Another Short Story From the Past For the Present

Anteater

A short story by Tim McMullen

As he reached out, he envisioned the scattered fragments of appendages; however, when he turned the sponge over, he saw nothing but a mere black speck on the blue surface. He held the sponge under the stream of the faucet and watched the remains swirl down the sink drain.

Tom Jenkins had always felt uncomfortable when he killed an insect. A sad, queasy feeling tremored from his stomach to his throat, and he often apologized aloud.

“Sorry, buddy,” he would say, “but you just wouldn't listen to reason!”

In fact, he often did try to reason with them; that is, he gave them a chance by trying to herd them out of the room. Spiders were the easiest: He just picked them up by their web or got them to crawl on a kleenex, and then he walked them outside. And flies could usually be coaxed out the door merely by his waving his hands and blocking their flight.

“No, really! Thomas tries to rehabilitate them and give them a college education,” his ex-wife would chortle to friends as she lashed out to swat a fly or squish a spider.

Now he just stood there with the water streaming down the drain. After turning off the water and wringing out the sponge, he heard the drone of the clock radio from the bedroom. He used the radio's “snooze bar” mechanism to indicate the time in ten-minute increments.

“And now, here's Joanna with an environmental update….”

“The President,” the radio bubbled in buoyant feminine tones, “obviously elated over his latest tactical triumph, said,

'Industry must be given a chance to fulfill their responsibilities without a bunch of uninfor….’”

“Must be 6:20,” Jenkins mumbled to himself, and he hurried off to tap the button.

Ten minutes later, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, he reflexively caught his nose between his thumb and forefinger and pinched his nostrils closed.

“Damn! The stench of that dump is getting worse,” he muttered.

When he and Anita had moved into this new housing complex, they had been unaware that a dump was situated nearby, if you could call over four miles away “nearby.” Then, about three years ago, he and his neighbors had begun to notice a pungent though not unpleasant odor, a smell resembling strong orange blossoms, wafting sporadically through the air. Eventually, someone had linked the smell to the dump, and the mystery had been solved. The smell was no longer orange blossoms, however. Tom experienced a sudden olfactory deja vu: he remembered a blast of dank, musty air gasping past him as he opened the ragged, rotted, wooden door of an old shed on his grandmother's farm. He had never gagged before, and he staggered; a sour, fetid stench flared his nostrils, and he fled from the shed and the sight of the dead cat's rotting carcass.

This morning, the malodorous miasma from the dump was a cross between that decomposing cat and one of those portable chemical toilets after it's been sitting in the hot sun for several days. He'd have to call Ted from the Tenant's Association about the outcome of their last meeting. He almost wished that he had been there. They had really pressured him to join them in their campaign against the refuse reclamation operation.

“C'mon, Tom, you're the perfect person,” Ted Rainer, the association president, had pleaded.

“Yeah, Tom,” added Jill Benton, peering out through glasses whose lenses grotesquely magnified her mottled hazel eyes. “You're a lawyer. You can talk to the people from the government and make 'em understand how bad it is.”

“Yes…yes…well, I'd like to help,” he had stammered, “but I… I…just don't have the time right now.”

It was true. His caseload was quite heavy right now, and it would be hard for him to squeeze the extra time, but that wasn't the real reason. The fact was that he just wasn't a joiner. Besides, what did he know about it? People took it for granted, “Oh, you're a lawyer? Well, can you tell me about…my dog, my aunt, my boss, my doctor, my leg, my food, my car, my landlord, my fishing pole, my dump?” Tom laughed at his list. He was only a junior public defender. What did he know about dumps or dog food? Nevertheless, the stench from the refuse disposal site was getting more odious; there was certainly no doubt about that. Maybe he really should call Ted and find out how things were going.

The traffic report clicked on as he cut a swath through the lather on his right cheek. He listened for a moment to the banter of the deejay and the copter pilot. Reassured that there were no major pileups on the freeway, he walked briskly to the bedroom.

“…that although the bill had passed unanimously during last year's reelection campaign, a majority of the committee's members, after some aggressive lobbying from industry, reversed its vote and killed the bill. “

“Business as usual, I see,” Tom Jenkins observed cynically. “Somebody unhappy about something, I'll bet.” His hands dripping water and his face full of lather, he nudged the snooze alarm with an elbow and went back to the bathroom.

That sad, queasy sensation swept over him again as he gazed from the sink to the windowsill. A line of black writhed back and forth in random movement.

“Jeez! Where the hell did you come from?” he muttered.

He reached out instinctively with his hand to sweep the inch-thick line of ants into the sink. Then, thinking better of it, he grabbed a washcloth from the rack in the shower, soaked it in the tub faucet, and then went for them.

In a second or two he had cleared the windowsill. It was easy to spot the doomed vermin as they broke rank and scampered across the muted pink tile and the dusty rose calico of the wallpaper. As he rinsed the little, brittle, black bodies into the sink, he pondered whether it was more merciful to wash them down with hot water or cold water. If they were still alive, would the hot water scald them? Maybe, with cold water, they could survive in the pipes? The thought pleased him. He didn't necessarily want them dead ...he just wanted them out of his house!

“This is ridiculous, fellas!” he said, wiping the final remnants from the basin. “What the hell has gotten into them?” he wondered aloud as he rinsed the remaining lather from his face.

He was sitting on the side of bed putting on his left shoe when the radio sounded again:

“We're in your corner,” sang the jingle, “We're on your side...”

“Uh-huh,” Tom grunted sarcastically.

“We know what you need, and we make it with pride!” the chorus tittered.

“Well, this is what I need!” he said, reaching over and pushing the bar to silence the ad.

His liberal, socioeconomic sensibilities had been slightly appalled when these giant corporate conglomerates had first begun to advertise.

“Another fine product from your friends at 'Whateveritis'” or “Remember us? We're 'Whoeverweare!’”

“Talk about 'antitrust,'“ he had quipped to George Sherman while watching an ad on security's little T.V. during a recess. “How can one company own tractors, chewing gum, textiles, sanitary napkins, canned fruit, plastic containers ...?”

By this time, however, he was no longer alarmed at their diversity; nevertheless, the absurd incongruities were still amusing. Pretty soon the whole country would be run by an oil company, a soft drink conglomerate, and an insurance company.

With his “Haveaniceday” coffee mug in his right hand and his suit coat draped over his left, he glanced at himself in the full length mirror on the back of the closet door. He was meeting with the department head to talk about a promotion, so he had dressed carefully. Some of the guys in the department were too casual… some were downright slovenly. If this promotion didn't come through, he had actually contemplated going over to the D.A.'s office. At least those fellows took their appearance seriously. He set the cup on the dresser and slipped on the coat. This was his blue Brooks Bros.; he had bought it two years ago and had used it only for special occasions like today. The coat hung well, and it still looked new.

With eyes closed slightly, he waggled his head back and forth at the neck, craning it forward and tipping it back. A little stiff, but not too bad. Stepping closer, he examined his face. Although he'd been careful, he did find a bit of dried shaving cream just behind his right ear. As he picked at the crusty, white flecks, he noticed that the hair around his ears was beginning to edge closer; it had only been two weeks since his last haircut, but it just might be time for another. Finally satisfied with his inspection, he picked up his coffee cup, flipped off the bedroom light, and walked down the narrow hall.

With his finger still on the hall light switch, he edged sideways into the kitchen; then, he flicked the hall light, pulled the door shut, and turned.

“H-O-O-O-L-L-Y-Y SHIT!” he sang out loudly.

The cup fell from his hand and bounced across the floor; the coffee splashed, but Tom barely noticed it. The entire kitchen was black. The light from the overhead kitchen lamp was muted, but the morning sun filtered through the drawn curtains. His first impulse was to turn and run; instead, he vaulted the window and threw the curtains open. Pulling away, he clapped his palms together and then examined them in the roseate light of the window.

Ants. Although legs and heads had been mashed together on his palms, the remains of the carcasses were identifiable, and some were still moving. One large black ant flailed his forelegs frantically in an apparent effort to drag his crushed body out of danger. His demonstrative antennae fluttered wildly in some secret ant semaphore. Feeling slightly nauseated, Tom wiped his palms on his suit pants.

Now the walls caught his attention. The kitchen was a writhing mass of ants. They were everywhere and on everything. The refrigerator and the stove, once white, were no longer distinguishable from what had been yellow walls and cabinets: Everything was black and moving.

Already, he could feel them on his legs and in his shoes. He kicked at the floor with his foot as if to cut a path through the ants, but to little effect. He ran to the window and tried to slam it closed. Instantly, his hands were again covered in the wriggling, tickling things. He felt them flooding up his sleeves. Thrashing furiously and beating at his arms, he sprang to the service porch and looked for a way to fight them off. The porch, if anything, was even deeper in ants. After a moment of heightened alarm, he grabbed a broom and a giant can of insect spray. Both objects were covered in ants.

Pulling the lid off the can, he aimed the nozzle at the windowsill, and holding it only a few inches from the ants, he sprayed.

At first, the mist blew a space in the advancing horde, and he actually saw a few of them swim for a moment and then stop moving. Instantly, however, the empty space was filled with new recruits. Rather than deterring them, the dead bodies merely served as steppingstones over the poison-drenched sill, and the monsters swarmed in by the thousands. Dropping the empty can, Tom Jenkins swatted at his neck and arms; and then, he brushed at his face with both hands as if washing with ant lather.

He grabbed at the black, ant-covered broom; whirling around, he swept at the floor in wild, exaggerated movements. He found that by brushing back and forth as rapidly as he was able, he could keep clear about a three-foot circle. If he could hold his own for just a minute, he reasoned, the ants would get wind of the danger and halt their advance. Now that he had overcome his initial shock, he entered the battle in earnest. He got a rhythm going.

One/two/three/four/five/six/strokes at the floor, then one/two at the cabinets. One/two/three/four/five/six—one/two—one/two/three/four/five/six—one/two! He gained confidence every moment; the ants were faltering. He increased his circle of unoccupied territory to nearly four feet, and one of the cupboard doors was nearly clear.

Stepping backward to increase his attack, he inadvertently placed his foot on the dropped coffee mug, and the jolt sent him sprawling. Instantly, he felt a terrible pain, and he realized that he had cracked his head against the corner of the stove. He felt the warm ooze at the side of his head, and he slumped to the floor.

“NO!” he screamed, but when he opened his mouth, he felt the dirty little things crawling allover his lips and tongue. He spat, “Phah! Phah!” and sealed his lips tightly. He could feel several of the ants wriggling between his lips as he crushed them closed.

Only half-conscious, he made feeble attempts to stop the ants' advance. Like the cup and the appliances, he was now completely submerged in the crawling sea of ants. As they poured into his ear canal, they made a sound like horses on sandpaper roller skates. He opened his eyes for an instant then blinked them closed, but it was too late. Ants streamed across his eyeballs, and the room grew dark. He tried blinking rapidly—he rubbed at his eyes with his fists—but the ants were too much.

His head throbbed mercilessly, and it felt sticky somewhere. One of the advance guard entered his left nostril; Jenkins snorted furiously, but more ants followed instantly. He could feel their progress: waving their little legs and antennae about, they lurched forward, tentatively, into his nasal passages. Breathing had become almost impossible. He snuffed, and then gagged as several ants were sucked up into his sinuses. He opened his mouth to gasp for breath and then involuntarily swallowed a mouthful of the crawling invaders.

No longer able to move, he felt them scurrying across his eyeballs, scrambling into his nose and down his throat, scrabbling deep into his ear. Then, through the sound of their continuous onslaught and his own stertorous breathing, he heard the click of the radio.

“Next up...an alarming report on honey-bees, but first….”

“We're in your corner,” sang the jingle, “We're on your si....”

©1985 Tim McMullen

All Rights Reserved

"Such a Simple Thing" Happy Valentine's Day!

I submit this year's Valentine song with a video that is a bit of a departure. It uses brief snippets of rudimentary green screen/color keying, but more significantly, it uses text to tell a some of the story of our April Fools' Day wedding announcement, our wedding day affixed to our Annual Half-a-Dozen Crazy Cousin's Easter Feaster Weekend Celebration, and our subsequent "honeymoon" in Hawaii.  Most of the images are from an album that no one else has seen, and I am guessing neither Carolyn nor I have seen for at least twenty years or so.

As I have explained elsewhere, Carolyn and I met in 1969, when I was newly married and transferred from Whittier College to Chico State so that my bride could continue at Chico, and I could complete my B.A. and teaching credential. The first day I was there, my wife, Jan, was scheduled to perform music at a concert with Dan, Carolyn’s boyfriend and soon-to-be husband. Carolyn and I sat on a bed in a dorm room and talked while Jan and Dan rehearsed. Two years later, Jan and I graduated and returned to Whittier. Three years after that, following a very amicable divorce, I submitted my resignation and retired from teaching, packed my car with my instruments and travel essentials, and set off to try to make a living playing music. While visiting Santa Rosa to see if my brother Tucker wanted to join me in this venture, I made a visit to my ex-wife, who was back in Chico, and, while there, became reacquainted with Carolyn who was also at the end of her marriage. After a few weeks, I said to Carolyn, "I am returning to Southern California to get a job. I would love to have you join me." She came for a visit in December of 1974, staying with me at my cousin’s house in Laguna. Four months later, she came down for good, and we have been together ever since.

Having both been married before, and having no religious notion attached to the ceremony, we could find no reason to remarry. From the day that she moved in, because of our love and personal commitment, we were more married than most couples, regardless of ceremony. It was nearly eight years later when Carolyn was taking a paralegal class in probate law (and I was sitting in) that we realized the ridiculous discrimination and undue burdens placed on committed couples who were not legally married. This is one of the reasons that I have been so outspoken for so long about the rights of same-sex couples to the legal benefits and protections of marriage.

On the spot, we simultaneously arrived at the conclusion that the most expeditious thing to do would be to get married. We didn’t want to make a big thing of it, however, since we had already been together eight years. We had always considered April as our anniversary month, but we never really had a set date. We naturally realized that April 1st would be the perfect day for our marriage. We decided to get married by a local justice, but the Whittier Court only did marriages on Fridays. We had to wait just over a year for April 1st to land on a Friday. It was quite fortuitous, really, because, had we missed that day but stuck to our plan, we might have had to wait as much as six more years for the right day to roll around.

We asked our friend’s Dick and Betty Harris to be witnesses, and we told no one else. Carolyn created a very clever wedding announcement that was sent to arrive on April 1st. That announcement is the opening of this video accompanied by the beginning of my song, “April Fools.” Our cousin, Beverly McMullen, not really sure what to make of the note, came to the Whittier Municipal Court and took a few pictures of the event. Those pictures are also included in the video.

We then traveled to Big Bear, California, to share our wedding weekend with our cousins, Sam and Becky (McMullen) LaRocca, in their parent’s cabin. The pictures that Becky took are also included in the video. Finally, we traveled to Hawaii for our “official” honeymoon, thanks, in part, to a  wedding gift from my parents. A few of those pictures are here as well.

We hope that you have a Fun and Happy Valentine’s Day!

Such a Simple Thing

Such a simple thing

As your hand in mine

Becomes the perfect

Valentine

Or this wedding ring

As our lives entwine

Another perfect

Valentine

And this song I sing

Seeks in every line

Another perfect

Valentine

A token of our love

A pledge forever more

With thanks for what we’ve had

And joy for what’s in store

Such a simple thing

Warm, sweet eyes that shine

Another perfect

Valentine

  

For the love we bring

Is the love we find

Another perfect

Valentine

A token of our love

A pledge forever more

With thanks for what we’ve had

And joy for what’s in store 

If fate were such that at its end,

They offered one more chance,

My one request, Dear Carolyn,

Again to join you in that dance

              

Such a simple thing

As your hand in mine

Becomes the perfect

Valentine

For you soothe life’s sting

With a love so fine

My thanks to you

Dear Valentine

And this song I sing

Seeks in every line

Another perfect

Valentine

©2013 Tim McMullen

All Rights Reserved

A Short Story from the Past for the Present

CHRISTMAS PRESENT
by Tim McMullen 

It had been a cold Christmas Eve, and the white, crystalline rooftops glistened in the morning sun like snow-capped peaks above suburban, multi-colored mountains. As I walked across the lawn to get the Christmas morning newspaper, the brisk rubbing of my bare hands and the snail-shell crackle of the brittle grass were the only sounds. I winced at the thought of snail shells, glanced across the street at Ron Logan's lawn, and remembered.

"Look, Jimmy," he'd cried. Then, holding the large, brown garden snail at eye level, he'd crushed it loudly between his forefinger and his thumb. "Here, eat it!" he had sneered and flicked it at my face.

That was over twenty years ago, but he hasn't changed much. It is ironic that of all the kids and all the families that have grown up on this block, Ron Logan and I are the only ones who have remained. As kids we never really got along; he was the bully of the block, and I was "the Big Brain"—at least that was the derisive epithet he delighted in hurling after me. Naturally, I took it as a compliment. As adults, we simply don't have many occasions for contact. Once in a while, he and his two boys will be out front washing their Bronco after some off-road excursion, and we'll exchange a word or two; for the most part, though, we have very little to do with each other.

I smiled as I looked at his place. The house was nearly covered in Christmas lights—red, white, and blue only—which poked up through the swiftly melting frost like a giant, abstract connect-the-dots picture. On one corner of his lawn was a large wooden scene of Santa and his reindeer; on the other, a life-size nativity scene. That’s Ron for you. Nothing halfway about him. Just like his annual Fourth of July extravaganzas: Nobody has a bigger or brighter display than Ron Logan and his boys. Two years ago they nearly burned the roof off the Mejia's patio, but we finally put the fire out with garden hoses.

Suddenly, a bird twittered and then another, and the tree by my chimney came alive with their rustling and chittering. My thoughts snapped back from the recollected scenes, and I paused above the yet un-collected newspaper and listened. Southern California is a mixed metaphor, after all, juxtaposing the frost on its rooftops with the birds in its branches. I had noticed one chirrup pitched higher than the others, and I realized that there must be a fledgling in among the older birds. The image of little John Logan, Ron's six-year old, intruded upon my thoughts.

Johnny is the only one of the Logan lot that I can tolerate, and, in fact, I really like him, even if I do feel a little sorry for him. More than once I've seen the gloating countenance of his older brother, Ron, Jr., suffused with fascination and pleasure at the whimsical torture of some insect or small animal unfortunate enough to have been captured in those merciless, pudgy fingers. It is his father's face as well, the face of the snail crusher. But John is different. His fists clench, and his gentle brow creases in disgust and horror at his brother's callous delights. And the little fellow has paid for such feelings.

"Get over here, you little sissy!" I've heard the father bellow.

"Take it like a man..." or "Boys don't cry!" the pugnacious taunts of his older brother have echoed, emulating the father's sarcastic tone.

Once, about a year ago, as I was carrying the trashcan around the corner of the house, I found little John hunched over on my porch, sobbing. His T-shirt front was nearly saturated, and he caught his breath in lurching hiccoughs as the tears surged down his cheeks and chin. Even the cement porch at his feet showed signs of the torrent.

"What's wrong, Bud," I said, sitting down beside him.

He brushed the butt of his fist back and forth across his eyes and tried to stifle his sobs. As a first grade teacher, I've seen enough unhappy children to know when they're inconsolable. I put my right arm around his heaving shoulders and pushed his wispy, brown hair out of his eyes with my left hand.

"It's alright, little buddy. You just go ahead and cry."

"M-m-y D-d-ad says that only s-siss...” he whimpered, and his shoulders convulsed even harder.

"Well, we both know you're not a sissy, are you?" I said.

"N-n-o!" he answered, as his sobbing began to subside. "But my brother says I am."

"Why don't you tell me what happened," I said.

After successive swipes of his sleeve at his eyes and nose, he began. "R-Ronnie got a p-pellet gun," he said, sniffing hard.

"Well, you're not crying because of that?" I said.

"No...but he...he shot a bird...a little bird..." his voice quivered, and a big tear began to fill the corner of his eye.

I watched it swell and swell like the slow drip of a leaky faucet until it finally spilled out and rolled down his cheek. "He killed it!" he said, and the sobs began again.

I held his shoulder tighter.

"J-Jimmy..." he said, after a long snuffling silence, "I-I'm not a sissy..."

"No," I said quickly, "Of course you're not. Why would you even ask?"

"B-Because Ronnie s-says so.... He says it's just a s-stupid b-bird, and only a sissy would cry...."

"Ronnie is wrong!" I said, and all the old anger and resentment swelled. I looked over at the little boy's house, and I could imagine the moronic glee on the bully's face. "It is a sad thing when someone is cruel. When something small and helpless dies, it's right to cry!" I patted him on the head. He smiled a little and sniffed.

"I think so too, Jimmy," he said.

"Good boy, John," I said, and he began to walk slowly toward home.

As I leaned down to pick up the paper, it occurred to me that since that day on my porch, Johnny and I had not really talked as much as we used to. School had probably gotten more demanding for both of us. It certainly had for me. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if his father had told him not to come around.

Peeling the plastic wrapper off the Christmas edition, I unfolded the paper and wondered whether the news on Christmas morn would be good or bad. The birds abruptly ceased their chirruping at the sound of a door opening across the street. I looked up to see Johnny run gleefully out of the house.

"Look, Jimmy," he cried. "Look what Santa Claus brought me! Look!"

He held his present in his hands, but I couldn't see what it was as he dodged through the maze of Santa and his wooden reindeer.

"What you got, Bud?" I yelled to him as he ran.

"Look!" he cried, then he stopped at the edge of my lawn and raised his present in his arms. There was a soft report, a whoosh of air like the sound someone makes when the wind is knocked out of them. "YAH!" he cried, "Got 'im!"

The boy ran to where the small form had tumbled from my roof, and he stood aiming his Christmas present triumphantly at the bloody ball of fluff. I looked back at the house with its nativity scene and its red, white, and blue bulbs. Then, trying vainly to blink back the burning behind my eyes, I turned to gaze once more at the two pathetic victims on my frost-covered lawn.

©1985 Tim McMullen

All Rights Reserved

Clean House in the Senate: Fix the Filibuster!

Here is the latest letter that I e-mailed to my Senators:

"The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy!

  Seek Truth! Speak Truth!" Tim McMullen

The tyranny of the majority is a real threat, especially in this age when infotainment and partisan polemical "gotcha' gossip" has replaced news reporting; when public service and "equal time" has been eliminated from the "public airwaves"; when out of context snippets and sound bites get deliberately distorted to become never-ending falsehoods used to smear opponents. Clearly, the framers of the constitution were very wise to create checks and balances to protect the helpless minority from the ruthless majority.

In politics, however, an even greater threat has emerged, the tyranny of the minority. In California, since Prop. 13, where a simple majority vote imposed a supermajority threshold to pass budgets and raise taxes, gridlock and petty political pandering has created crisis after crisis in this once great and solvent state.

More importantly, in the Senate of the United States of America, since the election of President Barack Obama, the Republican minority has converted the quaint and sparingly used "filibuster" coupled with the practice of "secret holds" to absolutely subvert the process of governing.

As both a constituent and supporter, I am urging you, as vehemently as I can, to help get Congress working again for the American people. Reduce the hypocritical tyranny of the minority by bringing common sense to the filibuster.

I know that some are calling for the complete elimination of the filibuster, but I do not. I value the moral imperative romanticized in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" or actualized in Senator Bernie Sander's gallant filibuster against the ill-advised and unproductive "tax deal" extracted from the President by Republican extortion.

Therefore, I call on you to vote to alter the implementation of the filibuster when the new Congress convenes in January. Eliminate the ability of the minority to prevent necessary legislation and nominations from even being discussed in the Senate.

Governance and legislation should be the result of principled debate and compromise not petty, partisan, procedural ploys.

We need to restore the concept of the "loyal opposition" by reducing the ability of a politically motivated few to thwart the needs of the many. Fix the filibuster NOW! Then, work to eliminate the abuse of the secret hold.

As always, thank you for supporting people over profits, integrity over iniquity, honesty over hypocrisy.

Respectfully,

Tim McMullen

P.S.: I did not send along the picture of "Bijou, the Dog of Democracy," but perhaps I should have.

Note to the President: Resurrect Reagan's Response

"The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!" Tim McMullen

Political hostage-taking and economic terrorism by the Republican minority who seek to ravage social programs while increasing corporate and military giveaways under an "austerity" regime have been wrong for twelve years as they have devastated our economy. Addressing the bank-created foreclosure fiasco, health costs, unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, alternative energy, education, worker's protections can, on the other hand, spur the economy and reduce unemployment.

There are many areas in which compromise can produce positive results, and if the Republicans come to the table willing to work for the common good, then immediate progress can be made. If, on the other hand, they continue to kowtow to the Tea Party obsessions with decimating the public sector and destroying government while transferring all economic wealth and political power to the corporatocracy and decimating the rights and fortunes of the working class, they should be opposed and thwarted absolutely.

We have seen where four years of capitulating to their obstinance got us. Now we need to put forth solid, reasonable proposals, including cuts and increased revenue, that will get us moving after eight years of foolish, ideological economic failure followed by four years of politically-imposed and politically-motivated stagnation. Cutting or privatizing programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, programs that have worked for many decades, could not be more ill-advised.

The American people said it across this country in the recent election. Join us, Mr. President. When they come with their threats to drive us off the cliff if we don't give them everything on their wish list, answer them with the immortal words of their idol, Ronald Reagan. "Just say, 'NO!'"

Look, Ma! No politics————Townes Van Zandt: Close Encounters of the Musical Kind

Two of my favorite Townes Van Zandt songs are "Second Lover's Song" and "Don't You Take it Too Bad" because they defy the chorus/verse form and create an organic meander to a gentle profundity.

I first stumbled upon Townes's music in 1969 while going to college in Chico, CA, when I found his first album in a supermarket cut-out bin for 10¢. I bought it because it was produced by Jack Clement. In both his playing and his writing, I instantly recognized in Townes a kindred spirit.

Six or seven years later Townes was booked into the Roxy in LA (odd venue for a folk singer). The opening act was Dianne Davidson (the first to cover "Delta Dawn") and Tracy Nelson (whose powerful "Down So Low" is another big favorite of mine).

Their first set was great, but about halfway through Nelson and Davidson's act, Howard and Roz Larman (I had played on their Folkscene radio show and performed for their big Folk fair fundraiser for KPFK a few months earlier) asked me and my wife if we wanted to meet Townes. I jumped at the chance. He was very gracious and fun to talk to. He invited me to come back after his set before the second show of the night and the next night as well. As much as I admire Tracy Nelson and love her work, I do not regret having missed two nights of her sets in order to have spent those hours talking about music and  songs with one of my musical idols.

I was fortunate enough to see Townes play a few times many years later at McCabes, several times sharing the bill with Guy Clark. I spoke to Townes fleetingly a couple of times out in the lobby, but I never mentioned those two nights and how much they meant to me. I wish I had.

Though I wrote two songs about the tragic death of Phil Ochs ("Heroes are Hard to Find" and "Come This Far") and one about Maury Muehleisen (Jim Croce's musical partner who was killed in the same plane crash—my song is titled "Second String Songman"), I still have not written one for Townes despite my being a huge fan.

How huge? It's not just that I own more Townes Van Zandt recordings in my 10,000 LP and CD collection than any other artist, or that I have several copies of his songbook and all of his available videos (plus all of my Beta and VHS recordings of his TV performances). It's not that for the last thirty years, the only two posters that have hung in my office are two, huge, framed Milton Glaser posters, "From Poppy with Love" and "The Poppy Foundation: Townes Van Zandt and The Mandrake Memorial." (Needless to say, my wife, Carolyn, is a very understanding woman). It's not that my wife's aunt (only a few years older than us), when she heard that Townes Van Zandt was one of my favorite songwriters, said, "Really, he's a songwriter; why, I went to junior high school with him in Boulder, Colorado." Nope, it's more than that.

In 1974, I quit my tenured teaching job to pursue songwriting and performing. To make ends meet, I worked in a record store in Whittier, CA. One day, while working at the store, I got a call from John Lomax III, Towne's manager, who wanted to talk with me personally. I was not the owner or the manager of the store; I just sold records. However, I had just ordered six copies of Towne's songbook (for me, my brothers, and a couple of friends). Lomax informed me that our little store, Lovell's Records, in Whittier, sold more Townes Van Zandt records than any store west of the Mississippi. This, of course, was because I played his albums all the time when I worked and talked him up to anyone who asked who that was on the player. Being a college town, many kids and locals were intrigued by his music.

During that phone call, Lomax asked if I wanted to be the West Coast distributor for Townes's songbook. Since I was again starting to substitute teach (long story about love and serendipity), I didn't think that I would have the time—besides, in all honesty, Lomax seemed like kind of a sleazy character—still, in hindsight, I do wish that I had pursued that opportunity if only for the chance that it might have brought more personal contact with Townes.

Who knows, I may still write that song for Townes someday.

"I'm the Bain of My Existence"

I agree with Mitt Romney: 

There are a lot of reasons not to elect him!

My Latest Birthday Song for Carolyn

Another love song with pictures from our many travels.

On the Self-made Man...

On Sunday, when I turned 64 and quipped that the iconic Beatles song would no longer be applicable, several of my witty FB friends chimed in. Ove suggested that the song might be saying, "When I'm Six Feet Four." I agreed that this kept the song relevant for me, since this was a height which I have not and am not likely to attain.

My friend, Charles, suggested that this was a height that I could easily reach by standing on a chair. (Former student, Bertha retorted that at 64, it wasn't getting up on the chair but getting down safely that was the problem.)

Charles's solution got me thinking about politics—because pretty much everything these days gets me thinking about politics—and it prompted this answer.

Charles, I think your chair solution explains the Romney/Ryan philosophy of "self-reliance" and "self-respect": however, standing on a chair doesn't make you taller (Look, Ma, now I'm six-feet-four") any more than trampling on the lives of thousands (perhaps, millions) of others in your rapacious lust for personal gain while using all the advantages of wealth and privilege to rig the system and justify fraud and malfeasance make you a "job creator" (Look, Pa, I just raided a corporation with a hostile leveraged buyout that garnered me and my cronies millions while we ravaged the company, left it with insurmountable debt, drove its employees into the street—causing many of them to lose their homes, their pensions, and their life savings— and bankrupted both the employees and the shareholders, then merrily skipped off with our ill-gotten gains to do it again and again). [Yep, that is, indeed, one very long sentence, and look out, here comes another one....]

If, by "self-made," Romney/Ryan/and the far-wrong wing of the Republican Party mean someone who has used all of the infrastructure and social, economic and legal systems put into place by your fellow citizens—including millions of dollars in government "bail-outs" (see "Romney's Summer Olympics" or Ryan's own government pension plan)—if, by "self-made," they mean someone who forfeits his conscience and morality in favor of unfettered personal greed—if, by "self-made," they mean someone who, having done the aforementioned, can, without intended irony, brashly claim that those that you have trampled over and cheated do not "take personal responsibility" or "care for their lives"—then I agree that in order to be that crass, craven, clueless, and conscienceless, a Romney or a Ryan or a Cantor or a Koch or a Rove or a Bush or a Bachmann or a Palin or a Coulter or a Limbaugh or a Murdoch are, indeed, self-made, immoral monstrosities.

And yes, the foregoing is definitely invective (unkind though not uncivil), and it would be an "ad hominem" attack except that the characterization is directly relevant to the claim of these so-called "self-reliant," "self-made" women and men.

God, The Pledge, the PC, and a Poem

The Pledge of the Politically Correct (written during the first Gulf War)

Angry Americans clamor

For Constitutional Changes

To Protect the National Symbol

From Despicable Desecrators

While patriotic Auto Antennas

Proudly display their

Tattered Flag Rags

Flapping fiercely in the wind

©1990 T. McMullen All Rights Reserved

On a “friend’s” Facebook page the following was posted in a graphic:

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

…My generation grew up reciting this every morning in school with my hand over my heart. They no longer do that for fear of offending someone.

Let’s see how many Americans will repost and not worry about offending someone.” 

[I might add that the whole thing was in CAPS!]

The first comment, from Jonathan, said, “"Under God" was added in the '50s, during the apex of Cold War paranoia and McCarthyism. The original pledge was non-secular. This same hysterical time in our history is responsible for "In God We Trust" used as a slogan, thrown around federal buildings and our currency.

We evolve and shed the bullshit.

People who bitch about PC attitudes do not operate in anyone's best interest. They are haters, with entitlement issues about openly hating.

Recognize.

Jonathan, in a different comment, later asserted, “The Bible is a work of fiction.”

Then Brandon responded:

The Bible like all genuine works of world historical religion are works of the human heart not "fiction". Why do rabid atheist's eyeballs always seem like they are going to pop out? Hating religion, especially Christianity, is an easy, weak target for intellectual weaklings.

This exchange prompted the following from me:

Brandon, I am puzzled a bit by the distinction that you seem to be making between works of “fiction” and “works of the human heart.” Are you distinguishing between works of the heart as opposed to works of the “head,” i.e., purely rational, devoid of affective or emotional content? To be honest, I don’t think that I have ever encountered such a thing. Even the most “rational” piece of scientific writing has emotive qualities. It is the nature of written and spoken communication, and it seems unlikely that you are arguing that fiction is exclusively rational, neither inspired nor imbued with emotion; nor does it seem reasonable to assume that you think the sacred works are devoid of all rational thought. If they were, they would be worth very little indeed.

By works of the human heart, do you mean something that is “true” as opposed to fiction, which is “false”? I was faced innumerable times with eager students who, after reading some powerful and moving piece of fiction, would ask, “Is it true?” The need for it to be true in the historical sense gave them a sense of validation that a “made up story” could not. This error can be attributed to the folly and ignorance of youth. The most accurate answer is, of course, “though it may not have actually happened, it is certainly true.” Sadly, this consumer society has created a logical fallacy with their absurd and misleading phrase “based on a true story” or “based on real events” to describe the most preposterous works of supernatural or semi-historical fiction. This distortion of the concept of truth can also be seen in the absurdly ironic misnomer of “reality” TV for the ridiculously foolish and fabricated scenarios from Jerry Springer and Maury Povich to Big Brother and Fear Factor to Keeping Up With the Kardashians and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.

To argue that the great books of the world’s religions are “true,” in the sense of an accurate, historical documentation of actual physical events that occurred in a real time at a real place, and that they are “true” in their entirety, is also a patently absurd approach. Those fundamentalists who insist that every word of their “holy book” is not symbolic but literal either have no grasp of reality, or they have never actually read the books that they purport to believe.

Perhaps you are getting at the more meaningful distinction between pure literary fiction and mythological works. In this case, it is the motive more than the method that separates the two. Literary fiction is meant to entertain, to delight, to move, to motivate, to challenge, and to explain to the reader. The author may create a setting using verisimilitude or absolute fancy; they may create characters based on archetypes or stereotypes, or they may attempt a complex and nuanced depiction of actual people.

Notice, though, that each of these intentions and techniques can be applied not merely to great works of fiction, but they can also apply to The Upanishads, The Vedas, The Mahabharata and its excerpt The Bhagavad Gita, The Ramayana, The Jainist Agamas, The Tao Te Ching (or The Te Tao Ching), The Sutras, The Old Testament, The New Testament, The Koran, The Nordic Eddas, The Book of Mormon, and many other sacred texts. The difference between these “sacred works” and ordinary works of fiction is that the sacred books offer myths of cosmogony (creation), etiology (tracing of causes), legends and parables, as well as codes of conduct and rules of propriety.

While acknowledging this distinction between fiction and myth (and dismissing the more colloquial and ethnocentric meaning of “myth” as a falsity, fabrication, or false religion),

I fail to comprehend the source of your ire. You did not describe these works as messages from God but as works of the human heart, thus denying them any supernatural standing or sacrosanct authority.

If they are merely manmade, then they are fiction in their storytelling, howsoever wise in their advice and admonitions. As such, why can they not be held up to intellectual scrutiny, just like Hamlet, Tristam Shandy, The Scarlett Letter, The Time Machine, Brave New World, 1984, The Grapes of Wrath, Death of a Salesman, The Tin Drum and other great works of fiction or Wealth of Nations, Gulliver’s Travels, “The Declaration of Independence,” Leaves of Grass, Origin of Species, Das Kapital, “Self Reliance,” “Civil Disobedience,” “The Pledge of Allegiance,” Mein Kampf and other works of poetry and persuasion?

You asked, “Why do rabid atheist's eyeballs always seem like they are going to pop out? Hating religion, especially Christianity, is an easy, weak target for intellectual weaklings." If something is “an easy, weak target for intellectual weaklings,” what must it be for those with some modicum of intellectual prowess?

No, it is not the ease with which individual inconsistencies, fallacies, fantasies, and absurdities in the religious texts can be identified and ridiculed that causes thoughtful, even spiritually-minded people to hold religion in such contempt. It is the use of religion by its adherents and by those ignorant poseurs who are deluded into believing themselves adherents, who use their understanding (or misunderstanding, distortion, or perversion) of “their” religion to justify their intrusion on the lives of others.

Persecution and subjugation on the grounds of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, and lifestyle; torture, murder and war from crusades to jihads, from occupations to intifadas, from suicide bombers to drone missile strikes (and no, these are not all morally equivalent—an uprising as a means of “shaking off” oppression, for example, is more justified than an invasion or an occupation) but the evil perpetrated from each of these acts of violence is done in the name and on behalf of religion.

When it comes to the original point, the document known as “The Pledge of Allegiance” or the “Flag Salute,” it is a very interesting affirmation, designed in the late 1800’s to bring a sense of patriotism at a time when the rise of capitalism had created slums and wage-slave factories. Bellamy proposed a document that would be recited by school children everywhere as a way of recognizing and encouraging the political and economic aspirations of the people. It said, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

The flag was seen as a unifying symbol of the Republic, that is, the representative democracy, and not the corrupt and unscrupulous oligarchy that it was becoming. The term “indivisible” referred to the Civil War and the failure of the Confederacy to dismantle the Union, but it also referred to the economic disparity being created under laissez faire capitalism, the ever-widening gulf between the haves and the have-nots, that was fomenting a disdain for and revolt from the jingoistic “patriotism” of the masters by the working poor. The concluding phrase is, obviously, the heart of the affirmation and the aspiration. It states that this is a democracy with “liberty and justice for all,” with emphasis on “ALL.” When read in this form, it clearly comports with Francis Bellamy’s socialist intent.

Bellamy was adamantly opposed to the change fomented in 1924 by the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution. They replaced “my Flag” with “the Flag of the United States” and a year later, they added,  “of America.” Bellamy’s protestations that these changes eroded the universality of his pledge went unheeded.

The crowning distortion, the change that, in fact, completely undermined the very premise of the pledge, was the anti-communist insertion of “under God,” at the urging of the Knights of Columbus during the Eisenhower administration. This absolutely upended an egalitarian statement about a country that protected the liberty of ALL and provided justice for All. The first statement in the first amendment of the Bill of Rights (the document without which the Constitution could not have been ratified and which is directly in line with the Preamble) is “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” By changing the Flag Code and declaring this to be “one Nation under God,” Eisenhower and Congress had thoroughly, intentionally, and unconstitutionally undermined and subverted the protection of religious liberty as proscribed in the first amendment.

Put simply, whenever politicians, pundits or partisans use God or religion as a rationale for promoting or punishing behavior, liberty and justice are curtailed, and harm transpires. Complaining about, even railing against those negative impacts, even from something as initially laudable as the “Pledge of Allegiance” seems completely justifiable.

Healthcare and the "It's My Money" Argument

A friend on Facebook posted an article about a chain store, Hobby Lobby, suing the government over the Affordable Care Act because of their religious opposition to contraception. Though the thread got a little off topic, the following reasonable question was raised about another commentator’s suggestion that we should have universal healthcare like 90% of the developed nations.

“Why should I be forced to pay for the irresponsibility of another person? Rights are restrictions on what other people can force upon you. You have the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You have the right to believe what you want, the right to go about doing whatever you want without being forced into doing anything with anybody else that you do not wish to participate in so long as you are not effecting there rights. How is it your birthright to take my money and pay for your healthcare if you choose to live a lifestyle that will cause medical problems?"

Granted, it missed the whole religious aspect of the contraception issue, but it asks a question many ask about taxes. What follows is my answer:

Fred, I was going to let this thread about a petty and spurious legal squabble slide since your response to my answer about the religious nature of the lawsuit was not a rebuttal but a complete reframing of the issue that was, again, completely irrelevant to the article. But after your answer to Amy’s question about universal healthcare, I feel compelled to weigh in.

I do not wish to attribute to you any assumptions or views that you do not hold, yet in order to respond to the underlying premises, I find it necessary to make some generalizations. I am not accusing you of or praising you for being a libertarian; however, your line of reasoning is along “libertarian” lines.

People like Ron Paul and Penn Gillette make compelling arguments about the intrusive and/or oppressive nature of government while elevating the rights of the individual over the demands of society. I am guessing that these arguments, if unexamined, have resonance with a majority Americans.

Ayn Rand’s vision of the exceptional, self-made man, the individualistic hero—Emerson and Thoreau’s “self-reliant” individual turned into a morally superior and anti-social megalomaniac—as well as Nietzsche’s “Übermensch” or “Superman,” has also found increasing popularity in an ethical, social, political, and economic milieu where the wages and rights of the worker have been significantly eroded while a new class of corporate mega-millionaires has been created.

Anyone born during or since Reagan’s reign has lived in a society in which “government IS the PROBLEM” has been the “common wisdom”; this is a “consensus” that was carefully designed and executed long before Reagan’s ascendancy, and one that continues to be bought and paid for by billions of corporate dollars spent to perpetuate that destructive falsehood. Government is NOT the problem. However, BAD government is ONE of the problems. Mythical distortions of history and anti-intellectualism are also problematic for a society as is an unsustainable economy predicated on personal greed and perpetual growth.

E.E. Cummings coined the phrase “shrill, collective myth” to describe a “popular” view of history. Our collective myth perpetuates some very powerful and laudable assumptions. You said, for example, “Rights are restrictions on what other people can force upon you.” This point, of course, stems from an assumption of “Natural Rights,” i.e., those rights that are “inalienable” and which apply equally to all humans, as opposed to “Legal Rights,” which are those rights conferred by the laws of a society. Jefferson included the phrase, “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” If, by Creator (with a capital “C”) he meant God, then this very line of reasoning is not self-evident, but pure conjecture. The existence of God (as anthropomorphic being rather than as Tillich’s “Ultimate Concern”) is certainly not self-evident any more than basic rights are self-evident. This, on the other hand, does not mean that these enumerated rights are not good goals.

You also quote the brilliant “Declaration of Independence” directly: “You have the right to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’” Of course, it is important to remember that the men who penned these phrases held and justified the holding of slaves, in essence, instantly contradicting all three provisions as far as slaves were concerned.

John Locke, the philosopher from whom much of the rationale for the “Declaration” was acquired, suggested in “A Letter Concerning Toleration”: “The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their own civil interests.  ¶Civil interests I call life, liberty, health, and indolency of body; and the possession of outward things, such as money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like.” Notice that he actually included health as one of these “civil interests.” These sentences were preceded by his analysis and dismissal of the “pretense” of claims by both church and magistrate as an excuse to dominate others. His rational analysis of and call for religious tolerance (which echoes Roger William’s essay “On the Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, 1644) is extremely pertinent and, I think you would agree, comes down solidly on the side of the Affordable Care Act and against Hobby Lobby.

Finally, you suggest the following: “You have the right to believe what you want, the right to go about doing whatever you want without being forced into doing anything with anybody else that you do not wish to participate in so long as you are not effecting there (sic) rights.” This is certainly true in a social vacuum, and as long as one lives completely outside of any human contact (and some would extend this to inter-species contact), such rights can remain sacrosanct. However, as soon as another individual enters the picture, such rights are either lost entirely, in the case of subjugation or domination, or compromised in ways that accommodate both individuals. This is the nature of society. I completely agree with your characterization of lofty goals, and I would tend to agree with Locke and Jefferson (and with you, perhaps?) that governments came into existence to “secure these rights.”

Unfortunately, lofty goals aside, the argument nearly always degenerates into an argument about “MY MONEY!” and returns us to the fiction of the “self-made man” and the “self-made money.” I would be happy to address this “we made this” fallacy elsewhere, but here it simply comes down to the simple fact that taxes are not the government stealing from the individual, it is the individual consenting to be taxed as a part of being the governed.

As Locke said in “Sec. 140.” Of the Second Treatise of Civil Government, after spending paragraphs explaining why no person can be legally deprived of property, he avers: “It is true, governments cannot be supported without great charge, and it is fit every one who enjoys his share of the protection, should pay out of his estate his proportion for the maintenance of it. But still it must be with his own consent, i.e. the consent of the majority, giving it either by themselves, or their representatives chosen by them: for if any one shall claim a power to lay and levy taxes on the people, by his own authority, and without such consent of the people, he thereby invades the fundamental law of property, and subverts the end of government: for what property have I in that, which another may by right take, when he pleases, to himself?”

Therefore, roads and schools and military and police and business regulations and health care that the society, through their representative government, deem worthy of securing, is a fundamental part of a societal construct. That our own society has abdicated Locke’s “civil interest” in health is a moral disgrace, and the fact that we have relegated basic health protections to the private profiteers is something that we actually should be up in arms about.

This brings us to your view of “health” and “health care.” You argue, “How is it your birthright to take my money and pay for your healthcare if you choose to live a lifestyle that will cause medical problems?" Are you arguing that all health issues can be avoided through lifestyle choices? Mitigated, certainly, but avoided? Of course not. What of the child born with a disease or who contracts one early in life? Was that a result of the child’s lifestyle? If not, would you admit that this child has a birthright to health care? Or is this individual’s life merely determined by the vagaries of wealth and whether or not the family can afford it? We have a right, as a society, to agree otherwise.

If I knowingly eat spoiled food, I am an idiot. But do we, as a part of our consent to be governed have a right to demand that the government regulate those who make and provide food so that it is not spoiled when we eat it? Do we have a right to demand that corporations not pollute our environment or that when they do, we, as a society, have a right to extract both compensation and punishment for that harm (a basic Lockean premise from the same paragraph of his letter quoted above).

I have no children. You appear to argue that the government taking my money and paying for the education of someone else’s children is inherently wrong. Howard Jarvis, the demagogue who led the “taxpayers’ revolt” with Prop 13 in California is still hailed as a guiding light by many. He stated unequivocally that he did not believe in public education. I believe that Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann were idiots about tax policy (or more likely, knowing con men), sycophants for the corporatocracy parading as “grass roots” organizers, an early example of “astro-turfing,” and direct contributors to our current economic woes.

I, however, would not begrudge their children a public education nor would I deny their fundamental social right to health care. Ironically, Paul Gann contracted AIDS, apparently from a transfusion, and at the end of his life, he was an advocate for AIDS treatment and patient’s rights. The "Paul Gann Blood Safety Act" (California Health and Safety Code Section 1645(b)) mandates that physicians discuss the risks of blood transfusions. Public money well spent on government intervention to protect the health of individuals. Just like public money well spent on public education, fire and safety enforcement, infrastructure, business regulations, and health care—including contraception.

We, as citizens, have every right to demand that our tax dollars are “well spent,” and we have a right to argue about how to spend them, but we don’t have a right to individually withhold it on religious or personal grounds. I, of course, also think that Churches who participate in political activity either in the pulpit or through campaign contributions as well as any “non-profit” (501(c)(3)’s, like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, that engage in political activity should also be taxed, but that, again, is a different argument for a different time.

Personally, I sort of like the idea of voters getting to “check off” where their tax dollars will go. I am enraged and outraged that my taxes support the murdering of innocent civilians by “video game” (drone); the protection and subsidizing of irresponsible, criminal, and in some cases, murderous corporations and their management; and myriad other examples of what I see as misuses of government, i.e., tax-payer, funds. But until we, the governed, create such a system, then it is unfair and unreasonable to argue that the government is usurping or commandeering or “stealing” your money simply because you object to how it is used. Lobby to change it, or revolt to change it, but to argue coercion on a particular specific is, at the very least, disingenuous.