I am trying not to write about current political events because it undermines my soul when I do. I considered writing a polemic titled “The New American Dick,” about the young white men I see defying the mask order in indoor public places. They are self assured, stupid-looking, smug, spoiling for confrontation and endangering others, particularly those working the front lines and ringing up their shitty food purchases. It is the height of arrogance and narcissism and…okay I wasn’t going to write that polemic.

The writing these days feels almost useless. Writing doesn’t change anyone’s mind anymore. Did it ever? Can anyone reading this cite a recent example of changing one’s mind after reading something? It feels like everything people read these days, at least as far as nonfiction goes, exists merely to confirm bias. Of course, when press released from the White House are totally fictional, who knows what to make of anything. I just wrote that and it didn’t make sense to me. But why try to edit it?

About the only thing making any sense to me these days is my friendship with chipmunks.

I’m reading Nelson Algren’s The Man with the Golden Arm. I can’t say it’s holding up very well, but he was taking a run at the urban miscreant underclass during his heyday. The subject I would love to take on is the rural miscreant underclass of today. It’s all around me. Maybe that book would matter and change peoples’ minds.

One wonders if the President would admit the Corona Virus is something to take serious if he was just about ready to give up the ghost after contracting it?

No. He’d blame Obama for poisoning him.

More people on the move cross my path. They seem like they have no idea why they are moving.

Almost everyone I know outside my family doesn’t return phone calls.

I have exactly one pressing priority—shave.

I rambled the beach at an extreme low tide on the morning of Fourth of July. I admired sea stars and mussels. I stopped in one of my forts and made a phone call to a dear friend. I visited another fort and read the strange nonsense someone had written on the wood.

On my way home I begin to think about my country and the spectacle the President staged at Mt. Rushmore last night. I didn’t watch a second of, nor will I ever. I never thought I would live to see the day when a tinpot dictator held the highest office in the land. It all seems to be collapsing around him in disorder and death.

I got into it with a neighbor the other day. He described the mask order as Nazi. He said it was all a hoax and the flu. I rebutted this and that and then walked away. If gravity aided the Democrats, he would say gravity was a hoax and believe it. Consider this: many French reactionaries welcomed the Nazis invasion of their country. The Vichy government and all that. This time feels like that to me, a Vichy sort of government in place that rallies the fanatics with fear and hate and debasement. The old fascist playbook. It’s never changed. It never will. Consider this: there were many Germans who still believed in Hitler after it all ended. We have those kind of Americans today.

Last night I watched a movie about football and one of the extras was someone named Jack Snow, which I think is about the best male name I have ever heard. It occurred to me that I once owned the football card of Jack Snow. He was on my All-Name team, a group of players with the best football names, such as Dick Butkus and Jack Ham and Sonny Sixkiller.

As I was walking back home from the beach, I came across a dilapidated red sedan parked in front of a grange hall. The sedan was covered in moss and duct tape. The tags were expired from years ago. A young man was sleeping in the driver’s seat because the back seat was filled with shit. The man wore a black hoodie and his mouth was wide open as he slept. He face was scarred and hollow.

This scene struck me as precisely the image of America’s body politic.

The swallows soared overhead as I passed the sedan. They didn’t care about anything but flying.

I hope I don’t hear a single firecracker tonight, but I will.