STUMPTOWNBLOGGER

INSIDE LINDNER’S WORLD

 Like a latter day Odysseus, I lashed myself to my couch during the wee hours this morning and basked in the songs of my four sirens: Mutt, Jeff, Abbott and Costello. I dragged them out of temporary hibernation last night, removed their dust shrouds and reconnected them (there was slight snafu with blowing tweeter fuses on Mutt, but I located the culprit).

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With the remodel, the room is now both visually and acoustically brighter than before. Just rolling that rug out in front of Jeff noticeably dampens the highs. Some reflection is good, some more can create a harsh edge. I’ll be using those rugs to help fine-tune the room.

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Five weeks is the longest I’ve ever gone without a good listening session, so I had to make up for lost time. I stayed up all night experimenting with various recordings, speaker and rug placements, etc. My audio obstacle course for the last nine hours:

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Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon (duh)

 

Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here (duh 2)

 

Hey Jude (the mother of all duhs)

 

Iz Kamakawiwo’ole: Alone in Iz World

 

Phoebe Snow: Poetry Man

 

Carly Simon: Playing Possum

 

James Taylor: Gorilla, In the Pocket

 

Van Morrison: best of

 

Linda Ronstadt: Nelson Riddle collaborations

 

The Eagles: Hotel California (duh 3)

 

Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D minor (that one woke my ass up!)

 

Telarc recording of 1940s Big Band

 

Telarc: Star Tracks

 

Edvard Grieg: Peer Gynt

 

Steppenwolf: Born to be Wild

 

Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain, Pictures at an Exhibition

 

Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture 💥

 

Paganini: several violin pieces

 

Beethoven’s 9th: the choral movement

 

Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue

 

Rolling Stones, Gary Wright, Poco, CSN&Y, John Prine, Patsy Cline, Frank Sinatra, Credence and last but not least, Jimmy Buffett.

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It’s good to have the family back together again. Man, have I missed them. 😋

A MORNING AT COSTCO WITH LINDNER

This is the line for the 8:00-9:00 “seniors only” crowd to get into Costco today. As I made my way to the end of the line, some duffer told another guy walking past; “Stay away from me!” To which he retorted; “Fuck you, asshole.”

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I got to the end and took my place at least five feet behind the woman in front of me. She turned to me and said; “Please step farther back. That’s not six feet.”

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I left the line and went back to my car. I may not have 48 rolls of toilet paper, but by god, I’ve got my dignity.

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#ParanoiaStrikesDeepInTheHeartland

WORLD ACCORDING TO LINDNER

 🌞  The morning after the day before  🌝

 

(All due deference to Shelly Berman).

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Welp, it appears I’m still in the coffee business! For the time being, at least. But I’m cognizant of the two looming chasms in our collective road ahead: the collapsing economy and the expanding coronavirus. We’re at the opening acts of both of these plays, so anything can happen. But for the moment, yesterday was another pleasant, sunny day at the farmer’s market.

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A big THANK YOU to all who ventured out to Beaverton, some of you for the first time (Brian, Darla, Carole). The volume of visitors was a bit subdued, of course. As I told one of the other vendors who griped about having a lousy day; “What is it you don’t get about PANDEMIC?” Yes! The turnout is going to be lower than usual. Hello!? But you’re working, right? Millions across the country AREN’T.

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Per my impromptu cash sanitizing system, it worked like a charm, though there’s room for improvement. Spritzing with a pump bottle takes time. And with people lined up, time is of the essence. I think next week I’m just going to fill a bucket with the chlorine solution and dunk as I go. A quarter cup of bleach per gallon of water should give me 3 times the health department’s requirements (200 ppm) for effective sanitation. That way I can toss the coins in too. The radiant heat off the top of the espresso machine dries paper bills out in a snap.

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For credit card sales, I use the Square reader app on my iPhone. Wearing my funky latex gloves, I fill out the amount, hold the phone out to the customer for their signature, complete the transaction, then I wipe the screen with a bleach-soaked bar towel. Voila! Clean as a whistle.

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On another note...

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Some of you have messaged me about sharing essays from Jim Wright, Heather Cox Richardson, Jeff Tiedrich, etc. to my wall. Those three, Richardson in particular, have HUGE followings, and justifiably so. They’re all brilliant writers.

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Tiedrich is the king of snark, Richardson takes a clinical approach to the day’s news, and Jim Wright... well, he’s in a class of his own. All three have résumés to back up their popularity. I do not. I’m just the Java-slinging raconteur of Snappytown. I’m Joey Zasa compared to their Corleone-esque cachet. We share the same political positions, though there are times—not many, but they do occur—when I might disagree with HOW a fact is presented, or if it’s been vetted to my satisfaction. And if I re-post something from a third party that I don’t necessarily agree with, I’ve sort of owned that too. That’s why I don’t share their stuff to my wall. But my recommendation to you is that if you aren’t already, you should read them daily. They won’t steer you wrong.

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Lastly, I saw a couple of tweets the Imbecile in Chief posted yesterday morning touting the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin taken together to combat the pandemic. 🚨 THIS IS FALSE! 🚨 Doctors from around the world have been piling on to refute that, including Dr. Fauci himself. Do NOT consider doing so without a prescription. It can cause deafness, arrhythmia and potentially, instant death.

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I suggest the Buttplug-in-Chief do a trial run on behalf of the people. And be like me with my bleach solution, a triple dose, just to be sure.  🤨

WORLD ACCORDING TO LINDNER

 Good news / bad news. First the good news:

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The State of Oregon has decreed the state’s farmer’s markets to be part of the grocery system, so my gig at the Beaverton Farmer’s Market continues.

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Bad news: today’s Pony Espresso’s moment of truth. It’s the day I find out if I’m still in the coffee business or not. If no one shows up, I’m kaput, and I’m going to have one hell of a sale.

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But if they do, then damn the Star___cks, all ahead full.

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Happy Saturday, everyone. Remember, no touching. Just fling poo at demons in heavy makeup. If you’re local, stop by. Third & Watson in Beaverton. We’ve revamped our format to accommodate the coronavirus threat. I’ve got bleach and I know how to use it.

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I’m outta’ here! 💋

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO LINDNER

I heard this reported on the BBC on shortwave last night, and it made my jaw drop. This article is just a snippet of what they reported in the radio broadcast.

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The bottom line is that since the outbreak of the pandemic, pollution levels around the world have been dropping markedly. Which makes sense, particularly in highly populated areas like New York, Peking and San Francisco, which have imposed mandatory stay-at-home decrees.

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But one thing they mentioned in the radio broadcast that isn’t in this article, is that even in the world’s waterways, the impact of human pollution is easing. Fish from the Adriatic are appearing in the canals in Venice, for instance.

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Wouldn’t it be the height of irony, that after decades of humanity’s failure to take Climate Change as seriously as we should, an organism 20 nanometers in diameter did it for us—while simultaneously reducing our species by a few hundred million?

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It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.

WORLD ACCORDING TO LINDNER

📝  Report from Snappytown  📝

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Per the advice of medical experts, I’ve been holed up in my humble hovel all week. The only contacts I’ve had with the outside world, are with the contractors who’ve been renovating my cracker-box abode for nearly a month now. Oh, and when I ventured out to Baskin & Robbins to satisfy a craving for Jamocha Almond Fudge in a waffle cone on Tuesday. (Some things are worth risking your life for). 🍦 

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The inside of my entire house, horizontal and vertical surfaces alike, are caked with a thin film of gypsum. Even the windows, which are letting in noticeably less light as a result. Whenever I make a cup of coffee, or attempt to actually cook something, I have to wash the utensils before and after, lest I get a free sample of Eau de Sheetrock.

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But I’m not complaining! The renovation is coming along beautifully, and I knew from my days of hanging wallboard what to expect. But oy... what a chore it’s going to be cleaning everything up when they’re finished.

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It just dawned on me this morning that this week marks 5 years since my last heart attack, 7 since my first, and 17 since I emerged from the cancer tunnel, battered, bloodied and hairless as a bowling ball... an acknowledgment of gratitude to the medical community that I’ve felt every day since. The bloated, ponderous nature of the system notwithstanding, the people who comprise it really are miracle workers. So I really can’t complain about a little gypsum in my Java.

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What I *CAN* complain about, is you-know-who, who continues to drive this once-respected nation towards a chasm of his own creation. I CANNOT believe they still haven’t fast-tracked mass-production of coronavirus test kits and ventilators. I’ve been listening to foreign broadcasts and monitoring the BBC, Indian media, AFP and Deutsche Welle websites. The whole world is gripped in fear, Italy in particular, where people are dropping like flies. Economies are slowing down everywhere. I read (or heard) some predictions for our own economic forecast if the trajectory doesn’t change: a 14% decline in GDP for the 2nd quarter and the possibility of 15%-20% unemployment. That’s not a recession—that’s depression territory.

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On that happy note, I hope you’re all well and you’re heeding Dr. Fauci’s shelter-in-place advice. Particularly if you’re over sixty. I’ll be venturing out on Saturday morning to my usual farmer’s market gig, but it’s going to be very different... our market manager, Ginger, has set up a drive-through format to minimize human contact. I’ll still be wearing latex gloves and slathering on the Purell though.

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Stay connected, but stay apart. That’s the formula for ending nightmare No. 1. We’ll deal with ending nightmare No. 2 in 229 days.

WORLD ACCORDING TO LINDNER

It looks like for the next few months at least, social media will keep a lot of folks from going stir-crazy. If, as it now appears, we’ll have to cloister ourselves due to the coronavirus, then the only access to schmoozing with the outside world will be online. Depending on your personality type, age, marital status etc., Facebook might become a godsend.

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I was emailing with my friend last night who works in a hospital down in the Bay Area. Consider their predicament: The entire medical establishment is on the highest alert ever for an invisible enemy. Yet the front-line soldiers, from the nurse’s aids on up are still expected to perform their jobs as usual. Yet they’re also more at-risk than the rest of us. Every patient that checks in with a runny nose or dry cough could be the one that ruins your day. Or your life. So the six-feet-apart rule generally applies to them too, yet they still have to be “hands on” to treat that patient... and risk becoming a vector for the virus. Nothing like being expected to wield godlike powers while risking becoming the next Typhoid Mary.

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Myself, I’m not sure if I’m still in business or not. We’re going to set up a drive-through farmer’s market on Saturday. If it’s successful, I’ll know. If not, I’ll have to find a home for 50 pounds of just-delivered coffee. :/

LINDNER’S WORLD AND OURS

 Dear Republicans;

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I want you to know, I scan your website every day. Oh, yes I do! I pop a Dramamine, take a shot of Wild Turkey 101, and I wade through what you tell your readers.

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One of these two guys in this picture, most likely the one on the left, is going to take on your boy in November. And just like that, you’ve pivoted from smearing the other guy as a “radical communist sympathizer“ to doubling-down on your whisper campaign that “Joe has dementia.” Which is pretty damned ironic considering who you’re defending.

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Oh, and the other talking point that you keep repeating... that Joe is a “gaff machine?” The word is GAFFE. When you gaffe the word “gaffe” as “gaff” on an international website, you might consider hiring a qualified proof-editor. Though in fairness to you, I doubt 1 in 10,000 of your readers knows the difference.

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But do you know what I really liked about that political pas-de-deux last night? It was just two candidates intelligently, rationally discussing the issues of our time. Issues of interest to We the People. Not how great they think they are. No name calling, no insults. And neither one boasted about the size of their junk.

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I digress.

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Here’s the thing. Just since this century began, you’ve inflicted some pretty horrific history upon us. You gave us George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove. That ended well, didn’t it? Two failed wars, half a million dead, two unfunded tax cuts, an intentionally exposed undercover CIA agent scrambling to protect the lives of her assets—unsuccessfully in at least one case, a $1T+ deficit, and on their way out the door, the biggest, deepest, most destructive recession in 80 years.

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You’re welcome, America.

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“How much damage can one administration do?”, we shouted from the rooftops!

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Republicans: Hold my beer.

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In response to eight years of competence, international fence-mending, sanity and hope under Bush’s Democratic successor, all of it met with racism and sabotage from your party, you and your partner in the Kremlin gave us Trump.

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Thanks a heap for that.

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Trump fired the scientists, replaced them with preachers, welcomed the alt-right *INTO* the White House, called white supremacists “very fine people,” disbanded President Obama’s pandemic response team (what could go wrong?), angered our allies, redistributed more wealth from the working class to his pals at the top than even Bush did, widened the income gap, and perhaps lethally, bungled the response to a pandemic—the one Barack Obama prepared us for. When it first hit, Trump called it “the latest Democrat hoax.” And when pressed on his botched response to the crisis? “I don’t take responsibility at all.” Truer words were never spoken.

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Nope. No more. You guys can’t lead. You don’t even deserve the right to try at this point.

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You like to quote scripture to each other, right? What say you wander in the political wilderness for 40 years living on quail and manna to soften you up a bit, then maybe we’ll see if you’re worthy of another go at it (Numbers, 13:31-33).

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But for now, you’re done. We cannot... we 👉🏼CANNOT👈🏼 risk four more years of Republican “leadership.” The nation—indeed the world—wants no more to do with you. Whether dog catcher, Statehouse, Senator or President, vote BLUE. And vote the Republicans the hell OUT!

GREAT COLUMN BY BRUCE LINDNER

 This is an update to an article I wrote last year. A lot’s happened since then, so I decided to tweak it and give it another run. Happy Friday, folks (kiss my ass, idjt).

 

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Here’s my question for today’s Trump supporters. In fact, before I proffer it, let’s clear the deck of EVERYTHING else.

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Forget for the moment about the Mueller investigation. We surrender, Mueller came up short. No collusion, no obstruction, yada yada. Set aside his manic tweeting, the revolving door at the White House, the incessant lies, the corruption, the cronyism, the nepotism, the incompetence, the clear evidence that he’s a few marshmallows short of a s’more. Forget even about the Ukraine scandal and his subsequent impeachment.

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Forget about ALL OF THAT! 👆🏼

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And riddle me this:

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Why are you all mum about Trump’s subservience to Vladimir Putin? And don’t you DARE try to tell me he isn’t. There’s not a single one amongst you who’s that fucking stupid. He’s been blowing this thug kisses and giving him reach-arounds since the day he oozed into office. He’s met with him not in just conditions of privacy, but in absolute SECRECY. He even confiscated the hand-written notes of an aide who documented one such meeting. He passed classified intelligence entrusted to us by an ally directly into the hands of two Russian agents in the Oval Office, yet nary a peep from any of you. In fact, had it not been for the Russian media, the American people would have been none the wiser, since Trump booted our own media out of the room minutes before.

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He’s alienated our allies, insulted our neighbors, both to our north and south, divided us by race, ethnicity and religion, inched closer to authoritarianism, and embraces fascism.

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But no condemnation from any of you. Not so much as a discouraging word, because as you all parrot; “He’s getting it done.” No, he is NOT.

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He’s FAILED to reduce the national debt, as promised.

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He’s FAILED to eliminate the deficit, as promised.

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His tax cuts FAILED to produce a 4%-5% GDP, as promised.

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He FAILED to keep his commitment to our allies the Kurds, in the struggle against ISIS, as promised.

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His Middle East plan FAILED to impress anyone on either side, let alone bring an end to the violence, as promised.

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He’s FAILED to produce his own healthcare plan, as promised.

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He’s FAILED to follow the advice of our intelligence community, as is his DUTY.

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He’s FAILED to address the greatest threat to life on Earth today; Climate Change... as would be expected of any sane person in his position.

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And nearly as alarming to me: he’s FAILED to demonstrate a willingness to defend our elections from foreign attacks—attacks launched by the man whose mere appearance elicits the idiotic grin seen here.

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You Trump loyalists, the people who like to boast that you’re the “party of national security,” who claim to be the political descendants of Eisenhower, Goldwater and Reagan, who wrap yourselves in Olde Glory and sing the Star Spangled Banner at your NRA meetings, at CPAC and at Trump’s hootenannies... you don’t seem to have ANY compunction with him carrying out the agenda of Stalin’s ideological successor.

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Look at that face in this picture. Take a long, hard look at it. I challenge you to sift through the millions of pictures of Donald Trump online and come up with one even remotely similar. That’s not the face of a Commander in Chief. That’s the face of a man greeting his superior.

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But enough about him. What’s YOUR problem?

WORLD ACCORDING TO LINDNER

 I don’t even know where to begin with this one. So maybe I should start at the beginning.

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Many years ago, from around 1964 through the early ‘80s, my mother worked as a bio-chemist/lab tech at UC Berkeley. She worked for a very brilliant woman who pioneered research on brain function. Specifically, how information passes between cells—synaptic exchange.

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Another woman on the project (it was an all-women team) was a very kindly, sweet, pretty, unassuming lady a bit older than my mom. Think Donna Reed minus the puffy dresses. Dedicated bio-chemist during the week, churchgoing Baptist on Sundays. She, my mother and Bob Weir’s mother (that’s a story for another day), would carpool into Berkeley together.

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Donna Reed/church-lady began to lose her mental faculties early in life. I’m guessing she was in her early sixties when the symptoms first appeared. Before her family put her in a special care unit, she asked my mom if she thought I would like to inherit her stamp collection. She new me since I was a sprout, and remembered when I collected stamps. And yes, I did collect stamps as a kid. But once I discovered girls, I had new things to lick.

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Oh, I REALLY digressed that time! 😱 Where was I? Oh yeah...

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This lady’s daughter gave my mother two big boxes with “FOR BRUCE” written on them. She passed away maybe 25-30 years ago, at which time, my mom told me I’d inherited her stamp collection. Okay, that was nice of her. Sorry to hear about her passing. I brought the two boxes back to Portland with me, only peeking inside once, and filed them out in the garage under “I’ll get to that one of these days.”

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So yesterday was one of those days. With the task of shuffling boxes of whatnot around, I finally examined the contents of one of the boxes... boxes of stamps WILLED to me by my mom’s old coworker. I suppose because in her deteriorating state of mind, I was the only person she thought of when it came to finding a new home for her collection.

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But first, here’s a primer on stamp collectors. There’s no “typical” philatelist. Stamp collectors can be anywhere from nerdy little kids (as I was  🙋🏻‍♂️) to ersatz historians who don’t know how to write, but view stamps and coins as historical time capsules, to misinformed “investors” who think they’re going to get rich off little squares of paper, to... hoarders.

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My mom’s friend was DEFINITELY in the hoarder category. At least she was towards the end of her life. What’s fascinating is that I can see evidence of the onset of her dementia *IN* her stamp hobby.

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The oldest stamps in the box are from around 1938-39. She has those all individually separated in philatelic baggies and labeled. Year, condition, watermark, perforation, etc. Very typical of dedicated stamp nerds.

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Then the ‘50s and ‘60s commemorative issues, she has all haphazardly packed in envelopes by year. 30 different stamps, maybe four or five of each issue, all crammed in one envelope. Alrighty.

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Then later on, it’s as if she had completely lost interest in her hobby, and was just going through the motions. From the late ‘70s until the end, it appeared she just went to the post office with a wad of cash burning a hole in her pocket, which she’d spend on whatever was available. I’ll take ten of those, fifteen of those, and OH!, those look nice! Give me fifty of those! Which she then took home and squirreled away in two boxes, along with maybe fifty little pink “FELLOWSHIP FUND” envelopes to the First Baptist Church of Oakland... all stuffed with random American stamps. There are also two smaller boxes inside the big boxes, holding some 200-300 first day covers. Again, in random order.

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There’s literally HUNDREDS of unused booklets of perfectly good postage here. Nothing that would be of any interest to a collector though; it’s just indicative of someone compelled to maintain her hobby. Which was probably more habit than hobby at that point.

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Mind you, even though the price is now 55¢ to mail a first class letter, this is all still usable postage. You just have to mix ‘n match them until you have 55¢ worth on the envelope. Between these two boxes, I bet there’s enough postage here for me to slap it all on my ass and mail myself to Tahiti and back.

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I almost feel voyeuristic going through these boxes. Like I’m invading someone’s “Heart of Darkness” final days. But it was literally in her will, so...

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Anyway, R.I.P. to a very, very sweet lady, and thanks for willing me your very unconventional um... collection.