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friday firesmith – Dolly
I grew up in the 1960s, in South Georgia, where most of the older people, and by older I mean anyone over twenty-five, listened to country music. It was a religious thing, where country music, and by default, those who played and sang it, were holy. Rock and Roll was evil. Children were to be seen and not heard, and children certainly were not allowed to have an opinion on music and they would listen to whatever their parents decided they would listen to and they would be happy, too.
I was not.
Like the French Resistance, we knew a guy, okay, an older kid, who had a tiny transistor radio with an earpiece. We would tune into one of the few not country stations, AM at that, and listen to top 40, which was as close to rock as we were going to get.
I never liked country music mostly because it was forced upon me, as was my taste in clothing, food, television programming, and just about every other aspect of life.
Dolly Parton was an enigma to me. Dressed like a two-dollar hooker, with unimaginably large breasts, and with a voice that sounded like someone in water over their head yelling, “Shark!” Dolly Parton’s singing was irritating. Worse, a lot of it was smarmy. And as I grew older, Dolly Parton was a wig wearing ghost who haunted the radio stations.
But then there were books.
I grew up being able to pick and choose what I read. It was one of the few areas of absolute freedom I had in personal choice. I read books like it was a religion. I pretended to be sick to get out of school so I could read more. I called in sick from work so I could read. I fell asleep reading.
And Dolly was giving away free books to kids, little kids. I was not going to start singing, “Jolene” in the shower but I started paying attention to what this person was doing. Books were my currency in deciding whether or not I could be friends with, or even like someone.
Dolly’s “Imagination Library” has donated over 300 million books to children under five across the globe.
Dolly started the “Buddy Program” which teamed seven and eight graders who would receive five hundred dollars each if they both graduated from high school. Drop out rates dropped from over one third to single digits.
Dolly’s, “Dollywood Foundation” in an international charity that has stepped in and stepped up many times since its creation in 1988. Spanning the globe like a giant blonde wig, this is an organization who had helped after wildfires, Covid, and much more.
I rather listen to a coon hound being cut in half longways with a plastic spork than hear Dolly Parton sing. But as far as being a good human being, Dolly Parton is a fucking Saint.
Her death is one of the few celebrities I will mourn for the rest of my life. Irreplaceable, one of a kind, and one of the best human beings that ever irritated me with her voice, I will die loving Dolly Parton with all my heart and books.
Take Care,
Mike
friday firesmith – Trina
On a bitterly cold morning back in 2017 or so, I got out of the office because I simply didn’t want to be there. I wanted to write. I wanted to sit down in front of a laptop and see what happened, because if I do sit down in front of a laptop, I’m going to write.
Retirement was a couple of years away, I thought it was more than that, but I knew it was somewhat close. Still, I had to keep up appearances of actually caring about the job. The drag of doing something I didn’t really enjoy was heavy that morning and a light rain began as if the day wasn’t dreary and uncomfortable enough.
I stopped at a Waffle House to get some coffee, decided to get a second breakfast because it was cold outside, and I wondered if I should just go home. The waitstaff at this place knows me, like the idea I tip well, and I’ll let them pick out music on the juke box.
A woman is sitting at the counter, and she smiles as I enter. Young, pretty, dressed in clothes more suited for much warmer weather, and the waitstaff shook her head at me when she saw me looking.
“She’s a hooker,” waitstaff whispered to me as she put a mug of coffee down. There’s no point in the menu or asking what I want. She speaks each item as she writes.
“She looks cold,” I reply in something that isn’t a whisper and waitstaff giggles. The woman in question is not wearing a bra.
“Want to buy her breakfast?” Waitstaff is poking at me now. She and I have talked about seeing one another in a more social setting, but I caught her taking off her wedding ring one day. She leaves it on now, and our flirting is harmless.
“Care to join me, ma’am?” I call out and the woman glides over to my booth and sits down with a leer. Waitstaff becomes professional suddenly, no pun intended, and takes her order.
“I’m Candy,” she says.
“Sweet.” I reply and Candy laughs the way women do when a man isn’t really that funny, but she’s pumping up his ego.
“You look cold, Candy,” I say, and she giggles.
“They could use some warming up. Thanks for breakfast. I owe you one,” Candy is in full business mode now, trying to figure out if breakfast is as much as she will get, or if I’m interested in more than that.
We trade flirts, she changes her name and tells me her real name in Trina, and she needs a ride to Adel, which isn’t that far away. She’s slowly working her way into my truck, and a destination, and I remain slightly noncommittal. But it’s raining, and I give in.
Finally, on the road to Adel, I asked Trina what questions she tired of people asking her and she laughs hard.
“One, how did you get started being a hooker. Two, aren’t you afraid, and three, how much money do you make,” Trina counts them on her fingers, and laughs.
The rain turns into sleet, and Trina tells me she likes the way the flecks of ice look like silver. She asks me if I want to get high and I tell her I can’t, and she can’t smoke pot in the truck.
“We could get a room,” she says, and honestly, it’s tempting because she’s a good conversationalist, but I’m wary of what might be lurking about in her blood.
We get to Adel and she asks to be let out at the truck stop there and we sit and talk for a while. The rain lets up, the sun comes out, but it’s getting colder. She asks me for enough money for some coffee, and I fork over a five. Trina then asks me for a pen, and she picks up the pad of sticky notes and writes. I think she’s giving me her number, but she takes the note, folds it, and asks me not to read it until I’m gone. I watch her walk away, the swing practiced and perfect. I read the note.
(4) Do you get tired of being treated differently because you sell sex?
Yes.
Take Care,
Mike
Friday firesmith – trump is free, America soon may not be
Americans are tired of wars in a time when gas is flirting heavily with four bucks a gallon, and there’s talk of marriage. But Trump is having a fire sale, and everything and anything is on the block. Want to produce explosive diarrhea lettuce? Done. Want to do a shoddy job on the reflecting pool? Trump arrests a guy on a bike. Want to be Attorney General? Agree to a billion dollar slush fund for Trump’s pals and you’re in!
But the Iranians…
They aren’t playing Trump Ball at all. They’re acting like they want to control an area they live in, and they aren’t going to allow Trump to lie his way out of it, either. Trump, who had made lying so common it no longer registers with the cultists, cannot understand why Iran keeps ratting him out over his lies about the peace treaty he keeps saying exists, but Iran keeps saying does not.
Worse, infinitely worse, people are beginning to question where the money went. We invaded Venezuela, kidnapped their president, and it was over in a couple of days. Trump personally took control over some of their tankers, had them sail to Bharain, and the tankers, and their cargo, were never heard from again.
But still… We have a trillion dollar defense budget. We rolled over Venezuela in a few days, and Trump declared victory in Iran, the first time, on the first day of murdering school girls. Then declarations the war was over came out on a near daily basis. Along with Trump threatening to destroy Iran’s civilization, which makes no sense if the war was already over.
But it was not and it is not.
Now Trump has discovered we’re almost out of bullets.
Then there are the photos from the American super carrier Gerald R Ford. Raw sewage flooding the decks and meals made of one piece of lunch meat and half an apple. Is that all we can afford to feed our sailors? Then there was the mysterious fire that was labeled as a laundry room incident that sent the carrier in for repairs. After eleven months at sea, the Ford returned to the states, but I’m thinking there isn’t a line for reenlistment. The word mutiny was tossed about during the fire, but no one is talking about that anymore.
American bases all over the Middle East have been destroyed. We have no clear indication as to who gave Iran the targeting intel, but only a few countries could have, and one of them is China. Russia is getting the hell kicked out of them in Ukraine, and we’ve lost a war to Iran. China isn’t fighting anyone and their stock is soaring.
One hundred days from midterms, and Trump is pulling out all the stops on being Grifter-in-Chief. He’s already filled his cabinet with yes men and minions, and every distraction is one more day the Epstein Files aren’t headline news.
But it is one hundred days from midterms. Trump knows that if he cannot wreck the legal system and tear things in American down low enough, he’s going to spend the rest of his life in prison.
He’ll do anything to keep that from happening. Even if America is destroyed in the process.
Take Care,
Mike