Morning Thoughts: Distractions …

C.W. and I were talking …

“Amazing,” I said. “Simply amazing.”

He raised one of his heads from the newspaper it was reading and looked at me. It was the leftmost head, the one designed primarily for data retrieval. “What’s so amazing?”

“You’re reading the paper,” I said. “What do you see?”

“That your species has an uncommon fondness for handguns,” he said. The middle head, the one designed for logical analysis, nodded. “And PTSD.”

“What?”

“Personal telecommunication screen devices,” he said. “What you do without them?”

“You could ask Albert Einstein that,” I said, “if he were still alive.”

“Oh,” said the head on the right. “I think they are so precious.” He, of course, follows the emotional path. He held up his own cell phone to show us a picture of a cat striding back and forth on a piano with the opening lines of “The Moonlight Sonata” patched in as a soundtrack. “Have you ever seen anything so cute in your life?”

“My point exactly,” I said. “What are you reading about this morning?” I asked Left Head.

“Murder, war, hatred, distrust, partisanship, anarchy, genocide, and the obstruction of all altruistic tendencies. Normal stuff for your species.”

“Analysis?” I said to Middle Head.

“Your species is on the eve of destruction.”

I turned to Right Head. “Other than cute cats, what does your PTSD tell you?”

“Most everybody is exercised over some basketball game, whatever that is. That has even pushed the waltzing kittens and the belching puppies off.”

“See,” I asked Left Head. “How amazing it is that, with all that’s going on, a basketball game is our chief topic of conversation?”

He shrugged. “I only report. You’re the decider.”

"I think we have our collective heads in the sand."

“I don’t agree with your conclusion,” Middle Head said. “With all the negativity, your species needs a distraction. Why not let them have a basketball game? Better than a human sacrifice. It sooths them and takes their minds away from fear and loathing, except for the other team and those men in striped shirts, whoever they are.”

“Not so fast,” said Right Head. “I think your species is on the verge of being distracted to death. Want to hear about an experiment I carried out the other day?”

“Sure.”

“You know that college where you teach?”

“Of course.”

“I walked all the way across it in the shape of that wrestling man they call The Relatively Hard, Naturally Occurring Mineral.”

I thought. “Do you mean ‘The Rock?’”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“Well,” he said with utmost gravity. “The Rock walked all the way across campus buck naked and how many students noticed, do you think?”

“I’d hate to guess.”

“One,” he said. “And he just looked up, sniffed, said ‘far out, man,’ and kept walking.”

“Maybe you should have tried Beyoncé,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. “I bounced, wiggled, strutted, and skipped. Tried everything. Not a soul would look up. The PTSD was just too strong.”

“None of you are making me feel better.”

"We thought you would enjoy our 'Change the Shape' game," Middle Head said.

“I have a question,” Right Head said.”

“Okay.”

“What’s the vapors?”

“The what?”

“The vapors. That’s what Mrs. Big Dope said she had when I walked in as Matthew McConaughey.”

That created a smile.

“That’s better,” Right Head said. “How’d you like to meet Charlize Theron?”

Hey! Maybe the day wouldn’t turn out so bad after all. After all, beauty trumps fear and loathing.

If he won't get your attention,
what will? - C.W.

331. Fear

“Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

I woke to the sound. It took several seconds to focus. I had been sitting in an easy chair reading a book on the Battle of Little Big Horn and had fallen asleep. I thought I was alone, since the rest of the family had gone grocery shopping. The voice had come from nowhere. “Be afraid,” it said again.

When I could focus, I saw what seemed to be a replica of Gandalf from the movies made of the Tolkien books—a wizard. “Close your eyes,” it said, “and be very afraid.”

“C.W.” I said, “what the hell are you doing?”

“Sush,” the voice said. “You are asleep, and you are very afraid. Go ahead. Give in. You are very afraid.”

Crap. There go a peaceful few moments. I straightened in the chair, closed the book, and stared at this apparition. “What the hell are you doing?” I said again.

“Now you’ve gone and ruined everything,” it said.

“Ruined what?”

“My practice.”

“And just what are you practicing?”

“Mind control. I have this new job.”

“Jumping Jehoshaphat.” I said. “What kind of job do you have now?”

“A political one.”

“A political one doing what?”

“Scaring people,” he said. He raised a hand in front of my face and rotated it. “Now close your eyes and be very afraid.”

“But I’m not afraid,” I said.

“You have to be,” he said. “My job depends on it. Do you want me to hear those dreaded words?”

“What dreaded words?”

“You’re fired! Now close your eyes and be very afraid. The French are coming to take your daughters.”

“I don’t have any daughters.”

“Oh?” he said. “Have they already been here, those fearsome French?”

“The French don’t come for peoples’ daughters in this country.”

“Oh yes,” he said, “they will. So be very afraid. And I must take your guns.”

“I don’t have any guns,” I said.

“So be very afraid when they come for your job.”

“I don’t have a job. I’m retired … comfortably retired.

“They will come and make you go back to work,” he said. “So be very afraid.”

“Afraid of what, exactly?” This seemed to catch him off-guard and stopped him for a moment.

“Just afraid,” he said. “You accept the emotion and we’ll fill in the blanks. Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

“You might be the one who should be afraid, if my wife comes back and catches you like this.”

“Be very afraid of her,” he said. This seemed to inspire him. “Women are our biggest fear. A strong woman is the work of the Dark One and she will lead him to you. Be very afraid.”

Be afraid. Be very afraid.
But not for the reasons you have heard. - C.W.

“A strong woman?”

“A strong woman is more fearsome that demons,” he said. “But we will save you from her.”

“You will?”

“We will. So be very afraid, but know that we can save you and make your home happy again.”

“My home is already very happy.”

“Be afraid,” he said. “Be very afraid. We are the strong ones. Be very afraid and trust us. Be afraid of the strong woman, but trust in us to save you from her.”

Just then, I heard a car returning. It stopped in front and I heard the sound of a car door opening.

“Got to go,” he said. He waved a hand and disappeared with a loud bang. I looked for him but there was nothing there. Just smoke.

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300. Fear

Sometimes C.W. ends up explaining things to me in the strangest fashion, like this morning when I found him in the shape of a young police officer reading the daily news and smoking a cigarette.

“Don’t let my wife catch you doing that,” I said.

“Doing what?”

“You know. Smoking in the house. She’s warned you before.”

“I’m not afraid of her. Are you?”

“Hell yes,” I said. “I recommend it very highly.”

“What? Fear or Mrs. Big Dope?”

“Both,” I said. “Or don’t Falloonians experience fear?”

“Anxiety,” he said. “We sometimes experience anxiety.”

“Oh really? Like when?”

“Like,” he said and stopped to think. “Like when we worry that the illogic that pervades your species might clean, polish, or manipulate by the application of pressure and friction off on us.”

“That our illogic might rub off on you?” Then I decided not to rise to the bait, as he took a long drag from his cigarette and exhaled. “You’re going to die,” I said.

“Did you know,” he said, “that the Victorians in England used the word ‘die’ as a euphemism for a sexual orgasm?”

I was pleased at his vocabulary and the fact that he was doing outside research. I nodded and asked, “And did you pick up that bit of trivia there?” I nodded toward the newspaper.

“Oh no,” he said. “I read that in one of Mrs. Big Dope’s books.”

“My wife doesn’t read books like that,” I said.

“How do you know what she reads? You’re always asleep and snoring away by the time she begins to read. You might be surprised.”

I quickly moved to change the subject. “So is there anything interesting in the news today?”

“Illogic and contradictions, unless you understand what you people call evolution.”

I waited.

“Most of the articles are stirring up fear,” he said. “Fear of the food we eat on the left, and fear of the people we meet on the right. Fear of everything else in the middle.”

I nodded. “So where is the illogical?”

“Here,” he said, motioning at the front page. “Seems that even in your largest city, the crime rate is dropping.” He motioned again. “There’s not a country in the world that wants to invade yours.” He opened the paper and nodded. “You are living well past any expectations, given the poor care you take of your bodies.” He lowered the paper. “Yours is one of the safest places on the planet.”

I sat thinking of all this. “Then why,” I said, “all the fear?”

“Evolution,” he said.

“We fear evolution?”

“Some of the least of those among you fear the concept,” he said, “but no, I mean your so-called evolutionary process creates the fear and anxiety.”

“Elucidate,” I said. He paused, and I could almost hear the whirring of his Galactic Universal Translator. “Your GUT giving you problems again?”

“My GUT is fine and I trust it,” he said. “Now, where was I? Oh, I remember.” He paused again. “You asked me to make something that is hard to understand clear or easy to comprehend.”

“Quite so,” I said, enjoying his discomfort. “Evolution and fear.”

“Imagine,” he said, “you are Australopithecus afarensis, one of your ancient cousins, roaming the savannah with your pals.”

I closed my eyes. “Okay,” I said.

“All of you are as tense as a mouse in a cat food factory,” he said, “watching for things that love to eat you, and those things are legion.”

The biggest problem with fear is; it sells so well. - C.W.

“Okay.”

“Except one of you is not tense, afraid, or nervous,” he said. “You are so laid back you could listen to a Jennifer Hudson song without flinching.”

“That’s pretty laid back,” I said

 

“My point exactly,” he said. “Now which of you do you think is going to be eaten first?”

I opened my eyes. “You mean the value of anxiety has lingered with us?”

“Stuck in your DNA like stink on …”

A voice exploded from the next room, “What the hell is that I smell?” I turned toward it. When I turned back, C.W. was gone and, by my hand, the cigarette burned in an ash tray, its smoke rising to curl in the form of a noose.

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243. Sin

“So what did he preach on?”

“Sin.”

“Is that all?”

“He was agin’ it.”

We both cracked up. No matter how many times C.W. and I do that old Will Rogers skit, with him of course shaped like Will himself, we get tickled as we reenact Calvin Coolidge’s wife asking him about his trip to church.

We soon got down to serious business, though. The media was full of news about states, including ours, passing laws against what they feel is the sin of being gay. C.W.wondered why our state legislature thought it is a sin.

“Because the Bible says it’s so,” said one of our state’s senators—as C.W. described him: “A strange looking little fellow with a goatee that looks like it might slide off to the floor at any moment.”

So here we were, in our living room pondering the concept of sin in more detail. How did it take its origin or rise?” C.W. asked.

“It originated,” I said, in the book that so many of our local species claim to observe.”

“This?” He picked up a worn copy of a King James version.

“That’s the one.”

“So when, in this process, did sinning start in earnest?”

“Well,” I said, “there is the issue of ‘original sin’ which I guess is the granddaddy of them all.”

“And that sin involves?”

“Having sex,” I said.

“So it was forbidden for your species?”

“Quite so, it seems.”

“But,” he said, “ain’t that sorta like telling a chick that it’s sinful to peck its way out of the egg.”

“I guess you might put it that way.”

“Any other long standing sins? I mean the ones that could really get you a spiritual butt-whipping?”

“Well,” I said, “we’re not supposed to kill.”

“Not supposed to …” he had begun to take notes but stopped in mid-sentence. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“But your species in this country has been at war constantly this time for uh …” he consulted some notes. “Twelve years.”

“More or less.”

“With not only no end in sight but lining up a couple more?”

“Our junior senator seems to hope it’s so.”

“Wouldn’t it put more milk in the bucket to aim some laws toward stopping war?”

“Maybe so,” I said, “but some of us seem to like it?”

He took a deep breath. “Hit me again,” he said.

“We are supposed to honor our parents, otherwise we are sinning big time.”

“What?” He picked up the Bible and began turning pages, “Where oh where is it?” he muttered to himself, “Here,” he said, “In what you call ‘The Gospel of Luke,’ your Fearsome Father’s favorite son says, ‘If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.’ Now what the heck?”

“Some things in that book we take more seriously than others,” I said, rather weakly.

He made a note. “Anything else?”

“Adultery.”

“And the Fearsome Father’s take on that?”

“He’s agin it.” I said. We both smiled.

“What about this King David, whom your religion regards so highly?”

“What about him?”

He opened the Bible. “Reads like the crack of dawn wasn’t safe when he was on point.”

“Stop it,” I said.

“But tell me,” he said, turning very serious, “Where will I find the stricture against one of worst sins that we Falloonians could imagine. We treasure our children,” He added, handing me the Bible.

“And that is?” I prepared to begin searching.

“Purposefully inducing primal fears, nightmares, and post-traumatic stress disorder in young children.”
“Doing what?”

“You know what I mean,” he said, his face gray and hard.

“No,” I said, “I don’t think I do.”

“This practice that your species seems not only to condone but encourage during the rearing of children”

What does it say about the power of your religion
if you must have the government enforce it? - C.W.

“And that is?”

“The practice of taking those precious young things into a dark room and telling them that the Fearsome Father might just, if they displease them, hurl their bodies into a fiery pit for all eternity where they will writhe and scream in constant agony forever and ever.”

I couldn’t speak.

“When are your lawmakers going to deal with that?”

“I don’t know how we could,” I said.

“Maybe you could put a monument forbidding it on your state capitol grounds.”

 

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- C.W.

Bigotry

Dear Friends and Followers:

Big Dope is still sleeping so I take these moments to share a few thoughts that I plan to include in my next report to the Falloonian Elders. They don’t think I have been paying enough attention to your politics, so I have been slipping away and watching the legislature in Big Dope’s home state. I find the process bewildering or perplexing to the point of making me unable to think with clarity or act with intelligence or understanding. (Editor’s note: He means “confusing.”

The most interesting escapades I observed involve what I am calling in my report as “Bigotry Support Laws.” These seemed to be proposed for the purpose of legitimizing bigotry against outsiders whom the sponsor of the legislation doesn’t trust. There also seems to be a fear of changing conditions in your sociological evolution to which the sponsor is unable to adjust. Myself, I find these changes and trends one of the few positive indicators within the behavior order of your species. But then I am not a legislator.

The sponsors of such bills often seem to be in what Big Dope humorously refers to as “panic mode” as if the changes, such as the acceptance of a loving relationship between members of the same sex, would threaten the sponsor’s own safety.

Now, none of this is new. My study of the history of your species tells me that bigotry has been a dominant feature of your behavior patterns for ages.

Therein lies the irony of this current behavior.

Oddly, the supporters of Bigotry Support laws (I’ll just call them BS laws for short) feel that the chances for passage improve to the extent that they are presented as supporting what you call “religious freedom.”

How idiotic, if you don’t mind my saying so.

These BS laws are, to one familiar with the nature of our galaxy, a direct result of over four billion years of what you call "evolution." Consider the distrust of strangers. It is obviously a remnant of the ancient impulse of your developing species to band together in tribes for mutual protection.

The fear? The individual organism on the ancient savannah who wasn’t stressed and kept alert by constant fear of predators would be the first one eaten. Fear is a prime motivator for your behavior, and when it doesn’t exist, you can develop BS legislation to support it as an artificial motivator..

And the panic exhibit by BS legislators is nothing more than the old “flight or fight” syndrome writ large.

So, the passage of BS legislation certainly doesn’t derive from your literary figure who said, “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” Oh no, BS legislation could not be further in intent than that.

It more closely matches, I believe and shall report accordingly, the words of the English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson who spoke of “Nature, red in tooth and claw.”

 

I would hope that you will eventually realize
that bigotry can take you to dark places
to where you should not return. - C.W.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See also: www.wattensawpress.com

 

 

 

221: Be Very Afraid

“We have to wake Mrs. Big Dope up.” C.W. came running in a little while ago with this bizarre proposal.

“Say what?”

“She’s got to start sewing.” He had a portfolio of drawings under his arm and looked exactly like an excited Norman Rockwell, complete with pipe. “We’re going to have abundant possessions.”

“You mean we’re going to be rich?”

“That’s what I just said.”

“Oh no,” I said. “Not again.”

He clenched his pipe between his teeth. “Can’t miss this time. Want in?”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll bite. What’s going to make us abundantly blessed this time?”

“Halloween costumes,” he said, pointing to his drawings. “I have all the designs right here.”

“Halloween costumes?” I took a deep breath.

“Just in time for the elections.”

“What have the elections got to do with Halloween?” I said. This was taking an ominous turn.

“Synergy,” he said, “that’s the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects …”

“I know what synergy is,” I said, “but how does it link Halloween and the elections?”

He looked at me as if I had just asked why the sky gets dark at night. “Fear,” he said. “Haven’t you heard? Fear is the dominant campaign theme of our party.”

“Your party,” I said.

“Whatever,” he said. “We’ve got white people shaking in their boots with fear and my idea will cinch it.”

“C.W.,” I said. “Sometimes you disappoint me.”

“Lookit,” he said, pulling a sheet from his packet. It was a drawing of a costume made to look like President Barack Obama in a mullah outfit holding a sword and bloody head in one hand and a candy bag in the other that said “Give me your riches, or else.”

“Christ,” I said, “Put that thing away.”

He let it fall to the floor and retrieved another. It was a drawing of a costume that would fit over a young child and resulted in a seven-foot likeness of Michael Brown with a sign that said, “Give me your daughter, or die.”

“Clever, eh?” he said.

“Disgusting,” I said.

This time he looked a little disappointed, but he discarded it and pulled out another. It was a girl’s outfit this time—a red dress, high-heeled red shoes, and a Nancy Pelosi mask. She was holding a big beaker labelled “Ebola juice. Will trade for candy.”

“Out,” I said. “Out. And don’t return until you’ve come to your senses.”

“But wait,” he said, “you haven’t seen ‘Hillary Viper’ or ‘Pit Bull Biden’ or ‘Creepy Crawley Carter’ or “Rob A Manwewill’ or ..”

“Out,” I said.

"From ghoulies and ghosties and long leggety

beasties and things that go bump in the night,

 Good Lord, deliver us!" - Scottish Prayer

Said to be one of the oldest examples of your

written English language. - C.W.

I guess I yelled it this time for a voice came from the next room, “You two better quieten down in there,” it said, “I’m working on a project.”

“She’ll be on my side,” C.W. said. Then he yelled out in his sweetest voice. “Whatcha working on, Mizz BD?”

“An idea for a Halloween costume,” she said.

“See,” he said, smirking at me, “she’ll be my partner in this.” The he yelled back. “I’ll bet it’s a good one,” he said. “What do you call it?”

“Bawling Boehner Bones,” she yelled back.

 

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- C.W.