---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN#/ISBN# issue/book “While the Waves Crashed” cc&d, v274 (the Aug. 2017 issue) Order this as a 6"x9" paperback book:

Order this writing in the issue book Nothing Lasts the cc&d May-August 2017 collection book		get the 4 page May-August 2017 cc&d magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

My Large Coke is Bigger Than Yours

CEE

    I’d like to start this dissertation, with some thoughts on Reality as immutable as ground, sirloin, through my own mind:
    There is no Tupperware-like item Not Tupperware, which is at all in any way, Tupperware.
    Coke and Pepsi, are clearly different items, but no Not Coke, is remotely Coke, and no Not Pepsi, resembles Pepsi in the slightest.

    Marcus Aurelius, Clarice. “What is it, in and of Itself?”

    Elvis’ voice, is alone, Elvis’ voice.
    Lincoln’s axe is no longer Lincoln’s axe, if, post-1865, the whole thing has been replaced.
    Curly Joe DeRita, WAS NOT Curly Howard. Period.
    ...and Scrabble, uncolorful as it looks, is the only word-building game Not standing behind a thatch of expirations and loose phraseologies in contradictory laws, snickering. Scrabble is Scrabble, all others wear army boots.

    Above, I have shared opinions. To me, they are anything but. To me, they are written with the finger of God, Himself. And my “Everyone a Narcissist” opinion, also God’s, I can prove by dismantling the world, in less than 3000 words. Attend:
    Some, might recall the 2011 incident on an American Airlines flight pre-takeoff, Alec Baldwin’s refusal to turn off his cell and stop playing Words with Friends with both of his friends, when prompted by the flight attendant. The actor, feeling he was being singled out and no doubt harboring rage over having to purchase an extra ticket for his ego, fled to the airplane toilet and slammed the door hard enough to alert the cabin crew. Apparently, other people still were using their phones, but the attendant was picking on him, and he couldn’t even show her his Golden Ticket from Mr. Wonka, because his dog ate it. Baldwin was subsequently left at the gate, denied boarding, and had to catch another AA flight. Cut to him chittering bitter Twitter shits, like your standard rich kid made to live five minutes like anyone else.
    Astoundingly, Baldwin received mixed support and backing, despite his gold-ringed fist of entitlement, the childish, reckless, halfcocked behavior usually associated with Iggy Pop on a bender. A talented dramaturgian polished in the art of “powerful baddie composed of sneers and disdain”, he smeared and he tweeted his smears, and AA nor the flight attendant, fought back. The latter, hadn’t the millions for a civil Dream Team, and the former wasn’t about to waste its’ on the new poster boy for Borderline Personality Disorder. Effectively, the one who (to quote Mom) “showed his ass”, was on the side of the angels, as said angels are understood Today, to use their computers not for sin tabulation, but insider trading. Alec Baldwin, sweat cash. He was an unrepentant rich man, flapping his equipment at being made to behave, yet somehow avoiding handcuffs—this of course, showcasing classism at its worst, to which we should have responded societally, like the villagers in Far and Away, and torched the Baldwin estates to ashes. Too many, however, laughed behind their hands or up their sleeve or in your face, and do Today, as they champion Baldwin personally, because of what personally, he means to them. To Me—aside from swaggering belligerence—the man signifies only what Lorne Michaels hands a young person is in fact an end in itself, therefore even Tina Fey required the leg up of cronyism. The “Fuck You” of “I’m Me”, in a post-9/11 America, mandated the federal marshal in the front row stand, pump action 12 gauge already directional, and issue a one-strike-and-you’re-out warning. And those laughing, bully’s sycophants all, now stamp feet and cry foul. And again, I stop comprehending the world.
    American Airlines, had every right to do what it did. At least it wasn’t CEE Airlines, which issues all tickets free, in exchange for smashing your cell phone in front of you. It’s really a matter of rules and regs, standards and practices, Thou Shalt or Shalt Not...the enforceable opinion of any entity, down to one, single, solitary individual. And, suddenly, I’m on the side of Gog and Magog Baldwin (exception of pastime—again, every Scrabble knockoff is Not Scrabble, but wannabe, nonScrabble bullshit). He had an opinion, and lost out to another opinion. Might, again, made right...but...if they had not been able to jettison him from the jet? If cells rained, projectile, upon attendants and crew? If security intervening, had been assaulted, guns torn from their grasp, turned on them? Yawning barrel in the face of the pilot, “Get this tub in the air, we’re flyin’ it all the way to the Copa!”
    It hit me not long ago, every law, even every safeguard, is an opinion. Like the George Carlin joke about the invention of the flamethrower, “You know, I’d like to set those people over there, on fire...”, everything on the books, grew out of something! Originally, a lot of that something, was faithbased, but the weeding of such has been hard at it, for decades, now. More and more, we dig only as far back as the revamped Y2K of the legal, an edifice of opinions restacked constantly in attempting unity. You’ll never get that unity. I told you that, last time, in “Salvaging America, the Valkenheiser Way”. 50 states, are far too “Rubik’s Cube doing tabs with Tim Leary”, to ever arrive at a country of fronted jars (can anyone name me, the last time a nation achieved that? I can’t write it, myself; it’s too pat). No, regional, is always safer, state boundaries safer still, until we realize any code or list of behavioral admonishments, eventually backtrack to notions out the heads of persons we never knew. Or whom are long dead. Or whom we didn’t vote for, never would, and believe to be Satan in the flesh. And once more, my more vocal anarchist friend’s voice, rolls like the ocean, Starbuck, to my ears, “What makes the government’s might making right, better than my right making right?” For, if we cannot agree, if we also dispense with “better” and tonguekiss Equality, when a rich asshole or angry young ones or the lone wolf with nothing to lose, play it Martin Luther...and if, then, we grey out dropping the hammer, if no blood is shed yet no quarter given...what opinion, triumphs? Or indeed, what opinion means jackshit?
    The notion of “societal standards”, even local, is a shaky one, very Kon-Tiki in sailing the seas of diversity and opinion. Though, up close, in 2017 they’re The Great and Powerful Oz, but HD on a lobby card, flat and incapable of audio. They’re not real, just something one says, like “Hi”, or “How ya doin?” or “Gesundheit!” They speak en toto, for barely anyone. They speak fragmented, for very few. In the world I came from, the one I tell you of, taunt you with and revere, that world with billboards in the sky but no signals at all, when “terror” was only sinister and guardian angels were said to exist, there was little give and virtually no quibble. Local standards, were givens, as people willingly, neatly fit into boxes and pews and niches and slots, as a natural, accepted part of the ride. Rare was the dissenter, as day to day Reality, was The Decider...as I put it in a poem that was available in Kindle for about 3 weeks,

    If you thought you could make a difference by going
    One toke over the Mark Twain,
    Pretty much, and Unforgiven-dirty, but, yes, Truth
    You died

    Michele Mitchell, bursting onto the scene in 1998 with her book, A New Kind of Party Animal, heralded the glorious ascending of Gen X, by way of their power of choice shot through prism of Self—in other words, X-ers did not simply say, “here is where I, predetermined by familial ties and social caste, fit”. Mitchell damned all elders with faint, “I know what Jägermeister is, and you don’t”-praise, but her point about them—me, being one of them—makes my own. There was a place and time, of 98 & 44/100ths% Accord. This, No Longer Exists. So, what we’re left with, is a whole helluva lot of opinions and the jockeying back and forth, The Crusher and Baron Von Raschke circling for position, so to apply the killer hold of THIS OPINION IS ETERNAL...which, is all very 1984, unless you hold said opinion.
    Unfortunately for all of us, we’re speaking, on a societal level, of myriad subjects, and whether or not marshals and special agents have to kiss an egomaniac’s ring, is the crux of almost none of them. On the other hand, any issue making it past two people growling over their version of a lunch counter, develops into a comparing of johnsons, an open pissing contest, and thence judgement’s rush to Court TV. Stereo, kneejerk, cry-for-Nursie behavior, every statute and corollary to a statute, as smirking, hulking bullyfriend. And, around the world, they again shake heads. In 1989, on the heels of Tiananmen Square, some of the students, having made it stateside safely, ran the “just this side of Jerry Springer”-talk show circuit. One of the young men, quoting a Chinese professor of his, made the indictment against our culture that “there is no social issue in your nation, which does not eventually become a judicial one.” And, if we question laws and their validity to begin with, if Tommy Lee Jones as sheriff, has only an opinion past his .357 Smith and Wesson, then what empowers that Mudville Nine of a court in DC? Aren’t their pronouncements, merely enforceable opinions?...you know, until the waters are muddied by hairsplitting, or some sidebar issue falling through the cracks of their edict, or a lower court judge writes an opinion, if only for sake of “publish or perish”, and organ grinder music begins, again?
    As Andrew Sinclair pointed out, writing on my dear, sweet Prohibition and why it bellied, “Enforcement, is all.” And, Wyatt and Morgan and Virgil Earp, no longer walk through our communities. And if no one is afraid, or enough not afraid enough, if civil disobedience vehement as counterculture, as Civil Rights, is lent to each individual and leveled to “I will smoke where I wish/cross the street where I wish/not repair my muffler if I do not wish and I think All insurance is a scam, so screw you and take your best shot”, what does anyone care, what an old person in a black robe, thinks? For, stripped to these carpet tacks, a policeman, a detective, a joker in shades with lightning-fast ID, at least can stand there, draw Mr. Blammo, and see if he does better than the firing squad in Battleship Potemkin. Totalitarianism, can scarce be defended, but if order can Today exist at all, the National Guard in the opening montage of WATCHMEN, is its only defense. Opinions, convictions, ethics, morals and “oh, no, we don’t want to get in trouble, we’d better behave, like so-and-so”, are individual, no matter loyalties or obeisance. And the unspoken agreement to roll with punches become Bruce Lee footage in number and speed, is another part of the shit paper of the social contract. I probably won’t stand in front of a blue uniform unhooking his holster and hold forth, but if enough Others do, there’s no back up plan. Not anymore. And as for a court so far from me, it may as well be Lovecraft’s “The Strange High House In The Mist”. I’ve been ignoring their supreme opinions since Ruth Bader Ginsburg—she was a lookalike of my stepmother (also “Ruth”), and damned if I’d kneel to that! That’s random, juvenile, and based upon biased, personal constructs...but, if you could un-clot human clique-ishness, that’s most of what you’d get, but for the one’s whose souls were saved by anything John Lennon’s in “God”, was not.
    I read online newsreports a couple years ago, re: the impossibility of municipal law enforcement, policing online prostitution...I cite this, in that, combined with observation of the “pick and choose”-quality my own burgh uses upholding local ordnances or its very Municipal Code, it harks not just to the opinions of badges, suits or any department with verbs in its description, but to the fact of Law weighted with so many varied opinions, it displaces more water than the RMS Titanic! There’s too much to remember, too much to enforce, no chance of nailing everyone nor indeed of them, complying. It’s Mosaic Law. Impossible to obey, in the first place. Therefore, the “Protect and Serve” volk, can’t be concerned with every word. Regardless it’s on the books, burned into the page, possibly signed into law by their Dad or Grandad or ancestor who wrote the Town Charter. Insidiousness, then enters in, as not every ordnance or point of code or even public misdemeanor, is created equal, to any uniformed officer; each, has his opinion of what is important, what carries real enough weight to displace water, the personal, sacred cow of the individual sentinel. And, “A la peanut butter sandwiches!!”, the word “judgment”, replaces “opinion”, as in my childhood, “litter” temporarily replaced “trash”. In a world of userfriendly euphemisms, the one eagle eye we all possess, is the eagle’s ear. We know what a person is really saying, hence the “J’accuse!” of racism or sexism, socially responding lawsuits or riots. There Is No Longer A Polite Way To Say Anything, when those who do not like you or whom disagree, are the audience.
    The Federalists who gave us our nation, feared The Mob, and with good reason. The difference of our own, ignorant SA of Samuel Adams expecting a share of power in the fledgling nation half dead from killing the British, was a system of thought and behavior, a code like a stick of rock through rich and poor, young and old, literate and craven, drilled and drummed through all but the most depraved...and the system, jots and tittles, was, 230+ years ago, God’s opinion. So, The Mob left off, and the gentry dug in, and in the dog days of 241 years after the Declaration, God has no opinion, but each of us have a Self’s Bible-worth. And few of us stomach fools gladly, and none stomach infidels. There exist at least a few words from friends, foes, rivals, loved ones or personal gadflies, which should merit them, in our judgment, our heads or heartfelt thinking, jail. Or caning. Or execution. Or BDSM Hell, on the way to the gallows. You see this, nongod, and you feel it in your heart, as all smiles are plastic, all pleasantries, affected. Everyone contradicts themselves, none are ultimately loyal, many disagree openly, loudly, rudely and hurtfully on much, and those still living on a diet of cliches tucked inside memes, need to wake the fuck up. If your opinions are built of Gibran and Gandhi and handpicked, dancy-crap torn out of context from paraphrased Scriptures, I’m afraid you’re going to have the same luck the priest did, in the original, preruined-by-Tom Cruise War of the Worlds. And, there’s exactly one thing which can save you, and I’m sorry to reveal it:

    In the wreckage of postwar Germany, still a heap of rubble and bones by 1949, a handbill could be found, plastered hither and yon. It had a positive message, seemingly showed as salve, a kind of balm or hail and welcome. A hand, reaching out—one already offering no options. The handbill featured the pipe-firing visage of Josef Stalin, next to the words, “Stalin, der große Freund des deutschen Volkes” (“Stalin, the great friend of the German people”). You’re fairly literate if you’re reading this, nonfriend. Must I lead you by the hand?

    The less vocal anarchist friend, once condemned the notion of “personal justice”, seeing it as nothing but a free-for-all of people blowing each other away. Even in the 80’s, it was tough to refute that image for what it was. But, either an anal Company Girl shoots Alec Baldwin for disobedience, or Baldwin shoots her, for persecution, and either way, someone shoots the other one, because they shot the first one, and you see where this becomes lots of “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” brooms, right? We’ll need ‘em, to sweep up the dead.
    You cannot remove firearms from the nation, without a Hitler or a Stalin. Without totalitarianism, utter, forced control, blue steel will always pervade. Too many, will resort to this, once too many of their opinions are quashed by those of Others. With No Ultimate Opinions (whatever these may be), enforced by horrors I can imagine but don’t begin to want to, we’re left with a playing field to be leveled to horizons horizontal. Man, will always choose Self, and too many bear this out in action every minute, no matter they deny me or obfuscate or razz with unfriendly words. “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” You can only chain Man. You remove the shackles, he’ll kill you with ‘em.
    In the Age of Reason, they made a mistake, in taking Man off the leash. The mistake, was the assessment Man was Good. Man, is not, and he wasn’t, Then. He was only sedate, and with an uncluttered mind. We have since filled it, with every image in existence, placing a limited limitlessness, inside a creature only hardwired for survival. It’s right out of the scariest monster flicks I ever saw, that “turn” you can see coming for an hour, before it happens. Man, rich, poor, a beggar, a thief, a doctor, a lawyer, a nonOscar winner, has some words he wants to have, with each of you. This will sound so ironic to be idiot, coming from me, but...agree with as much as you can stand.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...