W.C. Field’s temperance lecture is playing in the background here. It’s a pity the video controller from the Internet Archives wouldn’t embed properly in last night’s post. I had to resort to YouTube which offers poor quality and only about 5 minutes of “The Fatal Glass of Beer.” What an odd movie! I love it.

 

What I don’t love is the process of buying property. Oh my Lord, I think I’d rather rent forever. If I buy a car it seems simple enough: Car costs X amount. I give the seller X amount. We shake hands. Goodbye. With a house the same thing should really apply. The seller wants X amount. I have X amount. The transaction should involve me giving the seller X amount, and shaking hands, and saying goodbye.

 

But no, in the case of real property I have to have an attorney (for no other reason, apparently, than to have one), and I have to endure a quasi-religious ceremony spoken of with great reverence as a “closing.” Would somebody please just take my money in exchange for a place to live?

 

And Realtors – oh don’t get me started. I looked at a property – house, farm, 20-odd acres – a few days ago, and I didn’t like it. But the price is extremely low. You might say it’s “a steal.” You might, but if you do I may kill you. I had to hear the Realtor say it about a hundred times. (In fact, it was almost all I could hear with the sound from the highway on that property.) So, the price is good but I don’t want it. What does the Realtor say? He says I’m missing out on a great opportunity – “a steal.”

 

I say, “If I don’t want it, Free is too bloody expensive.”

 

He says, “So what are you looking for in a property?”

 

“Invisibility.”

 

Well, there’s a story behind this. I bought my first house at the age of 25-going-on-12, with the bank mortgage, the ritual of “closing,” the whole bit, and I was a total moron. I’d never paid a bill in my life up to that point. I thought a bill was something Congress did. Anyway, it was a disaster. And after coming through it, and all its far-reaching consequences, I vowed that I would never again buy a thing with money I had not yet made. In other words, I decided it was better to buy only what I could afford, or to save up for something special until I did have enough money to pay for it. Since then I have not financed a thing: I have no credit cards, the cars are paid for, and so on.

 

I think of the recent subprime “crisis” – ( and why is everything a crisis?) – with all this talk of “predatory lending,” and I say, “Predatory what? Heck, if there had been a law against me being a moron in 1985 it would have taken the Marines to enforce it. I think the term “predatory” in this context means the lenders had the nerve to make their product look attractive.

 

But anyhoooo, Moron is as moron does. And I did.

 

I think of Groucho: “Take me, for instance. I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.”

 

That quote means a lot to me. It’s funny – when I google the term “downward mobility” I come up with many results defining it as a negative sort of thing. For me it has been liberating to be downwardly mobile.

 

So, on the topic of “closings,” I recall its various ceremonies with religious awe. By the time you get around to writing that last check – “$35 for the ass-scratching so-and-so – you’re just about to produce a machine gun from under your checkbook.

 

I think I may become the world’s happiest renter rather than go through that sort of thing again. I would think my way of doing it is far less complicated: money is exchanged, we shake hands, goodbye. Isn’t that closure enough? I hate long goodbyes.

 

Gripe Gripe Gripe… Yes?

 

So, W.C. Fields is giving us his temperance lecture. I sat down with my son to watch Comedy Central back in February. We were living temporarily at Chateau Creekside where my caterer friend (who was on holiday – what’s that like, exactly?) had one of these flat screen TV’s to watch. When I saw and heard the sorts of things that pass for “comedy,” and considering my son was exposing himself to it like someone exposing himself to a flock of large birds all taking a crap at the same time, I was convinced of the necessity of getting the TV out of my house. Something to do with camels’ backs and straws, Eh?

 

Fields is funny. But I wonder if he’s making some of this up as he goes along? That would make it better. He’s been mimicked by impressionists so often now that it sounds a little like he’s doing a fair but not outstanding impression of himself in this recording. We have been hearing Bill Thompson on FM&M doing Bill Fields better than Bill Fields – in the character of Horatio Boomer, (who has been missing from the 1941 programs, by the way. Do you miss him? I do.) I’ll grab some of Field’s radio appearances with Don Ameche for us, maybe post some of that next week. 

Here’s a 1935 Johnson’s Wax program which you can compare to the 1941 shows we’ve been hearing. The musical portions are longer, and Fibber and Molly appear in two related short sketches. There are more sponsor plugs, too. That’s interesting.

 

 

1935 was the first year of what would become the Fibber McGee and Molly program – or what would become known as such. Technically speaking, the show would be called The Johnson’s Wax Program until Pet Milk eventually took over the sponsorship. This early show has more the flavor of vaudeville about it. Fibber and Molly are traveling the country in ’35. They haven’t yet settled down at – Radio’s most famous address – 79 Wistful Vista.

 

Just for fun, compare Fibber and Molly’s snappy repartee with Don Ameche’s and Frances Langford’s “The Bickersons” from 11 years later, which you can do by clicking on the controller below. This is about 8 minutes of a typical Bickersons sketch.

 

Critics of “The Bickersons” didn’t like its negative view of marriage. Of course, battling spouses is a staple of comedy – but no, not then, not anymore. Not in 1946. WWII changed many things, not the least of which was people’s sense of humor. That’s no joke. Gone were the days when murder and mayhem, mischief, and grievous bodily harm were funny. Gone were the wise-cracking dames, the wise-quacking ducks, and the clowns with the big shoes and the slap stick.

 

The battling Bickersons were really more a revival than a ground-breaking originality, but no one except Ameche and Langford could have pulled it off. Despite the razor blades in their words there’s such an affection that comes across between them – an affectionate familiarity. And here they are, on the road, on vacation, just as Fibber and Molly were, and their personalities are different, their two marriages are quite different, but that affection comes through in both cases. I think that’s why the Bickersons worked.

 

I’ve been reading the writings of contemporaries of ours who say “The Bickersons” was like “The Simpsons” in its way of tweaking sensibilities, but if you want some serious tweaking go back to the 30’s. W.C. Fields plays a henpecked husband whose wife tells him, “Take the gas pipe!” Groucho Marx routinely proposes to rich society dames (usually played by Margaret Dumont) with undisguised contempt for both them and their society. Many depictions of the great institution of marriage in comedy were far from syrupy sweet.

 

Comedy in the 30’s was downright mean. People thought mean was funny. People thought a guy taking a sack of flour in his face was side-splitting, like Fields in “The Fatal Glass of Beer,” (1933). Here it is:

 

 

When Fibber McGee and Molly return in September Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve will be conspicuous by his absence from Wistful Vista. Harold Peary went on to portray the rotund and blustery character in his own program, “The Great Gildersleeve” which premiered on August 31, 1941, sponsored by Kraft Food, on NBC. The program would have a most successful run, spawning four movies, before Peary was replaced in the role by his friend Willard Waterman over a dispute with the sponsor.

 

What we are hearing now is the original audition show – we would call it a “pilot” today – which describes Gildy’s move from Wistful Vista to Summerville to take charge of his brother-in-law’s estate. He will also take charge of raising his niece and nephew, which will ultimately become the central story line. This early program is sponsored not by Kraft but by Johnson’s Wax, and of course Harlow Wilcox reprises his FM&M role. But, as far as I know, this is the only Johnson’s Wax / Gildersleeve program in existence. Kraft Food’s first Gildersleeve program uses this same script, which introduces us to Gildy’s nemesis, Judge Hooker.

 

There are a few continuity problems in the transition from Peary’s FM&M character to his character in “The Great Gildersleeve,” chiefly the inexplicable absence of Gildy’s wife. That led to speculation that Gildy had committed the perfect murder, but audiences soon forgot about the former Mrs. Gildersleeve and ‘got with the program.’ His personality also became a little softer as he made the transition from being essentially a caricature in a vaudeville-style sketch show to a single parent of two teenagers in a situation comedy. But, in this early program he’s as blustery as ever.

 

(Oh - this isn't Mrs. Gildersleeve pictured above, by the way, although the placement of this photo in the body of my post seems to suggest that it is. In "The Great Gildersleeve" Throckmorton will become Summerville's most eligible bachelor - after a fashion, attracting his widowed neighbor, among others. When the show made its transition to TV, with Waterman in the role, Gildy's romantic exploits would take center stage. The TV show, by the way, had nothing of the radio program's charm. It didn't last long. At some point I'll post a few video samples.)

I’ll start posting episodes of “The Great Gildersleeve” in September. Fibber McGee and Molly will also return at that time. In the meanwhile, to satisfy my appetite for Old Time Radio, I will also post a an episode of FM&M’s 1950’s spin-off program, “Beulah” this summer, of which only 7 episodes seem to have survived, some Burns and Allen, and a 15 minute long episode of “The Bickersons.” I also have W.C. Field’s famous temperance lecture on deck, and “Suspense!” will return on Sunday nights. We’ll have a fun summer just digging into the Internet Archives.    

 

 

The funny thing is I really didn’t care for that house. There is a better one, somewhere deeper in the woods and higher in the hills. It may be uglier. It may be more beat-up. It may require more work. But its location… I’ll find it.

 

Let’s move on.

 

I’m sure most of you recall the “getting back to Nature” trend in the 1970’s. If you don’t, wait a few minutes – it will come back. Trends always repeat themselves. That is how you know they are trends. Like the sand in the Old Testament they are forever shifting and changing. If one stands upon a trend, or if one tries to build a foundation in a trend, his feet will fall out from under him, his foundation bricks will crumble into dust. Having said that, there’s certainly nothing wrong with living in the wildwood if that’s what floats your boat. People do.

 

I call that camping. I don’t think I would enjoy camping permanently, though – How does it differ from being a bum?

 

I know I would definitely like to go camping this summer. I would like to be temporarily homeless. I’ll pitch a tent, build a fire, swat uselessly at bloodthirsty mosquitoes… Cool.

 

Oh my, but we were a camping family. No mod RV’s for us – we lived rough. Dad always wanted to be a forest ranger. That never happened for him.

 

I always wanted to be a writer… That’s interesting.

 

So I have the skills. I know how to make a fire by rubbing two ferocious mountain lions together. I know how to build a shelter out of tree bark and my own fecal matter. I know which trees have the softest leaves – just like Charmin… almost. I know which mushrooms you can safely eat and which mushrooms will incline you towards becoming a Democrat.

 

These are all good skills to have.

 

The fallacy of “getting back to Nature” is that it’s actually impossible to get away from it. Nature is really just another word for matter. There is nothing unnatural about a house, an automobile, or an oil refinery. These things are made from nature by human beings who cannot help but to be part of nature because their bodies are made of the same stuff – or matter – as everything else in nature; particles, or teeny-weenie little specks of something suspended somehow in a finite but too-vast-to-be-imagined field of nothing.

 

There is vastly more nothing in the universe than something. In fact, if you were to eliminate the distance of nothing between the nuclei and the orbiting electrons in all of the atoms in all of the molecules of, say – a fire truck, you would end up with an enormously heavy speck of dust which it would require an extremely powerful microscope to be able to see.

 

Likewise, if you were to eliminate all of the nothing between all of the stars and all of their orbiting planets, you would come up with… oh, God knows what.

 

OK, years ago – but relatively recently from the Squabbler’s point-of-view – people believed that they (we) lived inside something which resembles a giant snow globe. (Santa Claus and his reindeer were optional.) The world was flat, as far as they could see, and it was covered over by a dome of sky into which the stars were fixed. And the night was divided from the day, and so on. We tend not to believe that anymore – Why? Merely because we are able to see farther than those people could see.

 

How much farther? Only a little.

 

Let me propose something, though – something the Squabbler is right now whispering in my ear: Let us imagine that in those days, when people believed they lived in a giant snow globe, what they could see was really the totality of what is. If that were the case then it must follow that those people really did live inside a giant snow globe.

 

Well, that would mean the nature of the universe (or the world in Biblical language) had to change at some point so that it no longer resembled a giant snow globe but instead began to resemble planets and stars in a seemingly infinite vastness of empty space. I guess the matter, or nature, of the world at long last assumed its present size and shape because we invented the telescope.

 

In other words, the universe dances to our tune, and when we thought the world was a giant snow globe it was a giant snow globe, and now when we think of planets and stars there are planets and stars. Doesn’t that sound preposterous? Of course it does. That’s Materialism. All it takes to completely change the truth is a more powerful telescope.

 

(Squabs is chuckling now. It’s a little disconcerting. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.)

 

But, from our history we really ought to learn that every time we think we see the totality of all that is there is more to see behind it, beyond it, inside of it, and so on. Totality is just a word that suggests a concept. It is not a thing that can be seen, nor can it be understood. We call it God; it is that mysterious. And it hasn’t changed no matter how powerful our telescopes, or microscopes, have become. It’s still there – always was, always will be.

 

Tomorrow some extremely clever scientist will figure out how to shorten the distance of the nothing within his own body so that his tiny particles of something will be able to pass through a kitchen table without damaging it. Tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, some other extremely clever scientist will figure out how to traverse the seemingly infinite distance of nothing between this end of the universe and that end of the universe by just thinking a certain way. (That’s basically what the Squabbler does.) But three days hence, after these wonderful accomplishments have become as commonplace as driving a Subaru to Rhubarb Valley, there will still be more behind it, more beyond it, more inside of it, and so on – more to see, more to learn.

 

But – having said all that, I understand, and I sympathize with, the one who insists the world is a giant snow globe, and the one who insists the Earth is one planet among many other planets, or the one who insists on… whatever the fashion of the day may be. To contemplate limitation is comforting; to contemplate Infinity is terrifying. Likewise, to do as an Atheist does – believe in money, or his skin, or “Mother” Nature, or a government – is understandable because these are things a person can wrap his mind around, and that is comforting. Whereas, to believe in God is just as frightening today as it was back in the snow globe days when folks preferred to worship mountains, the Sun, stone idols, earwigs, or what-have-you. It’s tempting to say, “Ok, I’m going to stay here in my little box and never step outside of it.”

 

And now – I had better step out of my little box and get to work!

As you can see from this picture the vinyl-clad front elevation of this house I have been looking at wants a good washing. Preferably the vinyl will be removed and whatever is underneath restored, if it is restorable. I have been told that everybody else who has looked at the house expressed a desire to tear it down and build another. I have been the only potential buyer so far to see it for what it is – or used to be, and may be again.

 

I’m posting the picture only now because I am two clicks away from a perfectly calibrated certainty that I will not buy it, and will never live there. No, it has nothing to do with Dad’s visit. He likes it. He’s gung ho. It just entered my mind with sudden bell-ringing clarity that it’s not what I want.

 

I shall continue looking, but with the understanding that what I am looking for isn’t really a house. Doesn’t that sound strange? Yes, it does. But I am reminded of a car I was once obsessed with acquiring. It haunted me until I did in fact acquire it. And once I did, and only then, did I realize it wasn’t really the car that I wanted. What I wanted was someone to ride in the passenger seat of the car, or any car. It must have seemed to me that this car would somehow come with such a person, or that it would attract such a person.

 

Just so, I didn’t go away last weekend as I so famously declared that I would because it was never about going away. Without someone in that passenger seat there is no where to go. I travel in my mind farther than a person can dream of doing in an automobile, and those travels are more real to me than any physical change of location could be. I travel with the Squabbler. He is my companion on these mental trips. But he is me, and I am him, and we are still alone.

 

To tie this into my last post, there is a house in my dreams, and there has been a house in my dreams for as long as I can remember, and I call it the White Lodge. It exists in a way which is more real to me than any physical reality. But, – and here is what I didn’t yet mention – in the house in my dreams, both sleeping and waking, I am never alone. It’s not the house that matters; it is what the house contains. The house contains a family, and a family requires a woman in order to be a family.

 

Perhaps this thought stream is related to Dad’s visit after all, for wherever he goes Mom goes with him, even though she is dead. Seeing him reminds me that what he has (and most certainly does not take for granted) is the one and only thing I really want, and no number of old houses will give it to me.

 

Here I seem to be revealing something important, but to anyone who regularly or even periodically reads The White Lodge it’s bloody obvious. My blustery misogyny is really nothing more than a method self-defense against the recurrence of disappointment and misery which have been the only results of my previous forays into domesticity.

 

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a house is just a house, and sure it makes sense for my personal economic situation to invest in property right now. The chances are quite good that I will do so in the near future, but if and when I do let me be honest with myself about what it is that I will be buying – just a house. On that level of “just a house” the one I have lately chosen as a subject for obsession doesn’t quite cut the mustard for several quite practical reasons, not the least of which is that its location brings me too far (and yet not far enough) from the epicenter of my life and my business. Opening a new market in another town isn’t appealing to me - not for a mere house in any case.

 

Like most people in the world I envision several possible futures in my mind. For longer than I can remember I have envisioned a house. And it must be this way, and it must be that way, but no matter what it looks like or where it is located these imaginings of mine always center on meeting a woman who will ultimately marry me and live there. Such a thing as a live human being doesn’t usually come with property – oh yes, except in Soylent Green. The 1973 Science Fiction classic starring Charlton Heston depicted a future in which women really do come as an on-board attachment with houses. Imagine the Real Estate agent who can say, “And with every house you get a free girl!”

 

Well, so far the dire predictions the film made have not yet come to pass, nor unfortunately have its promises. Of course, the thing to remember about Science Fiction is that it’s usually wrong. The point of Science Fiction is not to predict the future. The future doesn’t exist, and it never will. The point of Science Fiction is just the same as the point of any other type of fiction: to express some truths about people in the here and now. Star Trek doesn’t tell us diddly about people in the 23^rd Century, for instance, but it does tell us a great deal about people in 1967, and it tells us volumes about the philosophy of its creator Gene Roddenberry.

 

Don’t get me started on apocalyptic predictions. The Squabbler is 3,337 years old. The Squabbler has always been 3,337 years old. 3,337 years ago the Squabbler was 3,337 years old. He remembers every generation of man predicting the imminent end of the world with all the arrogant certainty with which we have proved ourselves better than capable. Our ridiculousness is overwhelming to contemplate, and the Global Warming hoax is my “Exhibit A” to demonstrate that over time we seem to become more ridiculous rather than less so.

 

You needn’t wonder why I seem to be obsessed with creating my own world. Whether I call it Fenrocia or Rhubarb Valley or The White Lodge, it has the advantage of being more real – and less ridiculous – than this place I am sharing with you in my exile.