Tea by the pool

No diving.

It’s not summer yet, but that doesn’t mean I can’t crank out my little bit of bullshit on the patio instead of in the office. I mean, it’s 64°, just past 8 a.m., and there are a lot more hummingbirds out here than there are in there.

Birds of another sort abound elsewhere. Buzzards, mostly. The Benighted States have been at the polls again, hoping to find a few that shit gold instead of what we’re wading through at the moment.

It might help if we focused on finding a species that isn’t focused on eating our entrails.

A robin, maybe. One’s busily plucking bugs from the back yard as I type. Good, useful work, that. Many insects infest the American lawn; many, many of them. A hungry robin might be just the ticket.

Aw, hell, who am I kidding here? We don’t need a robin. We need a Batman.*

* Or a Batwoman, Batperson, someone who identifies as a bat, is transitioning to a bat, I don’t give a shit. As long as s/he/they kick ass.

    Today in hisssssssstory

    The devil you say. …

    Today in history, from The Associated Press:

    Sorry about that, Joan. In a righteous world you would have lived to a ripe old age and this other would have been a fatty chunk of long pig sputtering on the grill.

    Buckle up!

    Road hard.

    The Memorial Day Shopping Fiesta and Family Barbecue Getaway (Nothing to See Here, Move Along, Move Along) kicks off today with the murders most foul of Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” and CBS News Radio, along with any remaining illusions that Americans live in a functioning democracy.

    There is no truth to the rumor that the new national anthem for our next 250 years — or perhaps 250 days? Hours? — will be the Beach Boys “Good Vibrations” reimagined by Black Sabbath. Or so we may hope, anyway.

    One thing is certain: That cheery little ditty, along with an unauthorized Kid Rock cover of the Eagles’ song “The Last Resort,” will be in heavy rotation down in the Adolf & Eva Memorial Ballroom & Führerbunker. The lyric “Some rich men came and raped the land / nobody caught ’em” will be a huge laugh line for everyone save the slaves serving up the Big Macs and Diet Cokes.

    Meanwhile, some good news: M-Day weekend gas prices are at a four-year high! But that won’t keep 39 million of us from cranking up the Family Yacht and burning a few tanks’ worth to spend time eating bad food poorly prepared and swilling tins of thin industrial lager with people we really don’t like all that much.

    The Soma Double Cross takes five in the Elena Gallegos Open Space.

    Last I looked go-juice was between $4.50 and $5 here in The Duck! City, which didn’t make AAA’s list of the top-10 Memorial Day getaways (the podium: Orlando, FL, Seattle, WA, and New York).

    No worries here, bruh. I got my holiday shopping done early yesterday, before the ravening hordes could descend upon the grocery and strip the shelves bare like a cloud of fat betatted locusts. And today I ain’t driving nowhere, nohow, though I do expect to get out on a bike at some point. Yesterday was stellar in the Elena Gallegos Open Space; I saw only a few other trail users as I rumbled along on the old Soma Double Cross, and most seemed to be enjoying the wide-open space as much as I was.

    Meanwhile, Republicans will be traveling home after shitting the bed in Congress. Here’s hoping their constituents have a few words with them about the horrible smell.

    Sink or swim

    I wouldn’t expect a warm reception back on dry land, Ratty old chum.

    Who knew? There are some shit sandwiches that not even a Republican will eat.

    Not on a holiday weekend, anyway.

    The ballroom bunker and slush fund for scumbags apparently were not the delightful amuse-bouche Admiral Palsy thought they would be, and the usual congressional dine-and-dash going into a weeklong recess was downsized to a dash, period.

    Well! No dessert for you lot. Yo, Rubio! Send this shit soufflé to Vance with my compliments. That shameless hoor will eat anything and smile while he does it.

    May Day parade

    O ride, ye prisoners from your slumbers. …

    There was a May Day gathering at Civic Plaza yesterday but we gave it a miss. Instead I formed a rolling rally of one, equipped and clad to suit the occasion (in red) and the weather (brisk).

    A quarter inch of rain is a whole lot better than none at all.

    A quarter inch of rain fell overnight, and at high speed, too. The wind and water blew us out of a sound sleep shortly after 2 a.m., and while the rain stopped the wind was still with us at 11:30 when I took the red Steelman off its hook and rolled out to spend 90 minutes trying to find shelter from it.

    We did honor the general strike. We bought nothing and did no paid work; I’ve gotten pretty good at that since retiring in 2022. To feed the starving masses I made three meals out of fridge and pantry: toast, tea, oatmeal, and fruit for breakfast; grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch; and pasta with a sauce of tomatoes, onions, jalapeño, garlic, black olives, red pepper flakes (there’s that red again) and chicken sausage for dinner.

    This morning as I arose at 5 a.m. the furnace ticked on, which really lets you know it’s May. Forty-two, said the weather widget. We get summer in March and winter in May and if we’re lucky a little rain sneaks in there somewhere.

    Today I will have to re-engage with capitalism in a fairly significant fashion. The pantry is bare, and the People’s Army, like any other, marches on its stomach.