humour

A bone to pick with the Donner party

A man came into the Mercantile searching for a map. He was looking to light out into the wilderness.
The Shopkeep, a woman short on words, stood on a ladder doing inventory. Last thing she needed was a customer to bring her down.
She looked at the man. “Get lost!” was what she said.
That man’s name was Alfred Packer. No one remembers the shopkeep. She never done nothing of note.

Pro-logue

Pro-logue

“I’ve had enough of your horseplay,” s/he said. “Off you go now.”

Everything in the world is seeking to stand on the highest point. Where one can see. There is nothing else which explains the urge to climb mountains, get there first, or pat oneself on the back. It even explains the eruption of volcanoes, the contents inside wishing to come out on top. That’s the prime real estate. No matter what one has to do to get there. That says a lot.

Eruption by Richard Lindsay

That’s why an eruption is such a sacred shared event. A seismic shift. People remember it. It burns itself on the social memory pad. Changes everything. I saw such an event once. It was my first. After this I saw more, but they were robbed of absolute novelty. Because If you see one you’ve seen it all, the world order set up.

At some point everything becomes common place. It starts to look alike. A revelatory illusion.

Everything is built on something else. The novelty is an illusion. The present is a time shift of the past. It seems clear because there has been a precedent. A prologue. An introduction. And when we left we said “Make it look like no one has ever been here before.” So as not to rob the future of its own initiative. Priorities. I don’t make the rules, I break them.

The present has to be built. In detail. For the purpose of references. Few check these out. Outdated.

Once it is built, it seems to have always been there. This is the natural order. It’s traditional.

My first book was a stapled together mess called A Child’s Guide to Suicide, and I handed it out at a punk rock club. Have you ever been hugged by a sweaty punk rocker? I don’t even have a copy of it.  You come away looking like you were up on the stage. The copy I had drowned in a flood. It was from a hot water heater. Twenty years old, it sprung a leak into the basement apartment. The trauma of aging. I was dreaming at the time. I dreamt of water, a gentle flow. A steady dripping and splashing of the tropics. As if I were stranded on a beach. When I awoke I splashed down, as my feet hit the floor and were submerged. I salvaged what I could. And rebuilt. It’s what people do. By conditioning. Tradition.

So here we are.

She had short hair, light brown, when she approached me. She was tall and played the bass guitar. I had been admiring her from afar, but she had no way of knowing this. Like when you look to the top of Mount Everest with longing in your heart, though you understand the perils inherent in such a desire. It’s a question of preparation. How well you pack. If you are ready. If your heart is strong.

“Are you handing this out to children?” she demanded. And it was a set-up to a joke, but instead, for love, the punchline was moved to a footnote. And so the response was left wanting. And she walked away with a flourish. And perhaps that was the greatest gift I could give her. For who can understand the nature of love, for which so much is sacrificed in our perpetual present?

More than One Day

Play

The More than True podcast returns with a vintage story about spies, Russians, shoes, USA electoral politics, and raisins.

It’s an audio rendition of the story More Than One Day in the Life of Igor Igoravitch, from the collection Hard Fought Illusions of Choice. Enjoy. It is strong. Like Stalin.

“Winner Winner!” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

“Someone Else’s Memories” from the album The Politics of Desire by Revolution Void licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0.

Just Zep on in

“And I am a great businessman,” Zeppo said, really swinging the ladder. “You got that right. And funny. Say, did you know I catered my own wedding?”

“How’d that come off?” Carl said.

“I am pleased to say without a hitch,” Zeppo said. “Served animal crackers and duck soup. Didn’t last. She was Daffy. Oh, I get enough of that at home.”

“I understand,” said Carl. “Most marriages end in the home.”

“You can say that again, doctor,” Zeppo said.

“I said, ‘Most marriages end in the home,’” said Carl, glad to be of service. Zeppo was such a nice man. People tended to fall all over themselves. It was a concern. Even now.

“It was then I sent you that letter,” said Zeppo. “Requesting our meeting.”

“It was a strange thing,” Carl said. “An opening and a closing without the part in the middle.”

“I didn’t think that was wholly necessary,” Zeppo said. “Ipso Facto. Superfluous, as my brother Harpo might say. So I cut it all out. Swept it under a rug.”

“Well it really left me,” Carl said, “hanging.”

“Sorry doc,” Zeppo said. “Vaudevillian’s curse.”

Carl thought there must be a better way to enter and exit a Zeppelin, and someone would surely cash in on that in the future. However, upwards. To the inner Zeppelin. The guts of the thing.

Behold, The beholder’s eye!

I am a practitioner of ancient magic. Some would say it’s old hat. These people have lost their sense of wonder. This is why they disappear. There is nothing in my hands. My hands are clean. Goodnight.
– A wicked good magician

I got You, Babe

Babe Ruth visited and was impressed. It was a big building. And he was really just a big kid. Still fresh from the orphanage. And the doctor was a famous man. Babe was a famous man as well, but he never considered himself like that. He was just the Babe, after all. And he needed someone, a father figure maybe, who he could talk with. Not like the guys in his league. Great guys. But he had some trouble making connections. And the bosses, well, they was bosses. And they were taking him to the cleaners, he suspected. Nah, he was sure. But he didn’t argue with figures of authority. Didn’t realize his power dynamic had shifted in his favor yet.

Babe rode the elevator to Carl’s Penthouse. First, he was mobbed before he got in the building. Kids, mostly. Out and about. Wanting autographs. Babe Ruth got such an autograph. Wasn’t even a matter of worth. They wanted a piece of the Babe. Part of his soul. For communion. And he was happy to oblige.

This sort of thing made him late. He stopped wearing a watch. But found people willing to wait, for him, so it was all-reat, brother.

And he entered the spinning doors, revolving inward, and into the grand lobby. And the kids pressed against the windows outside, to see the Babe cross a room and disappear. Like in a terrarium, where living inside was hospitable while artificial.

People look out to look in, pressed against the window, seen inside-out.

There were two elevators. Both waiting for him. Identically attired attendants inside each with one hand on the door, keeping it open, and one hand waiting on the control, to take him to his heart’s desire. The ringers ringing against rhythm. People on other floors pleading for escape. The lights above the doors blink off and on in reverse. The rings were in. They both waited for Babe, on the ground floor. Babe chose one at seeming random and stepped inside. As he did, an apologetic nod to the other, dejected. The disappointment on that operator’s face projected into the faces of the kids pressing against the outer windows. Communion. Disappointment. Universal.

Is it better to be appointed or disappointed? To be ordained or pre-ordained? Does order matter? Who decides? First come. Serve up.

The doors to the elevators closed. Better luck next time. The faces on the windows faded away.

“Where-to?” said that lucky elevator operator.

“Up-top,” said the Babe.

“Will do,” said the operator, “Will do.”

Wasn’t nothin’ said otherwise. A ride up, uninterrupted in silence. And he was off.

For the operator it was over. “Good day,” he said.

Babe mumbled something and walked off. The operator closed the door. Felt a little empty inside, after all.

True ’nuff. True ’nuff.


What’s in a name? Everything.

‪Bonnie & Clyde. They put her name first. It has a better ring to it. And because they were ahead of their time. ‬

‪Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey. The position of these names was chosen in a street brawl.‬ A goof off.

‪Abbott and Costello. Abbott had a gun. He was a straight man. The heavy.‬ The ladies’ man. And he couldn’t take the pressure. In the end, he would become irate when you shouted his own name at him to get his attention. Somehow he made it work. For him.