That reminds me the blog post that was originally canceled for this slot has been preempted. Now, on the matter of Sport...

A few years ago I drove with my friend The Lady, (whom I have not mentioned since the last time I told this story), down to my ancestral home to meet the parents - mine - and we ended up at a party in another dimension where it was eternally 1979. The people there, whom I only just met but knew on a race-memory level, had been getting together every blessed Friday night in the same house for 30 years to get stoned and talk about their lives. The cars that they drove were old Camaros and such, and the house was an oasis in a sea of hostile reality TV swells churned up by a storm of materialistic fin de siecle decadence.

Well, I had a great time. These were the Squabbler's people. There was not a cell phone or blackberry, or i-pod to be seen - only old receivers with glowing tubes, one of them throbbing out The Moody Blues in just the way it was intended. There were quite a few televisions; the fellow collected them. They were quite old, in fancy art deco cabinets, with round picture tubes. A few actually worked.

In the comment train within the last post I was reminded of the parallel situation I encountered back in June - the first 'vacation,' or thing resembling one, I had taken in over ten years - my family's reunion in Eagle's Mere where the people were also refreshingly quaint and doggedly anachronistic. My 14 year-old son disappeared at one point to join a couple of manly men driving around the place in a '67 Rambler without tags or stickers, or seat belts, which had just been pulled out of a garage and jump-started with much smoke for the occasion. Then they grabbed a canoe and took off for a night time tour of the lake - ended up howling at the moon. Several others there were who howled back, my son tells me.

Well you know by now my Heaven is just such a place - in both cases - and that I am a nostalgic old fool. I despise what my generation has done with this world. I am perpetually sickened at how the hippies of yesterday have turned to the dark side - from 'power to the people' to 'power to the government' - and how fear has so twisted their minds that individual liberty means nothing to them. Intolerance and hatred for any point of view which does not conform to their weird God-less religion of material things is the base message of their literature, their movies, media, 'culture,' - though it is not one.

I am half sick with shadows. The age of men is ending. Now is the time of sheep, stupid sheep whose highest aspiration is to maintain an erection in their useless old age so they can go on buggering each other indefinitely.

And that reminds me, for some reason, of bananas. Does it matter? I could stand on a roof top and shout all this stuff and only a few would turn heads and bleat back. I'm sick of it. From now on - today - everything's bananas. You have a good recipe for banana bread? I'll take it. How about fried bananas - Cuban style, you know? There was this place near Lincoln Center that used to make the most amazing fried bananas. They'd serve it with some blackened steak and rice and beans. Gigantic portions. It was lit up like a school cafeteria, but who cares? Remember I have Cuban relatives - right? Maybe you don't remember that. But there are dark things they remember. Oh, but our goofy grape culture absolutely adores socialist dictators, don't they? Let's ignore the free press being closed down and men's balls being cut off and focus instead on calling college hazing pranks in American detainee centers that more resemble country clubs by any objective comparison torture - oh, my life's so hard-where's-my-Starbucks-latte?

It is a level, a quality, of ignorance which is almost beautiful as a bag full of babies' heads must be.

So - bananas. Remember the Woody Allen movie from a few years ago? The song? - "Rebels are we/ Born to be free/ Free as the fish in the sea." That was darned funny. I need to go watch that movie. I'll see if I can somehow crawl into the TV screen and stay there. Smoke some New Testament cigarettes, some bananas for breakfast. You've been a great audience. I'll be here all week.

There is a reason why driver education vehicles are equipped with a steering wheel on the passenger side. I agreed to teach a 30-odd year old friend of mine to drive. (Over 30 and odd.) It is impossible for one who takes driving so for granted that it has become second nature to understand what the non-driver must learn. Well, that is to say there are instructors who go to school to learn that very thing: the how of it. Of course it was my Dad who taught me, and I taught my wife. We figure it out. There is a self-taught aspect which another person really can't teach, but having that second steering wheel...

That was the greatest danger I've been in all year.

But this is the second time this week the conversation has turned to social class consciousness, and so I had been plumbing the depths of my own attitudes on the matter. I discovered I have none - attitudes on the matter, that is. My student needed to drive into the country club, and I was quite concerned about her ability to aim my car through the rather narrow break in the stone wall which serves as an entrance without scraping the wall on one side or the other. But she did just fine.

This, she said, is a place she does not feel she belongs in that oh-so-special way we have of belonging, that intangible way created by our experience, our prejudices, which make some places and situations seem comfortable and others seem uncomfortable. She feels she does not belong with the country club set not because she comes from a working class background but because she doesn't. Contrarily, she is an heiress to a tidy sum of money. Her issues are self-created. The fact is, all such issues of "class" identification are self-created.

What's interesting about this is that it came on the heels of another conversation on the same topic with one of my customers yesterday who spoke of the existence of a class "system." I had no idea precisely what she meant by that, so I went to a source of information which has never failed me - the Dictionary. What I discovered surprised me, for I had been under the belief that a system, by definition, must be created and organized quite purposely by men and women. I was forgetting such usages as "eco-system." According to the Dictionary a system is  "a group of independent but interrelated elements comprising a unified whole." That definition says nothing about those elements being necessarily established or controlled by man.

So, my customer was using the word in its most general sense in an appropriate way. But when I hear the words class and system used together like that I think of an organized system of class, such as the caste system in old India, the feudal system, or something along those lines. In a class system, the way I understand the term, a political, social, and economic elite or 'ruling class' have established a sustained and sustainable tradition and/or method of distinguishing class, one from another, usually requiring that there be little or no mobility from one to another. That means authoritarian control - from the 'top' down - rather than popular control - from the 'bottom' up.

To the monarchs of old, and their system or way of life, the greatest threat was perceived from 'republicanism' which embraces the 'from the bottom up' form of governance.

That also happens to be the greatest threat to the modern-day socialist who speaks dreamily of a "classless society" when what he really means is that a small rich powerful elite should have absolute control over "the masses" who will all be equally poor.

What I said to my customer is that a truly classless society is one in which government or other institutions do nothing to establish or sustain a system of oppression which interferes with mobility between "classes." In such a case can there even exist the reality of social class distinctions? For indeed if anybody, regardless of his circumstance, were not interfered with in his pursuit of attaining any level of wealth he desired, then the result would be - if not a classless society - one in which class ceases to be much of an issue.

And isn't that what we have right here and now? I came from a working class family - whatever that means, but I think it means that we lived on a very small amount of money and made due, and sometimes endured hardships that families with more money did not have to endure. My father worked as a life guard at the country club in order to make a little more money during the summers. Now my sister and my brother are members in good standing in that same country club. It seems that where I am concerned, and where my sister and brother are concerned, we live in a classless society - one in which it is possible to attain whatever level of social distinction one pleases, that distinction being entirely symbolic.

But now I come back to this word system, which it turns out is not limited in definition as I thought it was. There is a system. It is not a system which is imposed by institutions on individuals, but a system comprised of ideas, prejudices, beliefs both true and false which individuals impose upon themselves.

The man with the beard down to his chest in the flannel shirt and blue jeans should not think that it is unfair he is not the CEO of BigFatCo because he obviously has done nothing to become the CEO of BigFatCo. He is limiting himself to a certain range, or 'comfort zone' of activities, opportunities, and so forth, merely by his appearance.

That's fine. He may do exactly as he pleases within a very roomy construction of laws designed to maintain civility and social order. But there is no law which interferes with his efforts to alter his social and economic circumstance in any way.

There is, however, a "system" - independent (as we are from each other) but interrelated (as we are to each other) elements (ideas, prejudices, etc. formed by experience) comprising a unified whole, the end result being the appearance of a social class structure. In other words, if government, kings, churches, and so on, are not creating and imposing social class distinctions we have a knack for doing the job ourselves.    

Listening to the August night tonight. Sounds take me places and times. I am in my room at home. Perhaps we have just returned from a long summer trip and I am dreading the start of school. But these last few days are precious. Sometimes they are quite hot, and one finds it impossible to sleep. The crickets were much louder then - and there. A bit south of where I now live. The sound of the crickets was like the sound of a stormy ocean, and it came in crashing waves. There were cicadas too. Tonight is a little like that. Not hot, but otherwise like that. And the crickets not as loud - more like October loud. But I remember lying awake in August.

I have written about this many times. Many, many times. Like Grantchester Meadows playing in my song widget, like King Crimson, the smell of candle wax and incense, those awful clove cigarettes from India - all that. I drew maps of Fenrocia. The ceiling of my room was one great map. And before that it was airplane models. Before that, it was just me and the Squabbler. I called him Sydney then - Sydney Horatio Plumnick who lives in the hearts and minds of men.

Few sounds are as beautiful as the sound of an August night. The screens smell like vanilla when I press my nose against them. Why vanilla? I don't know. They don't smell like that anymore. But the sound is the same, the same crickets. How long do crickets live? Forever? They have followed me here.

My dog is with me. He is very well behaved. Last week I was caring for Mrs. Abigail Uppington. This week it is my dog who lives usually with my son in the supernatural hamlet of Hickwick. But these are the dog days, indeed. And though I have no school to dread, this feeling still comes over me. I think it is a constant part of me, though so many other parts have changed.

Lately, the White Lodge has been unusual, even slightly dangerous. Squab's rummaging through old bones. That always stirs things up. This morning I awoke from teaching a college class in how to write a moving eulogy. I could remember what I said very clearly, and I continued to teach even after my first cup of coffee. Now I know the crickets will continue to make this August night sound after I am dead, and I wonder will I hear them then? I wonder will I want to? Life flashes before your eyes, they say. Life flashes. The flash of life to me is sound - music, crickets, the dog scratching. Just another day.

I'm going now. I think I am coming to a moment.

Mouse in the Sofa

Morning. I was just speaking with Grandpa. He was young, and he had my father's nose. Dressed in his uniform. He was one of four corpses in the attic of the church, and the least decayed. I assume the others were older, no longer able to talk. I awoke thinking this wasn't nightmare, at least not as I understand nightmare. It was not frightening. I knew I had nothing to fear from my own grandfather. But I will say the smell was like a mouse in the sofa - times ten.

As I was leaving the attic room a cleaning lady was going in, and I warned her, "The odor is a bit strong."

Now I am reminded that I was the custodian of a Baptist church several years ago. It was a one day a week job which I undertook at the urging of a friend who had just joined the tiny congregation. In the 19th Century that congregation had been very large and wealthy. The church building itself was therefore quite large. Over the years the church became more and more reformed, until today it is difficult to distinguish it from a Unitarian church - quite secular. If there are 30 people in it today I would be surprised. Yet the sanctuary is quite - religious - for lack of a better morning cobweb word. It's a beautiful sanctuary, with lovely stained glass windows and a gigantic organ.

Upstairs was no longer utilised, not at all. But there had been a children's chapel there. A circular stained glass window shines in upon the little chapel, now a storage room for the sorts of things you'd find in Aunt Rose's attic, baroque mahogany rood screen and all. A painted sign there is, and the words written upon it are "Be still, and know that I am God." So the place became special to me. I like hidden places, secret places. It was haunted in a good way. Do you understand what I mean by haunted in a good way?

Now I see that Daphne Sunshine Squabbler has managed to get out of her cage again. Her father is on a morning hike since 3 a.m. The upstairs tenant flew out the door about half an hour ago, with enough violence that it attracted my attention. And there was Daphne, looking oh so... squabbly. Tenants come and go.

I told Grandpa he didn't want to see what has become of us. We are cowards, we are confused, self-seeking, spoiled. But he did most of the talking. I just listened. It seemed the thing to do. Listening is usually the thing to do. 

So when Hank asked if I wanted to do some of the readings at my church I said Hell no, that's too much like something a grown-up would do!

Dad does that.

We would be traveling far from home in the old Chevy Carry-All where finding a church was sometimes a challenge. I have told already about the Sunday morning we were stuck with a vehicle malfunction at a primitive camp site in the middle of nowhere, how we kids rejoiced in our secret selves that we would not have to go to mass that morning, and how my father went off into the woods to pray, and how he returned with a priest within half an hour who said mass at our camp site.

He would disappear sometimes once Mom had gotten us settled in the pew of whatever distant church, and there we would be seated, surrounded by strangers, waiting for mass to begin. So, Where's Dad? one if us might ask. And suddenly we would see him on the altar reading the first reading. Scripture comes into my mind in his voice to this day. When I read the Bible it is my Dad's voice reading it into my mind, not my own.

So, I spoke to him by telephone - not too long ago, within ten years or so - about how Hank had asked me to do some reading and what my thinking was on the matter. I said to my father: Do you ever get the feeling while you're up there that suddenly the congregation are going to stand up and say, "You imposter! Get off the altar! You have no business up there!"

I could hear him thinking for a moment, two moments. Then he said, "No."

He has told me from the time I was a lad that I had "too many nerve endings." More recently he calls it having too much self-awareness. I think he is mincing his words there, and I add "too much of the wrong kind." He tells me that I am deep, and my mind operates at a different level, but I have always despised such a limiting deepness - if indeed it may be called that. I have a better word for it: Fear.

I have told about how I was seized with an impulse to grab a woman I vaguely know and plant a kiss on her lips on a street corner recently. Although the anecdote may be amusing, especially to those of you who may identify with sudden unreasonable impulses, the event was actually quite terrifying. I mentioned how it is like being suddenly consumed with the desire to shout out "Bring me more butter!" or something equally inappropriate, during solemn occasions. I have excused myself more than once from these situations - weddings, funerals, and so on - for that very reason. Such impulses would make me dizzy with the exertion of resisting them.

Imagining the congregation standing up and pointing at me, and angrily accusing me of not belonging, is a movie in my mind - the same as a memory. I know fact from fiction as well as anybody. So does the Squabbler. But I also know I prefer the fiction. Both are equal in their contribution to my experience. That is apparently what Dad calls being "deep," a quality he admires and has admitted he does not possess, but that I would very much like to give him. And were it not for the fact that I like him so much I would.

I believe these separate character traits of mine are either one in the same trait or very closely related, or that they are different but have the same cause.

The upstanding "pillar of the community" stuff was much more natural to me when I was drinking quite heavily. I think I was overcompensating - saying, See? How can I be a drunk if I'm on the Board? Since sobering up, having a change of personality which I notice is not a complete alteration but an improvement - adjustment, if you will - my tendency has been more and more to 'lower' myself socially, drop out of the public eye. Since sobering up my sense of humor returned, but my sense of outrage returned with it, and I can no longer medicate my disgust with the culture; hence the "unplugging" I speak of quite a lot. The biggest difference in me - as far as I'm concerned, (others can observe what they will) - is that I am entirely at peace within myself, on solid footing in my convictions, and quite "comfortable in my own skin."

But, also returning with a vengeance were these harmless but daffy impulses.

One of the reasons I went into service at last is that I have a very strong desire to help people, and an even stronger desire to 'shrink' my planet-sized ego. The more humbling the job the greater its satisfaction.

Well, Dad used to pronounce the word forsythia as fors-aye-thea, and when people would gather up enough courage to correct him he would then explain that the beautiful flowering yellow bush which grows in preposterous abundance on Long Island where I grew up was named after a fellow called Forsythe. If people then decided to believe him - which they often would, on account of his profound sincerity - he would eventually show his hand and explain that he was being "cafetious." All of this he would do with a straight face. In my mother he was blessed with the very definition of innocence, a woman who was entirely incapable of discerning irony, and I believe she went to Heaven believing that forsythia was named after a fellow called Forsythe.

Depths, indeed.

Dad's courage is deep. His compassion is deep. His sense of humor is extraterrestrial. I am thinking of this because a joke he used to tell came to mind earlier today with the punch-line "If the foo shits, wear it!" I cannot even begin to tell it. Well I remember his entertaining the nuns of a monastery in Florida with that one during dinner, and they laughed until tears came while we kids rolled our eyes. Such is his way of telling a thing like a joke. It is exactly the same as the way he reads the Bible, in that same tone of sincerity, in the same way Spencer Tracy is said to have acted. He does it without giving a thought to what he is doing, or that it is he who is doing it. He does it seemingly without effort, like he was born to do it.

But he did tell me a story that day I spoke with him on the phone about how he once had to speak before a very large group, and despite all of his preparation - and he did prepare for speeches; I know because I remember him rehearsing them - by the time it came his turn to speak on that day he found that his mind was drawing a complete blank. He no longer had the slightest idea what he was supposed to be speaking about. So, he stood up, took his place behind the stand, and said, "I have no idea what the Holy Spirit is going to make me say tonight." Then he spoke. 

I have seen a few new movies - well, not a lot but quite a few, as they say in Oklahoma. We used to go to the movies once every week - up until 1990 or so. After that, well my second woman wasn't quite as interested in movies as the first one was. I think I can count the number I saw with her. We did enjoy renting videos. She enjoyed renting videos. I enjoyed watching her watch them.

It must have been the 30th anniversary of Lawrence of Arabia? I went to see the newly restored film at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York. How dreadfully hung-over I was! - to the point nearly of illness. I remember that. I also remember that I suddenly realized it was the best picture I had seen in the past ten years. That film was made the year I was born. In 30 years there might have been five others worth seeing.

Over time I began to realize that Hollywood makes absolutely nothing appealing to me. I think having women who appreciated some of the films I did see changed my perception of them. They also kept me to some degree plugged into the pop culture at large. Over the past ten years I have seen perhaps six movies in theaters - apart from those three or four it fell to me to watch with my children, which I would not have chosen to see otherwise.

I am almost forgetting I had a girlfriend for precisely one year - 2002-03 - who was the instigator for a few of those.

Oh but I used to walk the 3 miles or so into the town to watch foreign and American vintage flicks at the revival cinema. That was years ago.

It happens all the time - people say "Did you see?..."

No. I didn't see.

That is, I've seen it all. I didn't have to see. I've already seen it. Like television, it's already been done. It doesn't get better. The type of petrified fecal matter they call 'film' today - if it contains anything at all worthwhile it is in imitation of good films of yesterday.

That's what I think about movies.

I would give Ted Turner a big fat kiss for his movie channel, after I slapped him down to a Jel-lo for everything else.

Boy, did I see an awful lot of breasts at that revival cinema! It wasn't my main interest - or, two of them - but I admit Friday nights got a little more interesting on a different level. It was a long walk home at night from that theater.

Lawrence of Arabia was the only movie I have ever seen that did not have a single woman in it. Please correct me if I'm wrong. There's a scene of alleged women on a hilltop wailing some sort of Bedouin keen, but they may easily have been male film crew members in black burkhas and veils. It's extradordinary. No - My Dinner With Andre had no women in it either, come to think of it - unless, a waitress? That is strange, isn't it?