Anxiety dreams last night: I was walking the earth, like Caine in “Kung Fu,” hoofing it from place to place, meeting people, and getting in adventures.
And everywhere I went nobody was wearing a mask.
I was outraged, weaving through the shambling hordes of brain-dead booger-bags as though they were zombie cowboys bent on nativist misbehavior, until I realized that I was likewise unmasked, with my ugly mug hanging out in the wind.
No doubt any competent brain mechanic could make sense of this. I’m guessing it means that deep down I think we’re all in the shit together. Just another kernel panic in MeatWorld™.
Probably didn’t help that I saw a bunch of maskless wanderers on my bike ride yesterday. Or that the guv’nah gave New Mexicans another dressing-down for spreading El Buggo® like honey on a sopaipilla. We are not yet in the actual shit, she sez to us she sez, but we are certainly circling the bowl.
I’m doing my part, boss. Staying home except for grocery shopping and exercise. Washing my paws. And wearing my mask.
Whenever I’m awake, that is. Who doesn’t dream about not wearing a mask?
“Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects … don’t have politics. They’re very … brutal. No compassion, no compromise.” — Seth Brundle, “The Fly”
“I’m just peachy, really. Tip-top, actually. Never better. Back at the ol’ desk any day now.”
Well, we seem to have blown right past the question of whether Bugsy Sméagol has The Plague and are now deep into the slimy weeds of lies surrounding just how bad his case might be, O yes, my precious.
This, oddly, may be the one thing about this “presidency” that is not unique, as Chazbo Pierce points out in his weekly letter from The Shebeen (subscription required).
Diseases have croaked as many presidents as have bullets (four apiece). And plenty of administrations have concealed the fact that the president was teetering on the edge of eternity, or at least a couple tacos short of a combo plate.
Now instead of trotting out a platoon of generals or economists to give us the old hocus, and also the pocus, Bugsy’s handlers send us a squad of Walter Reed whitecoats to add their spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, i.e., what The New York Times calls “conflicting accounts” of his condition.
Over at Mother Jones, Kevin Drum draws our attention to the sociopath behind the curtain, giving us the timeline as he sees it and calling the conduct of Bugsy and his goons “reckless beyond belief.”
I find it entirely believable, but hey, let’s agree to disagree.
This is a cult of personality we’ve been dealing with since Bugsy surfed the golden escalator into the GOP presidential pissing match, in which he proved to be the biggest dick.
You don’t get stand-up guys in a cult. What you get is scabby-kneed old hoors with calluses on the insides of their mouths. Bloated ticks sporting American-flag lapel pins. The occasional professional rat who knows the fastest way off a sinking ship and through a publisher’s office into the talk-show green rooms.
Nobody had the stones to get a hammerlock on Hitler, Stalin, or Mao, either, mostly because those gentlemen would have had them ground into puppy treats for the guard dogs.
This guy may kill a few of his punks too. Not because they stood up to him, but because they bowed down to him, with their faces hanging out in his toxic wind.
Until and unless The Plague gets them, the only thing these spineless hooters are scared of is missing out on their sip from the gravy boat as it goes around The Big Table.
Step right up, everyone’s a winner, bargains galore. …
There is no reason in the world to believe a single, solitary word that comes out of this guy’s fat yap.
And every reason in the world to believe that a “diagnosis” does him more than a few favors.
So until I see something more than “Trump said,” it’s no sale.
• Housekeeping note: WordPress has decided to impose its new block editor on those of us who had been resisting the change. So expect a few hitches in the gitalong here at the Chuckle Hut until I find the Rosetta Stone for this fucker or find some alternative method of bloggery.
The Elena Gallegos Open Space was awash in goodwill on Wednesday.
Maybe it was the abrupt change in temperature from “hot as balls” to “ooh that’s nice.”
During a short ride around the Elena Gallegos Open Space yesterday morning everyone I met was in high spirits. Not a sourpuss in the lot.
Cyclists, equestrians, hikers, moms with kids, dog-walkers — everybody was smiling as though the Republic were ticking along like a fine watch instead of missing on three of eight cylinders, leaking vital fluids, and badly in need of a front-end alignment.
I haven’t been riding the trails much during the Year of the Bug because once everyone who could work from home was working from home, well … it seemed that a lot of them were not exactly working from home. Not unless their homes were on the range, where the deer and the antelope — and Your Humble Narrator — play.
With a dodgy ankle I doubted my ability to excel at “Dodge the Noob,” so mostly I abandoned the trails for the roads, though occasionally I’d hit some short, wide, low-traffic trail to cleanse the old velo-palette.
But six months later I’m more or less myself, or someone very much like him. And yesterday I didn’t have to dodge anyone. The thundering herd seemed to have thinned a bit, and those who remained didn’t give off that displaced-gym-rat vibe. Earbuds were very much not in evidence. Mostly I yielded trail, of course, even when I had the right of way. But occasionally people who had the right of way even yielded to me.
Cheery greetings were exchanged, munchkins on strider bikes applauded, horsemanship admired. Even my battered Voodoo Nakisi drew some appreciation.
“Doing some cyclocross, hey?” asked one guy after I complimented his dog, some class of burly curly black wonderpooch. I explained that my bike was a 29er with drop bars, your basic monstercrosser, just the thing for the Elena Gallegos trails, and then headed for the barn.
It was a random sample, not a scientific poll. Pundits will not cite it as evidence of a trend going into the November election. But I found it comforting. For an hour or so, anyway.
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