Dear Grandma Therapy Letter

 

The Big City

Part 7 of 28

The same thing happened to me that's happenedd to small town immigrants to the Big City through the ages. I got down in a funk, and had to go to one of the raging hyenas who sit in their ivory palace mental clinics just waiting for easy prey, a quick buck, from supposedly "counseling" us, tamping down our desires toward a popular uprising because we’re so desperate for the old ways.

And, yes, my eyes were closed to the situation, that’s how desperate I was. Then, like sheep to the slaughter -- They still slaughter sheep, right? I haven’t had a sheep and biscuit breakfast in 30 years -- the guy had me with the teary-eyed Big City therapy exercise of “writing home.” In dark moments of life like that I don’t fight back as I should. I wish I would’ve seen through it immediately and literally gone "full terrorist" on that guy’s office, which you can do and get away with it. Counselors love bragging to other counselors about clients who completely erupt and destroy their office. The main problem is that there’s very little you can do to piss off a counselor, so they win.

Anyway, the dude roped me into the simplest, stupidest technique -- what am I paying the guy for when I had to write my own letter -- the Dear Grandma letter they make you write. Since she was the main authority figure in my upbringing. And who could win me over, back to sanity, any more than Grandma? See what the Big City does? I sort of support the idea of writing to Grandma, but the idea that these worms forced me still rankles.

“Just pour out your heart and spirit,” the counselor went on, his straining weasel voice giving me the creeps, like someone or something that just slithered out of Eden, a snake from central casting if I ever met one. Yet with all that, the wool was still pulled over my eyes somewhat. It was a battle royale, really, as I saw the truth that I should reject The Big City, but I also knew that under the circumstances, Grandma’s house being moldy, pulled down and hauled to the dump, I had very little choice. “Go along to get along.” So I did my best, putting the letter in my own words, not copying out of a book:

"Dear Grandma, This is your old sonny boy here, hoping you haven’t forgotten me during your stay in the heavenly palaces. You probably haven’t. You may know more about me than I know about myself, from your perch above, so I’ll tell the truth. The counselor has narrowed down most of my trauma to the loss of our house. Remember, it was already very old. And the construction seemed to be a jumble. Starting like a small shed, then being built on over the years, whenever the mood struck our ancestors. It was always a patchwork. Weird cracks between pieces, and the wind would blow and separate everything even if just slightly. Those places where the roof didn’t join perfectly then took on water. Drizzle was no big deal to the better houses, but in your house it was Public Enemy No. 1. Then you and Grandpa gave up the ghost, leaving me as the caretaker/resident. On a limited income and with no knowledge of maintenance beyond patching the obvious. Which over time can be hard to catch up on. Well, eventually, the city came by and shut the place down, and came in with a court decree that I vacate, and finally carted it off to the dump wall by wall, everything from the floor to the roof, in that order.” My last tender words over the rubble were, 'It was nice while it lasted.' Which was a tribute to you and Gramps. Who probably could've done a better job maintaining the place when it was new."

The Inevitable Paywall Blowback

Just yesterday I announced that my blog is going behind a paywall. I feel I have a right to make a living. Forgive me if I'm wrong -- sheesh! You can tell I'm a little ticked off. I've gotten some guff. Of course I'm not a neophyte, I knew it'd happen. And so it was, the inevitable blowback from my normally docile readers was quick in coming. It's all the usual caviling you hear whenever there's change. Of course they want life to stand still and never progress. To them, I hoist a massive erect finger and wave it around -- Choke on it!

On the other hand, I suppose I took them by surprise. I've been writing the blog for over five years without as much as a peep about money. With the big traffic I've managed to build up, it only stands to reason that on average they're going to be set in their ways. For them it's one big free smorgasbord! But try that at an actual fine restaurant ... they wouldn't dare!

But I'm unmoved by the flak. I'm sticking to my guns. Because when the paywall goes up, I'm planning to make a bunch of money. And for every person I lose, I'll probably gain a dozen. Having a paywall makes the place much more exclusive. And eventually -- looking way ahead, with the extra money -- we might even have a chat room where readers can go and assist each other in the perceived necessities of their carnal life. Winking, billing, cooing. But not yet.

At this point, I just want to review the basics of what's coming up, in case you missed it yesterday. The paywall access will be $100 a day, or $2,800/month. Going along with that, each level of support will have its own community designation. I'm still working out the labels. I haven't decided, for instance, if the one-day level of support will be called Worms, Wastrels, Failures, or Meagres.

Now, let's get back to some of the caviling of my worst readers, who've truly worn out their welcome -- I've had it! I'll finish off with some analysis of them and their problems. Most of the haters are very disgruntled, as you'd probably expect. Like red hot mad, and so they're willing to say anything. Check out this first bozo:

I'll never pay!!! There's plenty of other stuff on the net that's still free.

To whom I say, Yes, I, too, know of a recipe site in the Ukraine that still offers a free page. I think it's for oatmeal with a side of yak. Bon appetite! Hope you choke!

Our next brainiac has some problems with spelling. It's hard to believe I would attract a mouth-breather like this. But even as stupid as he is, I hope he manages to scrape together the money. He won't get any real good out of it, but he'll be that much poorer.

Your blog sucks dik. Good ridence to it. I wod not pay never no way.

My reply: I think I know what you said. I think if you look inside, you'll find out it is you all along who sucked, and still do. On the other hand, for someone with your issues, you might find relief in paying me. True, please, hear me out. You're used to measuring the value of something by your own infantile thought processes, whereas the majority of us see things more maturely. We're able to stand closely, or stand at a distance, to appraise a thing for the value it actually has. So in your case, if you were to pay me, and it's only a measly $100 a day, you would have that personal investment, and thereby what seemed like it sucked would suddenly become more valuable, even precious, to you. I'll expect your money, plus $20 for the therapy. And if you won't pay, choke on it!

Just one more example, one of the many variations I got on the first mail above:

We don't need Grandma Slump. There's plenty other blogs to read.

True, there's plenty of blogs. I just saw one the other day advertising veterinary health supplements. That's all they do, load you up on pills. Nice health plan. I hope they misdiagnose you as a wide-throated horse and give you an extra big prescription. Choke on it!

What we're dealing with here, of course, is the usual crap you see whenever a popular website goes up with a paywall. We always see the same thing, which we call the "5 Stages of Paywall Grief." 1) Anger; 2) Confusion; 3) Sinking in Quicksand; 4) Bargaining; 5) Acceptance.

The first three are self-explanatory. In Bargaining, in this case, I'll probably get earnest calls to give away more $5 vouchers ("scholarships"), or increase them to $7.50. Which I will likely do. Then there's Acceptance, when the average reader gives in -- it's all very predictable -- and pays the subscription fee. Complete, utter surrender. They're addicted to the site, and with the passing of time eventually they can't resist paying. They might need to take out a loan, overextend themselves with new credit cards, sell their house, sell their organs on the Russian black market, or whatever, but they'll be back.

Even though I have called my readers primadonnas on more than one occasion, I know you truly want me to succeed and do well with this paywall system. Because my success is your success, you think. You think you made me, and, you know something, if that makes you feel better, I will let you go on thinking it. Yes, you did! Thank you so much for my success, through no effort of my own!

I Am Not Going Soft

Friends, I get your mail, full of proud suggestions. You think you know more about it than me! I'm not saying it pisses me off too much, but just a warning: Watch your back... Anyway, a few of you -- the vocal few -- have expressed a hand-wringing concern that I'm going soft. You're saying my crime escapades don't really match up with the stuff that typically marks crime at this level, i.e., organizational crime. To which I say, Screw you!

The truth is, my blog is gaining some attention around town with the last few honest underlings at the police department, so sometimes I have to cool it. I'm cagey, not soft! Sometimes it's important to keep a lower profile to stymie the bozos. But I'm also scheming to destroy them so I can freely flaunt my so-called evil, which I actually believe, since I'm doing it, is virtue.

I'm not going soft. Stay tuned if you think that. You're going to see Ming the Merciless. People are going to die, people are going to be deprived of property, and people are going to suffer petty mischief. And speaking for the mischief-makers, it's not going to be pretty, that is, from people's point of view. From mine, of course, it will be a thing of beauty.

Also, you're concerned about the short term, instant kicks. But I'm looking way ahead. I've learned a lesson from history. If you want to be truly honored as a criminal, you have to go all out, pull out all the stops, then, and yes it might take 100 years, they'll revere your memory. Bullet holes that you've shot in buildings, they'll preserve, even giving tours to see them, and if they ever paint the place, they'll paint around them.

They may say they hate criminals today, but eventually, if you were bad enough, and cagey, they'll have days named after you, like Bonnie and Clyde Days, Al Capone Days, Jesse James Days, etc. I hope to be so bad that they not only have Machine Gun Ricky Wayward Days, but, thanks to my reflected glory, days for my less distinguished associates, Big Brute Days (the first guy ever to force me in love), Rutledge Week, in honor of the guy I blackmailed twice and who subsequently died in an actual blackmail operation, and Tony Day (one day's good enough for him), in honor of my boss, at least at the present moment.

But those tributes of the future, when today's bad news becomes folklore, won't happen without the present moment, and what I do right now. Therefore, onward and upward! Greater bigger and worse crimes lie ahead!  (I did an awesome, though low-level, crime the other day that's had me chuckling ever since. You know the stop sign and other little orange sashes the school crossing ladies use? We found the shed where they keep them and raided it! Tossed all their stuff off a bridge and the last I saw of it it was floating away. Probably sunk by now, waterlogged! LOL! This is virtuous because kids ought to know how to cross the road on their own. If chickens can manage it...)
  
I have schemes in mind not just for society but for the Organization. One, and please don't tell anyone, I'm planning a move on Tony. Seriously, I may as well confess, the chances of anyone ever celebrating Tony Day are not good, because he's not long for this world... I've already said too much.

Getting back to my everyday life, of course I'm still in the market for ways to promote prostitution more effectively. I want it lift it out of the mud in the eyes of folks. I don't want it to have a wholesome amusement park nature, of course, because that would completely destroy the charm of sneaking around. But the more actual danger we can build in, the more attractive I believe it will be. So look for good stuff on that front. Just to pique your interest, how about johns being killed in flagrante delicto?

I love the idea of keeping their nerves on edge. They still come in with the same lust, but it'll be magically heightened with the thought that they might be actually killed. I can see myself doing a cursory investigation -- just enough to assure them things are back to normal. Then I'll get everyone excited about it as the danger is renewed, then wave it off again, then another eruption, then it's calmed down. That'll be great for business. Probably the key moment, the moment of greatest danger, will come just as I announce the building has rock solid security, everyone is safe, and they can go on their way. Delicious!

So, in conclusion, just a note to all the haters, you can rest easy, or put a sock in it. I've got my own criminal operations well in hand. I won't be listening to a word you say. Time for you to take a break. Of course I could invite you up to the hotel -- come on over! I'm so soft, nothing could ever happen to you!

A Funky Left-Slanting Grocery Store Font

In my exploring, I found a funky left-slanting font in old grocery store ads (1959). What a weird presentation it makes, as the following example shows:

Looking through various ads, I was able to get an example of most of the letters, but a few I had to jimmy rig.

I didn't see a J, so I had to make one. There wasn't a Q, so I made one out an O and the bottom of an R. There wasn't a V, and the one I made is extremely conspicuous, too big, very funky, but it's what I could do in the 5-7 minutes I allotted for it. And there wasn't an X, and the one I made looks pretty good.

You might notice the Y looks crazy being reversed like that, but that's how it was. Concerning the M, I like the extraneous little serif, LOL. And how do you like the K? I looks like it has a lap to sit on!

Here's a couple of my favorite words, handset on the computer with this font:

"Game Toe" is one of my favorite words (two words, I guess), since it describes my livelihood. I have a game toe, and were it not for that I would not be on full disability. Because I'm healthy in every other respect. But I have a limp, and yes, it's much more pronounced whenever federal agents are around. It's thanks to my game toe that I have the time everyday to waste on stuff like this...

That's of course beside the point, the point being this great font. And I do love that serif. But I would've never put it there myself!

I also handset my own phrase, "Vigor Vivus," which gives a great display of the funky V I made. In case you don't know what Vigor Vivus is, I have a bunch of posts on it found at this link. In short, Vigor Vivus is the opposite of Rigor Mortis, a state of mind and a way of life that is life lived in rich abundance.

And finally, here's ZEN in this font:

I didn't handset this word. It's edited from the word "FROZEN," from one of the grocery ads.

It looks like there's some variations of the letters if you get a bunch of the ads together. I know there's a more left-leaning C than I used. They look hand drawn, and yet there's a real consistency to the letters when you look at them. So I don't know what's going on.

Z And Nothingness

A little nothingness to get your nice Easter morning underway.

There's a dog I know whose name starts with Z.

Real terminal stuff, barely got a name at all. She got named in just the nick of time. The alphabet was running out. It felt the breaking point at X.

I'd hate to be out calling a dog whose name went beyond Z. She'd be...huh? That's the sound of silence.

But she's a smart dog, and she'd learn to listen carefully to hear what I wasn't saying.

An Open Letter To The Grange Brotherhood

I would like to share with you some thoughts in the hopes of smoothing things over and tamping down any tensions that may have inadvertently arisen between us. I hope this letter finds you -- all of you -- in good health and in good spirits. May the good Lord mightily bless you as you go forth with all your efforts in making the rural areas of this great country safe for yourselves, travelers, and others.

I address you today, dear friends, as one whose family has shared in the grange heritage. My grandparents, whose names were recorded in the Grange Book of Life a long time ago, probably the 1920s, '30s, '40s, or '50s -- in there somewhere -- had many a fine time participating in grange activities. And while I don't know everything that went down back then, of course, I always heard them speak in the highest terms of the grange lifestyle and even of your own Brotherhood by name.

What I can personally recall of the Grange Brotherhood is very vivid in my imagination from the time I was a child. To me the Brotherhood was like something from story books. I heard the tales of masked Brothers riding through the night so many times that it all became mashed together with other adventure stories, like Zorro and the Legend of the Headless Horseman. I remember waking up many a night in a cold sweat after one terrible recurring dream of one of the Grangers with a sword point at my throat, laughing maniacally, his face alternating, as things in dreams do, between a normal man's face and the face of a devil.

There would be plenty of times as a child that I was afraid to go to the country. I used to tremble when I realized the world wasn't a vast city but instead had all these wild places where Grangers could be hiding, waiting to waylay a horse thief, a city slicker, an educated interloper, or a child ripe for sacrifice. With the stories I heard, and I can still see Grandpa's face lit up by a flashlight under his chin, I couldn't believe anyone could be a horse thief. Because so many of his tales involved your training and sending forth of horses for assassinations and worse. It was all quite notorious. To this day I'm convinced that we have more people in the city than there are in the country simply because people are afraid of horses.

I hope you will forgive the wild fantasies of a child. How many times I prayed that the Grange Brotherhood would be swallowed up by quicksand! Or that the Cavalry would free the country from what I perceived to be your death grip. I would guess that little children in Afghanistan or Pakistan today have the same feelings about terrorists there. My heart goes out to them because I know the feeling very well!

But now I am a man, all grown up. And I am responsible for my own thoughts, with stories and hearsay to be set aside. Now it's up to me to make my own evaluations and to guide myself accordingly. This week, if there's been any tensions between me and the Brotherhood, I will say I believe a lot of it has come about because I've brought forward with me so many of those opinions from childhood. But with serious reflection, as I've engaged in as well, I'm starting to remember less dramatic stories of great benevolence on the part of the Grange Brotherhood as well. Stories of bringing in the crops, shingling barns, taffy pulls for crippled children, advocating for horses suffering from saddle sores, and the like.

As you may know, especially from this week and the things I've said on this blog, and other things you have perhaps gleaned from the efforts of your vast network of informants, I am something of a group dynamics expert. Being such, I'm able to piece things together of social organizations, whether through objective, empirical evidence or intuitive leaps. So I know that your purposes center in on maintaining your way of life, keeping the old ways alive, letting tradition keep its place of pride.

Perhaps you remember the slogan of the electronics firm, Zenith, which was, "The quality goes in before the name goes on." That is so true and I think applicable today. And while I haven't seen a Zenith appliance outside a Goodwill store for at least 25 years, a quick Google search reveals they're still in business, the lone surviving Zenith brother feverishly making spare parts for these antiques so that indeed their 'name will go on.' That's tradition for you, the right kind of pride!

I've gone on longer than I expected. So I must close.

Let me assure you, dear Brotherhood, that I hope whatever tensions have arisen this week are now eased. And that any relations we have from this point on will be pleasant and mutually profitable. I don't want or expect any trouble from you. And I say this in spite of your reputation. People can change when a sincere hand of friendship is truly extended, as mine is.

Tonight is the grange dance. I expect to be there. And I hope to share with you the warm fellowship that is only fitting between those with your rich integrity and someone like myself, whose family was always proud of our connection to the grange and the Grange Brotherhood itself.

Sincerely yours, Your Faithful Servant, &c.