The Shock of Winter

Winter is cold. Let’s talk about the cold again and again. Ten degrees, 4 degrees, zero and below. Let’s comment on winter. And snow. It’s still coming down. It’s melting fast. Three inches, seven inches, 14 inches in an hour. Let’s forget that this conversation has been going on for a thousand or 10,000 years and we’re still goddamned astounded when it snows and the temperature drops and we have to light a fire or turn up the heat or close the windows. Millennia of surprised reactions to the perfectly predictable constantly changing seasons. Some are drier than others, sometimes it gets colder and windier and the snow is slightly deeper and there are icicles and frozen birdbaths, chapped lips and cold feet and you can see your breath. Someone will get hurt skiing, someone else will complain about shoveling snow. Cars won’t start. Visibility will be reduced.

We’re amazed by winter. We are shocked and baffled by the onset.

In six months it’s going to be warming up and we’ll have a whole new list of complaints and comments. About summer and the heat.

Now, it’s winter. Just like last year. And the 10,000 previous years.

Put on a sweater.

Thank you for voting

     Once more, it’s the day after Election Day. This time it went the other way. A lot of my friends are all pissy. They didn’t see this coming? They are looking for someone to blame; the non-voters, the tired, burned out citizens who simply cannot crawl to the polls, one more time, to be disappointed and lose their self respect. I’m a lifelong Dem and I’ll vote Democratic again because, so far, the alternatives are so blatantly abominable. Not the candidates, not even the Republican Party, but the on-going repression, racism, fear, disrespect, violence and fundamentalism that the candidate’s owners pay for, support and sustain.

     Why is everyone moaning so much, anyway? For the past month I’ve been seeing sanctimonious, self-congratulatory posts about how “I voted early”, “Please Vote”,  “You have to Vote”, “It’s your Civic Duty”, “Blame yourself”.

     Shut up. Didn’t they notice that we are still fighting at least three wars? That the minimum wage is so goddamn low that Americans who are fully employed, who work their asses off at hard jobs, cannot buy homes or clothes or afford decent food, schools, transportation? And how about that invasive surveillance? The armed and dangerous and out-of-control law enforcement agencies that are shooting first and then going to lunch? Women still only earn 78 cents for every dollar a worker with a penis is paid. Holy shit. Gender equality has been on the table for at least a century. Your party, whichever one, has done next to nothing since the last time we put them back behind their desks.

Starting today, again, there will be more tough talk and no action; the lobbyists and their favorite pets are moistening their lips, checking their zippers and filling their pockets with tissues. The money train is rolling and there are big smiles all around.

     We did our duty though. We cared, we argued, we scolded and we posted on Facebook. LOL. You are so cute. For our reward we get the Holiday Season. Gifts and lights and shopping and family and food and phones and blockbuster movies.

     Thanks for voting early.

The Halloween Conspiracy

It’s that time of year again. The Trifecta of Stupidity. 

Halloween

Daylight Savings

Election Day

Three big piles.

Halloween, which used to be a kid’s holiday of funny costumes and candy, has been stolen by narcissistic adults who have sexualized and monetized it.

All kinds of stuff is for sale: cardboard jack-o-lanterns, giant bags of Snickers, Halloween specials at Wal-Mart. Sleazy bars, Jean’s, Pier 23, The Gold Clown, where I used to be able to dodge the costumed kids and get wasted, are now sponsoring bullshit costume contests where a lot of lonely guys come dressed as gangsters and pimps, and marginally intelligent women get their hooker on. Nice. Don’t scare the children.

Yesterday, I heard someone in the Dentist’s office, as she was leaving, her lip numb and her mouth stuffed with cotton, say to the receptionist, “Have a happy Halloween.”

Is this a thing? I can’t get far enough away from holidays, and now they are legitimizing Halloween? Soon, I guess, they’ll be closing down the government for Halloween. Sorry, you can’t pay your ticket or meet with your public defender or file a building permit. It’s Halloween! Will we have to give presents? Fuck that.

Daylight Savings.

Now, you’ve been gorging on candy and alcohol and dreaming about sexy costumes and parties and watching horror films and celebrating the Day of the Dead and All Souls Day and All Saints Day and filling your head with every possible kind of reality-distorting fantasy that the next thing they do is change the lighting. Yep; you wake up confused, distracted and unstable. Everyone is late, they are jet-lagged and yawning and the sun isn’t coming up at the right time. You feel as if you’re in the wrong place every day. It starts to get dark around 3:00 p.m. and you’re hungry all the time. A destabilized population, hungover and tired.

A perfect time for the final Big Lie.

The perfect time to slip in... Election Day. God Bless America crashing from sugar and booze, washing off its makeup, tries to wipe the crusty buildup from its eyes and, hurry up, it's time to vote.  America has been shown Who’s The Boss. Our government. The venal, degenerate, unprincipled men and women we vote for. We have experienced their authority, their supremacy; with their mandated power, they can change the time the sunrises for Christ’s sake; they have fucked up our circadian rhythms. All-powerful liars, grabbing with both hands and failing over and over, cycle after cycle. What more can be said? Better people have commented on this waste of time. We are completely irrelevant, overlooked and disregarded until Election Day rolls around. Now, nightly come the robo-calls from local dipshits asking for the vote because they are going to (fill in the blank). Nah, no they’re not. They are going to be slurping at the trough and stuffing their pockets for as long as we let them. And don’t scold me. Do what you want, feel good about yourself, but don’t you dare berate me for not…being you, I suppose. I know, I know. All that crap about civic duty, constitution, can’t-complain-if-you-don’t-vote, our rights, patriotism, America fuck yeah. So go, do it, stand in line, chat with your fellow citizens, shit on the liberals or the conservatives. Do it. You’ll think you're better than me. And you probably are.

I can’t even get into the perfect timing of the World Series. Go Giants.