I Reign A Small Town King

The Big City

Part 3 of 28

Even as a small town king myself, so often I find myself rejecting the prejudice small town morons have about the Big City, essentially that it’s evil. That goes against my competing small town values of prejudging any case. I had the impartial justice bug even as a kid, anytime I was accused of something. “Take your hands off me, you filthy devil,” I remember saying as a kid to one of my accusers, the school principal. That's what I should've said.

Another way to look at it is, Hey, we’re supposedly small town kings! If that’s what they call us, shouldn’t we embrace our royal identity and live out the truth how we have it over everyone else. It’s an injustice, it cries for legal help, to believe anything else. Although a lot of this language about us being small town kings was likely just a cheap shot by the main proponents of the small town vibe against the Big City. Meaning, yeah, sure, you’re a “small town king,” but apart from the debate with the Big City the message was always, “Don't embrace it as a thing,” or “When push comes to shove, we make the rules, we can change them.” A terrible thing as a kid to recognize. “You set up the parameters of my supposed royalty and you can knock ‘em down. 'We’re the ones calling you kings, We giveth, We taketh away.'"

Obviously in a situation like that, where the propaganda is widely touted even as you see how shabby it is -- like finding that all your birthday presents were just cardboard cutouts of the real thing, or your surroundings a Hollywood set when the director yells “Cut,” are things no kid wants to face. “But, but, you said!” “Yeah, kid,” the cynical adult says, “We know what we said. Stick around, clean your ears, there’s no telling how much more you’re going to hear about your so-called promise. You’re promise equals exactly this: The principal bares his ass and everyone lines up on their knees in lockstep to symbolically kiss it.  These are the insights the typical kid doesn’t know what to do with. Maybe just grow up to parade his own backside around the town, with one of two motives, to expose the apparently false teaching that every small town kid’s a king, or to keep embracing it, with the fear that to reject its truthfulness is to make even the promise vanish. Then what are you left with? Shambles, a small town vibe little better than the hated Big City.

I’d love to find the documentation on this stuff. It could be, given their low opinion of us, they were very careful to collate together all the documents, distributing them at meetings and then storing it all somewhere secure. But it could actually be easier to find than we think. A man serves as mayor or principal or even flunky only so long. I’ve seen how these meetings go, in unrelated fields. “We’re going to collect all the papers, etc.,” and the reality's often different. A guy’s talking and accidentally packs his papers home, they’re misplaced, they’re forgotten. Only to be discovered years later in an estate sale. “What have we here? A Nazi plan to make us think we’re all royalty, when, in fact, we’re peons from the word GO? This is what the exalted small town thinks of us, so desperate to keep us from the possibly true Big City propaganda that the Big City turns out the best kids, the true royalty!"

At the very least, friends, it’s disappointing to grow up and suspect your entire youth was a carefully nurtured lie, and now you're left to counsel a bunch of widowed children in their old age. But I simply got out, and here I sit, now a resident of the Big City. And I've seen one big difference here, they don’t even tell you you’re a king. The subject never comes up! Which explains a lot.

Keeping Mama Happy

No. 15 of 31 -- Thermometer series

I don't care which cog you think needs grease, if you don't keep Mama happy your labor's in vain. Is it Persistence? I will be persistent, Keep Mama Happy. Constancy? I will constantly rebut, Keep Mama Happy. Is it Stick-to-it-tiveness? Here's something to stick to, Keep Mama happy. (Staying At It is nearly synonymous with Stick-to-it-tiveness, but you'll agree, nothing functions without Staying At It, because it's connected to Keeping Mama happy.) Keeping Mama happy is our priority.

Sit back, settle in, and let me expound at some length on the wisdom of life. This will pay practical dividends over and over in many ways. Look how things are going for the blog and our great thermometer drive. They're popping off and spewing everywhere, 'cause Mama's one happy chick!

The first application is for children. The second for adults. The third for adult men. Uh, there may not be a third, but we’ll see.

Children, 1st. You children have a long ways to go till you're an adult. Life seems long and hard to endure. But you have to slog it out day by day and year by year. Enjoy! Don't get ahead of yourself. I used to keep track of the slow-moving time before I could leave home and be on my own. Those years just crawled. I was impatient. I still had to learn important lessons, a lot of it by trial and error. Persistence, Constancy, Stick-to-it-tiveness, and Staying at it were the minor lessons.

Every one of those things is utterly important, although I concede, Stick-to-it-tiveness and Staying at It are similar if not identical things. Be all that as it may, the absolute most important thing in the mix is Keeping Mama Happy. (If you don’t have a Mama, you most likely did have one at some point around the time of your birth. You can have lots of Mama-figures in the ladies in your life. Or even in aspects of yourself, the kind of Mama person or aspect who's loving, always wanting your best.)

Anyway, Keep Mama Happy and everyone’s happy. If you merely feel the need to Keep Mama Happy, that's happiness. If you see the priority of Keeping Mama Happy, it means you're putting first things first and other things will follow. If you ever fail, go back to Mama and say, "O Mama!" and let her caress you till you feel you can go on.

I’m an old man now. But not pathetic in any way, able to breathe, walk, sit up and take nourishment, avoiding trouble, etc. I could be pathetic. Picture this pathetic scenario:

Me: “What’s the f—'n use of even being alive?” People I know try to bolster my spirits. “Who would even f—'n miss me if I was dead?” And they’re bolstering my spirits again, “We’d miss you.” Then I have my constant doubts, “F— life and you and you!” I throw up on the dining room table and march out of the room, never to be seen again. Until months later I run into the old gang at the grocery store getting ready for the weekly meeting that very night, a meeting I’ve never been invited back to, and they all pretend not to know me. I’m begging for another chance, “I was just f—'n with your heads that night. I didn’t mean anything really, it was a joke. Yes, I threw up on the table, that was meant as a joke, but I immediately regretted it. The humor was too subtle.” Then they let me come back to the meeting that night, I suddenly feel sick at the table, but I have the Mama spirit/moxie in my spirit: I get up and march to the bathroom like a good boy.

Have you got the moxie on the ball? Mama's that moxie, what you need. 'Nough said.

I come back to the table and share with them the wisdom, the key to life I meant to share that other night but was unable to because I was prematurely evicted: “Keep Mama happy.” They’re at the table looking around at each other in kind of a mock disbelief: “Keeping Mama happy is the key to life?” “Yes,” I say, comfortable in my own skin because I know it’s true.

We dismiss, we go away, then the next week come back, and around the table the verdict is the same, “You are absolutely right! This is the secret of life and success! Persistence, Constancy, Stick-to-it-tiveness, and its near synonym Staying at it, are all vital, critical, needed. But setting aside that, the number one rule in existence — and to a man we realize this — is “Keep Mama Happy.”

Uncle Hoist and Aunt Eedee

Yesterday, I posted my '80s college psychology work, the Ladder and Scaffold of Self Images, which, just to answer a few who quickly wrote in, is indeed something I came up with myself. I did not copy it from the works of Freud or Jung. And to the guy who loudly proclaimed he saw it in a psychology textbook, that's true; I licensed it to the publishers of that particular edition. 50 bucks.

Sheesh! You think everything has to be derivative? A student can't be Super Brain and just come up with something on his own? I've been coming up with good stuff all my life. I was in the school library doing research on the history of my town's name in first grade. I knew how to spell "encyclopedia" in fifth grade, and totally grasped the distinction between "form" and "from." Along with memorizing the capitals and presidents.

But it's OK if you want to be suspicious. I know myself, and I don't copy! An old psychological saw comes to mind, something like this: If you're quick to accuse others, you've confessed your own guilt. So I'll let you think about that for a while. By the way, there's a similar blues song, "Before you 'cuse me, take a look at yo'self." I hope I got the dialect right...

It's funny, though, how we do that. We always think it's some guy faraway in Zurich or Berlin who has to be responsible for all the brainy stuff in the world. Because everyone knows that some kid on your block or anonymous guy on the internet -- a local guy with a blog -- can't know anything! Heavens forfend! That any of us may have gone to college, as I actually did. And you can't go to all the parties I went to and not learn something.

You might be interested to know, though, I come from interesting stock, where anything's possible... Meaning, I had a redheaded uncle. On that, I don't know if there's a psychological postulate, but there should be. Redheaded men go through so much, they either prosper beyond your wildest imagination or they die. Which I didn't know when I was a kid. I thought Uncle Hoist was just another hayseed uncle. And he cultivated that image, for reasons of his own, but when he revealed himself he was an entirely different guy.

Only a few people knew how smart Hoist was. Of course one of those was Aunt Eedee, who, it turns out, served as his "right hand man" for many years in his lab work and studies. It's funny, though, to the outside world Hoist was just a "good old boy," but like I said, when he revealed himself, it was a whole different thing! The man was a genius. I don't know if he applied for the certificate, but he could've.

Anyway, here's the tie-in with my "Ladder and Scaffold" chart. I had just come home from college, and I had the original copy of it with the big fat shiny "A." We were at Hoist and Eedee's for a barbecue. And Hoist (as the hayseed) was sitting there with no shirt, proud with his bright red hair and completely white hairless chest. He calls me over and goes, "You did this, boy?" He has it in his left hand and softly taps it with the back of his right. The old hayseed then turns it upside down, like he's trying to make heads or tails of it, since it does look a bit complicated. I can see he's challenged by the advanced vocabulary, deep concepts, and impressiveness of the big fat shiny "A." I said, hoping not to condescend, "That's an A, Hoist, the best grade you can get." He looked confused, but apparently reached some level of understanding as to what I was attempting to enunciate.

Anyway, Hoist takes a piece of tape -- This is a redheaded man! -- and sticks the chart right in the center of the keg, putting it on good display for the family. "Wee doggies!" he ejaculates, "This deserves a big celebration!" Eedee comes out with an apple pie and bowl of her patented chop suey, which I loved, and I knew I'd hit the big time.

Later, then, Hoist is nowhere to be found. And Eedee comes over and whispers that he wants to see me in the garage. I get there and he's taken the chart off the keg and had it laminated. I'm aghast, as it turns out Hoist isn't just a good old boy, but something else! We get in a narrow elevator, a small chamber in the corner, and descend to an underground lab, 50 feet down, under the garage, and massive like the Batcave, where Hoist has been busy doing experiments and running studies on human consciousness (and other consciousness, as much as he has time for -- dogs, cats, horses, etc.) In fact, it turned out he's the guy who painstakingly quantified the horrific psychological effects of Lawn Darts on insects.

Suddenly, he tells me that my Self Images chart -- after 40 years of agonizing twists and turns and theories he's worked on -- finally clarified everything for him, being "the one perfect road map" as to how things are! Isn't that amazing! Then he goes, "To think you had all this lying dormant in your mind all those years -- while playing basketball in my driveway -- and I, your faithful redheaded uncle, never recognized it! I'll need time to process this, my worst failure..." I felt badly, but knew he'd bounce back, like redheaded men generally do, and very soon he was his jolly self. Although serious, too, as the serious scientist he turned out to be.

I toured the lab and was amazed at the facility, his investment, and work. This was in the '80s, Hoist is now gone. At that time he had just concluded a five-year project in child psychology. If truth be told, Hoist deserves most of the credit for the drop in serious drug addiction stats among children under 5 in the '90s. And going with that, perhaps even more important, Hoist and Eedee worked with an endless procession of dogs in the testing of invisible fence technology, meaning those kids could finally play in the neighborhood without fear and needing to resort to drugs.

[Secret Journal] Scratching an Itch (or Not)

8:00 pm. Sunday - So many itches I cannot contain! -- I will bust! It's over! No, wait, stylistically I cannot start with the climax and give up. Must bear and forbear, must be patient. My impatience points to truth of pursuit, not falsity. Simply scratch as always, I have 61 years of ingrained habit, Lord Itch rules the temple.

8:10 pm. Sunday - The last 10 minutes have been a roller coaster ride, wooden, not safety-tested, really rattled my bones. Centered in non-itch new beginning, having scratched till I'm raw in places. Took BIC pen to right ear, smaller than finger, not recommended, certainly, but no one was looking. The things I do in the dark! Clean slate, blank slate, one little itch under eyes, then they creep in and subsume consciousness. I'm lost!

8:28 pm [day unspecified] - What's it been, 20 minutes? Rome wasn't built in 20 minutes, I guess. There's no reason to keep counseling patience, I already know that. This harping on patience is making me more impatient. Counsel mercy, which, apart from a possible first mention, is only truly mercy when it's not mentioned. OK, mercy for myself, still busy scratching. What I need is one decent concentrated itch spot, of my choosing, not a million popping up everywhere. What kind of universe is this, for pity's sake?

8:29 pm Sunday - Brief entry to say, the universe, the world is mercy -- pity, if you will -- I'm not separate. You can't think continental drift, tectonic movement, doesn't itch like hell. That's why we have earthquakes, the Logos rolling over to scratch. Merciful to itself. Giving credence to my theories.

11:00 pm Sunday - Must've dozed off. Dreamed I was on the ground floor of a massive itch, turned out to be a volcano. False alarm?

5:30 am Monday - Woke up scratching, might wear oven mitts today, hands up like a surgeon, reminding myself to break the cycle. That's it, I'm just unconscious through habit (cf. above, Lord Itch, Temple.) Who is this f'n Lord Itch? How did I come to serve him? Who's his consort? Is she worse, prodding him from behind? "Exact tribute from him, you worm!" she cries, calling the Lord a worm? Who is this massive B? Called Lady, probably. Lady Scratch? I guess that's it, men always want to scratch their itch, and Lord Itch just happened to fall for Lady Scratch, etc. "I got you under my skin." Making progress, this has a whole mythic basis!

6:30 am Monday - Finished coffee, my head a lot clearer, scratch that Lady Scratch stuff, unintentional pun, I swear. Scratch that, too ... Oops, did it again. Lady Scratch has now infected my vocabulary, my thought process. More coffee, gulping it down between these pen scratchings, no!!!! Must reclaim temple, especially new deity of my own choosing.

6:43 am Monday - Every developing world/cosmic view starts as experience, then mythologizes in upward ascent, making sense and also making palpable. All I've got so far is the itch point likened to black hole or nucleus, and conjecturing that entering (through consciousness) at that point might (likely?) be a different realm of consciousness. Not realm so much, bad word, too early for mythologizing itch point as kingdom.

7:03 am Monday - Thinking about blog today. Time to throw out some red meat. Maybe crumbs. Nose suddenly itching, think I see Heaven.

Help Me Beat My Brother Blogging

I recently heard about one of my brothers, that he too has a blog. And it seems that he's been in a "friendly competition" with me without telling me. Meaning, of course, that I've been taking it easy while he's been going great guns. It all comes down to hits and popularity.

Well, I just happened to catch wind of this when one of my nephews messaged me on Facebook, and in the course of everything else he had to say, mentioned the existence of his dad's blog. And that he was "catching up" with me. You can imagine how I felt. Of course I was floored. First, I had no idea that he was blogging; that much in itself was a total shock. But worse was the strange, weird news that he had made the decision, secretly, to surpass me in hits. Talk about devious!

Shouldn't it go without saying that he should've told me he had this in mind? I mean, I'm all for competition, really as much as anyone, but I want to know there's a competition going on before I end up being surpassed. Once I'm surpassed it's a little late then to tell me. How nice is that? Leaving me in the dust before I even know he's there!

It goes against our history, as is typical with brothers. Even though we don't see each other much, we're still tight. At least I thought we were. The history was like this: We were competitive growing up, and he was quite capable. I am the oldest, so I had to trail blaze where there was no path. Once I had the path well blazed, of course it was a lot easier for him coming up. So, I'll concede, he had some abilities beyond me, having had the easier path. But when we competed the other person knew it.  None of this sneaking around.

So that's where we are. I don't know what else to say except I'm speechless. And getting a late start toward the overall goal of holding my lead and hopefully increasing it. I've seen his stats and they're pretty good. I'm tracing all this back to the time I was mysteriously unfriended on Facebook. It went like this. We were friends on Facebook and he was posting regularly. Then suddenly his posts became fewer. I thought nothing of it. Then they were nothing. But he'd simply unfriended me, leading me to think nothing was going on! I never dreamed he'd lure me into complacency, then unfriend me, all the while going for the upper hand!

Now, today, what I'm asking from you -- and I know I have 8-10 true readers on this blog, in addition to the thousands of casual riffraff -- is to read my posts. Even if it doesn't look that great, click on it and do your best. I believe you'll be pleasantly surprised, as I don't have a reputation for writing crap. Unlike ... someone I know. (I'm not actually reading his blog. But I've heard from various family members that a lot of what he's doing is writing about some of his trips abroad on business. For example, he was in Gibraltar, an island in the Mediterranean, for a couple days, but writes about it all the time ... the monkeys they have over there, the beautiful gardens, and of course their language, Gibrish. More power to him ... that'll only take him so far!)

What I really want -- what I need -- is to win this competition, and maybe if I do he'll become so dispirited that he'll simply give up, leaving the field open for me to represent the family in blogging, as I believe I was meant to do. He can carve out some other specialty, such as collecting postcards or whatever. Surely he picked up a few postcards in farking Gibraltar, he loved it so much. We can oooo and awww over his dime store treasures and he'll feel just fine.

We Got Bin Laden, We'll Get Mister Ed

We got Bin Laden, We'll get Mister Ed. Even now, the world is swarming with agents trained in the mysterious arts of intelligence, top secret data gathering, and putting the finger on someone. Even if you're a needle in a haystack -- in this case don't eat the hay -- they'll find you.

Long live government snooping! Seriously, long live it. It's government snooping -- vast and broad -- that gives us the upper hand, the cutting edge, in the world. You think we'd know what was going on in North Korea if we weren't keeping track of things? And anyone who tinkers with government snooping, however slightly, or, as in this case, however enormously, needs to pay the price.

Good old Mister Ed thought he could stray from the barn, eat up all the crops, then gallop into the sunset, to the land of the rising sun, or close to it. Where, if I'm not mistaken, they sacrifice horses. But he didn't take into account that the world is a small place. There's no hiding place. There might've been one in 1900, when we would've have only a few blacksmiths looking for him. It doesn't work like that now. His being an expert in government power should've told him that. They'll soon have him back in the paddock.

Even the mighty bin Laden himself found he couldn't hide forever. Although we thought maybe he was dead. But they kept saying, "He's 7 feet tall and has a bad kidney." All we had to do is look for deliveries of extra large shipments of cranberry juice and the absence of bananas and soda pop. And that's where he'd be. Which turned out to be true. Not a banana in sight. Except it wasn't a cave, but a house somewhere over there. The bottom line: It was government snooping that got him.

Public enemy Number 1 went down. And now Mister Ed has nowhere to hide, neigh, withers 'o ever he may trot.

I truly believe Mister Ed's alleged crime, if he is eventually found guilty, would be a heinous one. (At this point, of course he is alleged to have done it. I would have even given Dr. Zachary Smith (Lost in Space) the benefit of a fair trial, were I one of the Robinsons, before finding him guilty and executing him, or leaving him alone to die on some godforsaken planet. My family needs safety more than a villainous plot device.)

If guilty, if Mister Ed had his way, we would be coming around the track, then entirely lose the lead we had in the war against terror. It wouldn't even be a photo finish, we would've broken a leg in the first turn. The war against terror, which, by some weird quirk in the nature of things was declared over about a week before these revelations, but which in all actuality rages on. Which might mean -- notice, I said might -- mean the destruction of every one of us. No one in the winner's circle. Although these catastrophes actually tend to never happen where I personally am. I've always been lucky like that.

Like I said, at this very moment the world is swarming with agents on the lookout. And we know our agents. They're familiar with all the usual suspects, not to mention every hooker from South America to Shanghai -- they'll find someone who knows something. Then, all bets are off, I wouldn't bet on that horse...

So what's the problem with Mister Ed's apparent actions? He stole our secrets and hoofed it on out of there. The simple fact of the matter is, some things are meant to be kept secret. Not to be flip about it, that's why we call it secrecy. We don't want anyone else to know. Whether you like the Patriot Act or not, the American people consented to it when we elected all the various assholes who were prepared to ramrod it through in our hour of panic. If you don't want such things, either quit putting scum like that in office, or stop panicking when something terrible happens. Look at things in context: 300,000 people die of cigarette smoke every year, we don't have to get so worked up over 3,000 that we instantly forfeit our rights.

I say we get the guy. Or conclude that the whole system is rotten to the core and do what you can to bring it down. Just don't look to me for support. Because I'll skewer you then just as much as I'm flogging Mister Ed today. And the only way I'd ever recant is if you happened to take over and instituted a Rein of Terror. Then and only then, for personal reasons, wanting to cling to life, even with my scruples so terribly compromised, I'd support you. Even though Rains of Terror, again, never seem to happen where I personally am -- I'm always left high and dry.

Now, does the government have any culpability in this matter? Yes. Mister Ed was several lengths ahead of them. Anyone so incompetent as to have him working there and downloading 2 million documents under their nose shouldn't be complaining. They're probably not smart enough to complain. Where's their horse sense? Search his feedbag at the end of his shift! Let government snooping begin right in the government's own office! Are you not paying attention, you dolts? Hell, he might've carried away the whole place before you woke up! I've worked at places where people noticed a sip out of their Coke, which turned out to be evaporation ... but the key thing is they noticed something was awry.

The Order of The Patchouli Leaf

Great news, everyone. I feel I've crossed an important threshold. I'm actually certain I did. I've worked hard for it, as I see now in hindsight, although at the time I wasn't even conscious that it was possible. Now I just need to wait for the distinguished gentleman to get here. Hope he hurries.

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, of course everything about this communique will be inscrutable. But for those into patchouli leaves, and those who happen to be very lucky, naturally you'll rejoice with me.

I've long been an admirer of the patchouli plant, having started out like many of you with only the essential oil. Which is nothing to sneeze at, because you can make important strides with merely the oil. But then I realized something was missing, as a person wants to get to the root of things and not just enjoy the fruit.

It was probably 10 years ago, or a little more now, that I brought home my first patchouli plants. That seems like a long time, and in the modern world, I guess it is. But in terms of eternity, as the old cliche has it, it's a blink of the eye. It was a long time, but it sped by. In that "blink," I've gone from youngish to old, from fairly well-coiffed to bald, and in stamina ... honestly, I can still go the whole way, Katy bar the door...

Be that as it may, the oil and leaves were there. I hung them upside down by floss, then kept the dried harvest in plastic containers. Only taking one out now and again to prompt myself in the ways of the arts, a beautiful thing. They have aged well, having packed away enough sunshine and air for their long journey. They're rife with promise, O God, how it thrills me!

Recently then, feeling that I've stewed long enough -- only the individual knows -- I have gone out and found, and procured, five beautiful new plants. When it happens, you will know. Let me say, dear friends, I'm lightheaded just thinking about it -- it'd be the purest folly to descend from this cloud, although intoxication's never been my ultimate aim.

In tending my plants, then, recently, I saw a leaf wither. At last, the time was right! I lovingly removed it, as one must, and brought it into my home and into my life. As nature instructs, I rubbed it between my fingers, then back and forth on my wrist, and so forth like that, bringing forth the pleasant, strange fragrance. It was seriously enough to knock me over, but I remained upright and confident.

But the rest of that day became crazy. Everywhere I went, and in everything I did, that scent was with me, covering everything like a blanket. The honest to God truth is, it completely overpowered me. I didn't know what to do, I started to get frantic. You know me and my problem with olfactory hallucinations. I blew my nose, went outside, went out to eat, took a shower; I tried anything and everything. Yet it was right there, ever pushing against me, in some weird way both from the outside and within. There was nothing I could do. With my remaining strength, I put it out of reach, in my briefcase, and spun the combination.

The next day was far less crazy. The fragrance had receded in the night. But dare I open the briefcase? I worried about it, then faced my fears with bravery. I opened it and there it was, harmless. I bent and sniffed and there was nothing overpowering about it. I touched it and my skin felt nothing out of the ordinary. This was the beginning of the threshold experience. Something like a completed initiation.

Outside, then, later, within the hour, I went to water the five new plants. At that time and in that place, within a sort of bower or leafy enclosure, all the domains of heaven and earth opened unto my senses. I was in the company of a magnificent world fellowship, revealed in lights, announced without words, yet still clear to my senses, as "The Order of the Patchouli Leaf." I did not turn away but stared into the essence of the vision until it reduced itself to a solid point of light, then vanished all together.

Alone, now, in my study, I write this in my own hand and without compulsion. I can still see the point of light -- like retina burn, like the old flashcubes Grandma used to use. I blink and it's colorful for a second. It probably should go without saying, I have a fresh patchouli leaf on my desk. My little companion. I have fingered it a time or two, maybe five or six times, at the most a dozen times.

I have been given to understand that I am to expect a distinguished gentleman visitor later, who will confer on me various honors and instructions, and will open to my understanding more fully what my life is to be as a member of The Order of the Patchouli Leaf. Every car going by might be him. I don't know whether to expect a Corvette or a Model T. What a day!

They're Gonna Find Me By GPS

Friends, you all know I have kept my location a secret.

Except for the earliest days of the blog, when I said precisely where I was, putting my address on the hard copy newsletter I sent out to followers, then even having a few of you over for real life visits, I have refused to share details of my location.

I have done this for a couple of reasons: 1) Because I found it's best to maintain a buffer zone between myself and those perverts (like Garrett Al) who would do me harm. And, 2) To keep a certain air of mystery and fascination. The average reader likes that sense of the unknown, thereby more easily allowing fantasies of castles, mountain top chalets, foggy moors, etc., to be the setting for blogs they revere.

Number 1 is my biggest reason, of course, because we actually did have some trouble in the earlier days. And now, with our traffic skyrocketing -- I had over a thousand verified users from Bulgaria just the other day -- the threat is multiplied. If it's true what they say, that Bulgarians are 9 foot tall and mean as hell, it wouldn't take very many of them to overrun me, steal my passwords, etc., and completely obliterate what we share here. Can you imagine how hard this would be to read in Bulgarian?

OK, then, let's get to my other fears. It's not just amateurs I'm worried about, but the authorities. Up till now I haven't worried too much about the authorities. My cousin Roto, being a Republican, assured me that government can't do anything right, and I believed him. But since then I've heard of this thing called "GPS," which government must have worked on with the help of private enterprise, because it does work.

A friend took me for a ride in his car, and in the course of our ride, he showed me how GPS works. And it was frightful. He typed in a few words -- "Red garage on Klinger St. -- and up popped an address and directions. I said, "No way" So I tried it myself, using keywords unique to my address: "Find the willow tree with a hand pump 18 feet to the northeast and from there a maple tree 13 feet to the northwest." Guess what! There was only one GPS result, my place!

Next, I said to leave out the hand pump. "Find the willow tree with a maple tree to its immediate north, between 10 and 30 feet." This time there were three addresses along with mine! Meaning, I'm three times as safe if I get rid of the pump. But not as safe as I'd be if I just cut down the willow tree, the main source of my troubles.

OK, we typed in the business about the willow tree again, the first option, and the car put itself in gear and, solely under its own control, at 80 mph, zipped us straight to my address. It couldn't have taken a more direct path it'd been powered by Flubber! I was aghast! At this point, the sons of bitches -- my readers and the authorities -- would be here in 5 minutes! And all hope lost!

GPS is a terrible thing, mark my words. Men weren't meant to be found, at least I wasn't. I need my privacy. I can't be expected to thrive with my house surrounded by crooked Bulgarians. Nor can I thrive under the incompetent watch of government, those watching me lest I do or say something untoward, offensive, or even criminal. Private enterprise might come to their aid, and, next thing I'd know, they'd arrest me.

Here's what I truly think: GPS is bad!

DNA Tells The Truth -- Lassie Was A Collie!

Thanks to my enrollment in an obedience school for dogs, and something of a happy accident as a result of my enrollment, I have finally been able to clear up a mystery that's kept the world guessing for decades: What was Lassie anyway? What kind of dog?

I grew up watching "Lassie," and I have to say, I always thought I knew dogs. But Lassie was a total mystery. In part -- and I believe this with all my heart -- it was a mystery encouraged and perpetuated by the producers of the show. They knew there would be more interest, more buzz, if they kept it up in the air and kept us guessing. We'd eagerly tune in looking for clues, while from the producers' point of view, we'd also be watching the ads, so they could rake in the big bucks.

Actually -- and this is the sad part -- it worked! The producers exploited a poor, innocent dog, feeding the sad creature table scraps, and it was lucky to get that, while they themselves rolled in piles of money and selfishly smoked big cigars, never once sharing them with their star. We the viewing public were so caught up in the mystery and fantasy, being so fascinated with Lassie, that, ironically, we bear some responsibility for the poor dog's fate.

As to our guilt, of course at this point we can't do anything about it. Just repent and hope we'll be more discerning the next time someone comes up with a dog show. But people are funny. I can see us falling for the same damned thing, for the most part because we're ignorant. And Hollywood's always got a razor up to our family jewels, and if we're not immediately discerning, then whoops, they're gone again!

Anyway, I've always heard over the years, after the general interest in the mystery died down, that there was still one entity that didn't let it go. And you might guess who that might be, the United States government, of course! There's more to this story. One, we all heard that Lassie was played by numerous dogs, anywhere between five and six separate dogs! I personally never believed it, trusting my eyes over the propaganda: Lassie always looked precisely the same. And, two, that Lassie was a male dog, although Timmy always called her "Girl." Who should we believe, Timmy, who was right there on the scene, or anonymous people very likely with their heads up their asses?

So let's say it was very clear that Lassie was just one dog and a female. This is where we can see the government at work. If there's five or six different Lassies, and if we can't trust an innocent child to know his own dog's sex, that's just the government trying to confuse the real issue: What kind of dog was Lassie?

OK, being recently enrolled at the obedience school, after the other dogs were all picked up and the schoolmarm, Mrs. Biscuit, left for the day, I stayed behind, hiding. In her office, the file cabinets were miraculously unlocked, where I found what I was looking for, a folder marked "Top Secret," with a strange code work: "LASSIE," which to me spelled, "PAYDIRT." This is it, the actual government file, cleverly hidden in an obscure obedience school file drawer, where no one (but me) might expect to find it!

Imagine how my fingers must have been trembling, with the convulsions working their way through my body like an earthquake, as I opened the file. And there it was! I won't go into great detail, except to say, yes, Lassie was only one dog and was female! With her death -- itself surrounded by mysterious circumstance -- she was taken to an Air Force lab near Dayton, Ohio, and there she lies today! Extensive DNA testing was performed on the remains, with one unmistakable, wonderful conclusion headlining all the others: Lassie was a collie! Oh my God, now I knew, a collie! Of course!

I got the hell out of the office, never to return, and I was frantic. What can I do? They'll catch and kill me! I need to get this report out to the world! I drove and drove all night, fighting to keep my eyes open, hoping the government wasn't trailing me. Finally, I ran out of gas right next to this computer that just happened to be set by the side of the road, where I'm typing up this report for the world and am about to hit PUBLISH.

The Editorial Board -- I Fire Frank!

Well, just like that, the brand new editorial board for my blog has been whittled down to five, including myself. I wasn't expecting it to happen, but it did. Frank turned out to be a bad seed, couldn't be trusted, so now he's out.

It's only been a little over a week since I named the board. And, frankly (no pun intended), I had high hopes for Frank, since he was, as I said in introducing the board, a serious person. I had hoped we would have a long, happy relationship, giving me the chance to bounce serious ideas off him. Now that he's gone, I'll have to hope that either Trade or Mark are serious characters willing to help. Dale has a funny side, and Delilah being a woman, well, say no more...

But play with fire, Frank, and you'll get burned!

As it turned out, Frank became critical of the blog's direction, apparently being upset overall with my recent posts on "The Imaginary Stud." In particular, he seriously objected to the post on "Your Biological Clock Is Ticking," and what it might mean for premarital sex and pregnancies, although he didn't bring his concerns to me. He took it to the rest of the board in a secret meeting, with what looks like the intention of forcing me out and taking over.

It happened like this: I was watching TV, then I went to the kitchen to get a snack. I happened to glance out the window and saw the lights on in the garage. That's strange, I thought. So I went out and heard voices. I peeked in the window and there they were, holding their little secret meeting! I opened the door and made my presence known, resulting in a lot of guilty faces. Delilah quickly covered the minutes book with her hands.

I had an intuitive sense of what was going on. I demanded the minutes book and glanced over the page, seeing that Frank had called the meeting to order, etc., and saw a summary of his complaints. I declared, "This is not an official meeting because I wasn't notified. You were brought on board to help me fulfill my hopes and dreams for my blog, not to immediately usurp my place and take it over for yourselves through blind ambition!"

I let the others slide and trained my fury on Frank alone, telling him how painful it was to find a shiny knife with his initials thrust squarely in my back. I shouted, "If there's anyone going to be cut, it's you, Frankie boy!" He turned white as a ghost, white as a sheet, extremely white, white as the driven snow. Of course he knew he was ... busted. And there could be no reconciliation. We went on like that, with blustered rejoinders and hasty, non-scripted parries.

Then I accused him right to his face. I accused him of making passes at Delilah. He insisted on his innocence and said that was "The furthest thing from my mind."

I countered, "The furthest thing from your mind? Is it really? You're thinking of it right now! Even now you're forming a rather nasty picture in your mind of you and Delilah making mad, passionate love on my kitchen table! Try to deny it!"

He looked guilty as hell but had a convenient comeback. "Yes, of course I'm thinking of it now, because you said it, making it impossible for me to not, fleetingly at least, have some mental conception of such an act!"

I was spitting mad and declared, "You've convicted yourself with your own words!" Frank immediately shrunk in my sight like the maggot he was, and I had to count to 10 to restrain myself from squashing him underfoot like any other vermin. To think he'd do that to Delilah, and on my kitchen table, when I had made such a point of warning them away from her. Disgusting!

As for the rest of the board, after Frank vanished into the night in disgrace, I gave them a stern talking to, making it clear that I knew what was best for the blog. Still, to be conciliatory, I said if they had any ideas about it to please feel free to come to me personally. I assured them I'm a reasonable man, which I believe to be true.