It can happen here

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
Impressionist, que no? I shot it through the window. Hey, it's raining out there. You want I should get a camera wet for free?
Impressionistical, que no? I shot it through the window. Hey, it’s raining out there. You want I should get a camera wet for free?

We’ve finally gotten a little rain after the second warmest October on record, and maybe one of the driest, too; more than a quarter inch of precip’ below normal.

As with most things, this is both good and bad.

The good? When things are wet, they often fail to catch fire. Also, water is nice for drinking, bathing and growing things to look at and/or eat.

The bad? Sitting as it does at the bottom of a cul-de-sac at the western edge of a mountain range, El Rancho Pendejo is already a little on the dark side, as is my outlook most days. And when the sun goes away for a spell, things in these parts can get blacker than a sleeping MacBook’s display.

So with each fresh poll the equivalent of a cherry bomb in a chicken coop I’m getting a mild case of The Fear as the 2016 election staggers to a close.

Anybody who tells you s/he knows that all will be well in the end is full of shit to the sideburns. Americans are already pretty la-di-da about exercising their franchise, our least-difficult path toward effecting change, armed insurrection being slightly more onerous (or so I’m told). And the GOP has been busily scratching that oh-hell-why-bother itch by turning what should be the simple act of casting a ballot into the sort of customer-service experience we already enjoy in the private sector.

Here’s Charles P. Pierce on the voter-suppression battles being waged from coast to coast.

Here’s Ari Berman of The Nation on the reduction in polling places following the gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Here’s The Guardian reporting on the upshot of Insane Clown Pussy’s call for his shock troops to monitor what he’s said will be a “rigged” election.

Can't it? We'll see.
Can’t it? We’ll see.

And so on. Look around, you’ll find more examples.

The Republic has weathered a lot of storms, and this may be nothing more than an especially nasty stretch of rough weather before the sun pops out again.

But I keep thinking back to the old Red Lewis novel “It Can’t Happen Here,” which I read ages ago, and which the Berkeley Repertory Theatre turned into a play, which wraps tomorrow.

If you haven’t read the book, do so. The language is a little dated, and it can seem wildly over the top at times. But so can this election, and yet there it is, happening right before your eyes.

“It Can’t Happen Here” certainly opened the eyes belonging to writer-director Tony Taccone, who called the parallels between the fictional struggle and Election 2016 “shocking; they’re honestly shocking.”

“What it says, what it really puts out there is, if you become complacent or lazy or you think that the issues that are being discussed in Washington, the politics doesn’t have an effect on your lives, you’re wrong. You’re wrong. The decisions that are being made — by the Congress, by the Supreme Court, by the local legislature, by your city council — affect your life,” Taccone said.

“And it is in your interest to understand as best you can what those issues are, to try to find a voice and agency inside of those issues, to find a community and help them to build a dialogue,” he added. “And my God, if that isn’t the lesson of the last nine months, what is?”

So you think it can’t happen here? Read the book, take a good look around, and get back to me.

I saw the light

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments

OK, for anyone out there who still thinks I’m smart, despite my regular protests to the contrary, here’s something that’s certain to clear up any and all confusion on that topic.

Herself bounds in from the garage the other day to announce that the overhead lights are not coming on when she pulls into her side of the two-car garage. Now, mind you, this is a brand-spankin’-new garage-door system, freshly installed back in May, and it does everything for you save park the car, open the driver’s-side door, and fetch in the groceries.

The hardware includes motion sensors and heat detectors, thermometers and clocks, the works. It’ll even text your smartphone to let you know if a garage door opens without your permission in case you’re worried about evildoers making off with your potting soil.

No more darkness, no more night.
No more darkness, no more night.

But now the damn’ lights don’t come on. I don’t remember them ever coming on, truth be told, but I rarely drive, and when I do it’s always during daylight hours.

So I go out there and punch a few buttons on the control panel, like a curious hominid casually swatting a few rocks with a thigh bone, and nothing happens.

Next I start thumbing through the owner’s manual, which like most owner’s manuals is stupendously useless.

Finally I go online to find that the customer-support side of the company’s website is even more useless than the owner’s manual.

By this point I’m working up a pretty stout sense of having been poked in the peaches, and so I grab my smartphone and dial the handy 800 number, thinking I might ameliorate the swelling pain in my ass by sharing it with an unsuspecting technical-support representative.

Ho, ho, etc.

After 10 minutes on hold I’m at full boil. Steam is fountaining out of my ears. Herself has retreated to her office with an adult beverage, and the other critters have all scrambled to safety under various large pieces of furniture.

“Fuck this shit!” I announce to the nobody who is listening, hang up, grab a flashlight, and march back out into the now-totally-dark garage to see if I can break something.

Both cars are parked inside, naturally, it being nighttime, so I open the passenger door in my Subaru and use the rocker panel as an impromptu stepladder in order to get a closer look at my garage-door opener.

Neither the owner’s manual nor the customer-support site tells you how to crack the door-opener’s case to inspect its innards for bum sockets or failed logic boards, and I don’t see any screws to unscrew or clips to unclip, so I’m looking around for a fucking thigh bone or a goddamn rock with which to get prehistoric on the sonofabitch when through the ventilation slots I spot … what appears to be a light socket with no bulb in it.

Ditto for the other side.

And for the two sockets on the other opener.

Four 60-watt bulbs later the garage lights come on, just like when you open the door to a Samsung refrigerator and it catches fire.

Now repeat after me: I will never be smart.

November surprise

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
"Wake me when it's over," says the Turk. I'll need a spatula to flip him from time to time so he doesn't get bedsores.
“Wake me when it’s over,” says the Turk. I’ll need a big-ass spatula to flip him from time to time so he doesn’t get bedsores.

Hey, I’m surprised it’s November. Aren’t you?

Last night Herself showed me a meme making the rounds on Facebutt, something about 2016 being the kind of year an apocalyptic movie would use to set the scene for how the whole world went to hell.

Sounds about right to me.

But is it really only a preview of coming attractions?

Got 'er done. Go thou and do likewise.
Got ‘er done. Go thou and do likewise.

Take this presidential election (please). It matters who wins, of course. But even if The Hilldebeast prevails over Insane Clown Pussy, unless the Senate and House flip to Donk control, the next four years will make the last eight look like the Golden Age of Athenian democracy.

Hell, I anticipate that the immediate aftermath might embarrass any banana republics that aren’t already embarrassed on our behalf. Whether he loses big or little we should not expect ICP to go gentle into that good night. Imagine a large, oversugared toddler being dragged to bed after learning Santa brought him wool undies instead of a red trike. Better take his phone away first.

His supporters will be equally sanguine about an unhappy outcome, I’m certain. The Secret Service is probably already taking bids on Iron Man suits, Batmobiles and Terminators.

Mind you, this assumes an unhappy outcome for ICP and his merry men, which is not at all a sure thing. Plenty of smart folks gave the old hee, and also the haw, to the notion of Alfred E. “Worry” Bush ever getting into the Oval Office, and look how that turned out, if you can bear to.

We’re in what used to be called “the final stretch.” Alas, it’s only the beginning.