The Mouse Party Dream [1997]

[Written early on 19 March 1997 about a dream I’d had 17/18 March.]

I

 dreamed about mice in my room. My brother and I were watching them run about on the molding towards the top of the room. Flame [the cat] ignored them. There were three mice, two of them quite large. My brother said I should watch where they went, and they went into a hole in my ceiling. My brother said we should block it up; that’s where the heat was escaping to. I went up into the attic to find that the mice had really taken over up there; it was like a goddamn mouse party. There was oatmeal all over a sort of table like our old train table, and there were meal­worms in it, and the mice were munching on them like party treats. I got the hell out of there, and when I got back down from the attic my brother was talking to our father my father’s room. He had his beeper and was working on some plans for the television sta­tion. I said to him “I’m sure glad you’re back,” and he told me, “I’m not back really. You can’t come back from the dead.”

In Relation to What? [1969]

[Passage from my journal, 18 March 1969]

ⲡⲁⲣⲉⲙϩⲟⲧ 22, 1685

9:45 pm PST—(rain, 3.0) Today I got up and went to school. I didn’t take the bus. Day 126. I read in the Inter­pret­er’s Bible (Samu­el). Schedule: Advisory (Language club meet­ings), Latin (Mike went to his second meeting of the Latin Club—he’s emperor of the club. They decided that I should play the record­er for the Roman Ban­quet. I am not a member of the club), Math (we got our tests back; I got two wrong), Con­tempt (Dr. Apsler spoke on the Arab-Is­raeli conflict), World Histo­ry, Lunch (our table is gone), Eng­lish (library), Study Hall. I took the bus home. I checked the dittoed material my father brought home, talked, ate, bathed, talked about Samuel, and went to bed.

Brent: In our school we have a day where the students teach the classes and run the schools.

Bryan: Do the students have complete control?

Brent: Well, there are teachers around so things don’t get out of hand.

Bryan: Ah, a token concession from the estab­lishment administration.

Any of those things is always deep in relation to what, you know.—The Guru

words to learn: asinthrope

The Motor Chums in Alaska: An Underhanded Scheme

[passage from The Motor Chums in Alaska, or, The Search for Incan Gold, written 16–17 March 1979]

“T

his won’t do,” muttered Tom. He spared no glance to the others as he went into a conference over strategy with Ersatz.

Ned was accosted by a teammate. “What do you think of Skyways Transport?” he was asked.

“Forget it,” was Ned’s response. “Motor Chums Industries has it sewed up tight.”

“Maybe so, maybe not,” said the other. “My father says it looks an up and coming venture, and he knows where he can get a couple hundred shares.”

Ned looked impressed, then remarked, “Probably nothing to it. If there was a couple hundred shares around, Tom would already’ve grabbed ’em.”

The other laughed. “I bet my dad knows a few things Tom doesn’t,” he said. With that the bell sounded for the second round.

During this round the Badgers held their own. Bingo Wright got to fourth on a puffed foul, while Ned blatted a triple whinger into the backstop. Harry exhibited some fancy footwork in stealing two bases and gained four points for the team. Although penalized for a moving violation, the Dragons were also brilliant; Fred Hoffman in particular knocked off two of the Badgers with a sharply-kicked field goal. But the unquestioned “star” of the round was Tom, who not only managed two run-ins, but virtually kept the opposition from scoring during his chores in the pitcher’s booth.

“That glory-grabber,” sneered Clarence Ashton, “Even when he’s going to throw the game, he has to look good.”

“That young ruffian ought to be jailed for the rest of his life!” burst out a stranger.

Clarence turned to the newcomer. “You talkin’ about our school hero?” he asked.

“School hero? Reform school hero, maybe—I’m talking about Tom Wilshire!”

“Say,” grinned Clarence, “You’re not a bad fellow for a Jeffersonian—but I think they ought to hang him from the school flagpole.”

“What has the miscreant perpetrated against you?” asked the other curiously.

Clarence glanced around shiftily. “You won’t tell anyone?” he asked.

“Of course not,” said the young man.

“By holding my debts over my head,” hissed Clarence, “he forced me to sign an apology to a colored lad.”

The stranger let out a whistle. “Well, after that what he did to me doesn’t look so bad—he merely stole my car and kidnapped a young lady-friend of mine.”

“You want to get back at him?” demanded Clarence. “I got a scheme. After the game we can talk with a friend of mine about it.”

The situation did not look good for the Badgers. At the beginning of the third round they still lagged behind by a good many points, and Tom had been replaced in the pitcher’s booth by Larry, who though well-thought-of, possessed none of Tom’s “brilliance” in the rôle. But the Dragons too had their setbacks. Fred Hoffman, the star player, was removed from the game when his stick exploded, while another had to be benched for his conduct in a pile-up on the free-throw line. As a result the team was badly crippled and barely scored, while without Fred’s pitching the Badgers were able to rack up several points.

“Can Tom save the situation?” was Ned’s anxious question.

“We seem to have the situation well in hand,” Harry replied. “We’ve had buy orders from as far away as Denver.”

“Not Skyways Transport,” snapped Ned. “The game.”

“There’s no necessity for worry on that score,” Harry informed him. “Tom and Ersatz are putting together some invention to save us at the last moment, as usual.”

“It am done, Marse Harry, deed it am,” shouted Ersatz, running up to the chums. “We’s inbented a Dragon-blaster dis time.”

“We sure have,” agreed Tom, “Wait’ll you see it in action. We’ll show the Dragons what the Badgers are made of.”

And as Tom predicted, in the last round the Badgers really showed their stuff. One by one the Dragons fell away, unable to cope with Tom’s pitching pyrotechnics. Although it took Ersatz five minutes to put out the stadium, all agreed that Tom’s flaming arc-ball was worth the cost, and his shooting-star spectacular so dazzled the Dragons that they were worth little for the remainder of the game.

Although the Badgers were delighted with the outcome—several hundred percent return on investment—others were not.

“Ruined!” shrieked Clarence angrily. “The bastards ruined us!”

“What do you mean?” whined Ben Hangdog nervously. “Let’s talk in my office.”

“Say, do you have your own office now,” Clarence Ashton asked enviously. “I’ve been School Bully now for six months and haven’t got mine. Anyway, since when is the school toady entitled to an office?”

“I’ve been promoted,” snickered Ben, “Cancher read? I’m th’ school sneak, now.” And the brass plaque on the door read “Ben Hangdog, School Sneak.” “Who’s th’ dude wicher?”

“I’m Herbert Waverly the First,” the lad introduced himself, “Ashton here says you two have a scheme on.”

“We did have,” blustered Ashton, “Till we were wiped out by losin’ the bets in the game.”

“We were gonna blow up Tom’s workshop,” said Ben Hangdog, “An’ then beat him to th’ Gold City while he’s still buildin’ his airship.”

“The Gold City!” exclaimed Herbert. “How do you know about that?”

“I heard Tom talkin’ about it with his gang,” said Clarence.

“Th’ main thing is, we need an airship,” said Ben, “An’ we need ter steal Tom’s map.”

Herbert produced the parchment with a triumphant flourish. “Here’s the map!” he exclaimed, “I had it off a certain young lady the ruffians kidnapped. And I’ll pay for the airship. That’s a low underhanded plan you’ve got.”

Ben grinned from ear to ear. “Thanks,” he whined humbly.

“I know who we can get to build and run it,” blustered Clarence. “You know Orville Risley?”

“The famed aviator?”

“And long-time foe of the Motor Chums,” snickered Ben.

“He’d be glad to do those bastards a bad turn,” boasted Clarence moodily. He turned to Ben. “You got anything on them now?”

“Lemme look at my files.” The little sneak walked over to a booth literally stuffed with file drawers and removed one, labeled “Motor Chums—April 10-17, 1910.” “Here we are … let’s see … they’re using a front to build an airship—something called Skyways Transport.”

Waverly’s jaw dropped. Ashton groaned. “I own a couple hundred shares—” began the rich man’s son, while the bully said, “I been doing promotions for them.”

“Those tricky bastards,” whimpered Ben Hangdog.

Black-Is-White Thinking [1984]

[From my pre-weblog, 16 March 1984]

N

othing much to report, I guess. I just got finished watching CNN’s replay of its coverage of this Massachusetts rape case—watched one of the defendants tell his version of what happened which sounded like a hasty improvisation to me, but what do I know? In other news I see that Congress is again trying to cram school prayer down our throats, that California official­ly endorses job discrimination against homosexuals, and that a woman who had herbicides dumped on her cannot collect for person­al damages, but can collect for the damage done by the stuff to her property…. Madness.

Black-is-white thinking continues to reign … Fundamentalists are being cruelly persecuted because they aren’t allowed to require classroom prayer, while some peo­ple want to infringe upon the rights of bigots to discriminate against whomever they please.

I’m watching Reagan continue bumbling around in the mideast—one of the things that amazes me is that although Reagan’s mishandling of this Syrian crisis eclipses any American foreign policy disaster since Nixon’s Vietnamization of that war there has been no wave of public revulsion against him. I can understand the rats follow­ing the piper, but why don’t they desert the sinking ship?

I can’t stand watching/listening to/reading the news any lon­ger—it always pisses me off and ruins the rest of my day. Bet­ter to live in ignorance it seems to me.

Emotional weather report: clouded and gloomy, with a pro­found low blowing in from the north … stay tuned for sports.

Jury Day [2001]

[Passage from my journal, 15 March 2001]

☾☾

 12:24 m PST—Jury day. I got up on time, caught the bus down, and then mostly sat around doing nothing. I read some. Not all that long before lunch time a bunch of us got called up for a jury, and—just when I was thinking I wouldn't see anything new—we got contaminated. We were asked whether we knew any of the potential witnesses, and one lady said she was a legal secretary or something of the sort, and had had some professional involvement with one of the officers who would be testifying. In what connection, the judge wanted to know. It was during his trial for police brutality, she said. And that was it for us. Back downstairs we went, where I read until we were let out for lunch. I went racing home to check on things, grabbed a little food and a change of books, and went racing back. Then another long wait, and then another call, and this time it was a trial for selling cocaine. I was the last juror to be seated—twenty-five out of twenty-five or something like that. The prosecuting attorney was a real jerk, but I didn't have any chance of getting on the jury even if they had got down to me—the defense attorney asked me about my conviction lo those many years ago, and I flat out told them that I was wrongly  convicted by a corrupt system that had depended on perjured witnesses. The prosecuting attorney didn’t get much joy out of the ex-cop he asked about using informants, either. After saying that it was a necessary part of the job, he added—on being asked about how credible he would regard a witness with the background of the nark for the prosecution—in essence that he wouldn’t believe a word she said. Well, neither of us made the jury. Neither did the lady who had mentioned police brutality in the previous trial—she said she didn’t believe in the anti-drug laws, and in this one declined to say in what connection she knew one of the officers who would be testifying. I had the impression that this was the same guy again, but maybe it was just a similar name. Or something. Anyway I then went home, talked with my brother (who came by the same time I got there), and crashed out. Thank god that’s over.

The Motor Chums in Alaska: A Field Trip [1979]

[A passage from The Motor Chums in Alaska, or, The Search for Incan Gold, written 12–14 March 1979]

“Y

ou want me to sponsor a field trip to Alaska!” exclaimed Mr. Kemp incredulously.

Tom nodded as Harry spread out maps and contracts in a businesslike manner. Ned glanced nervously at the clock. “Tom,” he observed, “the game’s just about to start.”

Tom waved him off. “We feel,” he said firmly, “it would be an educational experience in several dimensions, allowing the students of Horatio Alger High to optimize their latent capabilities in a novel environment. It will enhance decision-making skills, ability to verbalize needs in stress-situations, and provide conflict-resolution for certain key students here.”

“Our plan,” added Harry, “is to follow a westward route over the Great Lakes, which will allow us to look over such sites of interest as Detroit and Kalamazoo. Then reaching the b order of the Federated Northern States, we will pass into Dakotah territory and perhaps examine a tribe of Wild Indians.”

With that an interruption was felt as an apparition with a water bucket broke in. “Marse Tom! Ise done closed de bettin’ windows.”

“Good,” said Tom briefly.

“The game!” exclaimed Ned. “Tom, we have to get out there.”

“Our route will touch on several scenic spots,” Harry continued, “passing over Yellowstone Park and Snake Eyes or Dry Gulch Canyon in Wauregan.”

“A pause for refueling in Seattle—a brief glimpse of the frontier backwoodsmen and raw lumberjackery—and then it’s off for the Sootka Valley in the heart of unexplored Alaska,” finished Tom with a flourish.

“I’m not going,” said Mr. Kemp with finality. “It is a trip entirely without value, and dangerous besides. I cannot justify spending class time on such a project.”

“But it’s the chance of a lifetime!” protested Ned.

“A chance to end our lives miserably in the Alaskan ice floes,” said Mr. Kemp. “Do you lads have any idea what travel by dogsled is like?”

“We’ll be going by airship,” said Harry.

“That’s worse than ever,” said Mr. Kemp, throwing up his hands, “If we don’t crash into a mountain or blow up, we’ll have an engine failure in the wilderness.”

“All us Motor Chums are skilled aviators,” said Tom, “There is no danger of anything of that sort happening.” He pulled a magazine from his pocket. “This is yours, isn’t it, sir?”

“The Audifax Society Bulletin,” read Mr. Kemp. “I haven’t seen a copy of that for years.”

“I believe you were fired from Harvard for an article in this issue,” said Harry. “‘Corporate Rape of our Natural Surroundings.’”

“I’ve marked a couple of passages here,” said Tom. He read, “‘Little good can come from emissions of toxic gasses into the air from smokestacks across the nation.’”

“Here’s another,” said Ned, “‘Wanton interference with the natural order, especially on foreign shores where these matters are little understood, can only create catastrophes and perhaps sow for the FS a harvest of hate.’ As if we weren’t bringing the blessing of civilization to places like Africa and Europe!”

“And, ‘If F.S. Steel has its way there will be no wood in 1950,’” read Harry.

“I won’t be blackmailed,” said Mr. Kemp. “I’m sure you could stir things up royally, but I will not give in. I will not sponsor a field-trip to Alaska.”

“Sir, you leave us no choice,” said Harry, “We had intended to keep it secret, but now we must reveal the real purpose of our trip. We have good reason to believe that a hitherto unknown civilized race may inhabit the fastnesses of the Sootka Valley.” Briefly he described the evidence, suppressing only all mention of the Gold City.

“Can’t you fit this trip into your scientific expeditions, sir?” Tom demanded politely. “Last year you looked in on the Melanesian Ngrillas. The year before you studied the Philippine Tasmanians. Surely this year you could chart the Eskimos or something.”

Mr. Kemp sighed. “All my life,” he said, “I’ve been searching for utopia. I suppose I may as well search in Alaska as anywhere else.”

“Then you’ll sponsor the trip?”

“I will,” said Mr. Kemp. “But no good will come of it,” he added ominously.

The lads were too excited to take notice of this, however. With a happy “hooray!” Ersatz threw his water bucket high into the air, distributing the contents about the room. Ned turned a cartwheel while Tom strode briskly through the door. Harry paused just long enough to gather his papers, and then joined the other lads in following their collective leader.

As they reached the locker room Bingo Wright and Larry Lawton shoved the helmets on their heads and gave them their gloves. “Come on!” Larry said, “They’re waiting for you.”

The team took the field in high spirits, for by Tom’s capable management, they expected to turn a good profit. Perhaps the spirits of Tom and his friends were higher than most, for Motor Chums Industries owned a good percentage of Badger’s, Inc., but all stood to gain. A deafening cheer rang out when Tom took the pitcher’s box, for he was known and liked for miles around, and the Badgers therefore offered a small discount in ticket price to those who agreed to provide this moral support.

The first round went against our heroes. Although Tom’s work was as good as ever, Bingo dropped a hop fly on the twenty-fifth and even Dick missed an easy liner to the goal. The sole run was scored by Dick, and neither Tom nor Harry even came to bat. The score stood 14-3½.

Thirty

[Passage from my journal, 13 March 1981]

11:41 pm PST—[Newroom Claremont] I don’t really have anything to say, but I wanted to write at least one more journal entry while I’m still technically and legally in my 20s. What the fuck. To-morrow I turn 30—end of an era and all that. Of course eras are always ending and beginning, so one shouldn’t make too big a thing of them, but this is a fairly significant one. You know—is it true that I’m no longer young? and all that. You can’t trust anyone over 30. Well, whatever.

I got up fairly late to-day, even though I had a number of things I needed to get done. As it turned out, I scuttled most of them, which was stupid but there it is. Read the paper first, before my eyes were even adjusted to the morning light, and read about the end of the school busing plan down here. I’ve never been wild about busing, but it’s clear that the people who are rejoicing are the bigots and racists who quite frankly are opposed to the idea of racial equality and all that. The weird thing is that the whole integration thing benefits mainly the people interested in a monocultural US—facilitating the melting pot and the whole bit. If you want a fragmented US, segregation is the way to go. The only way to go. However—

I washed my clothes again, and then took off for the store to lay in a supply of groceries. Bought various items of junk, came home, and then took off again for the store down on Holt in Pomona. Bought some instant food stuff and a cake for my birthday to-morrow, and then spent an hour across the street, trying to make up my mind to buy two albums—Utopia’s Deface the Music and Big Brother and the Holding Company’s Cheap Thrills. I asked about the record price system because I didn’t understand it at all, and the guy explained it to me as if I was a moron; it’s really simple. All records marked $7.29 or $6.49 are $5.99. All records marked $5.99 or $4.99 are $3.88. I didn’t have the nerve after that to ask what a record marked $3.99 actually cost, so I didn’t buy the Oingo-Boingo EP featuring “I Want to Make Violent Love to You” (which next to “Holiday in Cambodia” is my favorite popular song at the moment). I did pick up that Cheap Thrills thing by Big Brother and the Holding Company for $3.88, as well as Utopia’s Deface the Music.

Came home and then again hit the bus to go to school and spend a few hours working on an electronic music project—this damn Reed Pipe piece which has taken so damn long. I’ve just got started on the second section and still don’t have anything coherent down on tape. Ah well, whatever. Came home after that. Called my father to find out why my package hasn’t arrived (he hasn’t sent it, as it happens), and then ate and bathed. After that didn’t do much except wrote in “Ishtar Week” (a.k.a. “Flies”) and then wrote this journal entry. That’s it for the day, I guess. The last day of my 20s—last day of my youth so to speak (but then, I never was young—as they used to say about me, I was born an old man). I’m not depressed at all—I’m down (what I think of as being blue), but not at all depressed. I’m a little amazed, but not really. It’s possible to enjoy being down when you’re not actually depressed (three minutes to go)—it’s not at all the same feeling. Okay—this is it, just a few minutes left (in one sense—in another I have until 8:07, but why spoil the drama?). Can’t think of garbage to fill it up with, and I now have less than a minute so I guess I’ll just fill it up with any words that come to mind so that I write something before I turn officially 30—I just did. 30. 30. Doesn’t that mean the end of a piece? Well, it’s the end of this entry anyway.

-- 30 --

Press Conference [1995]

[Fragment from an untitled novel, written 12 March 1995]

“T

here’s no question about it.” The statement was uncompro­mising, leaving no room for doubt. “The firmament is weakening. Great cracks or fissures have already appeared in the surface of the outer plating. It’s only a matter of time before one of them rips through.”

“And the result?” The reporter leaned forward intently.

“The result?” The speaker was incredulous. “Isn’t it obvi­ous? All that holds back the waters above us is this thin shell. When the firmament cracks we’ll see a flood. Not just a flood, a flood to end all floods. The land will be scoured with huge torrents of water from Eden to Nod. Our cities will be drowned, our fields torn up, and even the highest mountains covered.”

“So what you’re saying, Japeth,”—this was another report­er—“is that we can expect some changes in our traditional way of life?”

“What I’m saying,” said Japeth, his voice under tight con­trol, “is that civilization as we know it will end. No more cities. No more fields. No more people. When the flood comes there will be nothing but water under the heavens, only water as far as the eye can see.”

Paranoia

A

 casual ramble through the overgrown paths of the nethernet shows that today is the birthday of Antonin Scalia, Shemp Howard, Douglas Adams, Rupert Murdoch, and Lawrence Welk, making it an ill-starred day for law, comedy, Vogons, news, and music.

I note that the famous Stooge has yet to be replaced; the Supreme Court stands vacant as I write this, even though it's been more than a year since he died. Come on now, can it be that hard to find another goofball capable of bending the Constitution to his own bigotry by channeling the spirits of dead eighteenth-century politicians?

Shemp Howard, of Larry, Moe, and Curly fame, on the other hand was at least unique, though apparently as forgettable as his legal counterpart. Anybody remember his rôle in Africa Screams on an expedition alongside Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, and Jethro Bodine? I thought not. I have a certain fondness for him though, as the only member of the tribe of stooges I can stand.

Stoogemeister Keith Rupert Murdoch appears to still be with us, alas, and is probably the only member of the bunch who never brightened anybody's day. I can't be sure of that, of course, but I used to know people who lived for Lawrence Welk's appearances on television, and good old Marvin the paranoid android can make anybody feel good, even if it's only by realizing that nobody can possibly feel as bad as he did.

Springtide for Himmler [2011]

[Originally posted 10 March 2011]

N

ot feeling well, here. I don’t know why; there’s probably some good reason for it. Blame it on old age, maybe—my sixtieth birthday is fast approaching, but I don’t really think that’s it. The weather is uncertain and changeable, alternately threatening and inviting, and that could be darkening my emotional landscape too, but again, I don’t really think that’s it. Life here is imploding fast as well; the foreclosure grinds on, with no end in sight, taking its emotional toll, my one brother is rapidly approaching the end of his financial rope, and taken as a whole things continue rapidly to deteriorate. This isn’t even van-by-the-river time; my van’s in the shop, and everything looks chancy and uncertain.

Which makes it hard to concentrate on anything. I spent some time today organizing books, mainly getting stray volumes back on the shelves where they belong, which has something of the deck-chairs-on-the-Titanic feel to it, truth to tell. The thing is, nothing is that urgent, probably. Resolution on the house is likely to be months away, as I understand it, and my family is generally resourceful; even if we crash and burn, we’ll probably do it with a certain degree of dignity. And I’ve had other birthdays. I’ve never had a sixtieth before, but then, I never had a twenty-seventh, or a forty-second, until I actually had one. Honestly, I never really thought I’d get past thirty-three.

And so springtide cometh, where the days are more nearly equal to the nights than not, and flowers start blooming and the grass becomes ragged and in need of a mowing. A chancy, uncertain time of year at best. Storm clouds are as likely as sunshine, and sometimes both come at once. The news abroad fits with the season—gloomy and indecisive. I read how some Army commander found fifty thousand dollars and change to host a third-class hillbilly revival on government facilities with his full endorsement, but could only spare a tiny venue and no financial wherewithal to bring Richard Dawkins and an all-star lineup to the same base. I can’t say I’m disappointed; I expected no less from the customarily two-faced US military. And chaos reigns in Wisconsin, where a venal governor is determined to cut the pay for public employees, forbid future union negotiations over work conditions and benefits, apparently in order to pay off his financial backers. (My hope is that this will prove a pyrrhic victory, as the American people wake from their long slumber to fight back against the mad tea-partiers and other business-as-usual crazies—but the American people seem to be perfectly capable of long-time survival despite having their heads firmly in the sand. Or rather up their collective rectums.) Elsewhere Alan Abel wannabe James O’Keefe is promoting is latest hoax, this time aimed at PBS, though why anybody is still paying him any attention beats me. How many times are the mainstream media (Fox in particular) going to cash this guy’s bad checks? Once bitten and all that, right? Middle-East meltdown goes on. Afghanistan deteriorates. Gaddafi threatens to jump ship (jump, baby, jump!). Some guy in Portland calls 911 to report himself as a house-breaker—seems the owners have returned and he’s afraid they might be armed. None of it makes much sense—but then that’s what one would expect in this chaotic and uncertain universe.

Classic mindscum—I started with nothing in particular to say, and I ended up nowhere in particular. Pile up enough words together and sense emerges—sometimes. I don’t think this was one of them. Put it down to the weather. Maybe I’ll feel better in a day or two.

[Updates: the foreclosure did grind on for several more years, my van never did come out of the shop, chaos still reigns in Wisconsin, James O’Keefe is still peddling his idiotic hoaxes, the mad tea-partiers are still at work accelerating America’s downfall, Gaddafi is gone but not forgotten, and the American people are still asleep at the switch as the train speeds towards its rendezvous with oblivion.]

Vinyl Memories: To the Silent Majority with Love [2012]

[Originally posted 9 March 2012]

How’s about three cheers for the good guys
They don’t march and they don’t shout
So you never read about
The quiet men, who are the backbone of our land.

“Three Cheers for the Good Guys” (Harlan Howard)

1969 was not a good year for me. I graduated from high school and started college—and found myself increasingly out of sync with my context. I wanted to quietly learn Greek and master calculus, while my government looked on me as another body to be used in a failed exercise in something-or-other in Southeast Asia. Protests of this policy shut down classes and made learning difficult—sometimes impossible. Our relatively new President, a fellow named Richard Nixon, best known for his red-baiting activities as a Congressman and as the monumentally unpopular Vice-President under Eisenhower, was pushing a plan he called Vietnamization—the ludicrous concept that somehow, someway, the corrupt and incompetent regime in South Vietnam would be able to take over the war and run it successfully. On 3 November the old Idiot-in-Chief made one of the most amazing speeches I ever read, one of those pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain moments, three parts artful dodging and one part divide-and-conquer.

The war, it seems, was not his problem, as he kept reminding us—he’d inherited it from his predecessors in the office. But he had a plan. A plan for peace. He believed it would succeed. It would be a “just peace through a negotiated settlement if possible, or through continued implementation of our plan for Vietnamization if necessary—a plan in which we will withdraw all of our forces from Vietnam on a schedule in accordance with our program, as the South Vietnamese become strong enough to defend their own freedom.” The important thing was that we present a united front to our enemies “for the more divided we are at home, the less likely, the enemy is to negotiate” and that the protests of the “vocal minority” who were actually being called on to fight the war should be ignored in favor of the “great silent majority of my fellow Americans”—older folk who could sit back at home and watch other people’s children being sent off as cannon-fodder in an endless war.

Ah, memories. In my limited circle what we knew about the war came primarily from its veterans, people who had been there and had lived through what seemed like a real-life black comedy. Maybe it was all bullshit—I don’t know—but they had no patience with the “silent majority” or “walking dead” as one guy I knew called them. Maybe the guys at the Pentagon have a plan, one veteran observed, but they sure as hell aren’t letting us in on it. Disjointed fragments from a time best forgotten—Kent State and Cambodia, Song My and Medina, Agnew and his “effete corps of impudent snobs”, the Berkeley Barb and the Free Press, and the Great American Hero William Calley, praised by the likes of Jimmy Carter and George Wallace.

It was a weird and wondrous time, with The War lurking behind everything we did. My personal connection with The War ended in September 1970 when the United States Army turned me down for the draft as being subject to “psychotic depression”. “Son,” one fellow gently explained to me as I was classified 1-Y (later 4-F), “you’d be more of a danger to our side than to the enemy.” I still don’t know what actually happened on that occasion—I suppose I had the mother of all panic attacks—but my impression at the time was that I got rejected because I couldn’t pee into a paper cup. I don’t suppose my disorientation or mild hallucinations helped matters much either. In any case when they kicked me out with my New Testament and a bus ticket to find my own way home I knew that The War and I were not destined to be on speaking terms any time soon, if ever.

I’d been collecting odd bits of vinyl for years—radio-station discards, Good Will rejects, bargain bin oddities—but in the early 70s I had a sort of competition going with a friend; I’d match his Wild Man Fischer with my Captain Beefheart, and so on. Sometime during 1971 I turned up something called To the Silent Majority With Love featuring the hit single “Sunday Morning Christian”. The “artist” was a certain Harlan Howard, whom I’d never heard of. The lyrics to the songs were printed on the back cover, and they combined self-pity, anti-intellectualism, and self-righteousness in a fine goulash. I had trouble believing it was intended seriously (the title alone seemed perfect as a satire), with songs like “Uncle Sam (I’m a Patriot)”, “Better Get Your Pride Back Boy”, and “Mister Professor”. I had to have it, and I quickly shared it with my friend.

Although it was clearly intended seriously, in some ways it surpassed my wildest expectations. In “Uncle Sam” the singer lamented that his tax-dollars were being taken away for the benefit of foreigners and millionaires and suchlike unworthy types, but concludes “and though I’ve got a complaint or two you can write my name in red, white and blue.” Yes, the perfect tool for Nixon’s vision of America. In “Sunday Morning Christian” he laments the way good Christians cheat and rob and lie and still turn up at church on Sunday “singing louder than the rest”. He doesn’t seem to draw the obvious conclusion from this, and makes sure we understand that the Good Guys (“Three Cheers for the Good Guys”) are restricted to Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. Buddhists, Freethinkers, and Atheists obviously need not apply. (“Thank God if we’re cheering for you.”) It’s even clearer in his paean to anti-intellectualism, “Mister Professor”:

They’re under your influence, so hear my cry in the night
And if you go changin’ the good kids we sent you
Be sure that you’re right
On the subject of God if you have any doubts don’t discuss ’em
For a teacher should teach and a preacher should preach
Not betrayin’ the people that trust ’em
We sent you a good Christian boy and he knows right from wrong
Beware of the danger, don’t sent us a stranger back home

Rick Santorum would feel right at home here.

My buddy used to refer to the album as Better Get Your Hair Cut Boy, referring to the song “Better Get Your Pride Back Boy”:

I’m just a truck driver and I don’t think I know it all
But son you got thoughts in your mind that I don’t understand at all
They’re needin’ you boy and you’re sittin’ in your coffee house
Whatcha gonna do when your woman begs you save her from a mouse?
You better get your pride back boy,
Better get your pride back boy,
That’s the most important thing that the Lord ever gave you…

And repeat ad nauseum. With stuff like this Harlan Howard could give Janet Greene a run for her money.

While this may look like a sort of precursor to the whole Mad Tea Party Movement, Howard reflected a kindlier, gentler era. He had sympathy for “the little dirt farmer” who “works all his life and leaves eight dollars to his kids and wife” where the modern conservative crowd would chant their mantra, “Let them die” and cheer. And at least old Howard thought kids should go to college, even if he didn’t want them actually learning anything. And when Mr. Jones sold him that defective car (“Sunday Morning Christian”) he didn’t rhapsodize about the wonders of the Free Market™; no, he sings “Mr. Jones I’d like you better if you robbed me with a gun.” And if he objects to “too many lazy people lookin’ for a hand out” he at least can feel sorry for “too many cold and hungry children walkin’ about” (“We Didn’t Build This World”). Short of actually doing something about it, of course. So far the right wing has come in forty years—but there’s still a lot of the same old shit there.

Yeah, okay, I have a certain fondness for Harlan Howard. His crazed meanderings took me through some dark times, and I was still including his “Mister Professor” and “Better Get Your Pride Back Boy” on anthology tapes for friends as late as the 1980s. Wikipedia tells me that he died almost exactly ten years ago, on 3 March 2002. It also credits him with a definition of a great country song: “Three chords and the truth.” This album definitely comes up a bit long on that first element, and way short on the second. Still, it perfectly encapsulates its little moment of time, like a prehistoric beetle trapped in amber.

Imbecilic Sayings Attributed to Abraham Lincoln [1991]

[8 March 1991]

W

hen I was riding home on the bus from downtown a lady about three seats back from me started reading from the paper some wise words from Abraham Lincoln—at least that’s what she said. Actu­ally they are some maxims penned by a minister during World War I to discourage workers from becoming socialists or going on strike. It is filled with imbecilic sayings:

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class ha­tred.

You cannot establish sound social security on borrowed mon­ey.

and so on. During World War II some home-grown right-wing groups, for reasons best known to themselves, revived this thing, and attributed it to Abraham Lincoln. Although it seems like it would be obvious to the meanest intellect that Lincoln never came within shooting distance of the thing, it has been reprinted and reprinted as his in periodicals ranging from Look magazine to Analog Science Fiction. This most recent appearance turned out to be in a piece by an advice columnist, Ann Landers. I may add that it has been repeatedly refuted, so that it seems to me that there is no excuse for continuing this fraud. If these people really think this crap is worth printing, then I think they should reprint it with its author’s name attached (William Boetcker, or something like that). Nobody ever does. Personally I think the only reason this crap seems worth repeating is that Lincoln supposedly said it.

Series of Nothing

[passage from my journal, 7 March 2000]

3:00 m PST—Well, another in a series of nothing days, but hey, at least I’m keeping up in my journal, right? As the last year of my seventh life (or my forty-ninth year if you want to look at it like that) grinds to an undistinguished close, I con­tinue fighting with this goddamn Modoc stuff—specifically, I finished stuffing the March 1873 Newspaper Account Index with the San Francisco Chronicle items and started working on the Yreka Journal (which is to say, I’m working on Atwell’s stories). I suppose I should do the Sacramento Record next, but I don’t even know if I have it—what’s on that microfilm anyway? A quick check shows that it gets as far as April so I should be covered. Anyway, that’s the bulk of what I did today. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a repeat, so I skipped it, though I caught Sportsnight (which continues to be one of the best shows on tv). And I heard from my niece via email today; also it looks like I finally won an auction for the Drannan book; we’ll see. And today I got one person to visit my website—the night before somebody came by and somehow only visited my two so far unvisited pages. I don’t know what’s the story with that; maybe it’s somebody from Maxpages.

Another Day Down the Tubes

I

’m really short on sleep right now, thanks to a combination of factors that are of no interest to anybody including me. Writing is not necessarily beyond me, but it is in the nebulous hard-to-grasp zone, and in consequence unlikely to yield much of interest or value. And please note—I mean of interest and value in the context of this weblog, which is a really low bar to get over. The high point of this day was making necessary excursions to the bank and library to make sure that my accounts there don’t overheat and spontaneously combust. My missions accomplished—despite snow and rain and some other indefinite substance drifting down from above—I am ready to lapse back into my usual half-awake state. And that’s the size of this day.

Yarg

D

er Trummkopf continues to demonstrate his brilliance by announcing that his campaign headquarters were under investigation by the goons we’ve hired to keep the empire safe. Who in the inner circle was in communication with foreign and possibly hostile powers he didn’t say, but the admission speaks volumes. High crimes and misdemeanors, anybody? Or is that bar still too low?