Chapter 29 – “What Do You Do?”

Sooner or later, everyone has a bad job. Usually sooner, because first jobs can be a bitch. My first employment, unless you count mowing lawns, was at a mall where I worked in a Pickwick Bookshop. That chain of book stores is now defunct but I am almost eighty percent positive it wasn’t because of hiring me.

You may think that being a bookstore clerk is better than being a burger jockey, but I’m not sure. I love books but you cannot eat them. This meant I missed out on the free nibbling opportunities at the fast food places.

Plus, look at the anxiety faced by a bookstore clerk when confronted by customers with peculiar and terrifying questions:

“I can’t find ‘The Diary of Anne Frank.’ How can you be out of it?” (The question was about Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl. This was a common problem which we tried to solve by displaying the book under A, D, and F. But the main difficulty was that they were looking for it in the fiction section.)

“Do you have Nosy by Gene Paul?” (He wanted Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre for their college class assignment. I wished him good luck in their study of existentialism. “Exis-what?” was the reply.)

“There don’t seem to be any copies of Camelot. We’ve been all over the non-fiction aisles.” (They had some difficulty accepting the fact that the movie and play were based on a novel by T.H. White called The Once and Future King.)

“That book should be in a section called radical cuckoos.” (He was pointing to The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan.)

“This is filth and I do not appreciate my little girl having to see it!” (She was pointing at Nigger: An Autobiography by comedian and social activist Dick Gregory. The book was on a shelf at a little above my eye-level, making it about four-and-a-half feet above her little girl’s eye-level.)

“Which one of these Bibles is the original version?” (I know this seems like an old joke, but yes, I did encounter more than one person who told me they thought there was a version of the Bible that was “written by god.”)

When you interact with customers who are that misinformed, you might prefer instead to be working with hamburger, lettuce, and pickles. You know, because of the higher intelligence. Just how do you deal with people like the oddballs listed above? Do you gently correct them? Try to educate them? What if they argue about it? We clerks were not equipped to cope with this because we were out-gunned; these strange silly stunted people had ignorance, superstition, and prejudice on their side. All we had were facts.

With the casual idiocy, misogyny, theocracy, and racism of a scary-large number of people in our suburban location, things often got really tense down there on the main floor of the Pickwick Bookshop. Somehow, I muddled through even though my head exploded several times a week.

Post-Grad Gallivanting

I kicked around for a while after college. Went to Europe for a few weeks to see one of my short films presented as part of a USIS program. That’s the U.S. Information Service, which here at home was better known as the U.S. Information Agency. Why the difference? “People overseas thought the USIA was part of the CIA,” an Embassy official told me.

“It’s not because both acronyms end with ‘IA,’ is it?” I asked.

“Apparently,” was his reply.

“Wow. And I thought Americans were dim.”

“Oh no,” he said. “We haven’t cornered the market on dim.”

Will Write for Food

Once I was back stateside, I took on a bunch of small-time writing jobs. Like a brochure for a realtor. And a speech for a local politician. And translating a company’s jargon-filled employee handbook into English so human beings could read it. I also ghost-wrote a bunch of newspaper and magazine articles for corporation executives who couldn’t write two cohesive sentences if their mistress’s lives depended on it.

A freelance writer is an interesting profession. By which I mean it is a horribly precarious occupation which balances lots of scrounging for work with lots of playing air guitar as your stereo is cranked to the max on something like AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell.” In other words, some months had a ton of projects; some months had none. When working, I found I had to get at least half of the estimated price up-front. That would be the “kill fee,” the amount I would keep if the project was terminated before I could finish it. But you have to have a client before you can ask for payment.

The feast-or-famine situation made me decide to get a regular job, and it seemed like a cool idea to try working at an advertising agency. Those places always needed writing, often on short notice, and most of their projects were not much longer than a single-page print ad or a 60-second radio script, which fit my generation’s short-attention-span mentality.

I put together a resume and faked a bunch of ad concepts, then sent them all over town. I can’t prove it, but I may have been one of the first to use the phrase “Will write for food.” My job search seemed to take forever. I was waiting and telephoning and waiting for something to happen and six whole weeks went by before I finally got hired. Later, I learned that most people spend six months searching for a job in the agency business, and even then they become unpaid interns. I got into the business and won a paycheck in record time. Wish I could say I was clever but it was pure dumb luck.

There will always be a fine and warm place in my heart for the agency where I first began working on full ad campaigns. They are no longer in business, but I am almost seventy percent positive it wasn’t because of hiring me.

Write This, Write That, Right Now

The wide variety of writing assignments is one of the “perks” of being an advertising copywriter. Consider some of the projects and my responses:

“Come up with a name for an athletic shoe store.” (Frontrunners.)

“We need some sort of funny line for a manufacturer of men’s sport clothing.” (Pull On It/Pull It On.)

“What should be the positioning statement for this chain of oldies radio stations?” (The Heart ‘n’ Soul of Rock ‘n’ Roll.)

“Give us a nice line for this 24-hour restaurant chain.” (Good Things Cookin’, Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner.)

“We need to send Proposition D down to defeat.” (If The Fat Cats Are For It, You Gotta Be Against It.)

“We need a theme line for a company that has more technology patents than their competitors.” (Beyond state-of-the-art. Ahead-of-the-art.)

“Write a speech for Buzz Aldrin.” (Best line was about the spacesuit elimination system: “I literally was able to go where no man had gone before.”)

Bidness

Some ad projects were surrealistic while others were just funny. Some were both. For example, the campaign I created for a two-day “going out of business” sale. The firm was not actually going out of business, but their business name was going out of business; a week later, they were operating as usual under a new name.

One of the radio spots I wrote for them included a fake helicopter traffic report about crowds near their downtown warehouse sale location. A local news show did a report on the fact that some people were fooled into thinking the fake traffic report was true. Which, ironically, caused people to drive over to see the fuss, thus making the story true.

You Auto See This

I wrote dozens and dozens of ads for a low-price rental car firm. Nothing too creative: they all showed the face of a car renter with a headline that was “their comment” about the firm. In a shocking turn of events, every one of these people had positive things to say about the company.

The art director and I soon tired of this concept but we were trapped with it because the client was happy and therefore the agency was happy. So we began parodying our own work just for the amusement of the creative department. In one ad, we used a photo of James Bond with the headline: “My license to kill doesn’t mean I waste money on car rentals.”

On another, we used a photo of a scowling Pam Grier from “Foxy Brown” with the headline: “Go Mo Fo Low Dough, Mo-Fo.” Yup, very politically incorrect and there’s nothing you mo-fos can do about it. Not a damn thing! (Please send all complaint letters to eNewsChannels. Thank you.)

One Word Can Make a Difference

We did an ad for a book on how to prepare your own will. One media organization said the ad did not meet their “standards” and this would prevent the ad from appearing in dozens of cities.

I got in touch with them and found out they only objected to the headline, “Beat the Lawyers.” Probably because there was a lawyer on their Standards and Practices committee or whatever it was called. I sent them what I said were “two versions of the ad we are going to run in alternative publications” and they lifted their objection.

One headline I sent them was: “F#<k the Lawyers.” The other had “Kill the Lawyers” and included a quote from Shakespeare’s Henry VI as the subhead: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Suddenly, our original headline didn’t seem so objectionable to them.

Orson Welles, Edward D. Wood, Jr., Russ Meyer, and Me

When a small chain of pizza restaurants hired our agency to create a TV spot, the creative department was excited. Until the budget was revealed and it only had enough money for purchasing the air time for the commercial.

“There’s nothing in the budget to actually make the spot,” said the agency’s production manager. And she was right: not one cent was allocated for producer, director, art director, cinematographer, lights, hand model, editing, or voiceover. But I was already producing other spots for the agency, so I took on each role and completed the spot by piggy-backing each part of the work during breaks on all the other productions.

After the spot was done, we screened it for everyone and the agency president told me, “So let me get this straight. You wrote, produced, photographed, directed, edited and voiced this spot.”

“Plus, that was my hand holding a slice of pizza.”

“So on this commercial, you literally did it all.”

“Had to.”

“Gotta tell ya, it doesn’t look half bad.”

“The client seems happy with it,” I said.

“Well, congratulations,” he told me.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Now don’t ever do that again.”

“Yeah, I know,” I told him. “Not cost-effective, right?”

“Hell yeah it’s not cost-effective. We need to bill for everything! Look, people,” he said, raising his voice, “especially everyone on the account management teams: you have got to ABC on these projects. A, always; B, be; C, charging. Always Be Charging. We’re in the communications business and the most important part of that term isn’t communications, it’s business, damn it!”

(Note: for those of you who are fans of Glengarry Glen Ross, I hereby salute Mamet’s writing, including the Alec Baldwin speech in the film version. “Always Be Closing.” I heard it my way in real life before I heard it his way in that film. And I don’t know this for certain, but from what I’ve seen, I believe that ‘Muricun bidnessmen all use variations of “ABC” in their inter-office communications.)

Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty

Luxury items often feature exotic animals in their advertising. This is almost always an indication that neither the agency nor the client can come up with anything worth saying about the high-priced product. One of my encounters with furry critters involved a photo shoot with expensive furniture, an impeccably coifed actor, and a leopard.

The actor-model was totally unfazed by the situation. He followed every direction. “Sit on the couch next to the leopard.” “Pet him.” “Let him put his head in your lap.” “Hold his tail.”

The guy did everything the account manager asked without saying one word of protest. Without lifting an eyebrow. Without so much as a shrug. He was calm. He was cool. He was collected. He was not in his right mind.

“You are so good with the big cat,” I said to him during a break. “Did you get to interact with the animal before the shoot?”

“Nah,” he said, popping a pill. “I’ve had three Valium.”

“So that one makes four. Isn’t that over-doing it?”

“Isn’t what over-doing it?”

“Never mind.”

Diazepam, which is the drug marketed as Valium, can work wonders when properly administered. If only they had given some to the leopard.

During the next part of the photo shoot, the large feline got spooked by something. Maybe he caught the scent of someone putting on perfume or using hand lotion. Maybe he was hungry, because models are often anorexic or bulimic. Since a leopard can hear things we cannot hear, maybe a high-pitched electronic noise alarmed him. Or maybe he was having a bad fur day.

Whatever the reason, the leopard suddenly decided to leave. Not by getting up and walking off the set as any other self-respecting egomaniacal actor would have done. Instead, the 200-pound cat leaped from the couch to the wall to the ceiling. We all stood there in wonder at the scene before us: expensive living-room set; well-dressed actor sitting on a leather couch in the middle of the set; large leopard, now hanging upside down from the ceiling of the set.

The big cat remained up there, growling, his tail lashing back and forth with so much force it was making a dull drumbeat sound each time it struck his own ribcage.

The actor had gone white as a sheet. “You people!” he fumed. “You people!” he said again, rising to his feet, something that seemed unwise considering he was now bringing his head closer to the enraged leopard. “You people told me he had been de-clawed! I’m calling my agent,” he said, storming off the set. As he brushed past me, he popped another pill.

I made a mental note to begin writing all of this down because it would make a good chapter in a book. Meanwhile, we all continued to stare at the animal on the ceiling.

“Can we call his agent?” someone asked. “This isn’t in his contract.”

“I think we can get him back,” I said. “He now has five Valium in his system. It’ll be a miracle if he can dial the phone. We’ll just prop him up on the couch.”

“Screw him. I meant call the cat’s agent.”

While we stood there watching the angry leopard, the guy delivering lunch arrived at the studio. He looked at the scene for a moment and then delivered the best line of day:

“Nice pussy,” he said.

The agency lost that account but I am almost sixty percent positive it wasn’t because of hiring me.

• To be continued in next chapter (click link to subscribe via RSS) …. or, to read additional articles and some bits of ephemera by John Scott G, visit his story index here: http://enewschannels.com/author/scott-g-the-g-man .

“Secret Sex, A Book Alive Online,” written and lived by John Scott G, is Copr. © 2011-2012 by JSG, all rights reserved under U.S. and international copyright conventions. Commercial use in any form is forbidden without express written permission of the author. Originally published on eNewsChannels.com with permission. Credits: Book cover design: Phil Hatten.

Chapter 28 – “Dazed & Amused.”

High as a kite, that’s what I was. More expressively, I was as high as a helium-filled balloon that had just escaped the grasp of a perplexed five-year old kid who was now wondering why gravity wasn’t bringing back his rapidly disappearing toy.

In other words, I was blitzed.

Ambling down the front steps of the college and heading in the general direction of my apartment, I suddenly made the decision to walk home. Usually I took the cable car, but since I lived only about two miles away — and since the ground was already moving beneath my feet in a most disorienting way — I didn’t need anything else to add to the sensations.

The stroll took about eleventy-three hours because I kept slowing down to appreciate the clouds, the wind, the trembling of the horizon line. . . Hmm, it shouldn’t really move like that, should it? I have got to get this under control.

When I finally made it back to my place, I stashed the stash in that most traditional of hiding places: the back of the freezer behind the ice cube trays. Next, I looked at my weekly schedule, to see when I could plan on partaking more of my recent purchase.

“Laundry day, that’s going to be okay for drugs,” I told myself. Being in a flipped-out state couldn’t cause too much trouble while doing my clothes, right? The darks might not get separated from the lights, but like a lot of college students, I only owned jeans, sweatshirts, socks and underwear, so color sorting wasn’t exactly a big problem.

“Movie night, that’s going to be okay for drugs.” That made sense. When you watch a movie, you’re in a dream-like state anyway, right? Being zonked prompted me to try different film experiences, like when I caught a double-feature of kung fu movies at a theater in the Mission District. The films were mature-rated but there were a lot of fathers who brought their pre-teen boys to that show. And everyone talked back to the screen, which was a hoot. “Look out behind you!” “Don’t go in there!” “He’s gonna gitcha!” “Thump him, thump him!” Since I was the only white person in the theater, I didn’t join in. At least I think I remained silent. But what do I know, I was stoned.

“The opera, that’s going to be okay for drugs.” Having blown my discretionary money on the dope, I couldn’t afford to go to the opera in the normal way. But I used the Student Rush ticket opportunity: ten bucks and you’d get a seat somewhere. You could be way up in the balcony or you could find yourself in the orchestra; ya never knew. And for five bucks, you could stand at the back of the theater, even for otherwise sold-out performances. That may seem like a pain, but I stood to see Luciano Pavarotti sing Riccardo in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera,” which is probably an interesting experience if you’re straight but it’s a total visual and auditory freak-out when you’re spaced.

There are things you don’t want to do while ripped. Or at least there are things that don’t work well for me. I wouldn’t want to do my taxes while under the influence. School was another example. Other than the weekly session of the Master’s candidates, which didn’t involve too much rational thought, I didn’t get high to go to school.

Dailies

Not all the students observed the rule about not mixing drugs and schoolwork. You could see the results of that problem every week because the Master’s basement theater was where everyone brought their newly-processed 16mm film to view. These screenings were akin to what professional filmmakers call “dailies.” But during our viewing of the student dailies, some of what we saw was far from professional.

Out-of-focus shots. Blundering shaky-cam sequences. Poorly framed compositions. Over-exposed shots. Under-exposed shots. Double-exposed shots. Blank film! That last one always got hoots and hollers from whoever was in the audience. Blank. You’d think that the process of threading the reel into the projector would reveal the blankness; that even the most mind-fried undergrad would notice there was nothing on the film. But apparently this was not the case.

TA (Not to be Confused with T&A)

In order to earn money for tuition, I worked as a teaching assistant (TA) at the college. I took that seriously, too, and stayed clear-headed. This was a very wise choice on my part because TAs were always on call to oversee aspects of undergrad film production and sign-out the cameras, lenses, tripods, lights, and so forth.

In addition, TAs had to accompany any undergrad who wished to take film equipment off-campus. It was extremely advisable to remain straight for this; I did not want to be in a crazy-stupid condition while supervising the use of gear worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Sands of Time

I worked with several undergrad producers and directors on their finals film projects. One director explained his idea for completing a semi-improvised scene in a continuous 11-minute-long shot. In other words: turn on lights, sound, and camera and then let the actors run through the entire movie without editing.

“A single take?” I said.

“Right,” he replied. “One take. Just like Alfred Hitchcock in Rope,” he told me.

“Okay,” I told him, “let me see the script.”

“Well, only the actors know the story.”

“Then how will we know where and when the camera will move?”

“Oh, the camera isn’t going to move,” he told me. “It’ll be on a tripod. You won’t have to do anything except turn on the camera and then signal us when we get near the end of the roll.”

“All right,” I said. “Let’s do it. What could go wrong?” As it turned out, there were several things that could go wrong.

He selected the best, and most expensive, lights, sound recording gear, microphones, and lenses. His camera of choice was the Eclair NPR (noiseless portable reflex), the same camera used by Michael Wadleigh to shoot Woodstock. I felt like I was signing away my life as I put down my name authorizing this venture.

On the day of the shoot, we loaded up his car as well as his girlfriend’s car. We then drove to their apartment in the Castro district. He hadn’t told me it was a third-floor walk-up. But fortunately I knew which pieces of gear were the largest in size while being the lightest in weight. You don’t want to be fooled by grabbing that compact-looking metal box containing an Éclair, camera magazine, and battery packs.

We brought the gear upstairs into the apartment and down a dark hallway to a room with the entire floor covered in sand. The walls were lined with huge sheets of paper painted to look like the Paul Gauguin oils of Tahiti.

“Tropical isle setting for your film?” I asked him.

“No, just Baker,” he replied.

Baker Beach, on the west side of the Golden Gate Bridge, was popular for volleyball, Frisbee competitions, kite-flying, and nude sunbathing.

“Is your girlfriend going to be in this film with you?”

“Absolutely,” he said.

“Is she going to be nude?”

“Absolutely.”

“Oh man,” I complained.

“You don’t think she’s attractive?” he asked.

“She’s a total babe,” I said. “I’m upset about having only one take.”

His girlfriend had overheard our exchange and popped her head into the room to tell me, “Thank you.”

“Oh no, thank you.”

The gear was set-up fairly quickly, but with each step on the sand, the floorboards creaked, and alarmingly so in the center of the room.

“How deep is this layer of sand?” I asked.

“Oh, ’bout three inches,” he said. “Why?”

“That’s a lot of weight on the floor of this room.” We stopped to consider the ramifications of bringing home so much of the beach.

“Yeah, well, we did the same thing last year and it worked out okay,” he told me.

“Has the sand been here the whole time?”

“Oh no,” he said. “This is new sand,” he said proudly.

“How did you bring it here?”

“Trunk of the car. Took a whole bunch of trips.”

“I’ll bet.” I didn’t want to know how they got rid of it.

I tried to only walk at the outer edges of the room. We adjusted the lights, set-up the camera, and went over the hand-signals I was to give the performers once the camera was rolling. Basically, they wanted me to hold up the appropriate number of fingers as each minute counted down for his 11-minute roll of film, then start waving my arms when there were 30-seconds left.

So, phones were unplugged, stereos turned off, and roommates told not to run water, open or close bureau drawers, talk, walk, etc. And then our director put actors in place, made certain they removed the appropriate clothing, and spoke the classic “Lights, camera, sound, action!”

For eleven minutes, I stood perfectly still as the actors went through their semi-scripted, semi-improvised lines, dueled with each other verbally, displayed their bodies, ripped up the painted scenery, etc. I dutifully held up my hands to signal 10 minutes, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Then I waved my arms as the roll reached 30-seconds to go. This was to be the magical moment when the final line would be delivered, the big finish to his conceptual film. And then they blew it and missed the final line.

Everyone just stood there in silence. You could hear heartbeats. I switched off the lights. I switched off the sound recorder. I put the lens cap on the camera. I turned to look at the actors, still frozen in place.

“Clothing, anyone?” I asked. They got dressed. The director came over to me to discuss the situation. We couldn’t do a re-take because much of the scenery was destroyed as part of the skit. And besides, he had only purchased one roll of film. We couldn’t come back again tomorrow because the project was due the day-after-next and it would take one day to get the film processed.

“What are you going to do?” I asked him.

“Just turn in the film the way it is,” he said. “We’re the only ones who know it’s not supposed to end that way.” A flicker of doubt crossed his face. “You’re not going to say anything, are you?”

“Me? Heck, no. I won’t write about this until years have gone by.”

“Okay, man. Thanks for all your help.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” Hell, his girlfriend’s breasts were more than worth the effort. Actually his girlfriend’s everything was worth the effort. She was also in art school, although at a different college, and her current project was photographing her vagina spelling out the letters of the alphabet. Note: this was prior to Photoshop. I told her I liked her “G” and she smiled the smile of a woman who had total muscle control.

Mirror Mirror

Among the 16mm cameras available at the college was one that shot 1,200 frames-per-second. The usual speed is 24 frames-per-second (fps) which means the high-speed camera really ate up film at a tremendous rate. And since that camera only took a 100-foot load, you couldn’t photograph anything for very long.

Here’s the math: a 100-foot load at 24fps lasts for about three minutes. A 100-foot load at 1,200fps lasts for a little over three seconds. So you would turn on the camera and photograph something forareallyshorttime. Once the roll was developed, you’d still have 100 feet of film that you’d project at the standard rate of 24fps. The projection time was still three minutes but you’d be able to see what you photographed moving very very slowly.

Why make a camera that moves so fast but limit it to a 100-foot reel of film? It was for industrial use, like if you were testing a chemical reaction or the spark mechanism on a Zippo lighter. You’d lock down the camera on a tripod, activate it electronically at the same time as your experiment, and later you could study the results in glorious slow-motion. Each semester, the possibilities of this high-speed camera produced the following conversation among the undergraduate filmmaking students:

“Hey, y’know what? It’d be awesome to smash a mirror with a hammer and shoot it in ultra-slo-mo!”

“Oh wow, yeah!”

Unfortunately, the stoned undergrads didn’t have the electronic connection between what they were photographing and the shutter of the camera. But that did not stop them, and they would leap into action, adhering to the following plan:

Smoke marijuana.

Find/steal mirror.

Suspend mirror in darkened classroom.

Convince TA to sign-out some lights.

Aim lights at suspended mirror.

Discover they forgot hammer.

Smoke marijuana.

Locate hammer.

Convince TA to sign-out and oversee use of camera.

Smoke marijuana.

Discover no one had purchased 100-foot load of 16mm film.

Beg, borrow or steal 100-foot load of film.

Smoke marijuana.

Convince TA you’re “really ready this time.”

Start camera.

Swing hammer into mirror, shattering it into ninety-seven thousand individual shiny sparkly spiky shards.

Locate first-aid kit for cuts, piercings, splinters of glass in hands, arms, faces, ears, etc.

Get film developed.

Take film to Master’s program basement theater.

Smoke marijuana.

Put Gustav Holst’ “The Planets” on the theater sound system and sit back to watch a stunning three-minute shot of a hammer getting close, closer, closest to and almost-but-not-quite-touching the surface of a mirror.

Endure hoots and hollers from audience.

Thesis Film

It was in this atmosphere that I completed my Master’s Thesis Film Project. Actually, I finished the film, entitled “Visage,” during the first couple of weeks of my first semester. I completed the film early because I had been planning it for quite a while and had accumulated all the footage before moving to San Francisco. From time to time, to satisfy the requirements of the Master’s program, I would screen a clip for my faculty advisor (The Bearded One, as I referred to him). But for the most part, I just kept the finished film under wraps.

The summer before my final semester, I spotted a small item in the newspaper about the Program Director of the San Francisco International Film Festival looking for short films to be shown prior to each of the official screenings at that year’s event. I thought I would submit “Visage” but then I noticed that the paper I was reading was several weeks old and today was the final day for submissions.

So I called the executive offices of the Festival. The Program Director answered the phone because it was around one in the afternoon and he was the only guy in the office. I told him I’d love to submit my film but I had just arrived in The City from overseas and had not known about today’s deadline. He said, “If you can get the film here by two o’clock, we’ll consider it.”

I grabbed a print of the film and my one-page synopsis, ran to the cable car, transferred to a bus, got off and ran the last few blocks to his office. Made it with ten minutes to spare. Two weeks later, he called to say “Congratulations, ‘Visage’ will be screened as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival.”

Timing

It turned out that the Film Festival screening would be the week prior to the due date for the Master’s Program thesis films. Perfect. Or so I thought. But I hadn’t counted on university bureaucracy.

“You won’t qualify for graduation if your film is shown at the Festival,” said the Chairman of the Filmmaking Department. “University rules state that a thesis film must screen on campus prior to any public showing.”

“So you’re telling me that the college doesn’t want one of its grad student films to be shown at the San Francisco International Film Festival?” I asked him.

His reply was typical bureaucratic nonsense. Instead of answering my question, he just read the rules out loud and then scowled at me. I was appalled. This man was the writer of one of the most-respected books on independent filmmaking. His reputation was one reason I selected the university in the first place. And now I discovered he was a sophist and a pedant. Or, to put it in terms everyone can understand, the man was a moron.

Because of this human rectal blockage, my master’s degree was suddenly in jeopardy. I left the college administrative offices feeling like a snail in a sprinter’s race.

But wait. Suddenly I thought about my dearest best acquaintance at the campus, our local entrepreneur and pharmacological supplier. Cat was good friends with Lavery, the guy who ran the Cinematheque, our on-campus film society. Could I find Cat now that I needed him the most? I could. Would he be interested in helping me despite my never having made another buy from him? He would. Could he introduce me to Lavery? Yup.

I explained to Lavery the problem I faced. As soon as he heard the situation, he said, “So if I put this ‘Visage’ on the next program, it really fucks over the head of the Filmmaking Department?”

“Kind of, yeah,” I said.

“Nice!” was his reaction. “You got it, man.”

It is terrific to have friends in low places. Especially ones who’ve come up against the small-minded twits of the world. And thus it was that “Visage” made its world debut on campus, as the rules require.

“Visage” was a 15-minute surrealistic ode to Attention Deficit Disorder; a backhanded tribute to kamikaze editing techniques; a shrine of psychedelic super-saturated colors and solarized imagery; a perverted hymn to visual outrage using sequences of natural beauty juxtaposed with World War II documentaries, underwater photography of sea creatures, and official footage of Pope Pius XII; an unrelenting attack on one’s eyeballs and auditory faculties; a collage/montage featuring a soundtrack comprised of Pierre Henry, Spike Jones & His City Clickers, and The Move.

Best of all, my weirdo project played that week as the opening work at the Cinematheque’s well-publicized presentation of Josef von Sternberg’s stately, elegiac, black-and-white opus, “The Scarlet Empress.” Never before have two more diametrically opposite works of cinema been shown on the same program. It would be like seeing a Lady Gaga music video followed by a documentary on a Midwest club of deaf mute quilt makers.

One week after the Cinematheque showing, the film played in the Palace of Fine Arts at the San Francisco International Film Festival. So I got to enjoy both public screenings and was allowed to receive the damn MFA (Master of Fine Arts) degree despite the head of the filmmaking department lobbying to prevent it. (The Bearded One told me the guy had made an impassioned speech to a faculty meeting saying I should not be allowed to graduate but was voted down by practically everyone.)

A word of rueful and sage advice: Taking pleasure in any sort of revenge or poetic justice is a juvenile and perhaps even deeply bitter act. (Let’s all take a slight pause now and reflect on this.) But the revenge itself sure is sugary-good! (Insert drum-and-cymbal riff: ba-dum-bum-crash!)

• To be continued in next chapter (click link to subscribe via RSS) …. or, to read additional articles and some bits of ephemera by John Scott G, visit his story index here: http://enewschannels.com/author/scott-g-the-g-man .

“Secret Sex, A Book Alive Online,” written and lived by John Scott G, is Copr. © 2011-2012 by JSG, all rights reserved under U.S. and international copyright conventions. Commercial use in any form is forbidden without express written permission of the author. Originally published on eNewsChannels.com with permission. Credits: Book cover design: Phil Hatten.

In the beginning was the joke and God saw that it was funny, as long as it was written by David Javerbaum. There. That’s my opening for my review. It’s good to have a snappy opening line. Trouble is, a book this funny leads you to consider a whole bunch of different lines.

Snappy opening line number two: God is on Twitter. (See for yourself @TheTweetOfGod.) Snappy opening line number three: God is in favor of homosexuality. (He admits that he originally created Adam and Steve, not Adam and Eve.) Snappy opening line number four: God gets high. (“…I support marijuana; I created it to be smoked; indeed, I meet many of the nicest, hungriest people that way.”)

There are so many LOL lines and situations in The Last Testament that it was a delightful difficulty choosing what to use as a grabber. Which is why I used four of them.

The Man Behind the Deity

David Javerbaum is identified as God’s amanuensis, which is a fancy-schmancy word that means “guy who writes down stuff and cashes the checks.” Javerbaum  is a man who knows from funny. According to the Internet Movie Database, he has writing credits on more than twelve hundred episodes of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” a program that manages to be consistently mirthful while providing commentary on politics, sex, communication, and the human condition in general. Which it has in common with The Last Testament, come to think of it.

Right from the Prologue, Javerbaum gets into the mode of God writing in the first person. He begins with a scene between literary agent Daniel Greenberg and our anti-hero, an entity who often refers to himself as “the LORD thy God, King of the Universe.” And it should be pointed out that Greenberg is one patient guy to tolerate a client who has such a killer ego problem. So anyway, God is telling us about his conversation with the ten percenter:

“…But lo, it has been nigh on 14 centuries since thy last book,” the agent tells God. “Forget not The Book of Mormon,” God says. “Thy last serious book,” the agent continues.

Which is not to say that God disparages the Broadway musical of the same name. No, God loves that, and musical theater in general. But he’s downright contemptuous of writings by upstart cults.

Politics, Religiosity and Profits

Considering the current state of things in the USA, of which an all-seeing all-knowing all-smiting God should be aware, the book contains remarkably few mentions of the drawbacks of the GOP in general and conservatives in particular, although the disgusting Rush and the silly Sarah come in for their fair share of ridicule.

And, in context with all the plagues, earthquakes, pestilence, and so on, it can be easily assumed that the terror of things like the Tea Party, Karl Rove, and Roger Ailes are just more “tests” that decent people must suffer through to get into heaven.

Then there’s the matter of killing every firstborn son in Egypt while letting the Jews in on the secret way to mark their homes in order to save their own sons. “This ritual of course became the basis of the sacred eight-day Jewish festival celebrated unto this day, ‘Lamb-Blood Doorframe Rub-a-palooza.’ (We later changed the name to ‘Passover,’ on the advice of Marketing.)”

God points out how copiously he has blessed the United States of America, including “the spaciousness of its skies, the purpleness of its mountains, and what I think any observer would concede is the unusually high level of its plains-fruitedness.” And he adds some special words for “the tobacco farmers of Jamestown, who showed the world that the new ‘land of opportunity’ could bestow success on anybody willing to rely on hard work, the free market, and millions of black slaves growing a death-crop.”

Eternal Questions Examined

There are some portions of the book that address the issues that have plagued every kid who has ever been forced to attend any kind of religious instruction. For example, when Jesus conducted the first Communion, he offered bread, saying, “Take, eat; this is my body.” Then Jesus offered wine, saying, “Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood.” At which point God is rather nettled, thinking that his son is some sort of “cannibal vampire.”

Many other wonderful viewpoints of God are revealed in the book, including: God’s opinions about most religions and cults; his rewrite of Martin Luther’s The 95 Theses; his decision to sink the Titanic; and his understanding that “I am he to whom people turn for comfort after being devastated by acts of me.”

Confessions

In addition to the Adam and Steve deal-e-o, God also explains a few more of our earthly misconceptions, mistakes, and mishegas, which is a Yiddish word meaning something that is several cans short of the full six-pack or even: wow, that sure is freaky-deaky, dude.

For example, there was a Biblical translation error concerning the ark. God did not say “Put two of every animal on board the ship,” he said “Put two of any animal on board the ship.” God actually recommended dogs and Noah chose cocker spaniel puppies. There is a photo of them in the center of the book, along with the caption: “Sparky and Pillow, the only two animals Noah took with him on the ark. (If thou countest not the 3,000 fleas and ticks.)”

Lot’s wife is not named in the Bible, but God reveals that she was called Trish. “Not short for Patricia, either; just Trish.” Continuing in a family way, God discloses that he resides in heaven with his wife, Ruth, and their three kids, Zach, Jesus, and Kathy.

Perhaps surprisingly, you’ll learn that God has self-realization moments:

But I remained alone, staying aloof for a time from the affairs of men, to contemplate the truth about myself I had discovered while observing Abraham. For lo, I had destroyed the world in a Flood; I had razed the Tower of Babel; I had leveled Sodom and Gomorrah; all manner of catastrophe had I already visited upon you, in the name of righteousness;Yet it was only then — after finding myself enthralled by the slow, silent agony of one I greatly loved; I say, it was only then, that I first began to consider the possibility, that there was something seriously wrong with me.

God also reveals some of the oddities he has observed over the course of eons, such as seeing the Black Eyed Peas studying new music to figure out the best way they can turn it into rot.

Oh, BTW, here’s snappy opening number five: God intends to follow the Mayan calendar and unleash the apocalypse on December 21, 2012. Which is why I am now happy to direct your attention to some money-saving ideas here on eNewsChannels: http://enewschannels.com/2012/02/07/enc14249_153122.php

Best Intentions

God wanted us to have nice things. Unfortunately, he kinda-sorta got caught up in the fun of taunting, torturing, and terminating millions of humans. Like with the whole Inquisition thing and the Catholic pedophilia thing and the Crusades thing and the Republican thing and the nearly non-stop war thing.

But he intended us to live long and prosper, except for the living long and prospering part. And although he planned to give us bountiful gifts, he sometimes didn’t get around to the actual gift-giving, as you can see from a page torn from his Creation Weekly Planner where such items as heaven, earth, firmament, light, etc. are all checked off but such things as “fairness,” “justice,” and “wormholes to other dimensions” are crossed out.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject, God points out that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” but adds that “actually it is mostly paved with human skulls; but the good intensions serve as a thickening agent.”

Index

Just perusing the book’s index is fun, and it will lead you to enjoyable stories, japes, tales, jabs, zingers, and jokes. Quickly running through the back-of-the-book entries reveals these listings:

Aaron, in incident with golden calf

Alley, Kirstie, Russian dressing made by

Bible, errors in

Bieber, Justin, as porn star

Bunuel, Luis, battle of Jericho as directed by

Christianity, as similar to Walmart

Craigslist, al-Qaeda’s use of

devil, unlisted number of

Islam, as similar to Starbucks

Judaism, as similar to Blockbuster

Loch Ness Monster, existence of

You get the idea. In the book, but left out of the index, are mentions of Frank Sinatra, the Ashley Madison web site, Satan, and Young Jeezy.

Nine-Eleven

Some of the humor is wickedly clever while some of it involves fair-to-middling wordplay, with the occasional groaner thrown in at no extra charge. I’ll leave it to you to decide where something like this falls:

And I made a covenant with Noah never again to destroy every living thing with a Flood, as it is written: “And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.” That is Genesis 9:11; and lo, everything changed after Genesis 9:11. For the survivors of this new, post 9:11 world had learned through bitter experience, that behind daily life’s peaceful facade there lurked always the potential for unimaginable horror, at the hands of a religious extremist with little regard for human life.

As if to hammer that idea into our noggins, God answers a time-honored question: “Why do bad things happen to good people? To balance out the good things that happen to bad people. Lo; it’s only fair.”

Finally, God notes this about his favorite son (that’s the middle child, Jesus, in case you were wondering) whose “faith is so deep, and his hope is so pure, that on occasion I have heard him say, ‘The day the Cubs win the World Series is the day I return to earth!’ But in the end I dissuade him from this; for humanity cannot wait a billion years for the Second Coming.”

Book Summary
“The Last Testament: A Memoir”
By God with David Javerbaum
Simon & Schuster, Hardbound, 400 pages, ISBN-13: 9781451640182, $23.99; http://books.simonandschuster.com/Last-Testament/God/9781451640182

VIDEO:
God has a message for the world (and you may be surprised that God has chosen animation instead of live action for his presentation).

 
Article is Copr. © 2012 by John Scott G, and originally published on eNewsChannels.com – all commercial and reprint rights reserved. No fee or consideration was paid to JSG by the book’s author, publisher, publicist or other in preparing this original critique.

Chapter 27 – “College Daze.”

“What’s your major?” At various times in my college career, I was able to give at least four authoritative and definitive replies: “Theater Arts,” I said. “Filmmaking,” I said. “Art,” I said. “English,” I said. None of these responses were lies; I just kept switching my major.

Never once did I say “Undeclared.” Obviously, I had declared. And then a few weeks or months later, I would declare again. I kept on declaring until I found a department where they would let me create my own courses.

It’s called Independent Study, and it enables you to substitute work you want to do for quite a lot of work you’d prefer to avoid. I eventually obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Art and a Master’s degree in Film, but I am the very first to admit that both of these accomplishments took a lot of Independent Study, not to mention a lot of luck.

Sound Advice

We’re going to skip over most of the undergraduate stuff, primarily because it was so boring. I wasn’t involved in student politics and I wasn’t dating teachers, so there are no terrific stories or shenanigans to tell you. Unlike my dad, I didn’t join a fraternity. Too bad, as it turns out. Long after I graduated, my dad told me that his fraternity created an imaginary student, enrolled him, arranged for their members to attend classes in his place, took turns doing all the coursework, and completed the final exams. After four years of this, they had one of the frat brothers step up to the podium to accept a diploma for the nonexistent guy’s “graduation.”

I was neither that creative nor that industrious during my first four years of college. The first two years were at a community college followed by the state university but all 48 months were unexciting to the max. I took a full course load and tried to work as much as possible in order to have money for a car, an apartment, and the largest stereo I could assemble.

Note to iPod users: this was back in the day when there were people who appreciated the sound of recordings. At one point early in my college life, my entire music collection consisted of seven albums: Jeff Beck’s “Truth,” Bill Evans Trio “With Symphony Orchestra,” Stevie Wonder’s “Talking Book,” Charles Ives’ “Three Places in New England,” Curtis Mayfield’s “Superfly,” Erik Satie’s “Three Gymnopedies and Other Piano Music,” and Miles Davis’ “In a Silent Way.” But I had a rather nice 400-watt sound system on which to play them. In a 600-square-foot apartment. But there was one other factor: back then, San Francisco had excellent free-form FM radio, so I was never without good tunes at my place. Oops, I meant to say “my pad.” (Which became “my crib” and will soon be something else, like maybe “my Occupy sleeping bag.”)

San Francisco

Grad school for me was an art college perched on a hilltop in The City, and it was a trip, both literally and figuratively. The Master’s program in Filmmaking met in the basement of the school. They had classrooms and editing rooms on the main floors, but sunk deep within the building was their own cozy little theater with a well-equipped projection booth and a pretty damn good sound system.

I showed up early for my first class and just hung out. Everybody was friendly and they were playing music through the theater’s big speakers. People took turns putting vinyl on the turntable in the projection booth, which resulted in a wild conglomeration of sounds: Lou Reed, Charlie Parker, the Mills Brothers, Merle Haggard.

A couple of the girls put on Isaac Hayes’ “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic” and performed a dance they had choreographed. Someone put a 16mm loop of a porn scene on one projector and this played continuously on the theater’s big screen. Nobody paid much attention to it. A bearded guy handed me a joint. Friendly people here!

We were all having a very nice time, although I couldn’t help wondering when the professor would arrive. Forty minutes went by before I discovered the bearded guy was the professor. Wow, college in San Francisco was cool!

A word about the porn. One of the undergrads worked in the District Attorney’s office and he regularly brought in the porn films that had been seized by the police because of community complaints. Right, the students at our college were watching porn so alarmingly depraved that even some people in San Francisco had tried banning it.

I could hardly wait to attend classes each week and I’m sure you can guess why. You are correct: that great music! Oh, and the marijuana helped a little, too. The porn I could live without because it was too poor, with bad writing, bad acting, bad photography, etc.

With the fun of the music and maryjane, it soon became apparent to me that classes didn’t come around often enough. Besides, the chance that someone would bring some of the good stuff to class was not something on which one could rely.

To avoid being one of those people who was always borrowing puffs of fantasy, I decided to purchase my very own pipe dreams. And it seemed to me there was nobody better to ask about sources and prices than the professor. After all, he was our leader. The head, if you will.

I found him in his office, knocked on the open door and walked in to ask him my socially improper and possibly illegal question. Without batting an eye he told me to talk to a guy at school named Katt. (Advice from the eNewsChannels attorneys leads me to turn this man’s name into a pseudonym, so from now on we’ll just call him Cat.)

Cat turned out to be relatively easy to find, primarily because he was lying on the couch in the professor’s office. Cat rolled off the cushions, stood up, scrawled a phone number on the inside of a matchbook cover, handed to me and said “Call me Wednesday night, after the next shipment comes in.”

“Wednesday night,” I said.

“Oh yeah. Any time after one.”

“One?”

“Oh yeah. One a.m.”

“Wouldn’t that be Thursday morning?” I asked him.

“Oh yeah,” he said with a smile as he wafted out of the room.

Cat was cool. I mean, you know, besides the whole illegal drug distribution thing. Oh, and the fake driver’s license thing. He had a Texas driver’s license with what appeared to be his photo and the name Henry Lee Woralitz. It was that driver’s license he gave to the police when he was questioned later in the semester for allegedly placing anti-war bumper stickers on cop cars. I don’t think he was ever tried for that offence, primarily because there was no such person as Henry Lee Woralitz. Or, if there was such a person, it was not Cat.

The guy was never brought up on any charges, as far as I know. He was questioned many times, but he was basically untraceable since he had had the foresight to obtain, don’t ask me how, a number of extremely official-looking driver’s licenses using a number of ordinary-sounding names of people who were from a number of extremely official-sounding places (“Utah” and “Kansas” were among the names — they sound so real, don’t they!)

I caught up with Cat in one of the school hallways and we had a quick discussion about my intention to conduct a business transaction with him. I mean, “make a buy.”

The Business

Cat dealt hash, mostly. That’s hashish, which comes from the resin in the flowering top-most parts of the hemp plant. So it’s like goosed-up marijuana, kinda-sorta. He sold in what he called sub-distributor sizes. He explained to me how I could make money on the deal by selling three-quarters of my purchase for way more than the price he was charging me, and I’d still have plenty of product left over for personal use.

He described the two smallest allotments he offered. “When you phone me, let’s just call the super-small size a ‘cassette’ and the regular-small size an ‘eight-track.’ Just tell me how many cassettes or eight-tracks you want.”

Tempting, but no. I had no intention of going into the drug distribution business. But I decided to purchase one of the super-small allotments and figured it would last me the entire school year. I called Cat and felt like such a small-timer by ordering one cassette but he seemed fine about it. “Okay,” he told me. “Meet me at the college tomorrow with the money. Make sure it’s cash,” he said. “This is American Express quality but it’s not an American Express operation, if you know what I mean.”

The Deal

Next day at school, I came up to Cat as he was talking to a pretty girl. They were discussing a new tattoo she had on her shoulder, something that was then more unusual than today. You could tell what a great work ethic Cat had by the fact that he immediately broke off his conversation as soon as he saw me. “Sorry babe,” he told the lovely lady. “Business.” He motioned for me to follow him.

“Where we headed?” I asked him.

“Up on the roof.”

“The roof?”

“Oh yeah.”

I went with him to the school cafeteria at the far end of the campus. The hillside end, which gave it a spectacular view of San Francisco Bay. Nonchalantly, Cat moved over to a door at the corner of the room where the windows ended and the kitchen started. He paused at the door and then turned to look back at the cafeteria. He nodded to someone across the room and suddenly there was a crash of plates on the linoleum floor. Everyone turned to look but Cat tapped my shoulder and said “Follow me.”

We went through the door and closed it. In front of us was a window with a sliding pane. He opened the glass, put one leg over the ledge, grabbed the window frame, and swung himself through the opening and out of sight behind the wall. It looked dangerous but it also looked like fun so I followed him. There was a fire escape fastened to the outside of the building.

The first thing I noticed was that it was about a fifty foot drop to the hillside below. “Don’t look down!” said a voice from somewhere inside my cranium. So I looked up to see Cat’s shoes as he disappeared over the edge of the rooftop. I climbed up after him and made it without falling off the side of the college.

We moved to a spot in the center of the roof. Everywhere you looked there was an image that would be terrific on a picture postcard. The Pacific Ocean. The Bay Bridge. The Golden Gate Bridge. Alcatraz Island. Coit Tower. The college’s HVAC system. Well, okay, almost everywhere you looked.

Cat took out a small metal pipe with a leather-covered handle and a small box of wooden matches. He observed proper drug etiquette and lit up before me. Dealer goes first to show that the product is good. I’m assuming that there are exceptions for crack, heroin, and the like, but I don’t move in those circles so I can’t tell you for sure. Cat handed me the pipe and I nervously took a puff. I held the pipe out to him but he just nodded at me, so I took another puff.

It was very pretty out there on the roof. A breeze swirled around us, and the sound of the wind became a lovely, soothing blanket-on-the-brain whoosh. Then the breeze became a bringer of nature’s soundtrack, with the seabirds standing out prominently amidst the rustling of leaves that were scurrying across the rooftop. When I concentrated on a single sound, I heard it with exquisite precision. Hell, if you want the truth, I could hear the trees growing and the clouds moving.

The City shimmered in the distance. Buildings jumped into focus with crystalline clarity. The molecular structure of the steel-and-concrete-and-glass became magnified and was superimposed on the design-plan of each floor, the whole of it appearing like a three-dimensional blueprint in space.

Not only was I seeing these sights, I was also floating above our two bodies. I was watching us hunkered down on the roof, experiencing all and nothing at all, caught up in the scheme of things, yet apart from it, observing it, framing it, composing it, editing it, just like when you’re watching a movie but you’re really watching yourself because it’s like you’re in the audience and in the movie at the same time and –

“Good stuff, isn’t it?” Cat’s voice was serene, reflective, and happy.

“Whoa,” I said.

Cat grinned. What a nice fellow he was to appreciate my conversational abilities. This guy gets what I’m saying, almost without my having to say anything. I blinked and the blue sky turned green. I blinked it back to blue. Hey, that’s fun! I glanced around at the Bay, the hills, the houses, the trees, the Bridge, the sky. Blink green blink blue blink green blink blue blink RED. Wow! This is nifty. I was working on a strobe effect when Cat spoke again.

“So, what do you think? Do you want to make the buy?”

The implications of his first question were too awesome for me to handle right away. What do I think? I hadn’t even stopped to register what my brainpan was doing to me. What do I think? Me? I’m just one lone person attempting to handle this wondershow of perceptual truth vs. illusion. What do I think? I think this stuff is helping me create a baroque display of colors and sounds not normally found in nature. What do I think? I think these impulses and images are remnants of ancient civilizations that have mysteriously and wondrously returned to lift all of humanity to a new level of –

“Take your time,” he said gently.

“Oh,” I said. “Right. Sure thing. I’ll take this stuff.” I reached into my jeans and pulled out my carefully-folded currency and handed him the wad of bills. For one instant, I saw the breeze whip it out of my hands, sending the cash cascading and spinning and flapping out over the entire peninsula. Then it was all right and Cat was calmly doing his count. He nodded and pocketed the money.

“Nice up here today,” he said. We looked at the scenery in all its various and changing colors. About a week went by and then he stood up, saying, “Well, gotta go. Enjoy.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll try.”

“Oh yeah,” he said with a grin. I watched him disappear over the edge of the roof. And that’s when it occurred to me that I had to go back down that fire escape and crawl through the window. What if someone had closed and locked it? I decided to follow Cat immediately.

I would love to tell you that I made it back off the roof but I have no recollection of that. Since I am here now typing this, apparently I did. I think. Dunno. Maybe it’s all an illusion. Are you there?

• To be continued in next chapter (click link to subscribe via RSS) …. or, to read additional articles and some bits of ephemera by John Scott G, visit his story index here: http://enewschannels.com/author/scott-g-the-g-man .

“Secret Sex, A Book Alive Online,” written and lived by John Scott G, is Copr. © 2011-2012 by JSG, all rights reserved under U.S. and international copyright conventions. Commercial use in any form is forbidden without express written permission of the author. Originally published on eNewsChannels.com with permission. Credits: Book cover design: Phil Hatten. Photo: Brian Forest.

When my mom was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I started writing her a love letter. I remember that it was my goal to finish it as soon as possible. Not that I wanted to rush through it, but I wanted her to be able to read it while her mind was still clear enough to comprehend all the emotion and gratitude I was attempting to pour into this one important document.

Just recently, in clearing out a lot of things stored in various parts of my house and garage, I came across the short essay that was written more than a decade before my mom died. She had put it into a file next to a lot of greeting cards, photographs, postcards, letters, Christmas cards, and mementoes.

The title at the top of the cover page reads “The Definitive Guide to Mom Facts, Mom Myths, and All Sorts of Mom Stuff.” The pages were printed on several different types of paper, from heavy stock to lighter and more translucent pages that were there to allow the reader to see through to some image on the following page. For example, you might be looking at a page that said something like In Appreciation of the AudreyMom, as I sometimes called her, but you’d also be seeing a ghosted image of a large word like “love” on the next page.

All the pages were held together with pink ribbon, giving one side of it a kind of feeling that it might be a birthday or Christmas present. The document wasn’t in pristine condition. The ribbons were a bit crushed from having been held in the file. The pages were a bit worn, but that seemed like a good thing to me because I think it meant she had often held it, reread it, gone through it, and (I hope) even caressed it.

Going back a bit

One section of the missive was headed “Who was the first mom?” Perhaps I got a bit too evolutionary about things, but in the document I wondered a little about the family tree of life, so to speak:

We all started with a mom, and each mom started with a mom, and if you go back far enough . . . well, nobody knows for sure, but god could very well have been a mom.

Not sure how politically correct this is, and there certainly will be some blowback from it, what with all the religiosity freaks out there, but I was happy with this section when I wrote it and I am fine with it now. In the margin, my mom wrote a large exclamation point with a circle for the dot. Based on other notes she made during her life, that meant she enjoyed what she had read.

Image

In another section of the epistle was a brief discussion of some of the ways I had been considering the doppelganger of the rare AudreyMom. There were only words in this part. Not a photograph, not a video, not a sculpture, not a painting; just words. I attempted to suggest the totality of her essence using visually specific language.

The word-picture I submitted for her included some standard things, perhaps even some expected things, like “stars blazing in the heavens” and “rainbows stretched out across the sky.” Both of those are fine, I still believe, but I also wrote about “lots of purring cats,” something she would have loved. Of all the books I inherited from her, the largest percentage (about one-quarter of them) dealt with cats. Picture books, instruction books, novels; all sorts of books about cats.

There is also a page that contains very little except line after line of solitary words, including the following: Love. Tenderness. Affection. Comfort. Serenity. Warmth. Hugs, Kisses. Kindness.

The Last Word

Whenever I go back to anything I have written, there are always things I want to change. An edit here, a tweak there, and so on. But the final line in my AudreyMom piece cannot be improved:

Best of all, when it comes to words, a mom knows just what to say to make the hurt go away.

To my mom in the cosmos, and to every mom everywhere: Happy Mother’s Day.

Article and photograph are Copr. © 2012 by John Scott G, and originally published on eNewsChannels.com – all commercial and reprint rights reserved.

Chapter 26 – “A First Kiss”

So there I was, out on a date with a girl who was the personification of beauty. The splendor of her presence was so powerful that later in life I would keep her in mind when writing certain song lyrics, such as:

In the dark, when I’m alone
There’s a wicked flame
When I’m at the crossroads,
I just call your name.

I’m amazed by the light that is you.
Fulfilled that you make loving true
You’re joy that is constantly new
Amazed by the light that is you.

Or maybe that song was written about god. I’m not really sure.

Anyway, we had gone out to dinner, which was not your typical first date for kids in high school at that time. The more normal plan was to ask a girl to a movie or a dance or a party. But I figured that a gal’s gotta eat, right? Plus, it seemed like a more grown-up thing to do. I came up with that idea all by myself. Right after this happened:

“Ask her out to dinner,” my Uncle told me. “A gal’s gotta eat. And besides, it’s a more grown-up thing to do.”

We went to a nice middle-class steak house. The kind of place where everything is a la carte. That’s French for “go ahead and order your entree but if you want a vegetable or a potato or a salad to go with it, you damn well better order that, too, and we’ll gladly add it to the facture salée.” That’s French for “whoo-hoo are we gonna charge ya for that!”

“Fancy-schmancy,” she called the place, but at least she was smiling.

“We can go to Taco Tio next time, if you prefer,” I told her, naming the joint near the railroad tracks that kept getting closed down because of drug busts in their parking lot.

“That’s okay,” she said with a laugh, “this is fine.”

Dinner was pleasant. She was easy to talk to. We discussed school, teachers, the upcoming student body elections, clothing styles, choices of colleges, music. Lots of talk about music. Turned out that we both enjoyed jazz. That was one of those Aha! moments because there were not that many high school kids who cared about Miles Davis or John Coltrane. She even knew who Benny Goodman was. For that matter, she even knew that Bernard Herrmann did the music for Psycho, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and Vertigo. I was impressed.

Every once in a while during the meal, I discovered that I wasn’t entirely following the main points she was making because I was getting lost in her eyes, her smile, her aura. (See song lyrics above.)

It took a self-imposed mental jolt to get me back on track. She would say something like “I really enjoy ‘Trane’s ‘My Favorite Things’ album because of his modal approach.” But her words were not what was going through my head; my noggin was processing something closer to this:

Ummm her eyes are so bright look at those lips she has such a beautiful smile she is My Favorite Thing how can she have perfect hair like that Wait she stopped speaking so what was it she said about Coltrane ohmygodohmygod what was it oh yeah something about his modal playing I’d better say something right away.

“Modal, yes,” I said, “from ‘Kind of Blue’ to ‘My Favorite Things’ and beyond.” And then, if I was lucky, she would say “I know! You’re easy to talk with.”

After dinner, it was still fairly early so we drove around a while. I don’t know how I was able to steer the car, listen to the music we were playing, and converse with her, all at the same time. The scent of her perfume reminded me that sooner or later, it would be time to take her home and I would be standing close to her, my head swirling inside the wisps of that glorious scent. And that meant it would be time for what Uncle Man said was so important: “The kiss, the kiss.” The idea of kissing her had insinuated its way into my head and I couldn’t get away from it.

We drove past a billboard with a woman’s picture on it and all that registered to me was: lips. We passed a store where the neon lights seemed to be forming themselves into incandescent lips. Just the act of driving made me think of lips (“driving” made me think about “hitting the road” which made me think of “road trips” and part of that phrase rhymes with lips). Uncle Man was right when he said “Sounds like you’ve got it bad.”

We went by a bowling alley and my mind itemized it this way: “There’s the bowling alley and they have some billiard tables and in billiards sometimes you have get one ball to just lightly kiss another, and. . . Kiss!”

Suddenly, we were pulling up to the curb in front of her parents’ house. How did we get here so fast? I turned off the engine and was going to get out to walk her to the door. She put her hand on my wrist before I could even move. Good thing, too, because my head was spinning and I didn’t think I’d be able to stand up straight much less walk. Or much less kiss her, for that matter. Too dizzy. I needed a moment to calm down. Of course, having her hand on me wasn’t making me any calmer.

“I had a really nice time,” she said.

“I did, too,” I told her.

“Would you like to come in for a minute?”

I knew that I needed to have a snappy reply. Something that communicated volumes of hidden depth and passion and commitment. So I said:

“Yes.”

Yup, I was a platinum-tongued devil, all right.

We got out of the car and I took her hand as we walked slowly toward the house. There was an electrical charge that was emanating from her hand to mine, and it pulsated within me, radiating from hand to wrist to arm to shoulder to neck to chest and head and heart.

A comet flared its way across the sky. We stopped and marveled at the universe. Maybe there was no comet. But we were astonished by the cosmos anyway. With a mixture of awe and anticipation, we just stood there listening to the all-encompassing whirling and twirling of the stars and planets.

One way you know when you truly like being with someone, especially on a first date, is if you are not uncomfortable with the silences. We were comfortable with the silences. We were stone solid fine with them. We were not compelled to keep talking but could just exult in the mere fact of physical proximity. Remarkable.

She got out her key, opened the door, grabbed my arm and pulled me inside. She used her knee to give the door a shove and it closed with a muffled whump. We stood there for several eternities.

“So?” she said.

“So,” I said and took her in my arms. For some reason, I did not immediately kiss her lips. I oh-so-lightly brushed my lips across her neck. Then her shoulder. Then up to her face. But still no real kiss. As delicately as possible, I ran my tongue across her lips, tasting the intriguing flavor of her lip gloss. Strawberry? No matter, it was intoxicating. I slightly kissed her neck and shoulder on the other side. Her whole body shuddered in my arms.

A voice within me began shouting “now now now now” and I obeyed the voice and kissed her full on those inviting luscious amazing lips.

There are moments in history that are so cataclysmic that the world is forever changed. The discovery of fire. The understanding of the forces of gravity. The first telescopic view of Saturn’s rings. And that first kiss.

It lasted a few precious seconds or several years of my life, I’m not sure which or perhaps it was both. The kiss was everything in the world to me. It was slow, it was fast, it was gentle, it was firm. It started and stopped and started again.

We paused, breathing heavily. We stared at each other, saying nothing. Suddenly, my mind intruded and made me wonder where her parents were. And her brother. Or brothers? I remember she mentioned something about at least one sibling.

As if reading my mind, she told me that her brothers were in a music recital and the maternal components were in attendance at the event. So we kissed again.

I held her body close. Closer. Closest. The physicality of the kiss merged with the spirituality of the kiss. With each new kiss, we experienced a feeling of being “As One.” We enjoyed a touching of souls beyond anything that had ever been experienced before in the entire story of life. In other words, she was a good kisser.

We came to the trembling conclusion of yet another kiss. “Ahhhh,” she said. It was no louder than a whisper. “Maybe we should slow down?”

“Well,” I whispered back, “I don’t know how to go any slower than this.” I kissed her cheek, then her forehead, then her shoulder. She ahhhh’d again. “After all,” I said, “we’re just kissing.”

“Hmmm,” she said. Smiling, she glanced down, then back up to my eyes. She made no move to step away from me. “Well,” she said with a very cute little smile, “you’re doing more than just kissing.”

I couldn’t help but smile back. “Oh, you mean . . . that?” I asked.

“Yes, that.”

I put my mouth close to her ear. “That,” I whispered to her, “is simply a reaction to kissing you.” I looked at her a moment. “You know, if I could control it, I’d be in a different line of work.”

She laughed in delight. There was still no move to step apart so I kissed her again. And she kissed back.

When we stopped after another couple of eons, she looked a bit more serious. “I don’t know if we should keep doing this.”

“Ummm,” I said, lightly kissing her cheek. “I am very interested in your views,” I whispered, “and I think we need to discuss them.” I continued lightly kissing her face and her neck.

“Unnnmmmm,” she said. “I don’t know, I don’t know . . . .” But she was kissing back.

“Ummmmm, tell me more,” I whispered. I tried gently nibbling on her ears before returning to the light kisses.

“This is so unfair,” she said, almost moaning.

“Uh-huh,” I said. “What, exactly, is unfair about it?” I asked, still kissing. “You can take all the time you want.”

“Well,” she said, and then we kissed. “The thing is,” she said, and then we kissed. “I can’t help,” she said, and then we kissed. “Responding to you,” she said, and then we kissed.

“That’s good,” I whispered. I ran my hands from her shoulders to her neck, then slid them down to her hips, then around her again. She inhaled and exhaled with a most delightful sound.

“You’re doing so much more than just kissing,” she said.

“Should I stop caressing you?”

“No! I mean, yes. I don’t know. But I don’t mean your hands.” She looked at me again. We stared at each other. Again, the physicality of the moment became overwhelmingly apparent. “Yes. I mean, I mean. . . you know.”

“I told you, it’s just a reaction. You don’t need to pay any attention to that.”

“Well, it’s hard to ignore.”

“Thank you.”

We both cracked up. The laughter was an incredible release. We took a few steps down the hall toward the living room, almost gasping for breath. I held her hand. She stopped by a table and switched on a lamp. Then she switched it off again. On. Off. On. Off. I stepped closer to her. “Do I get the pointing tour?” I asked.

“The pointing tour?”

“Sure. That’s where you say ‘Here’s the living room, over there is the kitchen, that’s the hall, this is a lamp.’ You know, because we’re not ready for the walk-through tour. Just the — ”

“The pointing tour,” she said along with me. We both laughed. Then we both smiled. Then we both looked serious. She moved against me. I held her and we kissed once again. And it was still magical.

We paused a moment. She looked at me, then at her watch, then back at me. Very quietly, she said, “I have an idea.”

And indeed she did.

Our relationship was stellar, stunning, stupendous. And it ended even as high school ended. In thought and deed, she has continually returned to my thoughts. I hope her life is half as spectacular as our first kiss.

• To be continued in next chapter (click link to subscribe via RSS) …. or, to read additional articles and some bits of ephemera by John Scott G, visit his story index here: http://enewschannels.com/author/scott-g-the-g-man .

“Secret Sex, A Book Alive Online,” written and lived by John Scott G, is Copr. © 2011-2012 by JSG, all rights reserved under U.S. and international copyright conventions. Commercial use in any form is forbidden without express written permission of the author. Originally published on eNewsChannels.com with permission. Credits: Book cover design: Phil Hatten.

“Amazed by the Light That Is You,” copyright 2000 and 2009 by John Scott G, Golosio Publishing (BMI).

Inventor, writer, and futurist R. Buckminster Fuller was called “Bucky” except when he was receiving his dozens of patents, his 47 honorary doctorate degrees, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

World View

Buckminster Fuller’s findings and predictions have touched the lives of millions and paved the way for research, ideas, speeches, and books from a wide variety of writers and thinkers, including Alvin Toffler (Future Shock, The Third Wave, and Revolutionary Wealth, among other works), Tom Peters (The Little BIG Things), and John Naisbitt (Megatrends and Reinventing the Corporation).

As a design-scientist (his term), Fuller had goals that were just a bunch of piddly little things like finding ways of providing food, energy, and shelter for all of humanity. Born in the 1890s, Fuller became one of the earliest proponents of renewable energy sources, documenting methods by which the earth could produce enough energy for the planet’s population while also phasing out reliance on fossil fuels and atomic energy.

His proposals are still being examined today, although you could be forgiven for not noticing this since the media is often very busy with more important things like car chases, murder investigations, right-wing wackos attempting to hijack Congress and the Supreme Court, and anything involving celebrities.

Breakthroughs

Any one of Fuller’s developments would be an impressive accomplishment for most of us. During his career, the man took imagination to reality in many realms. His breakthroughs include:

The Geodesic Dome. These structures are the lightest, strongest, and most cost-effective ever devised. The U.S. Marine Corps utilizes geodesic domes to shelter delicate radar gear in the icy 180mph storms of the Arctic. In addition to the military uses, there are more than a quarter of a million more geodesic domes around the globe, including those at Epcot Center and the home of Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose in Long Beach Harbor, where one of Bucky’s domes stands as the largest clear-span structure in the world.

Dymaxion House. Originally called the 4D House, this is an inexpensive, mass-produced home that can be airlifted to its location. When a department store first displayed a model of the 4D House, the marketing department coined the word “dymaxion” by combining “dynamic,” “maximum,” and “ion.” They trademarked the term in Fuller’s name and it was applied to many of Fuller’s subsequent inventions.

Dymaxion Map. Displaying the globe accurately on a flat map was impossible until Fuller developed this solution. In addition, Fuller’s map can be reconfigured to put different regions at the center, enabling users to better consider the world’s problems by prompting people to think comprehensively about the planet.

The World Game. In a bid to increase the quality of life for everyone, Fuller developed The World Game. As Fuller put it, the goal of the Game is to “make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone.” Yeah, he put words together in interesting turns of phrase, but the practicality of his ideas transcended the compound sentences.

Dymaxion Car. This was a streamlined automobile that could smoothly make extraordinarily sharp turns. By having its wheels turn 90 degrees, the Dymaxion Car could park in a space only a few inches longer than the total length of the automobile. It also used a periscope rear-view mirror, thus avoiding those silly protruding side mirrors that destroy the visual flow (not to mention the airflow) of every other vehicle on the road today.

Space Flight

I need you to take a bit of a leap here. Ready? All right, I need you to imagine yourself as a traveler in outer space. It doesn’t matter if your frame of reference is Star Wars or Plan 9 from Outer Space, Star Trek or Apollo 13, Space Cowboys or 2001. Whatever your mind needs to picture, just pretend you’re out in space, okay?

Okay, here we go. What a rush! Silently sailing through the heavens! Lighter than air, free from most gravitational forces, and in a gigantic arc of cosmic travel. What Joy! What Bliss! And yet . . .

Unfortunately, there are a few problems with your trip. Some of the challenges are annoying but seem fairly minor. For example, while there’s an intercom on board, not everyone is plugged into it. Of those who are connected and paying attention, only some people bother to work out their differing languages, customs, habits, and cultures. But there are serious difficulties as well . . .

For example, the air supply is being tampered with on a daily basis, often as a matter of economic policy rather than as a matter of health.

Meanwhile, groups of passengers have formed factions which are attempting to wield power over other factions. Some entire compartments have been taken over by force. Other areas have been made off-limits and booby-trapped to enforce the lines of demarcation.

Meanwhile, some groups are killing others in both random and organized fashion.

Meanwhile, the food supply has been allowed to fall below subsistence level in some areas, and the overall water supply is unequally distributed; in fact, it’s unequal to the point of dehydration, disease, and death.

Meanwhile, the five permanent members of the on-board United Nations Security Council (USA, Russian Federation, China, France, Great Britain) have become the five leading suppliers of weapons to all factions.

Enjoying the Ride?

So, here we all are, notes Buckminster Fuller. Here we all are, riding through the solar system on our little, befouled, semi-radioactive, war-torn Spaceship Earth. Welcome aboard, passengers. No parachutes available.

For more information, visit the Buckminster Fuller Institute online at: http://bfi.org/about-bucky/buckys-big-ideas

VIDEO:
“Buckminster Fuller”

 
Article is Copr. © 2012 by John Scott G and originally published on eNewsChannels.com – all commercial and reprint rights reserved.

Chapter 25 – “Dating Tips”

She was beautiful. She was lovely. She was alluring. She was desirable. The lady was more intoxicating than absinthe. A gorgeous and stunning woman, she was at the same time a vision of incomparable girlish deliciousness. More importantly, she was living testimony to the existence of a higher power.

Not that I said any of those things to my family, but I think they could tell.

“Sounds like you’ve got it bad,” my uncle said to me.

“Yeah,” I admitted to him. “What can I do?”

“Come with me into my office,” by which he meant his bedroom, “and I will discuss with you the wonderful problems of dealing with feminine pulchritude.”

“What?”

“Pulchritude. It means physical comeliness.”

“Oh,” I said. “Umm. . . ”

“It means she’s a real honey.”

“Yeah, definitely,” I said. “So, what do I do?”

“Gotta ask some questions here. First, and I don’t want you to take any offence at this, but does she even know who you are?”

“Of course she knows who I am! We’re going out Friday night.”

“Okay, good. That’s good. Just had to make sure this wasn’t one of those things where the guy is thinking about the babe and the babe is thinking about the school’s quarterback.”

“No, she said she’d like to go out with me.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh, that’s good. When you guys were talking, did she say your name?”

“What?”

“You know, like this: You ask if she’d go out and she says ‘Okay,’ which means one thing, or she says ‘I’d like that, John,’ which means something else. Did she say your name?”

“She said my name.”

“That’s a good sign. All right, all right, you’re moving on this, kiddo.”

“Yeah, but, well. . . .” I didn’t know what to tell him. He wasn’t aware of my, um, interludes with the school nurse. He hadn’t heard anything about my playing The Game. He just knew I was going out on a date and was worried about it.

“Hey, don’t look so down in the mouth,” he said. “It’ll be nifty. It’s all good. It’ll work out fine. Just fine.”

“Thanks, I — ”

“Or it won’t.”

“Wait, what?”

“Either way, nobody will even remember it a couple years from now.”

“I don’t care about a couple of years from now; I just want to survive Friday.”

“Oh, you’ll survive. Oh sure. Most likely. Don’t worry about it.”

“Yeah, well, thanks, I guess.” I got up to leave.

“You want pointers?”

“You have some?”

“What do you think?”

“Well, mom says you had a reputation.”

“With the ladies, yup. I was a killer. Sit down.”

“Okay,” I said, “but are we, you know, going to get to something that’s going to help me?”

“Always had dates,” he said, ignoring my question. “Had a few minor setbacks along the way, but mostly I hit the trail running, if you know what I mean.”

“Ummm, maybe I do.”

“Oh, you’ll know if you hit the trail running. If you grab that train and fill the tunnel, you’ll know, kiddo, you’ll know. So, let me give you the benefit of my expertise. Now, first, it’s all a numbers game. You try every time, but sometimes you just strike out. Sometimes there are mistakes.”

“Mistakes?”

“Been married five times. Never learned from my mistakes. Don’t you screw up like that. You remember this, young man: Marriage Means Pain.”

“Mom and dad are happy, aren’t they?”

“Right, right. Sure they are. Sure they are. Happy as . . . well, happy people. They got lucky. Most people don’t.”

“Uncle Man,” (that’s what we called him), “I’m not getting married. It’s just a date.”

“For you, it’s a date. For her, it’s an audition. She’s trying you on for size.”

I just stared at him. Clearly, this was a bit beyond me.

“A gal takes stock of the situation,” he said. “Meaning you.” He paused and I think he was taking stock of our situation. He saw that I was kinda-sorta following him, but just barely. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “She looks at every guy, or every date, and pictures herself with you in a house with a white picket fence, some kids, a dog, a cat, and a parakeet. Get it?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“A guy doesn’t do that. You’re thinking about getting her into the bedroom and she’s wondering if you’re going to earn enough money to pay for all the bedrooms she wants. You know, the house, the kids, the dog, the cat, and the bird.”

Once again, I just stared at him.

“Okay, okay, okay,” he said. “Forget about all that. You want the date to be a hoot. Gotcha. Listen. Really listen.”

“I’m listening.”

“Not to me, to her! On the date.”

“Just like when you’re trying to pick them up?”

“Atta boy. That never changes. They want to think you care what they think. Even if you really don’t.”

“But I do care what she thinks.”

“Naaaw. No guy cares. You care what she thinks about you. Big difference. You see?”

“Sure, but it’s not like that.”

“Oh no? Look: do you care what she thinks about music, about sports, about school, about the weather?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“You do?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Whoa. You do have it bad.”

He just stared at me. Clearly, this was a bit beyond him.

“Okay, okay, okay,” he said. “Let’s re-group here. So you, and you alone, are the one guy in all of the Western, Eastern, Northern, and Southern Hemispheres who actually is interested in what his date has to say about whatever it is you’re talking about. Okay, okay.” He paused to think about it. “Okay. We can make this work for you. You’re going to have to act in reverse.”

“Reverse?”

“You betcha. Normally, you have to fake it that you’re interested in what she’s saying. You, however, are not going to have to worry about that. You, my addle-pated young friend, you are going to have to fake that you’re cool.”

“What?”

“Look, here’s the deal. Remember when you’re at a party and a bunch of boys and girls are standing around talking?”

“Yeah.”

“And some guy comes into the party and one of the girls looks over and says something like ‘Uh-oh, that’s him.’ And all the girls look over and they start acting all funny. And one of the guys asks what’s going on and it always turns out that there’s this story about that guy. There’s this story that the guy beat up someone or he got some girl knocked up or he got thrown out of school or he stole a car or he got arrested or something like that.”

“Yeah,” I said, wondering if my uncle had been spying on some of the parties I had attended.

“And what happens at that point? All the girls fiddle with their hair, smooth their skirts, and adjust their boobs.”

“Ummm. . . ”

“Okay, they adjust their bras. But they’re just making sure the boobs are pointing in the right direction. You’ve seen it. It’s one of the times you can look over at ‘em without any problem because they’re busy looking down at ‘em. Right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” This was spooky. It was good to have an uncle who understood the younger generation.

“And why are they doing this primping and preening and pointing?”

“Well,” I started to reply, and realized I didn’t know. “Uh, no, why?”

“Because all the gals are hoping the bad boy hits on them. They want the attention. Not the attention of you. Not the attention of the other guys who are being nice and standing around talking nicely with them. The bad boy. They want the bad boy.”

“Yeah. Yeah!” I said. “Wow, I noticed that, but it’s like I never noticed that, you know?”

“I know. That’s why I’m here for you, son.”

“Yeah, this is good stuff. What else you got?”

“Awww, I got nothin’. What do I know? I’m an old guy.”

There was an awkward pause. I stood up again.

“Yup,” he said, “except for the big secret of dealing with women, I got nothing. See ya ’round, kiddo.”

“Wait, what? What big secret?”

“Naah, you got better things to do.”

“No I don’t!”

“Chores?”

“Done.”

“Homework?”

“Did it in Study Hall.”

“You joshing me, boy?”

“No, Uncle Man. It was easy. All we had to do was read three chapters. A snap.”

“Okay. Sit down, my boy, we have something to share.”

I sat down again. I was all ears. He just stared at me, sizing me up.

“Just wondering if you’re really ready.”

“Come on, Uncle Man, what’s the secret?”

“Okay.” He sighed. Then he said: “It’s the kiss.”

“What?”

“The kiss, the kiss. You gotta kiss her good,” he said again. “Everything starts with a kiss. You kiss a woman good, and she responds. Women love the kiss.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s true,” I said, smiling to myself as I remembered the kissing I’d done in the past. At least I thought I was smiling to myself.

“Oh ho, I see you’ve had some practice,” he said. “Good for you. Whatever the gals have shown you, try that on her and then just let her show you what she likes. They’ve had lots of practice with each other so they know what they want.”

“What?”

“Girls get together and talk about boys. And clothes and make-up and shoes and hair. But it’s all to make themselves attractive to. . . ”

“Boys.”

“You got it. And then they practice kissing. Soft kisses, hard kisses, little teasing kisses, deep kisses, nibbling kisses, all kinds. They try out the techniques. When you’re young, the gals are way way ahead of the guys when it comes to kissing ’cause they have tried out a bunch of things.”

“Wow,” I said, thinking about it. “That’s, um, cool.”

“Yeah, it’s a fine thing to ruminate on.”

“What?”

“Ruminate. Cogitate. Ponder.”

I stared at him.

“To think about it.”

“Oh,” I said. “Right. Ruminate, right.”

“Yup, it’s a fine, fine thought. Yup. Girls kissing each other. . . .” His voice kind of trailed off.

“Uncle Man?” I said after a moment.

“Mmmmmm,” was all he said, his eyes looking far, far away.

“Uncle Man?” I said again.

“Hmm? What?”

“It’s not really fair, is it?” I asked.

“What isn’t?”

“That girls get to kiss other girls.”

“Nope,” he said. “It’s not fair. Girls get to practice kissing. And we don’t. Not usually, anyway.”

“Not usually?”

“Never mind.”

• To be continued in next chapter (click link to subscribe via RSS) …. or, to read additional articles and some bits of ephemera by John Scott G, visit his story index here: http://enewschannels.com/author/scott-g-the-g-man .

“Secret Sex, A Book Alive Online,” written and lived by John Scott G, is Copr. © 2011-2012 by JSG, all rights reserved under U.S. and international copyright conventions. Commercial use in any form is forbidden without express written permission of the author. Originally published on eNewsChannels.com with permission. Credits: Book cover design: Phil Hatten; Author Photo: Phil Hatten.

Chapter 24 – “Cheating Death in Cars, 1.”

As soon as I was legally able to drive, the Southern California freeway system became a total delight. In my car, I was free! Put on some music and head on over to any part of the city at any time of the day or night. Pure joy!

It was great to be able to just zoom around town, collecting experiences at every stop. Consider an early evening in Spring, driving on the Hollywood Freeway, wind billowing through the sunroof, heading to a movie. I was big on movies at the time. Having been given a 16mm Bolex camera as a birthday present, I was into making my own film clips, sometimes to put into a mini-epic motion picture of my own design, or just to use as part of a light show when a friend’s rock band played a dance or a party.

With a strong interest in alternative cinema, or what was sometimes called underground films, I would often attend screenings of art flicks at campus film club meetings. That’s right: art flicks, not porn. Although it was sometimes difficult to tell the difference. On this occasion, I may have been on the way to see “Last Year at Marienbad” with “The Films of Kenneth Anger” or some such. (Note to people who are now saying WTF does this have to do with the car crashes that were promised in the chapter heading? The crash is coming. Just let me set the scene a little. Sheesh, you people are so literal sometimes.)

Artsy Schmartsy

So, art films. Sure, I would also lower my standards and see commercial film releases, and sometimes you could find a well-made film coming from a major studio, but those were few and far between. For every “M*A*S*H” there would be dozens of still-born monstrosities like “Tora Tora Tora” and “Airport.” For every “Performance” there would be oodles of fluff like “Scrooge” and “C.C. and Company.” For every “Taxi Driver” there would be tons of tasteless crap like “Moment by Moment” and “Xanadu” and “The Wiz” and “The Towering Inferno.” Not to mention “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Godawful Movie That Stole the Title of The Beatles Funhouse Album.” So I went all over the city to find more interesting cinematic creations.

My own personal taste ran more towards the bizarre. Jodorosky’s “El Topo,” for example. Or “Un Chien Andalou” by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. Or even the Coffin Joe films of Jose Mojica Marins. To see any of this stuff meant attending midnight shows or seeking out one-time-only college screenings. These were esoteric happenings. In other words, proceedings that couldn’t afford to advertise other than on small fliers distributed in head shops and used record stores.

These showings were as unconventional as their marketing. Here’s how it would work at one of these things: First, you pay a couple bucks as a “donation,” because many of these groups were not officially recognized by the Associated Students, meaning they were not authorized to sell admissions. So, you donate to the Phi Delta Phi Film Appreciation Society or whatever and then walk in and quite often discover that you were not in a theater. It might be a multi-purpose room or the weight room of the gymnasium or a lecture hall or just a classroom or the common area of a fraternity. In one case, it was outside on the quad and so the screen was simply the back wall of the cafeteria.

Whatever the location, you would find yourself mingling with several dozen beatniks of various dispositions. Some were Quietly Suffering Souls, dressed down for the scene. Some were folks who were Intensely-Above-It-All. They were dressed moderately better, and in certain cases rather well-decked-out. One guy had on a velvet suit. Looked very sharp, actually, but you really need a strong personality or slightly visible aura to pull that off.

Still other attendees were Abstractly Distant, no matter how well or badly dressed. There always were a few Beautifully Tragic Poets of various genders. And, of course, some were just Drugged Out societal rejects. No interaction problems here, by the way; you could get along with any of them by just shutting the hell up.

The seating arrangements at these places were luxurious, if by luxurious you mean metal folding chairs. Invariably, a couple of people would be semi-curled up on the floor. And there were always a few who brought their yoga mats and would make a bit of a show out of assuming the position.

Half the audience would be smoking, but that was okay because not all of them would be using tobacco. During the screening, you would gradually get a contact high from both nicotine and marijuana. Over in the corner, the coffee machine would gurgle impertinently throughout the showing. And yes, a few people would keep their shades on during the flicks.

On the screen might be “Fireworks” or “Scorpio Rising” or Maya Deren’s “Meshes of the Afternoon” or even local student-made productions in various stages of completion. Usually the projected images were acceptable. The sound, on the other hand, would have to compete with the clatter of a 16mm projector that was often sitting right there in the room with us.

These were the kinds of presentation where the reels of “Marienbad” were probably shown out-of-sequence, although I would have no way of knowing if that was the case. Come to think of it, who besides director Alain Resnais or writer Alain Robbe-Grillet could be certain of that? If you’ve seen “Marienbad,” you’ll know that it might not make much difference; it’s beautiful, poetic, and hypnotic, but it’s also surreal and calculatedly anti-traditional in its narrative progression. (Okay, I’ll leave off with the cinema reviews.)

In Transit

Anyway, there I was, tooling along the freeway in my nice little compact car. Reaching the correct exit, I left the roar of the freeway and headed down the off-ramp to the signal lights at the bottom. I was caught by the red light and eased to a halt. Since I was the first car to reach the end of the ramp, there was a nice view of the college co-eds who sauntered through the crosswalk in front of my car. Wondered if they could possibly be going to the film screening. “Nah,” I thought, “not hippie-looking enough.”

A car pulled up behind me, also waiting out the red light. In my rear-view mirror, I saw that it had a small sign affixed to the roof. The sign read: “revirD tnedutS.” It was one of those dual-steering-wheel cars used by driving instruction firms. The Student Driver looked a bit worried but the instructor seemed calm, and they had stopped without nudging my car, so I didn’t worry too much about them.

Truckin’

Unbeknownst to all of us, something was happening at about the mid-point of the off-ramp. A truck was on its way down toward us. It was not small like a pick-up truck. It was not medium-sized like a cargo van, box truck, or delivery vehicle. It was a semi-trailer truck. A five-axel vehicle. A 70-foot-long behemoth capable of hauling fifty-thousand-plus pounds of cargo.

At this point, please allow me to reference a study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation which found that nearly one-third of all crashes involving large trucks were at least partly due to problems with the truck braking systems. Which I do believe was the case here.

So, in a matter of a few seconds, things happened like this:

1) Semi-trailer truck lost some or all of its braking ability.

2) Panicked truck driver began sounding the air horn.

3) Girls in crosswalk stopped and turned toward the sound.

4) Air horn blared again.

5) Girls bolted toward the sidewalk.

6) Aforementioned giant truck slammed into the driving school car.

7) Driving school car crashed into me.

8) My car was pushed into the intersection.

9) Whereupon my car was hit by oncoming traffic.

10) From both directions.

Big Bam Boom

What was it like to be in that car, you may ask. Well, have you ever seen a bumper car ride at a carnival? You’re supposed to direct your little dodgem car in a big circle around the outer surface of the ride, so the only collisions would be with cars which are also kinda-sorta moving in the same direction. But sometimes one of the bumper cars is hit in such a way that it spins into the path of cars coming in the other direction and you get to watch a wham-wham-wham-wham chain reaction of car carnage.

After being deposited unceremoniously in the middle of the thoroughfare, I was the now-helpless “driver” of a dodgem vehicle that was unable to dodge ‘em. There were many whams, as I recall. From the left. From the right. From the right and left at the same time. It was like being inside an old-fashioned pinball machine. It was like being a bowling pin when a powerful bowler scored a strike. It was like hell.

You know, another fine analogy might be that our autos were behaving a little like balls on a billiard table, assuming all the other balls were rolling into just one of them. However you describe it, the fact is that my little bumper car did not survive the non-sanctioned destruction derby event we were staging in the middle of the road.

Yes, the car died that day. On the plus side, there was enough scrap metal left over to make several corkscrews and the frame for a small screen door. One of the police officers who was supervising the towing away of many vehicles looked at what used to be my ride and said, “I’ll bet there’s only enough left of that car to make several corkscrews and the frame for a small screen door.” Okay, he didn’t say that. What he said was, “Are you sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?”

But other than requiring a few months of weekly physical therapy, I had been able to walk away from the wreckage. I know: like a cat using up its nine lives, I once again escaped from ending one’s meat. I mean meeting one’s end. Oh, you know what I mean. Sorry; perhaps I am still a bit addle-pated from the accident. I’m just saying.

• To be continued in next chapter (click link to subscribe via RSS) …. or, to read additional articles and some bits of ephemera by John Scott G, visit his story index here: http://enewschannels.com/author/scott-g-the-g-man .

“Secret Sex, A Book Alive Online,” written and lived by John Scott G, is Copr. © 2011-2012 by JSG, all rights reserved under U.S. and international copyright conventions. Commercial use in any form is forbidden without express written permission of the author. Originally published on eNewsChannels.com with permission. Credits: Book cover design: Phil Hatten; Author Photo: Phil Hatten.

Chapter 23 – “Mouthing Off.”

Some of my previous odes to self-pleasure are having an influence in the world, starting with the FookMovie production of the “Free Nude Photos” music video and continuing in this caprice…. Please join us now in celebration of one the greatest contributions America has made to world culture: The Talk Show!

“Welcome to ‘The Sheena Metal Experience’ here on LATalkRadio. I’m your host, Sheena Metal, and I’m very excited about the program we have for you today. It’s not often we get people from the world of classical music, and today we have two members of a highly respected chamber orchestra, the Conservatory of Saint Vincent in the Grove. Joining me in the studio now are — ”

“No names, please.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“It’s an anti-ego thing. We like to feel that we are speaking for all musicians. For all artists, actually.”

“Really. Well, okay then, what’ll I call the both of you?”

“I am the oboist.”

“And I am the harpist.”

“Got it. So, Ms. Harpist, tell us a little about how you first became interested in classical music.”

“That did not occur.”

“Sorry. . .?”

“I never became interested in classical music.”

“You didn’t?”

“No.”

“Wait, you’re telling me that the harpist of the Conservatory of Saint Vincent in the Grove isn’t into classical music. Wow, that’s fascinating. What kind of music do you like? Rock ‘n’ roll? Country? How about polka?”

“Klezmer is excellent.”

“Klezmer! Well, okay, that’s an interesting choice for a harpist.”

“Thank you.”

“And what about you, Mr. Oboist?”

“Yes, I also enjoy Klezmer. It’s so very spritely. However, my main interest is punk.”

“You’re into punk? An oboe player is into punk?”

“Oh yes. In fact — ”

“Both of us are.”

“Really. So you, too? Punk?”

“Oh yes, I also like punk. But unfortunately they just are not writing much punk for the harp.”

“Or for the oboe.”

“I see. You know, in addition to this show I also have a music show here on LATalkRadio and so I know you don’t find a lot of punk compositions for classicists.”

“That is correct, Ms. Metal.”

“You can call me Sheena. But do you two find that at all surprising? I mean, considering the approach of the punk genre, there would tend to be an emphasis on amplified instruments and the oboe is a reed-based wind instrument, and the harp is a fairly subtle stringed instrument.”

“We have amps.”

“Really, you have amplifiers?”

“Oh yes. In fact, they are right here. Let me remove the dust covers. . . ”

“Is that what those are? I haven’t seen knitted amp covers before. Yes, I see that you have indeed brought amps! Will you perform for us later?”

“Of course. We are very proud of our electronic sonic augmentation and intensification systems.”

“Can you tell us about them?”

“Certainly, yes indeed. As you see, I have a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. You know it?”

“Tube amp.”

“That is correct Ms. Metal.”

“No, really, it’s fine to call me Sheena. We actually like using names here on the show.”

“Fine, fine. Well, you are correct, Sheena. The Hot Rod Deluxe is an excellent tube amplifier. It has three 12AX7A tubes and two 5881/6L6 tubes, a solid state rectifier and a 12-inch speaker. It gives me 40 watts of tube-fueled power and I can assure you that I know how to use it!”

“To blast out your harp sounds.”

“Mais oui. Absolument. I especially enjoy the fact that this amplifier possesses three different channels: you have the Normal channel, plus a Drive channel, and then you have my personal favorite, the one with the most creative name: the More Drive channel. As a woman, you probably also like More Drive.”

“Oh you bet I do. So you like the More Drive channel. That would be, ah, interesting for the harp. And how about you with your oboe, what amp do you use for that?”

“I have a solid state amp, a Crate DX212.”

“That has built-in digital effects, doesn’t it?”

“That’s right, Sheena. You are up on a lot of classic gear!”

“I lived with a guitar player for several years and I play in my own band.”

“Good for you! Let us know when you need oboe and harp. When I perform, it is through the Crate, which gives me 100 watts of power through two 12-inch speakers. I find it cuts through most other sounds no matter where we might be performing.”

“I’ll bet it does. And you must be one of the only electric oboe players around. And you’re one of the few electric harpists, as well.”

“Oh yes indeed! We are both quite proud of that.”

“So you guys are Loud ‘n’ proud?”

“Yes, exactly, Sheena! As you will see when you allow us to demonstrate our prowess a little later in the program.”

“That would be awesome.”

“But first Sheena, let me say that both of us are often quite depressed about the sorry state of musical composition in the world these days.”

“Okay, tell us all a little more about that. Why do you guys feel that way?”

“Well, Sheena, you see, we are saddened because oboe and harp players are quite bereft of repertoire in fields such as rock, reggae, Klezmer, and punk. All the truly exciting genres. Instead, we are reduced to making a living playing chamber music crap.”

“Wow. ‘Chamber music crap.’ I have to tell you, I rather enjoy a lot of the recordings of the Conservatory.”

“They are nothing but rubbish.”

“You both feel that way?”

“Yes, quite so, Sheena. Bloody rubbish, the lot of them.”

“Amazing. Okay, well, what made you guys take up the oboe and the harp?”

“Good exercise for the hands.”

“Yes, that is it exactly. One must keep one’s fingers, hands, and wrists flexible.”

“Right, for playing your music.”

“No, Sheena, for wanking.”

“Wanking?”

“Yes, wanking. You have that word over here, I believe?”

“We call it different things. But that’s. . . fascinating. You both describe yourselves as wankers, then?”

“Oh my yes indeed.”

“Oh yes, Sheena. You know what they say: wanker is as wanker does.”

“Actually, I had never heard that particular saying before. But that’s awesome. I appreciate having open discussions on this show and so this is excellent. Okay, so tell me, do you agree with Malcolm Gladwell in his book, ‘Outliers,’ that success results from at least 10,000 hours of practice?”

“Ten thousand hours, yes, that sounds about right.”

“So you both would agree you have put 10,000 hours of practice into your, um, let us say, pursuits?”

“Playing our ‘instruments,’ you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Oh yes, Sheena.”

“At least that amount, Sheena. I mean, we wanted to be really good. Whatever you are approaching in earnest, you need to relegate yourself to long hours of practice. To learn, to understand, to achieve the level of perfection where you can honestly look at yourself in the mirror and say, ‘Yes, now I am making this work properly.’ You need to do that.”

“Awesome. And you, do you also feel the same way?”

“Yes, indeed. And I also sometimes use a mirror.”

“Right, right, I see! So, Ms. Harpist, Mr. Oboist, you said you were speaking for all musicians, all artists. But you’re now the ones doing the speaking. So do you still feel the need for anonymity?”

“Certainly. I often find that I’m distracted if there’s anyone else in the room with me.”

“No, I meant — ”

“Of course, in England, they sometimes have what are known as group wanks. A bit difficult to get used to at first, but, well, ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do!’ Or in this case, as the Liverpudlians do.”

“Also, Sheena, we have brought along some props to aid our discussion.”

“Props?”

“Or some aids to prop our discourse!”

“Think of us as helpers, Sheena. All we want to do is help.”

“Look at it this way: we are thinking of that man or woman who is lonely and adrift.”

“We want to pass along our expertise. After all, our 10,000 hours of practice has resulted in a certain amount of knowledge, Sheena.”

“I see. So what have you brought to share with us? That looks like a chamois.”

“Correct, Sheena. You know your automobile wash ‘n’ dry implements, I see.”

“Well, I own a Mercedes and like to keep it clean, sometimes.”

“Right. Well, a chamois can be good. We have several other examples here. . . an old pillowcase. . . ”

“A cloth diaper. Completely clean, of course.”

“I hope so.”

“Certain kinds of brushes can be good.”

“Yes, soft paint brushes, like the ones used for watercolors. . . ”

“Make-up brushes can work really well.”

“Yes, so very delicate and supple.”

“A common handkerchief, un-starched of course.”

“Yes, and feathers.”

“Yes, and ferns.”

“Wait, ferns?”

“Yes, Sheena, and layers of cheesecloth.”

“Yes, or an old flannel bathrobe.”

“Well, an old flannel anything.”

“Um, ferns? Really?”

“Certainly.”

“Uh-huh. So okay, Ms. Harpist, Mr. Oboist, let me ask you, a lot of this seems male-oriented. What do you two think of vegetables?”

“Ah, excellent question, Sheena! Consider a cucumber, for example.”

“Well, not for a man.”

“But just peachy for a woman.”

“A peach can work, but just watch out for the pit.”

“You know, Sheena, the orchestra has a saying: melons for men, tubers for women.”

“Wait, the whole chamber orchestra is involved with this?”

“Certainly. All chamber orchestras are into wanking, Sheena.”

“After all, Sheena, that’s why they are called chamber orchestras.”

“You’re putting me on.”

“Hard to put one over on you, Sheena!”

“Ah! Okay, good. Awesome. All right, so you’re going to play now? Your instruments, I mean.”

“Well — ”

“I mean your harp and your oboe.”

“We will play anything you like, Sheena!”

“That is correct, Sheena. So, shall we plug in?”

“You bet. And I love it when you talk that way.”
 

• To be continued in next chapter (click link to subscribe via RSS) …. or, to read additional articles and some bits of ephemera by John Scott G, visit his story index here: http://enewschannels.com/author/scott-g-the-g-man .

“Secret Sex, A Book Alive Online,” written and lived by John Scott G, is Copr. © 2011-2012 by JSG, all rights reserved under U.S. and international copyright conventions. Commercial use in any form is forbidden without express written permission of the author. Originally published on eNewsChannels.com with permission. Credits: Book cover design: Phil Hatten; Author Photo: Phil Hatten.