A Fate worse than Fate Itself

... and the list of breaks and windfalls and protections for the Richest Americans marches on.

If you bought into this trickledown crap, again, then you’ve allowed yourself to be played for a fool.  More than once.

Just look around- the Middle Class got slight to nothing, while the Rich are raking it in hand over fist.

Feeling foolish yet? Damn well should be.  If you supported this garbage, you hurt us all.  (Except for the Rich.)  

You helped set up the scam.  Again.

You stood back and allowed them to rob us all.  Again.

Know what?  I’ll get by.  I’m fortunate in a number of ways. And I never had and any issue with paying taxes that helped create jobs, helped the less-fortunate, kept things closer to fair, honest.  

But this ain’t what’s takin’place, now or under Reagan’s bullshit policies.  (What was it H.W. called it?  “Voodoo Economics.”  Yeah...)

We even had the luxury of hindsight, historical record!  And a buncha you folks fell for that same stupid shit.  Again.  It wasn’t even that long ago.

This time around, many CEOs even said that they had no intention of using the Trump/Republican Tax Scam money for hiring or expanding!  A number of corporate executives admitted that they would use that money for stock buybacks and big dividend payouts- and that’s exactly what they did.  They even said this BEFORE the tax “break” became law.  Some even said their companies didn’t need or want it!

But some of you weren’t listenin’, were you?  Not teally ever been much for details, all y’all.  Far easier to allow garbage to just soak into your brains through your porous skulls, huh?  You barely have to even think, huh?

This information wasn’t any secret, wasn’t conjecture or supposition.  It was right out in the open.  

You chose to get suckered.  Again.  You made that choice.  In direct conflict with all evidence, both current and historical, you fell for that same dams shit: give the already Rich even more in the hopes that they might bless us with some kinda charity that they never exhibited before.  No contracts, no guarantees.  Not even a handshake or a promise.  No nothin’.

And the Big Dealmaker was right there signin’  off on it. all-  Too stupid or careless or greedy or cold-hearted to give a shit.  The Prince of Liars made more money.  His rich grifter pals made more money.  

And what are you doin?  Kneelin’, hopin’ someone drop some crumbs or feed you a little something for fun, like a dog beneath the dinner table?  Ignorant and Delusional.  Suckers.  Really some stuff to be proud of, huh?

Deny it if it suits you.  So many of you have developed a bottomless capacity for denyin’ the Blatantly Obvious, an ability to ignore Fact even when struck dead between the eyes with it.  Some of y’all even use your Religion to make excuses for the foul and vulgar that rob you and then laugh about it.  (I am really, really confused about that particular misuse of something supposedly at the top of the list for so many of y’all.  Confused, saddened, disappointed.)

But, it has become abundantly clear over the past four years that the original lofty tenets of Religion ain’t really that important after all to many that would espouse ‘em. It’s just a comfortable (and potentially lucrative) place for Ravenous Grifters to dwell and Fools to hide while attemptin’to save face, protect their pride and hubris, cover for the black-hearted rather than admit they support and enable Monsters.  Faith now twisted into some sort of tool with which so many attempt to disguise errors in judgement, hate and disregard for others, regardless of the terrible consequences.

Others: using willful ignorance as their shield.  The folks out there that retreat to their corner when reasonable acknowledgement and acceptance of Absolute, Presentable and Verifiable Truths becomes too much to bear; Those people that stagger back and use the last tool available to them as they flee from the truth and shout over their shoulder the “well, all I know is...” statement.  Yeah, that- the admission of ignorance or distaste for facts, a preference for bullshit, the defiant proclamation that perversions of reality are a legitimate opinion as strong as any honest, thoughtful observations, while proudly brandishin’ Dumbass as if it were some kinda shield, an “Evidence Prophylactic.”

And McConnell and his Band of Raiders continue with their “Corporate-friendly” endeavors and protections, attemptin’ to squeeze in language that would further shield Big Business from responsibility/culpability for their actions into the latest relief bill supposedly written to assist Everyday Americans with all that trivial shit like Food and Shelter and Medications/Healthcare.

C’mon!  Step right up and assume your rightful portion of Blame for this ongoin’ Conservative Nightmare as President Candyass Psycho Brat hammers away at our Democratic Institutions with his Wreckin’ Ball of Bullshit while  his Cultists wail and foment, wild-eyed and bloodthirsty.  You might wind up bein’ remembered for it, your names showin’ up in the final credits: ...and the Lunatic Mob, as played by...”

Pathetic Shit.

Fish~

SLIPPIN'

Hey y'all.  Been thinkin'.  Felt like sharin'.  

Let me begin by statin' somethin' I would imagine we can almost all agree on:  Nobody lives forever.

     Okay, I expect some of you are already formulatin' philosophical and spiritual arguments to the contrary.  (I'm bettin' that I can name a buncha y'all.)  And that is absolutely how it should be.

     But, I ain't talkin' about the Mysterious and the Mystical.  I'm talkin' about the nuts and bolts stuff-  the body agin', then failin', ceasin' to function.  The Scientific.  The Literal.  Clinical Death.  That thing where you're lookin' at someone, and you realize that the concept of "someone" no longer applies, that this is not a viable blending of organic machine and electric spark.  It was, but now it ain't.  It stopped.  That thing, that process that animates the flesh?  It's stopped.  I'm talkin' about that.  That kinda Dead.  The really clear, even blatantly obvious, lay-eyes-on-it kinda Dead.  A Failure Indisputable.

It is just this condition of which I speak.

     Some of us are fortunate enough to shake off this Mortal Coil in an instant.  As quickly and as surely as the grindin' of a butt beneath a boot.  Maybe a brief moment of discomfort, possibly followed by a hand to chest and a drop where you stand.  An "Aw shit!" moment, but a brief one.  They're the Fortunate Ones,  perhaps one of the few (only?) places I might use the word "blessed."  Or the "in their sleep" folks.  How perfect is that?  Never quite got why you'd see "peacefully" preface that last one.  Asleep.  Ain't the "peacefully" part a given for most?  Asleep?  (Sign me up for either.  One quick, the other transparent, utterly beautiful.  About as good as somethin' like dyin' could get.)

     The radio has started playin' some shit that I ain't exactly enjoin'.  The coyotes off to the South don't sound like they're fans either.  Gonna give it a couple minutes to change...

Back-

     Me?  I never had much of a Fear of Death.  Maybe when I was a little kid, but that was usually driven by things like scary movies and public service announcements.  And the way adults around me reacted to it when it took place close to us.  I developed a fairly clinical way of lookin' at Death early on.  That worked for me later in regard to my own mortality.  

     But comfort with my own situation didn't exactly translate into comfort with the situations of others. For that, I would be required to convince others to adopt my point of view, my outlook, thus allowin' me to relax knowin' that they felt the way I did.  Sounds not-so-complicated, but proves to be a near impossibility.  And I get all that.  I have no fear of Death, but heights can scare the shit outta me.  Not judgin'.

     Many of us suffer before we're granted the respite that Death delivers.  We may linger, in a myriad of degrees of discomfort rangin' from a simple loss of quality of life to constant pain and misery.  That's the shit that makes me uneasy.  The thought of lingerin'.  Just lingerin'.  Just lingerin'.

     I've held my own notions about that shit, that waitin', that feelin' that it may come down to just wantin' get it over with.  Even got to look right at it recently.  Perhaps that's the bigger deal than droppin' dead or layin' sick and in dread of dyin'.  Maybe the most frightenin' thing of all is the possibility that we might find ourselves in that place where we're just waitin' for Death.  Just stuck with no control, no say.  Forced into waitin' to get it over with.

Fish~

THE LONG CUT

Hey Man-

You happen to see that thing?

You had to have passed it between there and here

Two days ago, middle of the day

Hot

Old truck in the church lot- all bed springs and bicycle frames and bits of rebar

A little man draggin' a doe from the ditch

Face and arms so damn dirty it wern't clear if he was black or white or somethin' else

That gray man and that skinny old woman:  All bent up

Shooin' away birds 

You know:  Those birds

Did you see it?

C'mon!  Damn hard to miss, that

So, when did you last get to town?

Guy in front of the liquor store as I went in

Yesterday

Front pockets full of finish nails

I know, 'cause I stopped for a second, watchin' as he drew out palmfuls 

Focused

Pickin' through like he was lookin' for somethin'

Fingers all bloody

I went on in, got me some beers

As I passed, asked if I could help

"No," he said  

"I got a dollar in my shoe"

Did you go past that day?  

I expect he'd been there for a while

You ain't gotta answer  

I get it

Hey Man-

Don't you live out past me?  

You told me once

I remember

Then you know the back way

The "Long Cut"

Bottom of the ramp, very first right

You know it

Don't bullshit me

Then you've seen him:  the guy with the sign 

You know:

Cardboard.  Thick, brown, letters in black majic marker

All lower case, which is stupid

Bettin' he stole that marker  

Duct tape on his shoes

Remember that sign?  What it said?

"insert your favorite form of personal disdain here"

Did you make eye contact?  

That was stupid 

Bettin' now he knows where you live

Figured you to be smarter

And today:

That dog on the side of the road

Just past the spot where the guy stood the day before

Only the regular way, no right turn

Some mixed breed mutt, all bloody

Legs like tobacco stick,s pointin' back toward the paint

Head wrenched 'round, eyes shinin' off into the woods

I seen his collar:  All sparklin', lookin' like diamonds

Shit

No way in Hell you missed that

I had to swerve else I was to hit it

Now, I gotta ask:

Did you come the regular way?  

You did, right?

You saw it, right?  

I already know

Of course you did

I know you did

You stopped, got outta your truck

You looked at the dog, then up and down the road

But you didn't see me

You stole from a dead dog, right?

I know it was you  

No sense in lyin'

Ain't intendin' to tell nobody

But you know I know

Fish~

GIMME SOME SUGAR

So, there have been quite a few grand pronouncements in the days since the passage of the Republican tax overhaul, with a great many of those includin' the ever-positive word, "bonus."  Corporate giants from AT&T to Walmart have been blowin' their own horns through press releases and friendly media about their "sharin' of the wealth" with those at the bottom of the food chain.

(Note:  Both AT&T and Walmart, among other bonus-awardin' companies, followed their Corporate Charity proclamations with announcements of layoffs and closing, but with far less fanfare.  Look it up.)

Another corporation to announce bonuses was Hostess.  Yep, that Hostess.

Hostess unveiled their intentions to award around a thousand of its hourly employees a one-time $500 contribution to those employees' 401(k) accounts, as well as a one-time cash bonus of $750.  But that's not all:  Hostess has also announced that it will begin selectin' a "product of the week", which will be given to each employee in a "multi-pack."  (To date, I've been unable to find information as to whether a box of snacks will be considered "taxable compensation" awarded the Employee or a "charitable contribution" claimed by the Company.)

Anyway:  On its face, and in the form of a simple sentence, the Hostess thing seems not-too-bad.  The Company is gettin' a very generous tax break, in perpetuity, and have decided to spread a little bit around.  (Once.)  But it ain't like they had to.  They chose to.  

The reduction in the corporate tax rate didn't come with stipulations, with any form of a bindin' legal contract that would require corporations to create more jobs or increase compensation to its employees or even keep jobs in this country under penalty of  forfeiture of their right to operate under the starkly lower corporate tax rate.  Nope.  Nothin' like that in place.  (Although the generous corporate tax break has been constantly touted as somethin' that would absolutely do all these things, and more.). Out of the goodness of their hearts, (and possibly  as a really cheap public relations gimmick,) the Foks at the Top at Hostess chose to do this.

And seein' as how the numbers per company, per employee with the Hostess bonuses are a fairly typical example of what's been takin' place the past couple weeks, I thought theirs' would serve as a good opportunity to look more closely, see just what somethin' like this might actually mean in terms of genuine impact in the lives of the Regular Guy.  Or Gal.  (You know what I mean...)

So, gonna apply a little math here, as well as some real life analogies, and see how this shakes out. 

Since it’s a one-time thing, I chose to consider the Hostess bonuses in the context of what it would mean in real terms if spread over a single year, just to get a clearer understandin' of impact were it in the form of hourly compensation.  I realize it's a one time cash bonus.

$1250 divided by the 52 week’s in a year comes to $24 a week. Based on a 40 hour week, that comes to 60 cents an hour. Not too bad!

But, those employees won't be gettin' $24 extra a week on their paychecks, though. Forty percent of that $1250 goes directly into your 401K where, it may stand to actually make a little more money.
Even if it’s tax-deferred, you’ll still be payin’ taxes on that $500, and any money it might earn.
But it’s tied to the Stock Market with no guarantee that it’ll make any additional money or even still be there when Hostess folks choose to retire, and who knows when they’ll be able to do that, if at all? (You work at a cupcake factory, so I doubt you’re packin’ away cash by the bucketload for your retirement villa in Florida, anyway.)

So, not really gettin’ a 60 cents an hour raise for a year.

Keep hammerin'...

The cash bonus of $750, divided by the 52 week’s, comes to a little less than $14.50 a week.  Let’s just call it $14.50, anyway. Divide that $14.50 a week by the 40 hours per... that comes to almost exactly 36 cents per hour. A decent raise, I figure. But it ain’t a raise. It's tantamount to 36 cents an hour, but only for a year.  Consider taxes of about 25%, and the gracious gift bestowed upon Hostess' hard-workin' folks by Republicans and Hostess turns out to be somethin' closer to 27 cents per hour, for only one year.

So, 27 cents times 40 hours a week means that, for one year, you’ll have $10.80 additional money in your pocket per week, or $2.16 additional cash flow per day. should be able to get couple cups of cheap coffee a day with that.

But, they'll all get maybe somethin’ like one Twinkie or cupcake or Ding-Dong, or half of a delicious fruit pie with each cup of Tax Cut Bonus Java for free!
Even after a year and you have to go back to payin’ for your couple cups of coffee a day, you’re still gonna get some free snacks!

Boy!  This whole New Tax Plan thing is gonna absolutely bury us all in Untold Riches!

Fish~

Correction:  Looks like the free snacks thing will also go away after one year.  F~

OSAGE BLACK

Just outside the wall at Fort Harrod stands what is arguably the oldest living osage orange (hedge apple) tree in the country.  It's trunk, split in two, keeps this beautiful, complicated thing out of the record books.  The possibility that this may be two separate, distinctly unrelated things, with only their incidental physical closeness as a connection, doesn't change my perception: That of a single thing interrupted.  Set apart by weight, a fleetin' difference of direction not even recognized.

I captured this image a couple years ago- late in the day, late in the year-  while visitin’ with a long-ago lover and grandchildren. 

I cropped it square ‘cause this worked best for me.  

I put it in a box.

As the kids played and climbed, squealin’ and fussin’, their Mimi shoutin' words of caution as I “spotted”, I looked up, the bare branches silhouetted against the gray sky.  I drew in the cool air.  Lonely.

I was overwhelmed.  I realized my heart was broken and there was no repair.

I think about that day often.  This image, the split of the trunk, the continuin' branches, everything movin' further and further away.  It all seems to mirror so many of the feelings of that day, and the things I feel when I remember...

That thing: "It's complicated"...?  That falls so far short of what this has me recall. 

Better the image.  

Clearer the sadness, my failure.  My mistakes that now stand irreparable.  

A crime with many victims, for which the blame is ultimately mine to bear.

Please forgive me.

Fish~

BREATH

Summer

I stayed with my friend

No longer kids, far from grown

You were her sidekick

Horses and motorbikes

"She can ride with you"

You pressed against me

Your slender arms around my waist

Your head turned, pressed against my shoulders

I held my breath

A high school crowd

My friend leaned close, whispered:

"She likes you, she told me"

"No-" I said

Flattered and embarrassed 

"Yes!"

I looked at you across the room

I watched you smile, laugh

Something happened

I held my breath

"Can I come over?"

"Yes"

We lay in the floor

Ate popcorn and watched tv

Your folks on the couch

I wanted to be closer

"Perhaps a movie, a ballgame?"

"Perhaps"

Time all but stopped

I held my breath

Another summer

Your father drove

Your mother rattled

We sat in the back seat

Pressed close together

Our shoulders, our hips, our thighs touching

Fingers laced so tight

Our gaze only for one another

The warm air crossed through the windows

I held my breath

Time passed, so much happened

Here we sat together

You held my hand across the table

But for only a moment

You told me how things were

I closed my eyes tight, head down

My mind began to burn

Then you left me

I drew in deeply from the room

The air that had just moved past you

Then, I held my breath

Summertime...

  Sittin' here, basically alone.  There are other people in the room, but I don't exactly know any of 'em.  Not countin' the gal behind the bar, but I don't really know her, other than that her name is Lori.             

   (Me?  Apparently my name at this particular point in time is "Hon'".  Good with that.)

  It's a young, budding relationship- hour, hour and twenty minutes, maybe- but we've already found we have somethin' in common:  Lori used to live in Kansas.  I've been to Kansas.

  (Did you know that if you order a "double" that the entire process is streamlined for all involved?  It is, in a number of ways, but it's just me and Lori.  Lori and Hon'.  But we're friends.  Friends look out for one another.)

  Lori's workin' today, so I'm gettin' the occasional moment to myself to just think.  Just to think.  Consider.  Even reflect.          

  (Reflection is always a big damn deal.  It's a personal favorite of mine, even when it breaks me into tiny, tiny pieces.  Little, tiny pieces.  Some so small that somethin' like a door held open or someone walkin' past can scatter 'em like so much dust or pollen or bug shit.)

  But, I digress.  (That's pretentious ass speak for ramblin', but it sounds cool.  Cool in that pretentious ass kinda way.)

  I am really havin' trouble gettin' rollin'.  Apologies.  Gonna just go:

  Bein' the creatures we are, we all carry somewhere between a preoccupation and an obsession with the Passage of Time.  It ain't our fault, it's basically unavoidable.  Just like Time itself: Unavoidable. 

  For the average cog we're most familiar with, or happen to be, it's typically driven by a schedule over which we have little or no control- shit like work or kids or maybe even vices.  Or a million other things.  It's complicated.

  For the tiny pockets of folks that have somehow managed to hold on to and strictly live by the genuinely necessary shit- eatin', sleepin', not dyin' if you can avoid it- the Passage of Time may be as simple as Day and Night.  Dark versus Light.  Live or Die.  Beautiful in its Simplicity.  

  These are the Lucky Ones.  The People that Time Forgot.  Or, perhaps better described as the People that Everybody Else Forgot and Could Give a Right Goddamn About.  Yep.  That's a better description, that.  

  (Distill that down to "Fuck 'em.")

  Shit.  Did it again.

  Most of us tend to mark time with the common conventions: minutes, hours, days, months, years, decades, centuries, blah, blah, blah.  But, I've come to realize that, for me, I've always tended to gauge the Passage of Time mostly in relation to the Change of Seasons.

  I've tried to trace this back, relative to myself, and I believe it began, again: for me, with the association of the season of Summer with the break between school years, beginnin', obviously, with grade school.

  It was somethin' like this:

  Kindergarten?!  Are you jokin'?  You expect me to trade an absolutely perfect Life of Leisure for this dumb shit?  Colorin'?  Learnin' how to use those shitty, cartoon scissors and the friggin' limited pallett afforded by those chunky crayons that were flat on one side 'cause me and my fellow inmates couldn't be trusted to keep that shit from rollin' off the desk?  

  I had a theory back then:  Why can't my desktop be flat, level, not unlike the kitchen tabletop or the coffee table or even the friggin' floor at my house?  Then you knotheads could just give me access to a crayon with a point more acute than my thumb!

  But that ain't most of us.  Most of us tend not to measure Time by the Seasons.

  I expect that I tend to use that as my guide, my gauge, mostly because of that- that first measure that was forced upon me- the "School Year".  And that was, for a kid, not about the Task, but about the Break.  Summer Break.  Single-Digit Salvation.

  After that, it was ingrained in me.

  As a relatively-speakin' grown man, I spent a decade or so wonderin' why I got the Blues on toward the end of Summer.  There were the obvious reasons:  Cold weather comin' and all the restrictive shit and what came with that.  Basic End-of- Good-Weather shit.  Everybody experiences that stuff, right?

  That ain't me.  Not my thing.

  I've come to realize that, since I was apparently about five years old, my personal primary marker in regard to Time has been Summer.  Not exactly a clock or calendar thing.  Not quite.

  Clearly, I ain't had to go back to school for a while.  But I still, every August, I get that feelin', that sick-to-my-stomach, every-day-is-friggin' Sunday feelin'.  Hurt me more than it hurt my boys durin' that sixteen years of school thing they endured.  Never quite got how they were able to move through it like they did.  Stronger than me in some way.

  Days, weeks, hours, moments, all that shit- finite.  You can count days or years or whatever device you've settled upon to make you feel better, lighten you condemnin' load, maybe even fool yourself into thinkin' you got more than you got comin'.  Maybe just color it all with fat crayons, flat on one side so they don't roll away, screw you out of a particular shade of somethin'.  Press really, really hard.  Perhaps even tear the paper in your effort to cover somethin' up, obscure it with a coat of thick, colored wax.

  Or just count Summers, or the End of Summers.

  Apparently, that's what I've been doin'.  

  There's worse things.

Fish~