That doesn’t sound like much of a rumble on the Richter scale of resistance to me. “Dang The Man?” Seriously?
A lot of us have already been sold a sizable bill of goods. And as we should’ve known, it’s not the initial cost, it’s the upkeep.
This “grass roots” call for an “economic blackout” feels like a reverse Dubya (“Don’t go shopping.”). It also reminds me of a line from Marc Maron’s 2020 Netflix special, “End Times Fun,” in which he neatly skewers us for smugly slipping our shopping fingers into the crumbling dike of environmental catastrophe:
“All of us in our hearts really know that we did everything we could. Think about it: We brought our own bags to the supermarket. Yeah, that’s about it.”
Elon Musk doesn’t care if you don’t buy a Tesla today. He’s too busy downsizing Social Security into a median and a cardboard placard on a rainy day.
And Jeff Bezos couldn’t give a shit if you skip your Friday visit to the Foods Hole. He’s launching his plastic fuck-puppet into orbit with a couple other “female celebrities.” It’s gonna be like “Sex in the City,” only in space, and with Mister Big down here on earth giving The Washington Post some pillow therapy in its bed at the nursing home.
“The Right Stuff” this isn’t. In fact, it sounds like something the Democratic National Committee would do, if it did anything, which mostly it doesn’t.
Anybody seen the DNC lately? Maybe they’re out shopping for a clue.
On Monday I watered turf, trees, and shrubs. On Tuesday, I enjoyed my first ride since making my Denver pilgrimage, in shorts and short sleeves.
And on Wednesday, it seemed everything was springing to life all at once. Juniper, maple, alder, you name it. Pollen out the wazoo and right up my snout.
“Screw it,” I thought, examining a sodden Kleenex for signs of brain tissue. “I’m taking drugs.”
And lemme tell you, that behind-the-counter Non-Drowsy Claritin-D 12-Hour with the pseudoephedrine frosting will kick the tires, light the fires, and set your eyes out on wires.
During Wednesday’s Geezer Ride, after I spun past a few guys on a short hill, one asked, “Why aren’t you even breathing hard?”
“I’m on drugs,” I replied. I felt like Ol’ Whatsisface ’fessin’ up to Oprah, only without all that annoying money and fame.
Maybe it was spending an afternoon with my old college cuates, but I was reminded of a “Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers” cartoon by Gilbert Shelton.
The road to hell, etc..
Freewheelin’ Franklin wants to borrow Phineas’s car to go buy a couple pounds of weed, but he’s sold it and bought a bicycle. So Phineas offers to pedal him out to Country Cowfreak’s place to make the buy.
On the way home they decide to take an illegal shortcut via the freeway, and the law takes an interest. No problem. Says Franklin: “First, I’ll snort a whole buncha cocaine … now,. you steer while I pedal.”
I should’ve taken a picture. It would’ve been one of the few times when someone pointed a lens in Jim’s direction and he didn’t immediately point to his johnson just as the shutter clicked.
Sample photo only. Jethro not included.
Because I was at a celebration of my old amigo’s life. And Jim was in a Chock full o’Nuts coffee can.
It was a nod to “The Big Lebowski,” of course. Also, there were “The Blues Brothers” — brother Larry and Jim’s son, Kelly — who wore dark sunglasses on Saturday as they spoke of their loss to a standing-room-only crowd at the Bull & Bush Brewery in Glendale, Colorado.
Hey, it could’ve been worse. Jim and the El Rancho Delux gang watched a ton of “Miami Vice” Back in the Day®, so it’s nothing short of miraculous that Larry and Kelly weren’t stylin’ like Sonny and Rico.
Me, I went for the “Outside Bought REI and Went to Whole Foods” look: Santa Fe School of Cooking cap, Timberland fleece vest, Patagucchi flannel shirt, Levi’s 505s, Darn Tough wool socks and low-rise Merrell hikers.
One of the many things Jim taught me was how to dress more like Possibility and less like Probable Cause. Another was how many times you can play your favorite Merle Haggard cassette in your own truck without Jim snatching it out of the deck and tossing it out the window at 85 mph somewhere in Utah. (The answer: One time too many.)
Anyway, it was good that I stepped up my fashion game a bit for the celebration of my old friend’s too-short life. Because this wasn’t just the old El Rancho crew, even though we were all in the Bull, shouting at each other over drinks as in daze of yore.
Former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb and his wife, Wilma, were in the house, as was the mayor’s former press secretary, Andrew Hudson, who got us started down memory lane with tales of working (and goofing) with Jim.
Hizzoner likewise delivered a fond remembrance of his longtime fixer, whom he called his “Luca Brasi,” as Jim’s cigar-puffing pals from the Smoking Cave lined up along one wall like an honor guard.
Kelly, Larry, and Andrew Hudson.
For me, the sentimental journey reached its peak when Kelly backstopped Larry as emotion took him off-script during his remarks. Whenever someone told Larry how fortunate Kelly was to have his support after his dad’s sudden passing, Larry replied that it was the other way around. His nephew is a remarkable, self-possessed young man, running smooth on a strong blend of dad and mom.
Mom — the love of Jim’s life, Teri Sinopoli — was in the crowd with her sisters. So were Jim’s sis, Betty Jo, and her husband, Tom; Larry’s wife, Sherry, and their sons, Stefan and Will; Stan the Man; Rudi Boogs and his wife, Tanysha; cousin Guillermo. Lots and lots of cousins, real and aspirational.
I was honored far beyond any merit of mine to be called a brother on Saturday, though anyone who didn’t know the backstory must’ve wondered how this blue-eyed, baldheaded old gabacho with a mug like a dried-up creek bed could’ve been any kind of kin to these beautiful people.
“Oh, one day we thought we smelled a dead raccoon in the attic and found him up there in a nest of old girlie magazines, mumbling something about where was his daddy the mailman. Didn’t seem right, so we brought him downstairs, gave him a little chile. Bad idea. Never feed a stray perro. He ain’t all there, and he’s too often here, like evil tidings from DeeCee.”
I wish Jim’s mom, Lucy, had been there to chide me for making myself scarce in recent years. But she has a lot of mileage on the odometer, even more than the rest of us, and wasn’t up to the journey. And anyway, I wasn’t really a franchise player.
Her son had a deep bench, and never more so than on Saturday at the Bull. Friends and family. Young and old. Colleagues and co-conspirators. Politicos and pendejos. Tales were told; photographs submitted as evidence; the legend rewritten and amplified.
Chris James “Jethro” Martinez always left the light on and the door open. What a blessing it was to have crossed his threshold, to be made welcome, to feel at home; to feel like family.
The Turtle has decided against running for re-election, saying he plans to spend more time with his money … er, family.
Which is where the bulk of his wealth is said to come from.
According to 2022 financial-disclosure reports, Mitch McConnell has “a net worth between $19 million and $68 million.” Much of this moola derives from his marriage to Elaine Chao, daughter of shipping magnate James Chao. The McConnells received an inheritance valued between $5 million and $25 million in 2007 when her mother died, according to The Washington Post via the Cincinnati Enquirer.
I’m guessing the McConnells won’t be slouching around the mailbox waiting on the Social Security check that will not be forthcoming once the DOGEbags have finished tidying up that messy ol’ feddle gummint he’s finally leaving behind. Not even FEMA will be able to make that dead dog hunt, if only because FEMA will no longer exist.
The Turtle’s venality and the Democrats’ timidity helped bring us to the precipice upon which we teeter. He will not be missed, not even by the players who took comfort in knowing that it was always his turn in the barrel.
Well, the bad news is that the DOGEbags are on the verge of learning — well, basically, everything about U.S. individuals and corporations — with the goal of making Elon Musk and his billionaire buccaneers even richer than they already are.
The good news is that asteroid 2024 YR4 may blow us all to smithereens, rich and poor alike, when it arrives around Christmas 2032.
Might I suggest that Skippy the Dipshit pull his snout out of our butts for a moment to commandeer Thor’s hammer from Marvel Studios, zip up to 2024 YR4 in an armored Cybertruck Starship, and swat the pesky rock into the heart of the Klingon Empire?
Of course, Cap’n Skippy might not pack quite a wallop once he’s off-planet, where money is just so many pictures of dead presidents, most of whom were not drooling, raving embarrassments. But at least it would keep his sticky little fingers out of our pockets for a while.
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