Newsletter -- Cannibal's Consumed

With Cannibal back in town -- he'd been away on assignment for the newsletter -- I called for an all-staff dinner, part of a secret plan to feel him out, to decide whether to forgive him or bounce him from the staff. I wanted to see how he related to The Lady. Was the sickening sexual display we'd endured on the Fourth of July still on his mind or had he merely followed the others in ignorance?

To this point Cannibal didn't know a thing about Danny, Spud, and Tipsy being gone. His assignment had taken him up just northeast of Silage City, where people don't ordinarily go, to get a feature on a cannibalistic cult in the backwoods. He was so far out there, and in such a dangerous place, I was a little afraid I'd never hear from him again, but not only did he come back, he seemed healthier than when he left.

I had a place at the table set for everyone, including the missing three. As we gathered I said, "I wonder what happened to Spud, Danny, and Tipsy, where they are." Cannibal goes, "Don't look at me, I'm still hungry." Seeing that he had no idea of any problems here, everything was just right for the test. Our time together was actually lovely, with nothing untoward in regard to The Lady. As we ate we shared in pleasant chit-chat about the cult and some of their practices, such as abducting people from nursing homes and giving them a fit send-off in their ritual. Cannibal said he made some important contacts for future articles.
 
Naturally I'm thinking, I believe I could forgive Cannibal for July 4. It was mindless sex, he didn't mean anything by it; he was simply weak and so easily swayed by the others in their lust. But then, after we'd eaten and The Lady was working on the dishes, I came back from the office and overheard him with his shrill grating voice coming on to her. "It's just you and me, baby. And this time I'll have you all to myself!" I sprang into view and declared that he was as guilty as the others, who had all bit the dust. "So you're not the completely withdrawn clueless cannibal you pretend to be!"

It quickly became very unpleasant, of course, as in the heat of encounters like this the bile flows so freely and has to have its way. Now fully exposed, Cannibal revealed himself as a thinking creature indeed, and a nasty one at that. "No, Kundalini, and you're not the mastermind Super Brain you pretend to be!" He revealed himself as fully conscious, amazing for one always hiding behind a clueless facade. He belittled the newsletter as "blurbs and trivial anecdotes of your pointless life!" The topper came when he declared of himself, "I'm the one with the true life! A life The Lady will share!"

That was it! In my opinion, a cannibal isn't that far removed from a vampire. And just like Dracula, this little bastard -- who literally feasts on human flesh -- absolutely intended to replenish his centers of power by one or more love noshes -- which could of course prove fatal to The Lady. She was already in his thrall, staring blankly ahead, like a shopper so fascinated by the bargains at a department store that she can't move and so is trampled from behind.

This was when it got scary. I started to move, but Cannibal twisted his hand in my direction and I was frozen in my tracks. I stood like a statue, motionless. But I still had my Super Brain and years of meditation to draw on. It came to me, that a little movement of energies would help loosen his hold. I used a technique called Diverting Thoughts; at a time like this it's concentration that means certain death. So step by step I set aside Cannibal's power by refocusing my thoughts. My thoughts weren't even of him. I quietly reaffirmed my resolve to put out the best little newsletter possible, and also, to be very personal, I thought of my mother in heaven showing me a power fist of solidarity.
 
I was of course gaining all the time and began mentally toying with Cannibal. Sweat broke out on his furrowed brow and his twisted hand pulled in on itself and he was gripped in pain. I saw in his evil cannibalistic eyes at that moment something I'll never forget, the look of absolute fear. The tables had turned! I returned to diverting my thoughts, thinking now of how much rain we've gotten and mentally complaining how high the grass is. Am I right? While extending my powerful hands and shooting rays and holding him transfixed in my grasp. "Take this, you cannibalistic bastard!" He sought in vain to shield my fantastic power. But in my mental grasp I was able to move his head close to the table, then up and down -- thump thump thump. That'd be painful for anyone, like the pain I feel mowing the yard twice as much as normal.

I stepped forward boldly and pulled the Lady to safety. She was free to return to the dishes. Then I bore down like I've never bored down before. Cannibal's narrow beady eyes bugged out of his head in fear. To be released, he would've sworn to anything I demanded: absolute fealty, worship and obeisance, free articles for life, no coffee breaks, vegetarianism. But I broke my grasp and left him panting and writhing on the floor.
 
I was surprisingly gracious at the end: "I'm not going to kill you, Cannibal, although I probably should. Instead, you shall live out your life with the terrible knowledge that, thanks to my newsletter, your name will forever be mud. Your shame shall endure as long as the newsletter and the world itself abide. As far as your personal fate, you shall be forever trapped in a purgatory of your own making, and no one will like you. You shall slog out your remaining days in the work release system, until eventually they march you to a small cell, then shoot the only key to its door into the farthest reaches of outer space, where only black holes abide. An existence I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, which by the way isn't you. You're not even worthy of that distinction. My worst enemy is forever the fear of missing the next deadline for my newsletter and blog."

The black prison bus arrived to take Cannibal back to the farm. From a mile away I could see him, looking out the windows at folks that, had he been free, he might've enjoyed.

Newsletter -- Heart Attack

NEWSLETTER CONCERNS - At the top I'll take a moment of personal privilege to thank so many of you for your words of encouragement since I announced a reboot of my old newsletter. It's great to have such kind friends. But with your encouragement you expressed concerns, and that's what I want to touch on briefly.

Your essential concern is that taking on this task is quite an undertaking, perhaps too much for one person, in addition to my other duties, the blog, living my own life, keeping mice out of my house, etc. "How can you even think of adding this to your load?" was the most insistent, gut-wrenching question I got.

Let me first say, If I didn't think I could do it, I wouldn't try. I'm not one of those fools who always tests his limits. I accept my limits in life, believing it's better to abide peacefully in complete insentience than to try to do more than you're able. As for the newsletter, I know I can do it!

Yes, of course a newsletter can be a real handful, particularly for the average person. But I have advantages: There's my iron will and steely resolve. There's my far-reaching ability to glimpse the end from the beginning, giving me the greatest confidence. And finally, even if all that forsook me, there's my super brain. I assure you, with a super brain you can accomplish a lot more than pure idiots. (I'm not dissing anyone, don't write in.)

Your concerns are appreciated, but as you can tell, I've got this thing! How? The learning goes in the hopper. Just this morning I read a few pages of a book, very refreshing. The learning arrives at my super brain's grinders, where it's ground to whatever consistency I choose; this particular book became fine meal. Finally, the chute roars into action with the barrel collecting the next newsletter.

HEART ATTACK - The previous article is everything a newsletter would need. But I'm going on, adding more! Another way you can encourage me is to subscribe. I can't tell you how much I love seeing my numbers go up. Whether it's by 100, 10, or even 1, it thrills me to no end. That's what your subscription does for me, and I thank you. But there's also something that drags me down, and really sets me off, sometimes to the point of violent rage. You guessed it, if anyone UNsubscribes. Just seeing the number go down by 1 is enough, all things being equal, to unhinge me. At which point I can't be held responsible for my actions. My one request to you is, If you subscribe, please do so with the unspoken vow in your mind that you will never UNsubscribe. When you resolve that, both of us will be happier. When I say this, friends, I'm serious, heart attack serious.

PHILOSOPHY FOR LIFE - I'm a big believer that everyone's life, and every second of life, has significance, and sometimes eternal consequences. A big part of our happiness comes from realizing this. It can be something monumental, like scaling a lofty mountain peak. You're up there, you feel the chilly wind rattling your bones, and you never forget it. Or it can be something as (apparently) trivial as reading a paragraph in some guy's newsletter and saying, "Hmm."

You see what that "Hmm" represents? A turning point, an insight, a flash of light, a moment. Like on a hot day when you take a sip of ice-cold water; you've endured the heat of the day and that sip comes across as a flash of refreshment.

My flash of refreshment to you today are these simple words, "Be encouraged." Take that in, let it roll around your mind. Seems so small, I know, like a BB in an auditorium. But somehow it keeps rolling back to you. You can ignore it, and soon your friends will say how wasted you look, how dessicated, and how terrible things must be for you. Or you can run with that good thought and become like Superman or Superwoman. Wouldn't you rather be Superman than Superwaste!

OLD NEWS - One time a teacher accused me of something I didn't do. Which was twiddle my finger around the side of my head, the same as saying, "The teacher is really dumb." I got in serious trouble, had to go to the office, where for punishment the principal shook me. It was the craziest thing, since I didn't do what they said I did. Meaning, the teacher deserved what I didn't give her!

Keep Your Hands Off Ruthie

My failure to figure out the motives of Money Mules made me a wreck. I asked myself over and over, Why do they always run instead of returning with the money? But there was no satisfactory answer, leaving me, frankly, crumpled and crying. When that happens, I'm a mess. I'm sparking and sizzling, twitching and babbling on my bed, close to destruction; I'm afraid to brush against anything lest I spontaneously combust.

I knew I needed help, but who was qualified for the job? I'm Super Brain, and if I couldn't figure it out, who could? Wracking my mind, I came up with this thought: Those who first taught me the deeper principles of people skills, psychology profs at the university! Maybe, if they put their heads together, their collective intelligence plus my own greater intelligence would give us the answer.

I should probably mention, those guys are shells of their former selves. They're bogged down from reading the same lectures since the early '60s, while I've cruised past them, making me, the student, their master in every way. It has to be a nasty feeling to watch me run laps around them as though they're standing still, but that's what you get if you lose the hold on life and scholarship you once held dear.

Then we must add sex. We all know the go-to rejuvenator for old guys, at least in their fantasies, is sex. You're old and decrepit, like my professors, and you try to prove your abiding mastery of life by sex. The main reason being, the equipment's right there in easy reach. Surely, that guy or that lady feels as I do ... We shall rise together from the ashes! they're thinking. Which, to the rest of us still holding our mental clarity, is obviously vanity.

So, anyway, I got my esteemed profs together, and threw in one fatal juicy apple of temptation by which to test them -- the cashier from the union cafeteria, Ruthie. Were I to see them entirely resolved to scholarship and not thinking of a roll in the hay to prove their scholarly manhood, then and only then could I trust them with the Money Mule question. (This is preliminary stuff. The sex stuff plows the field before we see the harvest, the "meat of the goodie," the answers I really care about.)

There they were, then, gathered in the seminar room. And each of them had his damned eyes on Ruthie, seated next to me, exquisitely dolled up! Perverts! (I would've done her myself, had my brain been just a little looser and slightly more unreliable.)

Of course I first had to set the parameters of our study and call them unto the quest: Why, when you present a Money Mule a sum of money, say $100,000, and send him forth, does he always run and never return?

They looked like they were ready to venture a few good guesses to the question. Before we could dive in, however, I wanted to inform them that I had strict ground rules:

1) Do not approach or in any way come on to Ruthie. Keep your grubby hands off Ruthie.
2) Abide by all the best legal and academic scruples. Give me your best work.
3) A Number 2 pencil is preferable to any and all other numbers. If it ain't Number 2, it's crap.

And that's it. The professors raced forth to find their pencils and bone up on the best legal and academic scruples.

As for me, I fell to my knees where I stood, a shaft of light streaming through the skylight putting me in a very dramatic limelight, and asked the Lord: "Bless them, dear God, if they deserve blessing. But if they're not ready for this important task, please reveal that as well. Thou knowest what I mean."

Of course I referred to Ruthie. She really does have a fantastic allure when she's out of cafeteria scrubs and exquisitely dolled up. I glanced around and reached down, then told myself no.

How Smart Super Brain Is

I'm just going to admit it today, then let it pass. I am pretty smart. Sometimes the smartest people humble themselves so they don't seem so smart. And, yes, I've been guilty of that many times, like in school. But not today. Today, you're looking at Super Brain, fully exposed.

If you knew me in everyday life, you'd know I more or less live at the library. I'm a regular fixture there, with others nodding to me, giving me a wave, and coming by to ask what I'm researching or interested in today. I love that, too; that's part of the fun of being smart; a symposium can break out at any moment. Our minds being together like that, it's like mentally swimming in the air, drifting up to the rafters. Very stimulating.

Here's another interesting detail to throw in. I'm not bragging, but the library literally invested in a fleet of shopping carts because of me. Some of the staff saw me, the way I go through the library, as though it's a grocery store, picking up many books for the day's perusal. I must have presented quite a sight, my arms loaded down with books, books spilling over, and some even falling to the floor! I'd scoop them up and manage the best I could, but truly it got to be too much.

Now that we have shopping carts, my day starts out in a much more orderly way. I walk in, get a cart, and begin my journey up one aisle and down another. Of course I start in the new books section, where they keep the freshest stuff. I like non-fiction, since that's what keeps me on top of my game in terms of actual knowledge. Fiction's good, I've found, more for concepts "acted out" by characters, and characterizations themselves.

I take my cart down each of the aisles, then, picking up whatever catches my eye as something that would feed me intellectually and stimulate my thoughts. I'm voracious like that, whether by native curiosity, or it could just be another obsession I feel must be fed. I've always been obsessive, and age hasn't slowed it down. Rather, seeing time slip away, I'd say I'm more obsessive. Think of it: I didn't always need a shopping cart for what probably should be a slower pick and choose process. Now I'm so frantic, it takes 20 minutes of breathing exercises to get settled. 10 when I think of time slipping away.

Because time waits for no man, as I just read earlier this morning in Bartlett's, and it waits least of all me, who am always in a hurry, and someone who must be satisfied, whatever it takes, even if some sacrifice is required. I've been up today since the crack of dawn, laboring over my books, then occasionally glancing up at the clock, then redoubling my efforts as time's sped along.

I have that sense right now, in fact, that maybe in sketching out my intelligence for you -- and this labor continues till this very second -- I'm wasting time that could be better spent learning a few more sayings, wisdom, and filling brain cells somehow still empty. That's another thing about age. Brain cells become like cracks around windows on a winter's day; something always needs restuffed. Gotta hurry!

Anyway, to continue on, after my shopping cart (carts) is/are full, it's time for checkout. Everyone stands back as I scan my goods, which can take up to 25 minutes, depending on whether other clamorous intellectuals like me are present. The library then has a kid in a white apron who wheels it out to my car. I make it home, spend the rest of the day at the pursuit of knowledge -- with occasional bathroom breaks -- until the next day, when everything goes back and the process begins again.

It's great being so smart, so very very very intelligent. Super Brain out!

Super Brain

I've mentioned a few times over the years that one of my pet names for myself is Super Brain. It's done wonders for my self-image but has been a detriment to my love life ("Super Brain knows you're in it for the free meals.") Be all that as it may, the name's stuck. And for good reason, thanks to my super brain, silly. The following is an account born in my meditations just this morning:

Super Brain is alone with his thoughts. At this moment he's monitoring the various energies as they go deep, seeing how they generally bypass actual information of a practical nature, inventions that might help mankind in some way, and veer off into fantasy realms, often tripping over themselves.

It's something like "Journey to the Center of the Earth," that story. I'll note it's a lot easier to make the descent than it may be, looking ahead, to get back out. I can't depend on a rock basin atop a volcano ready to blow. Super Brain calculates the odds. The rock basin and volcano being there, pretty good. Blowing at that precise second, less so. Survival with the heat and the difficulties of landing once blown free and clear, also not good. If that happens Super Brain calculates nothing but pain, discomfort, and a terrible death.

But we're far from that point. Super Brain continues to descend to the depths of himself. I see channels of light, synapses larger than most people's. I'm seeing these are synapses that don't mess around. For a lot of people, they're always shorting out, barely making a connection, but these are ones that receive from the previous synapse and add motive power before sending it to the next. Meaning -- ye gods! -- when a thought starts to occur it's already huge and powerful, but by the time it's fully considered, it's Everest! The fact that I can simultaneously shrink it down and make it presentable to others, as in this report, is itself a seismic miracle. Of tectonic proportions. Super Brain double backs on himself with amazement.

That's something to consider, although it threatens to put Super Brain into many simultaneous massive loops. Still, "Know thyself / Physician, heal thyself," -- if Super Brain wants to consider its own mighty workings, vis-a-vis the relation he has to himself -- although this is where a monumental conscious split might happen -- there's great danger in telling Super Brain to settle down. I must be careful not to become multiple Super Brains, as that would crowd out others from their rightful place in sharing the thoughts of the world. It would be immoral to swallow up all consciousness. But Super Brain is like the proverbial 5000 pound gorilla, demanding free reign, meaning we have to stand back and clean up the damage later.

Thinking on Super Brain's thoughts on himself -- how majestic the peaks -- how awesome and unsearchable the terrible depths, with all the power it takes to make it work -- a mighty surge overpowering all other insurgents! Super Brain doesn't fight the same war twice. Super Brain is a dynamic thinking entity of no observable limits. Although Super Brain obviously could observe them if he wanted. Super Brain's cranial habitation does not truly hold it. Another obvious miracle. Super Brain thinks and thinks and thinks and thinks on itself and remains healthy, ever strengthening and doubling in thinking might.

Now I'm going to perform an utterly magnificent feat, to cast Super Brain's thoughts on terrain and realms very far from it. My first stop: Out by the Tastee Freeze. What do I behold in that far off locale, at least 60 blocks from here? They're still closed. They've been closed for decades. You'd think someone would buy the run-down property, tear down the old place, and put something else there. A Taco John or something.

Super Brain sees -- wow! -- an investment opportunity. Super Brain actually truly sees the possibilities of entrepreneurship. All it'd take is a quick call to corporate, a plan that Super Brain might work out with lawyers -- himself able to guide the best legal minds in plush offices around the square. But is that really the direction Super Brain wants to go? It'd be good money. At first, though, his energies would be tied up in hiring teenagers to make tacos, and he can see -- thanks to the vast energies making these thoughts simply occur -- that would be so unrewarding.

Super Brain is not tiring, no. But Super Brain's vast energies are making the body tired. Must direct energies to recharge. Meaning, looking to the gigantic nucleus of pulsing light and dark right at the core of Super Brain, and sending forth power. Energy to the toes! Energy to the hands! Energy to the vital organs! Energy to the organs shriveling from lack of use. Super Brain must make the body more attractive to potential mates. (Troll nursing homes to find rich widows. Have to get them when they're new, before they've signed over the house.) Like spinach, Super Brain makes biceps anvils, hands hammers, dinghy tattoo on chest a battleship. Pipe is spinning, strident music playing, theme song. I'm a whirlwind of hitting objects with my fist and having them land in a more ordered arrangement. I'm strong to the finish.

Super Brain semi-drifts into a quiescent state, the body relaxes. Semi-drifts, because Super Brain continues forever his activity, now monitoring all things in a mighty way, crickets in the pantry, birds outside, and the air conditioner popping on again.

Must rouse myself and get on with my day.