Dear diary,
If you want me to stop writing entries here, just start encouraging me to write more entries here. Or pay me or something. Offer me an honorary degree from a prestigious school. Cuz where there’s a sure reward, I’m suspicious. I only like doing things that are both outlawed and harmless. And I prefer that the chore at least SEEMS useless. But the second you incentivize an activity, I lose interest — incentivization has a traplike feel to it; it’s as dodgy as parental authority.
Now I’m thinking about the character from Rivette’s Out 1 (1971) — I’m sure I’ve mentioned this here before: the idea haunts me — the youth goes from table to table in cafes, threatening to serenade folks with his harmonica; he holds his hand out in expectation of coins, so the customers end up paying him to refrain from playing. (He might also be a character from Balzac, since I know the film draws from La Comédie humaine, but I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never read thru that collective superwork. (Another lack I need to remedy.)) I wish I could do something similar: threaten my culture with the production of further loose baggy monstrous books if I’m not recompensed for my silence. But it doesn’t work as well with literature, because text doesn’t have the same propensity to annoy people as a harmonica does. Text just sits there quietly, by nature. It can’t enthrall you unless you give it your attention. Like a vampire, it must be invited. And then it becomes you.
I should switch my job title to novelist. Until now, I’ve only written stuff that has no genre, or that strives to break thru known genres. Like, if it’s poetry, I wanna pour prose into it; and if it’s a narrative, I wanna disconnect it from itself. But I should try my hand at writing a crime novel, and then a romance novel that ends with marriage and children, and then a road-trip novel. I should go search thru the archives in the public-domain and find an old forgotten piece of trash that has a story — any story will do — and then I should simply re-write it, using my own intuition. It would become a bestseller, I just know it.
But that’s why I refrain from doing that: cuz that would work. Who wants another successful novelist living in their neighborhood? My neighborhood has made it clear to me that they are proud of their offbeat dada-authors; and I don’t wanna let them down.
But if I could earn the big bucks, just once, so that I become a billionaire — or, better yet, a multi-billionaire — here’s what I’d do: I would fix up my house and my yard so that they look presentable; then I would stock my fridge with bratwurst, and buy a flock of lambs so that I could legally be known as Shepherd Bryan Ray of Thief River Falls, Minnesota; then I’d build a bonfire and ask all my neighbors to attend my get-together. And the theme would be: Fantasy Pastoral. So everyone would come dressed as prophets from the 8th century BC, and they’d all bring their compound bows for archery; and the party would begin:
I would go from person to person, mingling with all my guests. I would serve them whatever type of beer that they like. (I’ve discovered that most people who live in this area prefer beer to spirits. I myself prefer spirits to beer. That’s OK: to each his own. I’ll drink my spirits while they drink their beer: there’s no need to engage in a Civil War over something this trivial.) Thus, at a certain point, I will have discovered each individual’s proclivities, and I would know all their wants and cares. I would keep a small notebook at my side, during all these conversations, so that I could jot helpful reminders about each guest, such as their first and last name, their home address, their landline number, their work extension, their email, their website, their preferred gender pronoun, and their total credit-card debt. Then I’d excuse myself from the festivities (which would never end — for I would have planned it such that my party has a beginning time of 5:30 PM on Tuesday, but no ending time: it will continue indefinitely; therefore come join us, leave your troubles behind, I can afford to keep this thing going: I’m a multi-billionaire), yes, I’d excuse myself from the ongoing festivities & briefly retire to my home office:
Once inside, I’d sit down at my writer’s desk and review my notes. Then I’d start to make some calls. I’d use my telephone that is shaped like a lobster (not the original “Lobster Telephone” by Salvador Dalí, no, just some fourth-rate replica that I glued together myself: I ain’t gonna waste my hard-earned billions on a piece that’s already popular; I reserve my funds for living geniuses, and I’ll pay painters much more than the asking price for their work, just as a way of causing a stir in the art market, and forcing my taste upon society) and I’d dial the numbers for each of my guests creditors, and I’d wire money to pay off all their debts; and then I’d dial other numbers and contact companies of every type, from construction firms to lawyers to behavioral specialists, and I’d arrange that all the personal wants and needs of each of my guests get squared away.
Then I’d return outside, and my guests would ask me “Where did you go?” And I’ll say “I had to step inside for a moment, to do a bit of mysterious work; nothing that concerns you: now, carry on; I believe you were enjoying yourself just a minute ago.” So my guests would shrug & return to partying. And I would inwardly chuckle, knowing that I had just solved each and every one of their private troubles, and that I had done so in a way that nobody could ever figure out: I mean, nobody would ever discover that it was me myself, Shepard Bryan the Billionaire of Thief River Falls, who did this for them.
Take heed that ye give not your charity publicly, to be seen by others. When you offer donations, do not sound a presidential trumpet for yourself, as the hypocrites do in the churches, that they may have glory. But when you give charitably, don’t even let your left hand know the dollar amount of the check that your right hand is writing: All charity should be performed in secret, like adultery. (Matthew 6:1-4)
And here’s how I would ensure that I’d never get caught: The last call that I’d make on my lobster-phone would be to some murderous thugs that I know from my days at the car wash; I’d wire them their fee (plus a little extra so that they can put their kids thru college) and instruct them as follows:
“Trail these companies’ representatives that I have just paid to solve all problems — I want zipped lips from the lot of them: I told them explicitly that they are not to breathe a word regarding the identity of whoever bankrolled this miraculous undertaking: I don’t want my name to get out; I wanna be the first shepherd to heavenify his neighborhood anonymously: I wanna start an yuge fad in the U.S. called ‘financial salvation via unidentifiable do-gooders’ and I want it to catch on like wildfire among the Billionaire Class. So if any of the hired hands dares to mention my name as the source of the charity, slay them in cold blood. In other words: ice them.”
That’s how serious I would be about keeping my name out of this charity business. Cuz I don’t believe in charity. I think charity is evil. If your culture has a need for charity, it means your economy needs repairing: that is all. (Note that I am against the possibility of poverty: being ANTI-charity is not thus being PRO-poverty, rather I am against the potential of anyone becoming impoverished. Poverty simply should not be allowed to exist; and the fact that we have such a great need to address it proves that our economic system is faulty.)
. . . do not tell me, as a good man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I will go to prison, if need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand; alms to sots; and the thousandfold Relief Societies; — though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar which by and by I shall have the manhood to withhold.
That’s Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his essay “Self-Reliance”. I used to agree with the above quote wholeheartedly, but now I have reservations. “Are they my poor?” Why not? I say they ARE my poor. That’s why I helped them, when I retired for that brief spell from my party, and made those calls on my lobster phone. Tho I am attracted to the way that Emerson parses the multitudes along the lines of “spiritual affinity”, for this reminds me of what Jesus says about biological family versus surreal family:
While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him. Then someone said unto him, “Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee.”
But he answered and said unto him that told him, “Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?”
And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, “Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Matt. 12:46-50)
But I think that I am starting to change my mind about this. I would rather find the familial relation in ALL of humankind, and even in all of animalkind, and even further in rocks, and stones, and trees. Why not relate to everything, and care for everything possible!? Of course we focus on what is most like ourselves first, but that should be something we reluctantly admit — our pride should be in how far we can extend our circle of relations, not how much we can narrow it. The scientist looks for ways to divide the world, to distinguish its individual parts and give them labels. The poet does the opposite: she looks for the echoes, the similarities, the RELATIONS between all things: to the poet, all is metaphor; there is no phenomenon so unique that it is not a potential trope for another phenomenon. Even nothing and something are basically brethren. That’s why Shelley says to the West Wind: Be thou ME! And there is more to heaven & earth than is contained in our philosophy, thus we should simply accept stewardship for everything imaginable, on behalf of Eternity.
So, as a multi-billionaire, I shall attack the very system that made me possible (this notion thrills me, on account of its kinship to parricide), by flooding capitalism with its opposite. Compassion and friendship for all. I’ll just let the cash flow universally and flood the world so the marketplace drowns. Then I’ll shout to the empty suits: “Where’s your free market now? HA! I just flooded it.”
But that’s why fools like I do not become billionaires: money avoids us; it’s like it can scent its predator, and it flees in fear. Money is smart. Money has a brain; not straw like a scarecrow. Money wouldn’t be caught dead hanging on a cross. Money knows which blade spread the butter on each face of its bread. Money likes its tummy rubbed. Money hides in a billfold and counts itself the Prince of the Air. The love of money is the root of this world’s evergreen.
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