head of what cannot be done. The list is long, comprehensive, and pathetic. It serves as blinders to keep the scary outside world from intruding on their pedestrian thoughts. By their logic, if something demonstrably has been done (someone built the iPad… it wasn’t grown) but it’s not dirt simple; then the easiest way to avoid responsibility for thinking about it is to assume it can only be done by super-secret magicians from far away. That’s the root of the list of things that mere mortals can’t do.

Society keeps trying to add to the list. They’ve nearly convinced millennials that wearing pants and showing up to work is beyond their abilities. What’s next? Toilet training?

Regardless, pick something from that list. Pick something that’s hard. Then do it.

It feels good to do things. It also pokes holes in that “super-secret magicians” idea. An example; years ago I was making biodiesel. The chemistry isn’t that hard so I just did it. I bought a book and figured it out. I was careful. I learned. In time I was making an excellent product. In case you’re wondering, my truck ran just fine.

Instead of impressed, acquaintances reacted with suspicion and worry. I had offended the Gods! It was as if Exxon had a direct line to the universe where they downloaded pure energy… and that’s how your vehicle is powered. A “deplorable” like me churning out the same thing with French fry grease and a machine made of plumbing fittings broke the spell. They didn’t like it. They resented it.

But that never stopped me from believing that the smart people are out there. If I only had the right contacts. If I only knew the right people. I’d make a call, offer up a bottle of scotch, and listen carefully. I’d learn. I’d gain valuable knowledge. I’d avoid re-inventing the wheel. I wouldn’t have to muddle through. I just needed to make contact with those smart fellas.

Nope.

Recently I was trying to build a thing. What “thing” is beyond the point. The point is that many have gone before me. Humanity knows how to do this particular thing. They know the pros and cons of this widget versus that snerkdoodle. They know how many foot pounds to torque the frabnabulator.

But there’s nobody to communicate it to me. Like the matrix, I’ll just have to see it for myself. No shortcuts allowed. Humbly beseeching the wisdom of the greats does nothing if the greats ‘aint organized enough to talk it out. I could find a thousand references on the internet to one or another detail of my “thing of interest”. But no cohesive whole. No unified theory. Just a lot of fools like me… most of them with bigger budgets. Some buying this part, some buying that. Some making careful measurements of the results, others hoping it was good enough.

Q: “Did you stress test the load bearing whammerflacks?”

A: “It’s still standing.”

It’s an answer but it isn’t. If you want to design for a 5287 Newton-Gauss of whammerflack load it’s damn near useless. It’s just another story about whammerflacks. It hints at the universal whammerflack strength coefficient but tells you they don’t know the coefficient either.

Another cherished notion fades. I already knew the only way the idiots on Gilligan’s Island were going to get home was if they listened to the Professor. Now I know the Professor wasn’t 100% sure how the coconut radio worked. He made it, it filled the plot device, but anyone else who wants their own radio is going to have to get there on their own. The Professor ‘aint going to give a TED talk about the coconut radio that explains it all… because he’s not truly certain himself.

Fuck! We’re never getting off this island!

I gave up on finding a grizzled expert to help guide my project. I’d called several people with experience in the matter. All came up with some sort of excuse. “I’m pretty snofty on the jimmerjams but you’re asking about whammerflaks and I haven’t used them before.” They mostly offered helpful but not helpful breadcrumbs about their own path. “If you desire to go for jimmerjams, try installing the Excelsior X0293 with the optional tailfins. I love mine.”

I gave up. I’ll “wing it”. I ordered some random shit from the internet. It’ll work. Or it won’t. Most likely there will be mixed results. It’ll be a disaster when north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I’ll know a hawk from a handsaw and the fucker will run beautifully.

I wonder if my toddler thought the same thing when he asked me about whatever thing he was going to do. Was that his first step in the path I’m following right now? “Fuck him, he’s got no clue. I’ll just stick this thing in my mouth and see if it’s food.” How is that different from me right now? “Fuck it, I’ll order a part on Amazon and hope the thread pitch matches.”

As I age, I grudgingly accept we are all toddlers.

There comes a time in every man’s life when they realize everyone they ever counted on was probably just winging it. One personal memory of that idea is when my toddler child wanted to do something. I can’t recall the thing my kid wanted to do but I recall the eyes of an infant looking at me for permission. Was it allowed? Was it not allowed?

I had absolutely no opinion in the matter. Yet I was required to make a call… right then. “Holy shit! I’m a parent and an adult and I need to decide if I’m going to let this kid do this thing and I have no idea!” Talk about stress! If the kid turns out to be a serial killer will it all come down to that one time you let him stick a Ninja Turtle sock in his hat next to the gross half eaten cookie?

Who knows what leads to what? I made a guess, the kid complied, and the rule was made.

I had no other choice; children need to know what’s allowed and what’s not. (Actually, adults too but that’s another story.) I can’t recall my decision but I remember thinking “great, now I’ve created precedent… I need to remember this bullshit decision so that future bullshit decisions form a coherent whole”.

All parents go through this learning curve. We soon realize our parents did the same thing. It has always been so.

Enough with the Hallmark moment crap… in my next post I’ll scale up to the whole damn world.

I’ve been reluctant to post lately; resorting to eight part grouse hunting stories and analysis of the “beats” in today’s ubiquitous propaganda. Why tap dance around the obvious? Because y’all already know. You don’t need me beating the bloody spot where a horse once stood.

Also, the moment for despair is not now. Despair is what they want of you. When you’re trudging through the desert it’s a bad time to discuss thirst.

It’s my guess that very soon is when the fever might (or might not) break. No crescendo of a great mass panic grows forever. I for one, am ready for it. It’s been a long time coming.

I wonder how it got here and have dark conclusions. Did it start this March when I naively took “flatten the curve” at face value? Probably not. Did it start in 2017 when a routine swearing in ceremony involved broken windows? Meh, violent losers are always somewhere. Did it start in 2009? Maybe. Did it start in 1933?  Possibly.

Is it baked into the cake of the human psyche? Darkly, I think it probable.

I consider that liberty, by definition, is a burden too hard for most humans. Perhaps it is shouldered only in brief moments. Tiny flashes when hearts, minds, lives, and souls flourish. Then, after the brief glimpse if what might be, when mankind has stood up on its hind legs and risen above… it fades. We return from the moon and focus on regulating lightbulbs. It takes a lot of work to feed the world, or build a spacecraft, or maintain a car; any fool with a clipboard can bitch about it… and strangle innovation clear ’till we’re all starving in mud huts. So that’s what they do. Faced with the hard work of building, they tear down that which exists. They’ve created a vast imaginary philosophy where they’re the heroes of the story. It’s bullshit and they know it; but it seems to work for them.

I’ll skip the luxury of further “from whence the madness came” navel gazing. All that’s unquestionable is the current madness is here. It isn’t happening in secret. It didn’t start yesterday. I won’t solve it with a well reasoned discussion of policy. And it hurts.

That’s right… it fuckin’ hurts.

Many of readers, and humbly I count myself in the same crowd, are tough. We can take a punch and will come back off the mat with a plan that makes the instigator wish they’d tried a different victim. It comes naturally. It’s just who we are. Since we can’t be threatened or broken, we get sanded flat. This is why we are forced into isolation. Put up a flag of your own nation, or say the wrong word aloud, scare the squares, and we’re in for a hassle. Why? Because two of us might recognize each other and draw solace. A million of us standing strong cannot be hassled. One at a time we can (and are) ground to a nub.

It would be easier if we each didn’t feel all alone. However, a wise person keeps their own counsel. For the most part we all do just that. I, unwisely, discuss how I’ve evaded as much bullshit as I can. But then again, I don’t even give out the name of my dead and mourned dog.

We all make choices. I could have had compliance and gained the easy path; join the herd and be among the like minded. Instead, I chose freedom and paid for it (in part) with human interaction. I live in a sparse place. I wander the immensity of nowhere and talk with trees. I’ll never get a good Chinese meal delivered to my door. I’ll never get over missing stick shift in my car. I’ll ever be uneasy at any gathering; always scanning the exits.

I keep my eyes on the horizon. Always looking for the smoke of approaching madness. Shifting as needed. Nero is said to have fiddled while Rome burned, I got the fuck out of Panem long before it happened. At this point don’t really care if it burns. Heck, if it did, would I know?

But there’s good news too. Occasionally there’s a ray of light. Someone says something that reminds me I’m not alone and we have a conspiratorial nod. Someone mocks a politician and we all laugh. Babylon Bee makes a joke and Snopes shits itself. Or people who like to hear about bullshit wielding squirrels send me a quick note. There’s always hope.

I’ll take a shout out to freedom from wherever I find it. I cherish every one. So, here’s a big fat beacon of resilience from a rock band that somehow still has balls. Well done fellas. It’s big and loud and not the slightest bit subtle. I hear ya! I don’t know how you manage to exist but I’m glad you do. I needed that!

Hat tip to Ace of Spades.

P.S. There is no part 2 to this post. You’ll have to live that yourselves. You’re welcome.

Y’all know Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels has a theory that ABBA was among the first (or best) to master the use of music to imbed pre-planted bullshit in the population. How else to explain how Swedish Disco, which should be forgettable fluff, became a planet wide phenomenon? How else to explain when you find yourself tapping your feet when a 40 year old song comes in the radio. It’s all in good fun but there’s heart too. Witness the current generation, where a 50 year old bald clown turns the whole thing into dramatic sorrow. Don’t blame me, I just report what I see.

Update:

Someone mentioned that it’s a shame that this guy (whoever he is) has to dress like a damn clown to get airtime. He’s obviously a darned good singer. I’d say that performers dressing like an absolute dumbass is a long standing tradition. I agree the clown thing is pretty fuckin weird, but that’s only because it’s “new”. Here’s a few flaky dressers from other generations:

All of which makes The Association (1966) seem so much more radical: