Monday, Monday

It’s a beautiful week ahead despite today.

Today I got my driver’s license renewed.

I have not had a more disappointing experience. As a satirist I was hoping to find the usual bureaucratic Hell but instead I experienced an efficient and pleasant experience. What the Hell. This left me despondent. It’s bad enough the postal service delivers my mail promptly every morning and my postal person greets me cheerfully.

On Sunday I found I could easily register for an appointment, so I did on Motor Vehicle’s easy to navigate website. No comedy material there.

I showed up ten minutes early this Monday morning at Motor Vehicles, signed in at a kiosk, and was directed to line B where I stood in line for a Hellish and interminable 45-seconds. No material there. I was fuming.

It got worse. I was greeted by a cheerful employee. He told me he was an admirer of my work. What kind of satirist’s Hell was I in? I was apoplectic.

At least next to me the young teenager getting her license told her bureaucrat she was a registered Republican. That galled me. She had that Christian Nationalist look about her. Witnessing that unspeakable horror reassured there was still room for satire in this parallel universe I had entered, a world where getting your driver’s license renewed was painless Something in the cosmos was surely out of whack.

The faceless bureaucrat had a pleasant face and called me sir. No doubt because I called him sir. Ha! Just as I expected. Courteous. The contemptible villain held up an eye chart, asked me to read O C D P E V which I did, snapped my picture in front of a blue screen, and after signing a form I tapped my $25 payment and was on my way. In and out in ten minutes. No satirical fodder to feed on there.

A morning wasted.

That is if I don’t include the 27-minutes I spent looking in the mirror this morning preparing for my new driver’s license photo, trimming my pappy stubble beard into perfection and asking my wife, “ponytail or hair down?”

On her way out the door and off to work she said, “Ponytail.” I always do what she tells me to do.

If there had been a written test I would have insisted she take it with me since she is my co-pilot, often instructing me where to park and often telling me the space I have chosen is the incorrect space.

“There’s shade over there. In that one.” She helps me decide when to turn left and informs when the light is green by saying, “Go.” Without her I’d still be idling behind that crosswalk in 2012, waiting for someone to interpret traffic lights for me. She’s very thoughtful that way. Here’s another helpful alert she shares while waiting for the light I’m incapable of understanding on my own to turn. “Car’s rolling.”

“I did it on purpose.”

“You almost rolled into the bumper in front of you.”

“I know. Keeping you on your toes. Is it my turn to go?”

For my driver’s license picture, I did switch out my tie-dyed T shirt and put on a collared shirt, so I didn’t look like a tragic Woodstock attendee who just stepping out of a time capsule. “Ha. Collared shirt. May as well put on a tie.” I accused the face in the mirror of “Caving to the man.”

Then I headed home to write and contemplate the week ahead.

On Tuesday I’m lunching with Tony Davis, the great Arizona Daily Star writer who will be celebrating…drumroll…fifty years with the Star.

He’s 112-years old.  Amazing. He was there when water was invented. Right after fire. I’m going to quiz my friend for his thoughts about the next 100-years. A writer to admire.

Tony taking out his pen to take notes on a water issue

Speaking of great writers kudos to The Star for giving my pal Mort a long deserved local pulpit.

A Tucson bred reporter’s reporter, AP grabbed him in ‘65 and by age 23 Mort was covering mercenary wars in the Congo. He ran AP bureaus in around the globe before landing in Paris. I love his writing and his perspectives. Meet columnist Mort Rosenblum

He’ll be in The Star for two columns a month. As well subscribe to his newsletter “Mort Report: Non-Prophet Journalism”. His writing nourishes and sustains me.

Check it out here: www.mortreport.org

I’m looking forward to Wednesday.

On Wednesday afternoon at 3:30 and at 7:00 in the evening I’ll be in the audience of a fundraiser for the local Democrats at Unscrewed Theatre at 4500 E. Speedway because I want to see and meet who wins lunch with me! I will joyfully be among the many other Dems and prizes at this fabulous fundraiser.

Tickets are $75 and available at the links below.

3:30 Show: Drag extravaganza matinee event tickets

7:00 Show: Drag extravaganza evening event tickets

Thursday morning, I’ll be posting a satirical piece about the history of Arizona’s lesser-known historical debates.

I know it will be good because it is soooooo fun to write.

In the meantime, I’m working on a range of possible posts, one explaining with my usual know-it-all hubris the whole Trump phenomena. Why?

I watched a dystopian horror film called “Bad Faith”, a documentary about the role of Christian Nationalism in taking over the political right.

And the role of our local preachers, pastors and clerics is on my mind, many of whom I admire, like those who daily serve the least among us. Then there are those extremists distorting the Gospel this heathen is familiar with for nothing but political power over the majority of us.

Anyone want to attend the churches in this valley to find the Trump Pastors and report to the masses what they are preaching? I’d like to know which Houses of Worship are tax-free propaganda centers for the Republican Party.

Wouldn’t you?

“Bad faith” the trailer:

Where to view it for free:

Depending on the debate on Thursday I may feel compelled to respond.

Only if I have any fresh observations that the press isn’t echoing all over the progressive landscape.

I do like the idea of a debate fantasy with a third candidate on the stage, a brown Palestinian troublemaker named Jesus answering the political answers with the compassionate radicalism missing from the conversation about religion in America.

Or perhaps I’ll write about why Joe B is right about the border.

Who knows?

And on Sunday the second episode of Luna will come your way.

I promise you a good read as the days of summer place climate change on the front burner. Front burner. Get it? Your criticisms help because when it is done I will rewrite it (Stephen King says always cut 10%) and refine it (Stick the cinematic action) and submit it for formal publication as a book or script. Or a dust collector for my great grandchildren to ignore. Right, fellow authors?

Posts, posts, posts

You will continue to suffer my weekly political and social commentary on life here among the tarantulas and tumbleweeds. Only thing that keeps my blood pressure low is venting.

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Stay cool. I’ll be watching the debate with you on Thursday. Give ‘em Hell, Joe.