Thursday, February 24, 2005

In the pre dawn rain as I struggled awake today, I dreamed Paul Lynde was yukking it up on my own version of Hollywood Squares. Before that I was riding in a school bus driven by my daughter. She asked me later today if that was the short bus. There is theme here and I am going to find it. Seems to be retards and fairies or retards and midgets.

"If there's two things I can't stand in the world. It's retards and midgets."- Doyle from Sling Blade. I love that movie. I quote it all the time. I like to go McDonald's and ask for "some of them french fried potaters". I try to do my best impersonation of Carl but it is difficult. It is difficult to do things like that right. I guess that's why we live in a PC world.

George C. Wolfe said in his book Spunk Three Tales by Zora Neale Hurston "It is suggested that the rhythms of the dialect be played instead of the dialect itself. A subtle but important distinction. The former will give you Zora. The latter Amos and Andy." Of course, Zora Hurston was a Harlem Renaissance writer and a contemporary of Langston Hughes. She wrote many important books on African American culture and documented Negro folk tales. She wrote a book called Mules and Men in 1935 which documented Southern beliefs in roots and root doctors. Spunk is one of her plays and Mr. Wolfe gives his thoughts on how to make the acting work instead doing caricature.
Zora Hurston died broke, employed as a maid in a hotel in 1960. Up until a few years ago, she was buried in a pauper's field in Florida. Alice Walker worked real hard to get her back in the limelight.

Where is all this going? Damned if I know-but enjoy the ride!

I bought a book at the flea market last week called Four Yoruba Rituals for the New World by James Mason. It set me back $5.50 and it was worth it. I got this as my companion to American Voodoo by Brad Davis. The book on Yoruba rituals documents four types of voodoo rituals practiced in America by the Yoruba practitioners. The Yoruba were one of the largest tribes in Africa and descendants are scattered across the Southern US, the Carribbean, and into Brazil. They were originally from Nigeria and carried their religious beliefs throughout the New World. It's difficult to make people give up their spiritual beliefs even if you kidnap, chain and beat 'em regularly. Slaves didn't give up much in the way of their beliefs-they just hid them and took them out when Whitey was asleep. Sure, alot of slaves "converted" to Christianity- I would have what with all the chains and ass whuppins. Somehow certain fundamental things survive calculated awfulness and these things still peer out at us on a good day. Keep looking!

Monday, February 21, 2005

Hunter S. Thompson is dead.

Those are four words I didn't want to hear for awhile. I feel shocked and ripped off because the way he went is the out the back door. Suicide is not heroic nor does it automatically elevate one's life above the rest. It's dastardly and wicked. I have survived three people committing suicide in my life and that is enough. I had a friend do it when we were barely out of high school. He was the kind of kid that was sensitive anyway and he tried real hard to fit in with a bunch of redneck hooligans. He failed at that and I guess he couldn't take it. The last time he I saw him he showed up at my door with a busted lip and a broken nose. This was courtesy of some long forgotten Neanderthals that lived on the periphery of our existence. A few days later he checked out. As for the Neanderthals they're probably driving around in their SUVs right now.

My uncle did it in 1995. He had a recurrence of colon cancer and just didn't want to go through it again. I guess rather than face a slow death in wheelchair and pissing in bag, he found the express exit. Suicide leaves a whole in the family fabric (if such a thing exists) and the edges never do meet up right again. I guess you can get used to most anything but it takes a long time and the going is slow.

My friend did about six months ago. She didn't go quietly either. She went out courtesy of the Columbia County Sheriff's Department. Kim holed herself up in her apartment with a loaded gun and some pills. She endangered the lives of a lot of police officers who were there trying to help her. She didn't take the help and should have. That's all I have to say about that.

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

There are certain stories that bear repeating and probably more than once. This one of those-the true kind that you just couldn't make up if you had to. The kind that still get a laugh on Thanksgiving or Christmas. This happened a long time ago in place that is not so far away but it existed in a time that is far off. I could take you to the gas station where this happened-it's just up the road where Highway 150 and the Stagecoach Rd (?) split off near Thomson, GA. Back in the day, there was no cable TV, no cell phones, or computers. This place was way out beyond the lights of town and there was no cultural sensitivity or anything like that.
I was about 9 years old and my family was out for a drive in the country. We had miniature poodle named Pierre that my grandmother had given us. Pierre had a dental problem with his lower jaw that caused his bottom row of teeth to stick out and he looked goofy enough as it was. That year we hadn't given Pierre his trimming yet so he looked like a giant cottonball with a huge underbite!
We stopped in this country store for gas and Pierre was sitting between me and my brother in the back seat. There was a young black kid about twelve years old pumping our gas and he looked in through the back window at the dog. He looked off puzzled and continued his work. He kept looking at the dog as he washed the windshields and he just had a puzzled look on his face. He finally came around to collect the money and when my father rolled down the window the kid said "Mister, that's pretty little sheep you got there! But he's got eyes just like a dog!"
We all were laughing so hard that the kid just looked at us like we were crazy! No one in the car was in control enough to tell the kid that Pierre was a dog and we drove away.

Pierre was a source of amusement for all the kids at my bus stop. He used to wander the streets(everybody's dog did it then) and he try to mate with every female he saw. I think he even tried the neighbor's cat a time or two. We used to call him Dirty Pierre and sang a song in his honor. It was set to the Frito Bandito tune and went something like "Aye ,Yay ,Yay, Yay, I am Dirty Pierre. I love to fuck bitches oh yes I do. If you don't watch out I will fuck you!" Of course to sing it right you have to haf an accent lika de Speedy Gonzalez!