Abide Vicereine

“Odd Jobs has ridden on... the little girl from in back of the clothesline cast a shadow like a crow. It’s beak spoke open. ‘Why doesn’t old Odd Jobs come around anymore?’ He used to ride his form-a-heap bike, and his basket was a whole candy store. He used t’make Xs from door to door. All the women and the young girls around here ask why old Jobs don’t come anymore, why old Jobs don’t come on home. And the gate without its paint on danced and creaked and moaned. Here he comes peddlin’ up on his form-a-heap bike, a bag of skin and bones. Spokes were scraping two rust fenders. Oh.”
Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) & His Magic Band, Odd Jobs [1976], Grow Fins - Rarities 1965 - 1982, Revenant, 1999

Had an elderly pal Joe, since passed, who was keen on political debates for what they really mean, legislative tactics that affect lives unseen. Having stormed Iwo Jima for liberty and life, Joe would be offended at strife with which America has become rife. A dyed-in-the-wool Democrat due to their one time staunch support of labor, would be hard to imagine degree of his rage vis-à-vis GOP’s gun proliferation, oil profits, power lust, self service, and standing shoulder to shoulder with a sociopathic loser. After introducing so many tax cuts for wealthiest few, none in Congress cast a single vote for latest relief law, even one without a minimum wage hike. They’ve made it clear who they like: Billionaires, businessmen, and corporations they fear, never those in need and suffering from want. Repeats historic mistake, “Let them eat cake!”

Ideologues mustn't assume a party stays the same; members and platforms change, and policies get strange. Both major parties say whatever might sway votes their way, and sell influence to the highest bidder, so tacitly pass along trickle up swindles to enrich every supporter. Token pittances aren’t going to make eligible individuals solvent, but will pay any advancement and wend through economy, unlike bank bailouts and tax cuts that wind up in some offshore balance statement. Lots of bills make billionaires, who seldom seem to pay own loans, rather lash costs on backs of worker drones.

Ghost bike for a 6-year-old mowed down during a family outing on a bike path by a motorist.

Examples set indirectly cause fatal consequences. GOP’s disrespect for laws and stance on guns goad domestic terrorists. Self proclaimed patriots and white supremacist separatists indiscriminately kill those to whom they have access simply because they are heavily armed and mentally defective. How many bystanders and children have died in US gun massacres? According to official figures cited by Congressman Desaulnier, more than soldiers in Vietnam War, over sixty thousand in last 5 years alone! They'll massacre innocents, then crucify dissidents.

Recently, six women were murdered in what appears to be a hate crime against Asians, in part from frustration over coronavirus. News media exaggerates an incident as trending, but this regrettable splinter only reinforces a global constant of targeting unarmed, vulnerable and weak, sometimes by those in positions of authority. So many Americans own ammo and guns, no army would stand a chance of ground conquest. Only biological and nuclear weapons would work, which creates a dilemma over what would be left to seize. America’s strength had been its diverse people and their work ethic. Power is only worth possessing as long as you don’t use it indiscriminately.

Furthermore, news denounces sudden mistreatment of women. Would be laughable if not so shortsightedly pathetic. For millennia, patriarchs backed by popes put women down, reckoned them third class chattel, sometimes sold them as slaves. Consequently, femininity focused on charms to manipulate machismo morons. Longing to attract right mate, Americans, more women than men, now spend $50 billion each year on cosmetics and $2 trillion on fashion apparel. Toss in crowding, ego, hormones, peer pressures, and stereotypical behaviors, what should you expect? Mixed messages sent, so begins series of events that result in Thelma and Louise tragedies everyone resents.

One cannot be the voice of abandoned, disappointed, disenfranchised, disillusioned, or dismissed and not anger those so delusional to believe themselves in control. Human reality has both concrete external and emotional internal elements. A great deal of life’s experience depends upon how they interact. Both demand expert handling, but rank amateurs stand in, so make for a comic or melodramatic mess. Only those with intact shreds of self esteem can expect success. Every woman wants to be treated at least like a vicereine, if not queen. Lust is the vice through which she's supposed to reign and you abide. After years of neglect of her lowly subject, who’s left to deliver respect?

Biggest myth of all is that you receive commensurate with what you contribute. Doesn’t take into account grifters, malingerers, taxmen and thieves, who laugh up their sleeves at what your hard work achieves. Doesn’t matter, because you’re stuck with whatever defective programming you were born, dealt or nurtured into. Behooves a person to test self and skills against many challenges to find a role in which one can prevail, and foresee a fall back once equipment begins to fail. Even so simple a formula can never be assured in an unreliable world with rugs pulled out from beneath your feet, savings reduced by inflation, and threats strewn upon your sweet cheat.

Pandemic and recession proof industries meet basic needs. Certain manufacture, farms, mines, pharma, ranches, state services, and supermarkets haven’t laid anyone off. Home deliveries have expanded due to personal distancing. But minimum pay hasn’t risen in decades and wealth disparity is worse than ever. You’re neither entitled nor owed anything for sure. If wages matched growth in productivity, minimum would be $24/hour, though $15/hour would preserve jobs and raise 32 million families from poverty. If neocons won’t permit, unions might see to it.

Enormity and extent of problems crush individuals; only through consensus and teamwork does anything important get accomplished. Yet you’re surrounded by gross incompetence and oppositional defiance that says, “Makes no sense, so let’s do it.” Nation will never truly appreciate how close it came to totalitarian rule. Whatever you think works won’t once universe ceases bestowing and commences reclaiming. Gravity’s a bitch, but there it is, always dragging or slowing you down.

Captains like to impart groans of hate and indignant insights, since they're so easy to relate. Art forms that resonate draw audiences, but efforts to produce soon become drudgeries that no longer elate. Bicycling humbles one, instills doubts, reveals fatal flaws that cannot be resolved, such as inevitable mortality, needs to pursue what’s unpopular and unprofitable among dopes, and support systems built on slippery slopes. Closest you’ll ever be to literally free is out bicycling apart on lonely back roads or where sky meets the sea.

Warren Buffet’s life hacks say be positive, don’t overthink, do play and sleep more, and exercise outside today. Bicycling will forever fill that bill unless you're suicidal. TOMORROWS might be the heaviest 3 syllable word in English language, heavier, say, than manifestos (often go unread), braggadocio (rolls off tongue), or simply future (some unspecified date). Tomorrows has bulky, wavy, wide letters that occupy space, and oppresses procrastinators with its imminence and inevitability. Waking up to a new tomorrow with hope treats every cell in body to universe's pure energy. 

Both book and reader were sprinkled throughout with easter eggs that revealed facts too personal outside context. Writers write to be read, a one-way dialogue. Offered an option to comment, which is why so many debatable perspectives were presented. One can only assume too few readers or too much truth limited. Either way, B&C in totality was never worth the effort, so intend to end. Thus concludes suffering while resurrection awaits.