John Wayne. Marion
Morrison. Jim Morrison. Bruce Wayne.
Marian Cunningham. Dandy
Featherwafer. George H.W. Bush. Abraham Lincoln.
Ok so I don’t know the lyrics to REM’s hit single “It’s the
end of the world (as we know it).” I don’t
even know if that’s the actual name of the song. I’m just picturing a 45 (type of vinyl music
disk) with the words as shown above. Later
on, if I feel like it, I may actually look up the name of the song. Right now, it’s Thursday (I never could get
the hang of Thursdays) and I’m trying to get to somewhere in the vicinity of
1500 words. As I type this (pre-edit),
MSWord has me at 120 words.
Here’s the deal. I
don’t have any stories right now. I only
have an obligation to blog something by tomorrow. Maybe in a few minutes, I’ll have a
story. Maybe I’ll pick up one of the
threads of storyline I’ve been working on the last several weeks. But I’m pretty sure I’m keeping these words
in either way. These 180 words.
So where was I? Oh
yeah – those names above. They are all
linked somehow. I look at it this
way. When I was a kid, we were
astonished that big tough, masculine John Wayne was from Iowa. Just kidding.
That actually makes sense. What
amazed us was - what kind of name was Marion Morrison? First of all, the only Marion we ever knew
Was Mr. C’s wife on Happy Days. And the
only Morrison we knew was, well we’d never heard of Jim Morrison (and he was
already dead). Oh I’d heard the song “People
Are Strange (when you’re a stranger.
Women seem wicked, when you’re alone).”
Ok, I don’t know what that song is called either. I had heard of The Doors, of course. And as you probably know, Aldous Huxley’s “Doors
of perception ( AKA trippin’ balls)” – might not have that title correct either
– was required reading for all 3rd graders who took Mr. Featherwafer’s
3rd grade English class. I
remember it like it was yesterday …
“Ok who’s next,” Featherwafer asked, “Oh yes, I’ve been
looking forward to this one. Fred
Hinsley, you’re up.”
“Actually, it’s pronounced Hinsley,” I corrected.
It was my turn to read my poem. After weeks of struggling with this
assignment, I had come across a brilliant idea.
The poem basically wrote itself as I listened to the radio one day.
Head down, I pulled myself from my seat near the back of the
room toward the podium where I was to recite my poem. I could sense all eyes on me as I looked down
at the floor. This was crazy. These were my classmates. We play together every day. But now, they are my enemies. Burned into my brain as I make the long walk
to the front of the room is the type of shoe that each child wears. Mark Anderson’s shoe is all ripped out, I
notice. It looks a lot like mine. Delia Davenport’s Shoes are seriously tidy
and clean. My face feels hot as I turn
to face the 30 or so Benedict Arnolds in the room. How can they be so cruel. Yes. I
know. I’ve mercilessly ripped into every
poem so far, cracking jokes and generally being class appointed heckler. But that doesn’t make it right. At least I have an ace up my sleeve. My poem is literally a hit. No way they will laugh at this masterpiece.
Standing silent, waiting to begin. Stalling,
I look at the class, sweat dripping from my bangs. I then look down to the podium. No paper of course. I have memorized my poem. Finally, I lift my eyes toward Mr
Featherwafer who nods for me to begin.
So I do:
“I remember all my life,” I start as several kids who were
carving into the desk, stop and look up to me, “Raining down as cold as ice,” Not the best rhyme, but I kind of lisp it to
make it work.
“A shadow of a man, a face through a window …“ now all eyes
are on me. Some of the children begin
rockin’ to the natural cadence of “My poem”
Then I dramatically slow down my reading …
“Crying in the night,”
I confess as tears begin to well, “The night goes into,” Then overtaken by the beauty and emotion, I
skip a big huge section of my poem and sing as other join, “Oh Mandy, well you
came and you gave without taking” and so
on.
“That was, Um, not very original was it?” Featherwafer judged
.
“No, I guess I might have heard it somewhere before,” I
admitted.
Our grading system was 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. It equated directly to A, B, C, D and F.
“Well I’ll tell you what.
You can take a 5 on the assignment and remain “Fred Hinsley” the way you
pronounce it. Or I’ll give you a 3 if we
can just call you Barry for the rest of the year.”
“I’ll take the 3 sir.”
“Wise decision young Barry.
You see class, what Master Manilow did here is called pandering to his
audience. It’s also called plagiarism. He
knows his audience too well. So he can
get away with it. Sit down Barry.”
“Thank you Sir,” I was so glad that was over. A 3!
And all I had to do was sell out.
Sweet.
895 words. You know
what. I’m not going to edit this. It’s going in as written. Sorry everyone, but there’s football on
tonight.
Ok, so what’s next? I
always thought that if Marian Cunningham had hooked up with Batman and got
Married she would be called: “Mrs. Bruce
Wayne”.
There are precisely 2 problems with this, of course. The first is nobody wants to watch a show
called “Happy Days,” where the main character’s mother runs off with a
superhero and leaves the lovable Mr. C
to drown in misery. That’s not a Happy
Day at all. The second problem is that a
move like that (Marion marries Bruce Wayne)
would surely be a ratings gimmick.
And instead of the familiar “Jumping the shark,” We might be saying “Marrying Batman” Or possibly “Marian Batman” to play on
several linguistic thingies all at once.
The First president of the United States who was named George
Bush was related to Abraham Lincoln. I
don’t actually know if that’s true or not, but once I dated this girl who
claimed to be related to George Bush, Abraham Lincoln and Marilyn Monroe. What are you doing hanging around with me, I
sarcastically thought. What I really
thought was wow, Marilyn Monroe is related to Abe Lincoln?
Every summer, Dad took us all on vacation somewhere. Sometimes we went to Colorado or the Grand
Canyon. Sometimes we went to Florida or
California. But we always went
somewhere.
Every place we went had tourist shops. Places to buy souvenirs. We could spend an hour in these places,
looking at the coolest stuff. But dad
would never let us buy any of those “trinkets” because they were a huge ripoff
as he put it.
Anyway – every single one of these places had, somewhere in
the shop – a certain plate. It was
fascinating, this plate. My brother and
I always looked for it. It was a little
game. Who can find the plate. Usually it was dad because “spoiling the fun”
was what dad often mistook for fun.
The plate had on the left side a list of things about
Abraham Lincoln. On the right was a list
of eerily similar things about John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Things like “Kennedy drove a Lincoln. Lincoln’s barber was named Jackie O” or something.
I don’t really remember.
Anyway – when this
girl said indirectly that Marilyn Monroe was related to Abe Lincoln, I thought
of yet another entry for the plate. 1323 words exclusive.
Well that was lazy of me wasn’t it? It’s unfortunate and rude of me – I know to
post this unedited effort in. I was
mildly entertained by it, but most of all, it was really easy. It is possible, but unlikely that I will make
a better effort next time, but you never know.
Ok here’s the deal. We don’t have
work tomorrow or Monday. I’m kind of in
weekend mode. I think I will do one
thing that I suggested earlier and see what that song is called.
Oh my god I’m laughing pretty hard. The name of the song is: “It’s the end of the world as we know it (and
I feel fine).” Way to give it all away,
REM. Why don’t you just name “The Crying
Game” “The Crying game (because it’s a
dude)” Or how about we call “Fight Club”
“Fight Club (Tyler Durdin is the narrater)” One more; “The Sixth sense
(is being able to see dead people, like say Bruce Willis’ character, for
instance. Just Sayin’)” 1500.
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