I Gotta Be Me

No. 22 of 31 - Thermometer series

I believe there's a saying like this, “The measure of man is man himself.” Or maybe it goes, “Who knows the measure of a man more than himself?” There’s a saying something like that involving “the measure of a man” and “himself.” They used to measure me, so anything's possible, but that was just for shoes, pants, and shirts. They never measured the soul, although, I guess to be fair, I did go to Sunday School. So there's a lot of wondering about yourself and various jabs at answers.

So am I OK? I feel like I've put the pieces together, even drastically, with my own insights together with modern psychology and can not only say “I’m OK, You’re OK” but, invoking Tony the Tiger, “I’m Grrrreat, You’re Grrrrreat!” I say some version of that, and whether I believe it, that’s a different story. I definitely believe we as the subject are too close to the subject to objectively know whereof we speak in evaluating the self. But what other perspective can we have, especially when we restrict ourselves with a mechanical approach and a more or less superficial frame of reference? So called objectivity

It might sound trite to say it, but it’s likely true, we have to transcend somehow from within, seeing ourselves as more than skin, bone, guts, with a watchman on top of a spine. I can be very ethereal in thought. But not as much as I want to get, like in the Transfiguration. That’d be great. Say you’re sitting there, you’re transfigured, but while you’re sitting there, you’re also able to be in the kitchen, or over at the coffee shop, taking in refreshments. You run home or text to see how things are going in your chair. You’re so ethereal and so wonderfully transfigured that you’re able to text back that you’re doing fine. With the weirdest part being that you only have one phone but are somehow able to text back and forth while apart!

OK, let me draw a few at least superficial lessons from this as it applies to the thermometer drive. Which is weird, because the thermometer drive is the most important thing in my life at the present moment. Look at me sitting here typing this in a fever, while I’m across town having coffee. But I’m not in a coffee shop, no no no. I’m at a park, standing there waiting for the dew to dry so I can sit on the bench, while another manifestation of my consciousness is making the coffee in a French press pot and preparing to rush it to the park. As I sit here I was only momentarily disturbed as that I grabbed the keys from the table next to me. I hope they have a great day and that I accomplish a lot.

To drive the point completely home, or completely to the space between here and the park, or completely at the park — wherever I actually am — I gotta be me! I gotta be me! What else could I be? Something to see or maybe not. Just a bunch of ethereal spirits, eternal playthings in league with all that is, driving me completely bonkers, the more they’re busy playing around when there’s actual work here on earth to be done.

I have plenty of compatriots helping with the blog. The men’s organization, always pointing at me, going “You da man.” And the ladies aid, a more practical group of gals I’ve never seen. How the men ever happened to marry these particular women, I’ll never know. Maybe someday -- say I live till the 10th anniversary or 20th of this present-day blog drive, and we’re reliving old times -- they’ll tell me the full story: “Where did I meet Missy? I couldn’t tell you this 20 years ago, but she was a complete doll.”

Hit that thermometer! Things are going great! I'm not in the doldrums, just a reflective moment. I'm right here with you-all, bobbing like a cork, staying visible and doing well. We need you in this drive because it's taking off any minute now. Success is within our reach! We are our own success! Let me hear a rip-roaring Amen!

The Pink Professor -- How Much More?

Whatever happened to The Pink Professor? That's the Number One question I get, and on a daily basis. At the grocery store, swimming pool, Tupperware parties, garage sales, talking with homeless friends under the bridge in the Big City, and really everywhere. And if someone asks me in daily life, I just tell them. But on the blog it has to be different. Because he told me he’d rather I wasn't spreading his personal business online. Of course, him being him, he said it in a nice way, but me being me, I find the nasty edge of every “friendly request.” You don’t call something a “friendly request” unless you know damn-well there’s nasty ways I can take it. But I can never stay mad at him...

Anyway, I told him the problem I face -- insatiable public curiosity -- and he gave me leeway to say a few things about what he’s up to. Even though he doesn’t want anything down and dirty, anything resembling the full scoop, any relationship dishing, which probably includes pillow talk. (He's into tickling me till I about pee my jammas to make me tell him everything on my mind.) So are you game for something boring, his favorite party recipes, and aspirations as a child?

He probably always had his sights on being a professor. Smart kids like him, they know what they want to be. I'm still flailing about in that area. Now 65, I retired from odd jobs, all boring. He recently retired from the university, but kept his nighttime gig as the Pink Professor figure at the Roadhouse; his great virtue is he's a softening influence in such tough environs. His favorite party recipe: nachos and salsa, heated 23 seconds in the microwave.

As far as our relationship, we're OK. And I want to keep it that way, going out of my way to keep his personal business personal. But again, I can say a few things without being too invasive, like the fact that he wears baby-soft PJs to bed, but prefers me au naturel.

But let me bring this back to his work: it's no secret that he's a great reconciler, like when two morons are fighting over scoring a game of pool. Pink always soothes the troubled waters; he's a bridge over them. When I'm around, I serve as a complement to him, with my ability to cast insults with reckless abandon and eschew the bitter consequences of my actions. Then he does his soft-shoe thing again and everyone can see how mellow he truly is. In our personal time, though, once I've had my fill of the Eskimo-nose cuteness, I bust.

One of the things that pushes me over the edge is him allowing himself to be used by these Roadhouse creatures. I get that he has a mission, but everyone needs their space. And if it takes a person — a do-gooder without an off button — till the middle of the night to reconcile the divvying up of a bushel of bar peanuts in the shell, who am I to bitch and moan? I’ve heard (and don’t hold me to this) that other people keep more regular hours, with the wee hours of the morning pretty much to themselves. They’re not on the hook for calls to negotiate the terms of a flagrant motorcycle absconder making restitution or other legal arrangements to get out of eight months in jail when it’d probably be to their ultimate benefit to actually do a little time; it'd teach them a lesson, that you do the crime, you also have to do ... whatever-it-is...

Because the rest of us have a life, too. Most of us grew up respecting the generous boundaries of the law. And if you don’t feel like doing that, then don’t expect the rest of us to be there round-the-clock to bail your sorry ass out, thereby curtailing our lives together — when maybe we had other plans, ever heard of that? And what if we simply don’t want to be wasting our time with the dregs of so-called humanity that wouldn’t have two brain cells to rub together were Einstein himself their nursemaid. Spare me, folks, the pleas of "Humanity!" That went down with the Hindenburg, and the less I hear of it in these modern times -- possibly the end of days -- the better.

Yes, I reached the boiling point a long time ago! And now I say, How Much More?! Leave the Pink Professor alone! In fact -- let me put this out there! -- if I hear of just one more motorcycle loser cracking peanuts in the crook of his arm, then stealing someone’s woman because of this great bar trick, then having his own noggin cracked open in the ensuing melee, then needing a 24-7 nursemaid for his precious care lest he bleed to death or find himself in unremitting convulsions — Call Pink Professor Hand-Holding Unlimited day or night — I will scream, then find myself on an interminable stampede, stomping heads in a certain all night bar and grill! You don’t think I know how to knock heads, do you? Well, you try me -- you heard me, just try me! I start stomping, I don't quit! Because I've had it. I’m up to here with it, and according to sources, I’m liable to snap. That's right, you heard me, losers: I'm this close -- you see this? -- you see what I am? Just that close! This old ME! ME! ME! shit's gotta cease...

Frankly, friends, I believe the Pink Professor is overworked. But I’m sure it'll all work out in some way for the best. 

Love, Hate, Love, Hate

It's impossible for me to hate anyone. I'm a lover, not a hater. If I ever got married, it's extremely easy to think of me being married forever. The fact that it's not yet been tested notwithstanding.

But I know the divorce courts are full of those who have known love, then love turned to hate, and the former lovers have turned to the judge for judgment, to terminate their marriage.

What was the basic problem? At the risk of oversimplifying the issue, I'd say there was some trouble with their vows. We all know the traditional vows, the couple vows to be together in sickness and health, for richer and poorer, and not to get caught having sex with others.

I'm guessing it's the last vow that's the toughest to keep, since everywhere you look there's another heavenly specimen walking by in a tight dress, hair just right, the face of a devilish angel, and nicely perky. Or a studly guy, with all the bulges in the right place. But then, back at home, what you're looking at at home, if it was a car it'd be in the junkyard, if it was a fight it'd be stopped.

So what happens, love turns to hate. Maybe not all at once, and maybe not irretrievably so. I'm thinking love can turn to hate, then hate back to love, then love to hate again, then hate at least once more back to love. It all depends. Maybe you've had an epiphany not only about vows but about the true nature of love. Love doesn't actually have to do with whether the other person has become decrepit. It's something from the soul and concerns the soul. You find that out, but you can also forget it.

But if you had been doing the proper stuff of a relationship all along, by now you'd be sharing humor and all the graces of life. If you ever veered off toward hate, you'd catch yourself and correct course, veering back toward love. That's how you're able to pass satisfying, good years together, having established yourself in a mutual place that isn't superficial.

Think of how crazy it is to love, to hate, then to love, then to hate again. You honestly can't be that shifty and shiftless. Although to be fair, maybe you can. If you came up in a household where shiftiness and shiftlessness were allowed to take root and grow. But honestly? You can't overcome that? I think you should be able to, especially if you see how crazy it is. And destructive.

It'd be like painting your bedroom black, then painting it white, then black, then white. I don't think very many people would see that as desirable. It'd be a life of weird extremes. Or trading in good health for mad cow disease, then working like a dog to get well again, then exposing yourself again to mad cow disease. Hard to imagine. Or being normal, then infecting yourself with trichinosis, similar to mad cow but coming from pigs, the disease that honestly scares me more than AIDS. I eat pork, I don't sleep around. Pink I don't like, at least in pork.

For a good relationship to stay good, one great pointer is to stay on the same page. Have a genuine interest in the other person, while allowing the other person to still be a separate person. You come together, you share mutual things, while having enough different between you to keep it interesting. On the other hand, if you have one person who is totally interesting and the other isn't, you're going to get out of sync.

Remember the old windshield wipers we used to have? They worked on two separate mechanisms. One mechanism would go just slightly bad, and next thing you knew, one wiper was faster than the other. I used to see this and be almost hypnotized watching the variances, as one wiper lapped the other in their sequence. If you watched it for 10 minutes you could time it out and make scientific judgments about the variance. I guess that's the background I have that makes me such an expert in the psychology of couples. Watching windshield wipers.

My expertise is good, since I'm able to provide counsel to anyone having trouble in a relationship. If you started out with love, then you just need to let love bloom again and grow continually. If you started out with hate, well, that doesn't sound very likely. Just don't let love become hate, and if you already did, work at it to make hate love again. Then get it firmly in the love gear and keep it there. Don't veer off to hate again; make double damn sure you don't. That should never be done!

Please Don't Drag That String Around

I've got the great Elvis Presley song "Please Don't Drag That String Around" in mind. I'm pretty good at singing it, at least according to the way I hear things. Probably if I heard it played back with no accompaniment and my bare, crummy singing voice, it'd sound like crap. But thanks to the inner voice and the great acoustics in the shower, it's all good.

It's a great song, though, and I'd love to line up a dozen different versions on Spotify and listen to them. Except the only artist who does the song besides Elvis is someone called The Tuesday Blue Express. What is it about that song that no one does it? It's on Elvis' Gold Records Vol. 4 and the '60s Masters box set, two places. It's on a 45 I have at home. And of course The Tuesday Blue Express, whom I hadn't heard of before, but if they do this song despite the rest of the world, they have to be great.

OK, I just listened to their version. It's just a straightforward version, not at any different than Elvis,' with kind of a rockabilly jump sound. I don't know that it has any real reason to exist, which may be is why no one else does the song. What's the use, if you're not going to do anything with it? You can't outplead the King, baby.

"Please don't drag that string around." In the song, Elvis is a "puppet on a string" to his baby, recalling another of his great songs. His baby must realize his heart is tied to the other end, but maybe she just doesn't care. So he needs to plead, she's oblivious to what she has in this devoted man. Personally, I'd rather have a more equal relationship than that, not having to "jump to your command" like a puppet. That's probably why no one else does the song; it has kind of a pathetic theme.

Still, I love the song. And big plaudits go out to The Tuesday Blue Express for at least taking it on. To the rest of the assembled artists of the world, those who have turned your back on this song, shame on you. Beatles, Stones, Matt Monro, Dolly Parton, Porter Wagoner, Tex Beneke, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Dick Barnett (a kid I knew in school), and Paul Peterson, I'm looking right at you!