The Day The Coen Brothers Wrote My Life

I'm a big fan of the films of the Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan, and by extension Noah Hawley with his homage to their film world, the TV series Fargo.  Many of their presentations have a surreal arc, usually catalysed by some mishap or misunderstanding.  Reaction to this accident then is often filtered through the influence of an altered state of consciousness, a dream, the paranormal or the supernatural.  Sometimes we live through a day or sequence of days that could have been written by them.

It was a Saturday morning and I was driving to work.  There is a famous saying that you might see on a bumper sticker or in an internet meme--"The Weekend, brought to you by The Labor Movement".  I always cringe when I see that, since here I am working in a union shop, but have the bone of contention of having been required to work probably at least half of my Saturdays, on straight time, for twenty six years now.  A one-day weekend is a very bad situation for me. As a musician it becomes hard to schedule rehearsals and gigs, as a world champion level procrastinator it is not nearly enough decompression time for me to settle into relaxation and get some personal goals accomplished. My mid-week days off end up being similarly unhelpful and I get the sense overall of not having enough free time.  My employer recently decreased the workforce just before increasing the workload in a major way.  They don't seem to realize, or care, that to radically increase the expectations upon an aging and diminishing workforce is going to cause big problems. These days due to the nature of the work we are now doing, we can never count on getting done with work by the end of the day.  Working overtime is expected to finish the job.  If you try to have plans for any kind of personal life, you have to fight and negotiate with your boss to get out.  If they don't have anyone else to cover the work--and they never do--you are then forced to stay based upon the number of accumulated overtime hours.  If you haven't worked enough OT, you're shit-out-of-luck.  Someone like me, who wants to have an active personal life, doesn't accumulate a lot of overtime, and since all of my co-workers are in the same boat, their overtime keeps increasing, making it impossible to catch up--just for the possibility of getting to a show on time. Great way to foment disgruntlement; creating a problem, then making that problem someone else's to endure. And the dickless union has agreed to this. Now you see what anyone could be up against if some type of family or personal crisis were to arise.

My father had passed away suddenly in July 2021.  Amidst all the stress of my work predicament, I was now having to deal with the maelstrom of emotions, demands on my time exponentially increased, pushing further and further back the back burner of my many already back burner endeavors.  There seemed to be no good solution to any of it, and I could literally feel the cortisol coursing through my body. Daily, constant, PTSD.

I was driving to work on that Saturday, going through all of this in my mind, dreading how the day would pan out because I had a gig that night, knowing that the useless and passive-agressive supervisor I had would give me a hard time about wanting to get off work on time. It was necessary to fret about it because things could easily go wrong to the point where I could miss the gig, and I don't put up with that for any reason, let alone covering for incompetent management.  I had gotten only about a mile from home when I realized I had forgotten the keys to my bucket truck. I turned around in a driveway, and just as I got got back on the road, a bobcat ran across the road in front of me.

According to the Internets, seeing a bobcat signifies the need to "work on building more autonomy in your relationships, your emotional life, your finances, or even your creative life."  Well, no shit! 

This was the first time I have seen a bobcat, though a couple of years prior, an indirect experience with one was a big deal.  Our dog was attacked by a bobcat, which turned out to be rabid.  It was known to be rabid because the same cat attacked three neighbors of ours and was exterminated by authorities. The incident made the local News. We were notified due to the veterinarians report by the local health department that my family was required to undergo the full rabies treatment.  Here is where I have to be grateful for my job with benefits--the bill for my first course of seven rabies shots--two in each shoulder and three in the butt--was $19,000.  Around $85,000 to cover my whole family for the full courses.  If not for my health care benefits from my employer I would be wiped out by a wild animal I never saw. 

I got in to work and checked my day's assignments, and it looked fairly manageable, though it was going to be a hot, humid summer day.  At least I had a possibly optimistic outlook for the day, after an already long, aggravating struggle of a week.  I was given repairs rather than fiber optic installations, so I went about working the tickets without many complications.  After lunchtime I started to get the uneasy feeling that Murphy's Law was about to come down on me. The day had been too easy, too accommodating to my after work plans to be believed.  I had one ticket left to complete, and perusing the test results, the location, and other details, it was still of little apparent concern...  

I got to the residence, an A-Frame constructed house, set back a bit from a busy road.  The trouble reported was working, but slow, internet speed.  Often these types of problems can be easily fixed with replacement of a modem, or rewiring the household jacks.  In this case my false sense of calm caused me to misdiagnose the problem and I decided to replace the old drop wire to a newer twisted pair type that handles data better than the old telephone drops. This ended up being more difficult and time-consuming than I thought it would, and after doing so, the problem still existed.  Murphy's Law had caught up with me!  Another reason I misdiagnosed the problem was because I was already familiar with this house. I had been there at least once before struggling with inaccessible wiring that had been chewed by mice, and I wanted to believe that mice were not the problem this time. Thanks to Murphy's Law, mice, a primary food source for bobcats, were the problem.  Now, checking the time, I was starting to get nervous.  The people who lived in this house were an elderly couple, a man and a woman with one arm. The A-Frame house had a large front window at which the one-armed woman sat, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. Around this window there was a large sheet copper awning that extended down to near ground level, right next to an extremely narrow alcove where the telephone service box was located--where I would have to work on the service, just barely squeezing into the small space.

Maybe a little basic information about electricity would be helpful here.  Aside from the fact that the human body has an electrical system of it's own, there are times when foreign electricity can interact with the human body.  Electricity not flowing in a closed circuit always tries to go to Earth Ground.  The weather that day was what I call New England Steambath. My clothing was soaked with perspiration.  Here I was, jammed into this narrow alcove, which restricted greatly the use of my arms, my sweaty body pasted onto this copper awning that, being basically a giant lightening rod, was no doubt connected to Earth Ground, working on a live telephone circuit carrying 52 Volts of DC current.  I should have disconnected the line at the pole to work on this end, but by now I was freaking out about the time and just  wanted to get it done.

52 volts at this amperage over a telephone line is a wakeup call, but not dangerous.  I know from experience that I can take a bite of it and be fine; it just feels fucking wrong when sustained.  I had to cut down the stripped ends of the drop wire onto lugs to terminate them while not having full unrestrained use of my arms crammed into the alcove, my sweaty body expediting path-to-ground through the awning. My grip on my insulated pliers compromised by restraint and voltage, all I could do was zap myself and try to power through it.  The one-armed woman, sitting just feet away from me must have heard me raving and thrashing around.  When I finally somehow got it put together I went inside to check and see if their modem was back up and running, and it was not. My now full-on panic attack was thrown another curve ball.  Fucking mice!  Fucking Murphy's fucking Law!  Now I started barreling through the house pulling out telephones from jacks, restarting the modem, trying unscientifically to find a quick, obvious solution. Of course there was none of that. Frantically I started tracing wires in the basement, which was full of racks of wine bottles--an impressive collection--trying not to knock over any bottles and make matters worse.  Fuming and sweaty in a covid mask I raged through the house in a flood of cortisol until I finally figured out that the mouse-chewed wire was the feed coming into the basement from the outside box I had just worked on. Only slightly relieved that I was pretty sure I had found the problem, I knew I'd still have to go back to the electric alcove and zap myself again. Another struggle ensued, just finding a way to replace that section of chewed wire, which enter the house through an L-shaped channel running along the foundation sill of the house.  I used the old wire to pull through a new one, reaching and leaning over wine racks, splicing it in to feed the house, then back outside to jolt my quivering body again.  Perhaps knowing I was in the clear may have helped me power through another assault upon my nervous system.  I got it all put back together and raced up the stairs to the bedroom where the modem was, plugged it back in, and waited for a minute in desperate hope that I'd see all the lights come on.  So relieved when they did, I now was driven to get the fuck out of there.  I tromped down the stairs to the back door and told the one-armed woman she was all set.  I took my fiberglass extension ladder down off the house and carried it over to the truck, throwing it up onto the ladder rack.  I got up into the bed of the truck to strap down the ladder when I heard the voice of the one-armed woman. "Excuse me?" Oh shit, what now?  "Can we talk to you?"  I looked over and the one-armed woman and her husband were standing in their driveway in front of the house.  At first I thought they were going to reprimand me for my behavior, for raving and thrashing around so frightfully in their house.  I got down off the truck and noticed the bottle of wine as I approached them.  "We just want to thank you," said the one-armed woman, " We're so happy you came and fixed our internet today.  We've been waiting a long time.  Can we give you this bottle of wine?" Startled, I walked over and accepted it, muttering something about how stressed out I was as a disheveled apology.  Technically, I am not supposed to accept such a gift as a tip, but fuck that!  There appeared to be no free will control over anything this day, so I took their bottle of Lilac Wine with humble graciousness, well, as much as I could muster, and with hurried small-talk started to move toward leaving and my irrational time freak-out.  I hopped in the truck and drove out their long driveway, took a left and drove a quarter mile to the highway entrance to I-95.  Heavy Saturday afternoon traffic surged relentlessly as I merged into traffic, running late, but not hopelessly so--it looked like I would get to the gig possibly on time if I stayed on task.

After a short time on the highway I started to become aware of something bumping around behind me in the bed. I knew immediately, then saw movement in my rearview mirror as the ladder shifted around.  I had forgotten to strap it down when the one-armed woman distracted me! Too late to react, I saw the ladder in my right side mirror fly off, then in my left side mirror saw it crash and skitter across the road!  Holy Fuck! I instantly envisioned horrendous accidents and death on the civilized end of the highway known as "The Metal Muncher" by the state cops.  I saw one car violently run over a section of the ladder, and another barrel off onto the grass shoulder by the left lane to avoid hitting the first car.  Somehow the traffic flow had now assimilated the ladder lying diagonally across the left lane as I pulled over on the right.  Shaking, I put on a safety vest and with all my lights flashing, got out of the truck and went to face my predicament.  The traffic was zooming by, but somehow the ladder had not caused any accidents.  I considered just high-tailing it out of there, but I knew I couldn't.  I had to get that ladder off the road! There I was standing on the right shoulder trying to figure out how not to get killed trying not to kill anybody.  Cars zooming by, passengers glaring at me, the heat, the ladder, the gig...

And then a miracle happened.  Though this whole scene would have been invisible to most of the oncoming traffic due to a small elevation, somehow two cars in unison across both lanes slowed down at the crest of the hill, creating a gap in the traffic flow.  Dumbfounded, I sprinted into the road, grabbed the mangled ladder by one end and dragged it across both lanes to my truck!  How the Hell did that happen?  I wondered how things would have gone if I had missed that chance. The heavy traffic was now wizzing past as before.  I didn't get a chance to wave in thanks to the two drivers who helped me before they were already past me and the gap in traffic closed up. I wonder now if their spirit animal is the bobcat, as I suppose is mine.  Quickly I threw the ladder up onto the rack, strapped it down, and barreled out of there.  I kept expecting to be pulled over by a cop, but that didn't happen, and in my mental state was somehow able to get that truck to my home base.

By now my nervous system had endured quite a gamut of overstimulation: mystical manifestation of the bobcat, caffeine, trepidation, sweating and dehydration, cortisol overload panic attack, repeated, sustained path-to-ground of 52V DC, and now a whopper dose of adrenaline: I suppose at this point if I had a corkscrew I would have opened that wine and downed it on my dive in, but I took a quick cold shower when I finally got home from work, threw on some clothes and grabbed my bass guitar, got way stoned on weed driving to the venue, and chugged a pint of strong IPA as soon as I got there, the first of several.  I ended up with enough time to set up and drink more beer before start time--amazing.  I played this gig with a wild abandon I had never known. I felt like I was channeling Jack Bruce, driving the band with an attack in my basslines I was unfamiliar with, throwing in triplets and improvised runs that impressed even myself!  

I don't remember much else of the night. I got home with my gig money and my Life relatively intact.  On Monday morning I went to a field office and secretly hid the shattered ladder behind a supply shed and strapped a spare replacement onto my truck. I never told anyone and never heard anything more about the incident.  The day the Coen brothers wrote my life turned out okay in the end.  I got a bottle of wine, did not cause a deadly accident, got divine assistance from two drivers, got to the gig on time, a new quantum leap in my bass playing, and a spirit animal.

"I Like Beer. Do You Like Beer?"... What I Believe

I am sitting in Chicago O'Hare International airport waiting for a connecting flight to Alaska, and just saw a post claiming that in the Alaska senate race, Sarah Palin is trailing in the polls. This is a good thing. Her deranged, word-salad rants during her vice presidential bid, and from then on, paved the way for a tRump presidency, and we know how that turned out. Our society, our World, doesn't need any more of that bullshit. The MAGA cult leader is now under FBI investigation for stealing top secret government documents and hiding them at his Florida country club, obstruction of justice--AGAIN--and we're waiting for the January 6th committee to resume. Now, this piece of shit appointed THREE supreme court justices, who in a just and sane world would have been impeached by now, since they all committed perjury in their confirmation hearings.

Brett Kavanaugh.  I don't call him Justice because he was a Yalie frat boy at our first and only meeting. 

This is not an accusation.  I have no proof of what happened, only the belief that it did.  I have come to understand that most people believe that in the "Land Of The Free" you have the right to believe anything you want, no matter how ridiculous, illogical, or politically inconvenient it may be. So I reserve the right to believe my story, and in truth, I have no reason to believe it to be untrue. 

When I saw him testify in his confirmation hearings I took an immediate disliking to him.  His arrogant defiance against legitimate lines of questioning, his phoney dismay at being exposed as a pig and an elitist at that, and his laughable emotional sniffing.  As a fan of beer, I had to cringe when he tried to use the line "I like beer. Do you like beer?" to one of the panel of questioners when asked about his behavior during his glory days at Yale.  During the hearings a photograph of him during that time was shown, and that is when I recognized him.  I lived in New Haven at the same time. Though originally from East Pediddleville, I had been in New Haven long enough to consider myself a "townie".  I spent four years there at the State University, then stayed on to be a denizen of the great local music scene of the 80's and 90's.  I saw that picture of him and it all came back to me, the memory of the night when Brett Kavanaugh assaulted me on the corner of College and Chapel!

I was out on the town at night, maybe after dinner or on the way to show. I don't remember exactly who I was with, but at one of those moments when the collective directions were being subconsciously determined I was standing right at the corner, perhaps a few inches off the sidewalk into the street, and a car slowly pulled up, as if to pick up or drop off a passenger, when unexpectedly a body lunged out of the open window and smacked me across the face! Dazed and astounded in the fractions of seconds afterwards I saw his sneering face retreating back into the now speeding car.  He had a light blue headband, possibly a tie, pushing his hair up from his face, with an expression that was triumphantly disrespectful.  He yelled something unintelligible as the car drove off, but at that point I had already moved from astonishment to a bit of amusement since this incident had been so out of the blue and successful. I won't say I was impressed, because no random act of violence is impressive, but you know what I mean.  There was no opportunity to jot down the license plate number.  Was this a fraternity hazing stunt? Some kind of drunken dare egged on by Squee?  Who knows?  I was ok but for the waning sting on my face, and I quickly chalked it up to the random Yalie-Townie interface that sometimes happens.  Seeing the photo of Kavanaugh nearly thirty five years later made me remember the incident.

Why do I believe it was him without really knowing, without really any solid proof?  I will say that believing it was him does call into question my understanding of the way the justice system works-innocent until proven guilty, and all that, but there was no police report, or description of the incident to police with a make and model of the car and a partial license ID.  This was just a random street violence case just like many others that never get reported and go unpunished.  Do I want to accuse him and have him charged? Not at all.  Not because I don't believe it was him, but because his punishment, in a very small way, is my belief turned to knowledge that he is unfit for the court.  He wants to get away with the lie that he deserves to sit on the Supreme Court, but as long as there is at least one person who knows that is not true, it is not true.  Justice.

So since I believe he hit me in the face that night, do I also believe the accusations leveled by the very courageous and principled Christine Blasey Ford?  You bet I do!  She couldn't let him cruise through his confirmation hearings without facing his shitty past (the one he seems to be proud of), knowing that such a shitty person who would bully and attempt rape and commit random street violence upon Townies could sit on the United States Supreme Court, put there by the shittiest of shit people--President Donald JOHN tRump.  I think that all three of his SCOTUS appointments, since they were appointed by a twice-impeached, big liar president who is now under investigation for insurrection, espionage, election tampering, witness tampering, et cetera, and since they all committed perjury over their potential rulings in the abortion issue, should be impeached themselves. I knew he'd be confirmed because of just how shitty the whole scenario was, and that's just what Justice in this country is nowadays.

Halfway through our trip in Alaska it was announced that Sarah Palin had lost her Senate bid, and it was reason for rejoicing.  We did drive through her hometown of Wasilla, seeing really only strip malls and other commercial establishments, on the way to  Talkeetna, a fascinating wild little town where they refer to Denali, the former Mount McKinley renamed as the original native name by President Obama, as "She".  Talkeetna was an unincorporated town that earlier in its history was threatened by the state to be made its capital.   They wanted no part of it. In 1997 they were mandated to elect a mayor, and not wanting to defile their quirky little place on the Earth (rumored to be the inspiration for the town of Cicely in the TV series Northern Exposure) with politics, elected the least partisan person they could find--a cat named Mr. Stubbs.  When Mr. Stubbs died, he was replaced by the current mayor, another cat named Denali, who we saw crossing the Main Street in town on our way out.  

Wasilla should have taken a lesson from Talkeetna, as the United States should have taken a lesson from New Haven in not electing to the Supreme Court an entitled, partisan liar guilty of sexual abuse and random drunken street violence.  Again, this is not an accusation, just a belief I have, and surely any and all MAGA types, no matter how closet authoritarian they may be, should agree with me that I have a right to believe it.  This country is in a deep shitload of trouble because of people like this. Liars. Cheaters. Bullies. Abusers. Fascists.