THE INFORMATION #1003 JULY 27, 2018

THE INFORMATION #1003
JULY 27, 2018
Copyright 2018 FRANCIS DIMENNO

dimenno@gmail.com
https://dimenno.wordpress.com

Life is an eternal struggle between irrepressible bon vivants and insufferable prigs.–Francis DiMenno

WHEN THIS WORLD CATCHES FIRE
BOOK THREE: SAVAGE NOXTOWN
CHAPTER TWELVE: PART TWENTY: THE EASTERN GATE OF PARADISE

“So now,” said Sam Floyd to the Young Justin Victor, as thunder continued to roar and lightning to flash outside of their bare attic room in the Big Stick country of Buneville, “you’ve been patient so far and haven’t asked too many damfool questions, so now I’m going to tell you of the second great crisis of my adult life–which–as crises tend to do–followed fast on the heels of the first one.”

“Why?”

“The first rule, Boy, is never to ask why. But I’ll tell you anyway because I like you. The reason I’m telling you this is, you remind me of me–when I was young and stupid.”

He then proceeded to tell his tale.

This is about the time I got tangled up with Big Tiny Small, billed at the Red and Black Carnival as the world’s fattest midget, and I have no reason to doubt it. The Big Boss wanted me to do it, and I didn’t know how to say no.

Our first meeting was not auspicious. I ran into her very early in the morning in front of her trailer, which was bigger and fancier than anybody else’s, given her status on the lot–and her girth. There was mud, everywhere–we were in some hick town called Gibsonia–there had been a big storm–and she was kind of daintily feeling her way down the steps of her trailer and onto the first of the boards that had been placed from her trailer to the midway.”How are you, Toots,” says I. “Should I make like Sir Walter Raliegh and give you a hand?” She just glared at me like I was the mud under her feet. “You will address me like a Lady, Sir. I will have you know, my ancestors came over on the Mayflower.”

So I says to her, “If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring? Give up? I’ll tell ya! Pilgrims!”

And I yukked it up.

She was not amused.

She said, “Sir, I do not appreciate such coarse humor at the expense of my revered ancestors.”

And I thought, “If her ‘revered ancestors’ were as hefty as her, that Mayflower trip must of been one rocky boat ride”.

Later on, the Carny boss, Colonel Gentleman, told me on the earie that she was no covenanter descended from the Bradshaws and Winthrops. On the contrary. Her real name was Walsh and her ancestors fled the Irish Potato Famine.

“Which she probably caused,” said I.

The Colonel roared with laughter, then looked at me, abashed, and said “Nix, Nix. Be nice to her. She brings in the ooftish.”

So–what was it like, making love to the world’s fattest midget woman? Brother, you just don’t want to know. Colonel Gentleman first put me up to it as a way to gentle her down some. I said, “It can’t be done–unless if maybe I dust her with flour and go for the wet spot!” He laughed again and then looked guilty and whispered, “Nix, nix.”

So I gritted my teeth and did what I was told, and I didn’t pay no never mind to any of the other Cazarnies who tipped me the wink and gave me the big haw haw whenever they saw I was fixin’ to pay a mandatory visit to her trailer. Though I wanted to lay into them and bash ’em until they were spittin’ their choppers out onto the midway.

I suppose if she weighed about four-hundred pounds less, she’d of been a right pretty filly, what with her curly blonde hair and her porcelain white skin and her cherry-red cheeks. But everything you would of thought was beautiful in her was inexpressibly bloated, and she looked more like a gasping fish than any kind of human being. Plus, as I said, she was a midget woman. Couldn’t of been more than four feet high. Hell, her noggin was so flat, and he neck so solidly made of blubber, you could have ironed clothes on her head, or maybe used it as an anvil to shoe hosses. But her most defining characteristic was that she was fat. So very fat. Fatter than the world’s fattest hog. Only she didn’t get that way from eating no acorns. Plenty of milk and cheese and butter in her diet, I’ll wager. And potatoes, too–all kinds of potatoes–with gravy. She always had to have “a little gravy”. Which was, in fact, usually the contents of the whole gravy boat.

I’ll tell you one thing, though. You’d think, given her condition, she would be eager to please a man and would maybe be all sweetness and light with him. But you would be grievously mistaken. Perhaps her romantic disappointments had soured her disposition. Or perhaps she was just born ornery. Whatever the reason, she was just about as peckish as a snappin’ turkle. She warn’t any too bright, either, but she fancied herself a blueblood because, she said, she was borned in Boston Massachusetts, and, in her off hours, she allus had her nose buried in some readin’ material. Usually–at least for public consumption–it was some kind of crackpot religious tract. She was very big on long, windy sermons, and the afterlife, and ghosts and spirits, and angels from heaven interferin’ in the affairs of ordinary mortal men, which they ain’t had no bidness to doin’. She particularly liked listenin’ to the palaver laid down by goofy preacher-men who swore up and down that Armageddon was comin’ up fast and was just around the corner so you’d better be sure to get right with the Lordie by givin’ his ministry a lot of scratch.

But when nobody warn’t lookin’, she’d read the trashiest she-male romances, just like any other two-dollar zook. She especially liked racy novels about big black bucks who ravished innocent southern maidens until the Klan came riding to the rescue; and supposedly true accounts of nuns and priests who did awful things behind the closed doors of the cloister up in Montreal and Quebec, and the thousands of baby skulls they found underneath an altar; and lovingly detailed accounts of slavemasters who maintained a string of dusky concubines, and administered the lash on a frequent basis, and called out to their darkies, “Ho! Sambo! Quimbo! Fetch the red-hot branding iron!”

I never actually saw her reading any of this stuff, mind. But while rooting around in her quarters in search of dosh I found the hidey-hole where she kept all this edifyin’ literature. I warn’t any too surprised, even though, looking into some of those books, some of the stuff she read made my hair stand up on end like I’d just seen a dead man come to life.

1* SALUTATION
JOHN LENNON
BRING ON THE LUCIE (FREDA PEOPLE)

2* REFERENCE
THE TEN CRAZIEST DRUGS YOU NEVER KNEW EXISTED

ALSO SEE:
FOODS THAT CAN GET YOU HIGH

3*HUMOR
NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR GARAGE BAND
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_one_cares_about_your_garage_band

4*NOVELTY
FECES DO YOUR STUFF
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/SF-Mayor-Theres-more-feces-on-the-sidewalks-than-Ive-ever-seen-488156431.html

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
DARK MONEY
http://www.npr.org/2018/07/17/629823953/dark-money-groups-get-a-little-darker-thanks-to-irs

6* DAILY UTILITY
LOST IN SPACE
PLANET OF THE HIPPIES

7*CARTOON
TOM & JERRY; TOP TEN TOM SCREAMS
I once watched a Tom and Jerry cartoon and so now, based on anecdotal evidence, I believe that cats are bad and mice are good so I’m going to kill my mommy’s cat and let all the mice into the house.

8*PRESCRIPTION
BAD LUCK SOLAR ECLIPSE
Indiana-based evangelist and pastor Paul Begley fears the July 13 partial solar eclipse will have dire occult ramifications for the world.
The controversial conspiracy theorist claimed demonic forces will be in play when the moon passes in front of the sun.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/987906/Eclipse-2018-July-Friday-the-13th-bad-luck-solar-eclipse

9* RUMOR PATROL
FASCISM WATCH
medium.com/@amy_Siskind

10* LAGNIAPPE
THE WHATNAUTS
MESSAGE FROM A BLACK MAN

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT: A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
HEATED PENNIES
At 494 Mass Ave in Cambridge MA, circa 1998, there was a bitter young Scientologist in Apartment #2 who used to drop heated pennies on passerby. Neighborhood pedestrians confronted me and asked me to tell him to stop. I wrote him a note explaining that I understood how much he hated humanity in general and the good people of Central Square in particular, but that he should knock it off because they were onto his sick game and might do him a physical injury if he persisted.

Though not in those exact words.

I think what I said was, “Knock it off, asshole, or you’re heading for a beat-down.”

12* CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
PEOPLE IN BIKE LANES
When I am piloting my gasoline-powered robot slave I feel nothing but amused scorn for the outlandish fleshapoids on their rickety “bicycle” contrivances uneasily weaving their way through schools of two-ton machinery–trying to prove what, I don’t exactly know. Such freaks should be chastised.

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THE INFORMATION #1002 JULY 20, 2018

THE INFORMATION #1002
JULY 20, 2018
Copyright 2018 FRANCIS DIMENNO
dimenno@gmail.com
https://dimenno.wordpress.com

“It has been a common saying of physicians in England, that a cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.”–Samuel Johnson

WHEN THIS WORLD CATCHES FIRE
BOOK THREE: SAVAGE NOXTOWN
CHAPTER TWELVE: PART NINETEEN: THE EASTERN GATE OF PARADISE

You ever notice, Boy, said Sam Floyd to the young Victor Justin, the red mites on a strawberry? When you kill ’em, all they leave behind them is a little red stain. And the same ting goes for us. We are all just little red stains; captives of the things we thrive on. They get into our blood, and we can’t do without them, and they rule us until we die, and that’s all there is to it. The rich man suffers more from a loss of basic comforts than tyhe poor man. The poor man is used to it. The rich man is usually a softie, and you can knock him off his perch with a few well-aimed blows.

My point is that we become the things that surround us. The farmer’s great insights all pertain to mud and weeds. The mealy-mouthed clerk in the office remains a mealy-mouthed clerk in the street. And the robber baron of industry dreams of great machines, and engine oil is in his blood and he has the taste of copper coins in his mouth. You may say that this is a hateful and cynical philosophy. But you’ll see, soon enopugh. For someday there may come a great calamity–and as ever, the strong will prevail. Certainly not the weak.

How do they do it? By finding out what it is the mass of men want and need and scooping up as much of it as they can–grabbing it all, if they possibly can. That’s the smart move. Don’t let some puling milksop tell you any different. They too would be grabbing with both hands themselves, if they had the nerve to do it. You can prate all you like about the noble lives of great and successful men–they are all simply bewhiskered monkeys who have managed to treasure up all the coconuts. And the rest of us are left to stare at them in awe amidst the Palm trees. And that’s it. T’was ever thus.

So. After almost being gunned down by a mean old sheriff and his goofy deputy, I came to a crossroads. I had a decision to make.

Tyrant or victim?

Madman or fool?

Slavemaster or slave?

Was I just another scorpion in a bottle?

Was I going to save my brother from drowning, only to have him pull me down with him?

Was I going to live my natural life as some poor and downtrodden wretch who every Sunday puts on his best bib and tucker and stands in a sweltering church pew shouting hallelujah to the Lordie?

Was I going to be some sort of home-bound infantine family man of a larger growth, eager to snap up the crumbs from the giant’s high chair?

Was I to be some frightened and timid clerk, content with my fifteen a week; a wretched salary man leading a wretched existence–counting half-pennies, living on gingerbread and cheese and eating in chop-houses once a month as a sort of special treat?

Or would I stoop even lower–become a common manual laborer–content to make just enough to sustain me in my wretched existence, and dependent for my daily beer on the charity of braggarts and thieves?

Only to become a whining tramp after they turf me out.

Or was I going to storm heaven and protest?

Am I going to be a strong man who cares not who makes the nation’s laws, so long as I get what’s coming to me and is rightfully mine?

A man who takes what he wants and manages to keep it and has no sanctimonious qualms about whether it’s right or wrong? A man with no weak-minded worries about what others might think? A man with no second thoughts about incurring the righteous wrath of a Supreme Being who may not even exist?

You may not know me well, Boy, but you know me well enough to guess that I decided, then and there, that I would never again be put in a position where I was the weaker party. I decided there and then that I was going to use every tool at my disposal to amass a big pile someday, and that I would never stop thinking and planning and working and scheming and grasping until I had got it.

Be a good citizen? Phaugh! You can have it! Let me tell you something, Boy–once you’ve escaped from the gripe of one grand delusion–why, then you’ve escaped from them all! Me for mine–that’s my only law. The law of the jungle, you call it, maybe. Hwat, you say, if everybody thought like that? But a man of action has no time for such pusillanimous sophistries. Root, Hog, or Die–that’s what I’m going to put on my Coat of Arms.

Sure, it’s a lonely life. But it’s the only life, so far as I’m concerned. It’s the only real life. The only one.

Brute, you may call me. Brigand. Savage. All terms, you should note, which the jealous use to restrain the strong. Well, just let the jealous rotters just try to hold me back. I’ll show ’em a hero!

So–ask yourself this, Boy–are you a man among men? Or are you content to be a simple blind field mouse? A wee,sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie, who, at the slightest disturbance, will flee in terror and hide in a dirty hole until he starves to death? It’s one or the other. You makes your choice and you takes your chance. And once you do, you’re stuck with it. T’was ever thus.

Well, which? And, I tell you true, you’d better make your choice sooner, rather than later. That makes all the difference. This is no bagatelle. This is a matter of life and death.

As for me, here’s what I will say, and with my dying death–God damn the spineless man who turns down the main chance even after it slaps him in the face! Damn…him…to…hell!

1* SALUTATION
QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE
DON’T CRY MY LADY LOVE

GONE AGAIN

WHAT ABOUT ME

2* REFERENCE
HOW OTHERS SEE THE UK
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/nnyw4z/how-others-see-us-gavin-haynes-927

3*HUMOR
HOW NOT TO COUNTERFEIT ONE MILLION DOLLARS
http://www.deceptology.com/2010/09/how-not-to-counterfeit-one-million.html

4*NOVELTY
CRAZY & DANGEROUS STUNTS

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
‘Hail Satan’ carved into South Carolina Baptist church porch
http://www.thestate.com/news/state/south-carolina/article214618710.html

As Popsicle Pete might say “It Begins.”
s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/5/6/1/73561.jpg?v=1
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-8-most-baffling-food-mascots-all-time/

6* DAILY UTILITY
TRUMP’S SUPREME COURT NOMINEE
Had credit card debts. Probably had gambling debts. Not a deal breaker. But she showed very poor judgment in betting on the Nationals. Next, I suppose we’ll find out that he also bet on the Washington Generals.

7*CARTOON
CARTOONING FOR EVERYBODY
https://spookycomics.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/001.jpg?w=465&h=632
spookycomics.wordpress.com/author/jfkxyy/

8*PRESCRIPTION
SIZE OF THE DOUGHNUT HOLE DOWN THROUGH THE YEARS
https://dakiniland.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/211418a075d1476b943bd0bf8f0b9698.jpg?w=590&h=719

9* RUMOR PATROL
HOW THE WORLD REALLY WORKS
howtheworldreallyworks.info/

10* LAGNIAPPE
BOB DYLAN & THE BAND
WHEN I PAINT MY MASTERPIECE

SEE ALSO:
LITTLE RICHARD SINGS GOSPEL
MY DESIRE

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT: A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
“SCARFACE”
Al Capone was called “Snorky” by his pals. Never “Scarface,” a name he detested.

So when the film Scarface (1932) appeared, the Screenwriter Ben Hecht got into a little trouble with “The Syndicate.”.

“Hecht…said that Capone sent two of his men to visit him to make sure that the film was not based on Capone’s life. He told them that the character of “Scarface” was a parody of numerous people with whom Hecht was acquainted. He claimed that the reason that he called it “Scarface” was not because it was about him (which it was), but because Al Capone was one of the most famous men of the time and it would intrigue people to go see the film. After that, the two left him alone.”

He also said that in “the Hollywood racket” that’s the way they always did things.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/a-child-of-the-century-by-ben-hecht/

I’m surprised there weren’t hordes of Italians picketing up and down the block, protesting the movie.

But then again, Italians weren’t considered white until about 1940.

12* CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
MANIFESTO
I say that you cannot make men fat by making them hungry.
You cannot make the weak stronger by allowing them to be bullied by the strong.
You cannot make small men big by taunting them with the deeds of bullies.
You cannot make the poor feel better by tormenting them with the affluence of the rich.
You cannot make the wage-slave prosperous by refusing to give him any stake in his work.
You cannot make people happy by encouraging them to squander their patrimony.
You cannot lull the populace into a stupor by claiming that all their petitions for justice are rabble-rousing.
You cannot encourage people to live within their means while denying them a living wage.
You cannot create a myth of character-building by denying people the opportunity to prosper.
And you cannot promote the myth of the self-reliance in a society rife with corruption and greed and special favors.

THE INFORMATION #1001 JULY 13, 2018

THE INFORMATION #1001
JULY 13, 2018
Copyright 2018 FRANCIS DIMENNO
dimenno@gmail.com
https://dimenno.wordpress.com

People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.–Edmund Burke

WHEN THIS WORLD CATCHES FIRE
BOOK THREE: SAVAGE NOXTOWN
CHAPTER TWELVE: PART EIGHTEEN: THE EASTERN GATE OF PARADISE

Young Count Victor Justin–not yet a Count–was a ready student of the meandering palaver of his fellow drummer Sam Floyd.

He listened intently as they sat on the lone trundle bed in their shared dimly lit boardinghouse attic room where the two of them were stranded in remote Bunetown. There was a smoky, flickering oil lamp and the lightning intermittently animated the long shadows in the room during a hot dark summer night. When the heat finally broke and there came the torrential rain there came also the nearby thunder rattling the worn window panes, gnawed along the edges as if by an ambitious dog.

Imagine, if you will, said Sam Floyd, what if–what if every human being on the face of the planet actually believed that every human life is sacred? There would be no war. There would be no slavery. There would be no prisoners, no sweatshops, no bondsmen. Poor wretches would not be forced to work themselves to death or starve. An old widder-women wouldn’t go stone blind doing embroidery in a dark attic rooms lit only by candlelight.

Imagine a world where everybody had enough to eat, and enough clothing, and a place to sleep. A pipe dream, you say? Perhaps. But, once upon a time, and not so very long ago, there surely must have been a tribe where everybody was supplied with all the basics, and there was no want. It may even have been an entire country. Or even a continent. But, somewhere along the via dolorosa, there was a fall from grace. The few used their hard-won power to oppress the many. Then there came the poor among us, like Jesus said. What Jesus didn’t mention–for the fact was all too plain to see–was that the lives of the poor are expendable, on this earth–because they are poor. And vice versa.

Look to the apes, Boy. Just like with the apes, there is something in any real man that makes him want to be first and foremost in every situation. Those are the men that the female of the species are attracted to. Except, maybe, in Boston. And why, indeed, shouldn’t they be? It’s a known fact that such men are superior providers. They scoop up everything they can snatch at with both their grimy paws and prevent anybody else from having any of it. Any crumbs that fall to the table are used exclusively to nourish their own kin. A man can be forgiven any sin whatsoever–as long as he has a reputation as a good provider. T’was ever thus.

Some of the learned men in universities maintain that this is how the human race advances. I’m not so sure of this. I know a great many of those educated fools. Most of ’em don’t have the sense to pound sand into a rathole. They will always be on the side of the side that has already won. They claim to be in search of knowledge, and wisdom, these professors–they claim that their goal is to discover the incontrovertible truth. And that’s the biggest lie of all. Why, even your average Nigra shoeshine boy has more accumulated wisdom in his tiny wooly head than the entire Faculty of an Ivy League University.

Now, get this–I ain’t no sob sister, see? If you ain’t got the will to strive for the brass ring, then you might as well just flop down and die, and let better men trample your grave in search of the holy grail. Because if you ain’t willing to give it your all, then getting to the top ain’t for you. You may just as well resign yourself here and now to being one of the countless also-rans who populate this fair land with the stench of their rank failure. At which point, you will become one of the legions of nameless and unnamable myrmidons whose lives are–in essence–utterly expendable.

Just imagine for a moment that all unnecessary suffering should finally cease. God couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to. Why? Either because he don’t exist–even odds–or because suffering really is the only way the human race can advance and evolve, like the Professors maintain and that heathen Darwin fella says.

I have got these thoughts all balled up in my head. I must admit.

Only suffering itself ain’t the goal; it’s avoiding the sufferin’ and settin’ in your rockin’ chair and watching everybody else do the sufferin’–that’s what makes you one of the very advanced critters.

That’s why some people put themselves in a position where they and their loved ones get to suffer less. Sure–it might be at the expense of everybody else–but what of it? Is the strong man responsible for the fact that the milksop is too puny to even squawk at the rough treatment he gets? Isn’t it understandable that a strong man who sees his advantage should step up and take whatever he damn well wants to?

Pardon my French.

If human beings are so damn smart, and closer to the angels than the apes, then tell me this–why don’t they address the problem of needless suffering? Why don’t they find some good strong man who will turn this country into a land where nobody has to beg for bread?

It will never happen.

Because if you’re strong, you never give up an advantage. The only people who do that are the weak, the timid, and the lazy. It’s not to the advantage of the strong to carry the weak.

T’was ever thus.

That’s why the poor have so many children. They seek to prolong their own miserable existences. That’s why soft and decadent societies pamper their children. It’s pure selfishness–that’s all it is.

The strong man makes his children strong–not by coddling them–but by ignoring them. Casting them away. By pushing them out of the nest. That’s what makes them strong.

Spare the rod and spoil the child. That’s what the Good Book says. And it’s the truth. You know it’s the truth!

My daddy–why, he dusted my britches every now and again. Sometimes when I done something he didn’t like, and other times just on general principle. And it didn’t do me a single lick of harm.

If a baby dies; if a boy falls down a well and breaks his neck; if a young man dies in a senseless war…?

Well, there’s always more where that came from.

Remember this: conquerers leave behind them thousands of descendants. The weakling is lucky if his bloodline persists for a generation or two. The mass of men are mere insects; blood-filled ticks squabbling over the surface of a rotten pear.

I am right–and I will be proven right.

1* SALUTATION
UNHOLY MODAL ROUNDERS
JEALOUS DADDY’S DEATH SONG

HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS
BOOBS A LOT

ANTOINETTE

LOW DOWN DOG

JEANINE’S DREAM

ALSO SEE:
MY NAME IS MORGAN BUT IT AIN’T J.P.

2* REFERENCE
BOB DYLAN AS POET
Chaucer, Spenser, Sidney, Marvell, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Milton, Donne, Herrick, Pope, Blake, Burns, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Byron, Browning, Clare, Dickinson, Hopkins, Hardy, Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Yeats, Edgar Arlington Robinson, Frost, Eliot, and Pound are all greater poets than Bob Dylan.

Shakespeare wrote better songs.

As did Burns.

And Yeats.

Dylan is, admittedly, a better vocalist. Because they are all dead.

On the other hand, Shakespeare never pissed out a window. Marlowe, maybe. But not Oor Wullie.

But Bob Dylan did.
http://www.vulture.com/2016/10/37-hilarious-bob-dylan-stories.html

3*HUMOR
LENNY BRUCE
HOW TO RELAX YOUR COLORED FRIENDS AT PARTIES
“Christ, that Bojangles could tap dance!”

4*NOVELTY
FLORIDA WOMAN LEAVES PHONE IN URINE PUDDLE AT SHOPLIFTING CRIME SCENE
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/shoplifting-suspect-brooke-amber-sutton-leaves-cell-phone-urine-puddle-at-crime-scene_us_56b230d2e4b08069c7a5a9d3?utm_hp_ref=weird-news

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST

Love those little pit bulls.
Can’t wait to sell ’em to hillbillies and ghetto dwellers.

6* DAILY UTILITY
THE AMERICAN CREDO
…a boil on the neck purifies the blood and is worth $1,000.
…all Asiatic idols have large precious rubies in their foreheads.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23858/23858-h/23858-h.htm

7*CARTOON
LOUSED UP IN SPACE
rpg1.com/RV-NET/play.php?f=n://All%20Ebooks/Mad%20Magazine%20All/1966/MAD104.pdf&t=././skins/mybrown/assets/docs.png

8*PRESCRIPTION
HOW TO LIVE IN THE WOODS
A screaming five-year-old sounds a lot like an air raid siren.

What would you do if you woke up in the middle of the night and you heard the sirens and you knew that it wasn’t a screaming five year old and you knew that nuclear Armageddon was just around the corner? What would you take with you?

Not a television. There would be no electricity to watch it. And what would the programming consist of? “The Ballad of Armageddon Clampett”?

No, the best thing to take with you would be a tarp, a buck knife, a whetstone, a pair of good hiking boots, plenty of wool socks, and a transistor radio and a lot of batteries.
https://www.wikihow.com/Live-in-the-Woods

9* RUMOR PATROL
MICK JAGGER’S LEGENDARY LOVE OF MARS BARS
Mick Jagger loves Mars bars.
Or so I’ve heard.
http://www.snopes.com/fact-check/a-mars-bar-fills-that-gap/

10* LAGNIAPPE
SPIRAL STARECASE
MORE TODAY THAN YESTERDAY

Haw haw haw. Here, Chicago covers the Spiral Starecase song whose sound they ripped off so many times and in so many ways.

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT: A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
LONESTAR
MY FRONT PORCH LOOKING IN

Congress should consider a law which specifies that no country music song can ever use the term “sippy cup”.

There’s a carrot top who can barely walk
With a sippy cup of milk
A little blue eyed blonde with shoes on wrong
‘Cause she likes to dress herself
And the most beautiful girl holding both of them
And the view I love the most
Is my front porch looking in, yeah

12* CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
Scarlett Johansson faces firestorm amid news she will play a transgender man
LGBTQ activists and transgender performers blasted the news on social media.
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/scarlett-johansson-faces-firestorm-amid-news-she-will-play-transgender-n889036

Duh… It’s called “acting” for a reason.

The problem with these activists is that they take Hollywood simulacrums for reality.

Hollywood product which claims to be “based on a true story” is often rife with historical inaccuracies.

Many of these outright anachronisms give us a seriously distorted picture of what life was like in the past.

Where’s the outrage?

Most Hollywood product is just a bunch of creepy shadow shows which tell us more about Hollywood’s conception of the world than about the world as it is. They have rendered themselves ludicrous by their own pusillanimity.

So why all the fuss?

Here is Hollywood’s idea of a “serious” film.

THE SESSIONS
A man in an iron lung who wishes to lose his virginity contacts a professional sex surrogate with the help of his therapist and priest.
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls071682476/?ref_=tt_rls_4

I am currently reading John Rechy’s City of Night (on the train) and listening to David Copperfield (in the car).

If only…if only the two could be combined!

David Cop-a-Feel?

The Rechy book was blasted on publication.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1963/06/01/fruit-salad/

Rechy responds:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1996/10/31/complaint/

More on Grove Press:
http://hilobrow.com/2017/08/17/into-the-grove-22/

MODERN WISDOM NUMBER 237 JULY 2018

MODERN WISDOM: AMERICA’S ONLY HUMOR MAGAZINE
NUMBER 237
JULY 2018
Copyright 2018 Francis DiMenno
dimenno@gmail.com
http://www.dimenno.wordpress.com

1. NOIR MISFORTUNE COOKIES: SECOND SERIES
501. Tedious one,even your stalker grows tired of you.
502. Obese one, she thinks of you only as her Fat Chance.
503. You are powerful only in your dreams. Dream on.
504. Coward, even among outlaws you are an object of scorn.
505. Dogs howl, cats hiss, and snakes flee your very approach.
506. Beggar-man, move on. The rick want you out of the way.
507. Ominous crows will circle your pitiful shack, superstitious one.
508. Cheapskate, an untipped waitress will betray you to the Bulls.
509. Your wife has memorized the Kama Sutra; not for your benefit.
510. Where you’re going you’ll never get to pet the rabbits, oafish one.
511. You will die in a pup tent clutching a bottle of cheap muscatel.
512. Sorry, but it wasn’t a ‘strongly dislike’ crime. It was a HATE crime.
513. You’re the town drunk. And it’s a really big town.
514. You spoke the Big man’s name and now you will burn for it.
515. They’ll stop hounding you when you pay them back, which is never.
516. It’s over when the Big man says it’s over, and not a minute before.
517. Look both ways before crossing–and they’ll still run you down.
518. Those minks you clouted belong to the wife of a made man.
519. Your weakness and fear make you distrusted by all.
520. Your cowardice is like a cloud which fills every room.
521. They laugh at you, for you are digging your own grave. Literally.
522. Half the world lives in misery, and yet you have no shame.
523. There’s nothing left for you to do but cry. Like a fat little girl.
524. You are nothing but trouble that nobody wants or needs.
525. You’re going to be dead soon, and dead soon.
526. Romeo, you wear your heart on your sleeve and it falls off.
527. The Big Boss knows you come to work late and leave early.
528. Your inner demons are bad. Your outer demons are far worse.
529. Your vain attempts to cling to your fleeting youth deceive nobody.
530. A bad actor dies a thousand deaths–and yet lives.
531. Your attempts at finding consolation will lead to double woe.
532. You are cruel. But the Big man is crueler by far.
533. Daffy one, no man of reputation regards you as strong.
534. Dotard, be still. Your days of feeble glory are long gone.
535. Why do you persist in yammering, garrulous one? Nobody is listening.
536. Even common lushes despise your drunken babbling.
537. Your life is a broken fortune cookie, unread and left to rot.
538. Throw away your glasses. there is nothing more for you to see in this world.
539. People do not understand you, true; for they are not fluent in Psycho.
540. They say you should look into your heart. But now…you have no heart.
541. Only one man can help you. God. And he’s not home.
542. She’ll never call you. Her boyfriend broke her fingers.
543. You have quite a history. But you have no future.
544. You are so crazy that you drove your psychiatrist insane.
545. The young hate your stories; the old have already heard them all.
546. You call yourself a boulevardier–but really, you are a pervert.
547. You will receive a twenty-one gun salute–aimed at you.
548. The scene of the crime is anywhere that you are.
549. You are not only broke–you have been broken.
550. It’s a sick world–but not as sick as you.

2. 13 POSSIBLE OPENING LINES FOR CHRISTIAN FICTION

It was a dark and Jesus Night.

It was the best of Messiahs; It was the worst of Messiahs.

A lot of you don’t know me, ‘less you read a book called The New
Testament by a Mr. Mark the Apostle….

When I was a young man, my Father said to me that I should not judge
others, for they have not had the advantages that I have had….

Jesus woke up in the garden to the sound of the cock crowing thrice.

“I suppose I should tell you about my lousy childhood at the right
hand of the Father and all that other David Copperfield Crap…”

“That, he thought with satisfaction, is one small step for man and one
large step for the Messiah…. ”

Jesus Christ and I sat at the table for a half-hour before he finally
went for the bill.

Jesus Christ’s socks were beginning to stink up the whole apartment.

After his sixth Gatorade-and-vodka, Jesus Christ puked all over my new
girlfriend’s tank top.

“There ain’t no atheists in foxholes!” shouted Jesus Christ as he
valiantly threw his last grenade at the advancing Japs.

Jesus Christ died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don¹t know.

Jesus Christ awoke one morning to find that he had been changed into a
giant insect.
[A tip of the Hatlo Hat to RMS for numbers 8-13.]

3. OH FAB I’M GLAD THERE’S LEMON-FRESHENED BORAX IN YOU: THE MOVIE

Opening shot: explosion. A shack in the Utah desert.

Establishing shot: 1966. Docu footage unspools: Viet War, race riots, LBJ with head in hands. Credits roll.

Long tracking shot of California farmland. Another explosion, this one large enough to level a city block. Lemon groves are devastated by wildfires.

Cut to: Office penthouse. The silhouetted figure of a man is seen and heard shouting into two telephones. Camera reveals he is XAVIER BRAND, a creepy white-haired industrialist with a withered face and a rather louche black mustache who, for diabolical reasons of his own, is trying to corner the world’s supply of lemons and Borax. Distinguishing feature: His right index finger is actually a nail file. He compulsively grooms his nails the whole time he is talking on the phones. His SECRETARY grooms his toenails.

Cut to: Exterior of office. A man with a rope and grappling hook is climbing hand over hand up the side of the building. He is FRANZ NEUMANN, sworn foe of sinister cabals. A grinning crewcut blonde giant. Distinguishing feature: His lemon-yellow eyepatch. He climbs the rope with agility and grace. He is obviously a highly-skilled gymnast.

But will he make it up the side of the building? I think not. BRAND’s sinister henchman–a midget wearing a bowler hat–undoes the hook from the cornice of the building. NEUMANN falls. An enormous American eagle swoops in and catches him. NEUMANN is whisked off to the mountaintop fortress of none other than…

UNCLE SAM, who tells NEUMANN that HE MUST NOT FAIL and provides him with advanced weaponry and two accomplices: A parrot who can mimic anybody’s voice and a cigar-smoking chimp who is an explosives expert.

A series of complications ensues, but, ultimately, Xavier Brand is foiled, Neumann gets the secretary, and a series of Fab detergent posters plastered about Futuropolis mutely testify to the fact that the surfectent now does indeed feature the miraculous novelty of “Lemon-Freshened Borax”.

4. HOLLOA! FROM THE FRIENDS OF EXTINCTION!
NEWSLETTER #1

The Friends of Extinction–in conjunction with our Wymyn’s group The
Kindly Ones, and our Children’s Auxiliary, The Sunshine and Lollipops
Guild–is a Rainbow Tribal Gathering where People Who Need People Are
the Luckiest People In the World. (Crabs, Grouches, Gloomy Gusses,
Pesssimists, Naysayers, Channel-Turners, Nut-Cutters and Lardasses
need not apply.)

Madport may be just a picture-postcard Hamlet blown up to poster-size;
a pint-sized burg with a big-league attitude, but that don’t mean the
Jukes and the Kallikaks can’t all sit down at the same table and maul
the flatware and gum their inedible vittles and snap at that bottle of
corn until they drink themselves into a slack-jawed stupor as they
stare vacantly at the hole in infinity and attempt in vain to twiddle
their non-opposable thumbs as burning joints fall from their nerveless
fingers.

What I mean to say, Pard, is Come On Down, Pilgrim, and Join the
Party–We Got a Lot of Friendly People and We Hope You’ll Like Every
One.

Just because some of us are Negroes and some of us are Oafs and some
of us are fourth-generation Greasers with a mad on against the world,
don’t mean we can’t all get together and grope at each other’s
fundaments and make real-friendly-like with that freckle-faced
redheaded Pixie Sprite who’s, like, really “into” the Ecology and
wants all of us to like, stop killin’ the whales.

Likety-like, herez what we believe:

Destroy Ugly!

Play Well With Others!

Food, Not Bums!

Can’t We All Get Along?

Listen: the FOE is all about integrity. Once you can market that,
you’ve got it made, Chief.

The temporarily permanent, non-spatial, everywhere-is-noplace HQ of
the Friends of Extinction is located in the deepest part of the woods
on the edge of Holly Park, where the flowers are in bloom. Take the
Indian trail to the cardboard box, bear right at the old mattress,
follow the blue blazes until you reach the burned-out wooden shack
right upside of Hobo’s Ridge, and You Are There. (Nota bene: Though
this be our special hidey-place where we used to go to drink Dad’s
Bourbon, that don’t mean we ain’t willing to meet at your house, when
YOUR Dad is away, and drink HIS bourbon!)

The Friends of Extinction is a zoovie non-juried space wherein brothaz
and sistaz and all our udder peeps can meet and and greet and be
supportive of one another and get baked and play drums on old coffee
cans and recite way-out poems and tell non-offensive earth-friendly
jokes and all like that. Like, get this:

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: International Bankers!

Haw Haw Haw! The Friends of Extinction is fixin’ to build us a network
of like-minded original thinkers whose home away from home is
everywhere and nowhere. For the Present will someday be the Past and
the Future Now is truly merely the past of the Eternal WOW.

On the lam of God? Running away from your obligatos? Shake the pebble
from your moccasin and set a spell. Summer times we like to meet by
the old stone windmill down by the breakwater in Smug harbor; in the
Fall our HQ is the sub-basement of the deserted Pumping Station in
Cruikshank; when old man Winter comes we meet at the Peaceful
Coexistence Coffee Shop just over the border from Nob Hill, and in the
Spring is when we observe the mystikal rite of St. Patrick & Beltane,
which is why we meet in the thickets of Holly Park like our patron
forebears who believed in gnomes, kobalds, and outdoor fucking–not
necessarily in that order.

We join together with udder Peeps from all over the world, whenever
they want to come and mooch off our one-world hospitality because a
smile is just a turned-on frown. Also, it’s always good for a High
Plains Drifter to have friends in High places, if you get my drift,
and et cetera.

Hey–listen–you can have your own club! We don’t care! Everything is
Everything! All we ask is that you use our symbol, FOE, in all your
posters and stuff that you wheat-paste around town to promote your
concert or party or event or just to cause trouble. Here are some of
the musical groups who are our affliates:

PAINLORE
THE HAUNTED DRUNKS
TALLULAH CRACKHEAD
EKSTATICK YOD
SISTERZ OF SAPPHO
THEE KORNHOLE WRANGLERS
DEPOT PROVERA
HOW BRAHMACHARYA?
DAUGHTERZ OV ROXALENA
THE CHAIWALLAHS
THE DSM IV
THE NEURASTHENIC NOMADZ
EPPUR SI MUOVE
THE THIRD ZIMBARDO
THEE IMMORTAL JELLYFISH
CHILDREN OF THE BROKEN SKYLINE
THE SQUARECROWS OF TIANANMEN SQUARE
THEE OKKULT REVOLVERZ
THEE NOSTAGIC PROPHETS
THE HONEY PEEPERS

If you’re in a band or even if you just like to pretend like you’ve
got your own “band” then why not send us your flyers and we will send
you our flyers and we can post them around town until THE MAN is
forced to acknowledge us!?

Therefore, send us your flyers!

Become part of the FOE!

The FOE is your FRIEND!

And someday–SOON!– the whole world will be surrounded by FOEs!

COMING THIS BELTANE!

THEE ICE CREAM SOLDIERS
THE TAO OF RUNNING IN PLACE
THE PSYCHOPHRENIC GODS
BIG MISTER SUNSHINE

TIME AND PLACE TO BE ANNOUNCED!!!!

5. WEE ROBIN REDBREAST: A TRADITIONAL SCOTTISH TALE
Once was there a wee Robin Redbreast happin’ on a brier.

And slee Mister Foreman from the Mill, he says: “Where’s tu gaun, wee Robin?”

And wee Robin says: “I’m gaun awa’ to the Laird to sing him a sang
this guid Yule morning.”

And slee Mister Foreman says: “Come here, wee Robin, and I’ll let ye
ha’e a twenty spot tae work in my mill.”

But wee Robin says: “Na, na! slee Mister Foreman; Na, na! Ye worry’t
the wee lamster; but’ye’se no worry me.”

So wee Robin flew awa’ till he came to the Academy, and slee Mister
Pedant, he says: “Where’s tu gaun, wee Robin?”

And wee Robin says: “I’m gaun awa’ to the Laird to sing him a sang
this guid Yule morning.”

And slee Mister Pedant says: “Come here, wee Robin, and I’ll let ye
ha’e a twenty spot tae teach in my Academy.”

But wee Robin says: “Na, na! slee Mister Pedant; Na, na! Ye worry’t
the wee schoolboy; but ye’se no worry me.”

So wee Robin flew awa’ till he came to the Laird, and there he sat on
a window sill and sang the Laird a bonny sang.

And the Lady said to the Robin Redbreast, “Hwat, my pretty sonneteer,
dost thou grace my bonny sill this most holy of days?”

And wee Robin says “I’m come to see the Laird to sing him a sang this
guid Yule morning.”

And the Laird says to his Lady: “What’ll we gie to wee Robin for
singing us this bonny sang?”

And the Lady says to the Laird: “I think we’ll gie him some crumbs out
o’ my pooch.”

And no mair did the wee Robin go aboot happin’ on a brier.

For, in sooth, it was at that very glamourie mament that the good
Laird raucht o’er and brang the window sill down upon the wee Robin
Redbreast and did smush his gaupit fucking head.

6. MEET–THE WORLD DRUNK!

Who is he?
He’s not just the Town Drunk. he is…The World Drunk.
He drinks a lot.
By high noon he is blind drunk, yet has somehow managed to read all the newspapers cover-to-cover… and is carrying all 3 under his arm, folded, wherever he goes.
He wears gloves when it is 60 degrees outside.
He sweats worn under raggedy grease-tainted jeans from October until April.
Understandably, drinking limits his accomplishments but he nonetheless remains a beloved character among the sober citizenry.
Wears either a dirty jacket from sports team that is not local favorite, or an old suit jacket.
Rides a bike around really slowly, often wobbling his way down the street in an unbuttoned flannel shirt and paint spattered jeans while holding a brown paper bag.
Keeps company with a woman who looks like she is made out of baseball mitts. Who he slurringly addresses as, ‘Your Royal Highness.’

8. MASH-UPS
OUT STEALING CORPSES by Mary Shelley and Per Pederson.
THE SILENCE OF THE DOG WHISPERER by Thomas Haris and Cesar Millan
THE WIZARD OF M by L. Frank Baum and Fritz Lang

9. CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE…

These bestselling books and their heartwarming tales have inspired millions.

Here a tale that is, perhaps, my favorite:

MIZ GRIZABELA THE TOWN LIBRARIAN
The town librarian always went out of her way to be helpful and kind,
especially if she felt that a child was the victim of unfair
treatment. In fact, she would often launch herself head first into a
controversy without even thinking about the consequences. She was very
logical but also intuitive, and the townspeople would often go to her
with their problems. Often times, proceeding only on a hunch, she
would come up with a solution that satisfied everyone and hurt no one.

She brought many improvements to our little town. She even took it upon
herself to start a book group for the library.

She posted a sign-up sheet at the library to ask various library patrons to
sign up with their names and phone numbers if they were interested in joining
a reading discussion group.

After making the initial few selections herself, she eventually came to rely
increasingly upon book group input to determine what books should be read,
and in what order. She guided the group through genres as diversified as
memoir and travel, as well as timeless classics about relationships between
different kinds of people. Serving as book group leader, she would skillfully
ask certain pertinent questions that also helped to steer the discussion.
People would fly off on tangents, and she would let them; it was only when
the discussion threatened to totally fail to discuss the book, or when one
person dominated the discussion to the detriment of the enjoyment of others,
that she would step in to focus the group and steer the discussion back to the
group’s purpose.

In this way, Miz Grizabela brought a little of the wider world to our
sleepy little hamlet.

Folks often wondered what event in her life had compelled her to take
up residence in our small town. For, clearly, she was intended for
better things. Even though she seemed to have had wide experience of
the world, still, she seemed content to be always busying herself with
a dozen different little projects at once, nearly all of them
involving ways to improve the lives of others in our little town.

Miss Grizabela wore glasses and was very shy. But she when she took
her glasses off and let her hair down she was still very shy. And also
kind of ugly. And practically blind. Which made it very easy for me
and my buddies to knock her down and steal her purse.

ALSO BE SURE NOT TO MISS:
“Chicken Egg-Drop Soup for the Grieving Chicken Mother”.
“Minestrone for the Italian Mobster’s Widow.”
“Ghee for the Morbidly Obese Buddhist.”
“General Tso’s Chicken for the Decidedly Overweight Taoist.”
Finally, bold Satanists are invited to buy the book, “Lard for the
Artereoschlerotic Devil.”

10. MORE BAND NAMES
Thee Quick-Acting Hypnotics
Asking For Trouble
Milk Of Amnesia
Origin Unk
Gonna Do It For Johnny
Cowards Of 911
Acid Is Groovy Kill The Pigs
They Eat Their Young
Radioactive Snowmen
Terraplane Soup
Laugh It Up Furball
To The Batcave
Famous Movie Drunks
Booger Buddies
Thank You For Not Killing Us
Shitfire Island
The Filthy Monkeys
Hiroshima Pwned
Brain Feast
The Murder Of Abraham Lincoln
Old People In Hell
Gorilla Crime Boss
The Incomprehensibles
The Scum Bozoes
Sleep In The Grave
Russia’s Greatest Sex Machine
S.E. Hinton’s First Novel For Adults
Not So Fast Faggot
We Belong Dead
Pushkin Shot In Duel
His Bread In My Shoulder
My Wife’s Handwriting
The Bear Wiped His Ass With The Rabbit
I Can See Your House From Here
Old Fashioned Hate
Circuit Of A Dogma
Jabbering Dynamo
Sleepy Rigamarole
Odd Enough To Be Your Father
Teenage Centurions For The Coming Armageddon
This Turbulent Priests
The Hammer Comes Down
Honey, I Smoked The Drugs
The Washington Consensus
Cosmic Ruthlessness.
The Drizzlin’ Shits
A Queer In Boys Town
Eagle On The Sunday Dollar
The Clusterfucks
Tricycle Bastard
Stalin The Clown
Xenophobic Lesbians
Born-Again-Christian Circus
Scientific Aborigines
Muslim Photographers
A Puritan Christmas
The Beatnik Jet Pilots
Vertigo Zombies
Stompbox Wankers
The Containment Boys
Please Advise
Tear Factory
Mascot Parables
Please Be Kind
The Minor 6145 Choir
Alpha Radiation
The Clean Getaways
Mrs. Babymother
The Mosquito Apologists
A Pagan Suckled In A Creed Outworn
Industrial Solvents
Eunuchss Of Empire
The Rat Parade
Big Cats
Sonic Interval
Manly Pansies
Squirrel Brains
Tweeter
Blowjob Alibis
Rackety Critters
Humiliated Jockeyboys
Sticky Trim
Alcoholic Penitentiary Inmates
Pharmacy Robbers
Cruelty To Bears
Derelict Rejects
Corleone’s Thunderbolt
Shitfire And Brimstone
Fuck Bias
Amphitheater Bums
Me Love You Long Time
Crackhead Junkies
Dance With The Go-Go Gophers
Supernatural Hitler
No Reasonable Offer Refused
Curses Fried Again
Smash Ugly
Confederate Rap
Inspector Pig
Pricked
Sphincter Monkeys
Swinger Square
Dancing Hen On A Hotplate
Thee Psychonauts
University Of Blonde Delinquents
Whiskey Rebellion
Hash And Lentils
Club Godhead
Pork Messengers
Industry Godfathers
Vagina Puppets
Soggy Tramp Gumbo
Drunk Protestants
We Refuse
Orange Twang
Atlas Mugged
Amoeba Chow
Mossy Wax
Sea Urchin Jerky
Dylan Girls
Vacation Amid The Rubble
Papa Bunk
Lifestyle Porn
Project Madness
The Fat Little Nothings
The Plastic Bottlecaps
Ghost Soup
The Lemon Detectors
The Red Hot Pistols
Tranqs For The Memories
Bennies From Heaven
Ramadan-A-Dingdong
An Ashanti In Old Ashanti Town
The Bad Actors
The Fat Biker Chicks
The Car Toads
Bungtown
The Cake Eaters
Doctor Medicine
First Of May
The Spit-Backs
The Highbinders
Ready John
Oil Of Joy
The Prairie Comedians
The Drunkery
The Turnscrews
The Wet Quakers
Wild Train
The Bird That Goes Beep Beep
Fight For Might And Right
Too Young To Know The Danger
Long Ears And Tail To Match
The Akasic Record Company
70 Bone-Breaking Secrets
Young Liberace
Jealous Daddy
Walk It Off, Jesus

11. WATCHMEN: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL
Watchmen was a paradigm-changer back in 1986-7, as it dribbled out in
serial installments. Of course, it’s going to look a bit shopworn
over 30 years later. But back when it came out, no literate man had
ever so much as once seriously questioned the whole premise of
superheroes in a mass-market comic book.

Not one.

Stan Lee? A mere pulpist.

Frank Miller? Alas, Ditto, with the added tang of a hard-on for noir.

Larry Welz? Negro, please….

And Howie Chaykin had quite a yen for porno which obviated any of his
innovations.

In fact, that whole crew up to Alan Moore were more or less either
hacks or porn-mongers, or both.

Even Jack Cole.

Even Will Eisner.

Even Steve Ditko & Jack Kirby.

About the only persons doing intelligent work other than Moore and
Miller were Steve Rude and Mike Baron on Nexus, and maybe Los Bros.
Hernandez.

Alan Moore, by the way, is seriously into the occult, though there’s
only fleeting glimpses of it in Watchmen. Far more to the point for a
serious Occultist would be FROM HELL, and, especially, book five of
PROMETHEA.

12. SELECTIONS FROM THE FULL TEXT OF “SWAHILI EXERCISES”
[“Compiled for the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa”]

[Elspeth Huxley’s mother leaned Swahili from a a handbook issued by The
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel which contained such
sentences as “The idle slaves are scratching themselves” and “Six
drunken Europeans killed the cook.”–Piers Brendon, THE DECLINE AND
FALL OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE, p. 365.]

“The oldperson is dead.”

“I see the black smoke of a great fire.They are burning the deaf man’s books.”

“You will hurt the old man’s head. I have found the drunkard’s waistcoat.”

“The barber’s white donkey kicked my aunt.”

“The thieves took all our.turbans.”

“What sort of a chief is this drunkard?”

“The servant who brought my food. The good food which killed them all.”

“I do not much like idle slaves.”

“My father bought much fruit; a dwarf his enemy took it.”

“Our chief has killed your slave.”

“Your slave girls took my umbrella.”

“Destroy all the huts.”

“I bought the spear for an old rag.”

“Hide the books that they may not read.”

“Call the man who beat you, that I may see him.”

“Drive the blind man away. Let the deaf man stay.”

“I do not believe that this [man is] a wizard; you [are] all cowards,
and you fear a shadow.”

“These burdens are light. Those black burdens are heavy.”

“I saw you, you were boxing my slave boy’s ears.”

“Rub the table for us.”

“What sort of an overlooker is a blind person?”

“I know of your getting drunk.”

“The Europeans have cut down the cocoa-nut trees.”

“The masons did not want red umbrellas.”

“I do not like beating you.”

“Europeans do not like our medicine men.”

“If you love your children, beat them.”

“The Europeans bought many large umbrellas. They are cutting down
those good mango trees.”

“I see the white ashes of a great fire.They are burning the deaf man’s
pine-apples.”

“The European caught my spear and broke it, and I struck him, and
he said to the men who followed him, Kill that man ; and I ran away
and escaped.”

“The savage chief prospered.”

“Your slave girls took my frying pan. ”

“The mangouste has bitten the child’s armpit.”

“You will hurt the old man’s eye.”

“The white ants have destroyed the account books.”

“A narrow hole. Another grave. Many graves.”

“He is not destroying your hut I do not forget your actions.”

“Supposing he should kill you, I will kill all his children.”

“The blood will remind me.”

“I have often remembered those two people ; they would at once have
killed us both, if they had known us. ”

“I have killed seven Seas.”

“The chief loves old men.”

“When they arrived at the river, the people in the road laughed,
and the donkey feared, kicked, and fell into the river and sank, and
the man and the youth returned to their house.”

“A just man is loved by his slave.”

“The children became blind.”

“I am not at all sorry.”

“These amusements do not please me.”

“All requests which the chief shall withhold to-day, I will hear afterwards.”

“Many people were with the chief. A few ran away ; those who ran away were
afterwards in our town, and I killed them all.”

“Bad people are worse than animals.”

“Let us kill them all out of the way.”

“The Europeans will not be conquered.”

“I have a sword, and [you] you have a spear and a shield ; what are we
to fear ? If a man has money he will be great. If a man has not money
he will not be great.”

“The world is evil.”

THE INFORMATION #1000 JULY 6, 2018

THE INFORMATION #1000
JULY 6, 2018
Copyright 2018 FRANCIS DIMENNO
dimenno@gmail.com
https://dimenno.wordpress.com

A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears. –Montaigne

WHEN THIS WORLD CATCHES FIRE
BOOK THREE: SAVAGE NOXTOWN
CHAPTER TWELVE: PART SEVENTEEN: THE EASTERN GATE OF PARADISE

Cadger Tandy and Count Victor Justin were standing down at the docks hard by the Salt River. School had let out for the summer, and Cadger Tandy had wandered there for want of anything better to do. The Count was also there, pushing his way through milling crowds of sailors, trying to find a likely mark for a short-con game. But all of the sailors in port that day spoke only Swedish, a language the Count did not have even the faintest smattering of, so soon he gave up in disgust and approached young Tandy.

“I remember,” said Count Victor Justin to Cadger Tandy, “old Sam Floyd just now telling me that he didn’t want no immigrant scum polluting the fair shores of our great country. “Generations of convicts deported en masse from the United Kingdom and God knows where else wash up as flotsam on shores strange to them,” says he. “Pestilential hordes of common drunkards, criminalistic imbeciles, hereditary idiots, filthy deviants, and certifiable morons all commingle to culminate in the formation of these rabble.” He says he’s planning to give a speech on the topic.

“And I’ll tell yuh whut–that Sam Floyd can spiel. Remembuh as I was tellin’ yuh before about the run-in he had with the cross-road clowns down south about fifty years ago? Well, there was an aftermath to that ‘ar story. D’ye have time for a walk?”

So the boy and the old man walked along the docks, where seagulls skirled and the strong smell of tar, turpentine, rotting fish and sea-water pervaded the atmosphere.

“Sam said that once he had escaped from the clutches of Johnny Law, he didn’t go back to the Carnival right away. “‘No–instead, I set me down on a log on the outskirts of that tiny Southern Hamlet and commenced to thinkin’,'” said he. “Thinkin’ clearly. Thinkin’ clearly for the very first time in my life. There’s nothing quite like almost dyin’ to clarify your mind. And it changed my life. And I was only 23.

‘First, I asked myself some questions. Who are we? What are we here for? And why? I was experiencin’ the let-down feeling that every red-blooded man feels after a bout of high excitement. And then I got up, and I sot down agin, and started thinking some more. Nobody lives forever. But some damn fools never live at all. Because a brain that doesn’t think is not a brain at all. It’s just a ghastly chunk of nearly pellucid blubber. So think. What is a man, anyway? An animal. Little better than a howling monkey, and nowhere near as strong. Working around a carny, you see a lot of apes and monkeys and how they do. Have you ever been to a zoological garden? And gone to the monkey house? Have you ever noticed that the smaller a monkey is, the more he looks like he wants to kill you? Monkeys have it all figured out. They don’t have no Ten Commandments to tell them what not to do–though if’n they did I imagine there would somethin’ about bananas in there. No, with monkeys, you see, it’s all about power. Just like in a school or a prison. Who gets to do what, and to whom. Look to the monkey for the answer. The weaker guy has it in for the stronger guy. Always. And the stronger guy will fold–if you manage to force his hand. It’s like a pyramid, you see. There’s only room at the top for the strongest. The pharaohs knew that for a fact. That’s why they built their tombs in pyramids. And murdered thousands of slaves to build ’em. South of any border you care to name, human life is always cheap.

‘But we happen to be more refined. Or so we tell ourselves. You don’t have to kill a man to dominate him, you know. You just have to always keep him confused, and guessing about what you’re going to do next. There’s a recipe to build a stool pigeon!

‘If there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that human life is cheap. When someone close to you dies, it’s a calamity. When some great eminence dies, it’s a tragedy. But what if there’s a flood on the Yangtze, and three thousand Chinese peasants die? Or thirty thousand? Or three-hundred thousand? It’s a shame and a scandal, but nobody loses any sleep over it. It might be on page two of the newspaper. Or it might just as easily be on page twenty-seven.

‘What? Do you really think that the newspaper is where they print the truth? And what’s important? The plain fact of the matter is that the news is there to reinforce what you’ve already been told to believe. All news stories are written in advance. All they do is fill in the details to tell you what they want you to know. Everything else that isn’t a part of the big story that they’re promoting gets ignored or buried. T’was ever thus. Troublemakers are quickly silenced. T’was ever thus. If you believe otherwise, then you, brother, are a fool.

‘Thoughtful people might ask how God can allow thousands to die. Some chalk it up to “His Inscrutable Will”. Which is as slick an explanation as any first-rate con man or Philadelphia Lawyer could ever cook up, I’ll warrant. Everybody else–just turns their heads. By tomorrow, it’s practically forgotten. Some missionary will collect money for it, or pretend to, as most of the money will no doubt go right into his pocket. I don’t begrudge him none. No grifter would. It’s the smart move. When I was on me uppers, collecting for “charity” got me out of many a tight fix.

‘Everybody else–well, they have their own problems. Most folks figure that there’s nothing they can do. And they’re about right. That’s just about the long and the short of it. T’was ever thus. Only a fool thinks any different.’

‘Any man with eyes to see and ears to hear must figure out in time that there are only three iron laws to society. To comfort the comfortable. To afflict the afflicted. And, by far the most important law, as old as Aesop, as old as human nature: Any excuse will serve a tyrant. Keep those three laws in mind–and you can never go too far wrong.

‘Because half the world lives in misery–and the other half has no shame. T’was ever thus.’

1* SALUTATION
PENTANGLE
SWEET CHILD

LIGHT FLIGHT

THE WHEEL (ALTERNATE VERSION)

THE TIME HAS COME (LIVE 1968)

2* REFERENCE
HOW TO GET RID OF BOILS
hirabeautytips.com/how-to-get-rid-of-boils-overnight/

3*HUMOR
WHAT THE SCOTS DO FOR FUN
http://www.horntip.com/html/books_&_MSS/1970s/1976_bawdy_monologues_and_rhymed_recitation__g_legman_(article)/index.htm

4*NOVELTY
WHEN ALCOHOL RUINS PARTIES
sciencenordic.com/when-alcohol-ruins-holidays-%E2%80%94-and-beyond

ALSO SEE:
HOW ALCOHOL RUINS YOUR LOOKS AND YOUR HEALTH
http://www.bustle.com/articles/9645-5-sneaky-ways-alcohol-undermines-your-health-and-looks

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
BODY FOUND IN BEER COOLER AT ATLANTA BRAVES STADIUM
“What do you mean? Why shouldn’t I drink the beer? It’s still cold.”
abc11.com/body-found-in-beer-cooler-at-atlanta-braves-stadium/3661922/

6* DAILY UTILITY
FRANCIS BACON ON CONFIRMATION BIAS
BY PETER LEVINE
http://peterlevine.ws/?p=13386

7*CARTOON
DENNIS COOPER
ZAC’S HAUNTED HOUSE
A NOVEL COMPOSED ENTIRELY OF ANIMATED GIFS
http://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qbeybm/a-haunted-house-novel-composed-entirely-of-animated-gifs-194

8*PRESCRIPTION
SONGS RUINED BY SHITTY MOVIES
It’s become nauseatingly predictable that some great little niche song will be wrenched out of its original context and used to provide emotional heft to an otherwise mediocre movie.

That’s why I no longer go to the movies.
https://www.toptenz.net/top-10-badass-songs-the-movies-have-ruined.php
A Collection of Songs Ruined by Film, TV, and Humanity
http://whatculture.com/film/13-cringe-worthy-movie-moments-completely-ruined-great-songs

ALSO SEE:
MUSIC RUINED BY MOVIES
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/music-ruined-by-movies

9* RUMOR PATROL
WHAT A NUCLEAR ATTACK ON NYC WOULD LOOK LIKE
nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/06/what-a-nuclear-attack-in-new-york-would-look-like.html

Cool!

Then the Boston music scene would finally have a chance.

10* LAGNIAPPE
DAVID ROVICS
WHO WOULD JESUS BOMB?

VIA:
CHRISTIAN COMMUNIST MUSIC

ALSO SEE:
COMMUNIST MUSIC
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=One+Hour+of+Norwegian+Communist+Music
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=One+Hour+of++Communist+Music

SEE ALSO:
Philip Koutev National Folk Ensemble – Bulgarian Polyphony, Vol.1
This was allegedly quite popular among musicians in the late 60s.

ALSO SEE:
THE MINUTEMEN
BOB DYLAN WROTE PROPAGANDA SONGS

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT: A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
THE MAGIC POLICEMAN
What are 10 things police officers wish they could tell you, but can’t?
Dave Roberts, BA Criminal Justice & Speech Communication, University of Dubuque (1990)

Here is my list, (I went to 20):

“If the average person knew the state of law enforcement in this country, they couldn’t sleep at night” – from one of my academy instructor’s lectures. Nothing has changed in 28 years. There is a reason why I always carry a gun off-duty and try to talk all of my loved ones into at least owning a firearm.
There are a lot less of us out on the street than you know. Take your local agency’s head count, lop off about 20 percent for administrative assignments, then divide the remaining amount by three or four (shifts). Then subtract about a quarter for those on days off/sick days/limited duty/training/vacation. Make it a busy night and no cars will be available and the calls pile up…and pile up.
After about three years, most officers become civil service workers. They are not looking to invent new case law or do more paperwork. At five to seven years, most officers think about another line of work. If they pass that hurdle, they can last 20. At 20 plus years, unless you are driving like you are competing in the Indy-500, you’re not getting stopped and you have to really, really work to be arrested.
The job is not nearly as exciting as portrayed on Cops or other television shows. There is an inordinate amount of paperwork – at times it seems like we are glorified secretaries with guns.
When we arrive on scene, we instantaneously know who is going to jail: the guy with no shirt (or wearing a “wife-beater”) with a mullet, usually standing in the middle of the road puffing up.
Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, good happens after midnight.
Don’t expect me to fix in under 15-minutes what took you ten years to destroy.
Don’t expect me to raise your kids. You decided for years to raise feral children with no discipline or sense of social responsibility, I can’t do much in a few minutes.
None of us care who you know. If you had any real juice; you’d not say anything, but would just smile and accept the citation or arrest and magically, behind the scenes, things would be fixed. I’ve dealt with the really connected people and have seen how they can manipulate the system – and that obviously ain’t you.
You can’t get our badge. Trust me, we hear that all the time. Just like how you will sue – get in line. Again, if you had power, you’d be as inconspicuous as possible.
Attitude goes a long way. I’ve cited people I originally was going to warn and warned people who I was going to cite. Same with arrests.
If we have to fight you or shoot you, we will be the first to give you medical treatment.
We are not trained as social workers or psychologists but that is a big portion of our jobs. When no one else is available or can help, it seems like a good time to call the police department.
When we are trying to help you and you feel like we are trying to shove a square peg into a round hole – we feel the same way. The laws and policies don’t make much sense to us either.
Law enforcement is one of only two jobs where everyone is an “expert” with no training or experience. The other one is being a head football coach.
I sincerely apologize when we forget to be empathic. While this our 500th burglary, this is your first time being violated. While this is our 200th dead body call, it’s your first.
I don’t care about your prior bad experience with law enforcement. I’m here now. I’ve had bad experiences with plumbers, physicians and barbers, but I don’t stereotype a whole profession off of one experience.
Our cars aren’t much different than yours. Sure we have a snazzy paint job, some special lights and a radio, but we can get as stuck as easily as you, we can have an accident just like you and we can’t stop on a dime. And, we’re limited on how fast we can get to a call. We can’t go warp speed nor get traffic to part, like Moses did with the sea.
We really don’t care what race, sex or ethnic group you belong to, we are trying to get this issue resolved before going to the next call.
We all H-A-T-E when you scare your young kids by threatening them by telling them we will arrest them. Really? Way to make your kids the next generation of cop-haters and they are now petrified to approach us if they’re in danger or lost.

*11A BOOKS REVIEWED AND RATED
47 RONIN. RICHARDSON & SAKAI. ****1/2
ALL SUMMER LONG. LARSON. ***
ALL THE ANSWERS. KUPPERMAN. ****
ALL-STAR BATMAN 3. THE FIRST ALLY. ***1/2
ALPHA: ABIDJAN TO PARIS. BESSORA & BARROUX. ****1/2
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN BY JMS. ULT. COLL 1. ***1/2
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. VENOM, INC. **1/2
ARCHIE VOL. 5. ***1/2
ASTONISHING X-MEN. WHEDON. ***1/2
BART SIMPSON BUST-UP. ***1/2
BATGIRL 3. SUMMER OF LIES. **1/2
BATMAN BEYOND 2. RISE OF THE DEMON. ***1/2
BATMAN LEGACY 2. ***1/2.
BLACK PANTHER. CULVER. ***
BLACK PANTHER: LONG LIVE THE KING. **1/2
BLACK PANTHER: SHURI: THE DEADLIEST OF THE SPECIES. ***1/2
BLONDES, BRUNETTES & BULLETS. GRANLUND. ***1/2
BYRON IN LOVE. O’BRIEN. ****1/2
DAMON RUNYON. BRESLIN. ****
DC/WILDSTORM. DREAMWAR. **1/2
THE DECLINE & FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. VOLUME 1. GIBBON. *****
FAITH & THE FUTURE FORCE. ***1/2
FIREBUG. CHRISTMAS & BONVILLAIN. ***
GENERATION X 2. SURVIVAL OF THE FITEST. ***
H.G. WELLS’ THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU. ***
HOW DEMOCRACIES DIE. LEVITSKY & ZIBLATT. ****1/2
JAMES JOYCE. O’BRIEN. ****1/2
LOVE THAT BUNCH! KOMINSKY-CRUMB. ****
MARVEL’S ANT-MAN & THE WASP. PRELUDE. ***
THE MASTER SWITCH. YU. ****1/2
MEAN GIRLS CLUB: PINK DAWN. HESHKA. ***1/2
ON THE TOWN. BERMAN. ****
THE OUTSIDERS. THE DEEP. ***
THE PAIN TREE. ***1/2
PETER PARKER THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN 2. MOST WANTED. ***
REFRESH, REFRESH. NOVGORODOFF, ET AL. ****1/2
RIGHT HERE ON OUR STAGE TONIGHT! NACHMAN. ****
ROCK STEADY. FORNEY. ****
RUNAWAYS 1. FIND YOUR WAY HOME. ***
SABRINA. DRNASO. ****1/2
SALLY HEATHCOTE SUFFRAGETTE. TALBOT, ET AL. ****1/2
SATOSHI KON’S OPUS. ***1/2
SIMPSONS COMICS. GAME ON. **1/2
THE SMEAR. ATTKISSON. ***1/2
SPIDER-MAN/DEADPOOL 5. **1/2
STORYWORTHY. DICKS. ****
SUPERGIRL 3. GIRL OF NO TOMORROW. ***
WHAT TO DO WHEN I’M GONE. HOPKINS & BATEMAN. ****
YOUR BLACK FRIEND & OTHER STRANGERS. PASSMORE. ***1/2

12* CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
CURMUDGEONS
H.L. Mencken
Samuel Johnson
William Randolph Hearst
Winston Churchill
Richard Nixon
Ambrose Bierce
Mark Twain
William Burroughs
W.C. Fields
George Carlin
G.K. Chesterton
Florence King

What do they have in common? Curmudgeons all. (Not to mention such fictional curmudgeons such as Ignatius O’Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces; and classic comic-strip curmudgeons such as Everett True, The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang, and Major Hoople.)

What qualities define a curmudgeon?

1) An intrinsic loathing of novelty for novelty’s sake. (“Nothing odd will do for long.”–Samuel Johnson.)
2) An outlook on life which is essentially sour, and even satirical, in the classic mode. (“The damnable human race.”–Mark Twain.) It does not have to be humorous, although many curmudgeons are quite witty.
3) A loathing of sham and pretense and a hatred of hypocrisy. (“How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”– Samuel Johnson.)
4) Misanthropy to varying degrees. ( “Women are like elephants. I like to look at ’em, but I wouldn’t want to own one.” –W. C. Fields)
5) Politics which tend toward the reactionary. (“Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.”–H.L. Mencken.)
6) Dyspepsia; often exacerbated by a love for booze, rich food, and cigars. (“If heaven has no cigars, I shall not go there.” Mark Twain. )
7) Honesty; a tendency to be brutally frank. ( “I’d rather rot on my own floor than be found by a bunch of bingo players in a nursing home.” –Florence King.)
8) A propensity to nurse grudges. (“The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.”–Mark Twain.)
9) An active dislike of and often an open hostility to received opinion and cant. ( “The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.” –William Hazlitt.)
10) Fearlessness in expressing an opinion, with no hedging, fudging, or shilly-shallying.( “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” ― George Carlin.)

THE INFORMATION #999 JUNE 29, 2018

THE INFORMATION #999
JUNE 29, 2018
Copyright 2018 FRANCIS DIMENNO
dimenno@gmail.com
https://dimenno.wordpress.com

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.–Shakespeare

WHEN THIS WORLD CATCHES FIRE
BOOK THREE: SAVAGE NOXTOWN
CHAPTER TWELVE: PART SIXTEEN: THE EASTERN GATE OF PARADISE

The High Sheriff, whose name was Pike, was surely no Sweet Betsy from Pike, and that was a natural fact. He had it in for carnies and traveling folk of all stripes, and although I didn’t realize it at the time, he took it upon himself to make their lives a misery. The nearby creek ran through a place called Hickory Holler and show-folk said, I learned years later, that it was haunted with the restless spirits of smart-mouthed drummers, talky clowns, grab-ass geeks, and hard-luck hobos what had had an unfortunate encounter with this particular Sheriff name of Pike. If I knew at the time just how dangerous that particular High Sheriff was, I would of shit my breeches for real. Only I wasn’t wearing none. Sheriff’s Deputy Hoxie had told me to strip naked, and I had done so.

Pike turned to Hoxie and said, “What kind of prayer did he say, just before I interrupted your holy ceremony? Was it a Papist Prayer?” “Naww, Opie, it was a good old Protestant hymn.” “That’s good,” said O.P. Pike, “At least he’s a prayin’ man. He’s gonna need it, where he’s goin’.”

I didn’t know how it was possible, but I began to sweat even harder. I was just about to piss myself when Pike turned to me and said, “Are you some kind of carpetbagger, boy?” “No Sir,” I said. “I’m a son of the south both born and bred.” “A very pretty speech,” said Pike. “But it aion’t gonna help you none.” “Shall I shoot him now, Sherf?” said Hoxie, and there was something of a shrill urgency in the adenoidal Deputy’s voice. “Not now,” said Pike. “I ain’t through with interrogating him yet.” “Say whut?” said Hoxie. “I got a few more questions I needs to axt him.”

“So,” said Pike, “if you ain’t a carpetbagger then you must be some kind of scalawag. I thought we chased your kind out of here years ago.”

“No Sir,” I started to say, and then I felt the butt of a rifle on the back of my neck, and I got so sick to my stomach that I coughed up some sort of red bile, and at that moment I actually did piss myself. My water trickled into the warm dirt, and, thankfully, none of it splashed on the high sheriff, or I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale.

“Don’t you contradict me, or I’ll castrate you, you miserable Yankee dog.”

“Go ahead and cut my nuts off, but I ain’t no Yankee,” said I. I had stuck the word “ain’t” in there so they wouldn’t think I was putting on airs, like a big-city fancy-man.

I was expecting at any moment to get shot, or to feel the stock of the rifle on the back of my neck again. But nothing happened,. I looked up. Hoxie was standing around and shifting his weight uneasily and looking a mite sickly himself. “You must be some kind of scalawag for sure.” said the High Sheriff.

I didn’t open my mouth.

“Have you made your peace with your maker?”

“Look,” I said, with courage I never knew i had. “If you’re going to shoot me, Sheriff, then why don’t you get down to it? Fish or cut bait. I didn’t do anything wrong except to take in some of the sights around here, in the little town where I happened to be born.”

“You was born here, was you?” said the High Sheriff, with a grin. “I suppose you think that you’re some punkins. I guess you thought you were going to have a gay old time here, pokin’ fun at the yokels you left behind here to rot, and molestin’ our womenfolk. I know everything there is to know about you carnival types, boy. I’ve seen every type of a gyp show and a huckster wagon pass through these parts, and yourn is the worst by far. Do you think those honest farm folks and their hard-workin’ and long-sufferin’ wives need to be exposed to the type of degrading carnival filth you Yankees have got infestin’ your midway? Those short-change artists and those rigged gambling games and those inhuman polluted spectacles you got in that freak show? Boy, I’ve been around, and I ain’t no shrinkin’ violet, but some of those exhibits you got there just beat all. And that moss-haired girl–nearly named as a jaybird, and a common prostitute to boot.”

My blood rose hot in my throat. I stood up. I looked the High Sheriff dead in the eye and God damn me if i wasn’t mad enough to spit in his face. “Don’t you slander HER! Miss Wax is gentle and kind, and as sweet and innocent as the new-mown hay!”

The High Sheriff laughed, and held up both of his hands. “I guess you’re sort of sweet on that twitchet, hey? Well, it’s really too bad, because–”

Pike made a gesture then, and Hoxie raised his pistol.

At that moment the other Sheriff’s Deputy rode up on his horse; the silent one, whose name I never did get, even though I owe him my life. He didn’t bother to dismount, and he wasn’t aiming his rifle at me. He had a hurried confab with the High Sheriff. All the while Hoxie had his pistol pointed at me, and I knew he wouldn’t miss, so I didn’t even try to run. Pike turned from the Deputy on horseback and gave me what looked to be a fatherly grin. He even called me “Son.” “Put your clo’s back on, Son,” said he. I did so, with some alacrity, lest he change his mind.

“Why,” said Pike, “didn’t you say you were the son of Colonel Floyd of the third regiment? I fought beside that man at the battle of Antietam. A braver soldier I never knowed. Why, he even saved my life, onct. I was skylarkin’ at the front ramparts and showed my head and the Colonel shoved me to the ground and said “Get down, you goddamned fool,”. Just then, a bunch of minie balls went over our heads like a swarm of angry bees. I’d of had my head blown clean off if it wudn’t for yore Paw. Let’s us have a drink,” said Pike, and he took out a flask. I wasn’t much of a drinkin’ man, then nor now, but I took a long pull and felt the warmth of the moonshine circulating though every inch of my sweat-soaked body. “That’s the way,” said Pike. (I noticed he didn’t offer any to Hoxie, who just stood back, hopping from one leg to the other, like he had an itch he dast not scratch.) “In memory of your paw. How is he, anyway?” “I haven’t seen him lately. Not for about twenty years, Sheriff.” “Well, last as I saw him, right after the war, him and me rode with the night riders. We did a lot of good around here, before the Federals came in. No uppity Nigras in these parts–no SIR! Now, what became of your Paw after that, I couldn’t say.” Once again Hoxie started balancing his weight on one foot, and then the other. “You’ve got to allow for Hoxie,” said High Sheriff Pike. “He may be a tad over-zealous, but he does a good job and he’s a brave man and he didn’t know what to make of you. Now, don’t you let our little misunderstanding put you off our town. You’re a Floyd; you can come back here anytime you like and settle down. We lost a lot of good men in the war. Only don’t be bringin’ that carnival with you. What you doin’ with that carnival nonsense anyway, Boy? You remind me of the Prodigal Son, muckin’ around with the hogs. Ain’t you got no natural sense? Ah, well, the apple never falls far from the tree. You’re your father’s son, all right. The Colonel was also a bit of a scamp when he was a young ‘un.”

“By the way,” said Pike, “what was you doin’ over t’ the water tower anyway?”

“Well, Sheriff, I suppose I was fixin’ to climb to the top and carve my initials there.”

“Son, you are one lucky bastid,” The High Sheriff laughed. He was really yukking it up. “All I can say is that it’s a good thing ole Hoxie caught up with you when he did. Because, ” said the Sheriff with a wide grin. “Before you got half-way back down that ladder,” and he put his wide hand in front of his narrow mouth and whispered, “why–he would of shot you in the back–and you’d be dead as a doornail!”

1* SALUTATION
THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN
FREE MONEY

2* REFERENCE
SWINBURNE’S REJOINDER TO EMERSON
A foul mouth is so ill matched with a white beard that I would gladly believe the newspaper scribes alone responsible for the bestial utterances which they declare to have dropped from a teacher whom such disciples as these exhibit, to our disgust and compassion, as performing on their obscene platform the last tricks of tongue now possible to a gap-toothed and hoary-headed ape, carried first into notice on the shoulder of Carlyle, and who now, in his dotage, spits and chatters from a dirtier perch of his own finding and fouling; Coryphaeus or choragus of his Bulgarian tribe of autocoprophagous baboons who make the filth they feed on.

FULL TEXT:
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/07/a-gap-toothed-hoary-headed-ape.html

3*HUMOR
S’ALRIGHT? S’ALRIGHT!

4*NOVELTY
STUPID INTERNET QUESTIONS
https://www.google.com/search?q=stupid+internet+questions&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiy-u3NhdHbAhWMjVkKHfcPBm0Q_AUICigB&biw=1366&bih=662#imgrc=ohU_mM5oEKFCRM:

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
JIMMY OLSEN ROCK & ROLL
misfitdaydream.blogspot.com/2013/10/so-jimmy-olsen-you-wanna-be-rock-n-roll.html

ALSO SEE:
TV TROPES: THE NEW ROCK AND ROLL
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheNewRockAndRoll

SEE ALSO:
GUY COLWELL: RADICAL ROCK
http://www.tcj.com/reviews/inner-city-romance-2/

6* DAILY UTILITY
OCD
Schwartz explained that people afflicted with OCD engage in a wide variety of problematic behaviors — compulsive hand washing, door opening, repetitive checking of ovens and doors, even repeating the same word, phrase or sentence. The cause, at a neurological level, is hyperconnectivity between two brain regions, the orbitofrontal cortex and the caudate nucleus, creating a tidal wave of unfounded mortal fear and triggering habitual response as the only way to attain calm. But the worst part is that, despite recognition that all these thoughts and behaviors are irrational, the OCD sufferer feels driven to obey them, nonetheless.
discovermagazine.com/2013/nov/14-defense-free-will

7*CARTOON
THE BOBBY FULLER FOUR
The Bobby Fuller Four was in the tradition of Buddy Holly. It’s a shame what happened. Rock might have gone in a slightly different direction had Bobby Fuller lived. But at least we have this; a hint of what might have been:
LET HER DANCE

ALSO SEE:
LOSER SONGS
ultimateclassicrock.com/top-loser-songs/

8*PRESCRIPTION
CONTRA STAR WARS TROLLS
http://www.wired.com/2018/06/geeks-guide-star-wars-trolls/

9* RUMOR PATROL
TOO SMART FOR STRANGERS
WITH WINNIE THE POOH

10* LAGNIAPPE
SADDEST SONGS EVER
AL JOLSON
SONNY BOY

A lot of these came out in the early 1970s. Maybe the strain of melancholy was on account of the end of the counterculture dream, what with Manson and Altamont. And because everybody was crashing after taking bad speed. And because there was a marijuana drought and the music biz was being flooded with heroin in the early 70s.

SEE ALSO:
RANDY NEWMAN
I THINK IT’S GOING TO RAIN TODAY

HARRY NILSSON
LIFELINE

LOU REED
THE KIDS

BEE GEES
I LAY DOWN AND CRY

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT: A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
BEE GEES
ALONE AGAIN
The Bee Gees of the late 60s and early 70s remind me of a sluggish, strangulated, inbred, Australian Bizarro World version of the Beatles.

This track in particular:

12* CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
JET: DECONSTRUCTED
This sure is a bitchin’ tune. I thought so, when it first came out. But what is it even about? All I can make out is some nonsense about a “sergeant major”.

THE INFORMATION #998 JUNE 22, 2018

THE INFORMATION #998
JUNE 22, 2018
Copyright 2018 FRANCIS DIMENNO
dimenno@gmail.com
https://dimenno.wordpress.com

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying. –Martin Luther

WHEN THIS WORLD CATCHES FIRE
BOOK THREE: SAVAGE NOXTOWN
CHAPTER TWELVE: PART FIFTEEN: THE EASTERN GATE OF PARADISE

Seeing as how Sheriff Hoxie was holding a gun to my head, literally, I got down on my prayer dukes in the dust, nekkid as a jaybird, and with just about as much composure as I could muster and not one iota more. I struggled to recall some words of prayer, and came up empty. My brain was tired and was working the third shift. I finally recalled the words of an old hymn, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me….”

It was then that I heard the hoofbeats of approaching horses. I didn’t know it then, though I sure do know it now: news of any kind travels fast in a village or hamlet. Later on, I imagined that the boys were all sittin’ around a-chewin’ the fat down t’ the general store when word came of funny doin’s over t’ the water tower. So the High Sheriff and his other Deputy must of saddled up, and there they were now, galloping down to that very location to see what big doin’s were afoot.

The High Sheriff was a man whose name, I later learned, was Oliver Percival Pike, only nobody dast call him Oliver Percival, not even his wife, who called him O.P., along with everybody else who didn’t call him Sherf. And if you was a Nigra who had won his condescending favor, you could call him “Boss,” or “Mr. Opie,” and he wouldn’t pay no never mind.

High Sheriff Pike dismounted from the saddle of his horse right smart for an old man–as I could see from the corner of my eye. He kind of looked like a grouchy Walrus. He had a big white mustache, and wore a fancy cowboy hat, and he sported silver spurs on his shit-caked boots.

His other Deputy hung back and stayed on his hoss. I never did learn his name.

The first thing the High Sheriff done was draw his Deputy, Hoxie, aside. I could see from the corner of my eye that the Deputy on the other hoss had me covered with a big, heavy shotgun. I might of taken a chance and made a run for it, but I know that the slightest miscalculation on my part would almost certainly result in a fatal wound, and I surely did not want to die in the dust of a weedy vacant lot hard by a stinking red clay river.

So I kneeled there in the dust and didn’t twitch a muscle.

I overheard Pike and Hoxie talking, but could only make out scattered words: “Sam Floyd…says he’s a Baptist…with the carnival…pigsticker the size of your arm…bad character…up to no good fer sher….”

I didn’t realize this at the time, but I’m sure that they meant for me to hear what they were saying. That’s just how the police everywhere do, only at the time I was just too damn green to know it.

Sheriff Pike then walked over to the Deputy on his horse and talked to him for a minute–I couldn’t hear what he was saying–then the deputy on his horse nodded and galloped away. It was then that I had a queer feeling–like I was falling away entirely–first my knees, then my stomach, then my neck, then my teeth and my jawbone, and finally, my eyes and then the top of my head. It was an awful, sick feeling. To know that I was a dead man. And that I was going to die in the dust like a hog. Vultures would pick away at my eyebrows. Ants would swarm over my skin. Worms would devour my rotting carcass. The Red & Black Carnival would move on for greener pastures early the very next morning. The owner, Colonel Gentleman, would figure that I had jumped ship, or that maybe I was shacking up with a Grass Widow, and no inquiries would be made, discreet or otherwise, and no one would miss me ner ever learn what had become of me.

It was a strangely liberating feeling. I didn’t want to die, but I had the notion that if I did, then all my troubles would be forever over, and I would be at rest at last. Even then, I had no notion of heaven or hell. Not even in that extremity. I thought that beyond the vale of tears was simply–nothing. Otherwise, it would just be too cruel. And I also thought that the world would have to go on without me. And be no better ner no worst than before. It was a most humbling experience. I hadn’t yet made my mark, as I had fully intended to, once the time was right–and yet, it simply didn’t matter, somehow. Did it? Because I–we–all of us–were dust. I saw that as clear as day. Dust. That’s all. Food for worms and flies. And all of us, without exception, are destined to be scattered–scattered to the four winds. Maybe there was a fifth wind, I thought, half-mad with fear–a wind they never talk about–a wind which sweeps up all the forgotten souls and deposits them somewhere into the vast unknown.

Well, I would find out for myself–and soon enough.

But then I came to my right senses, and I started to sweat and shiver. My heart was racing. My knees were trembling. And the big High Sheriff loomed over me and his shadow blotted out the sun. That was a calculated effect, I’m sure, though I didn’t think about it at the time. I could see that the High Sheriff’s Deputy, Hoxie, still had his pistol aimed straight at my heart. I closed my eyes and prayed. Prayed that Hoxie would kill me with a clean shot, and nothing else. Anything but a gut shot.

Time seemed to slow down and nearly stop.

Seconds crawled by. They seemed like minutes, hours, days, eternities. My sweat slowly tricked across my closed eyelids.

“FLOYD!” the High Sheriff boomed. “I say, you there–Floyd!” It sounded, I swear it sounded, like the voice of God. “Floyd!” he said. “Open you Goddamned eyes when I’m talking to you!” The High Sheriff then moved slightly, and was no longer blocking out the sun, and I saw a blinding white light. I squinted. The High Sheriff, who had long jowls, and a nose like a hog, and spat in the dirt with a great deal of vigor, then asked me a series of curious questions.

“Are you a Mason?”
“No Sir.”
“Are you a Yankee?”
“No Sir.”
“Good. What was the name of General Lee’s horse?”
“Traveller, Sir.”
“What was the name of the late War?”
“The War of Northern Aggression, Sir.”
“Who was Abraham Lincoln?”
“The Devil, Sir.”
He looked at me.
“The Original Baboon. Sir.”

High Sheriff Pike seemed satisfied with the answers. But I hadn’t been left off the hook just yet. Far from it.

1* SALUTATION
MERCY
LOVE CAN MAKE YOU HAPPY

ALSO SEE:
THE SHADES OF BLUE
OH HOW HAPPY

SEE ALSO:
BRENDA HOLLOWAY
WHEN I’M GONE

2* REFERENCE
The Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale
https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/LSRP.php

ALSO SEE:
EINSTEIN, RACIST
https://sputniknews.com/world/201806131065360060-einstein-travel-diaries/

3*HUMOR
Snagglepuss is Gay. And so was Huckleberry Hound, apparently.
https://www.cbr.com/snagglepuss-gay-hanna-barber-cartoon-canon/

ALSO SEE:
WHY BERT LAHR SUED
His most famous is his perpetual exclamation, “Heavens to Murgatroyd!” – a line first uttered by Bert Lahr in the film Meet the People (1944).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snagglepuss

4*NOVELTY
JOHN COLTRANE
LOST COMPOSITION: UNTITLED ORIGINAL 11383

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/jun/08/lost-1963-john-coltrane-album-discovered

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
ADAM CAROLLA’S WORK ADVICE FOR YOUNGSTERS
Something called PragerU is running these noxious ads on youtube clips. Here is their latest abomination:
http://www.prageru.com/videos/adam-carolla-dont-make-things-worse

And my rejoinder:
SHUT UP, FATSO BOSS! You pay ’em shit; you make ’em eat shit; and then you expect ’em to croak their gratitude through shit-smeared lips. Why don’t you kill yourself, you despicable fascist looter! Eat shit and die, you smug little butterball turkey!

6* DAILY UTILITY
GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES (1988)

7*CARTOON
PLAY NICE, NORTH KOREA!
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/1633fee11fdcf807?projector=1

ALSO SEE:
CARTOON ALL-STARS TO THE RESCUE
Tiresome half-hour anti-drug PSA.

SEE ALSO:
TOP TEN JUST SAY NO SPECIALS
http://www.thefix.com/content/top-ten-just-say-no-tv-specials2076?page=all

ALSO SEE:
SOOTHING VIDEOS FOR DOGS

8*PRESCRIPTION
A SHORT HISTORY OF CLOWNS AND WHY THEY ARE SO TERRIFYING
theghostdiaries.com/a-short-history-of-clowns-and-why-they-are-so-terrifying/

9* RUMOR PATROL
PETER LEVENDA INTERVIEWED

ALSO SEE:
Cass Elliott from The Mamas and The Papas in an orgy with Yul Brynner, Peter Sellers and Warren Beatty.
https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?2306-Strange-Timing-amp-Motive-In-Polanski-Arrest/page3#.Wx_v0dJKjIU

SEE ALSO:
ACOUSTIC KITTY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_Kitty

10* LAGNIAPPE
THE FLYING BURRITO BROTHERS
WHY ARE YOU CRYING?

ALSO SEE:
FATS WALLER
THERE’LL BE SOME CHANGES MADE

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT: A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
THE MOST DANGEROUS BOOK IN THE WORLD
http://www.simardartizanfarm.ca/ARK/9-11%20As%20A%20Mass%20Ritual.pdf

12* CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
HOMEWARD BOUND: DECONSTRUCTED

Homeward Bound
Simon & Garfunkel

I’m sitting in the railway station.
Got a ticket to my destination.
Brilliant rhyme scheme, shrimp! Did you think of that one all by yourself, my little man? I’ve seen better verse on outhouse walls.

On a tour of one-night stands my suitcase and guitar in hand.
Waah! I’m famous and I have to perform for people to make money! Waah!

And every stop is neatly planned for a poet and a one-man band.
Oh Jesus Christ, you insufferable asshole, fuck you and the boat you rode in on.

Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought’s escaping,
Huh? What the fuck does that EVEN MEAN??? Prepositions, you preposterous midget, are your friend. Use them.

Home where my music’s playing,
It’s always about you, isn’t it?

Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.
What kind of cackling hag would want to fuck an evil midget like you?

Every day’s an endless stream
Of cigarettes and magazines.
Watch it with the inhaling, shorty, or you might barf.

And each town looks the same to me, the movies and the factories
The movies and the factories? That literally makes NO SENSE.

And every stranger’s face I see reminds me that I long to be,
When you’re a solipsist, every man’s a stranger.

Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought’s escaping,
Home where my music’s playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.
Tonight I’ll sing my songs again,
I’ll play the game and pretend.
You poor fucking baby. I feel so sorry for you.

But all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity
You said it, not me.

Like emptiness in harmony I need someone to comfort me.
What in hell does this even mean??

Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought’s escaping,
Home where my music’s playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.
Silently for me.
Presumably because she choked to death on all your pretentious bullshit, you filthy little dwarf.