It's a quarter past one in the am, so time to do a little thread about Cedar Rapids.

CR is just up the street from me but had mostly been a foreign land. I've gotten to know the town just a little bit. Met some people. Drank some beers.

The truth of it is just as soon as I figure out the streets, CR isn't foreign at all. And the streets thing is everywhere. We're critters of habit, and CR doesn't respect my habits.

(Smokes, for one, are overpriced.)

Just as soon as y'all get roofs back over your heads (I know this is an ask), you might look at your critical infrastructure.

Like the people you're electing to office.

City and county government isn't sexy until 65% of the trees have come down, the internet and cell phones are down, but you don't know that since you've got no power either.

That landline? Also dead.

Some have done better than others. Everyone got damage, I get it. Nevertheless, some looked out for others before they cared for themselves.

I know @ashleyvanorny spent a lot of time pointing me in helpful directions when she, like all of you, are dealing with some shit.

The calculus below changes when you are elected to serve your people. You have to deprioritize yourself, while watching the line go out of your spool. You have to take the hit but can't let your line go dry. https://twitter.com/modestholdings/status/1300662186000482304

Apologizes for a mess of metaphors there. Editors are awesome.

The point: pay attention to the folks who represent you. What they do is worth a few shillings more than what they say.

Your mayor done fucked the poodle, screwed the pooch. Even in matters of life and death, mistakes can be forgiven but going to ground... nope.

The state and feds pretty much spent a week tying their goddamned shoelaces together before they bumrushed in to offer their ministrations, thots and prayers.

The less that's said of the Prestige NGOs the better.

Don't send $20 to the Red Fucking Cross. Buy two cases of beer and drop em off with a Benji, no questions asked, and fucking delight that you just got someone well for 90 minutes.

Alright! Everything is FUCKED! Woo, end thread!

No, no, nope, nein, fuck off we are now getting to the good stuff. I was trying to go to bed, but I need a whiskey and a couple more beers. Get thineself attentive.

Little Phil Collins will get me in the spirit, not that spirits are something I'm lacking.

(Tonight's syllabus is "Man on the Corner" if anyone's asking.)

Here's where I'm dumbstruck. I've worked for a lot of folks the past few weeks. Some of you are impolite obstinate assholes and it's nice to work with someone I recognize.

But most of you are goddamned sweethearts.

How in the hell did you end up with that there mayor o' yours?

To the deaf man who wanted to argue about how to get that soft maple off his porch roof without taking the windows with it, *I FEEL YOU*.

It takes a LOT to let someone help. An American pathology.

[Programming note: now switching to "Calling All Stations" to show some love for not-Collins Genesis.]

So we got the tree off his roof without breaking any windows. I patched his roof (temp). Managed to also not destroy the absolutely gorgeous IKEA looking playset he had just finished building for his grandkiddos.

I did, however, punch a half-dollar sized hole in his vinyl siding. The man was not happy.

And you know what? Good for him.

Let him yell at me, because I'm here and I'm accountable. I'm not some dumb meteorological phenom.

Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is give people an outlet for their anger and despair. I'm not in CR just to do tree work. I'm bringing my shoulders for everything else, too.

(Programing note: "Land of Confusion" seems apropos.)

I really am trying to figure out how to square the people we elect with the people they are charged to serve.

A week ago... two?, can't remember anymore... I was driving around looking for work. Not hard! Pass this place and I have GOT to circle the block.

Dude running a sandwich board like his life depends on it hawking free chow.

So here's this place of ruin, everything is fucked, and about 20 people running a canteen like it's a goddamned FOB somewhere in those far east places we run wars in we don't want to think about.

(These cats were *not* serving MREs but some fucking BBQ that looked like KCK (sorry for the double parenthetical @Rushthewriter) best look OUT and I'm coming back to CR hungry soon.)

A week, two weeks ago - you can't go a few blocks without seeing this. Someone gave CR lemons and they're just using the zest, ain't got to the good shit yet I'm proper sure.

Programing: I know you can read these faster than I can write them, but plug in "Time" as covered by "Doom Side of the Moon" and ingest.

I'm wandering around town in between hints from Councilwoman Vanorny and I've got people flagging me town to get well fed.

Well played, Cedar Fucking Rapids.

Well played indeed.

A couple sorta weeks ago - time is meaningless - we worked some trees where four or five households were in attendance. It was sorta an embarrassment, but a delightful one.

Place looked like G-d Herself had determined These Particular Trees Need Some Old Testament Treatment.

One of the locals has got both an 025 (Stihl porn, apologizes) and what looked suspiciously like an HT 250 (a chainsaw on a stick, as it were, more Stihl).

I proceeded to get my own saw bound up on a demon tree.

One neighbor finds a rock to use as a wedge, another procures an eight pound engineer's hammer and a come-a-long was involved (lost, tears), &c &c &c. Central casting put some leading people into supporting roles.

Eventually the dude with the ought twenty five busts my own 250 loose. We then move down the block for the most surreal moment.

Programing: Ché Aimee Dorval, "The Widow," which is fits an idiot like me thrashing about with a high performance maiming machine known as a chainsaw.

When's the last time you were in someone else's house?

So these folks got a whole fuckin' tree on their exquisite front porch, and understandably, would appreciate some relief.

Said tree is also sort fucking up their sidewalk and oh, did I mention there is some of that BBQ on tap?

This just became a humanitarian mission.

I gotta plenty of crazy but try and limit my stupid. Need to get on that porch roof. I know it's going to be a shitty risky job to both kit and caboodle.

Detailed that here. https://twitter.com/modestholdings/status/1294865140547018752

So I walk thru someone else's house. So weird. When I sent Busch Light to @lyzl's pad it was just as weird. Mask up!

Up the steps, out the window, lots of broken glass. Fucking wind. Oh. And this tree that really would like to kill me.

There's some operational drama, detailed in that thread, but we get it done. If memory serves, it was Easy Eddy and quesadillas.

So we're in a hellscape where nobody has juice, you need explosives to find the sidewalk, but also the best eats this side of La Juanitas in Sioux City.

I merely almost killed myself getting that maple off the porch roof. We were done for the day - nothing left in the tank. So we made friends.

Can't remember if it was Bever or Grand - your streets are an abomination before god - but had one hell of a time.

All you beautiful bastards. Each and every one of you. I had to remember some things about rope and saw I'd put aside. But mostly I learned from you.

Humans are a resilient bunch.

CR, it's going to a forced march on an empty stomach. Going to take all hands. Lots of folks not as lucky as most of us are going to need a hand.

One more beer, because now comes the denouement.

Better make it two and a double of rye.

I can only do this at 3 in the morning, because it involves people that are not OK. They're not going to be OK. We've failed them. You, personally, and me too.

Time to look in the mirror and take my lumps.

I can do some shit with a saw. Lots of volunteers can. That fucking BBQ... god I'm hungry.

Hungry for those who won't get to go back, those who need to leave and cannot stay but yet cannot escape.

There's a refugee community in CR that's now going onto the four winds. CR will suffer their departure.

If I've done enough good in the world to call @sharpcarnival1 a friend, well pause coz she's doing God's own Works. And she's going through her own trial, and it breaks my fucking heart.

She'll demur because it eats at her that she can't do what she needs to do for the people that depend on her. Mister Rogers said look for the Helpers, but by gawd, they need help too.

This is such a hopeless clusterfuck. I am - we are - tangled in a bramble. When it all grabs you from every each way, when any movement at all seems only to hasten your demise.

Some will be OK, mostly the fortunate and well-resourced. Most will take it on the chin, and it'll haunt them. The invisible effects of a storm, stalking you for years.

Some will be destroyed, smashed. These are the folks I have failed.

I'm sorry.

We are responsible for one another. Some reject that, and they seem to have the upper hand at present. But eventually, the other will be you.

We must do better.

The final syllabus entry for this thread is Don't Fear the Reaper.

Good morning.

You must be fortunate in your misfortune to be deserving of state aid. https://twitter.com/iowasnewsnow/status/1300704951392374784