It’s another Bad Day at Black Rock and

Where is Spencer Tracy when you need

Him most?

 

He conquered the isolated, southwest town

With a really bad secret and a huge case

Of paranoia

 

Written in 1948 in the midst of fear of

The Japanese and released in 1954 with-

Out the endorsement

 

Of the Honorable, Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Dry desert, weather-beaten buildings, and

Booze to numb shame

 

Bad Day was/is a great metaphor for jingoism

And xenophobia right there in the desert west

And all over today

 

In a dried out but sweating, frightened, political

System where supposedly intelligent, educated,

elected representatives

 

of ours strut around without guns hanging from

their hips but who hide them in their pants and

pop off at their jewels regularly.

 

It’s another Bad Day at Black Rock, a town along

I-17 we pass regularly and stop at occasionally

For a beer

 

After visiting a relative in Cottonwood.  The barmaid

Looked really tough so we made jokes and we didn’t

Engage others

 

Not being Tracy ourselves, but just moved along

Thinking that eventually we could get back on

The road

 

Or perhaps we could start thinking about having

Something good happen in this miserable, intolerant,

Blood-thirsty,

 

Trigger happy society and weak-kneed political

Environment beholden to billionaires with bucks

Not guns (or perhaps)

 

By seeing a white guy in a black suit reverse him-

Self and become a black guy in a …(We won’t go there

Mr. Jolson); but we can

 

 

Vote for a Good Day at Black Barack.