Do It When You Can't

Being quoted in the City is one thing, but you’re not truly important until they begin to

MIS-quote you.

If a would-be Revolutionist waits for himself to somehow naturally ripen and ignite, he will miss the train, break his back, lose his ticket, and dangle his last participle.

Asked a certain 15th century knave, “If there truly be an aid to strengthen the memory, what, pray tell, can be done to weaken it?”

Read in the City archives the following statement: “Happiness may be acceptable for the body, but it is suffering that develops the mind.”  Sometimes you got no IDEA how glad I am not to live in that town.

Do it when you can, AND do it when you can’t.  (And you sometimes think there’s no real difference ‘tween us and them.)

J.

Being Human Ain't the Half

If the City’s good-&-evil, right-&-wrong, true-&-false ever DID reconcile their differences and get together, the rest of us are goners.

On one City station I heard the following advertisement: “Order today, the one and only, the original cure and treatment for ALL your personal, financial and household problems, the fantastic ‘Mister Fix-It,’ complete with detailed instructions as to how to place the barrel in your mouth, and properly grip the trigger.”

The Real, active Revolutionist, is he who would stick out his tongue at the wind, and make rude gestures at lightning.

Just remember, being human ain’t the half of it.

Perhaps I can sum up the long-&-short of attempts to stretch City logic over the real world by simply noting for you that IF Jonathan Swift were alive today, he would weigh over six hundred pounds.

J.

The Ultimate ID

Heard a City sophisticate declare, “There is an art to being lucky.”  Yeah, such an art is abstract, and never of the realist school.

The unexpected is always willful.

The truly unexpected is also constructive and joyful.

The ultimate ID is to NEED no ID.

One Revolutionist said that, “Men going off into the Bushes is akin to articles deposited with a dry cleaner; nothing returns exactly as it went in.

Now don’t you worry your little head about it:  In the City, shabby treatment is equally available for all.

J.

Even 2 is A Committee

Remember:

Even 2 is a committee.

An ordinary Man sez, “I am I, and I HAVE a nervous system,” while a Revolutionist would express this in reverse.

A Revolutionist can never let the ordinary, mechanical pressures of life put him even temporarily in the position of “not being on speaking terms” with himself.

Do you ever figure Life’s gotta be downright amazed at what Man will put up with?

Those who DO discuss the cost either can’t afford it, or don’t really want it.

J.

Come on, Let's Hear It Now!

Like everyone else, the Revolutionist HAS sufficient reasons for weakness and failure, but NO EXCUSES has he.

At least, thank god, there are no closing points at your death.

Come on, let’s hear it now for all those who’ve never said, “Come on, let’s hear it now.”

If you like the music, the volume’s too low; if you don’t, it’s too loud.

One ole City dude in considering how all religions condemn drinking said to himself, “You mean I can be common, dumb, and deluded, OR be common, dumb deluded AND sober?  Jeeze, what a setup.”

J.

Larger Tongues

This one handyman once instructed his son thusly, “If anyone ever offers you any advice on how you should behave, pretend to listen closely, then open up your eyes REAL wide and ask them, ‘Wow, if I Do all that then will I look like you?’”

Another Health update:

I now have further sufficient evidence to state that it is no worse for you to go outdoors and play than it is to sit around and watch TV.

I recently attended a well publicized lecture by a well padded City thinker who concluded his remarks thusly, “And I leave you with this, which IS perhaps the most pressing question of the day, Does anyone know what I’m talking about?”

For all we take, we must pay, but the prudent price is a joke, a laugh, a horsing-around in the slaughter queue.

Those who stick out their tongues at Life likely have larger tongues at them stuck out.

J.

Just Kidding

From the List of Nevers:
Never trust a god you gotta defend, or speak up for.

A Real Revolutionist never actually hates the foe.

(Any more so than does a four-by-four in a mud hill.)

All problems are caused by people trying to help.

More of Life’s Unrecognized, Misdirected Justice:

Is there anything in ordinary existence with less to be said about it than the death of someone?  And yet, Men are wound up to babble on about it ad-nauseam-squared.

A Revolutionist’s ordinary attitude toward himself is, “You gotta be kidding.”

J.

Goods & Services

Remember:

All reform, under whatever name, is always going to hurt someone.

Recently read the following:

“In many places and times, governments are controlled to some extent by minorities who may well have interests distinct from the majority they rule,” and hey, forgive me for ever IMAGINING that I knew ANY thing about understatement.

Life’s the service,
you’re the goods.

A king – I mean a REAL king, is a ruler even when naked.

Do Men generally “seek the truth,” in groups because they fear encountering it alone?

J.

Quiz Show

Man sees most of his troubling attributes as after-market-add-ons, and remains unable to think about possible sources outside the routine vehicular outlets.

All the world’s “great ideas” are wrong.

The Revolutionist longs to be an active, knowing, part of the Great Overlapping; one free of obligatory frontiers.

In the City, nothing is ever truly abolished; its sale and commerce just becomes regulated.

A Real quiz show, for the Revolutionist, would be one in which HE was the prize.

J.

Unquote

A Revolutionist must be able to learn from silence;

to hear clearly that which is NOT said.

Everything in the City is exaggerated. 

If it weren’t, nobody would put up with it.

A Real Revolutionist quotes nobody.

(Except maybe himself, and the wind.)

Be forewarned:

Those who say, “I really shouldn’t tell you this,” are about to.

Is part of why animals are so cute is that they don’t know they are?

(And don’t overlook the latest zoological best seller, “Dangers and Downfalls Via Self Analysis.”)

J.

History

One City poet declared his purposes thusly, “All I ever wanted to do was to show the people how truly sad and dreary were their lives.”  I’ll bet the people must have been rightly overcome in their gratitude.

The most inconvenient thing about ordinary opinions is that they cut off the view.  Don’t be a post in the auditorium of Life.

Pretentious City verse updated:

An open heart,
an open mind,
will bring friends from afar. 
But nothing has
the drawing power
of having an “open bar.”

History is just whatever Life SEZ it is.

To a Real Revolutionist, it’s ALL the same.

…and by unpopular demand, epilogued:

A Revolutionist, who had never spoken to his offspring, one day took the child by the shoulders and told him, “Look, I don’t EVER wanna hear about your ‘personal problems’ – EVER!”  And the little heir exclaimed to his little self, “My god, what a delicious, and all-revealing first instruction.”

J.

What this City Needs...

Don’t forget:

If you gotta PAINT yourself green, you’re NOT the Incredible Hulk. 

(Some of you who still dream of flying probably shouldn’t have a plane.  Most of you who still dream of smoothing out the routine lumps and bumps of everyday life should probably have a planer.)

Two guys had been kidding around, laughing at various aspects of Man and mortal existence, and one became thoughtful for a moment, and said, “You know, if life was as funny as we make it out to be, we’d be in a world of trouble.”  He thought a moment more and added, “Hell, it IS.”

Useful motto for the East Sector of the City:

Just because you know what you’re doing in general, doesn’t mean you know what you’re doing in particular.  (For the West Sector, just reverse.)

What this City needs is a darn good book of adjectives.

Should Men now adopt as a new rule-of-conduct the idea that we should always be a little louder than is actually necessary?

J.

By-Products

I ran across a tome in the City entitled, “The Philosophy of Physics,” and damn if they haven’t gotten their words reversed again.

One guy in the City said, “I feel like I live in the Eastern Time Zone, and my brain is in the Pacific.”

In the dear ole’ City, you can count on this little piece-of-business:

A Man, who doesn’t believe himself superior to others, ain’t.  Out in the Bushes this is not simply reversed, this is simply hilarious.

Sometimes, just before sunrise, over a rusty, dusty City sky, a keen eye can clearly see that the by-products ARE the products.

Behold the optimistic, though dazed, City thinker who declared, “What we must now do is introduce some stable form of morality into the world of mathematics.  Men made equations, Men can solve them.”

J.

The Third Floor

In the city, proficiency doesn’t mean much.

What could be sadder than the passing of the third floor?

Some of the great minds who ever lived seldom used the letter “G.”  Some of the really great ones seldom used words with more than two syllables, and some of the super-duper greats seldom evered.

City critics bemoan the lack of integrity amongst the powerful, but their so-called “integrity” would be anathema to those who seek such control.  A ruler with integrity would be a race horse with five legs.

“Listen,” said the voice, “I got something important to tell you…and that’s why I’m not going to say anything.”

J.

The Internal Two-Step

Nouns are just verbs slowed down. 
And goods are just services in three quarter time.

And a REAL ruler stated in a chillingly unambiguous voice, “Okay, people, stand back or I’ll stand back for you!”  (Dig it, mutant music lovers, as an internal two step.)

All City dreams are “loss leaders,” and all of Life’s promises to Man are a form of “bait & switch.”

“Okay, sergeant, round up all the known genes in the area, fingerprint and book ‘em.”

A Real Revolutionist is like an uphill avalanche.

J.

Toll-Free Number

One way to avoid a Revolutionist’s life is to talk about it.  Oh, you can also use this to make up for not living such a life.  Brilliant, huh?

Remember:

It’s not what’s SAID,
but what’s HEARD…
(and even then,
it CAN be the other way around).

Public Service Announcement:
Major portions of these programs are brought to you through the generosity of the Kennert Foundation which asks the question, “WHY?”

It seems that the name of one of his verses was, “At Disneyland with a six pack of valium and no place to park.”  (You can FORGET the chorus.)

From the List of Nevers:
Never trust a god with a toll free number.

J.

Riding on Full

Let me tell you straight-out and up-front:

You can’t move or rearrange history without major Mayflower complications.  If Napoleon had known what awaited him at Waterloo, he would have no longer BEEN Napoleon.

You may not be able to get the toothpaste back in the tube, but you CAN put a bullet back in a gun.

From the crowd gathered before the marbled building, one man stepped forward, shaking his fist at the political structure, and in his best accusatory voice cried out, “You can hide a pile of shit, but what will you do with the stink?”  And another man staggered from the mob, and collapsed under a nearby tree, completely overcome with the worry as to why ANY one would want to “hide” a pile of shit.

In a certain Revolutionary sense, you should probably not let easily the words of the few fall into the hands of the many.

The Revolutionist is always riding on full, or right at empty.

J.

The Safe Statement

All fresh ideas begin to lose some of their bloom as soon as you tell someone.

In a routine political context, I heard one City pundit declare, “All do well in Ireland except the Irish,” and the unrecognized, un-political possibilities of such a statement are staggering.

Never overlook the possible City value of the “safe statement.”  (P.S. Never be seduced by it, either.)

And the Man forthrightly stated, “Listen, I say, ‘Don’t quote me on that,’ and you can quote me on that.”

A truly “nagging question” the City Philosophers simply refuse to face is:  If god were a musician, would he be union?

J.

Theoretically, Indeed

There is a certain phenomenon that cosmologists and others have yet to discover in City affairs, which is that some things which appear retreating are, in fact, advancing.

From the List of Nevers:
Never trust a god with call-waiting.

One ole’ City guy said, “Life ain’t nothing but chaos put in numerical order.”

One City scientist recently stated, “What’s scary is that, theoretically, your genetic makeup knows everything, and feels everything that all of humanity has ever gone through,” and a Revolutionist thought, “Theoretically, indeed.”

Theoretically:

The supreme adverbial cop-out.

When the final history of Man is writ, there’ll be a LOT of explaining to do.

J.

Hobbies

A certain City intelligentsia overheard rebuffing his scion, “If the Golden Age of Greece were alive today, what would it have to say about you?”

Any particular goods are not really your hobby if, by once possessing them, they lose their value and desirability.

‘Twas once said that,
 “Only on the edge of the grave,
can a Man become conclusive.” 
But, say I,
“Only on the edge of conclusion,
does a Man become grave.”

One City guy was always saying, “They should put me in the book…they should put me in the book…”  And finally his wife and some of his friends pointed out that there WAS no book about guys like him, so then he began to always be saying, “They should write the book…they should write the book…”

If questioned on the matter, even superficially, do you believe that ANYbody would claim to have meant EVERY thing they ever said?

J.