Monday, July 30, 2007

Long Short Story About A Sex Trick

It's hard to find a single good pic, but this will do.


The Trick

is a long short story at Dogger Gatsby's Blues. It is long, serious, with comedic sex and wild romantic attachments. It might make your belly shake with laughter or it might make you vomit in your mouth. It is not brand new, but it is well-honed and was long aborning. There are many things in it that make it a favorite of mine, including a personal view of the statues of Littlefield Fountain on the campus of UT at Austin. You never can tell what people will like. I like heroic sculpture; so sue me.

Though it is too long for casual perusal, I add it to Dogger Gatsby's Blues just trying to get all my longer fiction in one place. Maybe 3 or 4 of my friends will read it when they retire. Or maybe I will, and admire myself!


Saturday, July 28, 2007

How's Your Hearing?

Dick Cavett: "It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear."


Friday, July 27, 2007

Time And Politicians

Apocalyptic comments: I'm really just killing time. But it will never die. Although there is a rumor as to who will. There are some people of whom it is said that they will pick my brain before I die--they must be the ones who have already picked my pocket. What is evil may be fair to look upon in desperate times--but that doesn't mean it's fair!


Thursday, July 26, 2007

Bureaucracy

Eugene McCarthy: "The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty."


Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Roots In The Mud

I guess I've always been a kind of anti-roots guy. I mean, I've never been much interested in my family roots any further back than I've met people. I have only a very vague memory of any "great grandfathers" or anything like that. I was never interested in the "great" anybodies of my family tree unless I'd met them. I always felt peculiar when people at large would wax eloquent about "the old country" or "celebrate" their heritage with special holidays (not shared with the general population) and wear colorful, funny costumes from antiquity or from foreign lands. I don't imagine that I'm the "quintessential American" but I think it may be true that that's all I am, just an American in the melting pot. I don't care or know anything about Irish or Scotch or English or Norwegian or anything else that may be in my blood. The time I've spent discussing such things with other family members is extremely limited. I have liked some of my family members very much, but I have never linked that to racial or familial types, just luck. I would not be surprised or jarred to discover that there are horse rustlers in my family tree. But I don't know of any, either.

I don't want to find out if I should be fond of banjos or wearing a beret or a set of kilts or dancing around a peon's hat or dreaming of conquering dragons in big goofy hats and loose pantaloons! I'm just me, and it's no great prize! I am myself, the son of my parents, my sister's crazy brother, and I'll have to do. I am just not swoon-ish or overly-impressed about my blood-type or my skin-tone or my ancestors who were generations of--whut? Carpenters? Sea-going men? Iron-mongers? Coal-diggers? Farmers? Cotton-pickers? It would be vaguely interesting, but not more so than a quick documentary on the History Channel. I don't spend any time proposing that us white guys are better than you not-white guys. Or that Americans are better than Europeans. Puh-leeze, gimme a break!

I find that the great thing about America is that I have been allowed to be rootless, to be this curmudgeon without costume or ideology. Maybe if I'd been of Jewish or Negro or Arab descent, I'm be more conscious of all that--if the world had ever been prejudiced against me day after day, hour after hour! But how can I know, when I'm none of those thing, and have also known examples from each of those groups who also were not avid about it?

I'm this blond or brown-haired person of indeterminate features and lineage. You say you're good at figuring such things out? Well, don't bother me about it, go read somebody else's palm and charge them 50 bucks! Me, I don't even like to join clubs. Nor am I interested in my home-town's booster groups. When I do join anything, I exult in the fact that we are diverse--that is what America is most about I think. I don't think I'm smarter or better than you are, but I do think I'm carrying less baggage in many of the important moments of my life, and, you know, I feel like that can't be bad! Maybe you are so used to your life that you would only be comfortable wrapped in some flag, religion, or culture. That's America, you have the right. Don't abuse it. And don't ask for privileges.


Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Fleep, Flipe, Flup

Run For It, It's Chickasaurus!

A pair of Carolina wrens have made a nest in an ornamental birdhouse on the porch near the back door. They've been there a few weeks and it seemed like forever before there was any sign of baby birds. I don't disturb them if I can help it, even to the point that I've barely seen the young. I see the adults come and go; they are always spying me and trying to distract me from the nest with their birdsong. The wrens have a double approach to singing, sometimes chirping in a song like manner and other times sounding out noises like some kind of insects. Years ago, I thought that sound WAS insects until I happened to see one of the wrens making the sound close to me. Whichever sounds they may make, it's remarkable that such small birds can sing with such volume. I don't know if it fools other predators, but it fools me as to where they may be! Yesterday and today I've been answering their chirps with imitative whistling. Though I'm not very good at it, they seem to realize my sounds are imitations or aimed at them and they've been "answering" me. I don't know why; they're so close to me when I do it, they must know it's me. Maybe they think it's all helping to distract me from the babies if they keep it up. In other years, I used to tease back and forth meowing at the catbirds. They sing, but they do also meow like a cat! I guess they're that hopeful that I'm a cute little birdie they can mate with! (Nobody ever said birds were smart.) I guess they're here to entertain me, and mostly I don't eat them. Unless they're chickens, who do not have a good press. How could one possibly feel guilty about eating chickens? I suppose there was a chickasaurus way back in time who may have had admirable qualities other than tasting good, but I never met that one. Just as well; I've hate to meet a chicken the size of a Volvo. Come to think of it, I'd hate to meet anything alive that was the size of a Volvo. I'm not all that comfortable about Clifford The Big Red Dog.


Monday, July 23, 2007

How Super Are Heroes?

Dogger Gatsby: "Every country in the world has men and women who will risk their lives for children who have fallen into abandoned wells or gotten lost in the woods or who have wandered into the road. You are not a Super-hero because you go to the rescue even though the chances of success may be slim--you are Human. And that's a good enough thing to be most days of the week."


France

Charles De Gaulle: "How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?"


Sunday, July 22, 2007

Conviction

George Bernard Shaw:
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."


Saturday, July 21, 2007

Student Health Center

Somewhere back in my early twenties, I worked at night at a university student medical center. I answered the few phone calls and otherwise filed the medical records that had been pulled during the day.

I recall that I read my girlfriend's file one time after she'd been pestering them for birth control pills and the uncooperative doctor had written in her file, "Same song, 2nd verse." She was amused, but mortified, when I told her about that. Needless to say, she didn't go back to that doctor.

When I became friends with one of the student interns who slept on-site (top floor of the building) because they were on call for the late-night hours, I learned not to worry too much about the girls who "over-dosed". I was told that most of them had OD'ed on aspirins and that most of them had only taken enough to get an upset stomach, not enough to expire from! It was sort of sad when you think about it, but not as sad as if they'd been successful. There were no "successes" while I was there.

I also remember the late night custodian, a stout young man with curly black hair. He was a little bit retarded, but very muscular; one was not inclined to get on his bad side! But he was mostly affable and not a problem for me. Maybe he was on lithium, for all I knew. Something kept him calm. I was invited to see him get married soon after I quit that job, but somehow I overslept (I did that a lot) and just didn't make it to his wedding. And then never saw him again. I think I feel more guilty about that these days than I did at the time. I vaguely remember the plump young woman he married. She also worked at the health center, maybe on a different shift. So I guess I can feel doubly embarrassed, if I feel anything at all. Of course, by this time I ought to feel less, not more, but when you get old, there's no telling what foolish things will seem the most foolish to us. Of course, by now I no longer remember the names of the young bride and groom. I am and should be very embarrassed about that, too, I guess.

But how can one be bothered to care about things that happened more than 35 years ago? Because it's MY life, I guess, and one that's still meaningful to me, no matter how poor my memory. Sometimes I need to treat these episodes like fiction, you know, because the names and the details have begun to leak out of my brain. They've been leaking for a long time now. I remember a starkly plain-faced young woman from a few years later; she had the best body I'd ever seen once I got her clothes off. I'd never imagined she would look so good! Jesus, what a fox! I guess it goes to show that my not paying attention to detail started a long time ago. What's worse (is it?) I don't remember her name, either. I've been trying to remember it for 10 or 15 years now and I'm beginning to think that it's gone completely. By now, I've reviewed every female name in the universe and none of them have lit any light bulb over my head! Maybe I should just christen her Ariadne and forget about the truth?

"There must be some kind of way out of here,"
Said the joker to the thief. B. Dylan


Friday, July 20, 2007

Revolving Doors of Thought

Handwritten Remarks Transcribed
By Dogger Gatsby

Sometimes I wish I could be with someone I like as much as I like you. Don't ask me how I arrived at this thought, it may not be explicable. I was thinking about those photos of your husband with the grandbaby and noticing how very gray his hair has gotten. I guess no one will suspect him any more of being out with his mother! It never meant anything, but your hair turned gray before any of us. It's strange to say that even your husband (of whom I once must have been very jealous) makes me like you more. As big a fuckup as I am in life, I'm glad to know you ended up with someone almost as sensible as you. I would never have turned out, would never have worked or fit in. I know you know it, I just have to remind myself that I know it, too. It's a shame, but it's undeniable. I'm barely fit for the depraved and isolated life I lead. How could anyone possibly be attractive these days? How could I be? Nothing will work out, I know that. How could I not know it?


Thursday, July 19, 2007

Try For The Sun

To Try for the Sun Lyrics
Artist(Band):Donovan Leitch

We stood in the windy city,
The gypsy boy and I.
We slept on the breeze in the midnight
With the raindrop and tears in our eyes.
And who's going to be the one
To say it was no good what we done?
I dare a man to say I'm too young,
For I'm going to try for the sun.
We huddled in a derelict building
And when he thought I was asleep
He laid his poor coat round my shoulder,
And shivered there beside me in a heap.
And who's going to be the one
To say it was no good what we done?
I dare a man to say I'm too young,
For I'm going to try for the sun.
We sang and cracked the sky with laughter,
Our breath turned to mist in the cold.
Our years put together count to thirty,
But our eyes told the dawn we were old.
And who's going to be the one
To say it was no good what we done ?
I dare a man to say I'm too young,
For I'm going to try for the sun.
Mirror, mirror, hanging in the sky,
Won't you look down what's happening here below?
I stand here singing to the flowers,
So very few people really know.
And who's going to be the one
To say it was no good what we done?
I dare a man to say I'm too young,
For I'm going to try for the sun.
We stood in the windy city
The gypsy boy and I.
We slept on the breeze in the midnight,
With the raindrop and tears in our eyes.
And who's going to be the one
To say it was no good what we done ?
I dare a man to say I'm too young,
For I'm going to try for the sun.


Law?

Alex Levin: "The reason there is so little crime in Germany is that it's against the law."


Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Together

George Santayana: "Why shouldn't things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go very well together."


Monday, July 16, 2007

The New Barbarians

Who Are The New Barbarians And Why Won’t They Go Away?

I admit that “barbarity” is a purely subjective thing, a matter of quibbling over cultural details. To me, the barbarians in the current culture might first have seemed to be the hip-hoppers and the country-and-western elements, who both seem to make such a matter of pride out of their ignorance. To be “different” is one thing; to insist on being “one’s self” is not a terrible thing, either. But I fail to see the point in being so prideful about never having learned anything to start with. And, in the case of some who have learned a little, they hide it, pretend to despise it, talk extra “down-home” or ultra home-boy. Is it homey or “homie”—if they can’t spell it, how can I? It’s all too funky fo’ me.

What makes one “civilized”, I think, is a willingness to absorb a little information—hopefully, the best—from all cultural influences you encounter. But the cultural norm these days is to pretend to never change, to never learn, to never improve. We’re all going to end up as cornpone gangstas with vanilla tastes if current influences and pretenses continue.

That’s the group who are proud to be stupid. The other new barbarians are the people on TV who think that everyone else IS stupid. We are overwhelmed by all the overwrought vulgarians of the entertainment talk shows and all the in-your-face argumentative screamers of the News Talk Shows. I wonder how it all came down to this being prideful about our own shallowness and rude behavior? Some people think I’m rude; but at least I’m not fucking shallow, god damn it!

Test Question: Who is Dopey Dan these days? President of the United States, who else?


Non sequitur remark: What I like on TV is Little People, Big World (Starring the Rolloff family). It’s a way better “reality” show than being forced to go to the bathroom with Paris Hilton.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Everything

Is everything turning brown? Naw, I can't stand it! I like colors better than I like expandable post summaries.

p.s. I may write a real post any moment now! Or I might lead you down the yellow brick road...with monkeys.


Don't Look!

Franklin P. Adams: "Seeing ourselves as others see us would probably confirm our worst suspicions about them."


Saturday, July 14, 2007

Hackosphere Redux

Thank you, God, thank you, Jesus, thank you Ramani! My "Read More" is working once again! My Hackosphere hack is once again functioning! I had a Bad On and was anticipating that things would not go well for me when I changed the code (being an idiot and Unlucky, too!). I guess I dodged another bullet. I didn't even have to bite a dog!


Old Man?!

Oliver Wendell Holmes: "A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time."


Hackosphere

Did not fix itself. The author has posted some instructions for fixing it which I have been too lazy to implement. I tried a couple of times, actually, but the instructions didn't work for me. Fuck it, I'll fix it when I feel like it. Ramani has posted a third set of instructions and I will try them later. If I feel like it. Grrr! It makes me want to bite a dog or something else with teeth!


Thursday, July 12, 2007

Hackosphere Haunt

Hackosphere's expandable summary posts have always worked in the past, so I'll give it time, but it is misfiring on all my blogs that use it. I wonder if it's a ghost in the machine? Now when you click on "Read More", it does not expand. Maybe it'll fix itself while I sleep tonight. Waiting, waiting...


Writing, He Says?

Thomas Mann: "A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."


Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Wages Of Sin

Paula Poundstone: "The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling."


Self-Absorption

Where's my Thank You, Masked Man for today? I must have it!

I'll get sullen if I'm left to my own devices! My eating will decline. Any of you need this magic cookie? It's not doing me any good. I eat more and am at my ideal weight, I'm told, but I remain anemic.

I wonder if I'm pissed off yet?



Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Speak To The Young

Willa Cather: "The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young."


Monday, July 09, 2007

Waaaaah!

Hey, I can't live with only 1 remark (comment) a day! I don't even care if it's snotty as long as you're not anonymous! I know how to clean up and how to fight dirty, too. But it's a bit too clean around here at present. Bah!


Sunday, July 08, 2007

Zombie Love (Bloody Hell)

Is this the place?
They said it was the place
Where small evils rule and sagging cuties cruise
And clumsy zombies fuck themselves into a frenzy.
So is it, any such?
Is this the place where hideous hot-blooded zombies
Wake and fall in love and rut in mud,
Ring silent silver bells in heat, reproduce as such,
And wear each other's fingers out?
You know those fingers, lips, and tongues
Can but fall off at last and turn to dust?
Is this the place where even youthful bosoms
Must turn concave at last without a touch of mirth
And sport the smell of must and lust and lavender
And damp asshole and earth?
We still just yearn to love and touch
Even if only stitches, spit, and formaldehyde holds our insides in,
Even if love stinks, or drools, or loses it's expensive touch
When thick dark sputum spews and spreads like blood
Across your once-expansive breathless chest...


Santa Claus

Shirley Temple: "I stopped believing in Santa Claus when my mother took me to see him in a department store, and he asked for my autograph."


Thursday, July 05, 2007

The Long Run

James Thurber: "All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why."


Tuesday, July 03, 2007

4th of Explosives

I don't advise it, but if you want to turn on the TV and have a patriotic pile of crap flung in your face, go ahead. Hold some cheap explosives in one hand and try to piss the letters of your state name into the sand. No abbreviations! Good luck, Mississippi!


I'll be out of pocket tomorrow and not near a computer. All will survive without me, I imagine. Dammit.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Situational Meanings

I wonder if "dude" and "bucko" have about the same situational meaning to the persons who use them? I think that might be the case. I say it without looking either of them up in a dictionary, so maybe I'm wrong... I suspect, though, that the fellow why calls you "bucko" holds you in a deeper contempt but keeps it clean because he's afraid his mother (or somebody) will hear him.

Some additional thoughts (thanks to Alisa): Dude has a long and wide history and is very indefinite in it's meaning because of that except as it is situationally used. You have to deduce the meaning from context; if you just read a line or two of dialog on a page, you might not know what it means. All the uses of Bucko I ever heard seemed detrimental or demeaning to me--a very in-your-face form of address--although the persons using it would probably have denied it. The only people I can recall hearing it from were men trying to refrain from using cuss words. I think some country boy somewhere merely invented an evasive cuss word and it now comes out of other people's mouths from time to time!

I remember some writer back when I was a teenager was postulating that the beatnik use of daddyo was meant as a negation of authority figures. Like "daddy zero". Daddy is nothing to me. Something like that. I've never forgotten that interpretation, right or wrong, and I think it influences my view of "bucko".

There, that's everything I know about "bucko". It may be everything i know about anything!


Foreign Language Surprise

I didn't retain it for long, so I don't know what it was. I mean by that that someone left me a comment in Spanish (which I do not speak). I deep-sixed it, though not without first trying the Babel Fish translator program on it. It was, as is usual with the translator program, about half-nonsense. I thought it might have been some poetry, though I think the damn translator just has that effect when it doesn't do a good job. Anyway, I didn't know what it was about or who had sent it; it might have been genuine and sincere, but I treated it as a suspicious package and "blew it up". I mean by that, it never got past the "moderator" step. Hope I didn't kill off Spain or Mexico's most famous poet. If I did, though, what damn business did they have writing to me?! If they're so smart, can't they tell that I'm unstable?!

You have to consider these things carefully, Dude.

END.


Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

by Bob Dylan

When you're lost in the rain in Juarez
And it's Eastertime too
And your gravity fails
And negativity don't pull you through
Don't put on any airs
When you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue
They got some hungry women there
And they really make a mess outa you

Now if you see Saint Annie
Please tell her thanks a lot
I cannot move
My fingers are all in a knot
I don't have the strength
To get up and take another shot
And my best friend, my doctor
Won't even say what it is I've got

Sweet Melinda
The peasants call her the goddess of gloom
She speaks good English
And she invites you up into her room
And you're so kind
And careful not to go to her too soon
And she takes your voice
And leaves you howling at the moon

Up on Housing Project Hill
It's either fortune or fame
You must pick up one or the other
Though neither of them are to be what they claim
If you're lookin' to get silly
You better go back to from where you came
Because the cops don't need you
And man they expect the same

Now all the authorities
They just stand around and boast
How they blackmailed the sergeant-at-arms
Into leaving his post
And picking up Angel who
Just arrived here from the coast
Who looked so fine at first
But left looking just like a ghost

I started out on burgundy
But soon hit the harder stuff
Everybody said they'd stand behind me
When the game got rough
But the joke was on me
There was nobody even there to call my bluff
I'm going back to New York City
I do believe I've had enough


Copyright © 1965; renewed 1993 Special Rider Music


Antagonisms

Alfred Hitchcock: "Seeing a murder on television... can help work off one's antagonisms. And if you haven't any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some."