Advance Team

A rather distracted young man I met near a live oak, made me privy to his eponymous idea which he called, "The Crudwattle Theory," which claims that Karl Marx and Johannas Brahms were actually Siamese twins accidentally separated at birth.  I noted to him the clear impossibility of such a proposal, based on incontrovertible evidence regarding their different birth dates, and natal origins.  Monsieur Crudwattle admitted to knowing all of this, and agreeing to its validity, but clung on by stating that in spite of “all that” it was the only theory he had.

How may we be assured of fairness, when some men become dishonorable only at the hands of the honorable.

“A man who knows how to correctly compare things can learn the extraordinary.”  “That sounds simple enough.”  “In that case, you didn’t exactly hear me; it’s not a matter of a man correctly comparing two particular things, but a matter of knowing what thing TO correctly compare.”

You might care to make a note of the fact that gods you get from a books can’t be returned.

The alien ship landed right downtown, the visitors alighted and loudly announced, “Greetings, poor creatures, we are allegories here working as advance men for metaphors.”

J.

Wanted for Questioning

“At night the price drops and seconds after the race begins, the odds shift to your favor.”

“And what does this teach us, dear Pa Pa, that if you wait long enough…”

Much of what, in the ordinary world, passes for biting insight, is just the sound of a man’s sexual streams drying up.

There is an obscure district, who locally claim to perceive a direct connection between needless alliterations and atmospheric pressure.  (I’m sure this will only fuel the fires of frustration of those few who fear for the future of phonetics…I do trust you will forgive me, I’ve just returned from a dizzying intellectual height.)

When it was his turn he stood, and unfolding a piece of paper from his pocket, said to the assemblage, “I am certainly honored by this recognition, and I would like to thank all of those who have helped me along the way…”  He paused, looked down at the list in his hand, then dropped, and said, “No, let me change that, I want to thank all of those who intended to help me.”  And he sat back down.

According to some suspicions, everyone’s wanted for questioning somewhere.

J.

Graffitti Advice

During the fourteenth year of study towards his Expert’s License in Political History, this one dusty chap ran across the following Medieval comment, “An injustice done to the individual may be of necessary service to the public.”  And for some reason, the next day, he abandoned his graduate work, mumbling something about, “Enough is enough, and knowing enough is quite enough, thank you.”  (P.S.:  There is an unsubstantiated rumor regarding him repeating his idea around the Psychology Department which, coincidentally, just disbanded.)

The king, in a moment of “glorious regal enlightenment,” (okay, so he paid me to throw that in), announced, “Good people, my Prime Minister has brought it to my kind of attention that the onliest – I mean, only reason we have Prohibitions is that some of you ‘can’t stop,’ and so as to curtail the continual enactment of new prohibitory laws, I, your kind and glorious king, have directed that all who cannot stop are forthwith prohibited…so there.”

The preliminary distractions and diversions being completed, the featured speaker took to the platform, and after an immediate, and reverent hush fell upon the assembled, he removed a scrap from his pocket, and said, “My comment tonight will consist of but one sentence, which will succinctly, and in a manner most bold, completely wrap up the entirety of my life’s study and experience.”  He cleared his throat and week-end calendar, glanced at the note, and declaimed, “Ignorance has no climax.”  He looked closer at the scrap of paper and added, “I’m sorry, my secretary wrote this out for me, and the first word is not ‘ignorance,’ but I can’t make out what it actually is – so sorry.”

In a rage of anger and frustration, this one guy faced off toward that part of his universe where it was rumored their gods lived, shook his fists, and screamed out to the deities, “We made you, and we can break you!”  And then in the flush of a passing fit of serenity he thought, “Mama mia, what if that’s true.”

“Graffitti Advice” inscribed on the bathroom wall of one little tyke: “If you do not believe revenge to be a pathetic endeavor, just ask yourself this – ‘Who loves it more than your enemies?’”

J.

Use It or Accuse It

Oh, okay, I’ll grant you this much, on a comparative coda I guess the locating of irony  is somewhere above the discovery of spit.

A certain would-be intellectual celebrity I recently met in one of your larger cities, told me that one of his operational mottos was to, “never quote anyone you can’t whip.”

If you don’t
use it,
you got to
accuse it.

 

Since his son was temporarily away, this one father was left to offer himself some advice, and so he said, “Look here, you can believe this:  if someone tries to convince you of something – anything, they either do not fully understand the subject on which they speak, or else they do not understand how life is arranged in man.”  (He seemed rather pleased with this self-directed interlude, although he did express some displeasure over his wordiness.)

In the grip of some sort of passing fit-or-the-other, one fellow thought, “Any god that I could perceive of is hardly worth thinking about.”

J.

Super Good

Another chap I met over in the speaker’s park, who seemed to be having an “off day,” kinda mumbled to either me, or a nearby tree, or no one in particular, “The difference between being a prophet, and making one, is a great gulf indeed.”  (Mumble, mumble.)

While there is obviously competition for the good stuff, in the area of the super good stuff, surprisingly enough, there IS no competition at all.

A pretty upscale, new religion on this one little planet, has what they call a “boutique confessional booth,” which specializes in hearing only exotic, one-of-a-kind sins.

After many of his chums commented on his father’s apparent cold demeanor, the kid told ‘em, “Yeah, I know what you mean, but he’s not actually like that; I finally asked him about it myself and he said that since he was not at all mad at life, he just didn’t wanna be too obvious about it.”

The only mysteries
are in the past,
and nobody finds
this weird.

J.

Mid-Week Sale Day

Over in the park, a stranger moved into the speaker’s area, and climbing up on a vacant soap maker stated the following, “Irony is but an oxymoron writ in more dimensions.” 

(Several of the people hearing this appeared offended, and had a hot dog.)  Oh yeah, if you’re interested; I came across this guy again a few days later on a street corner downtown, and he delivered, I assume a later variation of his idea, he said, “Custom is but a public holograph of private fear.”  (This time I noticed he picked an area free of street vendors.)

The first voice said, “In dreams there are no cowards.”

The second one said, “A man with a fountain pen can always change his name.”

And the first voice said, “Why does he always get the best lines?”

A man with a hat from out of town, (the hat, not the man), writes as follows: “If it be true, as I have read, that, ‘Racing improves the breed,’ and ‘Adversity strengthens the race,’ then what does this imply that death may have to contribute to life?”  (You know, some people can wear a hat, and some can’t.)

This one guy, (who already had once told me that his primary interest in life was in increased efficiency) says that he has developed a new tack to deal with any and all expressions of criticism, or comments of correction, no matter how justified, aimed at him; he says he shakes his head and declares, “How distasteful, how simply, simply distasteful.”

If you know where to look, every day’s a sale day.

J.

Heels and Toes

Local realities, the study of man-the-individual, non-inclusive-truth, anger by comparison…whatever ELSE it may be, new intelligence is certainly one of these.

As the multitude chanted, “Confession is good for the soul, confession is good for the soul,” one sole mused, “That’s easy for heels and toes to say.”

One next-to-the-business god, after hearing how all of the established ones required that after death their followers had to explain and justify their lives to gain entry to paradise, went to look these operations over, and when he returned he set up a table at the main gate where his recently deceased believers were assembling, and made the announcement, “One by one, all of you may come up to the table, introduce yourself, and tell a little something about your mortal experiences, and I’ll tell you all right now – everybody that doesn’t whine at me is a sure shot to get in.”

Whenever others would fall into comfortable clichés of equivalent comparisons, this one gentleman would oftimes nod right along, and inject, “Yes, yes, yes indeed…no doubt about it; six-of-one, seven of another.”

Symptoms aren’t a sign of anything…in particular.

J.

First Aid

The voice, up front, on the stage, dressed in the expert’s garb, declared:  “Selective memory is a sign of mental immaturity.”  And a shabby, nude voice from the rear silently shouted, “May be, but a ‘selective memory’ under full control is a neon neural sign that flashes, ‘Hooray…Welcome Home…Happy Hour Now’ and ‘Hi there handsome.’”

When this one ragged voice cried out, “You haven’t heard the last of this!” eight thousand replied, “Hell, we ain’t heard the first of it.”

First aid
ain’t
much aid.

One guy said he was tempted to agree to commit suicide on TV except being on television is “so-o-o tacky and embarrassing.”

One ole regressive sore-head, (me suspects, or hopes at least, partially with his tongue in someone’s cheek), “There are areas of modern life of which I approve; economics for instance, ‘cause it gives me someone to laugh at besides just priests.”

J.

Twins

On local levels,
reality is
bursting out
all over.

As the dear father, (an intellectual pipe-fitter), was bundling up his son to be sent off  into a better, more civilized milieu, he handed over the following advisement:  “Now that you will be out with the squires and the gentry, take careful note that by sundry signs and signals, you may properly divine a gentleman’s particular position in the social strata; by the cut of his clothes, by the political beliefs he embraces, by the friends he collects, and by the kind of tattoo he has on his knuckles.”

Just because a Real Revolutionist won’t admit something doesn’t mean that he’ll ever admit it.

(The following report is so pregnant with potential allegory and metaphor, that I am loathe to even make much note thereof, so let it be just every-man-jack-synapse-of-you for yourselves): The gate keeping guardian of one god’s paradise would periodically holler out to the awaiting throng, “Okay, all the women with big thighs in first.”

As it turned out, although both Attila and Tennyson were deeply religious and spiritually committed men, their respective gods not only were not the same, but moreover were just barely twin brothers.

J.

Point of Entry

Most thoughts, opinions, and beliefs should be amortized as quickly as is reasonable and convenient.

One fidgety father, in his paternal attempts to teach his scion some mental machination, instructed him like this, “Whenever you say ‘shit,' think ‘crap.’”  The lad pondered this for a while then asked, “I think I see the point, but couldn’t you just as easily have given me that in a reversed form?’  And the non-lad pondered this for a sec and said, “Well yeah, but then what would I have had to tell you tomorrow.”

One little chap finally admitted (leastwise to himself) that his most exciting dream was to be “locked up for many hours in a small room with the greatest man he’d ever met,” and himself said, “Well, what’re you waiting for?”

One recent speaker over in that freewheeling park demanded to know, “Where is the magnanimity of justice, the equal distribution of experience, in that no literary teetotaler seems ever to have a tavern discovered as a redoubt of human wit and fellowship?”

Whilst searching for an easy way out, several people discovered a felicitous point of entry.

J.

Think More Than You Have To

In that little uptown bistro over on the planet I once mentioned, a young chap standing next to me, after wiping the sweat and concern from his brow, shyly smiled and confided, “Wow – being vexed is some hobby.”

You can’t be mad
at something
without comparing it
to something.

In certain matters, seen from certain views, the operational difference between the singular and its plural is not merely one of quantity…(Yes, an “S” can be a most formidable addition.)

All criticism, be it learned or crude, all criticism, be it externally based or self-directed, all criticism is a cheap shot.

After all of the recent brio and pleasantness, this one chap has sought permission to use some of my ideas to construct this own personal motto, if not epithet; if I agree, he says it will thusly read, “If you think more than you have to, you won’t have to talk more than you must.”

J.

The Yet-to-Be

There is this formally obscure little planet that is now experiencing a tourist boom, ever since it was discovered that on their world, advice is more beneficial than example.

This one tall little chap says he’s bloody well tired of hearing about how much we owe to famous people of the past; he concludes that they owe as much or more to us, or else they wouldn’t even BE famous.

I find those thoughts
a waste of time,
that must be put
into a rhyme…
let me rephrase that.

In every land, in each generation, a voice declares that “power is not to be trusted,” (this usually elicits a wink and a smile from power.)

This one fairly anxious planet decided that the only way out was to simply leave…and I know you’re going to find this weird, but it worked.

Only that which is yet to be, truly belongs to man.

J.

All Misery Contains Some Pleasure

Insofar as certain psychic travel is concerned, one human noted, “Seeing the depraved, the mad, and the criminal, is only seeing a worse me.”

All misery contains some pleasure…(and if it does not, all misery has some pleasure in the recounting thereof.)

Overheard from a sweaty crowd mulling about on that rapidly warming planet just to our south, a harried voice announced, “The time and tides of chance may soothe and buffet us all, and fate may blindly deal us favorable hands today, or not, and though all of this be so and unavoidable, I’ll still, Sir, be quite-well-damned if I’ll be pushed around by the likes of me.”

There still exists a blinding, though potentially liberating, difference between what the physical demands of human life make important, and what life makes man’s brain say is important.

Folly at home and caprice abroad remain sufficiently distant as to keep travel agents and human imagination in business.

J.

Earth Alert

One chap who had spent a goodly portion of his life reading about, and hanging around the edges of activities such as this, finally had his own day of reckoning, and he loudly announced, “The reason this kinda stuff seems so vague and hard to describe is quite simple, IT DOESN’T ACTUALLY EXIST1”

I heard tell of this one old chap so rich (and nervous, I presume) that he kept a whole brain on retainer – just in case!

Earth Alert RF-16:

Progress always
comes too late.

I heard this one man say that now that he was almost the kinda guy he always dreamed of being, he’d about stopped dreaming…(He added that this was not actually as strange as it sounds, even to him.)

On this one planet, where on alternate days everything was either real and simple or allegorical and complex, an unknown doctor at their medical convention introduced a proposal for the organization to privately commend “Human Speech As Medicine’s Supreme Ally,” and he supported his idea by saying, “If man could not speak, we could not diagnose our patient’s ills.”  Some agreed with this, and some did not, so he pressed on by noting:  “If we could not talk, our patients could not tell us what their problems are.”  There was more discussion and some still agreed, and others did not, so the doctor added this:  “If man did not have speech, billing would be impossible.”  There was no more discussion.

J.

One thought, One vote?

“I believe in freedom and equality as much as the next man,” said this one chap.  Then pointing to his head he continued, “But when it comes to matters mental I think, ‘One thought, one vote’ is carrying things too far.”

After hearing me say that “without spies and traitors inside your own system, the necessary neural wars could not go on,” this one guy turned to his own mind real quick-like and demanded, “Okay, whose side are you on anyway?”  And his brain (or something in there) replied, “Exactly!”

While instances can be marked wherein words seem to stand between man and a more direct experience, it may also be noted that many of these experiences would not exist were it not for talk; an illustration of this phenomenon is in his failure to recognize stereotypes as a type.

In the wondrous (if not silly) way in which life is arranged, a man finds the occasions wherein he has the time for repentance occurring much more often than do the chances to sin in the first place.

J.

Talk-About-Yo-Mama

Graffiti found on a stray kid over near the park:

“You can look for a lump, even search for a cyst, but you can’t reconnoiter for a goiter…leastwise, not around here.”  (An alert statue, sensing my bewilderment, winked, pointed to its head, and said, “Leastwise, not around here.”  I smiled as I took my leave, pretending that I could spot a metaphorical pigeon as well as the next man.)

Anything a man can start, he can stop…(except, of course, in those instances that it might be inconvenient or uncomfortable.)

While I was hanging around the bus station over in another state, this young geezer strolls up and tells me, “Regardless of what the laws say and morality demand, incest is alive and neurally flourishing in my own brain.”

There’s this one future that will “talk-about-yo-mama.”  (Oh yeah, there’s this past that will do likewise.)

One thing the health and environmental “scare-of-the-day” does accomplish is in making those who boast such beliefs feel superior to those who don’t.

J.

No Alterations

One earthbound intellectual and would-be celebrity, after some months on the media road promoting his new book, says that he has come to find interviews like being thrown into a den of writhing slippery clichés and being asked to skin them in twenty words or less.

After years of careful consideration of contemporary concerns, this one self-appointed critic and social observer summed up his finding thusly, “In the matter of ‘current events,’ I find it to be more a matter of ‘current’ than of ‘events.’”

You can misspell gun,
you can mispronounce pistol,
but in the northern hemisphere,
bullets will still kill you.

While passing a newly noted planet the other evening, I noticed a large lighted sign that proclaimed, “Our God Doesn’t Do Alterations,” and dropping down for a closer look, I discovered that everyone was the spitting image of everyone else.

In a firmly establishment voice, a father told his offspring, “Look, let’s get this clear, I’m not saying I’m superior to everyone else, just that I’m superior to YOU.”  (And the rapidly expanding kid was not particularly amused.)

J.

Nothing to be Said

This one chap stopped by to tell me that he is not currently prepared to undertake any new efforts to expand his intellectual horizons until he has a good, up-to-the-minute aerial photo of the lay of his present mental land.

There are times
when there is
“nothing to be said”;
such times have
not reached this planet.

Over on the Great University’s park, I overheard a couple of older gents talking about their future and their time of retirement, and one of them said that what he’d like to do, after his final days of work, is to take out his brain, and carrying it in his hands, begin to walk off in no particular direction, but to just keep going until he came to a place where the people look at the glob in his hands and ask, “What is that?’  And there is where he would stop and stay.

Holding him briskly by the ears, a father said to his son, “My own blessed father often told me, ‘The philosopher who sups with a king dilutes his own wine.’”  And the lad replied, “Isn’t dear grandfather now for several years dead?”  And the elder nodded, and the kid continued, “Then, precious Papa, may we not begin to ignore the rantings of the old fart?”  And suddenly the father beamed with bemused and thirsty enlightenment.

Hey look, for the revolutionist, it’s not a matter of, “the time for excuses being over” – hey, it never happened.

J.

A Man with a Gun

After this one god’s accountant advised him as to certain “financial difficulties” he was having, he announced, “Well, we’ll just have to start opening up life an hour earlier for a while.”

On this one world, men learn to say “One,” not because of its significance, but only so that they may later say, “Two.”

Advising his son on earthly matters, one father said, “When the investment is cheap, the upkeep is dear, and when the former is otherwise, the situation still ain’t much better.”

A man with a gun can diagnose himself.

What’s to become of a man who outlives all those he wanted to impress.

J.

Future Talk

All would-be prognosticators might note this: The future does give some warning of its approach, in that it is always gabbing.

From the head of the Fantasmological Food and Drug Administration comes this bulletin:

“Many ideas, once verbalized, begin a process of immediate decay.”  “Hey Pop, did he say ‘many’?”  “Yeah kid, ‘many’ like in most… ‘many’ like in all… ‘many’ like in don’t-talk-about-it.”

According to that downtown bookstore over on that supplemental world, this season’s best seller is a little number entitled “The Making Of A Saint:  How To Deplete Your Testosterone Level.”

All profit-and-loss transactions are basically humorous, and if you find one that’s not, you may rest assured it would cost you dearly.

One history waved its arm in dismissal and scoffed, “Myths – Hah!  Just let me at ‘em.”

J.