Blissy's Song -- 20 (Conclusion.) by Feather Touch
Chapt. 20
Was I going somewhere? Leave you in peace? Sorry, fat, sorry, dumb, sorry, happy: I'm back. I have sixty one channels of cable and it amounts to a chain to irresistible not to pull.
I keep forgetting to thank Jeanne McGuire somewhere along the way. I was in love with her and would have lived as her devoted slave but she dumped me, after one two hour date, and took up with Dickie Dunham, yes he who invested a fortune in scuba lessons and gear in pursuit of a clever business model in which he would capture the clam market by gathering the mollusks at high tide. It was through the graces of one of my brothers that Dickie was informed that clams stay right where they are at all tides. The whole story is a play on reading and literacy. By the time I moved to the coast of Maine, 1961, I'd read several hundred books, half fiction, half non-fiction. This made me unfit company for the Miss McGuire, I guess; something sure did, and thus freed me to read hundred more during high school, as I was not to be the devoted slave of anyone. Jeanne dumped Dickie in the end, leaving him out of luck at all tides, and I've always wondered if she ever read a book. It was a challenge, even in the Sixties, to have read all of Kenneth Roberts, when your date hade seen all of Gilligan's Island; to have read early Irving Stone, when the girl across the table knew all about Hoss.
This is a heads-up to you wanna be's. To ever make it one inch above journeymen hack, you have to read yourself so far into geekland you'll end up a one trick pony with a scorched earth social life. It takes more guts than there are in most villages to pull it off; to avoid the convivial and expedient for a level of psychic self-indulgent that alienates you from dawn to dusk, leaving you -- more time to read.
They though I was retarded at Maine Central Institute, and when, with a solid F- average, I scored in the top two percent on my SATs, right at the top of the school list, I was actually circled by the curious as I made my way back and forth to the library. I did graduate due to the minor miracle of the goose. Mr. Stanley, the extremely nice headmaster, and Mr. Haseltine, the superb biology instructor, shot themselves two very big geese. As it happened, I did all the photography on campus, and, also as it happened, I was a dead cert to be in the dorm of a Saturday, while Karen Tryder was out with anyone but me, so, when the call came in, I was able to show up and render unto the administration excellent photos of huge geese and happy teacher and headmaster. Two others should be mentioned in this sketch of a bookworm oddity. Mr. Kohler was probably the world's best teacher, and I sat in the front roe of Chemistry, and I don't recall ever getting a grade of above fifty percent, and that was before we hooked up with the organic stuff at the back of the book. And Mr. Richards who mocked me as an `individualist,' but taught me to type.
In summary, all school does is cut into your reading time. Girls do the same. Both are best given very short shrift, indeed, if you are going to walk amongst the gods of English. Perhaps you will do this better than I have managed, and perhaps you are a better person. If so, congratulations, because one day you may stand beside me, and, while it would be impossible to be better, you might be just as good, and, not only that, but imbued with a nobility that would prevent you avenging yourself on the assorted morons who have crossed your path over the decades. In a way, this would be impossible, because if you were that likeable, where would you find the time to do your three thousand books, to say nothing of your ten thousand magazines? It's a tough row to hoe, but it leads to the pinnacle of a mountain of your own creation. which is altogether different from following a god of your own creation.
I just saw a thespian eat a banana with the skin on, so there must still be Jews in Hollywood.
HBO's priest and twinkie movie is playing again. Actually, I guess there are two of them. In the first reel, the kid doesn't want to continue on as an alter boy. Here's how the concerned mother's lines should go:
"Sweetheart, is something going on with you and Father? The boy's reply is vague. She sits on his bed and takes his hand, "Joey," she says, assuming that's the boy's name, which I doubt it is, but anyway, whatever his name is, she says it kindly. "Joey, men who devote their lives to the church, and live without wives, often are strongly attracted to young boys, especially extra cute ones like you are. This is a tradition as old as the church, and many would argue the reason the church exists, in the first place.
"If Father wants to do special things with you, I want you to evaluate it on the following grounds. First, do you like him and think he's reasonably cute, second, what does he do for his parish, in general; is he energetic and active or lazy and selfish? third, you should evaluate the situation from your own point of view. Do you like, or dislike the things he wants to do with you? Are you friends above and beyond these special things? Try to remember, some boys like that kind of activity, just like some boys like hockey or chemistry, and some boys don't, again, just like hockey and chemistry.
"Then you have to total all these factors in your own, personal mind, without a thought in the world as to what other boys say or don't say, or what anyone says, or does not say, including your family. The only exception to this is the other altar boys; what do they think, what are their feelings about having their little secret which isn't much of a secret to anyone who brings literacy to the church?"
Then she would have gone on, as follows: "Joey," she would say, "you have three choices. Either quit, entirely, which would be fine with us; or, second, I can call father and tell him enough already with the touchy feely, but you want to stay on with the other boys, or, third, and my very tenuous suggestion, is that you give yourself fully to what happens, become an ardent lover, if possible, and have some great memories, whatever life brings you in the way of love and sex in the future.
"Why don't you just take the day off, read, and you can tell me in the morning, and I'll square it with your dad. And just a note, anything you decide now is in pencil; you have some freedom to change your mind, if that's how it works out."
As this Jew script plays out, the story goes all Lawyers and everyone is damaged to the max. That's why I mentioned it.
So, back up here on my perch, having stared down "Mitch," "Keith "and "Iris" in the last four years. I tried something I've never done before. I wrote about half the last chapter drunk, finishing off the liter of rum Roman and I pulled on as the storm went whistling by. I don't understand alcoholism. It's so nice to be sober, why would anyone want to live with the greasy feeling of excess alcohol more than once a week or so? While I try to limit advice to other writers because of the unachievable and inaccessible nature of my pearls of wisdom, I can tell you that I only begin work when I'm Oh-what-a-beautiful-morning fresh. Totally, absolutely, one-hundred percent rested. Drinking interferes with this cycle.
Drinking brings up smoking. I'm a utopian in the issue. Smokers should be registered, and allowed a half-pack of cigarettes per day. As mentioned before, the handicapped and disabled should run the vending chain to the extent possible. Personally, I doubt I'd get any work done if I didn't puff my life away, fifteen coffin spikes a day. Churchill and Freud are the most famous men who attributed both their genius and productivity to nicotine, and there are thousands of others. Of course, I smoke advisedly; as the grandson of three wealthy grandparents (whom I knew) who lived into their nineties and above, I have no desire to try the experience, myself. As a national issue, the bottom line is smokers die ten to fifteen tough, painful, and extremely expensive years earlier than the pink of lung. Since almost everyone over their mid-sixties is a burden on society, tobacco vastly lessens the burden. In fact, if you wanted to write the most tragic sketch on smoking possible, you would end by wondering how many native geniuses fail because they do not smoke. All that needs to be added is that there is no more emblematic manifestation of your life under Jewish Socialism than not being able to smoke in a Los Angeles bar. (Strange, because one would think, just offhand, that smoking would be harmless to the dead.)
There was a fun little smoking story here in Dangriga. Lady won a judgment in a malpractice suit, and built a fancy restaurant, Pola's Kitchen. It is my belief she built her brand new building around a huge No Smoking sign which took pride of place beside the entrance. I had one glass of memorable lemonade at the establishment, told the lady I found it absolutely repulsive that such an Americanism should ever find its way to funky town, and never darkened her door again. Apparently I had lots of company, because, although Pola's Kitchen's sign is still as big as ever, the restaurant has been closed for years. I wonder if the woman who squandered several hundred thousand dollars is aware of the irony of her smoke free dining room. Meantime, I can send a thirteen year old out to by cigarettes or liquor any time I feel like it. Different strokes for different folks, mixed with subtle ironies to do with the concepts of freedom, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the American way.
I keep going on about how smart and in touch I am, right? Even Jews will agree. So how is it I'm in my mid-fifties before I realize I'm a millionaire? I'd never know it; supporting a family of five, plus myself, in separate households, I often end the moth with less than a hundred dollars in the bank. And yet my net income just went up to twenty-two thousand a year, which, assuming nominal dividends and taxes, means I'm a bonifide [sorry, the spell-checker simply won't make this one come out right] millionaire. Do they make a tee shirt? My real luck is to be regarded as a wastrel and slacker, incapable of handling money, and thus removed from the loop other than the ATM which keeps me posted via little register slips, or, if these are out, which is most of the time, by some numbers on a monitor. Why this number keeps going up is a mystery which must have something to do with very old money. So, on balance, I'm cute, talented, funny and rich in an iron pants sort of way. Also, single. That's probably because I work all the time. After all, if one is going to be in love with one's self, why not be madly in love?
I've given up my occasional foray into computer gaming in favor of a new sport. Shooting Arabs. Houseflies. Since the storm, my house, which has shutters but no screens, has been somewhat invaded by the critters. My can of Super Shelltox is slim, well balanced, and comfortable to grip, it cools slightly with each burst. Nice on a hot afternoon. I try shooting the little Arabs out of the air, using minimal chemical and guarding my smoky lungs with an impromptu gas mask. Fun combination of patience, stalking, ambush, quick draw, and hand/eye coordination when it comes time to attempt a kill. Then there's target assessment. How fast are the flies pawing themselves after a near miss; should another volley be fired, or should I save my Super Shelltox? Weighing on my mind, as the tactics play out, are larger and more strategic issues. For example, how much time can I steal from the keyboard, and thus the thousands of Nifty readers, in order to smoke a bandit? I know it sounds childish to mention it, but there must be something wrong with a cute, slim guy who's rich and stable, being single, and a sub-teen developmental level is a possibility.
Does this mean there are many flies in the ointment of self-discovery? It always seemed to me, that women were enough, but, as mentioned, it's an exceedingly long row the writer must hoe, and it's a literary axiom that flies come with hoes. Thank heaven for Jews and Arabs, to raise the vision from the gutter and affix the eye to the cross-hairs on the far horizon. I say this advisedly, because the women in the US should be howling about the treatment of their Arab sisters, and Mavis Leno seems to be the only one letting out the proverbial peep. You suck, gals, all except you-know-who, at least with me.
It's becoming ever more difficult to simply watch television. The repetition is so intense, you have to suffer for hours to learn one new fact or idea. Where once I had the volume off most of the time, now it's rare to have it on, at all. The silver lining is the technical quality keeps going up, as the scripting thins, so the medium does end up as a luminous variation on wallpaper. A major consideration arises when one wonders how long people are going to pay heavy cable bills for pretty pictures in a world where the only content providers are camel-faced schmoes.
I find myself an occasional victim of novelty-ism. I'll, for example, download eighty meg game demos, like "Escape from Monkey Island," and play them for ten minutes. I've even purchased a copy of "Train Simulator," and, although it seems to be very well done, if a little glitchey, I've played it maybe three hours in the last month. I mention this as a prequel to wondering how much fad value is inherent in the Internet, in general. I used to spend loads of time exploring and downloading, now I rarely do. In '72 I bought a big Kenworth and drove coast to coast through the heart of the trucker's strikes and birth of the CB craze. Run that graph in today's economy, at the scale computers and related services represent, and you'll want to be spending a lot of time prepping for the end game, which puts your ass in a sling between a rock and a hard place, because you don't have much time. If the Arabs don't get you, the traders will, and if the traders don't do it, diabetes and obesity will, or addictive behavior, or maybe something as insidious as simply losing interest in your Jewish future. Lack of motivation. The alternative is to subject yourselves to my rule and die of you-know.
David writes to ask of Chapt. 19 completes "Blissy's Song." This morning the answer might have been yes, but I spent much of the day downloading five demo games, all of which futzed when I had the audacity to click them. Since I'm a bit of a hand at doing this, it leads me to believe a dysfunctionality is at hand that translates not only into a lack of ability to thrive, but to even survive. This, on top of the last step on the road to ultra Jewification represented by contemporary television, make it more attractive for the writer to emulate Edna Ferber who was known for her novelistic push. Isn't it lucky I love to shove, and have so many juicy targets to bully? Trouble is, as I just said, it's now at least a hundred hours of leftist babble for every minute of wisdom, context, insight or perspective, which, of course, is the whole point to begin with. As for the Bradys, well, I suppose Cindy could invite the Lakers over for high tea, to be followed by coffee cake. Nah. Two huge novels for one half year set all the records I'm interested in, although it will be weird to wake up at four in the morning and not have a story going.
In the end, quality becomes the enemy of productivity. Looking back over "C-Camp" and this work, I can't think of a page or a scene I'd change, other than copy editing. No one has ever done anything like it, and no one ever will. Best to keep it that way. No cereal in the meat. Nothing short of absolute. To backhand Joe Friday, just the facts, ma'am.
California: One stupid bumper sticker at a time.
THE END
Posted by Thomas@btl.net
147,712 / 822, 862
xxx