Do The Snake (or, Right of Recall)

“Could you do The Snake?”

Trump has almost certainly committed treason. At very least, he should be removed from office – if not blindfolded, offered a last cigarette, and summarily ... well, you can fill in the blank on that one.

This presidential aberration cannot be allowed to continue. A dozen or so years ago, disgruntled voters in California recalled Gray Davis, and handed the governorship to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Unfortunately, there is no mechanism for recall at the federal level. Nor is there a means for a no-confidence vote. A censure would not be enough; impeachment is it. (In spite of appearances, I do not endorse execution.)

“I suppose it might be simpler to add a Constitutional amendment creating the right of recall,” Gore Vidal once wrote, “so that the people, when they realize that the administration is insane, or totally corrupt, or is going to destroy the country through attacks on enemies that are no threat, may act to address the crisis.”

Vidal, who died in 2012, was speaking of Bush II, but we are at that point with Trump. We were there before his inauguration – before, even, his bogus election in November 2016. I’ll spare you his well-publicized laundry list of sins.

He continues to offend. “I had five people outside say, ‘Could you do The Snake?” he said the other day, at the annual CPAC convention. And Trump, that huckster, that P.T. Barnum of the Oval Office, was only too happy to oblige.

As charlatan Trump tells the Aesop-like tale, a woman helps a snake in need. Once he has benefited from this help, the snake fatally bites her. (There was something similar to this in that movie, The Crying Game, but with a scorpion.)

Apparently “The Snake” is also a song. As the snake’s dying victim protests her betrayal, it goes like this: “Oh, shut up, silly woman, said the reptile with a grin. You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.”

Trump faithfully quoted these lyrics, and his audience of conservative CPAC louts, recognizing the snake as a stand-in for evil brown immigrants, loved it.

“Could you do ‘The Snake’?”

My only recourse, really, is to mock this fraud, so join me in imagining “The Snake” as an interpretive dance. Eyes closed, arms above his head, hands together, Trump begins with an evocative hip-thrust, thrilling his crowd as he enters a trance-like, anti-immigrant, pro-gun, whirling dervish state, wriggling serpent-like...

Or we can imagine The Snake as a 1950s dance craze.

Another available recourse is the ballot – but while I always fill mine out, I don’t have much faith in the process.

Lyin' LaPierre

I have said it before on this blog, and I’ll say it again: fuck the NRA.

On the morning of Thursday, February 22, barely a week after the bloodbath at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, Wayne LaPierre spoke to the Conservative Political Action Conference at a location that neither of the press reports I saw identified.

The NRA’s executive vice president and CEO went straight to fear mongering and smear, warning his listeners that their second amendment rights were at risk. He labeled Democratic leaders calling for revising the nation’s gun laws a “tidal wave of new European socialist.” He singled out Sens. Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren, among others.

“As usual, the opportunists wasted not one second to exploit tragedy for political gain,” LaPierre lied. “Their solution is to make you, all of you, less free.”

I happen to admire some of the people that LaPierre lied about, Sen. Harris in particular. So I am rather angry as I write this.

LaPierre spewed so much bullshit I don’t even know where to begin. He is the opportunist exploiting this tragedy. (The Washington Post said he and the NRA went “on the offensive.”)

I am especially incensed at his socialist smear. They’ll make you (us) “less free,” he lied.

Except for a brief flirtation with the Greens some years back, I have never belonged to any political party. But I have been reading a lot about socialism lately, and coming to understand that at bedrock, that is what I am – albeit an intuitive one. I am not now nor have I ever been a member of. But if I joined any political party, that would be the one.

LaPierre, in his slander, tried to place socialism on the same level as child molestation – an unspeakable horror. Whether he knows what it really means is beside the point. He probably does, but as a lying sack of shit and an opportunist himself, he’s exploiting fear – in the wake of an appalling tragedy that might not have happened if a sick individual had not had easy access to a military-grade weapon of mass destruction.

For the record, socialism, at its most fundamental level, is about equal opportunity. Contrast that to capitalism, which celebrates the accumulation of excessive wealth at the expense of others. I’ve been reading an interesting book lately called The “S” Word, by John Nichols, which demonstrates convincingly that socialism has made significant contributions to the United States over the years (the eight hour workday, for example) and is as American as, well, apple pie.

But LaPierre, that deceitful zealot, shamelessly misrepresents it.

On top of that, he calls out for more blood. “To stop a bad guy with a gun,” he said at the end of his C-PAC speech, “it takes a good guy with a gun.” This is the same bullshit line he used in the aftermath of the slaughter at Sandy Hook Elementary School five years ago.

Shortly before Wayne LaPierre delivered his speech, pig-ignorant Trump tweeted: “Wayne [et al] who work so hard at the @NRA are Great People and Great American Patriots. They love our Country and will do the right thing.”

By the way, I realize this blog post lacks focus. I guess the point is:

Fuck the NRA.

Stay Tuned

My guitar tuners keep breaking.

Over the last year I have become a total slave to tuners – battery powered gadgets that fit on the headstock of a guitar. You pluck a string, turn the tuning pegs, and a little display tells you when the string is just right.

But the goddam things keep breaking.

I’ve gone through two of them in the last twelve months or so. Before that I’d always used a standard tuning fork that, when whacked against a hard object, vibrates at 440Hz, producing the commonly accepted pitch for the note A. (There is an argument for using 432Hz instead. The subject is surprisingly controversial; some people conflate it into a kind of Illuminati conspiracy. I won’t touch that with a ten foot pole. Still others who favor 432Hz say that it’s mellower, or more natural – something like that.)

In any case: I should just stick to the tuning fork, and thereby improve my ear. I get that.

Like I said, though, I have become a slave to these damned tuners. They do a really good job, but they keep breaking. They only cost about twenty bucks, so it’s not a catastrophe when one breaks. What’s annoying is that it’s usually the cheapest components, something on the plastic clip, that break. The tuning software and display itself are fine.

The first tuner I got was a Snark, much like the one in the top photo. It had a ball and socket pivot, allowing you to move the display around for optimal viewing. After about a month, a piece of the socket snapped off. I tried gluing it back together, then tried putty to attach the damned thing. No go.

As a replacement I bought a different type. Basically the same as the Snark, but with a hinged thing instead of the ball and socket. It seemed better. And indeed it lasted a lot longer, eight or nine months. But it too broke. This time, a teeny plastic nub that holds the clip attachment in place snapped off.

So I ordered yet another replacement, and currently await its arrival. This one is a Korg, like in the above photo. It isn’t made to attach to the guitar. I hope that will make a difference.

The video below describes more than you ever wanted to know about guitar tuners. (The one I’m awaiting delivery on is the third one shown.)