By Scott Sullivan
Editor
E.C., Call Home
No prophet may be accepted less in his hometown than Johnny Cash, who got shot in the crotch last week.
The Man in Black’s death 19 years ago didn’t stop Kingsland, Ark., from painting his image on a newly-erected water tower. A still-unknown gunner could not resist plugging it so Johnny’s crotch leaked down from on high on villagers. Sounds like a song he’d write now he’s doing time prior to his next live gig.
Some people think Pandora (Greek for “all gifts”) is a music streaming service or jewelry line. To me she’s the mythical wife of Prometheus whose box contained every blessing and evil, depending on how you look at them.
Tempted like live-evil-veiled Eve, Pandora opened her cache and out flew, guns, bombs, pandemics, babies and more curses/blessings men love to lay on women. All that remained in the box was hope.
Piercing Cash to piss on his birthplace was such wanton vandalism it’s good the law cuts no favors for creative miscreants who haven’t been pre-accepted.
With John Wayne and Cash gone, Clint Eastwood, who turns 92 May 30, wears the Existential Cowboy Crown. As next E.C. in line I fret even Clint’s Magnum will notr suffice should I shuffle off, say, to Buffalo.
Clint slew slews we knew had it coming, saving us “little (don’t ask us how small) guys” from our forefathers’ system since perverted by (name scapegoats here) prolonging and thwarting true justice just as fiction films always teach us. It redeems us to see them splattered.
Cash cashed in on sympathy for the downtrodden; Clint was sparse with sentiment and “Sympathy for the Devil” shows how a differently-pitched version of the same made The Rolling Stones martyrs too.
Twisting history even more to my favor, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is pushing an attack to teach private-giant Disney it’s not OK to teach young children to say ‘gay.”
He wants the state to re-seize more than 25,000 acres it ceded to Disney for Disney World 55 years ago after Florida first stole it fair and square from the Indians. Saying Disney turned swampland southwest of Orlando into a goldmine the firm has dispersed through the state for years doesn’t understate Ron’s 2024 presidential hopes.
Here’s the game plan: Ron kills his hopeful GOP forbear and fellow Floridian Donald Trump with enough tart kindness to distance himself as Dad’s past catches up with him.
Now for Mom. PACs whose milk Ron suckles forgive him for pitching faux populism against “woke” giant Disney (which kicked in just $100,000 for his last three campaigns) if doing so wins Rick enough votes to keep returning their fiscal favors.
Don’t mistake Oedipus for tower edifice in Kingsland. The man Cash sang he “shot in Reno/just to watch him die” was a symbol to Folsom prisoners too. Such show ponies rarely tell.
Segueing back to The Deep State (whose depth is unspecified nor is it Florida), squashing a firm’s private rights, Ron’s likely safe knowing most (i.e. all) state businesses smaller than Disney resent and envy Darth Vader’s might.
Mickey Mouse’s fiefdom now spans two counties, four theme and two water parks, a sports complex, 175 road miles, Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista cities and 67 miles of water frontage. Only casino tribes win sovereignty on that scale these days.
Think how much Ron’s bureaucracy can lose if it takes Disney’s land. Wait, there’s more to purloin. The state can take away soon-to-expire trademark rights for Walt Disney’s original Mickey Mouse as well.
My father used Mickey’s name to describe things he thought were half-assed, i.e. often. Still, the cartoon rodent’s 1928 premiere in the black-and-white short “Steamboat Willie” drawn by Walt himself launched an entertainment powerhouse. Ron squeezing Disney’s seminal Mouse may teach all sides something.
Ron might prefer his erection on a crucifix over a tower leaking Cash, but the latter’s visage shedding tears, as opposed to pee, might have value for worshippers of the new male Virgin Mary.
My aversion to Ron’s self-inflation is conflating him with Johnny, who could play suffering like Carl Perkins could a guitar. Ron in Black would make all suffer. De-Santa Claus named A Boy Who’s Most Likely to Sue, on the other hand, I can see.
What concerns me now is Rick Perry, the ex-Texas governor who’s Ron’s prototype as a presidential hopeful, has morphed into a pitchman for psychedelics. That’s right, the short-lived 2012 frontrunner — till he bungled debates by forgetting the U.S. had an energy department and complaining Dems had doled out $500 million to the country of Solyndra — now peddles pizzas with magic mushrooms.
Trump avenged himself for Perry’s 2016 rivalry by naming Rick energy secretary, but he’d cooked his political goose long before then likely due to his not-yet-disclosed preference for such substances. They are not the same league of hallucinogen as power, but it’s what Rick has left. Is Ron headed that way too?
For politicians it’s best to keep hope in reserve because they can pledge to resuscitate what has never been in the first place. Thank God we live in Solyndra where thinkers can think anything we want.