“You, who are on the road, must have a code that you can live by…” Graham Nash
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Lately the news has been a smorgasbord of strange happenings, some of which seems to have been cooked up in an asylum by a host of weirdos, nutcases and crackpots. It’s hard to get a sense of direction.
Life is complicated. Diverse opinions swarm like green flies on a batch of French-fried chitterlings. The compass needle of public opinion and political correction spins in wild gyrations. Direction is playing hide and seek. The North Star of Truth hovers dangerously near the vortex of a black hole.
It’s times like these when it’s helpful to resort to the flawless wisdom of the St. Paul, Minnesota philosopher, Larry B. Larry. He narrowed everything down in his timeless thesis: If life weren’t so serious, it would be a joke. The fact that he had this strange fetish of walking his fingers up the bare backs of ladies in no way diminishes the theory.
Stop and ponder the profundity of it. Ambiguity is squeezed out into two choices: serious or joke. No middle ground here: black/white, up/down, night/day. No more vacillating on the question, “What do you think about …?” Solid rock replaces shifting sand.
Just yesterday we hear that Jerusalem is becoming the site of the new American embassy sometime in the future. The turmoil that ensues would be about the same as if Judge Roy Moore suggested Selma become the capitol of Alabama.
Now, what are we to make of the Hermit Kingdom’s ‘Rocket Man,’ the poster boy of bad haircuts. Is there a message in his madness of firing blank ICBM missiles off into the ocean? He is lately being treated for pyrotechnic delusions of grandeur. But not to be outdone, America has its own Rocket man, a former limo driver who actually has a message.
What message, you ask? Why, he intends to strap himself to the tip of a garage-built rocket and blast himself into what he calls the ‘flatmosphere.’ Huh? That’s right, he intends to debunk the theory that the world is round and prove that it’s flat. Right or wrong, one thing’s for sure: it’s flat where we stand.
The Supreme Court Justices are fiddling around in the kitchen. They’re straining at gnats and swallowing camels over the issue of baking cakes in Colorado. Like the blind, they’re groping (oops, not to be taken literally) for the wall for direction out of this half-baked dilemma. Some things are too weird for words.
Meanwhile, the National Debt Clock has replaced its blown circuits and is back in Times Square to remind us of the $20 trillion debt we’ve run up. Where did all that money go? I’m confused. Some of it to the Congressional slush fund, of course. Buying silence for politicians is a time-honored tradition. But not to worry, your family’s share is only $172,560. Let the good times roll.
Well, old Joe McCarthy’s ghost got loose and is opening the books of judgment. Heads are rolling. Congressional inquisitions are stoking a national, come-clean catharsis of repentance. Mea culpas clog Twitter and lamentations of apology are flowing in the gutters of Main Street.
Like pigs, tort lawyers, formerly ambulance chasers, are lining up at the trough for the big paydays when ‘inappropriate behavior’ is clearly defined. The #MeTwo generation is in merger mode with the #KissOffCreep crowd. Reparations will be real. It’s so insidiously draconian that even the Witches of Salem are scratching their heads.
There’s a wailing in the Heart of Dixie. The mighty have fallen. History is being hauled off, one statue at a time, being dumped in weed-choked fields and picked-over cotton patches on the back side of oblivion. Meanwhile, a gilded and gloating Sherman rides smugly atop his steed at the entrance to Central Park. I find no humor in this!
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And so it goes, day by day, news filters in. Whether we laugh or moan depends on perspective.
But one thing’s absolute: The Pool of Narcissus is crowded.
Bud Hearn
December 8, 2017