our 87th weekly open mike

Let’s see what happens when your host (me) has nothing to say. Step right up, speak your mind, tell a story, sing a song, whatever.

7/4/2026

Anything goes

itsdougholland.com 
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Once upon a time, there was America, and it was great, or at least that’s what my teachers taught.

Then I grew up, and one by one over the decades of my life, the grand principles of America — freedom, fairness, meritocracy, democracy, and the biggest whopper, “a peace-loving nation” — have been relentlessly revealed as red, white, and blue horse doodoo.

I wish America was about liberty and justice for all, but the only evidence of it remains a pledge that grade-schoolers are forced to recite when they’re too young to possibly understand it.

The USA led me on. All through my wonder years, this country was built up as the best, and even after the awful truth was revealed, well, I still want America to be what everyone says it is — that green lady in the water, holding the torch up high.

And now, mere days after the Supreme Court decided that Presidents are above the law, it’s Independence Day. The fireworks and patriotism are loud and dangerous, like America. The patriotism is what fuels war, and puts all those white crosses in all those cemeteries.

My head knows better, but on the Fourth of July my heart wants to see something good about my country ’tis of thee, so today I attended a naturalization ceremony, and watched a few hundred immigrants become Americans, on the lawn at the Seattle Center.

It’s nice that I could choose it and do it, needing nobody’s permission, with no checkpoints to pass through, no questions to answer. I love that about America, and sincerely appreciate the bejeebers out of everyone who’s made my freedom possible. Getting to the ceremony, though, took me down Third Avenue, where the sidewalks for blocks are filled with hundreds of tents and cardboard boxes, and the people who live in them.

This too is America — the world’s greatest economic powerhouse, so We The People could certainly help. But taxing millionaires and billionaires another fraction of a percentage point would be the cost, and that’s asking too much. So nobody even counts the corpses, and there’s no knowing how many of the homeless suffer and die.

And with that chipper thought, I’d arrived on the Center grounds. In an open pavilion, there were seats for 400 new citizens, surrounded by only grass and standing room for the crowd. As I wandered around, a band started playing “Three Cheers for the Red, White, and Blue.” To see the ceremony, I would’ve had to stand in the sunshine, but I’m not a stander and sunshine makes me sweat, so instead I settled into a shaded area where my only view was of the crowd, but the music came through. A fair trade-off, I think. This event was more for the ears than the eyes.

I sat on a Volkswagen-size rock that had been sandblasted smooth and engraved with the poetry of Margaret Atwood, Pablo Neruda, Hildegard of Bingen, and others. The poems seem to have been selected for whimsy, and I liked that, but not enough to write any of it down and quote it at you.

The band was never introduced, or I missed it, but they played a medley of Gershwin, Berlin, Sousa et al, including “The Liberty Bell March,” now better known as the theme to Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

It wasn’t a military band; more likely high school kids, because they played the music without blasting it bombastically. “It’s a Grand Old Flag” sounded more like a square dance than an invitation to combat. And they got a few notes flat, making me more certain it was a school band.

A family cut through on the trail in front of my poetry rock — mom, dad, and a little girl. “It’s a Fourth of July orchestra!” she semi-shouted, genuinely excited.

“Lindsey, you’re kicking up dust,” her mother scolded, and maybe she was, since the trail was unpaved. The kid gave her mom a dour look and said, “Well, we can’t have that,” and rolled her eyes. About eight years old, she delivered the line with a Woody Allen’s worth of sarcasm, and I laughed, and the kid’s mom looked ready to scold me, too.

After the girl’s dust had faded, the band played “The Star Spangled Banner,” accompanied by a singer who seemed to lose track of the lyrics. Then came three speeches from local leaders, all mercifully brief, thank you. Each speaker said the clichés you’d expect, and the Governor sounded especially bored. I wondered whether he’d put half as much thought about freedom into his speech as I’m putting into this half-assed essay, but he’s the Governor, so of course an employee or AI wrote the speech for him.

After that came a Native drum session, which was beautiful. It lasted only a few minutes, and about halfway through, without anyone asking, the crowd started clapping in time with the drums.

Then came another speaker, and I was ‘watching’ only by ear, but he was unmistakably Native American, and unlike anything the politicians had said, this guy was worth hearing. Addressing the newbie citizens, he said, “The Earth loves you, whether you’re Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or atheist, and America welcomes you, whether you’re black, tan, yellow, red, white, or something new woven together.”

I could only scribble those few words in my notebook, because that’s the point where I had to unzip my backpack, looking for something to blow my nose and wipe my eyes on. What he’d said was a warm embrace in words, from someone who’d have complete justification for open hostility.

Looking around, I saw the crowd a bit out of focus, a sight for wet eyes. A thousand people were waving flags, and some were holding red, white, and blue helium balloons. They were friends and family of the newbies, or perhaps like me they were simply believers in the newbies, and the concept.

Then came a roll call of the countries our new citizens came from, starting with Afghanistan (1 new American), Algeria (2), Argentina (5), Australia (4)… By the time whoever was reading got to Cameroon (1), I was blubbering. Working our way to Zambia (1) and Zimbabwe (2) took about ten minutes, what with all the applause after each country was named.

And finally, the oath was read by Judge David Estudillo, and recited by 400 new Americans. Each of them renounced any allegiance to the countries they came from, promised to support and defend our Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and agreed to perform “noncombatant service” in the American military “when required by the law,” which here’s hoping is never.

“… I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.” And with that, the USA has 400 new Americans, applause filled my ears, and I wiped away the last of my tears.

In the whole ceremony, there’d been no prayers. The only direct mention of the military was in the oath and in a politician’s speech, when he singled out one of the day’s new citizens who’s already on active duty in the Army.

And then I came home, with plenty to think about. Patriotism is mostly a scam, I believe — a way to convince you that people who probably ought to be in prison are instead fine Americans and you should vote for ’em.

That’s mostly, though, and today was an exception. Of all the America I’ve seen, and man I’ve seen a shitload of America, today was the very best. There are times when being proud to be American is for real.

7/4/2024
Republished 7/4/2026

itsdougholland.com
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Riding the #105 up the hill in Renton, I was seated behind a young Asian man, who was looking out the window nervously. He said nothing, but his body language said he was lost, or worried that he was on the wrong bus.

It’s a look you see often, and I sure wore it for my first few weeks after moving back to Seattle a few years ago. The bus system is complicated, so when someone’s lost or confused, it’s nice to offer help.

“Where are you headed?” I asked over his shoulder, hoping I sounded nice not nosy.

“Enricks,” he said to me, and I probably frowned. Then he said a full sentence in Japanese. Oh, he’s a foreigner. Seeing the confusion on my face, he said, “Enricks” again, and with that, the language barrier evaporated and I understood.

“Two more stops,” I said, holding index and middle fingers in a peace sign. He understood well enough to look relieved, and when the McDonald’s came into sight I rang the bus’s bell for him. “This’ll be your stop,” I said.

The bus rolled past the fast-food and stopped across the street, at Greenwood Cemetery, where Jimi Hendrix (“Enricks”) is buried. You can’t see the huge Hendrix memorial from the street, so I pointed in the general direction, and said, “You won’t miss it. It’s a bit gaudy.”

“Gody,” he said to me. “Hai, a god.” I know no Japanese, but I saw Shogun, so I know ‘hai’ means ‘yes’. Then he added, “Arigatou gozaimasu,” and translated it himself, “Thank you,” as he stepped off the bus.

♦ ♦ ♦

On days when there’s a home game for the baseball team, stadium staff often rides the bus. It’s cheaper and easier than driving and parking, and the #99 goes right by the ball park.

Often, I see two stadium staffers in uniform, an old white guy and an old black guy, but they usually ride separately. On this particular day they were both waiting at the Burien Transit Center. They said ‘hi’ to each other, like co-workers not friends, but on the bus they sat in sideways seats opposite each other for their commute. After a few sentences they said nothing more for their entire ride.

I said nothing either, but shook my head, because they were both carrying transparent plastic backpacks full of their personal stuff. One of them had a sci-fi novel and a pack of cigarettes in his backpack. The other had a small pink umbrella, a water bottle, two prescription medicines, and a change of socks.

For security reasons, fans at games aren’t allowed inside the stadium with a backpack, unless it’s transparent. Guess it’s required for employees, too.

For security reasons… so cops know you’re not a terrorist… would you wear clothes with transparent pockets? Would you pack transparent luggage for a trip? Would you drive a car with a transparent trunk and glove compartment?

I wouldn’t. There’s not a dildo or Barbie doll or anything illegal or embarrassing in my backpack, but privacy matters, especially mine. I’ll never go transparent.

See-through backpacks are the rule, though. It’s another slice of the rot eating America alive, and it’s about half the reason I’ve attended my last Major League Baseball game.

♦ ♦ ♦

On an extra social day a while back, I had two genuine conversations in my bus travels. First, an obviously homeless guy at the bus station was listening to a baseball game on his transistor radio, so I asked him about the radio. It looked like an antique, exactly like the Japanese-made transistor radio I had in the 1970s. He said he’d had it since the 1970s, and, “Man, I’ve listened to the Mariners lose a thousand games on this thing.”

We agreed we’d both be dead before the Mariners win a pennant, and talked about Trump and the weather and how weird it is being old, and I noticed but didn’t mention that he reeked of urine. Then his bus came, so he said goodbye and walked to catch the RapidRide H.

As he walked away, I could see from the two-tone color of his pants that he’d massively wet himself, and he’d been soaking in it, just like Madge and the dishwashing liquid.

Hours later, ready to return from a late afternoon with Mom, I waited at a bus stop in the Highlands, and an old black woman approached, carrying two bags of groceries. She was sweaty and it was hot, so I gallantly offered her my seat at the bus shelter.

She said thanks and sat, and told me all about what she’d bought at the grocery, and what she was planning to cook, and who’d be coming over for dinner, and how diabetes was eating her feet. She wasn’t all-talk, though, she could listen too, and asked where I was from, and a few other questions, all of which I answered.

It was a nice conversation, but guess what? That lady also stank of urine. Which seemed unlikely, because she was clearly a middle-class lady out in the ‘burbs, so I wondered whether maybe the pee-stink was me?

It hasn’t happened often, but it has happened. I generally wear the same pants for a week at a time, and sometimes there are penis-drips after peeing, or I’ve peed standing up and the liquid has mysteriously shot all over my pants instead of into the toilet.

Also, factoring in the baseball conversation earlier, plus several hours spent with my mom and sister, I’d reached the limits of my sociability, so it was sweet relief when the bus came, and it was too crowded for me and the nice lady to sit together. She sat up front in a sideways seat, and I went almost all the way to the back.

After sitting down, I discretely ran my fingers over the crotch of my britches, then took a whiff of my hand, and to my relief, nope, I was carrying no particular scent of urine. This time.

7/2/2026

Transit Takes

itsdougholland.com
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