Snarky Boy

Well, that was weird. The Mark Johnson Show this morning, that is. The crown jewel of programming at the otherwise overly-folksy and self-loving WDEV.

Johnson led off the show with an interview with Vermont’s Senator Sleepy, also known as Leahy. The Senator’s staff is well aware of the Senator’s wandering attention span these days so they’re more and more careful about orchestrating his interactions with the public.

Trick number one in the game of “hide the Senator’s growing frailties” is to limit one-on-one contact. In radio, that means keep it as brief as possible and duck out before listener calls are allowed. It’s easy enough to pull this off, especially with the always-compliant Vermont media.

Johnson could put an end to these drive-by interviews by demanding more time from the politicians, including an ample amount of time for listeners to chime in. If they won’t agree to that, so be it. And Johnson could then report on the fact that Senator-so-and-so was invited but wouldn’t come because – apparently – they don’t want to take calls.

If you missed it, don’t worry, you missed nothing. Well, other than the fact that Leahy thinks Vermonters are special. Snore. At least with Leahy calling in you didn’t have to imagine the belly rub Johnson was giving him while sitting in his lap.

But then it got really weird. Johnson’s next guest was Allison Hooper of Vermont Butter & Cheese fame – well, in the goat cheese world. It began as one of those feel-good interviews you expect between Johnson and a local businessperson (think: advertising).

Lurking in the studio, however, was disgruntled goat farmer, Fred Huard, who was upset with Hooper because he failed to make a decent living at goat farming. It felt a whole lot like an ambush, of the bush league variety.

Huard flailed away at a sometimes shell-shocked Hooper, who was apparently expecting the typical love from WDEV. And the common theme from all his attacks came back to the same thread: Somehow it was Hooper’s fault that he had to keep his day job because goat farming didn’t pay off like he thought/hoped it would.

Ah, dude, here’s another tip: There is no Santa.

Frankly, it was just weird. Because, while a discussion on the realities of farming in Vermont would be great, this Huard character is certainly not the poster child for that campaign.

At one point, for example, he asked Hooper why she didn’t pick up the dead goats at the farms she contracts with and deliver them to the Food Bank. As Johnson kept him lingering and allowing him to throw one bizarro accusation after another at Hooper, I was half expecting to hear that Hooper was to blame for Hurricane Irene.

There was clearly something more to this story than we, the listeners, were told. How, exactly, did it come about? Did Huard set it up and then Hooper got invited in the name of “fairness”? Or vice versa? Does Huard have any connections with the Squier family? Did Johnson recently bite into some bitter goat butter? Would Johnson do a similar ambush on…say…Cabot? Or Green Mountain Coffee Roasters? Or Ben & Jerry’s?

If Mark Johnson is turning a new leaf and deciding to ambush guests, I’d like to volunteer to be the in-studio guest when he interviews Welch, Leahy or Sanders.

What do you say, Mark?

We interrupt the silence for…well…this.

Sorry about that.

But the Snarky friends and relatives have been misunderstanding my silence as pain rather than acknowledgement. They obviously didn’t read much Kierkegaard. Whatever.

Which is to say: The silence is broken. The word-fart has happened. And now you must sit in it because that is apparently what you like to do.

I promise I won’t tell.

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About that Vermont flood: Can we all just agree that people with seven houses can’t lecture us about carbon usage? Got that, Governor Shumlin?

Now get us some food.

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A real Tea-Partier would turn down FEMA help after a hurricane, right?

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I’m waiting for the day when a governor doesn’t just shovel platitudes in the faces of natural disaster victims. And you know all about the platitudes: My state has the best people. My state can take it. My state will fight better than your state. Blah, blah, blah.

Just once, I’d like to hear them call us all a bunch of “fucking whiners.”

—

I had to drive my niece to Burlington yesterday on a minor medical emergency. We passed the caravan of FEMA trucks and National Guard vehicles on I-89.

“At least they’re doing something positive,” she said.

Indeed.

—

Note to Vermont politicians: Stay out of their way.

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Quick Vermont Quiz: What’s the difference between almost all of you and your four top political officeholders (Shumlin, Leahy, Welch and Sanders)? They’re millionaires and you are not.

—

But they feel your pain. Really.

—

Wait. I just got a memo from the media elite. Hmm. Okay. I’ll just read it as it’s written:

“Don’t forget to say ‘thank you’ to WDEV.”

Oh, you didn’t know? Snarky Boy is now considered to be a member of the Vermont media elite. Just ask around if you don’t believe me.

I didn’t believe it myself until I was walking down Elm Street recently and ran into Chris Graff, former chief of the Vermont media elite but now a climbing figure in the overall Vermont power elite. Chris extended his hand in that friendly way that those of us who know Chris call “the Chris way” (snicker, snicker).

And then these words parted his well-connected lips: “Snarky, you’re one funny man. Keep it coming.”

For those not in the know about these things, that means he’s about to fuck my girlfriend. Wait. That’s not right. Sorry, I got distracted by the torrent of information being coughed out by Shay Totten.

It just means he likes me.

Fine. Now take me to lunch and make it worth something.

—

And while Graff is giving me the thumb’s up, Odum keeps getting more bizarre. Worse, the poor guy seems to be limping around downtown Montpelier – a lot. If he keeps that look up through foliage season, I’m betting he’ll get a few five-spots thrown his way from the tourists.

He better report it, too. Fucking tax-me-more-liberal.

But, this morning, I passed Odum around the library as he was lumbering down Main Street. I looked his way, awaited a gesture of some type, and then watched as he barked at me. Yes, as in: barked. Like a dog. Better yet, like a small dog. Yap, yap.

Okay.

Get it out, my friend.

—

Wait, this just in from the Vermont pot-growers alliance: “Um, FEMA, could you chill with the ‘copters, it’s making us crazy.

—

Good thing we got over that whole “silence” thing, huh?

—

I love you too, Chris Graff. And WDEV. And Vermont.

Silence.

Enjoy it while you can.

And a big, middle-finger salute to that bitch, Irene.

I took a job in Craftsbury yesterday. Got a call from a guy who got a call from another guy who said I was an okay guy. Translation: I’m taking every fucking job I can find.

I got word that we lost a contract job with the state earlier this week. The paper shufflers at Buildings & Grounds tried to pull a fast one on us by including a whole bunch of non-painting ninniness to our work report. Nice try. But adios.

They knew they had a lower-charging crew waiting in the wings. That’s the game. It’s what the suits call their “win-win.”

And then they’ll chuckle. Pretty soon, the chuckle turns into a cackle. Then, the cackle turns into a giant fucking fart that lands upon the poor schmuck who’s dusting their desk and counting the minutes.

Checkmate.

Or so it seems.

Maybe I’m bitter. Can’t tell anymore. It just feels like me.

But I spent yesterday driving a tractor with a brush hog on back going around and around and around in a field of mostly Golden Rod.

Or, as the boss-man from Newport said, “It’s nearly Fall…goddamnit…and the shit needs to be cut.”

So the shit was cut. By me. And some other folks who clearly needed the work as much as I did.

And today looks like more of the same, with a little hurricane preparation thrown in I’ll assume.

Other than that, I got nothin’.

Just because:

Intimates.
By D.H. Lawrence

Don’t you care for my love? she said bitterly.

I handed her the mirror, and said:
Please address these questions to the proper person!
Please make all requests to head-quarters!
In all matters of emotional importance
please approach the supreme authority direct!
So I handed her the mirror.

And she would have broken it over my head,
but she caught sight of her own reflection
and that held her spellbound for two seconds
while I fled.

Someone’s got to tell these protesting environmentalists to check the calendars of those they’re protesting. Because chanting outside the homes (Obama’s) and offices (Shumlin’s) of our elected leaders while they’re hundreds of miles away on vacation looks kind of silly. Just saying.

I was on lunch break today in Montpelier when I got sight of the Bread & Puppet bus parked at the Statehouse. And then I saw the gathering of people who seemed like the same people who always gather on the Statehouse to seemingly prove that – once again – they have absolutely no power.

I mean, really, when did the last protest on the Statehouse lawn ever lead to change? To me, when a movement gets to having a protest on the Statehouse lawn it’s almost like waving the white flag.

“Yep, it’s come to this,” say the slumping shoulders of the dutiful few who gather to show just how committed to losing they are.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for raising hell on the Statehouse lawn. But, for fuck’s sake, is it too much to ask that those leading the protests try a little something different in terms of strategy and tone? And here’s where they can start: No more Bread & Puppet. Please.

And I’m a fan of Bread & Puppet. In my younger years I spent a lot of time in Glover during the summers. I splashed more than my share of paint around the place – on houses, barns, buildings, buses, placards and torsos.

But, at this point, if all you’ve got is Bread & Puppet and a protest idea, try harder.

I mean, if Vermont is so full of creative change agents, why is Bread & Puppet so alone?

The protest today was all about fighting industrial wind, and about 100 or so Vermonters gathered to…ahem…watch Bread & Puppet make fun of corporate wind (deservedly so, I might add) and listen to a few well-meaning folks challenge Governor Peter Shumlin’s pro-wind ninniness.

One of the problems – other than the fact that Shumlin is never going to change his mind about big wind because he is full of it – is that Shumlin is on vacation. So making a big production about making a delegation visit to deliver him the petitions when he’s hundreds of miles away just doesn’t feel all that empowering.

Call me when you’ve got him surrounded. Or when you’ve got something in addition to Bread & Puppet.

The same thing happened late last week in Washington, DC when Vermont’s eco-darling, Bill McKibben, led a protest at the White House over Tar Sands and global warming. They burned enormous amounts of carbon to travel great distances to deliver Obama a message. The problem was that Obama was also burning enormous amounts of carbon to be on vacation.

In other words, those profiting from burning carbon won. Bummer.

It comes down to strategy. And these eco-folks seem more than a bit clueless.

Because while they do the same chanting on the OUTSIDE of power, the suits INSIDE are calling the shots. Moreover, everyone INSIDE knows that those on the OUTSIDE are doing the same old shit: Yak, chant, and Bread & Puppet. Rinse and repeat.

First of all, these protests have got to be happening when those you’re protesting against are forced to see it, feel it and – most likely – run from it. For example, instead of standing at the designated – and largely ignored – protest site of the Statehouse lawn, how about holding it at one of Shumlin’s scheduled events? Shumlin will be there. The media will be there. And I’ll guarantee the energy will be there when the confrontation begins.

Or, if you’d rather, how about a rally on the lawn of a corporate honcho – say, like, Mary Powell of Green Mountain Power. And make sure she’ll be home. Better yet, bring a 400-foot wind tower replica and set it up and watch her complain about it. But what’s “good” for our mountaintops must be “good” for Powell’s yard, right?

I do wish these anti-industrial wind folks the best. The boondoggle of industrial wind – especially in Vermont – will eventually go down as the wallet-stuffing charade that it is. The only question is whether it will go down before too many more mountaintops and towns are bastardized and forever changed by the big-money lies that fuel it.

Color me unimpressed – by Big Wind and the Big Duds that pass as protests around here.

Now get back to work.

Snarky Boy likes feedback, especially when it’s instant and honest. So a big thank you to John Odum, formerly of blogland (Green Mountain Daily) but now the news editor for the free bi-weekly in Montpelier, The Bridge, for his near-maniacal one-figure wave today in the capital city.

Yeah, that finger. Cool. Express yourself, Johnny-boy.

Poor guy. Word amongst his pals is that he’s taking his recent shit-canning from being the assistant to the coffeemaker (or something like that) at Vermont Natural Resources Council pretty hard.

And we all know he’s been hoping beyond hope to land a job with his coveted Democratic Party – any job, please! But “slam” go the doors there, too, even for a guy like Odum with fresh-party-boot-licking on his breath.

But I guess shitty bloggers with skin as thin as a Trojan condom aren’t in high demand.

So Odum had to hope his five reader-friends would forget all that he had said about the “legacy media” (read: print) being dead and bankrupt because – ahem – he’s now peddling his rambling prose in the…wait for it… “legacy media.” And that’s being kind to The Bridge, because it is, after all, a free bi-weekly. Double ouch.

So giving Snarky Boy the old one-finger-salute must have felt good. Whatever it takes. Get it off your chest, my friend.

And that goes for the rest of you, too.

Bring it.

Holy fuck. I had to spend the late morning and early afternoon being a stand-in merchant at the Montpelier Farmers’ Market today.

Please, don’t ask how I got roped into that gig. But, if you must, the short version goes something like this: Money.

Farmers’ markets in Vermont are like fucking vacuum cleaners aimed at the wallets of guilty liberals. These sons-of-bitches spend all week doing shit that they feel terrible about and then take their families to the market on Saturday as some sort of liberal penance.

“Forgive me, liberal Father, for I have sinned,” they seemingly proclaim. “So don’t worry about charging me a mind-fuck-amount for that tomato.”

Besides, the chicks falling for this look sweeter than the fruit. Or is that a vegetable?

Whatever.

The goal of a modern farmers’ market is quite clear: Rip. You. Off. Because ripping you off makes you feel good about – what was that again? – oh yeah: saving the family farm.

But believing that farmers’ markets are saving the family farm is kind of like believing that prostitution is saving our species. Every sperm is sacred, you know.

Good luck with that.

The farmer at the market provides a cucumber. The prostitute provides a hand job.

And they all go wee-wee-wee all the way home.

In the end, I got my money to stand and sell tiny $3.00 heads of lettuce to people who were desperately trying to figure out how to spend money to make them feel whole. I guess that’s what they call a “win-win” in this nutcase of an economy of ours.

After a day of selling shit to those who should be growing it, I’ve decided that a simple lazy tax would solve our nation’s economic woes. And it would go like this:

If you buy something like a zucchini or a blueberry you would be assessed a lazy-bastard tax of 100% of the purchase price. And, if it would make you feel better, you could get a little certificate with each purchase that you could hang on your chest that would read: I care so much that I’m willing to pay through the nose for it.

Okay, that might need some marketing. But if McDonald’s can sell death in a “Happy Meal,” I’m remaining hopeful about this whole marketing thing.

Or maybe I should just stick to painting houses.

Yeah, that’s it. And, as of Monday morning, I’m charging a whole lot more for it.

And who will be the first person in the mainstream Vermont media-land (yeah, all five of you) to point out that the Milton teens accused of “sexting” walked free – thanks, T.J. Donovan – because their parents were politically connected?

Tick-tock, tick-tock…

Face it, Chittenden County folk, T.J. Donovan knows who butters his bread and – ahem – political future. First, he let’s the ninnies who orchestrated the Burlington Telecom fiasco walk free and now these little rich boys who got their kicks by getting their female classmates to send them nude photos of themselves will do the same (I promise, honey, it’s only for me).

It doesn’t take much to realize what would have happened to these kids if their parents were – say – poor.

Shame on you, T.J. And not necessarily for letting these moneyed-boys walk free. But for being a two-faced servant of those who are paving your political future while sticking it to those who can’t afford your “cover charge.”

I met my girlfriend’s mother last weekend. Saturday night, to be precise. Dinner, to be even more precise. At Montpelier’s Black Door.

If I could get the lust for pussy out of my DNA, I’d do it just so I wouldn’t have to meet anymore goddamn mothers of my girlfriends. And it only gets worse with age.

Because the older I get, the older my girlfriends get. I don’t, you know, have the money or the house or the acreage to attract the young sweethearts. It seems stock brokers have an edge on house painters in that regard. Who knew?

The mothers of older unmarried women are an awkward bunch. They’re kind of like women in their late-30s who haven’t yet answered the biological beckoning to produce a little rug rat of their own. They’re anxious. They’re pushy. They’re nosey. And, worse, they deny that they’re anxious, pushy and nosey.

They only turn worse when the topic they’re most interested in is finally broached: Have I ever been married?

Because the last thing mommy dearest wants for their precious little (and unmarried and not-so-young) daughter is to be some snarky painter’s next relationship victim. It’s funny how they can ignore their own matrimonial nightmares while harshly assessing mine.

The Black Door seemed like a good place to break the ice with the mommy figure. The food is passable – if not too small-plated-and-hip – and the lighting is soft and dark.

The only difficulty is running the gauntlet of the better-than-you set that usually occupies the tony bar. Yeah, you know the types, the heads of every Montpelier-based eco-group, the lobbyists for anyone who will pay them more than they’re worth, and the trust-funders who’ve come to the age where they’re a whole lot less concerned about hiding the fact that they are doing nothing but spending a lot.

I’ve tried to stay out of the drama surrounding The Black Door. All I know is that it’s a Jeff Jacobs building, which, translated for those not from the area, means drama. Lots of drama. Jacobs is a petty little prick with more than a little Napoleon complex. Um, Jeff, it’s Montpelier.

But meet the mom went as well as could be expected. After getting over the chill created by my one-divorce confession, she warmed up a bit. The wine did its trick for us, flushing our faces and lubricating the awkwardness long enough to avoid a major incident.

Sure, there’s always the shit about, “how long do you want to be a painter?” But I’m used to that. And she was just groovy enough to encourage me to become “an arty painter.”

“You know,” she said, “like on canvasses and things.”

And things?

Wine, please.

But my girlfriend’s still talking to me so I must have gotten the okay.

I think I might just break up with her today.