Have you heard?

 

Boy, have I got a juicy bit of gossip.

 

There’s a fellow in my town – nice guy, has a business, seems to do pretty well – who is a very funny fellow indeed. He gossips. Apart from that, he’s never done harm that I’ve heard of, (like The Dauphin in Henry V), but I eventually hear – or, it eventually gets back to me – that I am a notorious Casanova, and I can think of no other source for this rather ironic impression than this very same fellow. It so happens whenever he sees me I am usually accompanying a lady. Over the last several years there have been at least half a dozen occasions for this funny fellow to find me sitting down over a cup of coffee or a meal with half a dozen different women. Of course, he was not to know that in each and every case the nature of my relationship with these women was entirely Platonic.

 

Honi soit qui mal y pense? It may not rise to quite that level.

 

Well, the fellow’s girl crazy. He always has something to say. “Oh – this one’s cute!” he said of Elizabeth earlier this week. I was grabbing a quick bite with the White Tornado between jobs. I know I could say any number of things to him; I could jump up and down whilst flailing my arms yet it would make no dent in his iron-clad presumptions. So, I merely agreed: “Yes, she certainly is.” And I left it at that.

 

Today I am thinking of making a major purchase, though of what I really don’t know. I haven’t been scrimping and saving for anything in particular. I cannot think off-hand of any particular thing I want, need, desire. Well, the fact is I am in possession of a gift card representing a large-ish sum from a well-known department store that offers a wide and varied selection of merchandise. I should tell you it’s Sears. Why not? I have received such things as gifts in the past – gift cards, that is – and forgotten about them. Many years later, whilst rifling through some drawer or closet looking for something else, I come across them. I usually use them at last to buy the boys their Christmas presents, relieved to find that, like gift certificates, they have no expiration dates.

 

Come to think of it, I have one such card from Wal-Mart squirreled away here somewhere. Wal-Mart is much closer to me than Sears, and I would like to stock up on incense anyway. The grubby little city to the south is where the ‘head’ shop is located. Well, I assume there are several such establishments in the larger, grubbier city to the north, where the nearest Sears store of substance is to be found – (Hm, say that ten times fast) – but I don’t know exactly where. Should I venture south for incense and then north for Sears? If I do, I must burn a new CD for the ride.

 

I’d rather not turn the place upside-down looking for that Wal-Mart card.

 

When I was married I resented terribly the need to buy things such as televisions, home theater equipment, movies, and the like. At least I had a passing interest in sharing with my wives a little entertainment time, but the emphasis is on the ‘passing.’ These days I own a television that I bought in 1993. It still works. My stereo system, which I have built up from garage sale finds and a few special trips to places where analogue equipment is reconditioned, suits me just fine as it is. I might soon require a new turntable, but I strongly doubt Sears would have such a thing. They might. I could inquire. Perhaps a pro model.

 

An old stereo CD burner is available at a local shop for only $100. I had thought of it as a way to preserve my LP’s. Of course, the sound quality of the LP’s is so superior I thought again, do I really want to do that?

 

Oh – what to buy, what to buy, what to buy?

 

Yesterday I heard our president is endorsing an economic revitalization plan which would rebate a certain amount of tax money to each American (I assume) who participates in the system. The amount is $6 or $800 – I can’t remember which – not quite double for marrieds. Then of course, the radio news segued into a sound byte from one of the president’s opposition, saying the measure will not help the poor, the people who don’t pay taxes anyway.

 

I challenge that statement on a number of levels. The poor do pay taxes. The poor are more likely to be smokers, for instance, and the amount of taxes on cigarettes is immoral. They pay the bulk of that. So, I suppose what we are talking about here is income tax. In that case the statement is correct: the poor don’t pay taxes. I thought, of course if the idea was to create yet another subsidy then by all means give my share to someone in need. But the measure, as I understand from its name, is intended to revitalize, not merely spend. If you give $6 or $800 to a poor person he or she will spend it immediately on something that will not likely last a year, and this might create a temporary bump-up in retail, but once it’s gone it’s gone.

 

I guess the question I am dying to ask is how did the government, which has no resources of its own that is not the property of the American people, and which cannot create wealth but only limit it, happen to have so much extra stolen money that it can afford to give us back a tiny fraction of it?

 

Well, I suppose ‘tiny’ is relative. To me, $6 - $800 is a lot of cabbage. With $6 - $800 I could start another business and put another person to work. I’m very frugal.

 

I can’t do that with a department store gift card, though the amount is in the same vicinity.

 

Can any of you help me spend this money? Any of you ladies who are unattached, that is? We could start some gossip…

 

But, wait a minute – it seems what I am looking for in that case is something I will definitely not find in Sears.

  

I think I’ll write a story about being on the roof. Not today, though. Sunday.

 

Reading an Andre Norton Science Fiction novel. I enjoy it. Words like ‘tawny’ really rock me. I embrace my inner nerd.

 

It was good to drift in and out of sleep with an open book, the sun shining through the windows on either side. (Yes, my world has two suns.)

 

When did ‘the world’ become ‘the planet?’ I keep hearing about this place called ‘the planet’ and I wonder what the hell – or where the hell – they are talking about. I have a theory - (I’ll bet you knew I would.) – that ‘the planet’ refers to half of what used to be called ‘the world.’ It’s the material part only, the part that isn’t real, the part that changes.

 

Someone told me the economy is changing. OK. That’s like saying, “I’m getting older.” Of course it’s changing, just like teenagers lose their spots. Everything changes. It made me wonder how the person who told me that is defining ‘economy.’ Her circumstance did not seem to demonstrate any change in her own economy, so I assume she was talking about somebody else’s.

 

One way to avoid being misinformed is to stop listening to irrelevant information.

 

This brings me to something a little like a topic. I don’t do politics here. I write about ideas – mine, mainly. I don’t write about politics because they change too fast. They are more imaginary than most things. I do follow them, though. They are my sport. I’ve never really followed Sports because I have never been able to pretend an emotional connection to a particular athletic team. I wonder, why choose Team A over Team B? Should it be because Team A is headquartered in my home town? So what? And since nature abhors a vacuum, politics replaces that part of my consciousness which would normally contain Sports.

 

This is a presidential election year. We have one of these every four years. That means there is a chance – a slim one perhaps – that the News will feature a little news. It is very likely that a typical half hour news-reader segment will include some political coverage, and political coverage is not irrelevant.

 

The sole aim and purpose of a politician is to gain power by getting the most votes. The sole aim and purpose of a political campaign is to capture the hearts and minds of the people who vote. Victory is the end which justifies all means. Distortions of the truth, misrepresentation of facts, comically outlandish political promises – these are the stock-in-trade of the political campaign. Politicians speak the poetry of polemic. Vote for me and you will be happy; vote for him and you will die.

 

That’s right – die. You will be dead.

 

And every four years we vote for him – whoever he is – and we’re still not dead. Funny thing.

 

To internalize the absurd rhetoric of the political campaign is to be a very silly person indeed.

 

I suppose what I – who don’t write about politics – have to say about politics is this: It’s extremely scary being the masters of our own destiny. But we are. Whoever wins in November and becomes our next president will be the choice that we have made. Our choice will not be unanimous; in fact, it is likely to be hotly contested, perhaps deeply regretted. And not for the first time, and not for the last. Important? Yes, extremely important. It is just exactly and precisely as important as it is, no more, no less. A good choice will be called a bad one for the next four to eight years by whichever side comes up short whether it really turns out to be bad or not. So what? That’s all about jockeying for the best position from which to assault the next election. But even if our choice turns out to be really bad – I mean, bombs falling bad – it is the choice we have made.

 

Whether my candidate wins or loses I don’t lose any sleep over it.

 

If I could become a conspiracy theorist without laughing uncontrollably at how idiotic such a thing is I would probably do so. It is far less frightening to believe that whatever is wrong in ‘the world’ or on ‘the planet’ – whichever you inhabit – and whatever is wrong in one’s personal life – hair loss, erectile dysfunction, etc. – is all the fault of some all-powerful conspiracy than it is to face the truth of the matter: that we are in charge, and there is no one else to blame.

 

When I was a little boy there was always someone older than me, and wiser. There was always some adult in control. I think we grow up and we sometimes become aware that we are wiser than others, that we may be smarter than many of the other grown-ups who have taken on the obligation of leadership – while we have not. Of course, that realization can be very frightening. C-SPAN is a television channel offering 24 hours a day of pure horror. Yes, they’re morons. It doesn’t necessarily help that they’re our morons. And they have the ability to make laws. That’s quite scary.

 

How much nicer it is to imagine some Mommy conspiracy is really behind everything they do – pulling their strings – some elite order of intelligent people. But no, in reality, they really do believe what they say they believe, and they are in most cases doing the very best they can do. And we are the only people pulling their strings.

 

I guess that’s what I have to say about politics.

 

I will write much about the principles which guide the politics, as always. I think people don’t have politics; they have ideas. I think ideas are real. They are either true or false, good or bad, but they are real. We don’t vote based on our politics. We vote based on our ideas. It is those ideas – our ideas – which created the politics in the first place. The politics is like a sport, but only the ideas can make us care who wins, who loses.

 

I’ll delve back into this subject in another four years. In the meantime, I will go back to doing whatever it is I do. Does anybody know what that is? I’m at a loss.

 

I used to go up the roof to look at the world. I miss doing that. I could see the whole world from up there. I’ll write about it – on Sunday. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never. The planet? Maybe I saw that from my roof, too. It was just one part of the view. The best pulp Science Fiction stories – apart from using the word ‘tawny’ – are the best because they create whole worlds to imagine, not merely planets. To look at the planet without seeing the world is like looking at the body without seeing the mind, or looking at the self without seeing the soul. I do hope that life is more interesting than fiction. 

Click click above to hear me read W. Somerset Maugham's The Verger, and if you enjoy it, thank Monsterbox who installed the sound recorder from an external hard drive he was carrying around. He could stop on the road at any time and have a byte.

T'ain't funny, McGee. 

I read through this story without editing, so it's a bit like being here.

Fibber and Molly are on tonight, with another program from 1941. I haven't heard it yet myself, so it will be a treat for me.

The Burning Court

This program originally aired on June 17, 1942.