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JULY 2002
The thugs have fallen, and, climbing from the crater--pale gaunt creatures, with bowl haircuts playing music with a sloppier sound and...oh...it's grunge, isn't it? But it's mod. It's MUNGE!--The Australian kids who look like Happy Mondays and play Nirvana music.
I have never felt so much like a drunk uncle from 1991-- wondering what all the fuss is about, scoffing at my nieces and nephews-- both wearing my hand-me-down flannel shirts...around their waists.
But, I don't have any nieces or nephews (who would be ten years old at the most, anyway) and my closet full of skinny parochial-school ties remains an unloved sarcophagus.
If Mudhoney reformed with different haircuts and Botox-rejuvenated skin, then moved to New Zealand and made an album, they'd break huge in The States.
(What a lot of stupid-assed nonsense.)
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The entire first grade class, every afternoon, would march in single file to the library, which was devoid of viable stimulation save a particular Dr. Seuss book, which was like an entire Saturday morning bound into one large volume. Every drawing excited me to the point of fits.
I imagined how great it would be to take the book home, but books couldn't be checked out. That was what made it so precious. You had to suffer through a half day of school just to get near it. I'd be in gym class, sitting through duck duck goose, and thinking about how, later, I'd be able to read the goddamned book. Anything less than a stream of absurd, rhyming vignettes was....a turd.
I remember discussing it with a classmate. "It's good because it's not a whole story...it's more like...jokes."
"Jokes. You're right. It's not like Cat in the Hat, but jokes."
"Like the 'flashdark that shines in the light.'"
"That's one...it's short like a joke."
I regretted that conversation, because from that point on, it was a thing between us.
My daily walk to the library seethed with fatalistic anxiety--if someone else got the book first--that kid in particular, since no one else cared--I'd be stuck with forty five minutes of Dick and Jane, which was not horrible, but ...inferior, like UHF (after 8PM.)
I remember once, he was ahead of me in line and went straight for the book. I watched him pull it from the shelf. The predictability of it was nauseating--he strode with wide wobbling limbs, cradling it like a football, hunching to the most obvious table in the library, then waving me over as if he were doing me a favor, securing an afternoon of good times. The world closed in like gray masonry, as if I were trapped in a revolving cylinder of grinding stone while he, swathed in sunlight, pointed at the illustrations and said "That's like a joke. You know? A joke."
Distractedly, I would nod, going along with his dumb, asthmatic, appreciation of MY book.
More often than not, however, I would get the book first, and stealthily slip to an inconspicuous corner of the library. If I saw that kid coming at me, the word "jokes" poised on his snotty chapped lips, I would huddle over and turn my back.
"Are you reading the book of jokes?"
".......no."
Sometimes, just the possibility of him saying "jokes," with his yolky sounding voice and fat, grabby arms, could potentially ruin the book for me. He could be out sick and I'd be at my secret table, my eyes jammed shut, trying to clear my spiritual palate, having just discovered a booger or drool stain on one of the pages.
One day, when I was last in line, he had already gotten the book and was sitting at a table with someone, gesticulating and saying "...jokes."
The book was in real peril. This handing down of crass misinterpretation would somehow destroy the future, so I approached the table and stood until they noticed. "They're more than just jokes, you know? They're whole cool things. Each thing is like an entire big world...and you're dumb."
I sat down in the activities section and slapped down flash cards like I was snuffing random explosions.
I alone knew what was up, and everyone could eat shit as far as I was concerned.
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They're rounding up the pitbulls and hauling them away. A photo in the paper showed a big one, muscular and belly-smooth like a shark, hoisted under its' armpits by a man in a uniform, who I assume was a dog catcher. (Where was the butterfly net and truck with barred windows?)
Its arms splayed, the dog was looking at the sky, believing that, given the right wind currents, it could roar through the air to topple trees and maul the sunset.
The caption indicated that the dog was destroyed due to its owner's subsequent refusal to have it registered.
I'm not an animal rights activist, but this dog, despite its tiny red eyes, had the expression of something that happened to know everything-- as if a formula for universal harmony had been writhing in its head, erupting into extended howls which, unheeded, gave way to violent dementia. ("Just put the Frank Rizzo statue in the middle of Stonehenge, you assholes! Listen to me! I can't stand one more second of this!")
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Apparently, the stock market is based on "feelings." And because investors are craven sponges, mesmerized by all-day car chases, the economy gets to collapse every other day. And I have to hear about it, and endure the residual panic over something intangible-- an omnipresent pyramid scheme, which fluctuates according to the number of heads facing off on CNBC.
It's as if these investors are the most basic, reactionary creatures, excessively grooming their own fur, sitting in bars, waiting for scary words (dirty bomb) to appear on the TV so that they can call their brokers and "Sell! For the love of GOD!"
I assume they then gnaw through their suspenders, pee their pants and go home for the day.
It's embarrassing. Stop it!
(After I wrote this I went to my parent's house and my dad and brother in law explained the economy to me. I worried about it for a while, then on the way home I worried about those walking Asian fish. I'm kind of nervous about the fish, and wish I had stocks to sell, immediately.)
JUNE 2002
While you were watching Yoda fly around, I was at home enjoying the M*A*S*H reunion. Here's what you missed:
-The show resembled an infomercial for cottony white hair.
-Alan Alda is now a disembodied squint hosting a row of tiny incisors.
-Radar is still hiding his left hand--During his solo interviews a small lap-dog sat on it.
-Sidney, (who may or may not be Kurt Vonnegut,) was present. To fit in, he made comments like "yeah...that was...just...whew." But it was obvious that he had simply shown up and they quickly threw together a montage of all three of his appearances.
-Colonel Potter is still alive. (But he is developing a George Burns, chimp-mouthed, "coo...coo" expression)
-The guy who played Colonel Blake died in 1996-- Notable because I was pretty sure he had died right after Hello Larry was canceled.
-Newly amusing: the episode in which they all sit around impersonating father Malcahy, and Colonel Potter says "'Jocularity...Jocularity.'"
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Spin Magazine called me every week-day for a month. Always at 7:15, (The middle of the second Simpsons) always asking for me by my first name. I think they were instructed to act like hip stoners and/or, slightly flirtatious riot girls, alternating in good cop/bad cop fashion, hoping that I would purchase three years worth of Spin just to end the parental torture.
"This is Judd from Spin Magazine. I just wanted to know if you still think our magazine is cool."
"This is Krista from Spin Magazine. How are youuu, doing today?"
I eventually recognized their voices. So that when they asked for me I would ask. "Is this Spin Magazine?"
Judd would say "Yup."
Krista would say "Mm hmm."
And I'd hang up, knowing I'd be hearing from them again. I wonder if they were really from the magazine or if they belong to those high-pressure subscription selling rings which used to recruit runaway teenagers to haunt shopping malls and female dorms. Their pitch typically began with "Know where I can get some pot?" or "I'm trying to earn a scholarship by selling magazine subscriptions," and before you knew it you were nearly running over them to get out of the parking lot as they gave you the finger and screamed at you for being a worthless dyke whose fucking money they didn't need anyway. Those same kids now plague small businesses, attempting to sell framed photocopies of boring Monet paintings.
I've also gotten telemarketing calls from The Nation. It was probably the Judd guy, wearing a different hat and holding a handkerchief over the receiver. But they were asking for donations. A subscription just isn't enough. They need further support from readers like myself. Just imagine the cable company calling and asking for extra money, above and beyond your monthly bill, because they're having trouble making ends meet. I also noticed, in a recent issue, an ad suggesting that readers name the magazine as a beneficiary in their wills. Don't get me wrong, it's an important newspaper, but it's also preaching to the choir. And I cannot afford to personally finance Noam Chomsky's bathroom reading-- a particularly unsavory post-mortem legacy.
One last story: I used to work in Greenville, which is a waspy, bourgeois leisure town for cranky dowagers and their cranky children.
One day, I was walking to (Greenville's one "fast food" establishment) and this tall kid, wearing about $600 worth of rave clothes, stopped me at the door to tell me that his parents had kicked him out of the house and he needed money to buy food. I considered that his bedroom was probably bigger than my house, and that he was more than capable of making at least three bills by pawning his palm pilot or Phat Farm pants. So I shook my head and walked past as he, like, bowed and thanked me for my time.
I won't pay for some rich kid's stance against his parents' conservative ideals, (Which is what I should have said to The Nation) so he can play runaway and impress his girlfriend.
Fuck him.
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