4:27 a.m. Sunday January 1 2023
Amy and i are now binge watching Grey’s Anatomy. All 18 seasons of it. We watched it from 5 p.m. until nearly 11 p.m. yesterday. We ate shrimp and drank sparkling white grape juice. I fell asleep before midnight but woke up for the fireworks and then couldn’t go back to sleep cuz of heavy night sweats and hot flashes(symptomatic of something or other – i get them all the time – but not worth going to the doctor about.) amy got up at 4 this morning, and i soon followed. So now she’s in the kitchen in her white pajamas cutting patterns with parchment paper for baking and i’m in my recliner writing this – whatever it is – hoping i’ll get sleepy enough again to steal a few more hours of slumber. We don’t need to be up early anymore on sundays – church doesn’t start until 1 p.m.
I’m going to put cabbage, carrots, potatoes, onions, and diced salt pork in the slow cooker sometime today to serve for dinner. But right now i’m not obsessed with it, so maybe it won’t even happen until tomorrow. After all, a cabbage lasts a long time in the fridge.
I figured i’d be up early today, so i spent time racking my brains last night trying to recall a story or incident from my fabled past to share this morning, but everything that came to mind i’ve already written about. So instead i’ll dive into a deep and tedious analysis of my poetry from this past week. I may discover something about myself that i didn’t know before. You will probably fall into a deep coma if you are foolhardy enough to continue reading this dreck.
Stay with the wife whom thou lovest;
the grass ain't no greener elsewhere.
Cherish her faults and her graces;
brickbats and pouting her spare.
Start the new year with a promise
to understand more of her heart.
Joy will be yours if you try it
(and you will grow deaf when she's tart.)
I wrote this item two days ago, after reading Ecclesiastes 9:9 –
Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.
This is a prime example of a poem getting away from me. I wanted it to be about the profound joy in marriage, to celebrate the richness and enduring comfort of it. But instead the rhymes led me to create a flippant new year’s resolution. Not what i wanted to say at all – but i couldn’t resist the gag ending once i wrote it down. I recall a long time ago the advice of a professor friend of mine, John McCabe, who wrote the first biography of Laurel & Hardy. He said “don’t be afraid to kill your babies.” meaning don’t be afraid to edit and rewrite your work. I should have done that with the above piece – but . . . but . . . i’m also a big believer in what Allen Ginsburg said: “first thought, best thought.” i usually go with the first draft of what i write, because most if not all of what i write is ephemera anyway – here today and gone tomorrow. About as worth remembering as a hallmark card.
John McCabe – now there’s a name i haven’t thought about in a long time. He was the very first ‘pen pal’ i ever had. So here’s a memory to share that i don’t think youse guys know about.
My first season with Ringling back in 1972 i wrote a fan letter to john mccabe via his publisher Random House, for his book mr. laurel and mr. hardy. In the letter i told him that his wonderful book was directly responsible for inspiring me to go to clown college. I wrote the letter on ringling stationary, with the ringling logo on it, and put it in a ringling envelope, with the gaudy ringling logo on it. It must have impressed him, for Lo & behold, he got my letter and responded by complimenting my writing and encouraging me to continue to write about being a circus clown – and that he would help me write something that a magazine might publish. Heady stuff for an 18 year old kid, i can tell you that.
So we kept corresponding. He taught shakespeare at lake superior state university in sault ste marie, michigan.
When i went to mexico in 73 with steve smith to study pantomime with maestro sigfrido aguilar our correspondence really picked up. Several letters back and forth each week. I had finally settled on writing a piece about playing the musical saw and mccabe was helping me smooth out the rough spots.
I bought my musical saw from the Mussehl & Westphal company my first year with ringling, and by the time i was in mexico i was pretty good at it. I carried it around in an old trombone case, but before going to mexico i worked with my childhood friend wayne matsuura to make a new carrying case for it. We used two heavy wooden slabs. Gouged them out and put hinges on them for the saw and violin bow. Then attached a sturdy leather handle. That thing weighed a ton, but i lugged it all over mexico and then with the circus again when steve smith and i were the advance clowns for the blue unit of ringling.
I submitted my musical saw article to reader’s digest but never heard back from them. I kept corresponding with john mccabe over the years and finally got to meet him when i went to the clown college reunion in 1985 down in venice florida. By then he was retired from teaching, his wife was gravely ill, and his own health was bad. He was there as the guest speaker for the reunion. At first he didn’t remember me at all when i introduced myself to him, and then seemed to resent having me around. So i made myself scarce. It was quite a let down for me, and i never wrote him again after that. Still, i recall the thrill of writing to a real bona fide university professor and having him respond – that really meant something to me as a young college-bereft kid. I still get a kick being around university professors. And others who are educated and well-spoken.
Whew . . . i’m glad i unloaded that memory. Now i’ll never have to deal with it again.
ev'ryone's an expert
about the healthy gut.
they've got a probiotic
to stop it going shut.
I'm weary of their input;
why can't they just stay mute?
my bowels are very private
(although they like to toot.)
This one practically wrote itself last friday after i deleted yet another probiotic cookie from the website i use to check the local weather. An army may travel on its stomach, but apparently seniors depend on their bowel movements to get around. Amy has me eating lots of yogurt and i take 2 tablespoons of Metamucil a day, so my innards are just fine, thank you, if a little gassy.
I wonder if i wrote any haiku last week? I’ll have to check . . .
Yeah, i wrote this one last tuesday —
Why is it a glass
Of lemonade is all that
I can think of tonight?
This one i wrote last sunday —-
It is peaceful on
The cold freeways this morning
With jaded Santas.
I remember at the time of writing these they impressed me as deep and portentous. Now on rereading, they don’t impress me at all. Please don’t include them in my posthumous anthology of great works.
(it is now 5:37 a.m. and amy has gone back to bed. I wish i could, but i’m not a bit sleepy. So i’ll keep writing – worse luck for you!)
One final poem. This one is from last saturday —
The Grinch used cancel culture on Xmas eve this year. He got a lot of bigots to boycott Xmas cheer. No eggnog in the punch bowl. No Santa and his sleigh. The elves were sent to gulags. And kids ate kale all day.
I’ve been trying to understand just exactly what cancel culture is. I have a lot of twitter followers who are journalists, and they use that term all the time. It seems to be a highly charged hot button phrase – with conservatives condemning it and liberals defending it. As far as i can dope it out, it means ostracizing people and organizations that hold views you don’t like or agree with. Boycotting a company, for instance, because their CEO backs Trump's reelection or unfollowing somebody on social media like elon musk because he comes across as such a jerk and has fired a lot of employees at his companies. If that is what cancel culture really is then getting upset about it is just a tempest in a teapot. People are always boycotting things in the United States, which i think they have a perfect right to do. So anyway i made fun of the whole thing with the above poem. Very topical, don’t you think? And as enduring as a soap bubble.
Well, this document is now over 1500 words long. So i better rein it in and end your suffering, my poor reader. It’s now 6 a.m., and the sun won’t be up for another hour and a half. I’ll do some reading and try to fall back asleep like amy. I’m reading a book called Shakespearean by a newspaper editor named Robert McCrum. I think i may have already shared with you that i want to dig deeper into shakespeare, since it costs nothing to read his work and comments about him and his work. It fascinates me — as much as anything fascinates me nowadays. I find that i get intensely interested in a subject for all of ten or twenty minutes and then either nod off or get distracted with thoughts of what new recipe can i discover using anchovies and tofu.
Adieu, mon amis. Heinie Manush.
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