Dear diary,
Is it better to own some pigs or to become a hunter? At first it seems better to have pigs in a pen, in the hilly zone at the back of your shed, where the ground’s all muddy; cuz pigs love mud, and they’ll be happy out there. But then you christen your pigs: you name them Terrance and McCoy, and you become friends with them; and when it’s time to eat them, you weep throughout the meal. Also the pigs force you to have an existence that’s rooted to one place, whereas being a hunter gives you the freedom to roam — freedom is almost a necessity to hunters. But the downside of hunting is that you end up shooting your arrow into a pretty fawn. This was an accident, for you were aiming at the old fierce buck that was standing nearby, but you’re somewhat of a butterfingers. Now you eat this meal as well while weeping.
So no matter what you do, you’re sorrowful. You can’t escape it: it’s as if that’s the point of all this rigmarole called “keeping oneself alive”. Isn’t it the Buddhists who say “This world is defined as suffering,” or something along those lines? I should let them speak for themselves; no group thinks exactly alike in all of its members, and I’m sure each individual Buddhist has her or his own unique view about our shared farce.
Plus I wanna touch upon this linguistic predicament that we have here in the U.S. known as “the N-word”. It’s a real term, but it’s so evil to say that nobody dares pronounce it. Here’s what the kids on my block answered, when I asked them about this:
The N-word (they said) stems from the days of slavery — that is, the days when slavery was a thing that the U.S. forefathers practiced in broad daylight, whereas now it’s hidden in the prison system: you must first technically arrest someone in order to make them legally into a slave, whereas before you could just purchase them from a kiosk at the Mall of America with your credit card — OK, so back in the overt slave days, people would refer to those they were wronging by a special word, the N-word, which they would pronounce in full; but since nowadays the U.S. has swept slavery under the rug of judicial imprisonment, it is considered taboo to pronounce the word aloud. Fix your speech, not your acts.
Then I asked the kids on my block, who kindly explained all this to me, one follow-up question:
Do all of you kids (I said) obey this command to abstain from speaking the forbidden word?
And they all answered YES: we (they said) would never dare to use this term.
So then I left them, after picking their pockets. And while counting the money that I had earned during this morning conversation, I remarked to myself: I wonder who enforces this rule about the N-word. Cuz it’s strange — these kids on the block, they break every rule of law that’s on the books (I know this for a fact, because I’ve frequently served as their lawyer, when defending them in court, and the prosecutor’s case always convinces me of my client’s guilt, but I end up getting them acquitted usually on a technicality), but despite their disregard for the normal channels of authority — the police, etc. — they all dutifully follow this one single, unwritten law, as if it came from the mouth of God himself.
I guess the willingness to cooperate when it comes to prohibited vocabulary proves how humankind is essentially a social species. We’re more like the guy with the pig pen who built his shack on the side of a muddy mountain in Hades, as opposed to the mariner who shot the golden albatross in the forest. And then he died (the slayer not the slain) and now is trapped on a rudderless ship that’s “driven by the wind that blows in the undermost regions of death”, to quote Kafka’s Hunter Gracchus.
And yesterday I had to do research on the Internet, comparing prices and models of air compressors and brad nailer guns, because I plan to install new trim when I redo all our floors. Also I had to read a number of guides about how to purchase a lawnmower, because we need a more powerful one for our ugly yard. I now know that I should get one with large back tires, all-wheel drive, push-button starting, and other stuff that I forgot.
Plus I had a dream that everyone was sick and homeless and sharing their contaminated food. Then I woke up and remarked to myself: That dream wasn’t very creative; I rate it only one star out of five. A dream must be quite different from the world that appears after its closing credits roll, in order to please me. (I’m a tough customer.)
And I still can’t figure out why people don’t consume alcohol perpetually. It’s a mystery why, every single day, regular people stay non-drunk. For alcohol makes you feel better, so it follows that you’d want to keep drinking it — why stop? Apparently people prefer to feel lousy and live in a sorrowful world of guaranteed suffering.
I’ve heard certain buffoons claim that if you drink continuously from sunup to sundown, every day of your life, you’ll become sloppy and disheveled, and your thinking will be less sharp, and you won’t be quite as successful at your career. And you’ll be a bad parent to your children. — But note that all these things are true whether people drink or not.
Neither of my parents drank alcohol at all while they raised me, and I still hated their guts: I gave them a thumbs-down rating on the ParentMash website, and I don’t regret doing so. However, when my dad got diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimers, he started drinking heavily, and I really began to like him. He was always laughing and singing strange dithyrambs from his chair in the kitchen. So, starting out as a hideous beast, he became a good egg. And mom’s still a teetotaler.
Truly tho, I’ll always hate my dad — so don’t read too much into that previous paragraph. I’ll confess anything that has a nice ring to it, especially when we’re playing good-cop-bad-cop.
Yeah and I’m trying to stop obsessing over politics so much. I’m convinced that Trump will win a second term easily. I’m all for Bernie still — I think he’s a once-in-a-lifetime choice — but the United Statesians are not prepared to accept adulthood; they’re all too overworked and propagandized. Can you believe it?—everyone here thinks Russia is scarier than our own CIA and FBI. So I gotta hand it to those clandestine agencies: they really did hornswoggle the public opinion.
Man! think how fun that would be, to act as the leader of a small organization that persuaded an entire population into believing that they have moral imperative to trust everything your secret group does; that they (the people) are unpatriotic if they do not have faith in you (the secret group). Then you (the secret group) could go around causing havoc and pillaging everywhere, and folks who don’t even know you would consider it almost a sacred duty to exert the effort to spin your actions as righteous.
Another thing that I’ve mentioned before and which I’m still perplexed about is this common notion of “going to work”. Why do people keep showing up and laboring at their place of employment? Some work at a bank; some work in retail; some work as secretaries. Why do you workers keep getting out of bed and going to work, every single solemn day? If I were you, I’d stop, just to see what would happen. For all jobs are stupid and worthless.
Except the caring professions, where you go and help someone who’s sick or old, or you nurse a baby, or you fix someone’s house, or you read poetry to children. Those are the jobs that can still be attended, without risk of losing your citizenship in my empire. Everyone else must quit their job and relax, tho.
And what are we gonna do with all our roads, our bridges and highways, and all these parking lots that dominate our landscape, when automobiles finally go out of fashion? When people realize that walking is healthier and more intellectually stimulating, are they really going to keep the six-lane super-highways in existence; or shall we chisel them up with a pickaxe? I can’t imagine that it’d be very fun to take a stroll down a highway, on foot, wearing sandals. The scenery would all be plain dull gray; and there’s nothing to look at except the painted lines that divide one lane from another.
However, there would still remain a lot of trash on the ground, from people tossing it out their window, back in the car days: the streets will thus be littered with everything from fast-food packaging & candy wrappers to bags from snack nuts, potato chips, & pretzels. Those are nice to look at: one side of the wrapper (I’m thinking now specifically of a bag for chips, when you tear it open and lay it flat before you) has the logo and artwork done by the advertising studio, which is pure genius; and the other side is usually shiny & silvery, and it makes a crinkly noise when you scrunch it.
Yes, if all the masterworks of the world get destroyed — that means all the fine paintings and sculptures and everything else that breaks God’s commandment against representational art (Exodus 20:4) — I say, if all those paragons of art get burnt up in the planet-wide conflagration, but only the wrappers of mass-produced junk-food survive, that would still be an embarrassment of riches; which we should be proud to let stand for humankind’s aesthetic accomplishment, when the outer-space aliens come and put us out of our misery. Think about it: what have the birds or the fish or the lions created that is even remotely comparable? And THAT’s who we’re competing with: other earth-dwellers. The extraterrestrials are only our judges.
One last thing, before I go. Why is your manager your manager? Or whatever you call your upper, the administrator who’s one level above you on the pyramid: Why is this fool your keeper? Why is HE in charge? Here’s my advice:
I say, wait until he retires into his office and stands on that ornate rug & starts to read the sales-report. Now sneak in afterwards and pull the rug out from under him. Then have a laugh, and strip him of his raiment. At this point, leave; & wait a few hours. But then return driving your brand-new car (you bought it with the money from the purse that you found in the pocket of his cloak that you stole). Exit the vehicle — note that your new car’s door opens upward instead of sideways: that’s cuz you purchased a very stylish futuristic model. Now gird your manager’s loins with a linen cloth. Then drizzle oil on his head, and proclaim in a loud voice while doing so: “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. I hereby give unto thee the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break all foreign nations with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Then retrieve the wine from where you stored it: it should be on the passenger seat of the car. It’s red wine — Shiraz, I think — you stored it in the bladder that you took from the innards of Terrence when you butchered him (remember, he was your favorite pig whom you wept while consuming yesteryear); I say, reach in & grab the wineskin off the passenger seat, and fill a glass overfull. Touch the rim to your manager’s lips, but tip it too fast so that most of the wine runs down the sides of his cheeks while he’s sipping. Now give him a kiss on the forehead, and then stand up & walk behind him: stretch your arms around him till you’re hugging his torso; then heft him over to the driver’s side of your car, and toss him into the cockpit. If his legs are dangling outside, just kick them again & again, until they’re safely within the vehicle — you wouldn’t want the automatic door to slam shut on his feet. Now program the navigation system of your new car to pilot itself to the nearest inn, preferably a Trump Hotel — choose one with a casino inside: that way your manager will have a chance to accumulate some hard-earned capital. Monitor the car closely, while it drives away: I suggest using your remote-control drone, the white dove-shaped one that has the bird’s-eye cam installed. Make sure your friend gets guided to his suite by the hotel’s staff. Then, on the morrow, when he is approaching the desk to check out, you should come bursting into the lobby and yell: “I will pay this man’s bill with my last two pence.” Hand these coins to the host. Finally, turn to the armed mercenaries at the casino’s entrance, and address these guards as follows:
“Take care of this man — his name is McCoy, and he is my former manager. Whatever he spends, on whatever games he desires to play, please allow it; just add the charge to my own tab. Yet whatever he wins, add that amount to his savings; then, ultimately, if he ends up with a net gain, give him his own baby bank-account to hold the funds. But if, after a week or two of gambling here, he’s still in the hole — which is to say, if after all’s said and done, he ends up with a net LOSS — then simply transfer his debt to me: for, when I come again, I will repay it. This is a promise; and The Bryan Ray Gang always keeps its promises.” (Say all these things, even if your boss’s name isn’t McCoy, and you yourself aren’t a biological member of The Bryan Ray Gang — just go ahead & claim that you are: I don’t give a fuck.)
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