The Language of Love

I’m considering an advice column entitled “Let Go and Let Joe”.

I listen to people. In person, singularly or in groups, on the radio, on TV, in movies. I read books, social media posts, newspapers and magazines. The coercive semantics in expressions of love, hope, belief and affection fascinate me as does the culture of relationships, how they develop, why and how they disintegrate. I’ve had significant real-life experience enhanced by a considerable academic background.

Everything has a lifespan: dogs, people, love affairs.

Over the past several years a few phrases and terms have become prevalent in the discourse relating to coupling, marriage, and the abstraction we call “love” that are inaccurate, manipulative, sad and may foreshadow upcoming hazards.

Soulmate.

What the hell is a “Soulmate”? No. That is a dangerous elevation of somebody and it gives tremendous power to the significant other. To refer to another as one’s “Soulmate” is emotional blackmail and limits options; it is a way of acquiring the individual and is similar to the often used and completely false:

Love of My Life.

Wow. No one else? Ever? Really? Impossible to locate another individual to boost your ego? Holy mackerel. That’s another way of saying, “I’ve given up. I don’t even want to try. It’s your responsibility to worship and support to me. Or else.”

I’ve only done preliminary research but I’m fairly sure that there are close to 10,000 people within a 500-mile radius of anyone in the populated, civilized world with whom one could establish an intimate relationship. That means you may have thousands of “Soulmates” and “Loves of Your Life”.

Tired, sad, needy. Please, get a grip, be real and let the other person off the hook.

Improper use of the modifier “so”:

This one is a beaut, and easily recognizable:

“I love you.”

Trite, but nice. Simple and to the point.

“I love you so much.”

Hmm. What are you truly saying? Why do you want me to hear that extra “so”? One should immediately become suspicious.

“I love you so, so much.”

Absolutely dishonest. This is a clear indication of anger or infidelity. Your life is in jeopardy. If you hear the double “so” in an expression of intimacy or attachment, wait for your partner to leave the house and then run. Move. Leave a note that says, “You are a lying monster. I don’t know what I ever saw in you. Fuck off and don’t look for me or I’ll have you arrested.”

Another dubious use of “so”:

“I’m sorry.”

Sure, OK, you should be, perhaps we can move on, I may or may not accept your expression of remorse.

“I’m so sorry.”

Uh oh. Now they’re overdoing it. They are not telling you the whole story but they definitely have something to hide. Be nervous.

“I’m so, so sorry.”

Nope. You are not. Your companion is a lying manipulative lowlife danger to society and is preparing you for serious humiliation or a bad beating. Again, “so, so sorry” is the most obvious signal that it’s totally over. Get a restraining order, hire some private security, but become far, far gone.

Everyone, everything, every alliance has a lifespan. The person who knows that and can spot the indicators of annihilation has a better chance of staying safe, of moving on and going north to find the next Soulmate.

If I can save one life, my work is done.

Poem for A Hot Day

Poem for A Hot Day


Relax,

I’ve heard that next summer it’s supposed to be cooler
Crowds at the national parks will be smaller
Prices are going down
Traffic will thin out and we’ll have more parking
Air travel will be somewhat more comfortable
Cops will be less aggressive
Your kids will stop looking at their phones when you talk to them.

Just settle down,

It’s going to be OK because
I’ve heard that next year popular music will be slightly less insulting
A few new bookstores will open in town and technology will improve our lives
We’ll finally get a handle on childhood obesity and your pets won’t die.

So take it easy; trust me; everything is going to be fine.

Blessed

Thanks, Facebook.

You’ve made me a better person.

At first there was the novelty of seeing what my friends ate for lunch, pictures of their cats, vacations, kids, relationships, in and out of love, movies liked/hated, stupid jokes, and on and on. Then it became a bit harder edged with compilation videos of people getting hurt; we all love to see a guy falling off a roof. There were entreaties to believe in god, support the troops, kick cancer’s ass. Sometime later political posts flew around like seagulls over a dumpsite. Natural progression of social media, right? We told everyone what we thought goddamnit, why we knew shit, what we supported, tolerated, fought for. We didn’t actually do any of that, but we could talk about it as if we did. I hate this, I hate that. The conspiracy theorists made it unscientifically clear why they knew arcane secrets that I’d never understand. The anti-vaxx sacks ridiculed those of us who supported science, which for some reason, they knew for sure that science is a shady branch of the government. Many, many Facebook subscribers lectured the rest of us that our government was corrupt and all about money; like they had just discovered that fact.

The comments sections caught fire with long, long threads debating which political ideology was more evolved or Christian, which party would save America, which candidate was the biggest asshole. Man, that was fun. Remember? How much fun?

And it was. Fun. I recall pissing off some guy in Hawaii so badly that he threatened to fly to New Mexico and kill me. Aloha, dipshit. It was fun to think up new insults and to ridicule a bonehead for her/his stand on almost anything with which I disagreed. I got got a few times, but so what? It’s Facebook, not the United Nations. Not a real thing. It’s only a way to provoke the lonely, to occupy down time and to call people names that lived in another state. What? Are they going to hunt you down, kick your ass? I guess that’s possible. Oh, and let’s not forget the armies of 30, 40, 50 year old dickwads who spend all day “friending” underage women and the few who convinced the young ladies to slip out of their parents’ homes in the middle of the night to meet him at a nearby convenience store because of love. Facebook has opened up new worlds for the housebound, the terrified, the perverted. Glad for them.

Wow, I’ve spent hours stoking my abhorrence and feeling insecure because I didn’t think of a particular insult first or, kill me, someone may have found a grammar error in one of my responses and I want to die. My sense of self-loathing grew.

During the last week or so I’ve responded to a dozen posts that were either stupid, dangerous, uninformed, or else I didn’t like the person’s profile picture. Maybe I only wanted to be noticed, to let my “friends” know that I was still out here, alive and hostile.
But, here’s the part where I become a better person.

I didn’t send.

I didn’t click the “post” button. Before I hit “return” I looked at what I’d written, re-read the original post, the previous remarks, scanned others’ sentences and counted the misspellings, and I backed out my observations and abuses and walked away. I deleted my own words. Not an easy task when all you have to work with is words. But I did it. I did not comment.

The despair is still here, the feelings of alienation, disgust at racism and sexism from both the Left and the Right. I still avoid smug liberals and snotnosed conservatives, no changes in my point of view, my personal positions, but I simply don’t have to post them to social media.

Well, not all of them anyway. I’ve got some stuff percolating that will probably find its way to the great web of conformity, make myself a target, and, while I may not be a “better” person, I have a bit less animosity and I don’t need to boot up FB every time I’m my office to see if someone has topped my remarks, has humiliated me on the world stage or has “liked” what I had to say, has given me that all important cyber-pat on the back.

I read two books last week and watched a Japanese surrealist film, listened to nearly my entire collection of John Coltrane and most of Beethoven’s string quartets and I finished season 3 of Bojack Horseman and I’m all caught up with “The Handmaid’s Tale” and I downloaded two Judas Priest CDs. And read a Batman Comic.

Better person.

Stephen Hawking is Smarter Than You

Can we agree that Stephen Hawking is smart? Smarter than most of us? Argue about that if you want, but I tend to believe a highly intelligent scientist who has overcome realworld problems and contemplates the future. Not the far future, because Hawking doesn’t think we earthlings have much more time on our silly little planet. What surprises me is that his projections haven’t been bigger news. Dr. Stephen Hawking, with twelve honorary degrees, CBE, Companion of Honour, Fellow of The Royal Society and Member of the US National Academy of Sciences, author of six bestsellers, says we have 100 years to get our shit together and then we have to leave. Thankfully, I will have already left. But, honestly, your infant daughter or son, if they don’t smoke or abuse drugs, aren't considering an assault on Everest or have lots and lots of unprotected sex could possibly see the end of the world. The final days. They will suffer the torments of a dying planet. Anyone care about that? And caring doesn’t mean that you drive a Prius. Fucking hell no. Recognizing that most of what we are sweating about will be vaporized in a century and nothing will change, nothing, unless all 196 countries on all 7 continents agree on almost everything. See that happening? Of course not. Political parties and religions and races, genders, all theories regarding variations of physical existence and our generally uninformed choices might get us through the next year, might help us to feel as though we belong to the very best group, organization, ethnicity, but when I read that one of the world’s great minds thinks that Earth will be a blistered little cornflake in 100 years I wonder why this isn’t the main topic everywhere; even in crummy places like North Korea or South Carolina. I mean, fuck your stupid religions and trigger warnings, microaggressions, candidates, legal weed, publishing your novel and shopping at Trader Joe's. Kiss the kids goodbye and begin offloading the accumulation of debris that has become our lives. It’s over.

It really doesn’t matter if you bring your own paper bags to the grocery store.

If you care:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/05/05/stephen-hawking-just-moved-up-humanitys-deadline-for-escaping-earth/?utm_term=.36551f9a42c9

Fun With Words -- Part VIII

Language is organic and forever mutating. Years ago, after Spielberg’s big shark movie came out, a woman I worked with went to Hawaii. When she returned, a co-worker, young single mom, struggling, had never been out of town, asked her, “Did you see any Jaws when you were there?”

I loved that. “Jaws” is a better description than “Shark”. Language reflects cultural developments, evolution, or decline.

Words also take on new meaning; “gay” doesn’t necessarily mean “joyful”, “awesome” no longer means “awesome”.

Sometimes there are no definitions for our thoughts, our feelings, certain sensations. We attempt to describe what we experience but we have to settle for inaccuracies. Close, but not exact. It’s what writers deal with and some of us take pleasure in experimenting with new devices for narrative precision.

The new words are called “Neologisms”. I do it all the time.

This morning, while in the grocery store, I was standing in the produce department and I smelled something that was gross. I looked around and couldn’t identify the source. It was a cross between rotting flesh, body odor, and celery. I had no word for the smell or how it made me feel so I cleared my mind and let the first thing I thought of become the definition for that odor.

Ivanka.

Swear to God. I was delighted. Ivanka. That is the name I have given to that particular scent of decaying flesh, BO, vegetables, and now when I encounter it on public transportation or in a 12-step meeting I have a way of labeling it.

You see where I’m going.

You know that feeling you get just before you vomit when you’re all clammy and green, taking deep breaths, salivating, know full well that soon you will puke?

Pence.

“Dude was ready to hurl and he was pencing like mad. It was awesome.”

A not-very-smart guy with all kinds of money finds himself in a position of extraordinary power, realizes that no one likes him but they are afraid to criticize him, has no friends and his family will never disagree with him and he becomes childish and vengeful and suspicious?

Jong-il.

What, you had another one?

These are my words. Make up your own.

Why We Hate -- Part 14

United Airlines calls to cops to haul a passenger off a plane because the guy adamantly didn’t want to give up his seat so that some United employees who arrived late to the airport and missed their connection could fly to their next destination. UAL’s mistake, their error, became the passengers’ responsibility when the customers were asked to “voluntarily” give up their seats because the airline had “overbooked”. Overbooking is some deep disrespect to the consumer. A few of the passengers, instead of hijacking the plane, left and waited for a later flight while this one dude says, “Hell no.” The poor bastard paid for a service and entered into an, apparently, complicated contract with the airlines and as a result of his alleged behavior he is manhandled, bloodied and dragged off the plane by the goonsquad.

There is so much to this story: Race, Class, Entitlement, Police Misconduct, Incompetency, Corporate Arrogance, and they are part of the overall narrative. Meanwhile, what struck me is that the CEO of United, Oscar Munoz, continues to defend the airline and says that “policy” allowed for the passenger to be removed by force; not ethics, not respect, not even the fact that the dude had paid for his ticket in good faith, but “policy”.

I wasn’t on the plane and the passenger may have been an asshole. I’m not defending him. I know for a fact that there are an almost infinite number of ways to de-escalate a volatile and aggressive situation and I believe that physical violence should not necessarily be the first option.

CEO Munoz, however, makes $6.7 million a year in salary and compensation and there are some things he hasn’t figured out yet.

Six million seven hundred thousand dollars and:

He doesn’t know what it’s like to fly on one of his dicked up, overcrowded, overbooked, insulting, unfriendly, threatening, incompetent, undependable and uncomfortable airplanes.

He is a member of a financial class that has been branded as the enemy of normal, common, working class, overburdened and oppressed men and women. Income inequality is real as hell.

Following dubious policy isn’t necessarily the right thing to do.

He has no credibility.

Oscar’s income may give him an illusion of authority but real people don’t give a shit about what he says because we really don’t care about rich people any more. Those days are ending; the days when money was respected and we assumed that the person with the fat paycheck had earned it and as a result we valued their contribution.

Nope.

Bullshit. We don’t trust Oscar and his buddies (many who are currently serving in government).

It doesn’t matter what actually transpired on the United Airlines flight that was “overbooked” because wealthy people are no longer trustworthy and their word is not reliable.

It’s a new world, everything is on film, professional journalism isn’t keeping up and we are making our judgments based on flimsy cellphone videos. I’m not in favor of all of that stuff because there are too many variables and it’s easy to manipulate the evidence.

But goddamnit, Oscar Munoz, revered CEO of United Airlines, is digging himself and his entire class of self-certified financial overlords into a deeper and deeper pit.

Read some history. Buy regular shoes. Fly coach. 

Missing the point can be fatal.

America's New Daddy

America, as represented by The Statue of Liberty and Columbia, is maternal. The presidency has, thus far, always been paternal (see: Mt. Rushmore and all the goddamn men who have ever occupied the White House).

Now, every four or eight years mom gets bored, tired of dad’s bullshit and she files for divorce. She dumps the old man and begins shopping around for someone different. We, the children, get to help her choose our new daddy. Mom gives us a list of possibilities and lets us vote on whom we want to drive us to soccer practice, teach us to fish, pay the mortgage and hire the help. Once in a while a woman’s name appears on the list, but so far the USA has not been willing to consider the idea of a mommy at the head of the table. Sad, but true.

Barack Obama was a cool dad, wasn’t he? He was African American and representative, funny, smart, hip, could hang, and he treated us with respect and some of us were super stoked to finally have a pop who liked decent music and acted like he cared about our welfare.

Still, mom wanted a fresh husband. Mom sometimes makes mistakes.

A few of our stepbrothers and sisters hated Barack. They were furious because he was black, he was too young, too smart, too good looking, treated mom as an equal, and looked better than we do in a swimming suit. They made fun of him and tried to trick him and a few of the assholes actually called for him to be put in jail or executed. I hate a lot of my stepbrothers and sisters. Stupid bullies.

The Stupid Bullies wanted a dad who was white and barked orders and made people behave. Mommy agreed and picked a really different guy than Barack. The opposite of Barack. We don’t know why the fuck mommy ever decided that this asshole was going to be our new daddy, he was kind of a clown, but he was also super rich and we figured, “Fuck it. Maybe he’ll buy us a new bike or take us to Disneyland.”

Right?

Well, nope, he’s turned out to be somewhat abusive, not smart at all, and it looks like mom is having second thoughts. We saw him naked and it was disgusting. She knows she’s stuck with him.

We miss Barack. He was fun, could tell a joke, a decent guy, and we miss him a lot. Some of us wonder if mom is losing it. We really want our old daddy back but we know that we have to live with the new guy, the big flabby shithead who doesn’t get us at all.

And I don’t think he’s going to take us to Disneyland.