tl;dr!? Too long; didn’t read? My final 2020 sundry assortment in which I present the thoughts that are barely legible from our scribble notebook since December 1, 2020.

Until January 20, 2021, we are on pins and needles. This is a final nod to 2020 as tomorrow it will be in our rear-view mirror and although the idiom is that hindsight is 20/20, we believe given the filter of memory and remove from events, hindsight looks more like swishy broad-swaths of paint like Monet on water lilies and the prickly details that seemed oh so salient and painful at the time fade away like threadbare jeans washed one time too many and oh we do go on.

Sitting down to tease out a final post on 2020, here we go!

Chadwick Boseman (November 29, 1976 – August 28, 2020)

Dec. 17, 2020 – “Ma Rainey’s Big Black Bottom” shows up on the Netflix recommends and, Chadwick Boseman. He died in August and it feels like forever ago and we are in awe that he inhabited a role completely while fighting for his life off-screen.

On September 5, Saturday Night Live repeated the episode with Mr. Boseman which included him as T’Challa in this Black Jeopardy sketch which leads to …

Alex Trebek (July 22, 1940 – November 8, 2020)

December 17, 2020 – Alex Trebek died in November. It hits us today too while contemplating Chadwick Boseman. Mr. Trebek’s final new taped episodes of Jeopardy! air January 5 – January 8, 2021.

Only on Jeopardy. It can be annoying to always follow a statement with a question, but Alex insisted on it and for that alone, he will be missed. “Alex, how do you pronounce genre?”

Or who could forget Turd Ferguson’s love ballad?

And the first two episodes of Jeopardy ever with Mr. Trebek are a time-machine treat. The first episode predates the rule that contestants could not ring in until after the clue was read in its entirety. The second episode demonstrates that the contestants would bet the house to metaphorically try to outrun the bear when they only needed to bet enough to outrun their competition. (You’ll need to find your own viewing platform. I have no links.)

Giannis Antetokounmpo inks a deal!

December 15, 2020 – Bucks players reportedly handed Giannis Antetokounmpo pens as encouragement to sign, and there were light rumors that he wouldn’t and let’s face it, he could sign a check and play somewhere else, but he didn’t.

Giannis Antetokounmpo remains a Milwaukee Buck! Fear the deer.

And the opportunity he brings to the Milwaukee area by remaining is greater than the FauxCon deal. (For more, read The Recombobulation Area: Milwaukee’s Monumental Moment: Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Decision to Stay Brings Fresh Hope to the Brew City by Dan Shafer.)

Mackenzie Scott

Formerly known as Mackenzie Bezos, Mackenzie Scott is divorced free and clear of Jeff Bezos and is backing off the pier at wealth’s end using philanthropy! For which we cheer. And we look forward to her perhaps flying off to do some angel investing.  Or watering some small businesses that actually pay employees a living wage.

We are looking forward to Mackenzie Scott getting big things done and making a big whale of a splash because she CAN!

(Aside: philanthropist sounded like a great occupation until I found out how much money requires and I couldn’t even afford a new red car.)

An impeached but not removed POTUS.

December 18, 2019 – The Teflon CheetoTM was impeached but not removed.

The acceleration of his destruction through 2020 caught wind and leaves us breathless with the havoc. Hurricane Teflon CheetoTM sits in the calm of the eye of his own storm and golfs. This metaphor gives us hope in that the hurricane hit land in November and continues to lose momentum.

That’s the hope anyway.

The angst: Donald Trump Has Turned America Into a Failed State, by Jessica Wildfire, Apeiron.

Rock in a House. Photoshopped graffiti. The sentiment is all my own.

Free & Fair Elections

December 30, 2020 – It occurs to me while typing “free & fair elections” that we’ve misunderstood the whole “fair” part of election security. It is not about “fair” defined as “marked by impartiality and honesty: free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism.”

No. We have seen voter suppression. In Wisconsin, we have been subject to a post-election Supreme Court lawsuit in which a judge flat out told a Trump lawyer that the suit “smacks of racism.”

No. The definition of “fair” seems to be 4: not dark.

RIP GOP. I understand Stacey Abrams is coming for you January 5, 2021.

Confessions of a Bookseller, page 94.

Since gifted with this book by my FAL, I have started taking a different view of independent and used bookstore commerce and have adjusted my behavior somewhat. Running a bookstore is a difficult business.

  • Customers want to browse books in brick and mortar shops and then find a better deal on Amazon.
  • Customers want to trouble you for a top-shelf book so they can see how much the copy they own is worth.
  • Customers want to haggle when there is only a waifer-thin profit at stake.

See what I did there? Waif. Waifer. Wafer. Wafer-thin. I digress.

But! the owner of this bookstore, Shaun Bythell, is within shouting distance in Wigtown which is 42.4 miles or 68.2361856 km give or take of Trump Turnberry Estates. On page 94 he makes this delightful yet troubling observation:

… She’s going to Turnberry to apply for a receptionist’s job. Despite his best efforts, most of the people of south-west Scotland refuse to refer to the hotel and golf course as the egomaniacally renamed ‘Trump Turnberry.’ I suspect his proposed refit of the hotel will turn the place into a monument to diabolical taste. My old housemate Martin and I used to exchange Christmas presents when he lived here. On year — by total chance — we both gave one another a copy of a book by Peter York called Dictators’ Homes. I have no doubt that Donald Trump uses it for designing interiors like normal people would use Terence Conran’s House Book.

Shaun Bythell, Confessions of a Bookseller, page 94.

Confessions is organized by daily journal entries. If you are interested and can’t procure a copy through either your local library or independent bookseller, check out Thriftbooks.com as an alternative to Amazon.

Mr. Bythell echoes what we already knew about Trump.

He wants to be a dictator.

Wisconsin Supreme Court

Monday, December 14, 2020 – The Wisconsin Supreme Court is made up of six (6) female justices and one (1) male justice. Isn’t that a thing? Wow.

In today’s decision, WI Supreme Court Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote the opinion cosigned by Ann Walsh Bradley, Rebecca Dallet, and Jill J. Karofsky. “Judicial acquiescence to such entreaties built on so flimsy a foundation would do indelible damage to every future election. Once the door is opened to judicial invalidation of presidential election results, it will be awfully hard to close that door again. This is a dangerous path we are being asked to tread.”

The entreaty of the lawsuit? Disenfranchise every Wisconsin voter.

And the Teflon CheetoTM was not happy.

Dec. 20, 2020 – Justice Hagedorn did an interview with the New York Times. He has been threatened. But he stands beside his ruling: “And I said I was going to be a textualist and an originalist” and “To me there was a pretty clear application of well-settled law and that’s how I moved forward in deciding those issues.“

Of note, Justice Hagedorn voted absentee.

Johnson & Johnson

The click-bait headlines of late, do not disambiguate Johnsons. It used to be confusion about which Sanders we might be talking about. We needed specifics. Sarah Huckabee? Or Bernie? Now I need to click into which ‘Johnson’ a headline refers. I need clarity BEFORE.

Are we talking about Boris? BoJo? Prime Minister of Britain and rutabaga bulb head?

Or Ron? RoJo? Wisconsin Senator, Trump defender, and potato head?

Crazy.

Today it is reported that BoJo’s father is applying for French citzenship.

Meanwhile RoJo has thrown all in on the Trump Regime wild claims, visited Russia on the 4th of July and why? and he is up for reelection in 2022.

We are all in for his Democratic replacement.

2020. In close.

And by close, we mean 6′.

Remembering those we lost this year to a nasty virus.

Wear a mask.

Be patient. Be kind.

Happy New Year!