The Life in My Years

The Daily Demon and Other Tales

Paul

November 19, 2024

“No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it.”
~ William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

It’s all coming back to me. The memory of getting up every morning, going downstairs and turning on the news. It started in 2017 (actually it started in November of 2016). Turning on the television wasn’t unlike looking out the kitchen window to see a leering demon staring back at me. Each day delivered a new demon. It might be a policy (I use the word loosely) statement or a blasphemy launched at someone who got under the guy’s skin, or words of praise for a tyrant on the other side of the planet, or another word salad from a buffoon who couldn’t construct a coherent sentence. Hell, it could be as simple as – “covfefe.” The demons didn’t even have the decency to take Sunday mornings off. They worked 24/7/365.

And then in 2021, the demons disappeared.

And now their back. It’s the sequel, and sequels are usually worse than the original. I wish I could say it was political PTSD – gremlins bouncing around my brain from a chaotic past. But no, we’re going through it again. To date most of the daily demons have names; Tulsi Gabbard, Matt Gaetz (known informally as Rapey McForehead), Pete Hegseth, and a guy who admitted to having a brain worm.

Today’s daily demon was a reality show quack known as Dr. Oz. The good doctor didn’t arrive in the morning. He showed up while I was at the gym. They do that. Tap you on the shoulder, look back at you in the rearview mirror, or jump out of the closet when you least expect it.

I guess the difference this time around is that the current demons are exponentially more horrific than their forebears.

Mandate – shmadate
As is its wont, Trump-land is calling Donald Trump’s victory a “landslide.” Hardly. The margin of victory will end up at about 2 percent (his margin comes in at 44th out of the 51 elections that have been held since 1824), and once the last signature is verified, will be less than 50% of the vote. LBJ’s 60+ percent in 1964 was a landslide.

But Donald Trump lives in his own “like the world has never seen before,” fictional universe. And the cult, as is the wont of cults, hangs on every word and believes Trump’s fictions of landslides and mandates. The bigger problem is some of the people who possess actual sway in how things are going to work, also believe the fictions. Or are simply willing to turn away from reality because it suits their ambitions.

Corey Lewandowski, the creepy political commentator and former Donald Trump campaign manager, along with others, has been claiming that the people have given Trump a mandate. A mandate for what? Tear apart our institutions? Immolate the Constitution? Endanger our safety, our health, our well being, and our right to enjoy “life liberty and the pursuit of happiness?”

The meager American electorate (and I’ll get to the meager part in a bit) voted to entrust Donald Trump (The very concept of entrusting Donald Trump with anything is mind boggling) with its future. The voters who chose Trump did so in the belief that he would make life more livable (you know – eggs and milk). The electorate didn’t give Trump carte blanche to fuck the world. And yet, here we are, looking at a cabinet lineup of unqualified, sycophantic ideologues which indicates that Trump is in the mood to do a lot of screwing.

The Cost Of The Price Of An Egg

Paul

16 comments

November 13, 2024

Warning: Rough language ahead.

After my recent post, I decided I needed some time away. I was poised to crack open the bottle of Polish vodka that I brought from Krakow for my son and to listen to hours of blues but I thought better of it. So I buried myself in a good book and a mixture of jazz, and head banging rock; walked the dog, watched basketball, and did some photo processing.

But the political junkie can’t stay away for long. Pretty soon he starts jonesing for the three P’s; polls, podcasters and pundits. And so, let the self-flagellation commence.

Acceptable casualties: A military euphemism used to indicate casualties or destruction inflicted that is considered minor or tolerable.

The price of eggs. It was the voter’s rallying cry that drowned out all others. The price of eggs was the hill, the electorate’s objective, and it was hell bent on making a suicide charge up that hill.

And the acceptable casualties?

Everything.

“As hard as it is right now, we have to find a way to tune in, not out. If we don’t, Trump wins again,” said the meme on Dan Rather’s Facebook page.

“Let the bastard win,” the me in my nightmare says. “Who are we kidding? He won a long time ago. I’m tired and done. Nine years it’s been. And at least four more to go. Thank you, America. A voice inside me wants Trump to go all Trump and accelerate the pain and I want all the people who allowed this to feel some pain. I want them to feel remorse. But the voice in response reminds me that the people who will feel the most pain are, as Matthew said in the Bible, “the least of us.”

I made the prediction to my wife in October, while riding in a subway train in Vienna. They play short video news clips on small screens in the trains. There was Trump, mouthing something. Couldn’t understand the closed caption. All in German. Turned to Cora, “He’s gonna win, and win big. Fucking guy.”

Trump’s victory was crystal clear to me and I wasn’t feeling a trace of disappointment. No disappointment, just resignation. Because for years I’ve realized just what America has become.

A few days later, when a waiter in a restaurant said he wanted to go to America, I said, “Don’t. it’s not a good place. You have it better here.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Donald Trump for one,” I responded.

“Yeah, there is that.” His English was so excellent that I asked him if he is an expat. He responded that he was Austrian born but went to an American school in Vienna.

We went to bed early on election night after having watched enough of the returns to decide it wouldn’t be healthy to continue. Sometime after midnight, I woke up when my wife went to the bathroom.

Looked at my phone and glanced at the returns.

When Cora came back to bed I said, “Trump won.”

“My lord.”

Yeah, Trump, my un-sweet lord.

Actually I’d fibbed. Trump wasn’t yet at 270, but it didn’t take a long look to understand that there’s no such thing as a 150 yard hail mary..

Well damn, I thought, the corpse is still warm and they’ve already started. “Your body, my choice. Forever.” It was the work of Nazi, and Trump acolyte Nick Fuentes in the immediate wake of Donald Trump’s victory. Like the man said, forewarned is forearmed.

Following his post and the ensuing outrage by normal people, and support by knuckle draggers, Fuentes was doxxed. But there may be some sweet irony in this story. This may just be another social media yarn but the story goes that after being doxxed for trolling women, rough, tough Nicky ran home to hide in his mommy’s house. We can safely assume that Nick’s mom is, you know, a woman.

Fuentes wasn’t the only one. The wake of Trump’s victory carried with it a flow of filthy vitriol aimed at women. The Institute for Strategic Dialog reported that in the 24 hours following Trump’s victory, there was “a 4,600% increase in mentions of the terms “your body, my choice” and “get back in the kitchen” on X. Similarly misogynist language, such as the use of “dumb cunt” to target Harris, television personalities such as Rachel Maddow and others, received more than 64,000 mentions on X from more than 42,000 accounts on November 5.”

But, but, Trump didn’t say those things. Nor has he criticized those statements. Let’s remember, Fuentes is Trump’s guy. Trump broke bread with Fuentes and that whacko Ye or Kanye or whatever he calls himself today. Maybe they broke McDonalds filet o’ fish sandwiches, a Trump favorite. Trump should’ve been investigated for his bad taste in sandwiches alone.

I had a brief delusional moment of hope that the fucking guy would repudiate the misongyny. Of course he didn’t.

On the way back from the gym the other day. A guy in the car next to mine at a red light was sporting a cap that said “My dick ain’t racist.” No? But you sure are a racist dick. I’m not surprised. Racist dick fashion has become chic. Waiting for Macy’s to sell torn versions of racist dick fashion (Made in China) and bump the price up by a factor of ten.

Knives out.
The traditional national pastime of a post election pie fight within the losing party started sometime around midnight, PST when it was clear that Jabba the Hutt would be moving back into the White House come January.

Harris ran a bad campaign.

Why didn’t she address that “taxpayers are paying for prisoner sex change operations” ads? (A fair question actually)

Too much identity politics.

Ignored and talked over the workin’ man.

Biden would have done better.

Should’ve held a primary.

This Is Who We Are

Paul

15 comments

November 6, 2024

“That’s not who we are,” said the politician. It may have been a member of Congress, a governor or a local sheriff. Certainly I’ve heard Barack Obama say it.

“That’s not who we are.”

That statement of denial, a far too late attempt to pick up the shattered and scattered pieces of our national reputation, usually follows some act that stoked widespread outrage; a(nother) school shooting, a bombed mosque, a right wing rally that devolves into violence, an outrageous statement that stokes violence against some marginalized group (You know, like immigrants eating pets).

Invariably a politician who hasn’t met a microphone he doesn’t love, stands in front of a crowd or tells a panel of CNN pundits, “That’s not who we are,” and I reply to the television, “The fuck it’s not.

This – is – exactly – who – we – are.

Election Day Morn

Paul

12 comments

November 5, 2024

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends
We’re so glad you could attend,
come inside, come inside
There behind a glass stands a real blade of grass
Be careful as you pass, move along, move along*

*Karn Evil 9.
Keith Emerson, Greg Lake, Peter Sinfield.

A forecast of sunny and bright weather belies my mood this morning. I’ve been dreading this day for longer than I can remember.

Wait, that’s wrong, I have a vague recollection.

Yeah, that’s right, darkness began to fall two years ago, in November of 2022, when Donald J. Trump decided to make another run at the presidency.

As if the previous seven years that included his initial disgusting 2015 candidacy, his tumultuous presidency, his run for a second term, his election denialism, an insurrection and two years of whining weren’t enough, Trump decided to put the nation and the world through another spin cycle of incompetence, despair and chaos.

These past two years (years 8 and 9 if you’ve lost count) have only magnified Trump’s unfitness for office. Trump has not only gone unapologetically all in on fascism, he also seems to be a few bricks shy of a load (or to put it in rougher terms, he’s off his fucking rocker).

In the final weekend of his campaign, at a rally in Milwaukee, Trump decided that it would be a good idea to simulate giving a microphone holder a blow job. Now here’s where I’m going to descend into outraged geezerdom. I am 100 percent certain that most people’s parents or grandparents, regardless of political stripe, upon seeing a grown ass man, much less a grown ass man wanting to be the leader and face of the nation, simulate a blow job in public, would denounce that grown ass man as a classless lout who never outgrew prepubescence and should never hold a position of responsibility and maybe, just maybe, should be institutionalized. But, for some perverse reason (and I use the word “reason” with copious looseness), Trump world is okay with that. They’ll figure out a way to excuse it.

Come inside, the show’s about to start
Guaranteed to blow your head apart
Rest assured you’ll get your money’s worth
The greatest show in Heaven, Hell or Earth
You’ve got to see the show, it’s a dynamo
You’ve got to see the show, its rock and roll, oh

Not to be outdone in the election cycle’s overall carnival of the bizarre, the Democrats decided to add to all the turbulence by first trying to anoint old Joe to a second term only to unload him after watching in horror, his June debate performance.

It was the preemptive coronation of Biden (the second out of three election cycles after Hilary crashed and burned in 2016) that compelled me to leave the Democratic Party and register as an Independent.

These days I wonder if we’ll ever return to the old normal times. I have a vague recollection of those times, when Trump was still just a two bit reality show host, when election day came and went with a winner and a loser, and the loser would concede and say ‘We’ll do better next time and I promise to support the incoming president,’ and the winner would graciously accept the concession and the lame duck would carry on until inauguration day and then the new guy would step in.

In the normal times if your candidate won you might be giddy with hope and if he lost you figured the country could gut out four years of the other guy. Oh maybe you were a little panicky but, really, how bad could it get?

How bad? This time the potential knows no bounds.

Oh God, the nostalgia of it all.

The normal days are a fleeting memory and I’m not certain that they’ll return anytime soon. Trump tossed the banquet table and we’ll be mopping up the chow mein and the Jello salad for a long time to come.

Right before your eyes see the laughter from the skies
And he laughs until he cries, then he dies, then he dies

European Days: Munich – A cautionary tale of history

Paul

3 comments

November 2, 2024

16, October, 2024
Munich has been dank and gloomy throughout our visit. It’s the risk the traveler runs when choosing to vacation in autumn. It’s part of the trade off; you’ll take dodging raindrops in exchange for dodging the hordes of travelers. The irony of being a traveler and wanting to avoid the hordes of my own vacationing species doesn’t escape me. I am what I’m trying to avoid, what I often curse.

“Damn tourists.”

The city woke up to a low fog that obscured the top third of the magnificently, architecturally busy, neo-gothic Rathaus (town hall) in the Marienplatz, the city’s old town square. The shroud has lifted but the murk persists.

Cora and I are walking through the Hofgarten, a pleasurable peace (yes, you read that correctly “peace”) of green in the center of bustling München. It rained last night, and the macadam path before us is pocked with puddles. We’re drizzled on by occasional spits of mist that have kept the park largely devoid of visitors. The garden is left to those of us who’ll accept muddy outer soles as a small inconvenience for the benefit of an inner soul cleansed by a walk in the park.

An old fellow eats his lunch on a bench, sitting close by his equally old bike which leans against the end of the bench. A few younger people are strolling the path or sitting on benches, all likely taking a midday break from work. A short pause for serenity in a city that, if you judge from the madness of the underground, is anything but serene on any given weekday.

We’re flanked on either side by rows of trees that stand in perfect lines. Wooden soldiers. It’s autumn and these soldiers are clad in neither steel gray nor green camo, but in brilliant yellow.

Soldiers.

Wooden soldiers.

That’s the tag that the Germans wear.

They’re grim, rigid, officious, much too serious, and overly scrupulous. Prone to being engineers, scientists, staid pipe smoking philosophers, and uber patriotic soldiers. It’s the cross of iron that the Germans bear.

And it’s bullshit.

A visit to any biergarten or rathskeller will disabuse you. It’s rousing, jovial, and communal. No reservations. Pull up an empty spot on a bench, sip your beer and munch your pretzel next to a stranger who, before that stein is half empty may just become your friend.

Hell, how staid can the Germans be, given that they invented Christmas – at least the one most of us celebrate, the one with trees, lights and Santa Claus. You know, the fun Christmas.

At the same time, an American’s first visit to a German restaurant can seem a bit off putting. Don’t expect a perky, “Hi, I’m Kimmie and I’ll be your server today. Here’s our list of signature cocktails.”

Nope, you’ll get pointed to a table, and handed a menu, sometimes wordlessly. The server will return and likely say, “So?” or maybe if you’re lucky, “Bitte (please).”

At mealtime’s end, they aren’t going to come by your table and bring you a check. That’s on you. And that’s a paean to hospitality – and something of a repudiation (gasp) of capitalism. Stay as long as you want. Linger over your coffee. Don’t want more coffee? No beer? No schnapps? No problem. There’s no bourgeois rush to turn tables. Hell, in a coffee house where there are often servers who, one would think, would love to see a healthy turnover of tables, there are racks of newspapers for coffee sippers to choose from and linger over.

Go to a hofbrau and you shouldn’t be surprised to see regulars, often dressed in traditional Bavarian garb, hovering over a chess game or just shooting der Scheiß while nursing beer in steins big enough to hold enough brew to fill up a Benz fuel tank.

In America the server drops off the check and says, “No rush.” Loosely translated that means, “Hurry the fuck up. I need to turn this table.”

The Death of a Franchise

Paul

6 comments

October 1, 2024

It was an unusually large crowd at the Oakland Coliseum on the final day of the Oakland Athletics home season. Some came for the love of baseball. Some came as fans of the team. Others came to pass a sunny afternoon at the ball yard.

The rest? The rest was most of the crowd, and they came for the wake. Someone dies and the family, friends, loved ones, and hangers on come to remember the departed. It’s that odd mixture of sorrow and joy, bereavement and comfort, tears and laughter, closure and commencement. Maybe commencement is the hardest part. You move on. But to what?

The last pitch on this day wasn’t just the last of a season, it was the final pitch of an era. After years under the ownership of a penny-pinching billionaire named John Fisher (according to Forbes, Fisher is worth 3 billion dollars), the A’s are pulling up stakes and moving to, well, God knows where. Fisher certainly doesn’t.

For the foreseeable future (3 years is the stated timeline), the team will play 85 miles up Interstate 80 in little Sutter Health Park, home of the minor league Sacramento River Cats. Yeah, it’s come to that – MLB in a minor league park.

After squatting at Sutter Health Park, the team is expected to move to a new stadium in Las Vegas, although depending on what news you hear or when you hear it, that move may be a pipe-dream – on again, off again.

And if it’s off? Off to Portland? Salt Lake City? Charlotte? Nashville? Some city starving for major league ball, and if you’re willing to accept Fisher, you are fuckin-A starving.

Why move?

Fuck if I know – at least not the gritty details.

The owner, John Fisher, was the chief instigator in making the move a self fulfilling prophecy with his propensity to trade away on field talent, or simply let them walk away, and his obtuse and inept approach to finding a stadium solution. At times, one might have thought that Fisher himself was trying to sabotage a Bay Area stadium.

True, the A’s needed a new stadium. For years, the Coliseum has been a dump. Built a short distance from San Francisco Bay and 22 feet below sea level, a healthy rain and backed up pipes had been known to bring flood waters into the players shower area. The stadium has long been in need of a facelift, some TLC, and, oh yeah, there’s a mountain behind the centerfield wall that needs to be razed. None of that will happen now.

Jill Stein and the Contrarians Without a Cause

Paul

6 comments

September 18, 2024

“Do they see the lethal insanity of a race to the brink of oblivion, and then over the edge? Apparently not. If they did, surely they wouldn’t be racing to begin with.”
― Stephen King, The Dark Tower

Disclosure: This past June, I left the Democratic Party and registered as an Independent. I have no intention of rejoining any party until the electoral process becomes more democratic and the Democrat Party itself changes its nomination process.

It’s the quadrennial election, and to the surprise of nobody, Jill Stein is back and running for president. Jill has become the political mosquito whose name shows up on my sample ballot once every four years in October.

In a few weeks I’ll be getting my sample ballot, and I’ll open it and puzzle over some candidates who I’ve never heard of (and after election day will probably never hear of again).

They’re the independents, squatters who managed to finagle themselves onto a state ballot, or, if they’ve been really resourceful, a few state ballots. They’ll garner a few votes from family, friends and the hopelessly dissatisfied. For them, there is no there, there; no path to the White House, unless they book a tour. And yet, every four years a small herd of the hopeless hopefuls trot down a short trail that ends at the November precipice.

Noiseless ciphers, they’re not unlike the tree that falls in the unpopulated forest.

It’s the third and fourth party candidates (the Greens and Libertarians) who also fall every four years, though not always so softly. They have potential, not to rise to the presidency, but certainly to affect the outcome of the contest.

Most of the time the vainglorious third party candidates are little more than a worrisome side-show headed by a gadfly who proposes a platform consisting of some genuinely good ideas, coupled with promises hatched from a recipe comprised of one part good intention and a dump truck full of naivete, flights of fancy, ignorance of political reality, and maybe a little too much Chardonnay. More often than not, third party runs make about as much noise as a waterlogged firecracker, but there have been examples of when third party candidates turned into tripped electoral landmines.

The two most recent were Ralph Nader who, in 2000, helped by a fictitious character named hanging Chad, managed to divert enough votes from Al Gore to put George W. Bush over the top, and then in 2016, when Gary Johnson and Jill Stein pushed Donald Trump over the goal line (with a little help from James Comey).

I’ve heard the arguments that both Gore and, in particular, Hilary Clinton could’ve/should’ve run better campaigns but the fact remains that in both of those elections the knowingly frivolous candidates succumbed to misplaced vanity and shaped history (and not for the better).

And so here we are, less than two months away from election day 2024, and Jill Stein is back and once again she’s wearing the Green jersey.

Not satisfied with having a hand in birthing the hell spawn that is Trumpism, and apparently not contrite (proud in fact, if you take Stein at her word) about bearing some responsibility for the worldwide, yes worldwide, chaos that Donald Trump has wrought, she’s decided it is not in her, and more importantly, America’s best interest, to just remain in shamed seclusion and sit this one out.

Yes, Jill is back. Well, why not. In 2012, Jill ran for president and was but one of the noiseless ciphers. It was in 2016 that Jill (along with Gary and James) made a name for herself. It was in that year that Jill secured her spot, or more accurately, blemish in history. So why not; another quadrennial, another go, even with the threat of Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Project 2025 and the hellscape that they promise (and oftentimes with their very words). Why not shoot for destroyer of democracy this time? Like they say, go big or go home.

What the hell, go for it Jill. Whaddya got to lose?

The Highway 395 Chronicles: Reno

Paul

11 comments

August 28, 2024

You can always recognize the road warrior by looking at his arms. The right one, the one that rests on the center console is pale. The left one, the one that rests on the frame of the open window is weather beaten and bronze.

October 15th, 2022
The morning sun leaps angrily off the concertina wire at the High Desert State Prison just outside of Susanville, California. I slow down and glance off to my left, taking a long look at the high walls. It’s not unlike the times when I’m home in the San Francisco Bay Area, and find myself passing San Quentin. Slow down and look. I’m usually on my way to a warm, peaceful Marin County beach, or detouring away from a jammed Bay Bridge and heading to the Golden Gate to get into San Francisco.

During every drive by I stare, fascinated, wondering about what life is like behind that concrete. Not unlike slowing down to gawk at the aftermath of a car collision, it’s one of those “there but for the grace of God” moments.

During every passing, I can’t help but wonder what went wrong. Those men were once kids. Kids like me. They played tag, hide and seek, and baseball, went to school, had sleepovers, ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bothered mom and dad for a puppy. They went through the phases of marveling over the sciences that excite kids; dinosaurs, sharks and space.

But something went sideways. Abusive parents? Addictive parents? Absent parents? Didn’t give a shit parents who should never have been parents? A few regrettable and ultimately fateful moments with a “friend” who’d already gone sideways? A society in which some have disadvantage baked into life’s cake? It’s easy to forget that some people never share the kind of childhood I had.

There’s a Christian notion that babies slide out of the chute already damaged. “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Well, that’s pretty fucking half glass full. Just another reason to reject religion.

Past the Susanville Pen, shake my head, exhale and drive on. Drive on – it’s what we do.

Next stop is Reno, Nevada, 90 miles southeast, nonstop on Highway 395.

I’ll get to Reno well before check-in at the hotel so on a Saturday, college football game day I can kill some time in a casino sports book – or kill some of my bank account at the Blackjack tables.

Just out of Susanville, it’s the 395 I’ve become accustomed to; high desert, rangeland and not a lot of cars in either direction. I’m spending the drive memorizing the little Blackjack crib card that instructs the hopeful player; when to hold’em, when to hit ’em, and when to fold’ em.

Always split aces and eights. That’s the easiest one. Well, except for standing on twenty-one.
Don’t hit twelve or higher if the dealer shows two. Intuitively this gambit doesn’t make any sense. There’s that giant chasm between twelve and twenty-one that the dealer could so easily land in.
Never, ever, split a pair of tens. Ha! That’s the mistake that every novice to the tables makes. I’m certain I did it – but only once – I hope. If the rookie is fortunate, he’ll get a compassionate dealer who’ll pause the action and ask, “Are you sure you want to do that? “ Maybe another player will nudge the newbie, “Stand on that.”

I’m looking forward to Reno. I’m going to indulge myself with a nice meal at the Peppermill or the Atlantis. It’ll be a nice respite from the microwave shit that’s seen me through up to this point. The Peppermill and the Atlantis are the only two hotel/casinos that are worth a damn anymore in downtown Reno.

A few miles to the east, Grand Sierra is decent, but out of the way. Cora and I stayed at the GSR one time. Our stay coincided with the final day of the Burning Man Festival out in the desert. The attendees were using the GSR parking lot as a sort of rest area. The place looked like a cross between a refugee camp and a scene out of Mad Max.

There was a time when Reno had a busy, vibrant strip, back when Reno laid some legit claim to its motto of being The Biggest Little City in the World.

That motto still glows on an arch over Virginia Street. The arch went up in 1926. It welcomed tourists from California, before the Highway 80 bypass, when the interstate ran right down the strip. That was when Reno’s strip was all the shit. Now the strip is all just – the kinda shitty. What’s left of it anyway.

The Highway 395 Chronicles: A Night in Prison Town

Paul

11 comments

July 31, 2024

October 14th, 2022
I’m on a one night layover in Prison Town, USA. No, I’m not staying in a 6 x 8 concrete studio, courtesy of the great State of California. I am a less than satisfied guest of the Super 8 Motel, in Susanville, California. It ain’t all that super but we’ll leave the details to the Yelpers and the Trip Advisors. I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much. Accommodations are a lot more rudimentary a few minutes away at the lockup nearby.
(Prison Town, USA was the title of a PBS documentary about Susanville that aired in 2007)

From where I’m sitting, there isn’t much to recommend Susanville. To be fair I haven’t been downtown. The Super 8 is located on the bleak flats just outside of downtown, smack next to an entrance road to the Lassen County Fairgrounds. There’s a tire shop/auto wrecker across the street, and kitty corner to the motel is a Walgreens. Make no mistake, there’s no mistaking this place for Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. If this is representative of the town as a whole then the Susan that the ville was named for must’ve been pretty damned ornery.

Maybe the “historic downtown” is quaint and interesting with the usual collection of a candy store, an ice cream shop, a family diner, and a divey bar where colorful, hard bitten, old timers in dirty ball caps grumble about Sacramento and DC into rocks glasses filled with cheap whiskey. There may even be one of those country stores that sells scented candles, kitchen gadgets, local jams, wooden signs emblazoned with pithy down home philosophy, and dish towels embroidered with Old Glory; the insulting part being that all of that Americana is made China (Except the local jams but who knows these days. Local might mean local to Shenzhen).

Like many of the small rural towns that sprouted in the mid-nineteenth century, Susanville started out as a logging and mining town. It was, at other times, a rail hub and an agricultural town.

Now the town’s main industry is incarceration. Counting three prisons in the immediate vicinity (the High Desert State Prison, the minimum-medium security California Correctional Center, and the Federal Correctional Institution, in nearby Herlong), nearly one-third of the population of Susanville is realizing the dubious hospitality of the Golden State, complete with the proverbial three hots and a cot. (When I visited Susanville all three prisons were in full operation. Since then, the California Correctional Center has been deactivated)

Joe Goes to the Bench

Paul

9 comments

July 23, 2024

The exhale was palpable, as if the very earth beneath America’s feet had physically billowed. A massive sweeping sigh of relief as the news broke.

Does it make me a bad American that I had to find out from my friend Eden in Toronto? High noon. I’d just returned home from the local coffee joint where my phone was silenced and my head was buried in a travel book.

A three word text sent at 10:57.

“Biden is out.”

“Fuck yes.” I responded (Before you get on your high horse, Eden and I have a sort of informal contest to see who has the pottier mouth).

I turned on the television to catch up. Open and shut relief on MSNBC and CNN after twenty-four days of tension since the June 27th debate debacle.

The look on Rachel Maddow’s face? You’d have thought she’d just had a gargantuan movement after three solid weeks of solid constipation. After coming out of the bathroom, newspaper in hand and a big smile on his face, dad would often say, “There’s nothing like a good crap.” Yep. That and the sudden resurrection of a presidential campaign that had been left on the side of the road for the buzzards to feed on. Right, Rachel?

I spent the rest of the afternoon switching between the news and watching the Giants baby faced rookie pitcher Hayden Birdsong throw an absolute gem against the Colorado Rockies, hoping that bad defense and anemic hitting wouldn’t rob the kid of a win. (Yeah I get it, CNN and MSNBC are not really news stations)

By the time I was grilling a salmon for dinner, it had already become clear that Kamala Harris would be replacing Biden on the Democratic ticket and there would be little resistance within the party. I’d already jumped on the bandwagon and donated $25 dollars to the campaign. It wasn’t so much a matter of the money but one of helping fuel a campaign that needed some momentum.

Hell, didn’t need my money to inject some life. An ebbing campaign had just been stabbed in the thigh with a heavy dose of epinephrin.

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