Cheatersley Everington has never had much reason to spout drivel from the tip of his dorsal fin, mainly because he never inherited one of those peculiar things from his most recent mammalian ancestry. Perhaps a few hundred million years ago he would have still had a bit of a vestige from where he needed to propel himself through the water in a somewhat graceful way, but these days it would be silly to expect such an outdated mode of transport to have any trace elements remaining. But with all that aside, Cheatersley never made much of a fuss about the dorsal shortage. He would be the first one to tell you that such science fiction elements hold no significance in his day-to-day existence. In fact, he exists during a time in the “modern” human epoch when science fiction is not a term that people bandy about. He has been afforded a blissful existence of technological and historical ignorance simply because he happened to strap on his feed bag in what we commonly call the 19th Century. Lucky duck, basking in a world of intellectual stagnation and limited upward mobility (well, until he dies of dysentery, at least).
Category: Black Comedy
For a Larf
Far-flung inferiority freakishness extracts and enhances the divisionary diversions commonly excluded by guys like Al.
We all know a guy like Al, don’t we? He likes to sit there atop the square, never the wiser when those ol’ Mickey Mouse Boys get a posse all riled up. He’ll be the first to tell you that he isn’t a part of the problem, then go about his day as an enthusiast for whatever innocuous pastime he may have deemed appropriate in order to forget the human suffering all around him.
Because then, once the shades have been drawn and the wool pulled from over our eyes, we can then migrate from the prefecture of common thought for just long enough to endure the scrutiny typically reserved for only the most contemporary jazz head–where are we in the world when we can have -$42.00 to our name and still somehow get something to eat at dinner time? The system is broken, too far gone at this point to give it much credence–but we sure can pretend to be ignorant to the cries of others for the sake of not having too much of a bother on our hands at any given time.
One might even remark that the average stress level in your typical human being anywhere in the world is currently so high that the well being of others just naturally becomes secondary; we all shut ourselves out for the sake of preserving whatever sanity we may think we have left in the tank. The joke’s ultimately on us, since any sense of normalcy or sanity would have been wasted on this world anyway.
But as it stands (at least for this narrative), I managed to find a respectable Mexican restaurant chain that cooked pretty decent food–a sit-down place, mind you (with a patio and a full bar, the works). This is your neighborhood family restaurant typically nestled between a couple different places, always open and always fully operational. Sure, there might be a petty squabble or two here and there, like in all restaurants, but by and large, these are some of the folks around these parts who simply get things done as a matter of fact–I suppose we all have that kind of fortitude in our own ways, but something about the perseverance of the human spirit and the persistence of tradition through community really strikes a chord with this here reporter.
And now it’s time for an unwarranted segue! Sure, American white folks may have some kinds of traditions, but they’re all bastardized extrapolations of old-world things that generally center around agrarian superstitions, usually observed for a larf. It’s hard to get around the pungent odor of insincerity and perpetual need to be included in every conversation, especially when it’s so heavy-handed. But wouldn’t you suppose that to be the truest human condition, anyway? We typically have all been born to seek out attention, and not to do so has historically resulted in a high mortality rate.
The loudmouths have the tendency to survive through sheer annoyingness and an unwillingness to accept when their methods have become woefully outmoded by their own refusal to adapt to current conditions.
The quiet ones, unless assertive, need to express what makes them exceptional, so that other people will take notice and provide necessary patronage that will stimulate their pocketbooks and enrich their sense of wonder for the world. That is indeed a primary goal for sensitive wanderers everywhere, very rarely achieved.
Since I seem to have made a habit of engaging in unauthorized segue activity on this fine day in the world, I don’t see why I should unceremoniously buck the trend so quickly. As it may or may not naturally follow depending on the amalgamation of butterfly wing-flapping in the Northern Hemisphere, I’ve found that being confronted with multiple examples of people reading books on public transit has forced me to evaluate my own reading habits and long for the urge to actually read a book for once in my life. It would seem as though my years of sporadic and spontaneous writing (etudes, experiments, meditations, barcarolles, etc.) and connection to a certain layabout lifestyle have resulted in a mind that prefers to acquire new information through more, shall we say, instantly-gratifying measures. The irony of subconsciously refusing to pick up a book is quite at odds with my penchant for jotting down notes (and sometimes actual compositions).
I can’t let go of that medium tying me to those great voices of the past, yet I can’t bring myself to avail myself of their actual language. To me, everything in today’s market smacks of capitalizing upon the original idea of “story” by contorting it into whatever genre or gimmick suits them best for disseminating their particular grammar equations to the most consumers possible. Was this also the case before capitalism and the industrial revolution? I could probably read the foremost book or dissertation on the subject, but I’d rather just spin my wheels in a more futile fashion. It’s more fun that way.
Ah, but wasn’t this little ditty about Al in the first place? My, how our minds wander when given the chance. So this Al character is quite something, and the word count of the first draft of this abomination of the English language had reached 714 as of the word “something”, which has at least a modicum of connection to the Babe Ruth home run record, by virtue of that feat being considered “really something” by baseball heads and connoisseurs of Americana everywhere. If he had only been a position player for his entire career, he may have hit another 100+ on top of that, but don’t you think it’s just a tad convenient for him to convert from a pitcher at roughly the same time that those dead balls they’d been kicking around in the mud and piss for years got a serious upgrade. They were no longer smacking around overripe leather tangerines, and either George Herman himself or some brilliant merchandising insider pounced at just the right time. Now, is this some kind of cataclysm in our universe, the fact that this Babe actually existed and played baseball at that exact moment in our timeline? I want to say yes, but everything else I’ve learned from history says that this was no coincidence.
But would you look at me, it appears as though I’m doing my very best Al impression at this very moment. I’m standing by and letting all of this literary carnage come to pass, stubbornly pretending that what I’m doing has even the slightest bit of merit, when we all know that that’s a bunch of hooey. Aren’t we all guilty of the occasional Al impersonation? I would venture to say that we’re all culpable for the mindless perpetuation of the Al paradigm, sitting back and absorbing all of the unnecessary stimuli being heaved in our general directions (because we’re too lazy or stressed out at this point to defend ourselves), failing to take action in one direction or another. It’s our privilege, we say to ourselves, when we fail to act in accordance to the creeds upon which the vast majority of us were raised.
After all, those religion things are really just guidelines, and we don’t actually need to practice their tenets these days. Science has proven it, don’t you know? All we truly need to do is find hobbies that will while away our seemingly innumerable hours (even though they are quite scant) and allow for the absorption of subject-related data grenades on a 24/7 basis.
The Pine Box of Shortitude
Curatives of antiquity are now more necessary than ever before. We–the re-appropriated and inexplicably-gifted tree apes–think that through modernity (what a troublesome word) we have relegated the works of our ancestors to the obscure corners of the proverbial curio shop, when we have in fact abandoned the principles that caused our species to rise out of our loathsome bed of mud and shit in the first place.
Ergo, the abandonment of these principles will ultimately result in our return to the mud and shit (but hopefully not all the way back to the trees). We must be ever vigilant in the observance of the works of our world’s remaining unbroken cultures. It has been made abundantly obvious that these peoples have maintained their distinct civilizations through adherence to natural laws and at least an attempt to maintain a semblance of harmony.
Exhibit A: The Pine Box of Shortitude
Any time a recipe, technique or method becomes too effective for anyone to emulate without said act becoming an unbearable faux pas, the elders of the community must combine forces to capture its most essential components, record them into an intelligible (tangible) script and carefully lock it away in what has come to be known as, you guessed it, The Pine Box of Shortitude.
Why pine– Longleaf Pine, to be more specific? Its connection to dinosaur days and its subsequent shortage of specimens due to a variety of human-studded reasons are just two important takeaways. When the box was originally crafted, Longleaf Pine were abundant across the entire landscape. The progenitors of this curatorial tradition really could not have predicted such a significant shortage within the span of just a few generations, but as time passed and the omens became more clear, the box’s preservation inevitably became a top priority not only for its contents, but the vessel itself.
Hopefully this particular artifact will shed some light on how dire a situation this has become, where humans appear to have become at odds with the natural progression of this planet’s ecology. And if not? Eh, fuck it.
Pulp Drivel
Daquota Fanning and the Cheese Vestibule should surprise no one with its erudition and knack for a snappy one-liner at the timeliest of junctures. One might even call it the ultimate film accompaniment to your typical rainy day, a veritable Triumph of the Hollywood Will.
With this in mind, you should never watch this picture or even refer to it in your circle of friends. It’s about time we stand up to this (seemingly) impenetrable foe of critical thought: the Movie-Industrial Complex.
The only way we may strip this regime of its power is to boycott its very essence, quash any suppositions about pulp drivel deserving anything more than a swift kick to the heinie. Let’s move on, people.
In Retrospect
Fetushead was a teacher of mine
who usually kept his temper in check,
but one day he lashed out at our class
when we weren’t paying attention to him
(we couldn’t answer the questions he asked).
There was something going on in his personal life
that caused him substantial stress,
but we students had no clue, being dumb kids at the time.
In retrospect,
perhaps
the fetus for a head
would have contributed to his overall grouchy demeanor
in that situation (and every other he would come to navigate).
That he kept his cool
for so much of the time
was taken for granted by
we,
the snot-nosed punks of
Lower Utilitaria,
the hallowed gated community founded by
J. Rick Rubins,
the only exalted LEADER that our planet can trust
to usher us into the 22nd Century we deserve.
Won’t Be Around
It’s not immediately clear as to why we should express gratitude for these minuscule things we take for granted every day,
but certain wise people–time and again–have said that inner peace is really just gratitude wrapped up in some nondenominational bunting and tossed over the side of a pontoon while you’re fishing in the middle of Lake Superior in the middle of the longest day of Summer,
where somehow you find one lonesome chunk of ice inexplicably adrift as though it could have been placed there for the purpose of setting up a convenient visual aid for a climate change documentary.
Little Bergamot–that’s what we’re calling our frozen hero du jour–simply minds their own business out there, doing their best not to knock into anybody, when out of the blue someone inconsiderate–such as yourself, perhaps–putzes their way over and just so happens to chuck that bunting, smacking ol’ Bergie right in their weak little slush-filled belly,
sending our hapless pilgrim to re-integrate with its watery cousins
much quicker than otherwise established through melting rates
extolled by scientists the world around as
“the purest definition of why humans shouldn’t underestimate
the contributions made to global ecology
through strict, unbiased observation of this universe around us.”
Or some version of that sanctimonious diatribal crap; Bergie won’t be around to hear it anyway.
Again
A younger tree stands pert and upright
against the setting sun
on an April afternoon of little consequence–
to anyone other than perhaps
the octahedral chainsmokers out there, but that’s
a conversation for another time and place, m’friend.
The bud-tipped nerve endings are raw,
eager for a consistent warmth to figure itself out.
The trees all know
what they’ve gotten themselves into these days,
after noticing all the human affectations
popping up around them
again.
The existential rigamarole isn’t lost on them,
believe me. They know
that we only keep them around
for their oxygen supply, isn’t that obvious?
If we could find a cheaper or more efficient way
to convert a global supply of carbon dioxide
into breathable oxygen,
we would drop everything
and jettison all those woody worriers
into space, where they could become
petrified ornaments, immaculate baubles
showcased in an ever-expanding curio cabinet.
The details on such a plan
have never been made clear, since
it’s likely never to happen.
Lucky bastard trees.
You too, shrubs. I’m watching you.
WHARVED 