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Feeding the comedian in me
On further reflection about recent events, the comedian in me sees the following:
In tragedy, comedy finds a way in, no matter how inappropriate, or perhaps because of its inappropriateness.
Rogue traders can destroy a company in milliseconds — it only takes one of all three
Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.
Denial can blind.
It is a very important truism that immigrants and immigration are what made America what it is. We must be vigilant as a nation to have a tolerance for differences, a tolerance for new people.
Technology is both an end in itself and a means to other ends. When you figure something out and make it work, there is pleasure and excitement. Not just because the technology is going to do something, but because you created something with its own inherent beauty, like art, like literature, like music.
All art is in some fashion escape. It sucks you out of your own life. It absorbs you.
You must understand your mistakes. Study the hell out of them. You’re not going to have the chance of making the same mistake again — you can’t step into the river again at the same place and the same time — but you will have the chance of making a similar mistake.
Satisfaction doesn’t come in moments but in periods of time.
Privacy is one of the biggest problems in this new electronic age. At the heart of the Internet culture is a force that wants to find out everything about you. And once it has found out everything about you and two hundred million others, that’s a very valuable asset, and people will be tempted to trade and do commerce with that asset. This wasn’t the information that people were thinking of when they called this the information age.
Take a bit of the future and make it your present.
Names: Melody, Autumn, Garrett, Candice.
Places. Nouns. Pronouns but no connouns yet yes connotations.
Seeing reactions with no desire to profit from them.
Laying crumbs along a trail, asking the birds to peck their way along behind, not the pied piper, recalling Latin lessons about silva and “p” words that trigger dim memories of pied (pronounced pee-ed rather than pie-uhd).
Conscious and unconscious at the same time again and again, seeing connections, sensing subconscious influences upon fleeting conversations, creating twists and turns on trails to hide going in a circle, corpuscle, corporal, corporate, cerebral cycle.
Trigger finger over the keyboard, waiting for the signal to press/type/click.
But with touchscreens, it’s press/swipe/touch.
Multifinger gestures.
Gestation, Guest station, Geriatric, Acrobatic, Aeronautic.
Cranking through the sausage maker, maker, maker, maker…
Imaginary rhythms, a wooden finger tacked to the wall, cough drops fall, that’s all.
Disjointed intersections of ceilings and floors.
Can a ceiling touch the floor?
Can a floor touch the sky?
What makes the sky “up”?
She sits
But she doesn’t sit for long
She waits for no one
Others wait for her
No time for her
Because time is meaningless
Words do not touch
The stirrings of her soul
She prepares each movement
Like a tai chi master in meditation
The turn of a wrist
Raising an eyebrow
Sitting in a chair
Listening for the silence between heartbeats
Music only she knows
Folds in her skin deepen
Aging finely maybe wisely
She sleeps
But she doesn’t sleep for long
Trumpets blaring ideas deep within her brain
Push her out of bed
Ideas scribbled on the napkins of last night’s mind
Fade too quickly for human use
Extraterrestrials passing by the planet
Record the thoughts for later dissemination
A purpose for being
Being not the purpose
She moves on
Like water from a fallen bamboo flute into a pond
Fish breathing her in
Exhaling her out
Discordant sounds of a Qinqiang
Playing up her strengths
The paper bird pales in the sun
And flies away.
— 10 Dec 2004, Rick Hill
At times like this…
“At times like this, I am reminded of a scene from an SNL skit.”
“Yeah, boss, which one? The Bassamatic?”
“Nah. But that was a good one, wasn’t it? No, I was thinking more about the Citizen Kane parody, where the owner says, while pointing a gun out the window and shooting six times, ‘Take a headline, Bernstein: “Crazed Sniper Guns Down Six!” We’ll have the innocent men, women and children angle an offer for $10,000 for the madman’s capture!’ That kind of parody.”
“Parade?”
‘No. Parody.”
“Party?”
“No. Parody. Parody, parody, parody. Similar to satire. You know, sarcasm.”
“Ahh…sarcasm. That I understand, boss. Kinda like the way you call me smart when you mean the opposite.”
“Kinda. Anyway, watching the news, I see these talking heads and the puppet strings that jerk their faces around, then I imagine the producers and finally, the owners. Take Fox, for instance. Can’t you see Rupert Murdoch telling his minions, ‘Guys, I need a headline grabber, like this…”
[Video fades to black, cuts to scene from SNL]
Citizen Kane II
Written by: Michael O’Donoghue
Mr. Thompson…..Buck Henry
Nurse…..Laraine Newman
Jed Leland…..Chevy Chase
Charles Foster Kane…..Dan Aykroyd
Mr. Bernstein…..John Belushi
Henri…..Tom Schiller
Delivery Boy…..Garrett Morris
[ black-and-white ]
[open on the dark, moody atmosphere of Mr. Thompson’s room. He lies on his bed reading, as a knock sounds at the door. He rises to answer it, allowing a Nurse to enter the room. ]
Mr. Thompson: Yes? Can I help you?
Nurse: I.. don’t suppose you remember me, but.. I’m the nurse that was with Mr. Kane when he died.
Mr. Thompson: [ momentarily confused ] Mr. Kane?
Nurse: Charles Foster Kane – the big newspaper tycoon.
Mr. Thompson: Of course! You’re the one who told us Mr. Kane’s last word – Rosebud. Huh.. never did find out what it meant.
Nurse: Well.. Rosebud was.. one of his last words.
Mr. Thompson: What do you mean, one of his last words?
Nurse: Well, you mustn’t get angry.. but I just remembered a few more.
<[ theme music crescendos, as the title superimposes on screen: “CITIZEN KANE II” ]
[ Mr. Thompson sits on the edge of his bed, across from the Nurse who sits in a chair ]
Nurse: You see, he was on this all-liquid diet —
Mr. Thompson: Get to the point, woman! What were Charles Foster Kane’s last words?!
Nurse: After he said Rosebud, he coughed a few times, then he muttered: “Henri.” And then he died.
Mr. Thompson: Henri? Henri.. ah! Henri! Of course! A man’s name! Kane’s closest friend, Jed Leland, is still alive in one of those uptown hospitals. Let’s pay him a visit! If anyone knows who thie Henri is, he will!
[ Mr. Thompson and the Nurse rush out of the room, as the music crescendos again and we fade to black ]
[ fade in on the close-up face of an aged, spectacled, moustachioed Jed Leland ]
Jed Leland: [ pondering the clue ] Henri.. hmm.. Henri..
[ pull out to reveal Jed Leland sitting in a wheelchair. He turns to face Mr. Thompson, who sits with his back to the audience and obscured by shadows ]
Jed Leland: You’re absolutely sure you don’t have a good cigar? I’d give anything for a good cigar.
Mr. Thompson: Sorry, Mr. Leland, but what about this Henri?
Jed Leland: Who?
Mr. Thompson: Henri.
Jed Leland: Henri. Well, I’m afraid I don’t know any — nope.. wait a minute. [ suddenly remembering ] Why, of course. Henri. The little French man. I’ll never forget the first and last time I saw Henri. It was the day Charlie took over the Enquirer. My, what a day it was..
[ flashback dissolve to the Enquirer office, Mr. Bernstein standing alone as Charles Foster Kane and a younger Jed Leland enter ]
Charles Foster Kane: [ chuckling ] Well, Jedediah, here it is! My own newspaper, the New York Enquirer. And I’m going to turn this newspaper into something that this own will want to read. Why, just look at this dribble! [ holds up a newspaper ] “Noted Mitten Manufacturer Retires.”
Mr. Bernstein: Why, it must be a slow day for news, Mr. Kane!
Charles Foster Kane: A slow day for news, Bernstein? I’ll show you a slow day for news!
[ Kane points a gun out the window and fires 6 shots below ]
Charles Foster Kane: Take a headline, Bernstein: “Crazed Sniper Guns Down Six!” We’ll have theinnocent men, women and children angle an offer for $10,000 for the madman’s capture!
Mr. Bernstein: Right away, Mr. Kane! [ rushes out of office ]
Charles Foster Kane: Slow days for news —
[ Delivery Boy enters office ]
Delivery Boy: Did anyone order a roast beef on rye with mustard?
Charles Foster Kane: Yeah, I did. Thanks.
[ Delivery Boy distributes the sandwiches, then exits office ]
Jed Leland: Let’s see here, what am I, chopped liver?
[ Henri the printer rushes in with the new front page reading: “Crazed Sniper Guns Down Six – Woman and Children Among Victims”. Mr. Bernstein appears behind him. ]
Henri: Here’s ze new front page, Mr. Kane!
Charles Foster Kane: Well, you certainly took your time about it, boy. What’s your name?
Henri: Henri, sir.
Charles Foster Kane: Henri, you’re fired! We’re running a scandal sheet here, not a newspaper! [ starts to eat his sandwich ] Mmm.. great sandwich.
Henri: Funny.. I thought it was: “We’re running a newspaper, not a tea party.”
Mr. Bernstein: A tea party?! That doesn’t make sense! how about: “We’re running a newspaper here, not a pet shop!”
Jed Leland: Uh, wait a minute. Obviously, we’re not running a pet shop. That’s no good.
[ Delivery Boy re-enters scene ]
Delivery Boy: Who, uh, gets the tea with no lemon?
Henri: How about, uh.. police office!
Mr. Bernstein: Oh, yeah.. hey! That’s a good idea! “We’re not running a newspaper here –”
[ suddenly, Charles Foster Kane fires 5 more shots out the window ]
Charles Foster Kane: Get out an extra! “Sniper Strikes Again!” Double the reward!
[ everyone but Kane and Leland clear the room ]
Jed Leland: You know, since you took over, you certainly have changed the Enquirer, Charlie.
Charles Foster Kane: Change the Enquirer.. change the newspaper.. I haven’t changed anything, Jedediah. I’ve only changed the front page. What about its heart, its soul, its very being? That’s why I’ve set out this Declaration of Principles. [ posts card on the wall ] 1. Sell millions of newspapers by any means possible. 2. Make that billions of newspapers.
Jed Leland: Can I keep that, Charlie? I have a hunch it could turn out to be pretty important some day.
Charles Foster Kane: [ reflects ] Important someday. Yeah. [ looks out the window ] Jedediah, do you think I can hit that organ grinder down there, from this far away? He looks to be about.. oh.. one-hundred, two-hundred yards. Let’s see if I can get a beat on him. [ fires a shot ] Damn! Bernstein!
[ Mr. Bernstein re-appears ]
Mr. Bernstein: Yes, Mr. Kane!
Charles Foster Kane: Get out an extra! “Sniper Kills Organ Grinder’s Monkey, Not Even Pets Safe in Weird Murder Spree.”
Mr. Bernstein: Sure thing, Mr. Kane!
[ Kane admires the copy of his newspaper, as he flash-dissolve back to the aged Jed Leland in the hospital ]
Jed Leland: Yeah.. Henri. That’s who Henri was.
Mr. Thompson: He doesn’t really seem important enough, somehow. I mean, why would Kane’s last words be about some printer he fired fifty years before?
Nurse: Oh, wait.. I’m sorry. I just remembered that Mr. Kane said one more thing before he died. He said: “Rosebud”, coughed a few times, muttered: “Henri”, and then he turned to me and whispered: “With Mustard.”
Mr. Thompson: Wait a minute.. let’s put this all together: “Rosebud.. Henri.. With Mustard.” I wonder what it means.
Nurse: Beats me.
Jed Leland: Well, maybe it was a horse he bet — [ Chevy Chase suddenly cracks up ] It could’ve been a horse he bet on!
Mr. Thompson: Yes, that might be amusing if it were.
Nurse: Maybe a woman he knew.
Jed Leland: Might be.
Mr. Thompson: I guess we’ll never know.
[ dissolve to a fiery incinerator. The door is pulled open, and a hand inserts a menu into the flames that read: “Roast Beef On Rye With Mustard” ]
[ fade to black, up on SUPER: “The End” ]
[ dissolve to SUPER: “Introducing The Cast” ]
[ dissolve to “Laraine Newman as the nurse.” ]
Nurse: You see, he was on this all-liquid diet.
[ dissolve to “Chevy Chase as Jed Leland.” ]
Jed Leland: I’d give anything for a good cigar.
[ dissolve to “Buck Henry as Mr. Thompson.” ]
Mr. Thompson: What do you mean, one of his last words?
[ dissolve to “John Belushi as Mr. Bernstein.” ]
Mr. Bernstein: How about: “We’re running a newspaer here, not an ant farm!”
[ dissolve to “Tom Schiller as Henri.” ]
Henri: Here’s ze new front page, Monsieur Kane!
[ dissolve to “Garret Morris as the delivery boy.” ]
Delivery Boy: Who gets the roast beef on rye with mustard?
[ dissolve to “Dan Aykroyd as Charles Foster Kane.” ]
Charles Foster Kane: Mmm.. great sandwich!
[ fade to black ]
“I don’t know boss. It’s awfully complicated.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right. But I wouldn’t put it past Murdoch to fund a few fundamentalist groups and keep their leaders on speed dial when he needs to up his viewership and advertising rates. Oh, just forget it. Let’s watch a rerun of ‘The Americans‘ and call it a day.”
Art: “15 Minutes”
Genre
My wife and I watched “The Departed” a few nights ago. We had planned to watch it the evening before the Boston Marathon but opted for finishing a film already showing on the tellie, Torn Curtain.
Why “The Departed”?
Well, it’s that plate-of-shrimp type thing.
You know what I mean — you want a straight good guy/bad guy movie, go to the theatre and watch “Olympus Has Fallen,” only to have your interest piqued in another movie because of previews discussing the career of Mark Wahlberg.
Even though Leo D and Matt D are not your favourite actors, you agree to watch a film about crime, cops, corruption and punishment in the south Boston area.
Then, as luck would have it (I can’t say that the phrase “better bad luck than no luck at all” applies to the local crime scene on the streets of Boston right now), your interest is raised higher due to the conflux of life imitating art, art imitating life, life imitating life and art imitating immigration control acts with as much likelihood of passing as gun control acts in the Senate but maybe as much as the CISPA cybersecurity bill in the House of Representatives.
While the world watches video clips of potential suspects of the Boston Massacre Part Deux, we have little in the way of interest in the U.S. of the faces on bombing perpetrators in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Such is the power of the Western mass media owners, advertisers and viewers who want to prove their peaceful way of life is best.
Now, tell me again, which companies, according to Forbes, are the tops in the world right now? Chinese banks, ICBC and China Construction Bank.
I won’t wax the philosophical surfboard and ride waves of meditation upon the rise and fall of company values and families based on shaky loans and house-of-cards economics.
Instead, I take off my hat and bow my head, in respect, to the recently departed.
For them, there is no future on celestial bodies.
For them, our celestial body futures are dedicated.
For them and the billions before them.
There is no imitation for life, no substitute, no art form that replaces our loved ones.
But art and imitations can teach a lesson.
Are you listening? Paying attention? Can you afford the cost?
High Winds
For what, in painful moments, have felt like excruciating, unending months, I have floated on the winds of change in popular/mainstream culture, following more than leading, letting the voices of others more attracted to monetary success and mass cultural influence speak for me, all because I acted upon the belief that adjusting to the loss of my father would change me, and it did.
I quit reading books.
I stopped meditating upon the peace of my joyful existence.
I dwelled in the mental images of the running storyline in my thoughts rather than shared them here with you, the reader and fellow follower.
I let my hit list dwindle down to nothing as my public voice changed to incorporate my image of mon pere into my written voice.
All while staying true to myself.
Relatively easy — no wars to fight, no lethal weapons to avoid, no slippery corporate ladders to climb, no shaky relationships to fix.
Because of this ease with which I walked through the death of my mother in-law and father, as well as a few people not mentioned online, I arrived here, continuing the sorting process of establishing which facts of one’s existence are worth recording in a blog via scanned images or Internet links and which are loaded into boxes and bags, then carried to the thrift store or sent to the local landfill.
By putting these items online, my personality is revealed through the points of contact I made in our global socioeconomic intercourse.
I asked myself along the way if it is easier for me to do something than something else I did before, will I?
I could grow and sell woodland plants in my tiny acre of land but is it easier and more enjoyable for someone else somewhere else?
I could poison and kill the raccoons that have eaten their way into my attic, or I could trap them and release them far away from this house, either way cleaning up the tornup eaves, shredded cardboard boxes and animal droppings.
Who am I?
The proverbial question has bounced around on days when I wondered which of my written personalities is really me.
Am I naturally attracted to people like Felicia Day because I have been and always will be a geek at heart?
I can talk and/or I can act.
Talking about myself and my inaction gets boring after a while when the voices are echoing the same thought back and forth, learning nothing new.
I have a bag of old spray paint cans and a few illustrator boards I used to make handbound hardback books of a limited collection of my poems and short stories — time to combine those with a bag of sewing notions from a 1956 Singer sewing machine cabinet to create artwork for display at Lowe Mill.
There may be office days ahead of me again, compromising my politically-incorrect-insensitive personality in the moment in order to work civilly with people who want to tap the profit of their business model to feed habits, hobbies and personality traits uniquely theirs.
How will historians see this moment, the past few months and years of the growing chasm between the socioeconomically ultra rich and relatively poorer people?
We spread into the cosmos — the answer to any and every question we ask, regardless of personality traits and set of beliefs.
Two data points
Cedar chest packing materiak
Irish-Italian American
How does a story like this start?
Which beginning is the beginning?
The author is part but not part and parcel of the tale. The usual “as always”.
In fifth grade, I met a boy who was so dark I thought he was Puerto Rican. He could also wiggle his ears.
Mike. Mike McGinty.
In 1930, a boy was born who grew up in Lynn, Massachusetts — Mike’s Irish father, John.
John entered military service in 1950.
One of his jobs was making sure films distributed by the Air Force were shown to the soldiers. Therefore, John received his paycheck from the Air Force even though he was a Marine. He eventually worked as a librarian for the base after his stint in the Korean War, including a landing at Inchon with the Marines.
However, let’s turn to a romantic view of the action taking place farther ahead and behind in time.
By 1952, John was making regular trips from a western New York military base, driving his mother’s car back home to Lynn.
Meanwhile, a young woman named Maria, whose Italian family had moved around the various eastern towns outside Boston, including Everett, was finishing her last year in high school.
One evening, on January 1st, a special Catholic holiday, Maria, along with her friend Barbara, skipped Mass and cruised on down to a local coffee shop, sitting in a booth.
Sitting at the bar, John and a military buddy of his from the Navy watched the two women walk in.
John dared his friend to talk with the attractive ladies.
His buddy did but he left before introducing John.
John got up from the barstool and wandered over.
Maria thought John would be interested in Barbara, as most guys were, Barbara being more attractive and more popular.
John had other ideas.
“I carried a few thoughts in my head when I first saw Maria. One, the woman I was going to settle down with had better be very attractive. And she was. Second, she better be the kind interested in having a family.”
At 83, John’s memory of the event is vivid, and Maria’s at 77 is, too.
He offered the women a ride home, dropping Barbara off first.
“At Maria’s house, just before she left the car, I suddenly remembered to ask if she wanted to go out.”
Maria smiled and nodded. “I said yes even though, because I was raised in a strict family, I was forbidden to date while I was in high school. Plus he was 21 and I was 17. I tried to pass him off as 19 to my mother but she said he was too grown up to be 19.”
From then on, right after reveille on Saturday mornings, John would drive as fast as he could to complete the 13-hour trip “all the way across New York State and all the way across Massachusetts.”
“You see, I couldn’t go out with him after 11 p.m.”
John cupped his hand behind his left ear. “What?” She repeated herself. “Sorry, I waited too to get these hearing aids but I’d be deaf without them.”
“I stood at the window to wait for him. When he passed by, he’d…”
“Honk his horn?” I couldn’t stop myself from adding that one.
“Do you think I wanted to go to reform school? Or a convent?”
I laughed. “‘Get thee to a nunnery.'”
“‘A nunnery.’ That’s right. No, he’d flash his lights to let me know he made it safely and he’d see me at church the next day.”
“After Mass on Sunday morning I’d go with her to see her family.”
“I had to see all my grandparents every Sunday after church.”
“‘Johnny,’ one grandfather would say, ‘drink up.’ I’d look at her and she’d say, ‘Yes, drink up.’ One shot of whiskey.”
“That’s right. ‘Go ahead. Drink up.’ You see, John was Irish and my family didn’t approve of our going out together. His drinking with my grandfather…Four Roses! Only the fancy stuff, haha!…it was their way of getting him to be part of them.”
“Yeah, and I’m no alcoholic. Sure, I drink a glass or two of wine or a shot of whiskey every day but that means I’m well-preserved. By the way, what will you have to drink? I have Heineken and Sam Adams in the fridge.”
“Sam Adams.”
“Sam Adams?! He is a drinking man! I’ll get you that beer.” [“No, Dad. I’ve got it.”]
“My other grandparents made their own wine.”
“They trusted me so much with their granddaughter that after a while they showed me the whole winemaking operation in the basement. Of course, I had to drink a glass of wine or two at their house.”
“We didn’t marry until he was out of the military and I was well out of high school. Can you believe I just retired after 22 years as a school secretary? Me, retired?”
“And I’ve been retired for 23 years. Retirement is good.”
“It is. I still wake up when I used to but I get up when I want to.”
Joh turns to talk quietly with my mother, bringing her to tears. Maria taps her finger on the glass patio table to get his attention and waggled her finger to scold him.
My mother turns her reddened eyes to Maria. “If we can’t cry with our friends, who can we cry with? Besides, these are such good memories you’ve shared.”
Later, Mike calls from California to wish his family a Happy Easter in Florida. He comments to me on the phone about my semifinalist status a while back in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, when I will publish the next one, and how my voice still sounds young (even if I don’t look it), as well as his nontalkative father, who in response says he doesn’t like to talk on the phone, even to his kids because he can’t hear well on the phone.
Maybe I should write another book.
I look forward to reading Mike’s new book about branding and John’s recommendation about a series of military books by Rick Atkinson and Carlo D’este.
John wishes for more books about the Korean War.
Maria wishes for pictures of newborns, especially great-grandchildren from her grandchildren Melissa (legal assistant wanting to be an urban planner), PJ (EMT) and Brian (shadetree truck mechanic), all well-behaved and doing well at 25, 22 and 18, children of her daughter Trish and husband Paul, 47, a unionized electrician for Duke Energy, 15 years away from retirement after 15 years on the job.
My mother wishes that the emotional turmoil after the death of her husband will wind down.
Another house to empty, to sell, to remember it and its place in the greater community.
Can you wiggle your eyes?
Would you spend your Easter weekend at Rancho Relaxo?
treetrunkdings 