Day # 227 Fiddling About

The tale of some Roman historians is that Nero fiddled while the great fire of 69 AD consumed large tracts of Roman real estate.   There are other Roman historians, perhaps with less of an ax to grind, who say that Nero actually rushed to help his fellow Romans, distributing aid from his own coffers.  Regardless of the facts, we are left with the image of Nero fiddling (lyre-ing actually) whilst the conflagration raged around him.

In my more mundane way, I also have to find some pastime while the flames dance about.  It is not all of Rome that is burning, but what is consumed was once of significance to me.  No matter, the flames still flicker, allegorical or not, and to ignore them one must do something.  Hence all of the fiddling.

I recently purchased a fiddle but that is neither here nor there.  Its a metaphor we are torturing here, not innocent violin strings.

Despite my now seven month long boycott of the news media, I am occupying my time around the personal campfire with a collection of news stories written by one of the most curmudgeonly of reporters:  H. L. Mencken.   The past evening I read another of his editorials, which deserves to be noted and quoted.

"Of late every reflective American reader must have noticed the inaccuracy and imbecility of most of the special correspondence issuing from Washington.  In it all the frauds, high and low, who flourish in that town are treated with the utmost gravity, and their cheapest and most venal maneuvers are depicted as masterpieces of statecraft.   Is this bilge ordered by Wall Street?  I doubt it.  Is it demanded by the customers of the papers that print it?  Again I have a doubt.  Far easier and more plausible is the explanation that the Washington correspondents write it willingly and in good faith -- that they are too stupid to penetrate the fraudulencies by which they are surrounded."  

Mencken wrote this for the Chicago Sunday Tribune in 1927.  While he bristled his brows and smoked his cigar, he had no idea just how bad the state of American journalism could actually get.  What would he have thought of the talking heads spewing vitriol at one another, so busy scrabbling for the perceived high ground of their agenda that the objective reporting of the news has long since all but vanished?

Mencken was no saint, and he certainly was not without opinions which he delivered with aplomb and a sharp wit.  He also knew that news consisted of the facts, collected and recorded by a diligent reporter and delivered as such to the reader.  Opinions were meant for the editorial page where he reveled in their composition.

So my own Rome burns whilst I read the pithy essays of a great journalist long dead.  I am aware of the irony that at the same time I am boycotting the news of the day.  I feel like I am getting the better end of the bargain, consuming news that is almost eighty-odd years old and still pertinent.    

Day # 225 Mores ( not smores )

Like many people, I come from the Midwest region of the United States.  While this region produces a diverse group of people, a certain percentage of which flee quickly to other parts of the country, there are certain traits that identify a Midwesterner.

When life turns to wrack and ruin, casting away all that was once a comfortable certainty, some people will turn to drink.  Not a bad option, that, unless you've already done that route and the toll booth is closed.  Other people, facing that which cannot be imagined, will turn to dope.  Again, not a bad option in the short term unless you have the same prior routing and toll booth issues as drink.

While those of Midwestern stock can and do turn to drink or dope, we also have a genetic fall back coping mechanism:  we work.  When I am out on the sidewalk in front of my building, digging weeds out of the sidewalk cracks with an intensity that compares to a Zen monk scrubbing temple floors, most of the passersby will give me a wide berth and keep walking.  A few pedestrians will offer a polite comment about a job well done.

Then there are the others, those of the same stock; those that know.  While I am head down, scraping and digging and prying out weeds and grasses which hold tenaciously to their purchase in the sidewalk, desperately clinging to life, an older person will pass me and stop.  They will catch my eye and nod with grim approval.  They have seen right through the petty desire for a clean sidewalk, swept aside the simple yen for neatness acquired through hard work.  They know.   Behind the fierce manual labor they behold an effort to eradicate, at least for the moment, a life in shambles which can only be set right by work, work and more work.  No labouring over spreadsheets or namby-pamby office drudgery will suffice.  The Midwestern ethic calls for physical labour, preferably something that requires primitive hand tools and a stooped posture.  Scything hay, shoveling manure, or, lacking a farm, pulling weeds from a hundred feet of sidewalk cracks; these are the tasks that cleanse and purge.

I meet their eyes.  There is an understanding that passes, however briefly, between us.  They walk on and I bend to the next section, intent on leaving no root behind.

Day # 217 Nothing

I, like many Mid-Westerners of my generation, was raised with most of the standard platitudes, including "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."  I am here to tell you that, at least for today, I am not adhering to that principle.

From my perspective as of today, Sartre was spot on in the pessimistic sense of his line "Hell is other people".  If hell is having one's own shortcomings brilliantly illuminated by others, then hell is indeed where I am.  In the last week I have spent many long hours labouring over a mechanical demon of my own making, becoming a slave to its creation.  What do I have to show for it?  I have very pretty little machine that does not run, with flaws that mar its beauty which only I can see and the frustration of missing yet another race week-end because I have nothing to race with.  Additionally, I have ignored the needs of others and in the process have had the mirror of scrutiny held up before me, showing me to be obsessed rather than dedicated, inept rather than creative and uncaring rather than focused.

Bummer.   Pesky others.

As attractive as the image of the little race moto on fire is, only made more so by my desire to dance naked around its flames, I suspect that I will instead succumb to its plaintive little siren call.  I will devote more hours to its creation, this time discovering why it does not seem to have a clutch when all of the clutchy bits are there and they are moving around in a clutchy sort of fashion.

I can't give up.  Its not in me nature, Mr. Froggy.  And when that mirror is held up again, I think I'll just duck.  I try to be like Taoist (and Dudeist) water, moving around the rock instead of against it.  I do try.  But sometimes, sometimes I just have to plant my feet, pick that big fucker up out of the stream bed and run naked and splashing through the water with grim determination.

No matter that through illness, family commitments or the perversions of the mechanical deities, I have missed three out of three race weekends.  Any chance of a podium finish for the season is gone before I start the first engine of the season.  Bah!  Nothing good to say at all.  Nothing at all.

Day # 213 This is what I'm missing?

Even in the midst of the news blackout, the most absurd stuff from the American main-stream media seeps into my little world.

Today, on my main e-mail list, one of my good friends posted several CNN banners he had noted:

"Boehner Pokes Fun At Weiner"

"Pressure On Weiner Begins To Swell"


Really, this is news?  Holy cripes, I guess I'm not missing much.  I suppose that the only thing different about this "scandal" is that it involves a male conservative and a female.  It's almost refreshing.

So, credit where credit is due, another person on the afore-mentioned e-mail list took the headlines a step further with a fictional banner that might read:

"Boehner introducing Weiner to Bush" 


Hah!  Sometimes this stuff just writes itself.  Oh well.  Maybe a year of no news is not quite enough.  I'm thinking maybe a decade.  What would it be like to miss two more election cycles.  I think it would be almost as big a change as a conservative sex scandal that doesn't involve two people of the same sex.

I suppose it's nice that Weiner is bringing the Right back into line with the good old family values of hetero-affairs.

Day # 210 Bokononists

Live by the foma that makes you brave and healthy and happy.

Building race bikes makes me happy.  I don't know about healthy and brave.
(busy, busy, busy)

Learning from my son, The Kid, The Genetic Envelope, makes me brave.  I don't know about healthy and happy.
(busy, busy, busy)

Eating Ba Mee Hang that is redolent with Thai chilies makes me healthy.  I don't know about brave and happy.
(busy, busy, busy)

Tonight, almost anything and anyone else can just go dangle on The Hook (which only exists in their mind).

Day # 205 Nothing could be finer....

Question:  What could be better than neglecting one's blog, and everything else, to take a week long road trip with one's teenage son?

Answer:  Not much.