Dark Time in Fairbanks

Even though we have less than four hours of daylight at this time of year- the holiday season with all of its lights , celebrations, and festivities with friends and family traditionally make late December more a time of light and cheer than a dismal reminder that we still have two more months of cold and dark.

Except this year. This year it is darker than usual in Fairbanks and the reason is the wanton, terrible murder of a gentle, unassuming soul who was always friendly and open to visitors and customers. Daniel Fredrick harmed no one, loved his pets and had many friends and acquaintances. As the long time proprietor of Blondie's Military Surplus, he and his lineage of "Blondie" dog(s) were iconic in this town. In fact, it is probably safe to say, that over the last quarter century, most Fairbanks newbies completed at least one pilgrimage to Blondie's in search of a pair of used and cheap bunny boots. For new arrivals, especially graduate students and neophyte mushers, Fredrick's store was the place to go in order to round out one's new arctic winter kit with those funky, white, but impossible to beat bunny boots. It was also a great place just to poke around in, looking at musty dusty odd pieces of this and that, while having a random sort of conversation with Fredrick.

It's been a number of years since I was in his store, but I drove by it regularly, and seeing its sign somehow always instilled in me a sense of "all is right in this town" - because Blondie's on the corner has just always been part of the scene - at least my scene since I came to this town 20 years ago.

And now it is not. And not because this very kind, slightly odd man closed up one day and went into retirement, but because one, two and possibly three low-lifes decided that it wasn't just enough to rob him. They could have taken all his money, all his cards, all his gear and left him alone. But no, they had to beat and strangle him - even though I am quite sure that initially he welcomed them to his store in same friendly manner he greeted everyone who came in.

Every violent death that occurs in this town and its environs costs all of us a little bit of our humanity. This one is going to extract even more. About the only thing that can be said of this is at least these three were so stupid - or possibly incredibly stupidly arrogant - that they used his cards and were quickly caught. Although this is a heinous crime, it would have been far worse if he had been found dead, with no solid suspects or leads in the case. At least there is reasonable assurance that justice will be done, and that these inhuman useless bits of trash will receive the type of punishment they so richly deserve. There is no excuse for this type of brutal attack, there never is.

Tannenbum

T'is nearly the night before Christmas and my tree is dead.

Not slightly brittle, dry and a bit musty, but dead.

Dead: ornaments dragging on the floor and falling off branches which droop and sag. Dead: the softly shurring tinkling, winkling noise as needles shower gently to the floor every time we so much as breathe on it. Dead: its unhealthy and somber shade of brown.

At least I am supposing that is its current color, as I refuse to turn up the lights to really inspect it. Suffice that the Ghost of Tree Past haunts me every time I look over to its corner - I don't need further proof of its deadness exposed in the harsh glare of a full-spectrum light.

This is the second year in a row that my Christmas tree is thoroughly dead even before Christmas Eve.

One might suppose that maybe I went to a bum tannenbaum purveyor, or that I bought it too early. Or put it too close to the woodstove. All excellent questions. And the answer to every one of those is nope, nope, and nope.

Because my blogmate and her S.O. got a tree from the very same place, nearly ten days earlier than mine and have parked theirs right in front of their monitor, and across the room from their wood stove, and, you guessed it, their tree is alive, luscious and vibrantly green.

"Perhaps you did not love it enough", opines CabinDweller's S.O. I laugh manically and throw an ornament (that has rolled off a limp limb) at her head. Didn't love it enough???

Man, I babied that sucker. I didn't make the mistake I did last year - which was to shove it under the dog box and give it a chilly, if not downright freezing, ride home.

Nope, not this time, not this tree. I left the truck engine running while I went and made my choice, so the cab was a cozy 60 degrees or so. It rode up front swathed in its plastic tree bag like some petty Jersey don that ran afoul of Little Nicky Scarfo. Once home, I whisked it into the house, cut several inches off its stump and plopped it immediately into the tree stand filled with fresh water laced with "Keeps-It-Green" (extends tree life! retards needle drop! exclaims the label).

I knew I was in trouble when even before I had finished decorating the tree, the tree had stopped drinking water (retards needle drop! reduces fire hazard!). And I was right. Twelve days later it is deader than dead.

Now I have had real "real" trees (as opposed to the Charlie Brown Alaska trees we all love for their ease in decoration) for several years. Sometimes I have bought them in the first week of December, and one memorable year, I left the tree up til Valentine's Day (though that was due to sloth rather than an especially vigorous tree). Never have I had trees die within two weeks of purchase, except for the past two years.

Which is when I started using "Keeps-it-Green".....hmmmmm.

General Hoosegow-Keeping

Because I am a relatively neat and orderly person who likes to keep lists and because my blog mate appears to have fled the state to go surfing in Mexico or done some other crazed thing in response to SAD - the onerous task of updating the FBI's Little List falls to me.

How appropriate that on or near the date that I first created the list, it's time to note another status change; to wit, John Cowdry's on his way to join his colleagues at the Gray Bar Hotel.

I am thinking that the wife who embroidered the CBC hats might be considering a second run of hats - with a minor addition of yet another "C". That would be CCBC: the Convicted Corrupt Bastards Club.

Thusly,

Santa's The FBI's Little List (First posted in December 2007 - Updated on December 19, 2008)

Tom Anderson : Naughty Gray Bar Hotel
Bill Allen: Very, Very, Very Naughty Pled Guilty
Rick Smith: NaughtyPled Guilty
Pete Kott: Naughty and Easy Gray Bar Hotel
Bruce Weyhrauch: Naughty Indicted
John Cowdery: Naughty Indicted, Pled Guilty
Vic Kohring: Naughty Gray Bar Hotel
Ben Stevens: Very Naughty - In the Bag
Ted Stevens: Very, Very Naughty and Haughty - CONVICTED!
Don Young: Naughty and Rude, Under Investigation and Spending $ Like Crazy
Frank Murkowski: Naughty and Slow, Give 'im rope
Jim Clark: Very, Very, Very Naughty Pled Guilty
James C. Hayes: Indicted, Tried and Convicted Gray Bar Hotel
Murilda "Chris" Hayes: Indicted, Pled Out, Gray Bar Hotel

Not Just a Shoe

If I ever get around to compiling a list of defining moments in '08 - the Bush shoe incident will top the list. Seldom has Dubyah given me much to laugh about (lots to cry about, though) during his reign of incompetency, but today's headlines gave me plenty to snicker at.

The act of shoe hurtling is profound. On so many levels.

My first reaction, knowing little about Iraqi culture, was to snort and comment to my attentive canine crew that Dubyah didn't even rate a pie in the face.

But reading further - fortunately the New York Times was astute enough to provide cultural context for its readers - brought me to greater appreciation of the gesture.

Shoe-throwing. The ultimate insult in Iraq. Could it get any better?

And not just one shoe, but two shoes. Muntadar al-Zaidi is my new hero.

Not only do I love the fact that this reporter would stand up and throw his shoes at a man that deserves so much more thrown at him, but that he would do it first with one shoe and a shouted comment, and then with the other (no word as of yet whether reporters now will have to go to press conferences shoeless, or if TSA will implement a ban on all shoes at airports in response to this latest "terrorist" act).

I also greatly appreciate that Iraq has something that is universally understood throughout that country (and I suppose throughout the Arab world) as the insult nonpareil. The US, melting pot that it is, lacks these gestures of ultimacy. We have no single pejorative, no pithy insult or curse that hurtles from deliverer to recipient and leaves no room for alternate interpretation.

My father has always famously (and bitterly) complained that English was a piss-poor language for cursing. He noted that anglo imagination was limited to off-color commentary about sexual intercourse, mothers, and illegitimate offspring, and lacked the breadth of creativity of the Hungarians, who, in addition to the aforementioned subjects, utilize the entire pantheon of Catholic saints, and incorporate their legacy as horse-riding people of the steppes to boot.

How the Iraqi puppet government handles the disposition of their shoe-throwing reporter will be telling. Will it be an all expenses-paid trip to the lovely isle of Cuba on the Gitmo Express? Will he have as his cell mate that other shoe-loving "terrorist" that tried to take down a plane with his sneaks? Prior to the Bush years, no one would seriously consider internment without end as possible for someone who was simply engaging in his right of free expression (which is, after all, nominally what Bush says our government is seeking to secure in Iraq), but nowadays all bets are off.

It takes no stretch of imagination to suspect that Muntadar may pay a serious price for his outburst. One can hope, however, that the court of world opinion will prevail, thus preventing Bush, al-Malaki and their minions from extracting punishment for this very public humiliation. Otherwise, Muntadar might find himself one among the throng of "enemy combatants" rotting away in the tropics.

I realize that by now most will have seen the huge variety of video clips of this incident out on the web, but still, I cant resist embedding one here. It is truly is a fitting coup d' grace to the Bush Era Error.

Empress Sarah

The Empress' New Clothes

About the time I was posting my riff on the the Petite Trianon, my 83-year old father was passing his evenings doing cut & paste old school. Although he chose a different royal as his base upon which to build his Empress Sarah - we hit the same historical period. Clearly, the nut does not fall far from the tree. Here is his handiwork and original captions.

The Empress Sarah After Her $150,000 Makeover

It Finally Happened

I know I am stating the obvious - thanks to the McPalin hijinks's and the antics of our corrupt bastards - Alaska is enjoying (I realize, a questionable choice of words) a degree of recognition, mention and scrutiny not previously experienced at any point in its modern history.

Except perhaps during the Gold Rush.

We are surrounded by plenty of evidence that we are wiggling in the glare of this dubious limelight - Palin is the topic for the talking heads to the talk shows and everything in between, but in my mind, you know you are living in the theatre of the absurd when references to your elected officials start appearing in Harper's.

Those of you familiar with the monthly will know about the Harper's Index and their practice of featuring the ridiculous, peculiar, laughable and downright absurdly corrupt in the front 10 or so pages titled "Readings". Well, last month, Alaska began to creep into these sections. Palin made it into the Harper's Index ("Minimum number of reporters who traveled to Wasilla, Alaska, in the two weeks following Sarah Palin's selection as VP: 90") as well as into the Readings section: "Death and the Maiden". Now this month, it's even juicier.

Titled The Good Life, Senator Ted Stevens on Virtue, it's a reprint of some of the more damning transcripts of conversations between Ted and Bill that the FBI recorded.

After reading the smattering that are reproduced here, it's no wonder the jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts in such short order once the disruptive and oddball juror disappeared.

Although the transcripts are available to review - I have to confess I never bothered to. I didn't need to - I wasn't one of those that fell for the craven currying tones that the Fairbanks Daily News Miner took when reporting and commenting on the trial. However, it is very interesting to read these now.

Because really, as always - it's Ted who gives himself the rope by which he was hung.

Since these are public records and I am a lazy beast, I am sure that Harper's won't come after me if I quote just a few of the better lines of conversation from their magazine (and of course, as before, I can't resist adding a little editorializing of my own):

August 31, 2006

Ted Stevens: Hey Bill? Wonder if you are going to be around Sunday? Catherine has in mind replacing those black couches at the chalet---[can we ever get past just how pretentious it was to call that dump a "chalet"?]

Bill Allen: Yeah, uh, hey, Ted, the FBI got a warrant and searched my house and the office. They asked me what I done on your house. I said, well, he's paid for everything, and I just told'em I wouldn't talk to 'em.

T.S.: Okay. Good. I had an inkling something was up, but I don't know what it is.

September 10

T.S.: ....Keep yourself going my friend. I've never been up against a bunch like this before. I'm not getting much sleep , thinking about all this shit that's going around . I'm just trying to figure out why these fuckers are doing this thing to our friends. [quite possibly it is because those fuckers are upholding the law and they suspect you broke it, Uncle Ted]

October 18

T.S.:...So you and I ought to wait this thing out. They haven't filed a charge yet. It may be that what we've done leaves an impression that we have done something wrong. But you have to make up your mind you're doing something wrong to be really guilty of a crime. [here we see the first hint of that fine legal mind that brought us his astounding statement that he is not guilty until he finishes his appeal process] We don't want to get ourselves there by trying to do something that leads to a different kind of charge.

Yup, Alaska has arrived on the national scene - thanks to the whole freak'n lot of petty, ill-grammared thieves and trailer trash queens.

Don't Mind Us, We're Out and About

Well, I can't rely upon Flic to pick up the slack while I'm traveling; she is out of Squarebanks at the moment as well.

We'll both be back, soon, really. I'm in the airport, having scavenged for some good travel reading materials. I settled on:

"The Vesuvius Club"
"Kinfolks - falling off the family tree"
"The Whale and the Supercomputer"

T'was the Day After...

And Obama won!

We hadn't been listening to the news all day, being too nervous and busy. But as the Bring Your Own Effigy hour approached, Obama already had a lead.

I swear, I walked back into the kitchen for a minute, went back, and the election coverage was talking about President Elect Obama. "It's over!" The early arrivals ran into the room. Before most of the guests arrived - he'd won.

Wow!

So there was nothing to do but have a celebratory jello shot and a fresh keg cup of beer. We spent the rest of the evening with the bonfire (and Mike Kelly effigy), bouncing back and forth to hear McCain's concession, another jello shot, Obama's phenomenal speech, another jello shot, and then desperately hoping for a crumb of local news. Oh, and Flic made a kicking moose chili.

Today? We celebrate some more, I think. But I'm laying off the jello shots. There are a few here with your name on them, Ish.

T'was the Night Before...

the election, and here is what I did:

• I made an effigy.

I hadn't planned to. After all, I figured I had shot my creative wad when I first floated the "Bring Your Own Effigy" idea - but I was disabused of that notion by my blog mate. No way was I going to be able to show up and swizzle beer and get rowdy if I didn't have an effigy in tow.

Initially it looked like ET

So I got down to it and whipped up a passing likeness of a certain District incumbent. It wasn't until it was completed that I realized that, like most politicians, it was spineless and flip-flopped any which way. Too late to put some backbone (or a pole) in it, so it's propped up in chair, the target of an occasional curious sniff from one of the pooches.

• I drank a peartini and snarfed a scotch egg, fries and hot wings.

Just as I was attaching the head and putting on the finishing touches, I got a call from my blog mate. She had been out doing her civic duty by waving candidate signs on a cold corner while I was home cozily ensconced before the fire hacking up a pillow case and gluing on cotton fuzz eyebrows & goatee. It took no arm twisting to lure me out for a pre-election nip. Those peartinis never fail to knock me right off my pins - faster and more thoroughly than anything I imbibed during my (in)famous Nome bar crawl this past summer.

• I listened to reports that 9,000 election observers will be mobilized to Indian reservations,

and internalized the bitter truth that the Banana Republicans have succeeded. It's a sad day when any place at all in our country needs to have protection to ensure fair voting. And even sadder when I consider that whereas 10 years ago I believed our elections to be fair, open and honest, I don't hold that opinion any longer. Rigged elections? Sure, why not? It happened in 2000, it can happen again.

It's late, and although I am jittery from too much coffee and the arrival of E-day, it's time for this blogger to head off to bed. Need to be well rested for tomorrow: at worst it could be the end of the free world as we know it - at best, a hell of a shindig.

Two Days to Go

There are many reasons why I love living in the Goldstream Valley.

Reason # 897: On Halloween night, at the annual Lion's Club party for the ankle biters of our community, the award for Scariest Adult Costume went to ... a woman who dressed up as Sarah Palin.

But as we come down to the last days of this ugly campaign, we've been trying to come up with a way to survive Election Night. Being drunk seemed a good approach to several of us.

Presto! We're having a party. Beer, bonfire, and effigies to entertain us while we see if the Hoopleheads actually elect McCain. (Note to Hoopleheads: Sarah Palin is the candidate for Vice President. Not President. Really.)

I hope that it needs no further explanation that there is a difference between some spirited effigy burning of various political figures and a display that features an African American candidate being lynched. But who knows? We're an ahistorical society.

I'm thinking of Dubyah as my effigy. And really, who can compete with what the Brits did at their recent annual bonfire (one that burns a political effigy every year?) You might also be entertained by the YouTube video below.