The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I’ve always maintained, rightly or wrongly, that if necessity is the mother of invention, boredom is the midwife of art. Most of my artist pals would probably disagree, but I can only speak for myself. If I were busy with a job or a family or any of a countless other enterprises, I doubt I’d stay up late to find the time to make art.

Course my pals would point out that I somehow chose art over careers and family and all the rest and I’ll grant the point. But … I suspect it was my laziness or contrariness that kept me from those and so ultimately I ended up living hand to mouth with part time jobs, as a recluse on this American backwash, too much time on my hands, not enough TV maybe, but eventually succumbing to the siren song of art as a cure for ennui. I sure didn’t intend to be an artist anymore than I planned a career as a business executive.

No doubt there are plenty of folks who do — just not me. A friend of mine who rode cross country moving his divorced daughter from Seattle and Gomorrah back to Madison, Wisconsin with me for four days told me us artists with our mantra that we’ve found the perfect ‘job’, one that we love and doesn’t even really qualify as ‘work’, just screws it up for the people who need to take some crappy job in order to live, to raise a family, buy a house, all that stuff we call the American Dream. They don’t need to hear some yahoo like me telling them art isn’t work, it’s a passion, gee, just find your own passion and you’re all set.

Bullshit, he says. You want society to operate, people have to work jobs that they’re, no way, going to be passionate about. But they’ll be fine, even fulfilled. Shut up, he told me, giving folks false hope.

So … I’m telling you, if you’re not bored, be happy. Life is good. Sure, us artists are probably passionate, but maybe not happy. If I’m bored, rest assured, I’m not contented. But if you think I’m going to get a job, don’t kid yourself, I’ll just go make something, keep myself busy. Not saying that’s what everyone else should do….

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Oddly enough, Americans are quitting their jobs in record numbers. Debbie Randolph, down the road from me, just told her boss to shove it. Ten bucks an hour and unvaccinated customers giving her a hard time over mandated mask wearing, that was the last straw she said the other day over our fourth cup of coffee, who needs the aggravation? Plenty of other neighbors are pulling the plug too, fed up with low wages and fellow employees calling in sick, leaving them with double the workload. My old bandmate Cindy retired early from teaching elementary school. She told me she just couldn’t face another year of pandemic lockdowns, masks, virtual learning, who knows what else? I asked if she’d be all right and she smiled. More than all right, she laughed. Way more.

Welcome, America, to the South End, where work has never been a path to heaven, more a dead end to happiness. What I don’t understand is what took you so long? Long commutes, bad bosses, low pay, soul sucking shifts. Thank god for the pandemic, I guess, a mandatory time out for a lot of folks, time to ponder the meaning of work in the 21st century. I mean, who wouldn’t crave a career in an Amazon distribution center? Course, there’s always the fear of homelessness, starvation and the judgement of our fellow inmates. “Did you hear Mike Rathkin quit his job at the mill? Spends all his time at the tavern with those other bum friends of his. It’s a shame. His wife Jenny is just beside herself what’s going to become of them, her pregnant again. It’s beyond pathetic.”

Every time I go in the island grocery store now I see new faces. Younger faces. Sure, I expect prices will go up if the wages do. Fine by me. Pay em a decent salary. All these gulags, time to listen to the prisoners. What’s the point of working if your paycheck won’t pay the rent and food? Down in Seattle and Gomorrah the service industry ( I love that term, service industry), the maids and the fast food workers, the nursing home staff, the daycare teachers, the waitresses and cooks, the school bus drivers, the janitors and the clerks, the service industry pays nowhere near what it would cost to live in the city limits. So now add the commute to the outlying hinterlands, the gas, the wear and tear on the car, on and on, you bet quitting looks like a reasonable option.

It did for me and that was 50 years ago. I know, a man ahead of his time.

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