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Peace on You, Too

CEE

I know that’s what people would like to hear. Forgive and forget.
But I’d be shuckin’ you if I told you that.

—from Smokin’ Joe, by Joe Frazier (1996; MACMILLAN)

    My mother, the older she grew, communicated increasingly in ritual. In the case of Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, this was by way of “Dear Abby” columns, or happy crappy tortures like each naming something we were thankful, for. I’ll begin my ending for auld lang ‘17, by telling you I’m thankful for this opportunity granted by Scars, to carpetbomb you with what I know. With my voice. Which would be saying I’m thankful for my voice, and I am, but, no. It’s the publisher, and grace and boons granted. Many of those who have led us to Fitzgerald and led us to Faulkner and led us to Tennessee Williams, are supposed to be gatekeepers, but are often censors. Some, proceed from agendaism and others, from plain, naked fear. I’m glad to have been given way for a time, through the venue and by the wisdom of a Boss Lady who cares, as I do, about what is right and righteous—in the universe of Scars, “right” being to openly say, then hope for reaction as action itself, or even contention, as someone or group of someones, made to think for themselves, will fight ahead, into mists of the Future. In short, statements undoctored, ideas or dismissal as written blows, are provocative. Scars Publications, lets it be written, so in the end, whatever it be, something gets done.

    As we did last year, let’s go to my CEE mailbag for a mini-cornucopia of response. I’ve said, whatever riceball of “holidays” you’re into, should be your focus, not a single topic mauled obsessive, like I’m a cat with a roll of paper towels. So. we’ll dig right in...and...this first, has the branding of Standard Oil of Indiana on the envelope, and the small note inside, very tasteful stationary, is signed by one “Oysters Rockefeller”. Woah, and Ms. Rockefeller says, “Interested in your take on alternate energy sources, since you’re so fatalistic, re: the future of this planet.”

    Uh, well, your own sentence sums it for you, unless I go for laughs, and I don’t pretend to be joking. I won’t sit here and claim my doom-centered prose is kidfriendly or that it has a toy prize inside. The things I know, I simply know. Much of my information, I’ve compiled from sources who would in person, turn off lights in my home whilst they scolded, or remove junk I was munching from my very hands, before they drew back a nub. What I myself tell you, is far more parrot than Jimmy Olsen. The information is out there, it has been out there. Eventually, math comprises all reality. We’re fucked, even if we all wake up in Mao jackets and bare feet, tomorrow! I don’t say that as the son of a man who made his postwar fortune in auto parts. I say it as an informational masochist drawn too often to words he hates. Hate, of course, doesn’t correct malignancies, but neither does Love. Totalitarian control does, but no one wants that yoke. Orwellian society, I’d add, seldom hugs earth and sky.
    However, if we spin the Hypothetical Universe roulette wheel, you need to know, for example, your electric chair of a WATCHMENmobile, is no savior. ‘Flix or otherwise rent the brief Lone Gunmen spinoff of The X-Files. There’s a terrific episode centering around the legendary “car that runs on a water pill” (the one I heard Tucker died for). The payoff logic, is grim: water-fueled automobiles were avoided, because scratching gas still left you with a monster requiring oil for almost every other working part...and the expense of gasoline dispensed with, cars, much cheaper, would be 12x the number we see on the road, today. Those who play the Angry Young Game, don’t think this stuff through. We can’t just push a button. This isn’t Shift-Return, Alt-Delete, then be happy we cared for a time. Half-measures, shallow “S”-turns, hanging in there for a season, no chance. And, to do without, to really suffer? For how long? Decades? The few cheerleaders for that, will be the first humans burned for fuel! Get it straight, there will be humans burned for fuel. If losing an election or an NCAA championship nets reprise of Chicago, 1968, the warmth of the many outweighs the lifeforce of the few.
    I could play into the hands of those who find me a throwback, sing “gimme that Old Time Propulsion”, but why bother? I condemn windmills for the same reason I don’t eat quiche, but fill our nation with them, hell!, and lend me some wooden shoes, besides! Good luck, good luck with that. The dikes have sprung leaks multiplicative. Human, is drag-foot asshole, and Science Itself admits It can’t save us. We are condemned, not by grumpy opinions, but by the PNR of the calendar. Whether I think solar panels are anything but eyesores, is really a moot point. By the way, Nelson was a fake Vice President. You don’t appoint anyone, to within a heartbeat of the throne. Thank you for writing.

    I specifically set this next one aside, it’s from a Prof. Wesley Muntz. I’ll share that his field is Sociology, but will censor the name of the university, because it isn’t a Big Ten School... Prof. Muntz, has this to say: “While I enjoy your ironic take and skewed viewpoint, it has come to my attention you avoid issues of gender warfare, inequalities, injustices, etc. I understand you speak almost entirely in rhetoric, but find this point a bit suspicious, after thorough perusal of your columns. You all but grey out the war on women and(or) their struggles upward, even 98 years after the 19th Amendment. Are you even interested in bringing light, to this particular elephant in the room?”

    I’m interested in “what works”, Professor. Everything else, is a holdy-handsie healing group. Everyone cries; few, want to dry Others’ tears...so, bottom line first, why I barely cruise gender issues: You’d have had to lived my life, to know why I believe what I believe...and one thing I believe utterly, is that Louis CK has the right of this much, that “sexism ain’t goin’ anywhere!” Gender division is in reality, what many would like to make of the heavy minority influx, e.g. “you took our jobs!” Gender equality in all but lip service, is seen even silently, to play as zero sum—in effect, what food is on the table, is there for those who grab and gorge, and if you think this is Musical Chairs with “rules” involved, get to your corner, Cinderella! You don’t “ask”, because no one’s going to ask you. Not with a shred of sincerity.
    I believe people not only love to talk about themselves, it’s pretty much the driving force of their every interest, else you’d not have self-help sorts admonishing “listen, don’t just be formulating a reply”. In my book, the so-called “self-interested person” is, but for timidity or lack of confidence or bowing to stronger personalities, All of Us. And this would mean, if one has something to share, be it about themselves, their experiences, something they’re proud of or have accomplished, a dear memory or unforgettable character, a bit of wisdom or bon mot...then no one, not coworker, not date, not lover, not friend, should have to worm it out of them. Conversation, is only an art form in pyramid schemes or lobbying. If you have pride or a point to make, if there’s something bursting your seams, Say It! I may like you, love you or think you’re the Pieta. I’m not a prospector and you’re no mountain. Speak up! I can assure you, I’ll do the same.
    How this dovetails with marches, movements and angry ideology in singsong, is that—and I’d think you’d peep to this, by now—There Is Only A Vast Collection of Parts, No Whole, other than by vote or arms. There’s certainly no realized “sum”, other than by simple count. If, as an anarchist friend had it in 1986, “people are becoming individuals and not ‘parts of things’, anymore”, then, SURPRISE! Self-separatism, therefore includes a separating away from all other individuals. And you have, presto change-o, eliminated “movements” of any kind, for any group, as each is to her own focus and facet and POV. Unions, are at least fists for focus of leadership, so if you’re in harmony in part with the shop steward, you benefit...organizational disputes, can be handled with ease, if desired, as they are a meatloaf mix of mechanical dealings and greed...but, the seeking human? A something-vital-but-terribly-general-in common-group wanting Other to ‘see’ them, Our Town? I think the last time that made deep impact, was the UFW march, in 1967...and they bore the most holy Madonna to their column’s front, not the one who ironically had a Number One Hit with “Papa Don’t Preach”. You have to get in peoples’ faces, then never back away. You have to speak up in conversation, make it All About You, whether flirting or courting or fighting for legislation. No one will see you, if you don’t. And you have to keep doing that, perpetual motion, because Freud nailed it. Anyone past Kindergarten is going to default to Self, in the next ten seconds.
    In 1977, XX as united front tried, in congress of discussion, to come to accord. FAIL. As for the System Politick, it is marbled, mystery meat with its corruption. And don’t pin hopes on a Mr. Smith or a Ms., either, as, handed all possibility as power, it’s too easy to turn. Sweet-talking allies, end of day, throw only bones, and cold enemies throw them in your face...and word to the wise, burning shit is a cinch to make at least a handful disappear, puffasmoke, for headlines and no gain. Again, it goes back to my “Captain Whackencracker” poem, about becoming what you despise, that you might triumph. Nobility, honor, higher principles, look majestic in oil paintings. Dirty soldiers, a number of whom die, are who win the world.

    All right...this one comes from Please Help Me I’m Scared I’m Scared All These THINGS Are In The Air, They’re Demons They’re Screaming Please HELP US PLEASE, in...Bangor, Maine, nooo...let’s just hide that under these bills... Another...all right, this is signed, “from Dooley, in Atlanta” and Dooley’s question, is “What is the purpose of social media, given the Twitter lockdown, etc., on ‘being hurtful’? Can there now exist any online repartee which is not plastic, limp, lame, or just spam and screaming trolls?”

    As I always say, goddam feelings, again. I’m so sick of this kid glove bullshit. It’s nothing more than B.F. Skinneresque fascism with an aim toward human mechs. However, since every little chimpanzee can’t seem to live without thumbing like they’re hitting an Orgasm button, I guess you can’t starve out the fever of social media...although, ‘They’ aren’t winning hearts and minds quite as successfully, these days, with their rotating phaser frequency of “typing on a screen”. The penpal love of email in 2000, became the Facecrap Thumb People of 2008-09, and by 2015, Evelyn Wood Speed Human had crunched to the tweedly-deets of Twitting. No one likes hearing that nothing remains the same, not me with my magnetic tape, not you with your crapapps...but I’ll offer personal experience, and hope it speaks to Dooley’s Q:
    I won’t give my username, nor any details of page or date, but formerly, I slummed, editing for opinionpedia. I never offered anything great, as no encyclopedia has ever majored in “great”. The strictly informational, in main, precludes a flair of any sort—if you impart facts, you just impart them. For anyone unfamiliar with The Peter Principle, things like opinionpedia exist to define those for whom said Principle was created. Anyway, I dabbled. The novelty wore off like a June frost prior to the birth of Albert Gore, Jr.
    One morning, I noticed I’d had my latest entry removed. The culprit was a stranger to me, one of those “editors” whose “editing” consisted of removing anything he didn’t like, then wagging a finger at those who’d actually contributed, explaining ‘why’ they were bad. I felt nauseous, as I knew the drill at the ‘pedia, i.e. “assholes playing ninja, are automatically correct”. I didn’t know until that day, why so. I never read site rules, y’see. It’s a waste of my time. And your internal response to that thinking, is partly why the waste. Turns out the ‘pedia dictate upon their diodes of stone, was, per anOther back-shooting your prose, “Assume good faith.” I need explain to no one, not even CEE newbies, what’s antithetical, re: that rule. Or why I am no longer granted the freedom to call it certain words. One, especially. Let’s just say kneejerking “Other operates in good faith”, is a differently-abled logic which has special needs. Mostly, to be drowned in a bucket.
    I looked up the ninja’s contentious history (banned more than once and fought with admin over it, etc.), then hoped against hope as I reverted him, admin would compare my track record versus his. Nope. Math is mean. Reality is asshole. We gonna have us a pink bunny Earth, li’ah babies! All people are ice cream! Let’s us hug our diaper bags and dance with them ‘round a mulberry bush, as we feel sad we had to be hurtful to anyone...even the contributor who erased every (unread) remark made to him, refilling the space with the dark and dangerous light of “What People Are”. General Custer to the final retreat point, I made my stand over a whole day, until I’d been banned, indefinitely. Even then, the cupcakes, dumplin’s and all finalists in the Kids in the Hall “Gavin Seem-alike Contest”, never locked me out (does ANYONE know ANY winning move?). Should CEEastwood ever return, unbanned, I’ll merely revert, again, then fire another round. I expect the same results, FYI, so stow your Dr. Drew ripoff of Einstein. Right is right. It’s the only hill worth dying on.
    Keep in mind, Dooley ol’ bud, that mods, monitors and contrived muckety-mucks of microcosms, have only their “can’t live without” crumb of authority. They are Not, in fact, representative of any real, true, actual authority. Me, I believe Mankind is composed of demons in skin suits. The only time you should ever kneel to anOther, is when physically forced, with a movie-ending rifle cartridge next to come. What those who have access to buttons which Block, Ban or otherwise “make you” are doing, they require like food or water. It’s weakness intrinsic, post-postmodern Great and Powerful Oz. Hamstrung, one must tell them what they are, then walk away. If you ever meet one on the road, assume he’s The Buddha and go for it.

    Finally, we have this, handed me in person by a local homeless man named, “Martel”...I couldn’t get further identification, as he was running from a caseworker who was chasing him, waving a sandwich... Martel asks: “Every major shooting that makes the headlines, gets thrown back at mental illness and how to help or corral the deranged. Isn’t it mentally ill to blow people away in the first place, and what’s supposed to correct the problem, if a person’s brain is causing it?”

    You know as well as me that up to now, there’s been no truly effective way, to police a human mind; be thankful, as it’s not something we want. But, I have some thoughts, and not jolly ones. I’d like to bracket them with quotations from a long-since failed (2000) series, an attempt at a “mental illness” ER, titled, Wonderland. Only 8 episodes were made. The permanently befuddled, were made somewhat less than recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and advocate groups as well as masses who’d always equated strange behavior with Ed Gein, rose up like Cain and stove in the concept.
    In a scene where a doctor must break news of his marital separation to his mother, he explains, “We stopped being happy, Ma.” Her reply, sings existential choruses: “What is ‘happy’, Bobby?”
    It doesn’t slice better than that, not a Ginsu through a work boot, nothin’. What is ‘happy’? Well, to start, it’s individual. And some never realize it, as they don’t know, can’t fathom or reason how to get there...and can’t experience or process it, if once they get there. Tragic? Yeah...but, not being in one’s right mind (or not having a “right mind” from GO), has too much elastic in common understanding, too much give. There are Very Bad People out there, assisted by a different kind of Bad Person. Phrases like “the rulebook says”, are too often, defenseless. For liars, any port in a storm! And, who is disturbed enough according to whom? Certainly, a sliding scale of YOU MUST BE THIS SICK, is preposterous. Justice, cannot be a ride at Disneyland. It’s enough of a kiddie train wreck, as things stand.
    Law, is humanist religion. Humanists pretty well projectile spit on religion, therefore don’t want one of their own. So, ways are constantly examined, to supermarket broom offenders into the shadows, but not go so far as to result in a dotcom version headline/pic of the New York Daily News’ Holy Grail, wealthy murderess Ruth Snyder, hooded, frying in The Chair: “DEAD!” No, we just wish Boo Radley to go away, or be quietly escorted away. A whisper of a fucking off, and life is again smiles and expectations and 16 tons and duty, peace in The Machine, once more. As Sandy Hook and Orlando and the abortion clinic dude who looked amazingly like abolitionist John Brown, etc., etc., 15 or 20 other examples, b’blahblah show us, pop up object lesson stubborn as a goddam talking tub of Parkay, those deeply bent act fast, unexpected, and as extreme as personal planning permits. They do so, as it takes genuine thought control, to stop such enterprise...and the greater society would have to be sure, so, that means controlling everyone not holding/up for or spoken for by someone in/running for elective office. The math, here, is “some beans and some beans” meets Spock’s Brain. Footnote: There’ll be no ‘delight’.
    So, arbitrary waivers and dope horizontal every sucker you don’t book “coach” into Arkham Asylum...or treat every level of sanity exactly the same, i.e. if the act is on video (almost everything is, wake up), and if so much as one death, sovereign state laws regarding such, are implemented, whatever they may be. I’m certain various executioners and their assistants, will upchuck, weep, wail and have identity crises. As will their loved ones. Life contains a lot of horror and abject sadness, often the kind which sticks to you like whatever you stepped in, to your shoe. Live with it, or join the ranks of those beyond your reach. I believe in fully realized personal freedom and as well in The State Always Wins. Those who have always lived on edge, Daniel, deserve to go out in like with happiness as pursued. It’s a Jeffersonian ideal you can’t abide, but it passes the litmus test. It’s as American as Mel and his stinky Rev buddies bushwacking Redcoats who had loving mothers and sons. Drugging those who paint outside the lines is playing footsie with hopes unreal, but making life less pesky for coldly controlled assholes who, commuter, keep walking straight ahead. You’re wanting cold storage, very much like the nursing care system, another convenient fantasy-and-disposal double burger. Bad choices, including those which maim or harm, cripple, kill or destroy, are (put down your num num candy) The Natural Order of Things. Unless you crave being a human marionette jacked in dances by power elite, random individuals will indeed bounce about, free radicals. And, The Court has to stop being civilized...pig...so, IF caught/foiled/taken down/ apprehended and IF Still Alive, whether they know what 100 – 7 equals or can discern “a stitch in time, saves nine”, is no more relevant, than if they think they’re Napoleon Bonaparte. Not even if they have the hat and everything. Bonaparte, technically, was a mass murderer.
    Robin Williams as Sy in One Hour Photo, is spot on, when he lists the flat, unimpressive, vaguely sickening images “which make up the true picture of our lives”. “People don’t take pictures of these things.” That’s right. We want Happy. Harder asses and bowing, scraping conformers, will rattle off their recordings, re: “balance”, or some version of “we can’t know joy, if we’ve never known despair”...but we really only want Happy, and more so, the apparatus, real or logical construct, which, Venus Fly Trap, snares it. A control-thing, again, hello. We Want Happy, and by God...! Which, I’d be fine with. But everyone lies. Lies and selfjustifies. I got tired of nodding to the beat of Others’ verbs, long ago. Push your chips, nonfriend. Whatever mindset, I’m for you! But, you know what you’re doing. It matters not a jot, if you can communicate that fact. Since I was a callow youth, it’s been crystal: Human Persons, Selfjustify. This as hypocrisy alone, is irritating, having to maintain polite reserve while wanting to punch The Church Lady or Arnold Rimmer in the face; as gross, gory harm playing out “I get a pass”, it’s touchoff for really shitty-bad “I’m Spartacus!” behavior...and that, is intolerable. You’re guilty, and it’s a good day to die. I can handle you not confessing. I’ll accept the silence which gives assent. I refuse to kiss it better...and, that’s my concluding quote from Wonderland, Jeremy Piven as a bipolar standup, arguing against being medicated...when the doctor handling his case asserts drugs can make one ‘better’, Piven’s edgy reply, is champion fencing: “They don’t make you better, they make you different.” Whether uncaring or caring, that’s what those who won’t cop to Hammurabi, desire. A less-personally-annoying “different” involving a very real “STFU”, so all can keep walking, shuffling, mindless Fritz Lang-workmen, straight ahead. The mentally ill, are in the way. Society, from top to bottom, says this very kindly, in 11-syllable words and sentences twice as long as mine...but, that’s what they say. Because that’s what they mean. Just put ‘em to bed, and the old folks and all the wounded, close the door softly, then get back to work. That’s “Love”, nonfriends, and Merry Christmas. Would you like a pony to go with that?

    Y’know, the first theater movie Mom took me to see (that I sat through) was Old Yeller. I can’t imagine it’s a spoiler to reveal the boy killed his dog, dearest friend become rabid, out of Love. That’s Love, too. As are so many fucked up, contradictory things. Eventually, if true, core meaning you wish, them’s just words, so the-Hell with everything. Roses are Love, Violets are Love, Sugar is Love and So are You. I assume such chaos represents what it means to have a place at the Human table.

    Thanks, No. Allergies. I’ll just have water.
    CEE

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