Wakey wakey!

Oh, I hate that! Seven A.M. - used to be. I can't imagine getting up so late these days. The stereo in the middle room with the brown bookcase and the blue wallpaper was plugged into a timer. Ron Lundy. I used to hear him as a child on WABC. WABeatlesC, as was.

A new Art Department manager had recently started. She had olive skin and long black hair that was always crinkly and appeared wet; wore micro mini-skirts and those flat shoes that strap across. Quite short. I guess the correct word is petite. A very small chest. She was singing, floating and singing. Or perhaps she was walking balanced on a rail. No sign yet of the expected train.

Along with Ron Lundy, a weatherman who went by the handle Mr. G. would preside over the morning banter between songs. Talkin' Mets baseball:

Lundy: Who's pitching tonight?

Mr. G: What does your wife call you, Ron?

Lundy: Stupid? Ron Stupid is pitching tonight?

Mr. G: No, that would be Ron Darling.

Lundy: Oh that's so sweet. I didn't know you cared.

Eventually, the room stopped spinning. Sometimes it spun all night. Relative to a certain point in space we are always in motion, even when standing still. Or sleeping. We move at roughly 600 miles per hour while standing still. The Earth rotates. I wondered how much slower we are moving backwards if we moved opposed to the direction of the Earth, or how much faster we might be going forward if we moved with it. But either way, it was strenuous work staying in one place; not for the faint hearted.

I heard a voice, a song, a woman singing. It was beautiful. Who was that?

My wife spoke out of the wife-smelling lump beside me.

That was Dionne Warwick.

Ah!

Seven A.M. It was in the Spring. We lived in our yellow house on the corner, with a dog, many cats, a rabbit. Why?

At the Seven-Eleven I would buy a 16 or 20 ounce coffee, sip enough out of it right there in the car to make room for a little whiskey. I always kept a bottle of Jamesons under the driver's seat. It slowed the Earth down a little.

Drove the 30-odd miles to the neighborhood of Idlewild Airport - the Rockaways, the Five Towns. Sometimes I would stop at the McDonald's on Rockaway Turnpike and watch the planes taking off, wishing I was on one of them. By then my cup was mostly whiskey. All along Ocean Parkway I'd be topping it off.

Sausage McMuffin.

Much as I loved radio, I never listened to it in the car - not so long as I had a cassette deck. Let's see - in those days I was listening to the Velvet Underground quite a lot. I had only just discovered Nick Cave, had one song, off a CD single - The Weeping Song - and Dukes of Stratosphere who were really XTC by another name.

She's a little lighthouse / When she opens up her red dress...

I worked at the newspaper. I drove a 1982 Honda Civic. I parked it at the train station in Cedarhurst. It was the location where Jonathan Demme had filmed the opening scene of his movie Married to the Mob, only it didn't look a thing like it in the movie - not unless you stood on your head and squinted through one eye.

Movie magic. Movie Magic. Movie magic.

The train streamed in: I would watch it.

Oh, but it was a beautiful morning, birds singing, blue sky, bright sunshine. The Yuppies on their treadmills through the windows of the Atrium Health Club always looked so... ready to be purchased, taken home in a brown paper bag, and eaten. Hot, greasy doughnuts in a white bag. Ladies with blue hair carried plastic bags. The Orthodox mommies pushed their big prams. They never cast their eyes to the left or to the right. You could not attract them; you were invisible. A kid at the Hebrew school was wearing a Barney beanie.

I love you. You love me. We're a happy family.

Two bearded guys were arguing on the corner. They did that. The younger of them addressed me as I passed.

Excuse me, sir, are you Jewish?

I said, No, but I am circumsized!

They threw back their heads and laughed, the older one giving me the two hand send-off. What, am I boarding a ship? Am I embarking on an epic journey to a far-off land? Am I coming to a transcendent moment? Am I real? Is this a dream?

Arriving. Greeting the Haitians. Dionne Warwick tapping her strap-across foot, wants to know, impatiently waiting for me. The woman who would become the former Mrs. Squabbler (#2) was also waiting. I arrived, a lamb to the slaughter.

Already marinated, too.

I longed to be somewhere - anywhere - away. Somebody - else. In another time. With another wife. In another house. But there was no sign yet of the expected train.

Cedarhurst, NY, 1990.

I hope to find the time to write at length perhaps later today or on Friday. A house clean-out in a very rural area of the universe is going to be consuming some time this week.

Oh, but you should see the road! Prank puts pictures on his blog of the landscape that surrounds him and they're such a pleasure to see. And while my part of the world is less mountainous there are places in it no less beautiful. Settled only sparesly in the Colonial Era, but expanded tremendously throughout the 19th Century, many farmhouses there are of beauty and antiquity to supplement the landscape.

One thing it pays to remember is that in 1850, or so, the area where I currently reside was almost entirely tree-less. That's right. Today, forests cover most of the land in between our settlements. Many are the cemeteries out in the "middle of nowhere." Well, what does that mean? A town used to be there, a hundred years ago. The enduring power of what we call "Nature" - some of us forgetting that we too are part of Nature, as if we oppose it somehow - will never be so adversely affected by man that it cannot recover. The world's most polluted and spoiled areas are, not surprisingly, in current and former communist nations. The cleanest, most pristine areas are right here.

It kinda makes me wish I had a camera.

Anyhooooooo, tonight I'll have a 1939 episode of the vignette series "Lights Out, Everybody" over at Heavenly Days. I discovered an interesting web site on the NBC broadcast facility in Chicago where many of my favorite radio programs originated. Perhaps my available time will be spent learning more about that so I can share it with you.   

Well, I thought it would be nice to schedule more jobs in one week than I can actually do. I do that because I don't know how to say No. I think it's a tee-shirt. "Don't ask me to do anything. I can't say No." I got married because I can't say No. I did that twice. Gosh I hope they will name an illness after me.

That's the world. It keeps spinning. So what?

I will enjoy an evening off. Then - let the games begin!

The Fibber McGee and Molly I have planned for Heavenly Days tomorrow night is one of the funniest I've heard, by the way. There are few things I enjoy more than sitting here of an evening listening to radio. I don't know what those few things are, but I am giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Now, it seems to me that I should tell a story. I know that it would be very boring if it were a true story, so I won't break from tradition and tell one of those.

My memory's a funny thing - just like the way I look naked. (If you like pathos). There are some very large gaps in it which I've filled with patching plaster. I used to punch holes in walls. Can you imagine? I was a very angry person - and not that long ago either. I became an expert in the filling of holes in walls, because I have also been a relatively responsible person. At my worst you could still catch me on a good day.

I'm tired of telling The Gentleman, though. Do you realize I can count the number of times I wore blue jeans on one hand? - prior to meeting The Lady. Once she told me I would look good in jeans I started wearing them. Now you can't stuff me in a suit. Well, least not while I'm still breathing.

Years ago I was going to publish a periodical called Fantastic Fiction, and no - it's not what it sounds like. It was not intended to be a Fantasy genre thing. It was conceived as an engine for short stories that don't really fit snugly into any genre in particular. My friend wrote a story called Big, Fuzzy Moths about a crazy man who is writing a manifesto - if you put a tie and jacket on him he could be Al Gore - who sees the title, and is being attacked by it (them) - the moths, that is. I don't remember all the details of the story, except that it ends in a shopping cart conflagration. Apparently, the protagonist ends up setting his volumes of handwritten rantings afire in a final showdown between moth and man.

I had something called Mister Sparky about a fellow who seemingly loses the capacity for speech after his girlfriend threatens to have an abortion. Simon Sporako was this fellow's name. He was a friend of the reclusive childrens' book author "Uncle" Eric Nemo. Oh, there's a little house in the midst of a huge pine barrens area, a big gothic looney bin, an eccentric, saxophone-playing psychiatrist, a feminist ex-wife, (author Maisie Dean Nemo), and a monster living in the back yard.

Funny little monster. No sign of Julia either - except in dreams. One by one, the reunited group - with Oliver Turber, the normal one, and narrator, making four - begin to separately have visions of Julia's pregnant belly splitting open and "Sparky's Child" bursting forth. Then, Ridley Scott made Alien, and suddenly I lost interest in the story...

It really is a shame. I had established that the sound of crickets in summer - so lovely - would be the indication that the monster was near. It was like the gulls in Moby Dick, only the ocean was a sea of chest-high pine trees. I wrote it - several times, as was my wont - and friends told me it was a joyless story. Years later I would see a movie called... oh gosh, what was it called? Dang it all - I can't remember. It was something to do with ghosts or zombies, or zombie ghosts. But it was a joyless picture. Oh, there was an interesting mood to the work, very evocative, very atmospheric. But, nothing else.

Now I recall that the former Mrs. Squabbler (#2) and I had walked out of a movie together. And I am not going to remember the name of that picture either, but I can tell you Sharon Stone revealed her vagina and that created a fashionable buzz among the silly people. Oh golly - I'm hopeless! But, the reason we walked out is that there was not a single likable character in the film. They might all have been machine-gunned and we would not have blinked. I have no idea how the picture ended. It had nothing to do with the formulaic and obligatory sex. It had everything to do with having nobody to root for.

You have to capture the imagination. In order to do that you have to give people something relevant, a person they recognize as themselves, or perhaps a character they might want to be in a perfect world.

Abel Ferrara makes such movies. You're riveted. You want to turn away, but you can't. The best one - Bad Lieutenant - was about redemption. Violent, gory stories are nothing new. Gore and shock are very useful to demonstrate villainy and heroism. In the oldest known story in the English language a fellow nails a monster's arm to his dining room wall - kind of a conversation piece over dinner.

And don't get me started on Shakespeare.

Where am I going with this? Pleasantly nowhere. Ah yes - Mister Sparky. I so wanted somebody to write that bloody story. I just didn't want it to be me.

I was hitting on a theme of mine - only a very dark variation. The imaginary friend. In this case, he's a monstrous spawn who can bite your head off. Created out of the thoughts of a man. "Sparky's Child" is what I call a Dark Companion. Is that a theme of mine? Well, I number my wives. You have no idea whether or not they are real. I have a mysterious friend called The Lady, and another who goes by the name Sister Midnight. What do I do? I create characters. Oh - there may be real people behind them, under them, inspiring them, but they're characters nonetheless. They dance to my tune. I'm the one who's writing them.

It's all about filling in the gaps, and that's really all it's about. Life is full to overflowing with things like sons at track meets (and me waiting for him to come home), and overbooking jobs, and struggling with uploads, and sparring with the formidable Number Two about this thing and that, (and the other). Who wants to read about that? I don't.

  

 

Yesterday my younger son - (Catapult McGee, I call him) - asked me what my favorite time of year was. I said Right now. Let it be eternally almost-summer. The moment those lilacs are in their glory I am reminded of how soon they turn brown and rot, and then the summer is gone before I have been able to remember it - so very short. It seems to last but a few days. I prefer the promise of it coming to its arrival.

I remember the cousins would be coming to visit. We had a family of them who were completely unlike us. They were born smoking, you know? Drove a big old Continental with suicide doors. We lived atop a hill overlooking the bay and Long Island Sound beyond it. I could hear their gigantic engine from afar laboring up our hill. At that moment I realized that their imminent arrival was the beginning of their eventual departure. If they never arrived they would never have to leave. So - the moment of greatest happiness for me was the anticipation of their arrival. To freeze time eternally at that moment is to have no sadness at all, no sense that the impermeable law of all Matter - change - must occur no matter what we may think or do, or want.

The law of all Matter. That's right.

Genesis tells us things change by nature. Things fall apart. Matter - the World - has no substance. All matter is made of the exact same stuff - the book calls it clay sometimes; we call it "particles" - and the only thing Matter in all its many forms or appearances has in common is that it disintegrates. In life, just as in dreams, things change into other things if you look at them long enough. Events, the passing seasons, the ages of Man - all of this is merely disintegration, change.

So, where nothing ever 'happens' is where I long to be. Where nothing happens. Just life. I guess that would be life without death, and life without death must be life without change. And I suppose that would be like God's life, because the other thing we know is that God never changes. God is substance. All of substance is God, whereas all of Matter conforms to a process we call 'entropy.'

Spring turns into summer, and before you know it, you're sliding off snowy rooftops with the newly-dug grave waiting to cushion your fall.

Mind you - I didn't say all this to Catapult McGee.

Too funny.

Tonight, George Burns and Gracie Allen return to Heavenly Days in an episode called "Gracie's Triumphant Return." Her 1940 presidential bid (as the candidate for the Surprise Party) continues. And speaking of McGee, Fibber and Molly return tomorrow night for further slices of life in Wistful Vista. That's right - if you're tired of watching things fall apart, and things turn into other things, come to Heavenly Days, where nothing ever changes.

 

If I had five children I might get the hang of helping them with their school projects the fifth time. Alas, I have only the two. The older one opted for building the smallest catapult in the "contest." I was not so lucky with his little brother's idea when he arrived at the same dreaded point.

The assumption on the part of school teachers that all fathers have woodworking shops in their finished basements or garages, with a collection of tools one only sees on television, is - well, it's actually correct in most cases in this school district. We have a population of renters - people either too young to have children or old enough to have given them the kiss off - and then there's me. For the most part, however, my town is well-to-do. Women opt to be homemakers, having that freedom. They gather in my favorite coffee shop at several tables pulled together, all the prams and strollers in a perimeter formation like westward expansion settlers circling their wagons against Indian attack.

So I rummaged through my own garage for the rusted debris of two marriages, several houses, both owned and rented, finding to my immense surprise that I possessed three power drills and a circular saw. Ah - so we were in business. A few wood scraps, some nails. The fellow at the local chain hardware store informed me that several of his customers had been buying garage door springs to use as a firing mechanism. I believe they are the ones who will be orchestrating the massacre.

I was in government school until the Sixth Grade. Several of us brought in our rifles for Show and Tell one year - was it Fifth Grade maybe? We set up a target range in back. As we were cobbing our catapult together yesterday, and I was remarking upon how easily it could kill a person within a 25 foot range depending on the projectile, the kitchen TV was entertaining  us with The Lord of The Rings movie. It's an allegory about exactly what is happening in our world today. Of course, it was happening in the author's time too. My childhood, school experiences, and so on - well, that was The Shire. That was before the ascendancy of Mordor cast the nation in a blanket of fear.

In Tolkien's time the good guys - that's us - eventually won. But the thing about Evil is that it's very patient. It waits. It bides its time. It builds up its strength slowly, winning converts one by one. It invades incrementally, first taking hold of the mind, sowing thoughts that poison and weaken the spirit.

My son wonders aloud how many Orcs we could kill with our catapult. I shudder to think...

The Lady had to take her road test over again in order to get her driver's license back. She ended up using a car belonging to a mutual friend who has since died, but afterwards used mine. She would take the car while I was working. The baby seat was a permanent fixture of the back seat. My boys would squeeze in on either side.

One day their mother, (the formidable Number 2), asked me - out of their earshot - if The Lady's baby was mine. I told her no. She still doesn't believe me, and probably never will.

In time she was given a car of her own - a brownish, boxy thing that after a while could no longer get out of second gear. It was replaced by a newer white thing that looked like a sausage that someone had sat on. That was eventually replaced by a brand new vehicle. And this process of upgrades demonstrates the extent to which her baby's father was by slow degrees assuming responsibility for her. Also the extent to which his financial situation was improving.

And so, it is with fond nostalgic reflection I look back upon a time that could not have been any fun for her but delighted me no end - a time she was dependent on my more limited resources. We saw each other every day back then. But as his fortunes rose - and ultimately he decided to do the manly thing and take her into his home - our strange days vanished. By the time I began to come into my own at last - leaving that job to start my own business - our strange days were over.

The priest still asks me how she is doing. Cleric he may be, but a man nonetheless, smitten by her as all men are.

For a very long time I equated material success with spiritual shallowness, or a lack of character. As I began to cast away such prejudices in my rebirth I realized that what I resented was people who were responsible. I was not. I used my contempt for materialism to justify my irresponsibility. See, I used to think that men who bought very overpriced cars, gigantic televisions - who had automatic garage door openers with whopping big springs, and woodshops in their finished basements - all that - were shallow, stupid, materialistic, and so forth. I no longer think that.

That wasn't the truth. That was just one of the many lies I told myself to justify my own failings. The truth is a man who does those things may be shallow, stupid, materialistic, and so forth. Or, he may not be. That's not my business. What he is that I am not is responsible. He may be shallow and stupid and responsible, or he may be just like me in every good way, but also responsible.

When this dawned on me at last I realized that I needed to make an awful lot of money so I could buy a nice girl - like one of those in my favorite coffee shop. Yes, if I had my druthers I would live in a shack in the woods. But what's wrong with owning the shack? What's wrong with owning the woods? If not me - if I am only a tenant - then who will be responsible for that shack, those woods? Who has dominion over the earth, and with it the responsibility that comes with ownership? Well, the men who step up and accept that responsibility do. The men who turn away from fear and decide to accept their God-given task of assuming ownership.

Yes, the men who - although they may wrestle with it, although they may take a while wandering in the desert of doubts with a demonic self-will bent upon destruction - finally accept and acknowledge their children, take their women into their homes where they belong, stop messing around. Build catapults for school projects that could kill a person just as handily as the rifles we used to Show and Tell in better days.

Now it's my turn. I'm buying property, expanding my business. The cars are improving in reliability - slowly. I don't have to be shallow, stupid, and materialistic. I suppose it's an option.

Today we will put the finishing touches on our war machine. Tomorrow I gather the children will fire the silly things. I plan to be far out of range when they do.

I know it's going back a few years, but when that hurricane struck the city of New Orleans the residents - not all, but many - looted, rioted, shot at rescue workers, and generally behaved rather badly. Why? The answer's simple. It's because they don't own anything. If the same disaster - or worse - struck my town I know that my town's residents would not behave that way. Our first inclination is to help each other, to protect our investment. I've seen it happen. Traffic accidents, a tornado or two, the black outs, the snow storms - we are out with our shovels, not our guns. Our first thought is to rely on ourselves, on each other. If there is one example chilling enough to capture the imaginations of those who remain unaware of how close we are to the extinction of our culture it was this bizarre, inhuman, uncivilized, orc-like reaction to that storm on the part of a citizenry whose spirits have been broken by Mordor.

These were men once, but no longer.