What am I my going to do with you?" What a friend of mine here in New Jersey, who’s only a few years younger than my Dad- who I was just visiting in Florida- says to me all the time (for perspective I’m 52). "WhattamIgoingtodowithyou?" Or, "Did you make any money today?" We both mess around with cars, occasionally I’ll sell one that I’d bought very, very cheap; but of course Don’s the only one who ever make's a good profit. Sure!
But I haven’t sold many cars lately because after seeing a different friend back home to Mexico last year, (20 years younger than me), and then visiting him several times in that poor friggin wasteland, which with a few changes could be paradise, I decided to tell the world about how the corruption buries them, (tisk tisk). Try and tell the world is more apt. Failing that I then ran for Congress of the United States last year, ha, ha, ha.
Got the crap kicked out of me naturally, (so what?), and I kept up the onslaught of e-mails to elitists in the media after the election anyway- begging one person to go down there with me, if only to put a muzzle on me and be done with.... more giggles. And then this.....Try and gather 800 signatures to run for Governor of the late, great state of New Jersey. A tsunami of snickering now. Or is it just dead silence. Neither one is good. Don, what the hell am I doing?
Yo!!! I just want one reporter to go to Mexico with me, see it down and dirty, talk to this bright guy I both love and admire- and write about it. That’s what news organizations do I thought? It’s been the same refrain from me for two years. To- get- a- discussion- going- there’s a 50 million Hispanic audience here in this country after all. Quite a few of them aren’t registered!!! I’ll go back- afterwards, to the dull life I was leading before I ever became best friends with Beto. That isn’t goin to happen so easy, and I’m ruined.... because I’m a changed man now and I don’t have T. Boone Pickens type money to promote my cause like he does his. I don’t have any money. And that phone isn’t going to ring, and that one answered e-mail in the in-box- will never surprise me one morning either. Unless weirdo here gets the 800 signatures and then manages to raise an eyebrow of some previously shortsighted editor; somewhere; after the June 2 filing date. One god damned raised eyebrow for Gods sake you elitist snobs!
But think about me sitting on my ass in Florida, for one week- doing nothing, and two, (tick tock, tick tock) you managed to get only a few signatures on your petition for Governor on the flight down (and you need 200 more with 5 days left), and three, Dad is not type of person you can tell exactly what you’re up to. So you look at the walls in the apartment and don’t dare tell anyone at the pool either about this election nonsense you’re jumping headfirst into. The old man is not just a nattering, nabob of negativity, after all, throw in nervous too. (Why not, things were a little worse off the coast of Iwo Jima in that landing craft he was in ((strafed and nearly sunk, you can imagine the casualties))- then my run ins with the Federale police in Mexico.) So keep this fantasy, about getting one reporter, or running for Governor all to yourself for one week because...
... last but not least, four, after the library book, posthumously published, about William F. Buckley’s friendship with Ronald Reagan, sucks (you’re hoping to keep the juices flowing while you’re in Florida. By the way Dad watches MSNBC in his room and I watch FOX in mine); and you read instead a fabulous book about Yogi Berra and baseball.....I’m also now wondering, "What I’m going to do with myself?" You’re right Don, I must be crazy!!!!!! Who gives a shit about Mexico? Will I care at all by the time I get back home? Let demagogue Steve Lonegan fill the vacuum of the festering illegal immigration debate over driver’s licenses and amnesty etc., etc.
I passed the test and it’s another milestone that only I could appreciate. I’m writing yet another diary and I just got home. Case closed, back to my old self again! Do I post it under The Mighty Quinn or that other name....
Post script. Many times when I come home after visiting Florida, the wife (and we’re hanging on by a thread folks) who’s a little crazy in her own right, over reaches and tries to do some house chores that are way over her head. Beto, who lived with us for 5 years, used to run interference for me when I’d visit my Dad. One year she and her friend were all set to do some creative landscaping which would have, at the least, meant spending a good chunk of change at the local gardening center. Long story short, Beto, outmaneuvered them more than once, and utilizing the native resources and supplies on the property, spared me a freaking out when I got home.
Well he’s not here now, and a woman friend of the family who lives with us, in his old room downstairs I might add, asked if I saw the outside of the house yet? No I hadn’t. The plane got in at 11:45 PM, I had to go work a small account right from the airport, (the van was left there with keys) and I didn’t get home to 3AM and as soon as I got up at 8:30 it wasn’t too long before I’m on the computer writing this very important ode to myself. I knew Cindy didn’t feel well for two days while I was away, now I know why. They dragged a rented pressure washer home and my wife, the one with diabetes, a heart condition and inadequate health insurance (issue #1 in the raging gubernatorial campaign I’ll wage form the computer in the laundry room) , nearly fainted a few times starting the thing, and getting it on and off the truck. Never mind using the contraption- in between heart arrhythmias.
And I haven’t seen the flowers yet which this friend tells me are there. I didn’t go around that part of the house obviously. We live way in the woods with sandy soil. Every year there’s the flowers that don’t grow very well. When it gets very hot in July no-one waters them, if there any flowers even left... after the deer eat them. Does it sound dysfunctional here? Yes? Will Beto shake his head in sympathy when I call him in Mexico? Of course. Does anybody care about this? No. It’s funny (if only to me) but on the plane back last night there was a book review, another posthumous book like the William Buckley book; John Updike's new book. I read all the Rabbit books 20-30 years ago. My life has a Harry Angstrom, stream of consciousness- for one, quality about it, pathetically. And even then- am I flattering myself too much? Must be... nobody ever returns my e-mails!
Been burned
and with both feet
on the ground,
I've learned
that it's painful
comin' down.
No use runnin' away,
and there's no time
left to stay.
Now I'm finding out
that it's so confusin',
No time left
and I know I'm losin'.
Flashed
and I think
I'm fallin' down,
Crashed,
and my ears
can't hear a sound.
No use runnin' away,
and there's no time
left to stay.
Now I'm finding out
that it's so confusin',
No time left
and I know I'm losin