Hi Pete,
I’d ask how you’re doing, but, well. You know.
Anyway, you may not actually get this letter but it felt like the right time to send it. Robert S. passed away a year ago this past week. That makes entirely too many of our S.M. family who are no longer around for fellowship at The Dish (which is also gone, btw).
We lost William H. years before we lost you but we also lost Andy C. not long after William. More recently dearest Robert F. went and now Robert S. is gone.
Those of us remaining vertical and sucking air are shocked — shocked, I tell you — to discover we’re hitting Medicare-age ourselves. You were only 60 when you died, my friend, and so got totally screwed out of all the senior discounts. Personally, I treasure my long-awaited half-fare Metrocard. $66 a month, baby!
Although, the Metrocard itself will soon be gone, too. I remember you refusing to get that yellow piece of plastic and sticking with tokens for as long as you possibly could. That’ll be me and my Metrocard, buddy.
Robert S. made it to 89. I did the math and realize that he was only three years older than I am now back when I first started hanging out on Saturday nights with all the rest of the lunatics, weirdos, and whack jobs. Even then he was the elder of the gang and I swear he looked exactly the same in the year before he died as he did when we met.
He’d already been kept pretty busy appearing in short films and off off (off off off) Broadway stage productions by the time you left us. But he went on to build quite a career and even has his own entry in the IMDb database.
And he saw many of the things you missed.
Sitting down?
Donald Trump was elected President of the United States in 2016. No. Really. There has been an ongoing shit show since he announced his candidacy and the fun keeps rolling in. Now he’s facing down multiple lawsuits — nothing new for that slippery waste of bone and nerve endings — but this time one or more of them might just take him down. We can only hope.
Let’s be clear, however, that even if they haul his disgusting old ass to the penitentiary it won’t clean things up in this country.
Remember when you told Robert and me that you were done reading the New York Post because your blood pressure couldn’t take it? I believe you did actually stop buying that particular rag for some months. And, yes, you did seem less wound up at lunch at the Village Den (gone, too, btw).
Now that I’m thinking out loud here (ok, thinking in print), I wonder if your blood pressure would have survived the past decade. Having the failed real estate developer parading around as The Most Powerful Man in the World for four years was tough. Turns out that was just the opening act for what is quickly devolving into one very badly screwed-up decade. Century? Hmmm, we’ll see.
I’ll go out on a limb and say that the two-plus years since the arrival of the novel coronavirus have been worse. You’d recognize this scenario as the avid student of history that you were. Think influenza pandemic of 1918 on steroids.
What could have been an opportunity for people to come together and help each other instead just fueled more resentment and hate. People are hopeless. Instead of simply wearing the damned annoying masks and getting the vaccines, about half the country pouted and threw tantrums. It did make for sickeningly entertaining videos online.
Oh, and here’s something that is right up your alley, Grumbleduke, old man. Check it out. It appears we’re picking up where things supposedly ended in 1945. Yep, Pete, we’re seeing the reprise of all those great World Wars revving up in Ukraine. It’s messy and confusing and horrifying. People are dying on both sides, but my tax money and that of all your other still-breathing friends are funding more weapons being sent by this country to keep Ukraine fighting. Because after expanding NATO for years and breaking agreements and treaties to do so, the so-called Western Democracies are aghast that Russia invaded Ukraine.
The nerve.
The only people happy with these developments are the Azov Battalion and their fans. You know. Geniuses like the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers. Basically, anyone who thought the riot at the Capitol on January 6 was just what this country needed.
Oh, right. You missed that, too, huh, Pete? Damn. I hate that you’re not here to roar in outrage, Pete. I miss you!
Much love,
LaMouche, (still reminding friends what you’d say in any given situation)
Nice.