254. Flags

Yesterday proved surprisingly contemplative for C.W. We agreed to let him go with us to a Flag Day celebration at a park across the street from our condo. We prefaced this with a long talk. The faithful reader will understand. C.W. doesn’t always behave at public functions. Remember the time he snuck off and rolled a soccer ball painted to look like a human head down the steps from the top of the pyramid at Chichén Itzá? This time he gave us his “declaration or assurance that one will do a particular thing or that a particular thing will happen,” as he put it, straight from his GUT. (Galactic Universal Translator)

So we took him at his “word” and let him go with us. A wind symphony presented an hour of stirring patriotic music as a troop of Boy Scouts distributed free ice cream and flags. Kids frolicked, flags waved, and the band played on. All in attendance enjoyed themselves.

Afterwards, he and I had a quiet moment on our balcony overlooking the city, he in his most faithful Norman Rockwell form and me as, well … just me. We each enjoyed a cigar, which he has taken to relishing, and I enjoyed a glass of wine, which makes him nauseated.

“You know,” he said, blowing a cloud of smoke toward a peaceful city, “your species never ceases to amaze and confuse me.”

“How so?”

“Every time I am forced to file a report to the Falloonian Elders implying that the time for the dompetallendich of your species, a time like this comes along.”

Oh dear. That’s a Falloonian word for final solution that you, dear reader, don’t even want to know about. “Please,” I said, “the ladies might hear you.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “I think events of late have redeemed you for a while, despite those horrible political candidates you are breeding.”

“How so?” I was most anxious to change the subject.

“Did you see the enthusiasm for your country that people expressed?”

I nodded.

“Enthusiasm,” he said, “generated only by the comradeship of a crowd and the effects of music.”

“Amazing, isn’t it?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “and this only a few days since all those remembrances of the brave young men storming ashore on the beaches of France, willing to face annihilation to rid the world of the dark forces that had emerged on your planet.”

“That was one of our finest moments,” I said.

“We’ve also remember in June,” he said in a somber tone, “some people of your country who gave their lives in seeking civil rights for your brothers and sisters of color, including Medgar Evers, James Chaney, AndrewGoodman and Michael Schwerner.”

“Quite so,” I said.

“Did you know,” he said, “that your country began the so- called ‘Berlin Airlift’ in June, 1947, saving hundreds of thousand German citizens from starvation?”

Please remember, Earthling friends, that your flag flies
 over all your actions, both the just and the unjust - C.W.

“Of course,” I said, squirming a bit. “everyone knows about that.”

“The Civil Rights Act, women’s suffrage, the care of your poor and elderly, the moon landing, the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, the MarshallPlan, and the Emancipation Proclamation,” he said, “not to mention the stand by the brave few on Cemetery Ridge that spelled the end of the dark forces of slavery in your country.” He paused for a breath, and said, “I’m glad old John Adams did it.”

“Did what?” I said, still stuck on thoughts of Gettysburg.

“Got his resolution passed on June 14, 1777. Don’t you read history?”

“Uh, yes,” I said, “but I forget at my age. What resolution was that?”

“Dope,” he said, "...that the flag of the thirteen United States shall be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation."

“Oh yeah,” I said. “That one.” I took a sip of wine and he blew cigar smoke toward me.

“Your flag means something to an alien visitor,” he said.

“And what is that?”

“It means your country can be a great one,” he said, adding, “When it wants to.”

Please click some ads. That's the only way I'll get my new computer.

Oh, and see www.wattensawpress.com

And ... www.allhatnocattle.com

Finally, buy Big Dope's book so he'll shut up about it.

Available at major on-line retailers, or
www.wattensawpress.com
 

Mid-week Musings

Dear Friends and Followers:

Big Dope is doing outside things so I have borrowed his computer (still saving for my own) and will offer a few observations of your rather odd, at times, culture.

I notice where the Attorney General of your state who, if I remember, ran on the platform that she would shoot people more readily than her opponent, offered some insight on one's right to "pack heat" openly, as Big Dope describes it. She says it is fine unless you intend, with your openly displayed weapon, to hurt someone or commit a crime. I'm confused. Why else would anyone want to strap a loaded weapon on their hip? They aren't particularly attractive. Big Dope says it is complicated and involves the size of certain organs, the level of paranoia, grandiose thinking, and a dramatic lack of understanding about one's ability to fire a weapon under pressure. He points out that a trained police office once, in a highly sensational incident on the University of Texas campus, emptied a six-shot revolver at a sniper from 50 feet away and never hit him even once. Oh well. I'll not report this to the Falloonian Elders because they wouldn't believe it anyway.

Then I read where a couple is planning to get a divorce because their country is going to recognize marriages between two consenting adults of the same sex. Seems it offends their religious sensitivity as followers of Jesus Christ. Now ... I haven't been able find in any translation where the figure of Jesus, whether one accepts him as literary or spiritual, said anything about same-sex marital situations. He was, however, from my casual reading, real clear about getting divorced as stated in your Book of Matthew: "I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery." I submit this couple has their spiritual cognizance in complete disarray.

Now I see where your military branch has lost over a trillion dollars that can't be accounted for. That's a lot of money and they still want more. I heard one of you politicians say one time that your government ought to be run like one would run a business. Not only is that belief bizarre on its surface, it seems to me igovernment ought to be run more like a family's operation. Any teenager losing a relative amount like that would probably have her or his allowance cut.

Well, I see BD coming back, so I won't have time to get into your lack of understanding of the concept of the limits of exponential growth. Maybe next time if they don't pave over the city for freeway lanes.

You seem to think somehow that
you can just keep building them forever. - C.W.

\


Please click some ads. That's the only way I'll get my new computer.

Oh, and see www.wattensawpress.com

And ... www.allhatnocattle.com

Finally, buy Big Dope's book so he'll shut up about it.

253. Longings

Oh no. It was happening. On a sleepy early spring day, C.W. was homesick. He gets that way every couple of months when he starts thinking about his native planet of Falloonia. He assumes the shape and demeanor of a pretty young girl of thirteen or so with sad eyes and a look of longing to be somewhere far away. He, she, lounges aimlessly on the couch and won’t eat, read, or even watch TV, all odd behavior for a teenaged girl.

That’s not the worst part.

 He yodels.

Yes, yodels. He says it is the closest thing on earth we have to what Falloonians call music. Any dogs that may be hanging around flee the moment he assumes this mood. My wife locks herself away. We’ve actually had neighbors call to see if someone is having a seizure.

Sometimes, not always, I can tease him out of his mood by discussing current affairs. So, on this day, I gave it a try. In between yodeling episodes, I interjected a question.

“Been keeping up with the news?”

“It’s all, like, boring,” he said. Then he let loose with a shrill vibrato that bounced around the room like musical marbles.

“But what,” I said during a brief break, “about the man in the news who admitted to molesting his sisters and some other young girls when he was a teenager?”

The yodeling stopped.

“He what?”

“He sexually molested young girls.”

“Like me?”

“Well,” I said, “like what you appear to be at this moment.”

He shook his head and a long, blond pigtail swung into his face. “What does that mean, ‘he molested them’ anyway? It, like, sounds creepy.” He drew a breath to begin yodeling again.

Quickly, I said. “It means that he touched them in places that were inappropriate for him to, uh, touch them.”

“On their heads?”

Oh, I forgot to tell you that, in the Falloonian culture, it is considered a grave insult to touch one of the heads of another creature.

“Oh no,” I said. “They weren’t Falloonian girls.”

“Where then. On their gudascnifamoor++?

“You know our species doesn’t have those. We detect smells through our noses.”

“Oh,” he said, “I, like, forgot.”

“No,” I said, “he touched them where their mammary glands will be when they mature, and where they will produce babies.”

There was a long silence, then, “Euuueew.”

“Quite so,” I said.

He looked down and crossed his legs, smoothing his dress and scooting back on the couch. He eyed me with a look of suspicion I had never witnessed from him. “I thought,” he said, “that was considered, like, a crime in your culture.”

“Oh, it is,” I said. “It is.”

“So the perpetrator is in jail now?”

“Uh, no,” I said.

He began to yodel again.

Sometimes I just don't understand
the human species. - C.W.

“But,” I said, interrupting him in mid screech, “he did lose his job.”

The yodeling stopped. “What job?”

“He had this high-paying job with a group that exists to teach us proper moral behavior.”

He started yodeling again, this time with more enthusiasm.

“And,” I said, “apparently he was given a stern talking to.”

“Was he, like, painted bright orange and driven from the tribe with ‘ribbons of remorse’ draped around him?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “We don’t follow that tradition on this planet. His tribe blamed the whole thing on the girls.”

This time I knew there was no stopping the yodeling, so I joined the dogs outside.

Please click some ads. That's the only way I'll get my new computer.

Oh, and see www.wattensawpress.com

And ... www.allhatnocattle.com

Finally, buy Big Dope's book so he'll shut up about it.

 

252. Running

We seem to have developed a monsoon season in the Arkansas Delta, so it gives C.W. and me some time for quiet conversation. He doesn’t like to get wet—says it causes his Galactic Universal Translator to become, as he put it, “Characterized by lack of consistency, accuracy, regularity, or uniformity.”

There was nothing erratic about his GUT today, though. He had taken on one of his favorite forms, that of Todd, the TV pundit. From time to time, as we discussed the weather, the latest book I’d read, or the current report he was late in sending to the Fallooninan Elders, he would make notes on a reporter’s notepad and smile.

“So,” I said, “I think in the end, Fitzgerald was presenting the modern version of a heroic quest within the wasteland.” I waited while he filtered this.

“I think I have answer to our problems,” he said, ignoring my last. Outside, the rain continued to fall.

“What problems?” I said, peeved at his not paying attention.

“My new computer, for one.”

“What about a new computer?”

“I need one,” he said. “You know that.”

“So what does that have to do with Gatsby?”

“And that new car you’ve been wanting to buy for Mrs. Big Dope.”

“C.W.,” I said. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“You know that trip you want to take to Southeast Asia with your Navy buddy?”

“We were discussing literature.”

“Look,” he said. “I must depend on you sometimes for transportation. I really need that new motorcycle we’ve been talking about.”

“But you don’t have a driver’s license.”

“And your poor wife is driving a ten-year old car.”

“She likes that car,” I said.

“That’s not what she tells me,”

“So what are you getting at?”

“Kudaclarupitti?

That is Falloonian for “What the hell do you mean?”

“Why are you mentioning all these problems?”

“Because,” he said, broadening his face into his best television smile, “I have the solution.”

“And your solution is?”

“Simple,” he said. “Run for President.”

“You can’t run for President,” I said, with despair in my voice, “you are an alien.”

“Not me, silly,” he said, “you.”

“Are you insane?”

“Not a bit,” he said. “You wouldn’t make that good a candidate, but you would do. I’ve already started lining up donors. You’ll be the ‘I hate mimes’ candidate.”

“Mimes?”

“All the other hate targets have been spoken for already.”

“C.W.,” I said. “This is idiotic on so many fronts. First, I have this very checkered past. You know that.”

“No big deal,” he said. “I’ve already picked you a ‘Salvation Date.’ It’s March 20, 2003. That’s the day you ‘got saved.’ Nobody can question anything you did before then. Don’t you remember? We’ve discussed this. It worked like a charm for that guy from Texas.”

My mind was racing. “Isn’t the day America began bombing Iraq?”

“Seemed as good a date as any,” he said. “and it would strike a patriotic chord. Now here is the deal. I’ve set up a campaign fund account, and your staff will consist of Mrs. Big Dope, your mother-in-law, and me, all with annual salaries of half a million of your dollars or so.” He smiled again. “Of course the campaign will need things like computers, vehicles, and headquarters. I’ve picked out a nice beachfront home in Key West, Florida for that.”

“But someone like me could never be elected President.”

“Of course not,” he said. “Who would elect you President?”

“So why are you bringing this all up?”

“Because we could make enough money for the short duration of your campaign to solve a lot of problems.”

“What problems?”

“The ones I mentioned earlier.”

“Those were financial problems.”

“So?”

“They were,” I said, “personal problems.”

It seems to me that all it takes for political
disaster in your country is for enough people
to quit listening and remain silent. - C.W.

“So?”

“Look C.W.” I said, “a person in our country runs for President because she or he wants to address the country’s problems, not personal ones.”

“Since when?”

“Since, uh, … say, I said. “I’ve been reading this book called One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

“Wait,” he said. “That gives me an idea. You could also be the ‘I hate education’ candidate. That would get you donations from some real rich people.”

“What real rich people?”

“Corporations.”

 

Please click some ads. That's the only way I'll get my new computer.

Oh, and see www.wattensawpress.com

And ... www.allhatnocattle.com

Finally, buy Big Dope's book so he'll shut up about it.

 

 

251. The Movie Line Game

According to what C.W. was telling me yesterday, he and his fellow Falloonians are not above using a little levity to relax on occasion. We were sitting under a shade tree enjoying a spring day, with him in the shape of a handsome young man in jeans, cowboy boots, and plaid shirt.

“Right now, for example,” he was saying, “we are playing a game called ‘America As a Movie Line,’ and having a great time.”

“America as a what?”

“A movie line. We’ve been forced to review thousands of your films. So we’re pretending that we were asked by the Elders to describe you Earthlings in one line from a popular movie. What would you answer?’

“I have no idea,” I said.

“Our West coast rep thinks you are a rather violent, he calls it ‘truculent,’ society.”

“Oh,” I said, “so what is his choice of a line to describe us?”

“He picked a good one, a very describing or classifying without expressing feelings or judging one.”

His Galactic Universal Translator was giving him problems again. “And what ‘descriptive’ one did he pick?.”

“Fill your hand, you son-of-a-bitch.”

“That’s a good one all right.”

“But,” he said, “it’s not as good as the one from over in Dallas,”

“Well,” I said. “And what impresses the rep there?”

“The politics of that state.”

“So the choice is?”

“The Horror! The Horror!”

“Oh my,” I said.

“The rep northwest of here thinks you live in a crazy fantasy world.”

“A what?”

“A fantasy world in which wealth trickles down, the wealthy know better, sexuality is a personal choice that can be altered at will, race determines behavior, …”

“I get the picture,” I said. “So what is his chosen line?”

“You can't fool me. There ain't no Sanity Clause!”

I nodded.

“Now our Northeast rep thinks you are too afraid of reality.”

“His line?”

“You can’t handle the truth.”

“I see,” I said, but I wished I hadn’t.

“I think,” C.W. said, “that our East coast rep is a little harsh.”

“Really? And what is his line?”

“Stupid is as stupid does.”

I quickly decided to move the conversation forward. “Any others?”

“Our rep in the Southeast, all the way down in Miami, is understandably impressed by your greed.”

So the chosen line is?

“Show me the money.”

“Your people,” I said, “don’t have very high opinion of us.”

“The rep in Chicago does,” he said quickly. “He was very charitable.”

“And how did he treat us with his chosen line?”

“In Switzerland they had brotherly love and 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

“We call that ‘damning with faint praise’ if you want to know the truth,” I said. “But I can hardly wait to hear yours. What impresses you?”

You do believe in your heroes. - C.W.

He pretended to think. “Well,” he said, “you, at least some of you, do have this tendency, whenever a newsworthy event occurs—say a boy is caught molesting young girls—to choose sides and place blame on the same groups of people.”

“Such as?”

“One side blames it all on gay people, atheists, liberals, scientists, immigrants, people of color, college professors, and the like.”
 

“You’ve been watching that fake news show again, haven’t you?”

“Only for inspiration,” he said. “Never for news.”

“So,” I said, “after becoming inspired thusly, what line did you choose for them?”

“Round up the usual suspects.”

 

 

Click an ad and make me happy. - C.W.

See also: www.wattensawpress.com

You can order Big Dope's book there

or from on-line retailers.