A Veterans day Speech

I’m hanging at my girlfriend Joan’s pad. I’m set up in her dining room, banging out these words on my banged-up Dell. A tranquil Saturday morning. Until the shit starts to stir. The kitchen-nook tube is blaring Fox News. Joan plays it real loud cuz she’s old like me. I’m not so deaf.

The former Prez is giving a speech.

“In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream.”

“I’m a proud election denier,” the Ex Prez says.

The packed crowd cheers.

This is a high school gym where he’s giving this speech.

An institution of learning…

A sense of proportion

What I like to do when I hear this kind of poison from a debunked fraud while crowds of otherwise normal “citizens” cheer on the emitter of such vile tripe, what I like to do is think back to times when we were way worse off than we are today. Back to Commie Witch Hunts. Or KKK lynching’s. Or Settlers killing off the Indian tribes. Or Ante Bellum Slave Markets…

I do this. I run through my list.

Okay…I get a resounding ping! I’m imagining a naked shackled innocent Human Being presented to a crowd by the auctioneer. The slave’s teeth are bared, his limbs jabbed, his shoulders slapped with a crop as he’s offered up to the eager bidders. He’s a fine specimen and will fetch a good price.

Chattel Slavery. Those were dark times. Certainly darker than today.

And they really happened!

The colonial system of slavery—which was practiced in all of the original 13 British colonies—is referred to as chattel slavery. In this system, enslaved people were the personal property of their owners for life, a source of labor or a commodity that could be willed, traded or sold like livestock or furniture.

New Jersey State Bar Association

Sometimes this imagining of worse times than today helps me achieve a sense of proportion.

But it’s getting tougher.

The fact that I gotta go back almost all the way back to the beginning of our country to imagine a scene more awful than what I’m hearing from the mouth of the former PREZ is kinda scary.

I’m not saying I’m scared. I’m just say’n….

Pretty scary times we’re in, friends.

The clock is ticking.

Meanwhile Old Gloomy’s hanging

Got my laundry folded. Coffee’s good. I make pretty good coffee. Joan drinks tea. I got my ears plugged so Fox News screeds are a murmur. (Listen. I can’t really complain too much about the evil shit spilling from her T.V. because it’s her T.V. and this is her house. Griping about the amenities when you’re sponging is bad form. Granted, I spend a couple C notes a weekend on restaurants, but still….)

I’m chilling here in the dining room with a nice view of the lagoon.

I spend all my weekends at Joan’s pad.

I’ve been hanging weekends at Joan’s pad for going on seven years. She likes having me around. Apparently, old Gloomy appeals to her.

Joan never hangs on my Boat

Never. Not even once.

Mainly because Old Scruffy is not habitable from a hygienically concerned person’s sanitary perspective. It’s habitable on a level with Crack House dregs and Tree Fort punks. I got the water turned off cuz my batteries are dead but mainly because I’m cool with no running water. I fill water jugs from the shore spigot five feet from my hatch. I use the toilet at the sailing school just up the ramp. Sometimes I line one of my toilets with a bag and take a dump in the bag, dump it in the dumpster up the ramp. Pretty fucking gross I know but for some reason it doesn’t bother me all that much. I could hook up my boat water without too much effort. But then I’d need to hire a pump out dude once a week or so. I’m too cheap to do that. I’m real fuck’n cheap. I call myself a minimalist but the fact of the matter is, I’m just cheap…

Anyway, Joan won’t hang on my boat cuz there’s no toilet water and I won’t clear out the spiders. I like spiders. I don’t have cockroaches. I make do with Spiders.

Old Scruff looks good from a distance.

Not bad on the inside, either.

That rug really ties the room together….

I got nice views from my windows.

Real nice views.

Sausalito hills.

Belvedere Island.

Angel Island. With a fog shrouded S.F. cityscape across the bay in the distance….

I mean, it’s not like I’m living in poverty.

I’m a boat guy. I live on a boat. A boat way bigger than what I need. Shit. I could get the water running with a little effort and old Scruffy becomes a valuable commodity.

I could sell Scruffy to some upscale broad looking for the “marina experience.”

Fleece her ass for the big digits.

Or I could sell Scruff to some Old Fart wants to go fishing. The diesel engines run great. But I’d never get the kind of money from the Old Fart I could get from the Upscale Broad. It’s a matter of Real Estate. Funny how that works.

I gotta make a move

So far, shit’s working out. I hang at Joan’s on weekends. Two days of non-stop Fox News hate and fear is about all I can handle. Rest of the week I’m left to myself on good old Scruffy. I’m not paying live-aboard fees because I’m gone two days a week and lay’n low another two days a week by parking off the lot.

I get by “appearing” to be a non-live-aboard.

It helps I’m stoking my Harbormaster’s coffers with Spirits from my booze sample job.

Works out all the way around…

Still, I gotta make a move.

This feeling I need to make some big changes…keeps gnawing at me. Maybe it’s the new generation of birds showing up on the docks.

Little Prick won’t leave me alone with his damned Peeping.

Or…maybe it’s the fact the Old Lady, my neighbor, got evicted.

Fell and busted her hip. She’s doing okay in a Rest Home. Meanwhile her boat sits abandoned, awaiting the crusher. It floats like a ghost boat, calling out to the Gloomer how short life really is.

That old Huron Bird Death’s chant’n my time is short…

“Make a move, Gloomy, while there’s still time.

Launch a new groove…

Time is short

I’m a old dude.

Seventy years old is no spring chicken.

I need to do some thinking…

My thinking machine only puts out 50 or 60 watts. About the same wattage as this chicken lamp. There’s thinking machines that put out 1000 watts without running hot. I could maybe beef up my thinking level to 120 watts with doses of Amphetamines, like I used to do in college when I needed to study 48 hours straight for a final exam cuz I studied not one single hour the whole damned term. I could become a speed freak but at Seventy years old the effort would kill me.

I’m a broke player at Seventy Years Old…

I’m never entirely broke. I got a wad of cash I stashed in a can.

Some G’s of seed runaway money. I keep the can stashed at Joan’s pad because she’s the only person I trust. She’s a Trumpy, but I trust her. Why? Well, for several reasons. One of which, most Trumpies are actually honest people. It’s only their leader who’s a lowdown lying slime. I’m trying to figure why this is so but I can’t.

My thinking wattage is only about sixty.

I need to make a move because in spite of my low wattage I can still read the tea leaves.

The leaves have issued a warning, don’t linger. There’s danger in the air. Don’t linger!

Stardust in my head

A big change is looming. Or maybe it just feels that way cuz I’m seventy. Sitting on a boat. A sailor ignoring the winds.

I need to make a move.

I’m trying to think. Plan my next move.

I used to make changes with ease. I was so young. I could do anything. Chase my fancies. Groove my way in and out of scrapes like it was no big deal.

I was so young and beautiful…

It’s not so easy these days. I’m stuck.

If you feel stuck, aint it so?

I’m stuck

with Stardust…playing in my head.

Stardust.