Da capo. Again. “Influence Peddling” is a tune which the Swedish rap band realPfft released in November, 2019. Hunter Biden’s never-ending soap opera breathes new life into this chestnut.
I have been keeping the Hunter Biden swamp at arm’s length. It’s a cocktail of egomania, self-centered greed, immaturity, careless foolishness, stupidity and lack of a moral compass.
Not good.
Hunter’s apologists explain that he was battling drug addiction, depression and alcoholism. Mental illness and mental anguish are terrible afflictions to behold, but neither constitutes a Get Out of Jail Free card.
Where were the adults in the room? Joe Biden limits his knowledge of the events to a claim that he asked his son Hunter if Hunter knew what he was doing and Hunter said yes, he did.
If you are going to be this irresponsible as a parent, you deserve to reap the consequences. America is not known as a stupid country, but there is a streak of mulish stupidity in the Bidens’ behavior that is miles wide.
The “d’oh” dumbness isn’t limited to the Bidens. Just look at the mess America’s 45th president has created for himself. These people need a dog collar and someone to pull on the leash whenever they venture too close to the nearest cliff. What is wrong with these people? Taylor Swift’s drama queen persona resembles Albert Einstein in comparison to this gluttony of ineptitude.
This is another good reason for the Democratic Party to retire Joe and Kamala after four years of White House service and choose a different pair of candidates for president and vice president in 2024.
The Writers Guild of America— 11,500 screenwriters— are on strike and I have a lot of time on my hands. Not that I am a commercial screenwriter. It’s summer and I have a lot of time on my hands.
Just this month, I applied to a talent agency to rep me. Their second Q was “What kind of work are you looking for?” Having low self-esteem, I don’t expect to get signed up straight-away by a major blockbuster. As many as half the new shows on streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, Hulu, Disney+, Peacock, YouTube and Apple tv get canceled after just one season. The metrics are brutal that way. Since everyone has to start somewhere, I have instructed the agency that I am looking for gainful employment on one or more of those series, the ones facing extinction.
In the meantime, I dog walk.
Fortunately, there are dozens of online courses, competitions and workshops for would-be screenwriters. There is a whole cottage industry of helpmates who, for a nominal fee, will explain why your writing sucks. You are using the wrong-colored notecards. Your pegboard is the wrong size. Stuff like that. I signed up with Three Media in Stockholm, Sweden, for the course “Screenwriting. It’s Complicated.” The first thing I have learned is that no one knows what makes a show great. Good writing, high production values, talented actors and meaningful direction all contribute to the possibility of major success. Yet, sometimes, in spite of the very best laid plans, a show still lacks “heart.” The writers never seem to find their voice. Everyone on set seems to be simply going through the motions. The “star” phones it in. The director never gets a grip on the material. Some of which may even be in French!
Je me souviens, I think back fondly to the desert location of a recent TV pilot titled “Roar of the Lion!” Hired to assist the caterers, I was thrilled to be part of a major film project, I can tell you, the smell of pancake make-up and Fresnel lenses baking in the sun. I offered to assist the writing staff in any way I possibly could. Editing. Rewrite. Even transcription. (Typing up notes from a brainstorming session.) Appreciative, they sent me into town to buy donuts.
The good news is, I really hit it off with the female lead, Anna Petrovska. What a darling lady! A ruddy redhead, her skin luminous, her bright red toenails shone like rubies against the backdrop of desert sand. A notorious insomniac, she stayed up all night, practicing lines. Bleary-eyed, I accompanied her on this emotional journey. The line “I love you, Robert” was delivered with the following motivation (I quote verbatim from the script):
Sweating in the sweltering heat of the Kalahari, Cecilia mentions this in passing, meanwhile gutting the carcass of the dead lion in prep to stuffing it.
An anti-poaching polemic, the film skates the razor-sharp edge of satirical discontent.
Lying in one another’s arms, Anna and I worked up a sweat, as well.
All of this was before the writers strike, of course.
At home in Maryland, I was surprised to get an email from L.A. It was the director, informing me that additional dialogue was needed during post-production. I mean, this is in the middle of the writers strike. The film cutter, the assistant director and the director found themselves sitting at the editing console, trying to figure out how best to rescue their baby from early oblivion. “We know you harbor the ambition to become a wordsmith on the soundstages of Hollywood,” wrote my erstwhile benefactor. “Here’s a warm-up exercise in the dramatic arts. Cecilia needs to write to Robert from Paris where she is held captive by the villain Sultan Rhubarb. What does she say to Robert? We know that his answer is yes, since we filmed the chase sequence that takes up the last third of the movie. But what does Cecilia actually say? Your thoughts on the matter are most welcome.”
It was super groovy of the director to get in touch with me! I greatly appreciate it. You’ll notice that, since screenwriters are on strike, he never asks me to write any actual dialogue.
Being a blabbermouth, I have a pupu platter of great ideas about what to put in Cecilia’s letter to Robert. As I see it, she is more than just a blood-and-guts taxidermist, up to her elbows in animal cadavers. The lass has a lion’s heart worth of emotion pent-up inside her artisan persona. “Oh, boykie!” she writes, adding a touch of South African flair to the cocktail. “When I think of the blackness of night during our sojourn in Darkest Africa,” she exclaims, using the classical, chauvinistic, colonial moniker for the continent, “my memory of the braying of the hyenas sustains me, confirming that ‘We’ll always have Botswana.’ Come rescue me & etc. Yours, CC.”
Coming to a streaming service near you. Release date TBA.
Another take on a Raymond Chandler movie has arrived and I want a piece of the action.
My name is Oscar Mudlowe, not to be confused with Moscar Ludlow whose mail keeps getting delivered to my office. I’ve never met the fellow, but if you know him, please have him straighten out this business with the post office.
Those Hollywood movie people used to sit on the front stoop of their bungalow offices on sunny days, exchanging tall tales and congratulating one another on the exceptional California weather. It sure beats Pittsburg! Sunny, cloudy, I don’t get to sit outside. I’m holed up in my office, waiting for a new client to telephone or some hot dame with a problem to beat a path to my office door.
These things happen.
Many glamorous Beautiful People flock to Hollywood and sometimes some of them get into scrapes. I consider myself a scrape eliminator. I’m a P. I. but some folks say my services are P. U. Let them take their trade elsewhere. I don’t work for bellyachers. You want a referral? I’ll even give you a referral. Anything to get you out of my hair, off my calendar, your card eliminated from my Rolodex and all memory of you expunged. Poof! U R so gone! That’s how I stay busy and solvent. Deadheads like you I don’t need.
Some perps have accused me of ineptitude. To them, I plainly state, “Lookee what it says on our office door, etched into the glass:
Graham,
Crackers
&
Son
I am the son in that statement.”
Old man Graham and the Cracker family represented the two extremes here in SoCal: Old Money and poverty, the Amazing Blue Ribbon 400 and ditchdiggers. They let my dad Murray join their landscaping business. When they went belly-up in the drought of ’87, they segued into private investigation.
Coming into my office, she looked a treat. Dames like her I need. They keep me solvent. The bank accounts of their fiancés provide a constant source of renewal. She had the good gams, blond hair and chiseled good looks prevalent among dames of Austro-Hungarian descent.
“ ’Scuse me, lady,” I said, sitting behind my desk. “Are you possibly of Austro-Hungarian descent?”
“I’m from Argentina,” she replied coldly.
I pitch ’em like I see ’em. Sometimes I am so on the money. Other times, dead wrong.
Over my desk, I have a framed testimonial from Chief Running Bird of the Comanche Tribe. It says:
Him uniform a gray trenchcoat
Him stamina in reserve
Him make haste to find
Every single guilty perv.
“What can I do for you, lady?” I asked.
“I ordered a bookcase from a Swedish furniture manufacturer and it seems to have disappeared,” she enunciated, sucking down great clouds of cigarette smoke.
Sometimes in the course of human events, everything gets all screwed up. “Sounds like a job for their service department,” I suggested.
“It was a very expensive bookcase.”
“I charge $50 an hour. I don’t intend to work seven days a week on your case. I’ll provide an itemized account, how many hours on which days, gas money, incidental expenses.”
“What about dental?” she asked, lightning bolts flashing from her icy blue eyes.
“Get real.”
“You’re hired,” she replied.
I figured there was probably a lot more to this bookcase angle than meets the eye. There are some bad dudes in this burg. Some pretty shady characters occupy nooks in the furniture trade. A lot of the fentanyl powder and pills hitch a ride on furniture deliveries. Saves on gas. Postage and handling. Taxes. I could see where a lot of digging will uncover some pretty ugly skeletons from Davy Jones’s closet. I know this stuff. That’s why they pay me the big bucks.
If you don’t have a car in L.A., you’re toast. When I went to her bungalow at the Chateau Marmont that evening to report on my progress, she didn’t seem all that interested in furniture. I got a definite vibe that loose lips would sink ships and prices on villas in Topanga Canyon have skylined. You have to be a movie mogul to live there!
“Come on in and join me for a drink,” she suggested in a smoky bedroom voice.
Entering her rental, I scanned the inventory, looking for a Scandinavian bookcase, probably in furu. Swedish pine. Heavy, yellow wood. I didn’t find it, so maybe this lady was legit after all. A lot of people hire me in April so they can list my expenses on their tax statement for the write-off. She wasn’t one of them. With those blood-red nails of hers, she seemed legit.
“I don’t drink when I’m on duty, ma’am.”
“Okay, detective, I now officially declare you off duty. A whiskey and branch water for me, please,” she told me, stalking me like prey, blowing smoke rings with every third word.
Looking at the drink tray, I thought I was going meatballs and bananas.
I liked the leprechaun green throw rug she was wearing. Not my style, but even I had to admit that on her, it looked good. “What’s with the glad rag?” I wondered.
“This?” she asked me, batting her eyebrows. “This old thing belonged to my grandmother. I only wear it for the sentimental value.”
Looking closer, I realized that the gold thread resembled real gold. Hmmm. There are some bad eggs in this town, but apparently she wasn’t one of them.
“Take off your jacket and let’s get comfy,” she said, loosening her robe.
“I don’t fool around with clients, ma’am.”
“Okay, detective. You are now officially fired. I’m still waiting for that drink.”
Oh. Shit. I really needed the work.
She was leading me by the nose. The very next day, she telephoned me to say I was rehired and she wanted hourly updates. This was gonna be a long one. I once had a case that lasted 366 days, from a post-Oscar After Party one year to the Oscar Ceremony the next. I didn’t think the Case of the Runaway Bookcase was going to take a full year, but I had a whole rack of pens and several reams of paper suitable for transcribing bills. Days, hours, gas, incidentals. California state tax.
The day after that a man named Arthur Chromedaddy tracked me down to a film lot where I was pulling security outside the Ladies Room. “I saw your ad in the personal notices in the newspaper,” he told me. “I always check the classifieds. Where do you want the bookcase delivered?”
The damned thing had been off-loaded by mistake to a warehouse in San Pedro, 25 miles from downtown. Go figure.
I charged her for days, hours, gas, the newspaper notice, incidentals and California state tax. I squared her account with the police. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful Freundschaft. Not bad for a couple of days gumshoeing around the City of Angels.
People who have followed my blog know that I take great civic pride in our Township of Oxburg in the state of Maryland. Incorporated in the 1950’s, we have a rich, west side of town and a poorer east side, separated by the famous 1812 Highway, a sunken road from the War of 1812. Ever since I was born, my family has lived on West 3rd Street. We try not to be snooty, but we are only human. We are proud to live on the right side of the highway, the “right side of the tracks”!
Now after 50 years of relative tranquility, despite America’s endless wars, the threat of climate change, Maryland and DC politics and the cultural war, I am sad to announce that members of the Oxburg Town Council have lost their minds!
In their thirst for more tax revenue, they have opted for greater population density in Oxburg by abolishing the zoning restrictions that have kept Oxburg a community of single-family homes. “Multi-family homes of up to six units are the wave of the future and will be allowed on existing lots,” they have announced. “Portland, Oregon is our role model. If they can do it in Portland and South Carolina and other such places, we should follow their lead and expand affordable housing in Oxburg.”
Portland, Oregon. Homeless people and feces-on-the-sidewalk Portland. When my younger brother Tim, who is an airline pilot, flies into PDX, the airline puts the crew up in a motel over the bridge in Vancouver, Washington, since Portland has become untenable.
“You are talking about architectural monstrosities springing up on suburban streets,” I have argued. “Twenty years ago, the Town Council insisted on allowing McMansions and we have had to live with that ever since. But to build mini-apartment houses in the middle of suburban neighborhoods is crazy. That is not what Oxburg is all about!”
Up until now, we have had zoning restrictions that prohibited the building of anything beyond a one-family home. You couldn’t even rent out your basement to a live-in tenant. Oxburg has been notoriously suburban that way, block after block of Levittown style homes. Yes, we are a throwback to the 1950’s, but hey, we like it that way!
When I say zoningrestrictions, I mean rules that have been as strict as the decorum in a third-grade classroom. Any homeowner wishing to add on a bedroom or porch to their house has gone through purgatory. The Oxburg Zoning Board is notorious for arriving on the scene of a planned addition with tape measure in hand and declaring, “Wait a minute! The overhang of the roofline is going to be three inches too close to the property line and two inches too close to the street. You’ll have to get the contractor to redraw the plans.” Everybody has been through it. We have the gray hairs to show for it!
Why this sudden change? “Diversity!” the libs claim. “Housing prices are so expensive in Oxburg, Blacks cannot afford to live here!” This is their Culture Warrior chant.
To them, I say, “What about Cannon Hill and East 5th Street, two neighborhoods that are predominantly Black? Those families live in single-family homes just like everybody else. They don’t want multi-family architectural monstrosities springing up in their neighborhoods either!”
The white liberals’ argument about fair housing is particularly annoying, as I have friends who live in those Black neighborhoods, while the lily-white proponents of greater population density do not.
“George Floyd was killed, so America needs to re-evaluate our racist past!” chant the liberals. I mean, these are members of the Democratic Party, they are supposed to be the Good Guys! Having drunk the Kool-Aid, they have gone deaf. The only voices they hear are their own.
You know, I was the Yard Sign Guy for the Anna Bola campaign way back in 2011 and through my clever use of yard signs, I dare say I helped swing the electorate. Hey, she won the election! In the past six months, at the hearings held by the Town Council, all these proponents of multi-family housing have marched into the Meeting Room waving the same effing red yard signs. Ugh!
Justice = Fair Housing
Freedom to Choose!
Stop racist housing!
Demand housing reform!
NOW!
it says on the yard signs they wave in our faces, we who like Oxburg the way it is and always has been.
“Old fuddy-duddy,” they call me and stick out their tongues.
I guess I am supposed to be glad that they haven’t doxed me or resorted to telephone terror. Still, it’s frustrating when westsiders have hopped on the greater populationdensity bandwagon and refuse to see our viewpoint or even meet us halfway.
This is what happens in post-Trump America when well-meaning liberals get a bee in their bonnet.
“I take this very personally,” I told the Town Council when it was my turn to speak for two and a half minutes. “Just down the street from us, a developer has purchased a single-story yellow brick house over a year ago and let it just sit. ‘Why doesn’t he tear down and build?’ my neighbors and I wondered. Now we get it! He’s waiting for you to pass this legislation, so he can build a six-family architectural monstrosity 200 feet from my front door. My property value is going to plummet, since prospective home buyers won’t want to live down the street from an architectural monstrosity.”
“That’s the purpose of the program,” explained the Town Council Chairman. “To lower housing prices so middle-income families can afford to live here.”
So much for using my home collateral as my nest egg when I retire. Cripes!
“You should be glad that we are honest enough to admit our intentions,” the Chairman lectured me, sitting up there on the podium together with the four other members of the Town Council. “When the FBI relocates to Landover, we want to get a piece of that. New workers will come streaming into the area. Why should Oxburg get shut out of a housing boom just because you don’t happen to like it?”
Money talks.
“You’ll still get top dollar for the house and the land,” my brother Tim has counseled me. “All you need to do is sell to a crooked developer who wants to build Aesop’s Pyramid on our lot.” Since ours is the biggest lot in the neighborhood, Tim has a point. Morally repugnant, but a point none-the-less.
The Swedish rap band realPfft recorded Not Nyet under dire circumstances. Fruit loops musical genius Mutte Fjutt in Uppsala, Sweden was in an antibiotic-induced fog. Acting as the band’s manager and music publisher, I was sick here in the States. No one told Kuny, who does the cover art, what we wanted.
When I heard the wav file of Not Nyet, I was deeply troubled. Still, we released it on January 12, 2023, simply to get it out there. The war in Ukraine was raging and I was feeling the pressure. An anti-war protest, the track’s musical genre is Russian hard rock. The problem is that it sounds like an East German mix from the DDR era, the vocal up front and the music way in the background. “Please remix,” I said.
Thus was born Not Nyet (Kevinski Mix), with me being “Kevinski.”
On the cover, it says MiksKevinski in Cyrillic letters. My name “Kevin” is accentuated in blue.
The release date of Not Nyet (Kevinski Mix) is February 20, 2023.
The Lyrics
Here, there, Russian soldier everywhere!
Putin say Ukraina as a country does not exist
Tired of Sochi, Putin chooses beach resort in Odessa
Is no war, is “special military operation”
When Russian troop amass on border with Ukraine, what did western leaders think was gonna happen?
Secretary General of Communist Party Nikita Krushchev, Leonid Brezhnev and Constantin Chernenko all came from Ukraina
40-mile Russian convoy get stuck in Ukrainian mud
War is not rock & roll
Volodymyr Zelensky is first world leader outside Israel who is Jewish
Zelensky become big war hero, fighting both Russians and his own demons
When Russian warship Moskva tell defenders of Snake Island they should surrender, they say “Russian warship, go fock yourself!”
Z for Zero
I hear your balalaikas screaming like Tupolev Badger
Russian soldier commit big massacre in Bucha
Butcher of Bucha is Russian General no one has ever heard of
4,000 Amerikanskii volunteer join International Legion but most don’t speak Ukrainian
This war is very boring!
Russian babes on TikTok call Zelensky a crazy Jewish oligarch
QAnon conspiracy theory say Russia invaded Ukraine to stop top secret bioweapon laboratory set up by Biden medical adviser Anthony Fauci
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson twice visit Kyiv
Russian cosmonauts arrive at International Space Station wearing yellow and blue suits, but they insist they are not supporting Ukraine
Ukrainians use Neptune cruise missile to destroy Russian warship Moskva
Zelensky award Amerikanskii politician Nancy Pelosi with famous Ukrainian Order of Olga
War is not rock & roll
After Ukrainian attack on Crimea airfield, Russian tourists cause big traffic jam fleeing beaches in Crimea
Ukrainians use wooden decoy of HIMARS artillery rocket to panic Russians into firing Kalibr cruise missile
Putin threaten to turn off natural gas pipeline to Western Europe
Kissoffka!
Facing counter-offensive, Russian desert battlefield on Ukrainian bicycle
He is called “the late Vladimir Putin” because he never come to meeting on time
We use Iranian drone Shahed-136 to drop stinky bomb on enemy
realPfft play Russian synthesizer brand Polyvoks
This war is very boring!
Elite unit 200th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade from Murmansk get ass kicked in Kharkov. Many T-80 BVM tanks destroyed or captured. This very bad
Putin mobilizes 300,000 men to go fight in the Ukraine
Ukraine make heartbreaking video for Eurovision Song Contest
Russian officer corps calls this “holy war.” Patriarch Kirill of Russian Orthodox Church describe Ukraine as the Antichrist
Putin calls the people in Kiev Nazis
Eight million Ukrainians seek refuge in the West
Zelensky wear combat boots when he speak to American Congress
This no Nutcracker Suite!
In Moskva, patriotic Russian women sew camouflage net to help in war effort. So-called “knitting battalions” make thick socks to fight winter cold
When ammunition dump explodes, we say this is because someone is smoking cigarette
We fight enemy in Kiev, so we no need to fight them in Moskva
Not all news is bad. We use Sovtek guitar effect box Big Muff
Workers of the world, unite!
Maybe Putin annex Ukraina, but not nyet
Not nyet
The Video
Rap artist Clive Flatenbad channels his inner Russian amidst the tragic war in Ukraine.
No doubt you are aware of the difficult holiday season which has just transpired for the airline industry. Hundreds of thousands of flights cancelled, enormous queues, people camping out at the airports, baggage delivered abroad by domestic carriers. (There’s more than one Panama City, genius, and they’re not all in Panama!)
Cry havoc and unleash the dogs of corporate dysfunction!
But enough about me.
Flying passengers is more than just a new paint job and an updated corporate logo. Let me just say on behalf of everyone at Up Air, and in utmost sincerity, that now is not the time for the faint of heart. Major decisions require backbone.
No doubt you have also read in the past week about the corporate reshuffling among some major carriers.
2023 is going to be way different when it comes to Up Air, the airline that truly cares about its passengers.
Did you know that we have over 100 planes on back order from major manufacturers in unspecified Third World countries? Globalists, we say, why shouldn’t they get a slice of the aviation pie in, for example, Kuala Lumpur? We all live on the same planet.
Our existing fleet is due for a meaningful upgrade with a price tag in the millions of dollars, featuring major improvements to our accommodations. You won’t believe some of the customer-facing technologies on the drawing board: Cushions on every seat, enough overhead room for every cranium, toothy sandwiches for sale on the lunch cart and fast, safe access to the toilets. Ear plugs. There are even plans to retrofit wider seats in parts of the plane previously dedicated to baggage.
Looking at a map of the world, we can name over 40 different cities worldwide to which we would like to fly non-stop.
Do you have a ticket from Up Air that is gathering dust on the hall table? Do I have news for you!
In order to minimize cancellations, frustration and stress, avoid those endless lines, lessen overcrowding, reduce security issues to zero and get people out of the airports, we at Up Air have decided, at long last, to go out of business!
My mother Rosa Feingold passed away in October 2022. She was 81. Born six months before Pearl Harbor, she grew up a child of World War Two. Who knew the Japanese would attack on December 7, 1941 and America would go to war?
We lost 34 cousins to the Holocaust, the entire Polish-Russian side of the family. That cast a shadow over Rosa’s life.
R. I. P.
In our collective grief, Clive and Mutte in Swedish rap band realPfft have composed an ode to my mom.
Entitled “Morsan,” Swedish for “Mom,” the song views Rosa’s untimely demise from a Swedish perspective. Passing from this mortal coil is a universal experience. Everybody dies eventually and with very few exceptions, most people die right here on Earth. Still, a Swedish composition, the song does have its Swedish quirks.
Ho ho ho, ‘tis the Season to be Jolly and what could make me Jollier than receiving a gift of hard cash from you, a contributor to our Annual Season Forgiving at the Oxburg Historical Hysterical Commemorative Something or Other Entrepreneurial Foundation Collection Fund Drive?
Nothing.
Nothing could make me happier.
YOUR NAME— that’s right— through the wonders of data science, YOUR NAME will be exhibited in the space below. In caps if you want it. Or bold. Or both, caps and bold text,
holy mackerel you can’t beat that!!! For a measly contribution of $50.
For $100, I personally will get down on my knees and say a prayer or two in your honor.
Oxburg, Beloved Oxburg, named for our Founding Father John Ox, a Calvinist who settled in Catholic Maryland during the Colonial Period.
Your gift will help maintain and preserve the memory of our historical past: Oxburg Courthouse as depicted in memory and photographic image— alas, not audio— torn down in 2006 to build the Royal Guardian Apartments. Or Haley’s Crossroad, scene of the Haley Country Store and Gas Pump, a scene of nostalgic yarn and Oxburgian humor. Where Old Cyrus Haley held the Annual Turkey Shoot in preparation for Thanksgiving in what today is Natalie Woods. Falling down drunk. Demolished in 1964 to build the Annex to the Town Hospital. The store, not Cyrus.
In these difficult times— unrest in the Middle East, war in Ukraine, I stubbed my left big toe— may a blessing be upon you for pulling out that old plastic card and contributing. Contributing ‘till it hurts. Contributing more than ‘till it hurts.
The story of Oxburg is the story of America. Our country wouldn’t be what it is today— MAGA hats and angry mobs, armed militiamen in tactical gear hovering over election day drop boxes, multi-billionaires screwing up on social media, Chinese apps and Italian sausage— if not for the hard sweat and aching backs of our Founding Fathers who tilled the fields and husked the corn and baked the bread that sustained many a pilgrim through a hard, cold winter, snow knee-deep against the walls of rustic cabins, the smell of spruce wafting through the night air from the brick chimneys of our forebears.
I live in Oxburg, Maryland in the USA. The town is named after Calvinist John Ox who settled in Catholic Maryland during Colonial times and owned vast tracts of land in this part of the state.
“Why doesn’t he write?” You may well ask. “Värför skriver han inte?” in Swedish. “Pourquoi est-ce qu’il n’écrit pas?” in French.
My mama Rosa Feingold, 81 years old, has passed on to a better place. She had been losing weight, got a staph infection, ended up in the hospital and died. When my phone rang at 10:10 pm on a rainy Thursday night, an orderly told me in hushed tones that Rosa was gone. I grabbed a Hebrew prayer book and drove to the hospital, where the nurses had laid mom out in a respectful position and turned down the lights. They left me alone with her. I said the prayers for the dead right there at bedside and spoke to her in English, Yiddish, French and Swedish. All her known languages.
The burial got a little complicated because the family plot is north of New York City and, unlike with my dad 25 years ago, I didn’t have the energy to jump in the car and drive four and a half hours to attend to mom’s funeral. Instead, I buried her long-distance.
The local funeral home was terrific. They knew and followed the Jewish burial rites, wrapping the body in a white shroud and placing it in a plain wood coffin with a Star of David on the lid. They got a little flummoxed when the Jewish cemetery in New York was closed for both Shabbat and the following Monday for a Jewish holiday. Jim, the local funeral director, wanted to know how much the cemetery charges to receive the body, open the grave, inter the coffin and close the grave. He had visions— based on bad experiences, no doubt— of the driver arriving in New York with the coffin, being told “We gotta be paid, otherwise, no burial” and driving the coffin back to Maryland. Not fun.
That meant postponing the burial still another day, which was super stressful for me, since we are supposed to get the body into the ground as soon as possible. It was a relief when interment took place six days after she died. Like, hooray! Bye, momsaleh! Rest in peace.
A wreck, I sat shiva five days. The neighbors brought me food, also a Jewish tradition. Jag sörjde, I mourned.
That’s where I’ve been.
Taking care of my mom these last few months took up virtually all my time, a fact which only becomes apparent in hindsight. I loved her. The dutiful son, I lived with her and took care of her.
My younger brother Tim— the loving son— parachuted in whenever his schedule allowed, but he’s in training for a promotion and, as the crisis arose, he couldn’t provide the 24-7 backup which he and I had originally envisioned. Instead, we conferenced every night by phone. Tremendously helpful, this was not the same as a physical presence. He felt terrible about it, but hey, I want him to get the promotion. Mom wanted him to get the promotion!
Reality rarely fulfills the dream.
The midterm elections are soon upon us (November 8th, a Tuesday) and whatever I say, it can and will be held against me. As Google tells us, “all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be contested.” You gotta laugh! As if the country doesn’t have enough problems. The economy is tanking. We have a clueless old fogey as president who means well but can’t deliver. Trump’s supporters are toting guns. The Republicans have a handful of crazies running for office and the Democratic slate ain’t exactly any damn good, including stutterers, gun-shy officials up for re-election and blacks running in lily white states.
Not too cool.
I’m writing to let you know that I am still around. As new days dawn, you will be hearing more from me. Coming attractions: Mutte Fjutt in Uppsala, Sweden and Clive have composed a song entitled “Morsan,” mother in Swedish, but I haven’t had the juice to involve myself in releasing it. I’m still knee-deep in paperwork and recuperating.
Something to look forward to.
Take care, be well and keep your mask on, there’s a new variant out there and it’s a baddie.
Hi! This is a notification that, yes, I am alive and continue to struggle, if not thrive.
As you know, I wallow in political satire. It would be cruel and mucho unfair to make fun of the war in Ukraine while people are dying and the country is being raped. That’s what my long silence and personal depression are about.
I have plenty to say, but I haven’t spoken publicly, since whatever I say will get taken wrong.
On the upside, I can share some gen on our former president.
Donald Trump is definitely running in 2024.
Once he grabs a hold of Twitter by the short hairs, Elon Musk will welcome in Donald J. Trump. We’ll see a repeat of 2016, with Trump scorching his opponents on Twitter day in and day out. It will get ugly.
Donald Trump will never be found criminally liable, which would disqualify him to run for president. Why? His supporters have guns. Everyone in Washington, DC is scared shirtless of them gun-totin’ Trump supporters. With good reason. Finding Trump guilty of a crime would cause a civil war, and no official wants to be responsible for that.
Donald Trump will get the Republican nomination and we’re back in 2016 all over again. He has his pick of running mate among the right-wing firebrands mouthing off and making mischief. You know who you are, dudes and ladies. Enjoy the moment!
A study of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Third Reich will help you see more clearly that, yes, Virginia, history does repeat itself.
Trump’s second four years will not be the bloodbath some liberals envision, but we will see a constant erosion of democratic principles. We can kiss goodbye to the America we currently have.
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