by Kyle K. Mann
They make the drinks strong at Abuelitas Mexican Restaurant, and halfway into the first Bloody Mary I forgot which team jersey color was which in the Patriots-Seahawks game. Not that it mattered that much as I was merely watching occasionally in hopes of seeing my ex-classmate, that scummy cheater Pete Carroll, lose. But my foggy memory troubled me.
I’m on the lookout for signs of dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease at this point in my life. After all, look what happened to my other Redwood High School classmate, Robin Williams. “Lewy body dementia,” brrrr. What a bummer way to go. No, I gotta arrange for a better exit than that. Something with a modicum of dignity.
Carroll is probably in the same boat. The coach hilariously responsible for the greatest choke in Super Bowl history, he’s gotta be wondering at 3AM about that horrid pass call from the one yard line. Such is life; one minute you’re on top, the next, you’re a reviled goat.
Which brings us to President-Elect Trump. Hard to believe I wrote that. The words look wrong, even cosmically weird. My editor, David Pratt, says we have all slipped into Bizarro World, and that’s as good an explanation as any.
I refused to vote in the election, and am taking a bit of flak on FaceBook for it. Oooo, FaceBook. It’s my own damn fault for standing up to those waving the flag about people having died for our right to vote and saying how angry they are at the nearly 50% who boycotted the noble cause of electing The First Woman President. Phooey!
Nothing on earth could have convinced me to cast my vote for that warmongering, cackling, over-entitled monster.
Phew. Third quarter now, and the Patriots run the ball into the end zone for the lead. But the Seahawks drive down to the five, before they are stopped. I’m entertained by Carrol’s looks of dismay, even though his team takes the lead on a field goal.
I’m less entertained by news of the coming Trump cabinet. Evil SOB’s to a man, so far. Not that HRC’s would have been any better.
Back to FaceBook. Ugh, another of these damned memes about how unfair it is that HRC won the popular vote, but lost the election. Deal with it, losers. The state that put Trump over the top in the Electoral College, Wisconsin… Clinton didn’t even campaign there in the general election. That’s called entitlement. And it came with a big fat price.
Now it’s the reshuffle at the Democratic National Committee. Howard Dean is being pushed forward, mostly by himself. What a disgusting thought, to have to see and hear that hideous howler. The Dems could do better selecting at random out of the phone book. Keith Ellison? They’d do better with Harlan Ellison.
I look up. Fourth quarter now, and the Patriots take the lead back on a field goal. Excellent work. “I never knew love before, then came you,” sing the Spinners, from my lost childhood. I mull over a Lost Love from the early 70s. Damn, becoming lugubrious.
Better skip that second drink. I’m not much of a drinker, really. I’m still a big fan of psychedelics but I seldom find any. It’s been years. Arg, still lugubrious.
Goal line stand by the Patriots, and they hold the ‘Hawks off. Cheaty Petey doesn’t like it, challenges the call, and loses. I beam, as a penalty and third down incompletion force Seattle to kick a field goal for a one point lead. 25-24. Not what Cheaty wanted. I grin.
“Don’t look back” the Temptations sing on the speakers. Great tune. God I love being a Boomer. They’ll be playing this stuff until I’m gone, and beyond.
But the song reminds me of the evil Obama… “Look forward, not back,” he said in 2009, letting Dubya, Cheney and company off the hook for the Iraq War. God damn him. Damn them all, the Masters of War that young Bob Dylan indicted so memorably.
I look up in time to see a Seahawk touchdown. Ugh, how’d that happen? But they miss a 2 point conversion. Ha!
My thoughts cycle back to the guff I’m taking from the butt-hurt HRC partisans. No I didn’t vote for that wicked witch, for all kind of reasons. Including stealing the primaries from Sanders. There was no lesser evil. It’s my view that participation in a rigged, gamed and patently immoral process validates that process. Count me out.
Look up again. Gahhh! Seahawks win it on a strange fourth down play by the Patriots… a pass from the one. Didn’t the Patriots learn anything from Carroll’s Superchoke? Guess not.
Which seems to be the theme of our benighted era. People simply don’t learn from the mistakes of the past, even the very recent past. Too bad, isn’t it?
So now we have more killing, more war, more torture, and even more lunacy from the establishment Democratic Party, who need a complete housecleaning and instead are going to merely rearrange the Titanic’s deck chairs.
But there’s a bright historically gigantic Supermoon out tonight, and a quiet moonlight walk in the state park on the brightest night light of my life has a lot of appeal. Politics? Sports? This too will pass.
Like a kidney stone.
I get up as Sly Stone starts singing “Thank you for lettin’ me, be mice elf…”
Yes. Thank you, reader. You stuck with me to the end, and I surely appreciate it.
Topanga
Nov. 13, 2016
