Day 181…
It’s like the day after a big party in Provincetown this morning.
There aren’t very many people around. Bunting is hanging askew off of some places and rainbow flags lie crumpled on the street. The Black Lives Matter chalk markings are still visible in some places but worn off in others.
It’s cloudy and slightly hazy as if the bleary-eyed weather simply couldn’t be bothered to put on something nice. The app on my phone says that it will burn off by the afternoon. We will see. Accuracy and the weather app on my phone are only distant cousins and rarely speak to each other.
A friend of ours has come up and is staying with us for the rest of the time we are here. We’ve created a bubble.
Last night we all saw the comedian Judy Gold perform at the Crown and Anchor. It was the first live performance any of us had been to in six months. It was perfection.
There’s an extensive open area between the street and the Crown and Anchor building that is filled up with tables. The performance, however, took place all the way in the back, behind the hotel rooms around the pool. Chairs had been set up in short rows, distant from each other. While the tickets were all general admission, somebody had already decided where everyone was going to sit. We were all nicely and evenly scattered throughout the seating area - nobody too close to each other and nobody too far away from the action.
At the beginning of her set, Judy asked if anyone in the audience supported the President. If they did, nobody copped to it. She then suggested that if anybody did, that they should leave now. Then she questioned why they would be in Provincetown at all to huge laughter and applause. She then proceeded to take the President apart. Michael has occasional laughter-induced asthma. He needed his woofer several times last night.
Despite his denials, it’s clear that everything that the President has been accused of saying against the armed forces is exactly true. The only people who are defending him and denying it are his family and most loyal henchmen. Coincidentally, they were also the only people he was able to get to speak up for him at the Republican National Convention. Nobody in the military has offered so much as a murmur of support.
The comments he made about our fighting forces - that they were “suckers” and “losers” for either signing up in the first place or being dumb enough to get captured or killed - may be the first heinous thing he’s done that actually sticks and makes some people reconsider their support for him.
The writer Michael Cunningham, who wrote the novel, The Hours, that was made into the film that won Nicole Kidman her Oscar, lives in Provincetown. He also wrote a beautiful little book called Land’s End that is all about the town.
In the book, he talks about the Pilgrim Monument that stands in the center of town.
Everybody thinks that when the Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower that they landed at Plymouth Rock. There’s even a cement gazebo built around what people claim is the actual rock. While I am sure that they actually arrived at that point in Plymouth, that is not where they first landed when they got here after their long and arduous crossing of the Atlantic. They landed in Provincetown and stayed here for five weeks.
Eventually they realized that there was not enough fresh water available out here and they headed further inland, but this is where they began their lives in the New World.
Over a hundred years ago, in an attempt to set the historical record straight, the town’s selectmen decided to build a big, showy monument to clarify the situation. Finished in 1910, the Pilgrim Monument is 252 feet and 7 ½ inches tall. It is based on the design of the Torre del Mangia in Sienna, Italy. From where we are staying in North Truro, when you look across the bay, it makes Provincetown look like Venice out on the horizon.
In his book, Michael Cunningham points out that that if you look at the design of it, at the top, you can see that it looks exactly like Donald Duck. It’s not always easy to see, but once you do, you will never see anything else. I took a good long look at it on Sunday and it is completely true. It looks just like Donald Duck.
And now I can’t unsee it.
I would like to think that the President’s disparaging comments about our military will have the same effect. Once you catch a glimpse of the emperor without his clothes, you will never be able to see the imaginary garments again.
For those whose eyes have been newly opened, I would say, welcome, please come in and have a seat. I know that it’s hard to process, but now that you’ve actually heard that, there are some other things that you should re-hear. Maybe have a cup of coffee first. And a little something for your stomach.
Judy Gold concluded her set with a whole series of dick jokes. She would yell out, “Donald Trump’s dick is so small…” And we would all yell back, “How small is it?”
Petty? Oh yes, completely.
Satisfying? Oh yes, completely.
It was good to be back in a crowd, albeit spread out. You can’t do that on Zoom.
Strangely, the President’s choice of response to the allegations about the remarks he’s made is to now lash out in kind at all of our military leaders. "I'm not saying the military's in love with me -- the soldiers are, the top people in the Pentagon probably aren't because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy." The soldiers are, of course, the very people he’s mocked.
One of the things that all of us have been worrying about is that should he lose the upcoming election, will he actually relinquish control of power. Would the military stand behind him if he refused to go? With each passing day, it is starting to seem clear that they will not.
In the past, the President has proposed invoking the Insurrection Act against the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has publicly stated his opposition to that. The President has opposed the part of the $740 billion defense bill that would replace the names of military installations across the country that still that honor those who fought for the Confederacy. The entire Joint Chiefs of Staff have voiced their opposition to him on that as well.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mark Miley said, "Those officers turned their back on their oath," meaning the ones for whom the bases were named. "It was an act of treason, at the time, against the Union, against the Stars and Stripes, against the US Constitution." Frankly, the more the President speaks out against the military, the better off all of the rest of us are.
As if to agree with what I just wrote, the sun has just this moment broken through the clouds. There’s blue up there.
With the Labor Day partiers mostly gone, Commercial Street is starting to open up to regular business. Some stores have started to close for the season. Others will wait until Columbus Day in October and then close. There are summer clearance sales happening all up and down the street. A few hardy shops will stay open all throughout the winter.
It’s much easier, up here, to put the daily news into a more manageable perspective.
The world, as we know it, may be ending, but there are t-shirts and Cape Cod tchotchke available for 30-50% off.
I sense some much-needed retail therapy in my future before we hit the beach.
This was fabulous! Ptown is inspiring you to the nth degree :)
❤️you seem to always gravitate to where the party is and theatre is live!
Michael Cunningham..💕💕💕💕
stay on the beach
xx