The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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Folks ask me why I write these odd little vignettes of life on the salty South End. I always want to answer something like Because I have to. I have no choice. Us artists love to talk that way. Mr. Picasso, Pablo … why do you paint? To live, my little friend, to live. We never say, So I don’t have to work, you damn fool, what did you think?

We’re an odd society, us Americanos. We tend to exalt the Artiste as somehow unique, special, a rare breed, a person on an exalted plane. Probably the result of mental illness or malignant non-conformity. Prone to alcoholism, drug abuse and extreme hedonism. Who suffers more due to sensitivities more painful than herpes and who dies an early death with only one ear remaining.

We seem to like the notion of Starving Artists. Only through suffering, I guess, can you break the bonds of normality and ascend into true inspiration. Maybe explains why we keep minimum wages low — we’re trying to help folks find their Muse.

Art is a form of insanity, we think. Why else would a grown yahoo live in squalor, risk the hostilities of friends and family and neighbors alike, all for a passion that rarely makes a living and is always an invitation to cruel criticism.

“Let me show you my newest painting. Be honest, what do you think?” Do you folks do that??? Would normal people do that??? And the sad part: artists are the very WORST at rejection. Every review, criticism, rejection and commentary is a verdict on their creation. On them! Imagine the neighbors knocked on your door and gave you a criticism of your kid. “Did a nice job raising Jimmy, pal. Spittin image. Too bad about that shoplifting incident and that pregnant no-account girlfriend of his. Next time maybe get a vasectomy. Just thought you’d like to know. By the way, my daughter, Jennifer, she just got accepted by Harvard Medical School.”

So why do we write … or paint … or put broken glass back together? I could lie to you, I could spin a web, I could wax romantic or philosophic. But the truth is if I didn’t, I’d go crazy out of sheer boredom. I’ll probably go crazy anyway, just not as fast….

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Folks often ask why is it us artists don’t start a co-op art gallery down here on the South End the way most places with an overabundance of aesthetics and egos do. Truth is, we have considered it. And more than a few times, rejected the notion. Personally I love the idea of a joint venture with my fellow artisans, but … well, let’s be brutally honest here, we’re mostly a clueless lot fiscally. Whatever side of the brain controls creativity, it’s not the same side as the side that manages finance, money, business or advertising. In fact, I suspect if we ran a CAT scan on most of our brains, that area would be dark, almost as if aliens had stolen it.

Put a few dozen of us together, say, in a meeting to decide how to organize a co-op art gallery, and let me tell you, it’s an anarchist agenda right from the get-go. Maybe we just don’t get much beyond how many of our watercolors the wall space will hold. Forget leasing the building, forget who manages the sales, forget who sits the place open.

Then you got the issue of who can be IN the co-op. Everybody with a brush and an easel? Or do we jury in the members? And how much for dues? And what commission if anything ever sells? And how do you work the payback for sitting the store? And bylaws … oh yeah, gotta have rules and all that arguable rigamarole!

Ten minutes into the organizational meeting and you got total chaos. Artists vs.craftsmen. Volunteers vs. the Big Names. Rule makers vs. bohemians. Capitalists vs. hedonists. Believe me, you need to carry a weapon. Hopefully you won’t need to use it, but it’s best to be prepared. You think art is a spectator sport, you’d be at risk.

So yeah, we’ve flirted with the notion of an Art Co-op. About as likely as a Sunni-Shi-ite dance studio, you ask me. That’s why we pay galleries a 40-50% commission. To save lives, if nothing else — and probably worth every cent.

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Right after college I decided to be a bum. Worked awhile at a dog pound, drove city buses, did a stint as manager of a restaurant, then went into a slow retirement. One of my gigs was as an inventory specialist. Roll into a grocery store with my team of fellow specialists, count the cereal boxes and aspirin bottles, pretend it’s accurate, give an accounting to the manager who, half the time, asked us to ‘fudge’ the numbers anyway.

One Friday night we headed to Rockford, Illinois from our home base in Madison, Wisconsin. Chico drove, for which he got a dime a mile extra. Six of us piled into his rat-trap jalopy, no seatbelts, no radio, no working speedometer and by dark we rolled into Rockford. Chico took a sharp left, my passenger door flew open and I was hanging onto it for dear life before the guy next to me hauled me back in. Chico said, “Forgot to mention it, but that door’s broke.”

We finished up our inventory at a small chain grocery, adjusted the number for the manager and piled back in Chico’s Cadillac. About half an hour later an Illinois State Trooper had us pulled over, who knows for what of many possible violations, and Chico got out to deal with the cop while the rest of us sat quietly like Guatemalan immigrants. Chico came back, handed me a yellow ticket and pointed at the glovebox. I put it in with about two or three dozen others. “Chickenshit,” was all he said.

At the last tollbooth about 2 in the morning he pulled up to the toll taker and handed him a buck. The guy in the booth surveyed the six of us long-haired motley losers before handing Chico his change. “You look like smart fellas,” he said with a smirk. “What’s a six letter word for skirt. Ends in G.” He tapped his pencil against his yellowed teeth.

Chico tossed the change in an ashtray with cigarette butts and joint roaches. “Sarong,” he said and put the car in gear. The toll taker looked at his crossword, looked back at Chico and us, the only car that time of night, shook his head in disbelief and said, “Thanks.”

We drove off across the farmlands where everyone but us slept their dreamfilled nights away. I quit the next day, never worked a crossword puzzle or a full time job again my whole life. Chico, who knows…? Probably a CEO now.

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I was following a Cadillac SUV with a bumper sticker that read: YOU’RE THE REASON YOU’RE SUFFERING. This is bad news indeed for most of us down here on the South End, but at least now we know who to blame for our misfortunes. Although … I don’t think I care for the Winners in the Game of Life telling us Losers we deserve what we got. Some of us sure do. And I’m one. But I don’t ask for favors … or sympathy … or welfare either. I’m not going to make it to the 1% and I’m not gonna work myself to death trying.

But there are folks like Janet down the road, two kids in preschool and daycare, a husband John back from the Oil Wars with one leg and a head bounced too many times in IED explosions who’s pretty much a permanent casualty. She’s trying to hold a job and hold things together too. She’s 24 going on 60 and I seriously doubt she thinks her suffering is on account of her.

Joe the Plumber — and no, not that Joe the Plumber — has meliosomethingorother, the cancer from breathing asbestos when he unknowingly worked with the stuff in his youth. I doubt he’s going to take kindly to a Cadillac bumper sticker that thinks his Attitude must be to blame for his disease.

The rich think the rest of us are lazy, I guess. The 1% think the losers are takers. The corporate boyz think they made it on their own, no help from the education system, no assistance from the government that built the infrastructure, no subsidies or tax credits or loopholes in the law. They got theirs and if it happens to suck up most of yours, well, tough. You coulda done it too. Course, you might have been born black or Hispanic, you might be autistic or handicapped, you might be a single mom or a laid-off worker, you might get sick, you might be discriminated against, you might have been born on the South End.

We all want to believe we’re the captains of our destiny. But the waters we sail are more treacherous for some. It doesn’t take much compassion to pick up survivors in the water from the lifeboat off your yacht. Course, when the time comes we take the yacht away from you, I hope you’ll understand, it’s going to be your fault.

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“A rating of U.S. presidents found Donald Trump was the nation’s worst ever leader while Joe Biden ranks 14th, putting him among the top-third of commanders-in-chief.
The 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey asked more than 500 members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association and recently published scholars to rate the 46 presidents in “overall greatness” on a scale of one to 100.
Respondents ranked Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and George Washington, respectively, at the top of the list. Trump finished dead last behind James Buchanan, who preceded Lincoln and governed in the lead-up to the Civil War.”

Here it is, the holiday celebrating Lincoln and Washington’s birthdays, so why not have the experts rate the Commander in Chiefs top to bottom. Top was Lincoln and Washington, kind of makes sense since these are the two Presidents we honor with a holiday. Plus, they’re on Mt. Rushmore. Probably harder to decide who was the worst. Or maybe not. The day before the rankings came out, the guy who raced to the bottom was pitching 400 dollar Trump Sneakers. I know, the Man has to make money to pay back the nearly half a billion in fines he’s accrued so far for tax fraud and for defamation of the woman he raped. Kind of surprised he didn’t roll out a line of women’s underwear, the E. Jean panties with the small handprint in the crotch. Maybe later….

The MAGA folks will back this pitchman for another 4 year term. And half a chance they’ll put him back in office, give him an opportunity to raise his ratings above Hoover and Buchanan’s down there in the cellar. At least there’s no way he can drop any lower. Unless he makes good on that underwear line….

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