Captain Grammar's Folly

Bradbury: Forever one of my heroes.

Fortunately, it is not possible to reach through the computer and slap people. I'd be in trouble if this were an option. See, this blog/comment stuff can be really cool. Or not.

Don't misunderstand me. People should be allowed to be as stupid as they want. And smart people sometimes say stupid things. Conversely, stupid people can wind up going all Forrest Gump and shining a light into the dark places for those of us who doubted them. So everyone should be allowed to speak.

But there is nothing worse than people of average intelligence with a little education who are convinced that they are insightful and that being insightful means exposing the stupidity of everyone but them. They wind up writing things that are equivalent to someone saying, to a batter who has just struck out:

The Days of Wine and Toothpaste

Oh,things were hot, back then. John had a hot car with a bass speaker that throbbed like the very heart of lust. Mary thought he had sexy hair. She wore shirts that made people blush or stare, depending on their up-bringing. When they walked into a club together, everyone else could only imagine what it must be like to be "that couple."

They were playmates, John and Mary. They talked on the phone and saw each other a few times a week for vertigo-inspiring trysts. They drove home thinking: Wow. When each was alone at home, they thought about marriage. This was the one.

On the weekends, they went to dinner. She'd raise an eyebrow, he'd raise an eyebrow. They'd sip red wine. She'd take a saucy bite from her fork and then lick the tip of her finger, dangerously. He'd give her a "naughty girl" look and shake his head, feigning that the boyish embarrassment that made her think he looked so insufferably cute -- so deeply desirable. She'd move her foot under the table, drop off a strappy shoe and run a toe up his jeans leg. He'd cough and blot at his mouth with a napkin. "Check!" he'd say out loud to a waiter who wasn't there and they would laugh at his cleverness.

Still, We Write

Lee J. Cobb, the first Willy Loman

The other night, I caught the last hour of a movie masterpiece on TV: Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men. It is an inspiring film to watch, in and of itself, full of that 1950's mixture of sinewy intellect and bongo-driven, twelve-tonal avante-gardeness. It is a film that simultaneously, as much of the art of that period did, praises and condemns the register of human action and tendency.

But the old stream-of-consciousness kicked in when I again saw Lee J. Cobb, the disgruntled father who wants a young man to hang as a result of his own feelings against his own rebellious son. Seeing Cobb made me think of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, in which he played the first Willy Loman.

The Cleansing (A Mystery Parable)

For years, the factory workers complained about many things: their pay; the working conditions; the hours. Their complaints were just. The owners were beasts. The workers were treated brutally. The situation was bad. Something needed to be done.

Finally, a reporter came, disguised in the overalls of one of the many workers, to expose the story. One of the workers, who was without fear, showed the reporter around the factory.

"And look!" said the fearless worker at the end of the tour. "Look at the bathrooms! I cannot stand it any more, I tell you."

Do You Like Liking Like?

Finally, there's a way for me to validate my love for my wife; to immortalize it for the ages. Finally, loving commitment is legitimized in a world that encourages promiscuity and immoral canoodling. I saw it today while I was on Facebook: Click "Like" if you love your wife.

Thank you Facebook -- NAY! Thank you Powers of the Universe! How, in the name of all that is holy, was I ever to have shared my love with the world before this?

One can "like" lots of things, you know. God, for instance. (And, Lo! Jehovah smiled upon Ted for clicking "like" and He gathered Ted unto his side.) Or music. (An exclusive group.) Or baseball. One can "like" loving one's children, too. What kind of a bastard would you be if you didn't "like" that?

"This is what I like and I want the electronic world to know it," we can now scream from the top of Mount Digitalis!