TomFlannery.com

It’s summer and there is no baseball. Normally we’d be near the all-star break by now. Pennant races would be pretty set. Locally we’d be deep into a Rail Riders playoff push….it’s always a good time at the stadium. Having a Triple-AAA team here is badass.

Cold beers ($7 each? Life is a sacrifice son…we do what we must do….) and the warm sun and wandering around the stadium perimeter, people watching. Or getting a nice stretch of dry weather and settling in for a few night games….perhaps with some fireworks to cap the night off. The sounds of baseball. The organist punctuating things. The crack of the bats. The thud of a 90+ mph fastball. The vendors…….selling hard. The world slows down for those few hours…..and you’re content to watch young men play a little boy’s game. And play it with such effortless grace that you’re half tempted to think that you could get out there too. If not for the fact that you are neither young nor effortlessly graceful. Baseball punctuates both the start and the end of summer…..and this year we have neither. It’s just days drifting past….anonymously. Baseball is usually everywhere. The TV. The radio. The local parks. All ages. And now, there is nothing but silence. And I’ve had months to get used to it and I still can’t. There will be no boys of summer this year. And there will be no Mister October either. Until this returns, the world just seems even more crooked on its axis. Summer with no baseball is like a bar with no beer.

College football appears doomed. Thirty seven players for the North Carolina Tar Heels have tested positive for Covid-19, which is the type of grim warning that dumb people like Betsy Devos so often ignore. If you told ACC and SEC fans that football could commence only if every man, woman, and child south of the Mason Dixon line wore a mask, they’d be sleeping in them and stomping the living hell out of any Ken or Karen caught on video in supermarkets crying about their “rahts”. Because “FOOTBAW!!”

But it’s a little late for all that now. This thing has gotten away from all of us, and now that we’re being forced to drop-kick our kids back into classrooms, I assume it’s gonna get even worse. Strap yourselves in.

What happens when a teacher tests positive? Do all the students quarantine? What happens if a student test positive? Do all his or her classmates quarantine? What about their teachers? What happens if I get sick….and my kid has been to class. Because of me, does my kid have to quarantine? What about her classmates? What about her teachers? If a teacher gets sick, and was around other teachers, do they have to quarantine as well? If teachers get sick in large numbers….what then?

If our nation was being run by adults, we would have answers to these questions. But it’s not so we don’t. It’ll be wild chaos come the fall. And we’re all gonna be locked back up. With no football. Because of course the NFL is doomed too. It’s gonna be a long winter.

In the fall/winter my Saturday’s generally consisted of me waking and putting on College Gameday on ESPN. That ran until Noon. Then the first game of the day would commence. Then the marquee 3pm games would be next. Usually the SEC. Then the early evening games…with staggered starts so you could flip back and forth and not miss any endings. Then the national prime time game…..followed by the West Coast games that would kick off around 11pm. So it might be 2am before I’d move for any reason other than to pee or to refresh my beverage or to scream that Notre Dame lost already and were thus eliminated from the national championship playoff before labor day. Or perhaps jump in the shower during a half-time featuring the same highlights I’ve seen 17 times already. Of course Sundays work the same with the 3 NFL games, one of which will feature my Steelers losing to a team they were heavily favored to beat. Another double digit hour shift. And let’s not even talk about the Thursday night college game, or Monday Night Football. Because….well…..ok…..you can toss them in there as well. The only thing that might get me off-track is playoff baseball. In which case I’ve been known to watch one game on the TV with another on my laptop and another on my phone. At the same time. And to text my nephew to get steady reports on a fourth. It ain’t easy, but it sure is fun. I think Jerry Lee Lewis said that.

And now, all that is gone. And like Henry Hill in Goodfellas, I get to live my fall and winter “like a regular schnook…”

These are strange days, Bubba. Strange days indeed. We all gotta fill the voids with something. It makes sense that maybe we could start by being better to each other.

But we haven’t been very sensible lately.

In a bit…

–tf

I’m running of of things to say about our President.

I mean…..I can always shit on him. Don’t get me wrong. But I feel like I’m repeating myself. It is a struggle to maintain a high level of written outrage when faced with so much relentless material.

But….what the hell. It’s not like I can leave the house without getting coughed on by some shitheel willing to kill people so he can strut to his restaurant table without wearing a mask.

So it ain’t like I don’t have the time.

Trump is a blatantly racist twat with the morals of a diseased toad. He has no bottom. He’ll go as low as he has to go to fire up the goobers in his cult, who are increasingly calling to mind the dingbats in Jonestown, Guyana, who willingly lined up to be poisoned, because that’ll show ’em, eh? The racism isn’t even cloaked in dog-whistles anymore. It’s tossed out wholesale like red-meat to one of Joe Exotic’s tigers, and gobbled up with the same enthusiasm. Today his target was NASCAR’s lone black driver, who was so uppity that he reported the noose he found hanging in his garage. Because calling out Bubba Wallace is just what Lincoln or FDR would have done.

The only way out of this nightmare is to frog-march the spray-tanned motherfucker out of the White House in chains, and carry the spectacle live on Hannity, in the hope that carrying it on Fox might break the spell he casts on about half of my facebook “friends”.

If Facebook has any redeeming qualities, and that’s highly doubtful, it’s that it makes it really easy to tell how many of your “friends” are potential Klan members. It’s been staggering to me to see the posts of people I thought I knew….spewing hateful, racist spittle that makes about as much sense as Trump at one of his Covid rallies. “All Lives Matter” and “grr I ain’t wearing no mask because my rahts…..grrrr” and “I’m gonna own me some libtards” and “socialism……grr…..I can’t define it because I’m too busy listening to Ted Nugent….but I know it when I see it grrrrr….where’s my relief check anyway?….from my cold dead hands…..grrrrr..” Having a conversation with a Trump supporter these days is like trying to convince my cat to read Proust.

(If that makes sense to you, then you’re probably not a Trump supporter.)

I’ve never wanted to throat-punch so many people at the same time in my entire life, and I realize this isn’t a good state of mind to be in, so I try to decompress by sitting on my front porch with a beer and 10 minutes later an obese pick-up truck roars past hanging a confederate flag from one side of the bed, with a Trump 2020 flag from the other side, and I feel a sudden urge to want to throat-punch myself for even thinking that things were going to get better. Because sometimes it’s hard to tell which virus is doing the most damage to our country. Eventually there will be a vaccine for Covid-19. There ain’t no vaccine for stupid, bubba. It comes straight from the top now, and the ones who might have been a little hesitant to shout “yeee-haaaw….I don’t like me some black people” in a crowded theater are now lining up to do so because they’ve been given papal dispensation from the grand cyclops, who defines a good day as one in which he doesn’t have to delete a tweet after half of twitter start making fun of him for the misspelled words.

And don’t even get me started on his children. I won’t pick on poor Barron…..he’s just a poor sap with questionable genetics and a bemused look that says “once I get my inheritance I’m outta here…..”. So he gets a pass. The other 2 boys are so blindingly stupid that they make Ivanka, who has the IQ of a pair of boxer shorts and the self-awareness of a skunk at a garden party, seem like Eleanor Roosevelt in comparison. How these kids manage to tie their own shoes in the morning is a mystery solved only because they have enough stolen charity funds to pay somebody to do it for them. Don Jr. was posting anti-mask gibberish the day before his own un-masked girlfriend tested positive for the coronavirus, which I’m sure he didn’t find ironic at all. And he’s not even the dumbest son. Eric tried to be clever by posting pics that showed recently arrested Epstein confidant Ghislaine Maxwell with Bill Clinton, only to be met with a barrage of photos showing her with his own father. He deleted the tweet quicker than a dog yelps when somebody steps on his tail. The only competition between the older Trump boys is who might be as dumb as the old man.

Melania? She’ll get out of Dodge as soon as her tour of duty is over. Anybody who thinks she’s in this for the duration thinks Hilary is gonna go to jail over her emails.

November beckons. A nation rages. And is sickened. Half pull one way and half pull the other. To be silent now is to be complicit. What’s at stake is whatever you can dream of. What’s at stake is whether those dreams are even worth dreaming in the first place.

Choose carefully.

In a bit..

–tf

I suspect we all know where this is going.

As cases rise everywhere…..and the willingness to sacrifice for the greater good has done a Houdini, the writing is on the wall. There will be more sick, more dead, and more forced quarantining in the days and weeks and months ahead. There is absolutely no good news about this on any horizon. Schools are all set to re-open come mid August, but we’re not even in July yet, so there’s plenty of time for that door to slam shut. It seems increasingly likely that once again kids are gonna be sitting in the bedrooms interacting with teachers via Zoom. Places that were shut down for months and just recently re-opened, will be shut down again. And such will be the financial impact, they may not survive the second go-round. All because of the knucklehead minority. It might be 10% that are charging into stores or bars sans mask, red-hatted and shouting “….grrrrr freedumb…..grrrrrr…my rahts!”, but that’s more than enough to keep this thing alive and kicking for months more. Or longer. They’ll be no football this fall. Basketball is doomed. Minor league baseball has just announced there won’t be a season. If the MLB attempts a shortened season, it will last as long as the first few teams are infected with the virus. So….days. Weeks? 2020 is already over…..all that’s left is to hunker down and hope some sort of leader emerges that can talk us off the ledge. Our nation is on the brink of a complete nervous breakdown.

Even what passes for amusement these days, 2 uber-white barefoot St Louis attorney’s pointing guns at passers-by (and inadvertently, each other), terrified that brown people are going to go all french revolution on their gilded mansion, is ultimately sad and utterly pathetic. When short fat millionaires in pink golf shirts are starting to wave AK-whatevers s at people walking down the street, and are still overshadowed by the Karens they married wading into the fray frantically pointing a pistol, the culture wars may be getting a tad out of hand. The only thing that prevented a blood-bath was the self-control of the protesters. Argue that all you want. You’ll still be wrong. And most likely, racist as fuck.

In between this and an endless barrage of videos showing people losing their minds in grocery stores over being asked to wear a mask in an effort to not kill others, my sense of humor is deserting me. I stopped following people on social media. I’m only interested in dogs.

George Washington is getting paint tossed all over him, the poor slave-owning sod. Donald Trump is more worried about rock-climbing spidermen of BLM painting dick signs on Mount Rushmore than he is about your grandmother on a ventilator. Or, for that matter, the US troops he allowed his bromance partner Putin to put bounties on. At this point the guy commits treason every 8 seconds, but we’re all so dead inside nobody can focus long enough to figure out how to frog-march him out of the White House in shackles. I think part of the exhaustion is the rubbernecking at the car-wreck variety. We’re wanting to see how batshit crazy he’s willing to go to fire up his shrinking base. Short of donning a white hood and burning a large cross on the White House lawn, I’m not sure he’s capable of shocking us anymore. Or them for that matter. All that’s left is the November death march, and the bookies in Vegas giving us odds on whether he’s gonna leave the White House willingly, or have to be dragged from the freshly re-furnished bunker kicking and screaming.

Texans have taken to the streets waving #BLM signs……but these ones say “Bar Lives Matter” because Ken and Karen might be fine with cops murdering black dudes, but they ain’t taking this no Miller-Lite drafts thing sitting down. Say it again boys and girls. Ain’t no such thing as white privilege, even if you think George Floyd ain’t as important as happy hour at TGIFs.

And last but not least, the White House press secretary was forced to make the following statement…

“The President does read….”

Because more than a few people out there suspect that….you know….he doesn’t read at all.

I’m guessing that’s the first time in the history of our nation that such a statement seemed necessary. The literacy of the President, one would think, would have been covered during the election, if not well before. But….well…..there were other things happening at the time I guess. “But her emails!” and all that.

“….Grrr….MAGA…..Grrr…..Benghaziiiiiiiii” and what not. It’s easy to take things like comprehending written words for granted.

It also kinda sums up how far we’ve regressed. And how doomed we are.

Say it again boys and girls…

“The President does read….”

Good luck in November. Assuming we make it that far.

In a bit..

–tf

We’re “green” now. Just in time for the largest single day total of positive cases since the pandemic began.

This makes sense only in America, circa 2020, where sense has taken its ball and gone home.

We’re all about to be chased back inside again, and deep down everybody knows it. All you need to do is look at Texas and Florida and California. Look at fresh cases ravaging India. Look at the insanely crowded beaches in the UK. A pandemic can only be defeated by grown-ups, and the world is filled with narcissistic children. My incomprehension no longer has any boundaries. I have no reasonable expectation that our residents are going to somehow act more responsibly than Texans or Floridians or Californians. Dumbness is geographically neutral. Kinda like the virus itself.

In the midst of all this madness, President Trump is asking the Supreme Court to overturn Obamacare, which would strip health care from millions of Americans. In June 2019 the President  promised to unveil a “phenomenal” new plan that would be “less expensive than Obamacare by a lot”. He said this would take place “in two months, maybe less.” As usual when his lips are moving, he was lying. There is no new plan. It’s just more casual cruelty from a gargantuan piece of stooped orange-tinted shit. Those he couldn’t kill by pissing on a pandemic he’s coming back at for round two. It’s moral treason, and it’s tolerated and cheered on by the mindless trolls that make up his diseased cult….many of whom are already dead or will die from the virus he called a hoax and were or are covered by Obamacare themselves. Again, this only makes sense in America, 2020.

Remember. The cruelty is the point. His supporters don’t care that he’s not making their lives better. But they adore that he’s making yours worse. They will gladly die to own the libs.

I asked somebody I know who lives in Houston if folks down there were wearing masks. “Democrats are. Republicans are not.”

That’s where we’re at.

An entire political ideology no longer gives a shit if they kill others. Even themselves.

Right now I can’t remember how things were before this all started. When we all sorta blithely went about our days, working and playing and gathering and shaking hands and bro-hugging. Enjoying a movie at the movies, or sitting in a restaurant or a bar without worrying if the lady sneezing at the next table just kick-started wiping out half the place. Going to see a band. Going for a walk and not crossing the street when somebody without a mask is heading your way. Being self-conscious of even handing a cashier money. I’m vaguely aware that things used to be that way, but damn if I can remember. Calling to my kids every time they leave the house to ensure they have a mask. I mean…..there’s even photographic evidence and everything of such normalcy. But I got nothing in my melon. It’s like somebody ran a magnet across the hard drive. I haven’t put gas in my car since the beginning of March. I heard gas prices were low? Are they still?

My dog has stopped looking at us funny because we’re all home all the time. He’s in the groove now, and sometimes just resorts to isolating himself in his bed, for his own mental health break. He’s not afraid of waking up to an empty house. He thinks this is gonna go on forever.

I still go for long, wandering walks. I used to take things in. Sights and sounds. I never brought music with me. My senses were too acute…..heightened just by walking outside. Now I don’t feel anything. I jam headphones in my ears and crank something loud. I go as fast as I can so I can get miles over with and get back home. I can bury my head in a book and pretend. I’m sure there’s a name for feeling this way.

Partly this is why. When asked what his top priorities for a 2nd term are…..the President of the United States said this…

“Well, one of the things that will be really great, you know, the word experience is still good. I always say talent is more important than experience. I’ve always said that. But the word experience is a very important word. It’s a very important meaning. I never did this before — I never slept over in Washington. I was in Washington I think 17 times, all of the sudden, I’m the president of the United States. You know the story, I’m riding down Pennsylvania Avenue with our first lady and I say, ‘This is great.’ But I didn’t know very many people in Washington, it wasn’t my thing. I was from Manhattan, from New York. Now I know everybody. And I have great people in the administration. You make some mistakes, like you know an idiot like Bolton, all he wanted to do is drop bombs on everybody. You don’t have to drop bombs on everybody. You don’t have to kill people.”

That’s a real quote. Word for word. From a man who holds the same office that Abraham Lincoln held. And a man who continues to inspire fanatical devotion from people at least smart enough to mark a ballot.

Our nation’s hysterical idiocy has driven me to rank depression. Our dumb motherfuckery has overwhelmed my senses.

I’m going back to bed.

In a bit..

–tf

Guilty Me

written by Tom Flannery and Bret Alexander
download mp3

Bret Alexander – Vocals, guitars
Tom Flannery – vocals, guitar
recorded in quarantine from our separate bunkers

They say now’s the time for love
when the pushes turn to shoves
guilty me guilty me guilty me
build it up or burn it down
learn what matters in this town
guilty me guilty me guilty me

Some kind of war to cleanse the sin
that each and every one of us were born in
swept away by the tide
trying to reach the other side 
guilty me

Out of time or out of touch
I’m not sure it matters much
guilty me guilty me guilty me
who’s to say or who’s to blame
either way it ends the same
guilty me guilty me guilty me

There was a song
you had to learn
like a child you sing along as cities burn
it spoke of light at tunnel’s end
you irritate me my friend
guilty me

Some will try to keep us down
try to turn this ship around
guilty me guilty me guilty me
well I’ve taken all I can
it’s high time to be a man
guilty me guilty me guilty me

What have I done what can I do
that will make this a better place for me and you
I don’t know how we’ll make it thru
but I’m busting thru with you
guilty me

It’s getting to the point where I’m no fun anymore.

Stephen Stills wrote those words over 50 years ago.

They seem particularly relevant now.

We’ve had a nice stretch of weather. I like to sit out on the front stoop late at night and ponder. Enjoy a beverage. Watch the cars as they fly down the road, in a hurry to go nowhere. Always with a soundtrack for company. New Dylan record. Latest from Joe Henry. My homemade Tragically Hip playlist. I love the Drive-By Truckers at times like these. And Jason Isbell. There’s that latest Neil Young I’ve been meaning to get to. Maybe tonight if the storms don’t finally roll through. That’s what they’re calling for. A few good days in a row are all we can hope for ’round here.

My cat roams outside most days….and she’ll appear out of nowhere like an apparition, and perch herself on the front stoop and join me in my surveying. She’s pretty inscrutable. Based on her past, I’m not sure I’d want to read her mind. But she seems a bit out of sorts lately as well. These last few months seem to have cut down on her wandering. She doesn’t venture as far, or for as long. We used to fret about getting her inside before closing up for the night. Now, she’s right by the door. She’s seems over this shit, and needs her bed.

Behind me in the house is all that I hold dear. All that I love and treasure. All that I would kill and die for. And even so, times like these can make me feel like a fraud. I should be stronger. But I’m not.

Lincoln called it “the tired spot”. Churchill and Nick Drake wrote and sang of “the black dog”. And how many men and women with guitars have articulated the blues? How it can descend on you with little warning, and hang around for days or weeks at a time. Our county “opens” on Friday, which I suppose is a good thing, especially for the businesses that have been hurt so bad by the shutdown. But the virus numbers coming in are pretty dire. A second wave is just about inevitable. If we were all vigilant, masked, and distance conscious, we might weather it. But we’re not. So it’ll be the difference between lighting a match, and lighting the matchbook. To defeat this thing requires overwhelming force……everybody pulling in the same direction. In 2020? That’s impossible. Even with people dying. The lack of empathy is staggering. It breaks the heart. So more will die. Needlessly. Americans fighting Americans…..a little mini civil war.

And so it goes. I pretend to be ok just about all of the time, but I’m not ok. And neither are you. We’re scared and nervous and pissed off and feeling pissed on.

The injustices were always there. Scabbed over. These last few months have ripped the scab off, and the nation is freely bleeding out. We need something and somebody to salve the wound. But instead we get buckets of salt tossed into it. So it festers. But all the while the young learn more and more about the things that were skipped over in history class. That our founding fathers were not made of granite. That even our nation’s national anthem was written by a man who owned other human beings. That the civil war was (and is) more than a chapter in an outdated history book….and that it didn’t settle things by a long shot. It’s no secret that a map of the confederacy and a map of current red states looks frightfully similar. And most importantly, that none of this newfound knowledge means much if the generation we failed decides to stay home in November.

As statues continue to tumble, it’s ironic that the movement is being accused of trying to suppress history, as if lionizing men like Robert E Lee and Andrew Jackson hadn’t done that for generations already.

So one side moves….and the other entrenches. All in the midst of a pandemic that won’t go away, no matter how many times the president clicks his heels together and chants “there’s no place like Tulsa….there’s no place like Tulsa…” Our kids are about to head out, piling into school buses and classrooms and dorm rooms, all in the name of defeating something by pretending that it’s already been counted out. That keeps me up nights. I haven’t slept in 99 days. And I don’t see any sleep coming over the horizon. Despite the tired spot.

Change is inevitable. Most prefer it so sneak up on them…..the way our Iphones improve, or how we no longer have to use a dial-up modem.

But sometimes change requires what we’re used to being torn down….and that scares folks. But it shouldn’t. Some things just need a little push.

In a bit..

–tf

Covid-19 cases are spiking around the country. Which is not really a surprise to anybody who has been paying attention to anything behavioral or virus-related over the last few months. Or one who has a basic grasp of past history.

There’s no vaccine…..so there’s that. Maybe there will be? Soon? Nobody knows. Such things take time. Until there is…everybody is gonna have to remain vigilant. Look out for yourselves and those around you.

But….well….you know….

The virus was losing steam because folks were home, and following the guidelines being set by people who know a lot more about such things than the rest of us do. Masks. Social distancing whenever possible. Avoiding large crowds. This is really not rocket science.

The President and his crew can say the virus is gone all they want. But it’s not gone. And at his next rally, in which he’ll surely laugh off such alarmist talk to arouse the tiny-dicks, he’s forcing all attendees to sign a waiver to promise not to hold him responsible if in fact they do get sick. Only a nation as staggeringly dumb as ours can shrug off  stuff like this with a “ggggrrrr….MAGA!…”

(By the way….interesting that his first covid-rally is being held in Oklahoma…..a state that probably had of grand total of 6 people vote for Hillary in 2016, but only because they couldn’t read the ballot. Make no mistake….this is nothing more than a Presidential gang-bang. The drop-lets will be a-flowing….)

The massive protests against police brutality against African Americans that have broken out all over our nation are inspiring for sure. And unstoppable, really. But viruses don’t care about social causes, no matter how just they are. So it is what it is. Undoubtedly these gatherings are contributing to the resurgence of the cases. Both show no signs of relenting anytime soon.

And then of course, perhaps most insidious of all, are those who just don’t give a shit. They ain’t wearing a mask (many, though not all, protesters are), they’re getting right into your grill to make sure you know they ain’t gonna wear a mask because “grrrr my rahts Freedumb…grrrr” They are convinced they ain’t gonna die because the President doesn’t wear a mask and Jesus and Robert E. Lee statues are protecting them from this hoax, and they really don’t give a shit if you die or not. They’re just gonna own the libs, and that’s that. Not sure how far they’re gonna take this “my rahts” stuff. What’s next? Shopping naked because the store can’t force you to wear pants? These are the same folks who considered it entirely okio-dokio for bakeries to refuse to sell cakes to gay couples. The hypocritical dumbfuckery on display is lost in a fog of casual cruelty. It’s like a third of the nation suddenly woke up with the self awareness of Ivanka Trump.

A unmasked-Trumpian sheriff in Arizona who declared that he would refuse to enforce any measures put on the books to stop the spread of the virus, has now tested positive. Cases in Arizona have increased 31% in one week. Anybody see any connection? Portions of other states that waved everybody in are now slamming the doors shut again. Florida has more positive cases than ever. 3200 in a single 24 hour period. A single re-opened bar infected 16 patrons in one night. The bar subsequently closed down. Again. And so it goes.

The governor of Pennsylvania has been recognized by the CDC as one of 3 governors in the nation who have seen a decrease in cases for 42 days in a row.

As thanks for this, Republicans want him impeached.

In Asia, people who come down with a common cold frequently don a mask, out of concern for their fellow humans.

Americans? Yea, not so much.

The other side of all this, of course…..is without some sort of massive government relief effort, many of us just ain’t gonna make it. Businesses have already shut down. Others are hanging on for dear life. Another shutdown is the final stomp on the fingers. Bars. Restaurants. Movie theaters. Concert halls. Salons. Independent contractors of all stripes. All of them, on life support. They cannot sustain themselves in the midst of a virulent virus like Covid-19. They need the kind of monetary infusion that is normally reserved for Wall Street. So far at least, they haven’t gotten it. If history is any guide, we might not let big bank fail, but local businesses are on their own. Because….”grrrr…socialjzzzzzm….grrr…”

How deep into this can we dive without not being able to hold our breath any longer?

In a bit..

–tf

Just trying to keep my head above water. Working. Writing. Playing. Singing. Collaborating. Walking. Talking with my kids. Playing with my dog. Trying not to look out the window. It’s dark out there.

I’ve been working from home, and every morning I log in and check the news. Inevitably the various outrages of the previous 24 hours slap me in the face like a Monty Python fish. Even the occasional good news…..an astounding NASA mission or a historic Supreme Court win for the LGBGT community, seems to quickly get swallowed up by a relentless barrage of shitiness.

I keep thinking we’re better than this, but what if we aren’t?

We move forward, and then we forget that we’re standing on one of those airport conveyors…..and everything gets rolled back as we slap each other on the back. And then the same bad things happen, and we can’t believe we have to fight the same battle all over again. The truth is increasingly harder to get at, and people divided from each other tend to only look for what buttresses their own world views. So in a way, the truth has become almost irrelevant. Certainly that’s true of the President and his supporters. Headlines aren’t driven by the smartest, they’re driven by the loudest. And the loudest sells the most product.

Dr. Fauci has been shrugged aside as the pandemic rages on. He’s too reasoned. Too steady. He doesn’t rant or rave or deal in conspiracy theories. He gives his best medical opinion, which has increasingly become something that nobody wants to hear anymore. Lock downs are unofficially over…..social distancing and masks have largely become a thing of the past. Large gatherings are everywhere. Protests. Political rallies. Malls. Or just backyard yahoos. Schools are opening up in the fall. Fauci has been shelved because he keeps saying “but….but….”

It’s been a tidal wave fuckthisitis, and he stood there long enough to get washed away.

We won’t admit it out loud but most seemed to have made the collective decision that some folks are just gonna have to get over it and die, because nobody can sustain another round of being bunkered up for months at a time. Money runs out. Patience runs out. Mental health runs out. You get tired of looking to the horizon for the cavalry. There’s no leadership out of Washington. States are on their own. Cities and towns are on their own.

It’s both understandable, and slightly appalling at the same time. It is, no matter how you try to spin it, survival of the fittest from now on. Covid-19 has uprooted some pretty nasty stuff about our natures.

There’s still marching in the streets. People finding energy from years of being tired. Tired of being treated differently because of the color of their skin. And more and more white people are standing alongside them now. It’s not our fight, but maybe it should have been all along. For generations most of us did not engage in outward discrimination, but we did turn away. We snickered at the crass jokes. Or shared some ourselves. Is there much difference anymore? To me that’s what these protests are about in 2020. That’s why the statues are being torn down. The old excuses are coming down as well. If you won’t stand up for the rights of others, what right have you to demand these rights for yourself?

Everybody wants “normal” again. But normal is what got us here. Surely that will no longer do, right?

Healing requires human touch. Closeness. Eye to eye. Cheek to cheek. And yet here we are, bobbing and weaving, some staying away out of fear, and others in our faces because of hate. It’s been the most extraordinary year of our lives…..and nobody has any idea how any of this is going to end. All we can seemingly agree on is that we want it to.

But first, the summer will roll on relentlessly. Heat and storms and ice cream cones and barbecues and flag waving. There’s nothing to distract us anymore. No baseball or NBA playoffs…..no Sunday afternoon Tiger Woods rally or highlight-packed evening Sportscenter. So we just sit and stew, trying to pretend things are getting back to normal when we know damn well they are not.

Before we know it the leaves will turn…the kids will be back in school. And it’s a wait and see game from there. What happens if the kid next to you in class, or the girl down the hall in your dorm, tests positive? What happens if a teacher does? Do you shut it all down? Send everybody home? Hold your breath?

Or do you just say….”good luck kids….please turn to chapter 13…”

To not expect these scenarios is to be living in a fantasy land. But then again perhaps that’s the one most of us prefer to be in right now.

In a bit..

–tf

King’s Highway
written by Tom Flannery
download mp3

Tom Flannery – guitar, vocals, harmonica
John Ginty – piano, organ

When history bounces off the head
we’re left with all this shit instead
boarded up dollar stores
tiki torches and shameless whores
black is white night is day
broke down on the king’s highway
on the king’s highway

Distant drums and marching shoes
from Boston to the Charleston blues
loved and lost and never learned
set the fire and watched it burn
all that talk nothing to say
broke down on the king’s highway
on the king’s highway

King’s highway is where I’ll make my stand
a back road thru this promised land
on the king’s highway
on the king’s highway

Bad news always flows downhill
it finds a way when it finds the will
we take what’s good and we shout it down
and drive the have-nots out of town
I wanna die right where I lay
broke down on the king’s highway
on the king’s highway

There ain’t no signs to say you’re there
when there ain’t no rules I guess that makes it fair
on the king’s highway

Mountains High and Rivers Deep

written by Tom Flannery and Bret Alexander
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Bret Alexander – Vocals, guitars
Tom Flannery – guitar
recorded in quarantine from our separate bunkers

There are fights worth losing when days go by
and all you hear is children cry
so you draw a line is somebody’s sand
with no deviation from the master plan
you stare into the eyes of those
who dress the wolf in them silly clothes
and watch your children as they sleep
dreaming mountains high and rivers deep

Orwell back in 84
drunk as a monkey on the dance floor
daring us all to sing along
with the same words for every song
lock us out or lock us in
punish the sinner but not the sin
watch your babies as they sleep
dreaming mountains high and rivers deep

Peaceful hearts ain’t loud enough
when it gets time to call their bluff
no more wait and see
’till they bury me
help me up I’ve had enough

Seen it all but you ain’t seen this
you take notes I’ll keep a list
of everyone who let us down
starting brush fires all over town
who to believe and who to trust
what are they gonna say about us
watch your babies as they sleep
dreaming mountains high and rivers deep
dreaming mountains high and rivers deep