Stone-Age Colorado; "Fuck You, Bazooka Joe!"; Psychoanalyst and the Psycho Analyst
The rain fell steadily. The cat slept at the doorstep.
I continue to weave steadily in and out of dreams and stories. Things have stabilized and fallen back into a natural rhythm. The drama isn't gone; it's just become invisible and formulaic; my life has become a genre of itself, full of copycats and derivatives, all with just enough changes to avoid charges of plagiarism. The more vivid and compelling my story becomes, the less desire to tell it, the shorter the explanations. "It's a long story." "It's a sad story." "It's neither here nor there."
And the dreams and the stories bristle up like weeds, no husbandry to cut them down at harvest time, no industry to work the tools that would sever their roots and their stalks, bundle and store them. My mind has become a complex biosphere of vigorous, strong, wild species bonded together by a fearsome, pure-intentioned struggle, each among the others: to live, to die, to grow.
Everything lies still and quiet like a vacant lot, overgrown. Everything sleeps at the doorstep.
I don't write for myself anymore, but I also never really wrote for others. Perhaps that explains why I haven't done it so much. I seldom permit myself to just sit and reflect; in general I only let myself talk if I have something well-formed and structure to say. And I do. But I usually say it just once to some or another person who doesn't quite follow, just for the sake of conversation, or I just say it to myself to keep myself entertained, and then I forget. I read. I think. I work. I wander about. "Some say that culture is nothing other than the struggle between the conscious and the unconscious, between instinct and reason. Our customs are rote and barbarous, projections of our inner minds." "Ordinal relationships are an essential concomitant of the distinction of objects -- this is vaguely hinted at by the equivalence of the Axiom of Choice and the Well-Ordering Principle. We see this principle at work in the scientific method, which tries to compare two attributes of complex phenomena by holding all else equal. I realized this while watching a television advertisement for a travel agency." "War is an instrument for effecting the bankrupcy of nations." "This is a test of our spiritual fitness as a species."
Someone asked me last night, "Where are your friends?"
"I don't know where they are. That's why I'm looking for them," I said.
"Don't you have any?" they said.
"I don't know who they are. I'm trying to find out."
I have a strange tendency to forget or substitute words as I type. I always have, but it's gotten more marked lately. For some reason, vision and sound have become painful. It's as if sense itself has been rubbed raw. I always believed that existence is painful, but this is too vivid a demonstration. It makes me wonder whether this experience somehow underlies my reasons for believing in pain, or whether it is just a convincing laboratory demonstration of a universal law. I never just assume that I'm right. These days, I psychoanalyze my own dreams and stories as they come. It's become a sport, an amusement, a challenge, a parlor game, a rote, barbarous projection of my inner mind, a blood-sport, a trivial amusement, a crushing challenge, a foolish parlor game.
I finally heard back from Fred Flintstone. According to this blog (thanks to chrisamaphone for originally posting the link), the postmaster of Bedrock, Colorado is so tired to getting mail for Fred Flintstone that he had made a custom stamp for all mail to the Flintstones (and the Rubbles): "RETURN TO SENDER: FICTITIOUS CARTOON CHARACTER". So I sent a letter to Fred Flintstone, and indeed, after a little less than a week, my letter returned, with a stamp that did indeed read "RETURN TO SENDER; FICTITIOUS CARTOON CHARACTER." The wonderful thing about the U.S. Postal Service is that they will always make an attempt to deliver your mail, no matter what. Sure, there is an endearing earnest and innocence in this, but there are also many interesting ramifications. One is that you can send mail to cartoon characters, and the post office will actually try to deliver it. Now, of course the postal employees all know that there is no Fred Flintstone, and perhaps are even irritated that you are wasting their time with fake mail. However, much as the U.S. justice system presupposes innocence, the U.S. Postal Service presupposes real intent to communicate. There is, in fact, no way for the postmaster of Bedrock, Colorado to prove that I wasn't really trying to contact Fred Flintstone, earnestly believing that he lived in Colorado, and having some important information to convey. Hence, instead of saying, "RETURN TO JACK-ASS: PRANK MAIL" the stamp says "RETURN TO SENDER: FICTITIOUS CARTOON CHARACTER." I love this. In the fact that I am not guilty of a federal crime for misusing the post office there is the assumption that, when I sent the letter, I was actually unaware that Fred Flintstone is not real and that he does not live in Colorado, implying then that the postmaster of Bedrock, Colorado, is really trying to explain to me that, no, no, I understand your intentions were good, but Fred Flintstone isn't actually real. I love the fact that explanations about what is real and what is fictional can be mediated through bureaucracy.
This immediately raises in my mind the possibility of moving to Bedrock, Colorado, and changing my name to "Fred Flintstone." I would be tempted to march into the post office and angrily proclaim, "My name is Fred Flintstone, and I was expecting some very important correspondence! It's come to my attention that you've failed to deliver it ... !" Perhaps I would start getting prank mail. Someone suggested to me that this could be my life's goal, to move to Bedrock, Colorado, and pretend to be Fred Flintstone. But who is Fred Flintstone? Is he a chauvinist middle-age stone-age boor created by William Hannah and Joseph Barberra about half a century ago? Is he whoever live in Bedrock, Colorado who can receive the mail? Is he some guy with a strange sense of humor? Is he a man who drives a crudely constructed stick-and-stone car with his feet and threatens to hit his wife, or is he just a man? Weirdly, all of our dreams for life seem vaguely like, "Move to Bedrock, Colorado and pretend to be Fred Flintstone." This goal is not so different from "Move to New York City and be high-power stockbroker" or "Move to Hollywood and be a famous actor." We're still just translating in space, changing names, pretending to be different people.
Metropolis, Illinois claims to be "Home of Superman[!]". Perhaps I will send a fan letter to Superman, next. Or better yet, maybe there is a Clark Kent that lives there.
I would also write a nasty letter to Bazooka Joe, but he may be harder to track down. The eye-patch suggests he is somewhat of a shady character. You may recall Bazooka Joe as the protagonist of a series of tiny comics that used to be packaged inside of Bazooka bubblegum and dependent upon one or more extremely poor puns. (Bazooka bubblegum is rarer these days, but still can be found at odd convenience stores). I happened to come into possession of a piece of Bazooka brand bubblegum. I unwraped it, expecting to find a comic, but instead was confronted by only a piece of very hard bubblegum. "Bazooka Joe you son of a bitch! You cheated me!" is what I hollered at no one in particular, or, if you are the U.S. Postal Service, at Bazooka Joe. "Fuck you Bazooka Joe!" The affront was worsened by the discovery of a very vague imprint of a comic inside the outer wrapper, proof that the comics still existed. Being jilted out of a comic was bad enough, but to be jilted out of such a bad one was a gesture of either extreme stinginess or extreme contempt.
Deep in my heart, I hope that Bazooka Joe Comic #1 is the story of how Bazooka Joe lost his eye. Probably, it involved a bazooka (which these days seems almost an antiquated term -- the kids these days would more likely call it a "rocket-propelled grenade (RPG)" even if those two are not exactly the same; to talk about a "bazooka" is a little bit like talking about a "rapier" or an "arquebus." Such is the great progress with which the military industrial complex has blessed us all.), and I'm hoping that it involves a play on the word "eye."
Bonus points for anyone who comes up with a viable realization of this comic. I'm dead serious. I will send you something cool in the mail, though I don't know what it is yet.
I have this macabre vision of a dark and terrible story behind Bazooka Joe's missing eye, which he attempts to forget through a frivolous life of facile word-plays and evanescent comic-character friendships. "Better to be addicted to bad jokes than to be an alcoholic."
What is the difference between conversing with fictional versus actual characters? Both are projections of our social protocols, our cultural biases, our minds. When I was a child, some kids liked the Transformers, but other kids liked the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles better. Some adults won't talk to white people, some adults won't talk to black people. Some adults won't talk to the homeless, the indigent, or the disable or insane. Some adults pretend to be someone else. Some even move to different cities and change their names.
Truly I don't know who my friends are, and truly I hope to find out. I hope that they are not mere fictions of ink and paper, animated by imagination or instinct. I hope that we do not find ourselves on opposite sides of the line between fiction and reality, with the differences dryly explained by bureaucrats, as if to children. I look and look -- we all do -- under the wrappers, over the envelopes, through the directories and databases, and we look because we cannot find ourselves.
The stars fall steadily. Our mail sleeps unopened on the doorstep.
I continue to weave steadily in and out of dreams and stories. Things have stabilized and fallen back into a natural rhythm. The drama isn't gone; it's just become invisible and formulaic; my life has become a genre of itself, full of copycats and derivatives, all with just enough changes to avoid charges of plagiarism. The more vivid and compelling my story becomes, the less desire to tell it, the shorter the explanations. "It's a long story." "It's a sad story." "It's neither here nor there."
And the dreams and the stories bristle up like weeds, no husbandry to cut them down at harvest time, no industry to work the tools that would sever their roots and their stalks, bundle and store them. My mind has become a complex biosphere of vigorous, strong, wild species bonded together by a fearsome, pure-intentioned struggle, each among the others: to live, to die, to grow.
Everything lies still and quiet like a vacant lot, overgrown. Everything sleeps at the doorstep.
I don't write for myself anymore, but I also never really wrote for others. Perhaps that explains why I haven't done it so much. I seldom permit myself to just sit and reflect; in general I only let myself talk if I have something well-formed and structure to say. And I do. But I usually say it just once to some or another person who doesn't quite follow, just for the sake of conversation, or I just say it to myself to keep myself entertained, and then I forget. I read. I think. I work. I wander about. "Some say that culture is nothing other than the struggle between the conscious and the unconscious, between instinct and reason. Our customs are rote and barbarous, projections of our inner minds." "Ordinal relationships are an essential concomitant of the distinction of objects -- this is vaguely hinted at by the equivalence of the Axiom of Choice and the Well-Ordering Principle. We see this principle at work in the scientific method, which tries to compare two attributes of complex phenomena by holding all else equal. I realized this while watching a television advertisement for a travel agency." "War is an instrument for effecting the bankrupcy of nations." "This is a test of our spiritual fitness as a species."
Someone asked me last night, "Where are your friends?"
"I don't know where they are. That's why I'm looking for them," I said.
"Don't you have any?" they said.
"I don't know who they are. I'm trying to find out."
I have a strange tendency to forget or substitute words as I type. I always have, but it's gotten more marked lately. For some reason, vision and sound have become painful. It's as if sense itself has been rubbed raw. I always believed that existence is painful, but this is too vivid a demonstration. It makes me wonder whether this experience somehow underlies my reasons for believing in pain, or whether it is just a convincing laboratory demonstration of a universal law. I never just assume that I'm right. These days, I psychoanalyze my own dreams and stories as they come. It's become a sport, an amusement, a challenge, a parlor game, a rote, barbarous projection of my inner mind, a blood-sport, a trivial amusement, a crushing challenge, a foolish parlor game.
I finally heard back from Fred Flintstone. According to this blog (thanks to chrisamaphone for originally posting the link), the postmaster of Bedrock, Colorado is so tired to getting mail for Fred Flintstone that he had made a custom stamp for all mail to the Flintstones (and the Rubbles): "RETURN TO SENDER: FICTITIOUS CARTOON CHARACTER". So I sent a letter to Fred Flintstone, and indeed, after a little less than a week, my letter returned, with a stamp that did indeed read "RETURN TO SENDER; FICTITIOUS CARTOON CHARACTER." The wonderful thing about the U.S. Postal Service is that they will always make an attempt to deliver your mail, no matter what. Sure, there is an endearing earnest and innocence in this, but there are also many interesting ramifications. One is that you can send mail to cartoon characters, and the post office will actually try to deliver it. Now, of course the postal employees all know that there is no Fred Flintstone, and perhaps are even irritated that you are wasting their time with fake mail. However, much as the U.S. justice system presupposes innocence, the U.S. Postal Service presupposes real intent to communicate. There is, in fact, no way for the postmaster of Bedrock, Colorado to prove that I wasn't really trying to contact Fred Flintstone, earnestly believing that he lived in Colorado, and having some important information to convey. Hence, instead of saying, "RETURN TO JACK-ASS: PRANK MAIL" the stamp says "RETURN TO SENDER: FICTITIOUS CARTOON CHARACTER." I love this. In the fact that I am not guilty of a federal crime for misusing the post office there is the assumption that, when I sent the letter, I was actually unaware that Fred Flintstone is not real and that he does not live in Colorado, implying then that the postmaster of Bedrock, Colorado, is really trying to explain to me that, no, no, I understand your intentions were good, but Fred Flintstone isn't actually real. I love the fact that explanations about what is real and what is fictional can be mediated through bureaucracy.
This immediately raises in my mind the possibility of moving to Bedrock, Colorado, and changing my name to "Fred Flintstone." I would be tempted to march into the post office and angrily proclaim, "My name is Fred Flintstone, and I was expecting some very important correspondence! It's come to my attention that you've failed to deliver it ... !" Perhaps I would start getting prank mail. Someone suggested to me that this could be my life's goal, to move to Bedrock, Colorado, and pretend to be Fred Flintstone. But who is Fred Flintstone? Is he a chauvinist middle-age stone-age boor created by William Hannah and Joseph Barberra about half a century ago? Is he whoever live in Bedrock, Colorado who can receive the mail? Is he some guy with a strange sense of humor? Is he a man who drives a crudely constructed stick-and-stone car with his feet and threatens to hit his wife, or is he just a man? Weirdly, all of our dreams for life seem vaguely like, "Move to Bedrock, Colorado and pretend to be Fred Flintstone." This goal is not so different from "Move to New York City and be high-power stockbroker" or "Move to Hollywood and be a famous actor." We're still just translating in space, changing names, pretending to be different people.
Metropolis, Illinois claims to be "Home of Superman[!]". Perhaps I will send a fan letter to Superman, next. Or better yet, maybe there is a Clark Kent that lives there.
I would also write a nasty letter to Bazooka Joe, but he may be harder to track down. The eye-patch suggests he is somewhat of a shady character. You may recall Bazooka Joe as the protagonist of a series of tiny comics that used to be packaged inside of Bazooka bubblegum and dependent upon one or more extremely poor puns. (Bazooka bubblegum is rarer these days, but still can be found at odd convenience stores). I happened to come into possession of a piece of Bazooka brand bubblegum. I unwraped it, expecting to find a comic, but instead was confronted by only a piece of very hard bubblegum. "Bazooka Joe you son of a bitch! You cheated me!" is what I hollered at no one in particular, or, if you are the U.S. Postal Service, at Bazooka Joe. "Fuck you Bazooka Joe!" The affront was worsened by the discovery of a very vague imprint of a comic inside the outer wrapper, proof that the comics still existed. Being jilted out of a comic was bad enough, but to be jilted out of such a bad one was a gesture of either extreme stinginess or extreme contempt.
Deep in my heart, I hope that Bazooka Joe Comic #1 is the story of how Bazooka Joe lost his eye. Probably, it involved a bazooka (which these days seems almost an antiquated term -- the kids these days would more likely call it a "rocket-propelled grenade (RPG)" even if those two are not exactly the same; to talk about a "bazooka" is a little bit like talking about a "rapier" or an "arquebus." Such is the great progress with which the military industrial complex has blessed us all.), and I'm hoping that it involves a play on the word "eye."
Bonus points for anyone who comes up with a viable realization of this comic. I'm dead serious. I will send you something cool in the mail, though I don't know what it is yet.
I have this macabre vision of a dark and terrible story behind Bazooka Joe's missing eye, which he attempts to forget through a frivolous life of facile word-plays and evanescent comic-character friendships. "Better to be addicted to bad jokes than to be an alcoholic."
What is the difference between conversing with fictional versus actual characters? Both are projections of our social protocols, our cultural biases, our minds. When I was a child, some kids liked the Transformers, but other kids liked the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles better. Some adults won't talk to white people, some adults won't talk to black people. Some adults won't talk to the homeless, the indigent, or the disable or insane. Some adults pretend to be someone else. Some even move to different cities and change their names.
Truly I don't know who my friends are, and truly I hope to find out. I hope that they are not mere fictions of ink and paper, animated by imagination or instinct. I hope that we do not find ourselves on opposite sides of the line between fiction and reality, with the differences dryly explained by bureaucrats, as if to children. I look and look -- we all do -- under the wrappers, over the envelopes, through the directories and databases, and we look because we cannot find ourselves.
The stars fall steadily. Our mail sleeps unopened on the doorstep.