The Sattiday Scrawl: Rough Roads; FOP Flop; And “Can We Get Some Justice?”

The practice we love most has been hard for us lately – for a lot of different reasons – but mostly due to preternatural stupidity encountered after we send our words off into the ether.

We never expected everyone to like and admire what we had to say all the time, but it appears we’re entered a period of terminal blockheaded-ness – where subtlety, irony and parody have become nothing more than quaint expressions of the past or, possibly, names for your backyard herd of pygmy goats.

Perhaps the noted passing of literary Man About Manhattan and ex-Marine Noel Parmentel Jr. is influencing our mood this morning, brought to our attention by uber-literate pals knocking back coffees at Caffe Greco and reminding us how much we miss the North Beach high discussion over tiramisu and Caffe Illy scene.

That old friends with whom we’ve shared so many hours writing, dreaming, terrorizing a city we loved are still out there mixing it up lent us the hope and impetus needed to set down a few more words we can add to our lifetime chronicle.

Our night in the Literary Sargasso of the Far East Bay was marked by more of the horrific crashes we’ve grown used to seeing since the unofficially declared Lethality Hour between 2:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. became a thing. We marked a fatal crash in Hercules and a serial Mega-Turtling on Highway 242 in Concord before giving in and seeing what the rest of the country was up to – and regretting our research.

People really get upset when we roam outside the 24/680 perimeter they’ve established for us but, hey, we’re inquisitive by training and nature and we’re American, soooo… look the other way if you don’t like us taking the national pulse.

Maybe it’ll be better if we give it to you in short, easily-digested doses – like the Ipecac syrup of old (pinch off the nose and down it goes).

First – they may be flipping like flapjacks at a firefighters picnic after it was revealed that many of the country’s top “Conservative Influencers” were getting paid in American Benjamins to rat out their country and Ukraine on behalf of Vlad The Lad and his crew of Kremlin apparatchiks, but we spotted you early on Beanie-Headed Boys – and girls – and we know who you are. It boggles that more people didn’t tumble to the fact that Putin had his hand up the back of your Sk8tr Boy togs but, well, that takes us back to what we’ve come to find out about the country in recent years – much of it has lost its ability to think critically.

We’re not Tail Gunner Joe ideologues but we know propaganda when we hear it and we were on guard. When it became apparent that it was a coordinated effort to undermine our way of life and sow division we kept looking around and saying: “Hey, is anyone else seeing this?” Surely, many did, but it also appears that many more swallowed obvious disinformation as truth and began to parrot it. We find that incredibly disconcerting as it has crept into our mainstream media and even our very government.

And since we’re talking about disconcerting things we must raise the issue of militant, pro-Hamas sympathizers actually waving the banner of that murderous group here in America. And elsewhere in the world, of course, but let’s just consider America for now. We find this incredibly disturbing, akin to those who adopt the trappings of National Socialism and march under its banner. Again, we find ourselves flapping our arms like little baby bird wings and screaming “Hey, is anyone else seeing this?”

Unbelievably, we have come to realize that a whole social movement has been built around fashion, similar perhaps to elements of the radical chic ethos that developed during The Sixties. And, mind you, we are products of that time. Keep an eye on it, it could come back to bite us.

And, lastly, if you’re still with us and not printing up your picket signs for the planned boycott of our offices, we’ll just say how bitterly disappointed we were to see the 300,000+ member Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) come out in support of the former president despite the crime(s) we saw committed on Jan. 6 – and in the days afterward.

We get that police organizations have traditionally swung to the right and we don’t know how the local FOP lodges voted but we’re told it was a unanimous endorsement. If the ghastly sight of officers lining up to grip and grin with the guy who set Jan. 6 in motion wasn’t enough to make us want to hurl, the fact that their national organization called him the country’s best hope for the future surely is.

Not a good look, folks, not a good look. And once again we find ourselves in our Baby Bird stance shrieking: “Hey, is anyone else seeing this?”