Predictions for 2014

“Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.”

 - Leonard Cohen, Anthem

Well, I predicted some bad shit for 2013 and was, sadly, wrong about the spontaneous combustion of over-tattood people and the resulting loss of innocent bystanders lives. Of course, I mean I’m sad that my prescience was so misplaced. I suppose the up-side is that people didn’t combust and explode.

I was better at some of my other predictions: in 2013 the heterosexual population of America didn’t succumb to The Gay Flu, and traditional marriage survived.  Whew, eh?

So although the accuracy of my predictions is not precisely inversely proportional to my dwindling patience and cognitive functions, it was less than 50-50 last year. But what the hell, I might as well go ahead and predict some stuff for 2014.

1.     French will continue to be the primary language spoken by people from France.

2.     Corporate banks will continue to financially rape and pillage besieged Americans without fear from regulators, prosecutors, or the whimpering whispers of the atrophied individual consciences of their board members.

3.     The rich will continue to get richer.

4.     No one will invent a perpetual motion energy generation machine, an effective cold remedy, or a soupspoon with a built-in thermometer that will beep softly if the soup is too hot.

5.     No one will come up with the answer to the universal question “what could possibly go wrong?” (Although I predict the next-best answer will continue to be, “Nothing too bad surely.”)

6.     No one will discover a new color in the visible light spectrum. In the unlikely event that this prediction is wrong, the new color will positively not be named “grumble”.

7.     An asteroid will not strike earth causing nuclear winter and killing off homo sapiens to make room for the rise of the cockroach evolution. At least this year.

8.     The android Dick Clark will not be perfected in time for New Year’s Eve 2014 and we’ll either have to go to bed early or get drunk enough to enjoy watching the continued decline of one-time-journalist Anderson Cooper.

That was the easy stuff. Now for the more daring predictions for which I’ve become a legend in my own blog.

1.     Strange moth-winged creatures will appear in Tierra Del Fuego, and by the end of 2014 will have conquered South America as far north as Rio De Janeiro.  They will eat the brains of humans shorter than 5 feet and leave taller people alone.

2.     South Americans will evolve into a taller species than humans on other continents and will never, ever adopt the metric system. Because of, you know, the 5 foot tall thing.

3.     Bright LED lights placed at the Southern edge of the Panama Canal and facing south will both attract and deter the mothmen from migrating further north. They will surround the southern border of the Canal flapping their stupid moth wings in frustration. Sadly this lesson will be earned by the sacrifice of millions of short South Americans who will try to deter mothmen with incandescent bulbs and will not survive.

4.     Sustainable LED lighting will become all the rage in North America and we will save hella energy by replacing all those old inefficient lightbulbs. So, silver lining there.

5.     America, bread-basket to the world, will become gluten-free almost over night due to the emergence of a new pest: the wheat boll weevil that destroyes the entire Archers-Daniels-Midland GMO wheat monoculture that will have replaced all the other grain crops produced in the USA. China will win the 2014 “____-basket-to-the world championship” for rice.

6.     Number One on the list of reasons to go to war will continue to be religion, beating out plague, pestilence, invading mothmen, and all other causes combined. The God of Peace will continue to have the last laugh on his pitiful creatures.

Printing Presses and Susceptible Hearts

“Through printing, tender boys and gentle girls, chaste without foul stain, take in whatever mars purity of mind or body; they encourage wantonness, and swallow up the huge gain from it. …

Writing indeed, which brings in gold for us, should be respected and held to be nobler than all goods, unless she has suffered degradation in the brothel of the printing presses. She is a maiden with a pen, a harlot in print. Should you not call her a harlot who makes us excessively amorous? Governed only by avaricious gain, will not that most base woman deserve the name of prostitute, who saps the strength of the young boy by fostering wantonness? This is what the printing presses do: they corrupts susceptible hearts.”

Filippo de Strata, Polemic Against Printing, trans. Shelagh Grier and intro. By Martin Lowry. As quoted here in “ Books Have Their Own Destiny: Essays in Honor of Robert V. Schnucker” edited by Robin Bruce Barnes, Robert Kolb, Paula Presley, Robert V. Schnucker

I suspect this guy’s ok with the spoken and the written word but has a some kind of problem with the printed word. Which is wack – words being words and all. But that’s not what I’m blogging about, which – blogging – would make this guy’s eyes melt. At least this is an ad-free blog so there’s no possibility for avaricious gain for Weeping Sore – at least in writing this blog. Once I’m discovered by a big publishing house thought, all bets are off.

Filippo here seems to think that if a woman is “governed only by avaricious gain” that will foster wantonness. Imagine, if you will, what it would do to any man. Now, while fostering wantonness has long been on my bucket list, I never thought I could get that far down into the bottom of the bucket by merely writing. And don't get me started about "swallowing up the huge gain" from wantonness.

But who wouldn’t be tempted to be wanton, am I right? “Fostering” has this genteel taint of patronizing primitive forms of life - like the little ladies - but in, like, you know, a good way. And it’s a slippery slope from literary wantonness to criminal behavior, like, say pulling off a gentleman’s hat. One man’s wantonness is another man’s assault and battery:

WANTONNESS, crim. law. A licentious act by one man towards the person of another without regard to his rights; as, for example, if a man should attempt to pull off another's hat against his will in order to expose him to ridicule, the offence would be an assault, and if he touched him it would amount to a battery. (q. v.) - A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the UnitedStates. By John Bouvier. Published 1856.

Whether wantonness saps the strength of tender boys is a point I do not care to dispute. But Fillipo says its effect on woman is worse. What’s worse? It makes them whores, what else? Not to put too fine a point on it, but Filippo is a dick. Filippo has whores on his brain if he thinks women who write are  “suffering in the brothel” of the printing press; while it's nobel and brings in gold for guys who write. 

I have to admit though he's inspired me. I'm thinking about adding "Maiden with a Pen; Harlot in Ink" to my calling cards. From there it's a mere leap from a roof with an umbrella to pulling off men's hats.

It all comes down to corrupting susceptible hearts. It’s like the sign on the church across the street where Patti lives: "Become the person you would want others to be". At first glance that might sound like sound advice. Upon reflection, it would be the perfect mission statement for a wanton suicide bomber.

Stress and Excuses

“I’ve had a wonderful evening. This wasn’t it.”

Grucho Marx

I don’t manage stress. I pretty much make a hash of trying to remain calm while stress increasingly bosses me around. I could turn to drugs I suppose. But reality is still there, waiting up and sitting in a chair with its arms crossed over its chest when I try to sneak back in after curfew.

Which wouldn’t be so bad, since I’ve had enough experience making excuses about being late: trust being earned and not demanded, as we all know. See, the cigarette smoke smell on my fingers is from holding the pencil used by other bowlers who smoke when we all used the same pencil to mark our bowling scores. Yeah, I was out bowling. I broke 100.

It’s the tiny detail that makes it real. Not too much embellishment, just a touch. I actually did break 100 once too, so it wasn’t so much a lie as it was a distortion of the order of events that really happened. Kinda like Grucho’s lovely evening.

Once, when I was late for work around Xmas, I said I had a flat tire. Lame, right? But no, because it turns out this guy in a Santa Clause costume stopped to change my tire. Who would make up something like that? The person who won’t just phone in a trite excuse, when they can tell an engaging lie, that’s who.

But what is bad is my stress mismanagement. What used to be little stuff has become bigger and I remain copeless in the face of simple things. Like yesterday, I was late for a sewing class which frankly who cares, right? But I was already a bit tense when I left the house. Then, Nana in the car in front of me slows down for several dozen of the 87 stop lights between me and the class while the lights are still bright green light; because, well they will eventually turn yellow; and in due course almost certainly red; and her reactions aren’t what they used to be when she was, say, 80. So better to just stop at the green ones, or at least pause long enough for me to give her substantial and detailed advice about what she might be doing instead of driving ahead of me when I’m late, like, say, knitting tea cozies for her friends at the retirement home. Or bowling with heavy smokers.

The funny part was that I was the first to arrive because everybody else thought the class began at 9:30 not 9:00. The instructor explained the website had the late time although it was really supposed to be 9:00 (which is what the employee on the phone told me). So of course I said, yup, sure, I thought it was 9:30 too, but I’m early because I wanted to have time to enjoy a cup of coffee and chat about making tea cozies.

At least I can still make good excuses. I suppose my still functioning bullshit skill balances out my diminishing skill at coping with stress. Which, when I think about, is a good trade-off because there are stress-management drugs but as far as I know science hasn’t created a medicine that can enhance one’s skill in making up entertaining excuses for being late.

These Are Chrysanthemums, not Peonies

"Flora, always tall, had grown to be very broad too, and short of breath; but that was not much. Flora, whom he had left a lily, had become a peony; but that was not much. Flora, who had seemed enchanting in all she said and thought, was diffuse and silly. That was much. Flora, who had been spoiled and artless long ago, was determined to be spoiled and artless now. That was a fatal blow."

 - Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

  

Chuck was on to something. As we get older, we shouldn’t be worrying about growing broad, short of breath, or like a blowsy peony – a flower that always tries to hard and wears too much makeup.  In contrast, everybody knows you don’t need to gild a lily. Poor, once enchanting Flora.

As we age and “let ourselves go” we should worry a bit more about becoming silly and diffuse, whatever the hell diffuse means. I think he means we lose focus and concentration. We let our attention span attenuate to the length of time it takes to remember what the Doormouse said. 

I partly concur with Mr. Dickens that the fatal blow, the perfectly avoidable change that age brings which is beyond the pale, is to remain as spoiled as we presumably were when we were young and more like lilies than peonies; when we were more condensed than diffuse. Age can’t afford to remain spoiled. You have to come to terms with the fact that the process of aging is the process of letting go of whatever indulgences you were allowed as a youth.

I part ways with Chuck about artless being a fatal blow. Give me a break. I was clearly artless when I was young. I am even artlesser now. And determined to remain argumentative. But again, I always was; and if you disagree with me on this final point, I will stab you with my eyes.

Spiders and Flies

"Sit up, fed up, low down, go 'round

Down at the bar at the place I'm at

Sitting, drinking, superfic'ly thinking

About the rinsed out blonde on my left

Then I said 'Hi' like a spider to a fly…"

 - The Rolling Stones, The Spider and the Fly

There is a line in the old Rolling Stones song – from back when they were a great band: The Spider and the Fly. The singer is describing a lady he met in a dive bar:  “She was common, flirty, looked about thirty” This was on their album Out of Our Heads, released in 1965. Those were the days you didn't trust anybody over 30.

Then I downloaded it a while back, I got the version of this same song from the album Stripped, recorded live from their Vodoo Lounge Tour in 1995. That line now sounds something like this:

“She was drifty grifty, she looked about fifty.” I’m not sure of the adjectives but I’m sure of the age.

So between 1965 and 1995 fifty became the new thirty. I was younger than the skank in the 1965 dive.  By the time the lyrics changed, I was barely younger than the 1995 skank. When I first heard the song, the woman described was way past her prime. By 1995 we'd come such a long way (baby) that we aren't considered rubbish until we're in our fifties. 

I shudder to think how the Stones would change that line if they played it in 2013. Thanks to Obamacare, the “ladies” that sit in bars like spiders hunting flies will continue to age. This could get very very ugly.

The Miracles of Modern Chemistry

"Gimme that z o l o f t

Gimme a grip, make me love me

Suckin’ ‘em down, I’m happy man

Can feel it inside, makin’ me smile…

Gimme that z o l o f t

No longer pissed and if you don’t bother me

I’m makin’ it through, I’m givin’ my all

When bases are loaded, I’m whacking the ball"

 - Ween, Zoloft

I’ve been plowing the fields of my imagination with a flea comb and can’t find a thing to talk about without using more profanity that I have a grasp of at the moment. And believe me, I have a substantial grasp of profanity. Or would it be more accurate to say that I have a white-knuckled grasp of a substantial store of profanity? 

See? This is why I haven’t blogged in a while. To paraphrase Claude Levi-Strauss, my inability to form a coherent thought is matched by the deficiency of my imagination. And yet, I can still paraphrase Claude, so I’ve got that questionable accomplishment to reassure me.

But I’ll be back, like a case of herpes, just when you began to think I might be gone for good.