Freedom of Speech Stabbed in the Gut!!!

There is a tough-speaking, half-intelligent, bizarre-looking old guy on the radio every morning ... until a few days ago, I'm only vaguely aware of this. Now, of course, everybody knows who he is. The following is one blogger's reaction to the whole "Imus" thing.

1. I resisted writing a blog after Sharpton called for him to be fired, and Jackson protested outside the studio with 50 followers.

2. I resisted writing a blog after Imus went on Sharpton's show and apologized, and Sharpton still called for his firing.

3. I resisted writing a blog after MSNBC dropped the feed, and Sharpton said this wasn't enough.

4. I resisted writing a blog when Sharpton appeared on Good-Morning America accusing Imus of repeatedly using "the n-word." Turns out, Sharpton was talking about the word "nappy."

5. I resisted writing a blog when sponsers continued to desert ship, and CBS inevitably fired the 30-year radio veteran.

6. I resisted writing a blog when Imus still went through with his meeting with the Rutgers women, despite having been fired, and Sharpton still said this wasn't enough.

7. Now Sharpton says Imus was "never the issue," and that it's time to show the media that sexism and racism will no longer be tolerated.

I must blog.

You see, there is a reason I resisted writing a blog. Well, two, actually. One is, I swore a long time ago (round about the time the last presidential election was wrapping up) that politics and social-current-events were a vicious and contemptible game ... something I no longer wanted a part of. My early blogs (ilprimopazzo.blogspot.com) were very political, but that quickly changed - and hasn't changed back. The second reason I wished to avoid the issue was because, in my mind, this was just typical Sharpton/Jackson scare-tactics, and the whole thing would blow over. I assumed everybody else saw it this way too - I mean, it is Sharpton and Jackson we're talking about. It's not as if Barack Obama or Colin Powell were the ones freaking out here. No, it was just America's usual self-absorbed, power-hungry, television celebrities ... at it again.

WRONG!

The days passed, Imus' humiliation grew, his disgrace became cemented, his tears blew out the electric circuits in our television sets and smeared the words in our newspapers, and the wicked partnership of Jackson/Sharpton has new life. It has a new leg to stand on in carrying out its campaign of censurship and fear. One wonders what might have happened if Imus had just listened to Howard Stern, who told the media "He should have just said, fuck you, it's a joke." Perhaps if he'd have taken a stance, people would have rallied behind him, and the whole thing WOULD have blown over after a week or so of hot air and angry faces back and forth. But who is going to follow a cowering old half-famous sissy who won't stand up for himself?

The point isn't that what Imus said was just peachy. Sure, much worse has been said, but in this case one must consider the outlet. It is not as if Imus' show is broadcast on Comedy Central. He speaks to an audience that is already uptight, opinionated, and totally lacking a sense of humor. He might be a "shock jock," but he doesn't reach the same folks that Howard Stern is rapping to. So, from that context, you've got to be careful about what you say, and calling college athletes "Nappy-headed hos," (the n-word according to Sharpton) is the type of thing that makes the waters around you start to boil a bit. Of course there was going to be indignation and calls for an apology.

But that is where it should end, friends! This issue goes way beyond racism and sexism ... it has been elevated, by Sharpton/Jackson, and subsequently by MSNBC and CBS to the wide-world of free-speechism. This is a creepy and unfriendly America we're living in, I'm afraid, if 2nd-rate "shock-jocks" can be nationally disgraced and fired from their jobs for saying "nappy-headed hos." The fact is, no matter what Jackson/Sharpton tell you, that this is only a very vaguely offensive thing to say, and only to a small group of people. For anybody to have gotten offended by this who was not a Rutger's player, or somehow associated with the Rutger's program, or a close friend/relative of a Rutger's athlete, was an exercise in pre-conditioned this-is-how-I'm-supposed-to-react garbage. It was feigned indignation. It was let-me-show-you-that-I'm-not-racist-or-sexist-and-these-things-enrage-me indignation. It was certainly not legitimate. A) there is very little, if anything wrong with calling somebody nappy-headed - this is a term that means, simply, "kinky, fuzzy" and "small, tight curls." B) the real issue is his use of the word "hos" - and the word, taken literally, is an unfair, and sexist thing to say about college athletes who haven't done anything to deserve it, but the issue has been raised by several subsequent articles/blogs which asks - was the term being used "ironically" rather than literally? In other words, was Imus, in his own "shock jock" mind, mimicing a widely-used hip-hop cliche, rather than literally calling these girls "hos." I think the answer is almost assuredly YES, but that doesn't excuse it - it just tones it down somewhat. The word is not a flattering one, even as a hip-hop cliche, so while he may not have meant it literally, he still used an insulting cliche.

But let's be honest, chums ... considering all of the above, this is a mildly offensive statement, especially given that it originated on shock-jock programming. It's not as if a CNN news anchor said this - in other words, it was spoken to an audience that expects to hear things like that. This DOES make a huge difference, whether some people want to admit it or not. Context plays a role, I'm afraid.

So, let me bring this thing home, here. What has got me so irritated about this whole shameful disaster is not A) that there's no more Imus show - I barely knew who he was, and I don't watch or listen to political programming. He could have quit for totally unrelated reasons a month ago, and I'm not sure I'd have even noticed. It was not B) that I'm very happy about what he said and think more people should be called nappy-headed hos. What has me so disgusted here, is C) that freedom-of-speech took a stab-wound to the gut after this whole affair. It's a simple formula here, when you step back and look at the whole affair: shock-jock says a vaguely offensive thing, and opportunistic spotlight seekers force us to take his job away from him. Not that CBS and MSNBC fired him because Sharpton/Jackson said so ... no, but sponsers pulled out because Sharpton/Jackson told them to, and high-profile guests cancelled appearances because Sharpton/Jackson told them to. And Sharpton/Jackson told them to, because they want to continue to be rich and famous and powerful, and not because they are motivated by any great cause. So the whole damn thing comes down to money. This whole nightmare was a fucking business transaction. That's a sad fucking state-of-affairs, if you ask this depressed blogger.

Whatever the case -- Sharpton now says its not over, and it wasn't about Imus. So let's see what he does. If he's really motivated at all by even the most infintessimal of stirrings that resemble a "noble cause," then he'll go after somebody who isn't helpless for a change. You see, there's no money and easy-score where bigshots are concerned. Take on Howard Stern or South Park, and watch how fast Sharpton himself is the one being shit on and disgraced. No, he'll never do that. Why? Because he has no cause. I'm not saying there isn't "a cause," I'm just pointing out that Sharpton doesn't have anything to do with it, and most people recognize this in some way. So he'll keep doing what he does best ... bullying helpless people for the quick fame, the quick money. He'll keep exploiting real historical and on-going tragedies like racism and sexism to make himself a wealthy and powerful man, and in so doing he'll continue to turn these actual-factual evils into parodies of themselves that are taken less and less seriously. And all of this is a shame. But the biggest shame of all, in the final analysis, is that freedom-of-speech takes another one for the team. It endures another savage beating at the hands of those who want to force us into a PG-rated culture, where nobody says anything that could be construed by anyone, anywhere as remotely offensive. When a 30-year-veteran can't go on the air and say the phrase "Nappy-headed hos" without being nationally humiliated and terminated from his job ... well, it makes Sharpton's word all the more frightening; if Imus wasn't an isolated issue, then what is in store for our entertainment culture?

Despite all this, however, I do believe Imus was an isolated incident. I think most people walk away from this going, "Wow, that was fucking ridiculous!" And what does that mean? It means next time self-glorifying facists try to pull that shit, people will be ready for them ... no desperate, tear-riddled apologies and no roll-over-and-die surrenders. The next person who has to face it will be ready to tell Sharpton/Jackson to fuck themselves, and maybe free-speech will recover from such a blatant violation and rotten injustice like this whole "Imus thing."

Cheers.

Supermassive (Part the Second)

(DO NOT READ THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE ALREADY READ THE FIRST PART, POSTED JUST PREVIOUS TO THIS)

And now, old chums ... Part 2:

This is all fiction. You need to understand that. My name is Mike Sherry, and I’m a writer. Well, I want to be a writer.

There is a theory I like that states: Anything that can happen will happen. Not here, but “elsewhere.” A scientific theory that there are an infinite number of universes, which means anything that can possibly be conceived of, does in fact exist. This is a fiction writer’s dream. Think of the possibilities of that. That means that somewhere, in another universe, I’m an accomplished fiction writer. That also means I’m a homeless junkie, a tap dancer, a refrigerator repairman, a dragon, and anything else I can possibly imagine. A brilliant physicist, for instance. And there are infinite universes in which every experience I’ve ever had played out differently. When my Varsity Hockey team lost in the playoffs to Orchard Park two years in a row – we won. When I graduated Magna Cum Laude from undergraduate college – I struggled hopelessly and flunked out in less than a year. When I crashed my truck into a tree and a roommate caught me trying to cut my wrists in a drunken craze – I died. Literally, it’s only a matter of taking, for instance, “X” and turning it into “-X.” A simple application of reversal.

And I’ll start by sitting down at my computer and writing the words “Elvis Lives.”

* * *

I’d managed somehow to overlook the growing suspicion among my colleagues that I was somehow dangerous. I failed to see their point.

A word or two on my work would be useful at this stage, I think.

As you already are aware, I, Michael Sherry, am a physicist. That’s the “short” of it. My research centers around structuring the Universe. Well – not “the” Universe, but the outermost dimension in which everything is contained. I mean everything. You follow?

Maybe a little background would help. When scientists first uncovered the difficulty with gravity – namely that whenever one tries to apply the rules of Quantum Field Theory to General Relativity, gravity is apparently unable to fit into this scheme – they realized a new universal theory was needed. This led to String Theory, or the idea that the fundamental building blocks of the universe are strings that can be open like hair or closed like loops. This, ultimately, was a disaster. There were five of them. It is hardly a good thing to have five versions of a theory when you’re trying to posit it as a “theory of everything.”

One interesting aspect of the String Theories was their proposal of space-time in ten dimensions – a stretch, it seemed, at first, but consider that six of the dimensions are curled up very tightly so as to escape our comprehension. M-Theory took the next step.

11th Dimension.

And yet space-time still appears ten-dimensional. Well, that is because they exist within the 11th. We can’t “see” the 11th because it is outside of our comprehension – AKA our Universe. So, to put it simply, our universe is floating around inside an outer membrane which contains, in theory, an infinite number of universes.

This is where my work comes in. There is a theory that the universe is moving from organization to chaos. My research concentrates on a personal theory that EVERYTHING is moving from chaos to more chaos – infinite universes, the Eleventh Dimension, and all. Not just this universe.

This is what began my association with Dr. Jeff. Since Supermassive Black Holes might well be the endgame for everything – and since they’re entropy is incalculably high – it seemed a natural partnership.

But how to study such a thing? It should be theoretically impossible to comprehend something that is located outside of our physical universe. In other words, we’re only capable of operating within the confines of physical laws as they exist here. So how can we hope to capture something whose entity is beyond and around our physical laws. In other words – how do we study what is not here, but there?

Impossible.

Well, not necessarily. Consider – there are, in theory, an infinite number of other universes. An infinite number. Sounds like a throwaway term for “a-hell-of-a-lot-of” to your average non-physicist, but to the mathematically functioning mind of a scientist the concept is a nightmare. The idea that no number can be assigned. No theory or law made applicable. An infinite number! Don’t they realize what they are saying?

We did. And we embraced it. An infinite number means, to put it gently … anything goes. Infinite, by definition, means that anything one can possibly imagine exists. It does exist. Not some variation, or something very similar. No. If you can conceive of it, then it is out there. Somewhere.

So, we reasoned, in order to study a separate universe, all one has to do is read a book. Look at a drawing. Watch a movie. Go to sleep and have a dream. Are you getting this? It is all out there because of the illimitableness of parallel worlds. Write a poem, watch an opera, listen to a song.

Fiction, therefore, was the answer. The key to discovering truth rested in lies. This lends new meaning to the notion that the poets are the unelected spokesmen of a society. A society, it turns out, that exists farther away than they could possibly have imagined. But it does exist.

I therefore read, observed, listened and made careful notation of various descents toward chaos. My hope was to find some connection – some commonality between the thousands of “universes.” Something that would suggest a theory behind the growing disorganization of EVERYTHING.

This is, of course, why my colleagues found me dangerous, as it would turn out. The work Dr. Jeff and I were undertaking was threatening to undermine the very foundation of science – the idea that everything has an explanation, the universe(s) operates according to pre-determined physical principles, and only direct study can bring it to the surface. And here I was, apparently a renegade, studying the arts as a basis for universal understanding. I lost my job at the University and patrons of physics refused to fund my work.

Dr. Jeff, who was permitted to continue in the field since his study of black holes still rested in scientific analysis, continued our partnership in private.

And that is what landed us in Duff’s, enjoying chicken wings and a few beers after the Elvis concert

“Alright,” I said, finally. “Alright. Look. Remember when I sent you that email the other day? The one letting you know Elvis was coming back to Buffalo for the first time in almost a decade? Do you remember how it started?”

“The e-mail?” Dr. Jeff asks, confused. “I think it started with my name and then-

“No, I don’t mean the body. I mean the subject line. Do you remember what that said?”

“Oh,” he said, thinking back. “‘Elvis Lives’, right? Something like that?”

“That’s right,” I told him. “‘Elvis Lives.’” I signaled to a waitress that we needed a new pitcher. She came over to retrieve the empty pitcher, and headed off to the kitchen. I reached down and pulled a folder from my briefcase. “Take a look at this,” I told him, extracting a few photocopied sheets and handing them across the table.

He started reading …

This is all fiction. You need to understand that. My name is Mike Sherry, and I’m a writer.

This failed to impress him.

“What’s your point? What is this anyway?”

“It’s from a book I started reading just after I sent you that email. It’s called Supermassive.”

“So a character has the same name as you?”

“Yes, but look at this.” I flipped through a couple sheets and pointed to where I’d underlined certain lines in pencil.

“Read that.”

He began reading again …

And I’ll start by sitting down at my computer and writing the words “Elvis Lives.”

Supermassive (Part the First)

More of my sad, vacant jibberish. Here's part one of something I wrote back in '05.

Supermassive
By Michael J. Sherry






“Elvis Lives.”

* * *

The words are simple. The explanation is not. The truth lies amidst fact, fiction, M-Theory, and a white, diamond-encrusted jumpsuit.

You see, I, Michael Sherry, am a physicist. What is M-Theory? Well, that might be easier to answer if we could discover what “M” is. There’s been much speculation. Membrane. Mother of all theories. Mystery. Madness. I like the last one. Madness. An encompassing sort of word that opens a lot of universal, imaginative, and tangible doors. And it sets a mood, too.

And now I’m going to see the King down at The Big Tree Inn. Doing a gig. Don’t waste my time with your but he died in ’77 horseshit. You can come see this for yourself. What’s more is that – not only is he not dead – but he hasn’t aged a day since ’56. Yes. He’s still that Elvis. Well, he’s aged obviously – but what I mean is he’s still thin, good-looking, and hard rocking. For his age.

I walk in through the backdoor and light a cigarette. There’s a moderate crowd tonight, which is okay because it’s a Friday.
I order a draft and start moving toward the back. There are no tables left, so I’m going to have to kind of stand in a corner. As I step slowly through and around the other patrons I see a hand waving me over.

“Mike, what did you bring your briefcase for?” my good friend and fellow physicist Dr. Jeff Buss asks me.

“Always more work to be done,” I laugh.

We stand and watch the show for a while. It’s energetic for the most part. Dr. Jeff, in particular, is taken with the music. He is, unfortunately, one of those Elvis die-hards – the kind whose record collection is 75% Elvis, and 25% “The Golden 50’s” collections.

Elvis Lives.

Not such a complicated little phrase, but the inference …

Next he’ll … I mean, I’ll be writing all manner of sweeping, swirling expressions. Expressions that aren’t as simple as two words. I mean, two little words and in them worlds of speculation and creation and destruction, and all beyond the ability of the writer to accommodate.

Elvis Lives? What about something like Dragons Eating Humans. Or four words – The Ocean Is Poison. Or five – Hitler With Dark Magic Sorcery. You can see what I’m driving at here. It isn’t the truth or fiction of the words themselves that matters. Because truth does not become fiction and fiction does not become truth. The truth really is that Elvis Lives. Here. I can’t explain it all straight out, but don’t think that he exists because words were written. That is not the case at all. Elvis, you see, has never died. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I need to remember that I have an audience for this, and that my audience may or may not be privy to the same physics wisdom as myself. In other words – YOU DON’T KNOW ANY OF THIS YET. I need to let the story tell itself.

It would help, of course, if I knew who my audience was in the first place. That is what makes this all so difficult. You see, you might be you, or you might be some electric current, or you might just be a cloud of dust. You might even be me … in some sense. None of this confusion is helping my case. Frankly, it’s a little embarrassing.

“That was a hell of a show,” Dr. Jeff says to me later that evening. We’ve relocated to Duff’s for some chicken wings and a few beers. There is an “entertainer” of some variety playing a piano – very familiar songs, only with his own satirically distorted lyrics. And he likes to shout, “NEW PEOPLE!” every time a group walks in the front doors. I feel that he’s a fucking idiot.

I know what Dr. Jeff wants to know. I obviously brought the briefcase for a reason. But I’m not going to explain it all to him just yet.

“Yes, it was quite a show,” I tell him. “Elvis hasn’t lost a step in fifty years.”

“You gotta admire the man,” Dr. Jeff says. “Never sold out. Stayed true to the integrity of his art.”

“NEW PEOPLE!”

“Yes,” I agree. “An artist of the highest sort. Where rock and roll is concerned, that is.”

There is a silence between us for several moments. The piano music is very loud, and the entertainer is doing his version of Jerry Lee’s Great Balls of Fire.

Dr. Jeff, you should know, specializes in Supermassive Black Holes. It is, I admit, an intriguing line of study. Some of them can reach several billion times the mass of the Sun. They sit quietly at the center of every galaxy, spinning rapidly, and chewing up everything that gets pulled into their “event horizon,” a dark, crushing point from which there is no returning. Light, energy, mass – all sucked into a sudden state of nothingness. Fascinating.

“NEW PEOPLE!”

Blinking into darkness. Snap. Just like that. The whole damn galaxy is spinning around the thing. It lends a sense of destiny to things, doesn’t it? You know where you’re going. Not that you’ll be here to see it as such, but the matter that comprises you will be out there in some form or another, floating, swirling, faster and faster, closer and closer, and then … billions and billions and billions of years from now, in some horrifying epoch … the plummet.

Some people find this creepy. I find it comforting. Like pre-obtained closure.

“NEW PEOPLE!”

This is real, I’m afraid. In a universe where so much is a blurred wasteland between fact and fiction, this is where fact swallows all.

* * *

To be continued ...

The NHL - Still Run by Pondscum

And so another shining example of NHL Front Office fraud and corruption has laid itself at our feet. This time in the form of a $10,000 fine to head coach Lindy Ruff after Thursday's melee.

Now, it's not the fine I take issue with. Ruff did exercise poor discretion after the game in telling the press he essentially told his guys to "go out and run 'em." He may simply have forced the NHL's hand.

The fraud and corruption comes in when we consider A) the extent of the fine, B) compare it to the $100 fine given to Ovelchuk for his viscious, very dangerous hit-from-behind on Daniel Briere, and finally C) the total lack of consequences administered to our dear friends in Ottawa.

You see, Ottawa had clearly lost the momentum in the game. They wanted it back, and in a fashion very typical of players of his ilk, Chris Niel thought the best way to do that was to kill somebody. Somebody turned out to be team captain, class-act, and widely respected around the league player Chris Drury, who had already fired a shot and now had his head turned away from the charging bull who was steaming towards him with blood in his eyes and foam on his lips. Drury was helpless, and Neil tried to decapitate him.

So many Senators fans make the argument that the hit was clean. "Clean" is a relative word ... in this case meaning that it was not breaking any current NHL rules. So yes, it was clean in the same sense that Kasparitis' low hip-check to the knee on Tim Connolly last season was clean. Here "clean" is simply a word used to describe a vicious, inexcusable hit with clear intent to inflict pain, that simply happens to keep elbows or sticks out of the equation.

Because the bottom line was that it was a late blow, delivered to a vulnerable player, and it was delivered intentionally to the head, whether it was a shoulder or an elbow that did the damage.

Not that anybody should be surprised. Neil is exactly the kind of player that is a wart on the raging, masculine erection that is the NHL. He is a shameless headhunter ... a player whose sole purpose is inflicting pain, and who never even tries to disguise this fact. What was it Neil himself said after the game ... oh yah, he said, "there's a reason I lead the NHL in hits." What a guy.

But Ottawa's shame is not limited to this player alone. No, it extends to all levels, all the way up to coach Bryan Murray, who had this very emotional thing to say ... "Ssch, sshhh, chxsh, shishle, shrrxxx, shhsch!!!!!!!"

And in between his incoherent, jackass slobberings, he managed to make some other fine points ... such as the only reason Drury was injured was because "his helmet wasn't fastened properly," and how shocked he is that Lindy would send out his goons to go after the talented players. The latter of these comments I shall deal with further ... the former - well, they are just among the most inane, mistifyingly stupid words I've ever heard come out of professional sports.

Cheers to the Ottawa spin machine, by the way. They certainly have done a fantastic job making Lindy Ruff and Buffalo seem like the bad guys. A neutral observer might almost be tempted to think that all that happened was a star player was nearly decapitated, and his team wanted to come out and send a message ... "don't fuck with us!" Nope. Thanks to the brilliant machinations of the Senators, we have all learned that it was a clean hit, that Drury should keep his head up, and that the Sabres are the type of criminals who would then send out huge goons to attack the innocent finesse players on the other team.

All of which begs the question ... who in their right fucking mind puts out their star players on the very next shift when he hears the fans going insane, sees Lindy incenses and screaming at the referees, and knows Drury is now back in the lockerroom bleeding all over everybody and everything that comes within six feet of him? Clearly Murray is either savagely retarded, or he is a manipulative, scheming prick.

Given the length and success of his career, we're inclined to go with option B - he's a scheming prick. Because sure enough ... Lindy and the Sabres are out for some physical payback on the next shift, which leaves Murray free to go prancing out to the media and put on his best "thunderously indignant" face, and bitch about how these clowns attacked his best players and Buffalo has no class.

Which brings us back to Lindy's fine. Well, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong here, but it seems to me that two coaches made two separate decisions about who was going out on the ice next. And even if Lindy has the last line change by virtue of being at home, as anybody whose watched hockey for more than two weeks can tell you, Murray didn't exactly have to consult a psychic to know which players Lindy was going to put out. That puts the responsibility for Mair and Peters going after Heatley and Spezza on Murray ... he deliberately put them in a hostile and aggressive situation so that he could deflect criticism away from Neil's cowardly attack on Drury by putting the aggressor status on Buffalo.

So fine ... Lindy gets a black eye here for being an honest, emotional guy, while the manipulative prick wins the post-game spin session. That's usually how these things go.

On a side note ... I'm reminded of an incident several seasons ago when a goaltender was bumped into. The goaltender's coach deemed the play to be cheap, and so he sent out his goons to fight the Jarome Iginla line of Calgary (the first line). Yes, that coach was indeed Bryan Murray. So in addition to being a scheming asshole, he is also apparently a scheming asshole who is a hypocrite. Selah.

Back to our main point, however ... the league has once again punished the wrong person. Or at least not punished enough people. We've had too many examples over the years that have shown Gary Bettman to be a mindless, savagely deranged psychopath, and this is already the second time this year his front office has done Buffalo a great injustice. First, Ovechkin is given a $100 fine for a brutal, potentially disasterous hit on Daniel Briere that sends him face and neck-first into the boards. Now it intercedes on Thursday night's proceedings only to give Lindy a $10,000 fine for "putting out his tough guys against the other team's top line," as if this is actually a punishable offense.

Cheers to Gary Bettman! The NHL has gone from a more popular national sport than the NBA to not even hardly garnering a mention on ESPN during his tenure, and if we're lucky we'll continue to be treated to the greatest trainwreck in the history of crumbling entertainment industries.

Fuck you Gary Bettman, fuck you Colin Campbell, fuck you Bryan Murray, and go fuck yourself Chris Neil. You are worth less than a pocketfull of pondscum, the lot of you.

Sherry Sees a Shrink (or: A Shrink Gets the Screaming Shit Scared Out of Him/Her)

By Michael J. Sherry



I must apologize, doctor, for the lack of progress we have made since I began this ridiculous adventure. No, don’t take me the wrong way. I know you’re trying to help, and I admit that you are a learned and professional therapist. But you’ve said it yourself. I’m a tough coconut to split. But I have decided to take your advice. Since, on account of my ridiculous mumbling and stammering, we are unable to touch on anything of significance during our sessions, I will now try to write some thoughts down for you and maybe it will be somewhat clearer. Perhaps you will be able to make something – anything – of it.

So now ... by means of profoundly rational processes ... I shall find the explanation for my madness (i.e. nervousness, sleeplessness, and socially unacceptable behavior (i.e. the drinking, the shouting, and the savage aggression wreaked upon inanimate objects):

I'll keep this as simple as possible (and by "simple as possible" I really mean "difficult as hell" but sort of less "difficult as hell" as the undertaking really calls for. Its sort of like saying let's send the space shuttle to Mars as "simply as possible," and then launching into years of mathematically profound complexities of indecipherable nature and finding - aggravatingly of course - that this is the simplest means of reaching such an end). Sameness and so-called "equality" of various things (i.e. personality, philosophy, fuck-sprees, etc.) is a democratic way of paving a tennis-court-society (that is to say a flat, featureless one) where everyone stumbles about - smugly and confidently, of course, while inwardly fearing little crevices and blemishes, shaking at the very thought, terrified that destiny is fucking bullshit and free-will is just as equally bullshit, and that maybe Jean-Paul Sartre was right about a few more things than we'd like to give him credit for - with faces like basketballs and futures (hopefully) like a Meg Ryan movie (puke!) or (more realistically) like something similar to James' "The Beast in the Jungle" - that is to say waiting and waiting, and then ... So that's what we're looking at here. Well, what options have we, doctor? A way out, that's what we have! But how? Okay, well, like, the shortest route between two points A (here) and B (where we're going) is a straight line, right? (Incidentally, that's not what I'm doing here, and maybe I should. Sit here, in silence, in the dark, and say - oh, well, everything is an image of an image of an image, and that's the problem. But no, I'm sitting here, listening to fucking Syd Barrett of all people, sipping a glass of Sherry (yes, I've finally taken that step ... name: Sherry, drink: Sherry - more specifically TAYLOR Dry Sherry (chilled) and its pretty good, though not great (its no whiskey) and trying ... successfully, unsuccessfully, I won't speculate ... trying to explain madness in terms of rational processes, a contradiction right off the bat. So naturally this all sounds a little mad, and then on top of that I'm trying to think lucidly while the mindless Syd Barrett plays his bizarre, equally mindless solo shit in my ear ("Floating, bumping, noses dodge a tooth/the fins a luminous/fangs all 'round the clown/is dark below the boulders hiding all/the sunlight's good for us/'Cause we're the fishes and all we do/the move about is all we do" - Terrapin, from "The Madcap Laughs") and I'm drinking a cold glass of Sherry (18% alc.). You call that a fucking straight line???) So - getting back to it all now - what's the shortest way, the "straight line" as it were? Embrace Sartre? No, it's an extreme, and besides, it’s just another image. The image of "YOU, THE NIHILIST!" Right? So maybe look inward and say "whose really there?" Cliché. And ... yes ... an image. And further ... it's you (presumably something inspired by the "inside" version of you) that's doing the "looking inside" and so it's like trying to see your own face, which, sadly, is something you can never do. You can see an IMAGE of it in a mirror. You can see it electronically reconstructed on film. You can always see the image of the image of the image ... But can you ever look at your own face out of your own fucking eyes? Never. (Yah, shit, I know this may all sound like a lot of deconstruction jargon ... "Sherry, there you go deconstructing all of these constructions!" Sure, but what I'm also doing - more significantly, I think, but that's me - is deconstructing deconstructions with equal profundity and genius unleashed (limping genius, maybe, but something resembling it at any rate. And optimistic genius too, doctor ... genius with wood, if you want). So what's sacred, if anything? Do we look to find something to break out of this cycle? This wheel of "that's all bullshit, and no don't give me that nonsense cause that's all bullshit too" deconstruction of construct... well I'm repeating myself. But I hope I've clarified). So the truth is you can't know the truth, even if there is something like it (which I'm skeptical about, but I'll try and stop with the commentary). That means ... quite possibly ... the wheel keeps spinning and we can't find a positively charged notion to fling us from it. Construction failed. Deconstruction failed. Deconstructing deconstruction will ultimately do the same. So (getting back to it now) maybe the only way to purge yourself from this spinning maelstrom of nonsense is simply to swim with it while facing backwards (WHAT!!??) Let me explain. You CAN'T get out of it. But that doesn't mean you can't give the impression you are trying, right? (Boy, this Sherry is really good, by the way. And now I'm listening to "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" which was Pink Floyd's first album in 1967, when Syd Barrett still had something resembling a brain, and acid hadn't brought a horrifying sort of life-in-death to him just yet. Amazing album, by the by). But the swimming against it (or, rather, pretending to) while really letting the current take you is just another image: the image of you swimming against. Translation - more bullshit. You're only contributing to the maelstrom. So that's not the answer. So here's the crux - I AIN'T GOT IT FIGURED OUT YET!! But as far as I can tell, the best thing to do is embrace the image of your choice, learn it, master it, pray to the image - and burn in your skin making the rest of the goddamn world think it ain't a fucking image. Be an actor. The end. (Post-script: Ultimately, we might find an answer when we can truly understand what is meant by a "straight line" in spatial terms, where everything (distance, time, matter) is bent and really not straight at all (at least not the way we think of what it means to be straight). Put more simply - when you fly a "straight" route from Earth to Mars, you're actually flying in a lot of circles (orbits) because both Spheres are moving. It's not like walking from one fixed point to another. That, I think, is what complicates this whole fucking matter. Either that, or its just a lot more bullshit and I'm guilty of complicating what I propose to (in theory) solve.)

(By the way - if I'm at all correct (which I'm probably not, its probably just more of the noise I can't get out of my head) I think I just scratched the surface of what might be a good definition for "writing." How? A lot of ways (e.g. complexity/over-simplicity, philosophy/madness, general/personal, public/private, etc. etc. etc.) but mostly, I think, by showing what it IS simply and bottom line (viz., tangible/rational/mathematical treatment of a intangible/irrational/non-mathematical object with the ultimate result of complexifying the object's intangible/irrational/non-mathematical nature. In this case, the rational approach to madness and unsocial behavior, creating more (and also exposing inherent) madness).

(But - maybe that long honking paragraph of pompous trash did exactly what I wanted it to do. Not by anything the words mean, but simply by its very existence. In other words - hear that shit in your head and try not to be a cynical/angry/behaviorally-challenged (at times) individual).

Right, doctor?

(And ... then again ... maybe its genius of the highest variety brought about by the fact that I'm drinking an alcoholic beverage that I share a name with (WHAT A FUCKING COSMIC IRONY!!!!))


~~~~~~THE EEEEEEEEEEEEEND~~~~~~~



Irritated and dog-tired, I remain

Patiently yours,

Michael J. Sherry

Sly (The Pounding Ape)

By Michael J. Sherry

More fragmented fiction with no closure ...

The angry monk looked down over his fat nose at the cigarette hanging from the corner of my lip and spoke German – his version really being more of an extended dry heave – loudly and impatiently while I fumbled to unfold my invitation. I was standing at the gates to the Abtei von Anmut, which was somewhere south of Prague, my entry to the monastery being frustrated by a six foot monstrous looking fellow who kept shouting, “Sie sind im falschen Platz!”

“Look,” I told him, pushing the invitation into his hand. “I’m expected.” He took the piece of paper slowly, keeping his eyes trained on me. “Ex-pec-ted,” I repeated.

“Sie sprechen nicht Deutsches?”

I took the cigarette out of my mouth and dropped it underneath my shoe. “Listen, I have no idea what you’re saying.” I pointed urgently to the invitation, which he had still neglected to glance at. “I’m here to see Brother Clauss.” He continued to look suspiciously at me. “The Abbot,” I continued.

“English?” grunted the angry monk.

“American.”

“Speak English?”

“Yes. Si. Oui. Ja, darling, ja.” I was growing agitated with this man of the cloth who apparently fancied himself a sentry. I felt I deserved better treatment after flying out from New York, taking a train across the country, and hiking the final seventeen miles over hills and cliffs just to see what these German monks could possibly want with me. “See the invitation?”

After a pause he grunted what I presumed was acknowledgment and began to examine the paper I had handed him. I could see he knew little English and I chuckled as the big angry monk tried to sound out certain syllables without my noticing. Chuckling was bad. The monk looked down as if he might stomp me into the path and scrape his sandals clean along the concrete.

“Jack?” he grunted, pointing at me. “You Jack?”

“That’s right,” I said slowly. “Jack Mercer. Here to see the Abbot.”

“Uggh,” he said, pondering I suppose, but finally relenting. “Follow.”

The front gate opened into a very small courtyard that was not noteworthy save for two stone figures stacked against the fence. Figures of naked women. Graceful, artistic naked women, granted, but unclothed nonetheless. Obviously some decorative sculptures, but I wondered as to why they were placed directly adjacent to each other alongside the gate rather than spaced out over the lawn. Ah, well, I thought. The aesthetic judgment of religious types.

Walking through the front door, however, quieted my feelings of ornamental superiority. I was standing in a large, immaculate parlor, occupied by antique furniture, a ten-foot wide fireplace, elegant curtains, and several sculptures, each, I guessed, depicting some saint or other. The hardwood floor was polished to a gleam and covered in sections by red patterned area carpets. I thought of my own apartment and promised myself I’d become a monk someday.

The angry monk led me down a long stone hall. There were doors on both sides of this hall, behind which lurked religious deeds of which I knew not, nor could I venture a guess. Finally my guide ducked quickly and silently behind one of these doors, leaving me to stand outside for several moments, uncomfortable, and suffering from abandonment issues. When he re-emerged it was with a smile – or his equivalent – and I was ushered into the room which he explained was the Abbot’s personal office.

“Welcome, welcome, Mr. Mercer,” said a friendly man standing behind the largest oak desk I had ever laid eyes on. “I am Brother Clauss. Welcome. Here, have a seat.” He motioned to a wooden bench facing his desk – a wooden bench, I noticed, that did not quite offer the same comforts as the stuffed leather chair he himself occupied. “Welcome, we are so glad you’re here.”

His English was remarkably clean. The accent was, of course, unmistakable, but he seemed clear and articulate enough. He too was a large man, though certainly not as fierce looking as the angry monk, and his fat nose was much less fat. I was amazed at the length of his beard, which rested leisurely in his lap while he spoke, smiling at me, or at least appearing to underneath all that white hair.

“I trust your flight went well,” he said.

“Much better than the seventeen-mile hike through naught country,” I replied.
“That is to be expected,” he chuckled. “I apologize, but as you can see we are remote here, and transportation is not easily come by.”

“No problem, I needed the exercise.” Which was true. “Mind if smoke in here?”

“Sorry, Mr. Mercer, but I must ask that you smoke outside only. We have many aged texts and important religious items you know.”

Angrily I shoved the Marlboro’s back in my front pocket.

“Now, I’m sure you are wondering why you are here. I know you’re curious as to why I would not speak of it in my emails, sufficing only to say that your talents were needed and we would pay reasonably, but there is an answer to that as well. You see, we needed someone of your consistent accomplishment to take care of a small problem we are having.”

“Brother Clauss,” I interrupted. “You are aware that I work in the field of animal training, correct?” He nodded. “Well, I was not aware that monks operated a three-ring circus on the side.” Pausing, I added, “Or is it some of your colleagues you’d like me to look at?”

“Mr. Mercer, we do not refer to each other as colleagues.” I had apparently violated some technical Abbey vernacular. It surprised me that he would react more defensively to the word choice rather than my general irreverence for the spiritual setting. “We are brothers,” he continued, me resisting a certain sizable quantity of witticisms that were popping into my head. “What we would like you to do is tend to a problem that we have been unable to remedy. We have an ape within these hallowed walls,” he spoke with disgust, “whose habits are not clean.”

“You have an ape? Here?” I said.

“We find certain of his activities to be offensive.”

“Wait, humor me. Why would there be an ape in a monastery? I’ve never heard of that before.”

Brother Clauss sat back in his chair and let out a long, heavy sigh, looking like a man who had been asking himself that same question for too long. “We have a very religious, very kind, and very diligent brother among us. His name is Hanz and we value his companionship. We also value the companionship of a very wealthy and influential brother of Hanz’ – and here I mean blood brother – who has been very charitable to our Abbey. These are hard times for religion, Mr. Mercer. The people give less and less. We have a two-hundred year old building to maintain, and while monks do not worship the almighty dollar, the almighty dollar remains necessary so that we may continue worshipping the almighty Almighty with a roof over our heads. This brother of Hanz’, a man by the name of Mark Doffler, gives generously to our brotherhood and so we feel obligated to overlook some of the tasteless gifts he bestows personally upon Claus.”

“He gave his brother an ape?”

“He invested in a zoo, Mr. Mercer. An American zoo, had it been built. Instead, his partner in the investment went to jail for various practices and Mr. Doffler found himself with several non-returnable animals on his hands and no partner. So, in the spirit of charity, he bestowed these beasts upon friends, business associates, and even, it seems, upon his family. Hanz received an ape.” He paused for a moment. “Sylvester Stallone.” Another pause. “After the American actor of the same name.”

“I get it,” I said. So why can’t I have a fucking cigarette?

“This is where you come in, Mr. Mercer. We needed an alien because we do not wish it to be known that we are running a petting zoo within the blessed walls of Abtei von Anmut.” I suppressed a frown. Had Brother Clauss just referred to me as an alien? “That is why we sought an American. Naturally we cannot simply get rid of the animal because this would offend Hanz.”

“Which would offend Mr. Doffler,” I finished. “So what, specifically, do you expect me to do with Sylvester Stallone?”

“Sly, for short. We want you to cure him of his unclean habits.”

“No disrespect, Brother, but I am not an animal caretaker. I train the subjects I work with.”

“Perhaps I am not clear. You see his habits are not only unclean, but very public.”

“You’re right, you’re not being clear.”

“And persistant. Constant! He is relentless, that filthy animal.”

“Relentless how?”

The angry monk, having remained silent since escorting me in, suddenly stepped forward and slammed his fist on Brother Clauss’ desk. “Sly pound hisself all de’ time! He pound hisself!”

Understanding was beginning to dawn on me, but I remained silent for an awkward moment.

“Do you see what we mean, Mr. Mercer?” Brother Jake finally continued. “The ape is incapable of any sort of self-control, and we find him not only repugnant in his hobby, but offensive and inappropriate considering his surroundings.”

“So,” I began, trying to pick my words carefully, “you want me to teach the ape to stop pounding himself?”

“Precisely.”

The hell with it. “In other words, and just to be clear, I am to stop the ape from jacking off in front of the monks?”

“Yes, Mr. Mercer,” Clauss sighed, annoyed. “That is it in a nutshell. Can you do it?”

To be continued …

Wasted Electric Brain Signals

Hi, chums. More of my start-and-stop fiction. Only this one actually has an ending. I wrote it a long time ago - '04 or '05. Enjoy.

Wasted Electric Brain Signals
By Michael J. Sherry


I think with remarkable rapidity, so you’ll have to make a hell of an effort if you’re going to keep up.

Floor 25: I make the jump and begin a dizzying, swift decent toward the sidewalk hundreds of feet below. Depression? Well, perhaps. To some extent, at any rate. But I’m not your typical suicidal melancholic. That is to say I do not whine, mope, regret, or surround myself by the comforting assurances of self-pity and loathing. Why do it then? Well, to be brutally honest I’m wondering a little bit about that myself. But here I am, plummeting – is plummeting a good word for this? Maybe free-falling would be better? – free-falling through a lot of cold air, feeling it rise sharply to greet my exposed face like a sudden splash of freezing water, and there is at last no way out. Maybe that’s what this is about. I have some trouble with commitment. Work, love, family … the works. I used to call myself a wanderer until I realized how fucking ridiculous that sounded, so I decided instead to dub myself an outlaw. Not that I’ve done anything insane or illegal, but there is a certain appeal to branding oneself with the label outlaw. It banishes certain restraints. Well, that’s romanticizing it, I suppose. What it really does is provide a convenient excuse. You quit another job? Yes, I did. Why the hell would you do that again? Where will your money come from? It’s all OK – you see, I’m an outlaw. I can permit myself to be lax in certain responsibilities, or all of them. But to get back to the relevant point I was making – perhaps this is why I have made the jump. Perhaps I’ve somehow grown so desperate to feel what it’s like to be caught up in something from which there is no conceivable exit that this just seemed to make sense and before I knew what I was doing, there I went. Bowling across the office and nice knowing you all. Yes, all of you with the bewildered, frozen faces. I’ll be at the bottom before you’re even to the window.

Floor 23: But I know that shit ain’t the truth. All this garbage about making a commitment I would be forced to stick with. Not a chance. All a lot of wasted electric brain signals. Nobody wants to die a pointless death brought on from apparent insanity, so maybe I was just trying to paint myself a nice oil-based picture of meaning before ground-inevitability came at me from underneath. But to be brutally honest, I was lying to myself if I honestly believed that. So what was it then? Well, I’m going to have to at least consider the fact that there is nothing remarkably different about this suicide. In fact, if I am to think about it for a split second, I will have to admit to myself that there is a lot I had planned that just never turned out. Oh, this is stupid. Now I am whining. This is self-pity. Well, so be it then, right? I mean, if it’s the truth? But let’s very briefly examine the facts. I say very briefly because, as is becoming increasingly evident, time is a factor here. At any rate, I excelled at school, graduated college Magna Cum Laude, and went on to one of the top graduate schools in the country. What was I going to do eventually? I never figured that out. Teach, maybe. But I realized I didn’t want to teach. I didn’t care at all if the little shits learned anything or not – it’s their own concern. So that was that for that shit.

Floor 21: What is the point of this anyway? I know what happened. I was fucking there. I lived it, you understand? It was me who did those things. Me who floated through thirty or so jobs over fifteen years. Me who dated six girls over that stretch and followed each inescapable breakup with a long dry-spell of self-doubt and astonishingly little sex. Me who drank a lot of whiskey and smoked a lot of cigars and went around telling people I’m the wanderer, and later the outlaw. You want a car? Here’s my card. Stop by the dealership, we’ll talk. I can put you in a new machine today … There’s only six pallots on that truck, buddy. I ordered seven for the department … Plant “17” is secure, boss. I did hourly rounds … Make sure those frames stay straight, the cement will be here any minute … Its two-dollar drafts tonight, boys, but you better leave a decent tip or there’s going to be a lot of head in that cup … You want your driveway plowed now? Its 2 am! … Get that truck out of the way so I can move the backhoe through here. Yah, I was an outlaw. WANTED. Wanted for … for … well, wanted for something at any rate.

Floor 19: The outlaw plummets. Or what was it I said before? Free-falls? The outlaw free-falls his way down the side of the cliff into the maelstrom of doom below! No, I know. It isn’t like that, but I try to afford myself a touch of glamour before ground-inevitability. Really I’m falling next to an old gray skyscraper and I’m going to eventually go SPLAT! I’m falling very strangely, however, now that I am thinking about it. It occurs to me that most jumpers would have faced outward, toward the rest of the city, backs to the building they had ejected themselves from. Not me. I had led with my right shoulder – maybe a habit born of my old hockey days when I was throwing my body around recklessly, leading with the shoulder – and in so doing I am falling somewhat oddly; sideways, the top of my head facing away from the building and the bottom of my feet facing toward it. I find that by looking down the length of my body toward my feet I am actually catching brief glances into the windows I pass. Nobody seems to notice. I’m plummeting so fast, how could they unless they were already looking out the window? And if that were the case, what an amusing sight that would be, wouldn’t it? You save your file and glance up from your computer to see what’s going on outside for a moment – just a little relaxing escape, even if only for a few seconds – and then here comes this body. Whoooosh. Like that. And then it’s gone, and you’re sitting there – a tad perplexed – blinking your eyes once or twice – and wondering if you actually just saw that.

Floor 17: Well, you did. And it was me. It was my soon to be SPLAT-ed body going whoooosh. And Jesus Christ! its cold out today. That wind is whipping up against me so fast, probably twenty degrees out today. I should have worn a jacket before I leapt. Not that I was thinking about such things. In fact, had I stopped to consider whether or not I should wear a jacket for the fall, I probably never would have been in this situation in the first place. The second it had occurred to me to put on a jacket because it was cold outside it would simultaneously have occurred to me how ridiculous it was to put on a jacket when I was about to become a flapjack on the sidewalk. This would have led me to a subsequent contemplation about what it would feel like to be a sidewalk flapjack, and – more importantly – what it would look like to be such a thing. Dismayed by my gruesome thoughts, I inevitably would have turned back to my computer screen and made the next call. “Good afternoon, sir, my name is Mike Sherry and I’m calling from American Bank for a Mr. Tomlinson. Oh, hello, Mr. Tomlinson. The reason for this call is just to touch base and ensure that you are satisfied with all of your accounts, and to check in with you to see if there is anything we can do to improve your relationship with the bank.”

Floor 15: Fuck Mr. Tomlinson. He was probably some poor bastard anyway. Has an American Bank Express Free Checking account and a debit card and doesn’t want anything else – just so I won’t get paid incentive. And he probably would have told me to stop bugging him. “I hate you damn telemarketers!” “Sir, this isn’t a telemarketing call, we’re employees at one of the bank’s call centers and we’re just checking in to ensure –" “I don’t want to be called again.” Click. Oh, so that’s it, right, Mr. Tomlinson? And what about my feelings? What about the fact that I’m supposed to help you and you just treat me like I’m some vacuum cleaner salesman? Worst of all – what about my goddamn paycheck!? Every day of work goes this way, and I could feel that sense of destiny closing in all about me once again. The feeling that my time at a job was drawing to a close. It was only a matter of time before I sat down with Becky Patterson in her cubicle and politely explained that the job was not working out for me and I was going to need to quit. “Would cutting back your hours help?” Well, to be honest, probably not, Becky. You see, I just don’t feel I’m getting any sense of fulfillment from this job. “So you feel you need to resign?” Um, yah. Resign. Quit. Retire? That would be a good one. But what would I do with myself? Where would money come in from?

Floor 13: I’d thought about this quite a bit. Every time I got some bank customer on the phone who was filling out an application for this or that and they listed their occupation as “self-employed,” I got a hard-on. Jesus, that would be nice. There had to be some way I could make a living without having to “clock-in” and say things like “hold on, let me check with my superior.” That’s what I really hate, I guess. The notion of having a boss. Here’s some fuck – I mean, the guy (or doll) probably don’t even have a college degree, and if he (or she) does, then its probably just a four-year degree from some community college – gonna tell me what to do. Me. With my fucking Master of the Arts degree from a graduate program of national repute. A fucking free thinker. A fucking scholarly and academic light of the community. I don’t need no stinking boss. I don’t need to check with my friggin’ superior. The hell with that. This is why I’d like to be self-employed. But how? Writing? It doesn’t pay. Construction? Not a chance. Not with my soft, feminine hands. Website design? Now there’s a possibility – if every computer I pressed a button on didn’t implode. Prostitution? Well, too late for that now.

Floor 11: The outlaw free falls. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Well us peons can fall just as mightily. Oops. I’m screaming. How embarrassing. Takes some of the romanticism out of what I’m trying to do. Good thing I caught myself. Its possible the people on the sidewalk below hadn’t heard my cowardly cries yet. I ponder – how do I want to look when I hit the ground? Probably a smile on my face. Wouldn’t that show some sort of defiance? Arrogance? Smiling in the face of death, right? Of course, I suppose that is a touch cliché. What then? A blank face would just show ambiguity or insanity. An angry face might make it look like I’d done this in the throws of passion and outrage, which I hadn’t. And I certainly did not want to appear frightened. Maybe cliché was the only way to go here. So be it. I will hit the ground smiling with insolence. Maybe even laughing. No, that would be overdoing it. That would be leaning toward insanity again. I’m not insane. Let me make that absolutely clear. I am thinking – and have always thought, for that matter – with the highest degree of lucidity.

Floor 9: Boy, I’m starting to get close. I can actually see the faces of the sidewalk walkers. Most of them haven’t noticed me. They are walking along in happy oblivion, with not even the slightest notion that a human body is about to slam into the sidewalk in their midst. Maybe even spray some of them with guts. Oh Christ, I hope some of them get sprayed with guts. The ridiculously pompous, ignorant, astronomically aggravating fools! I just wish I could still be alive to see their faces when it happens. But then, maybe I will be alive. That had never occurred to me when making the jump. You hear these types of things all the time, however. I mean, fuck. People have survived sky-diving with a malfunctioning parachute, why couldn’t I survive falling a piddling twenty-five floors? Well, let’s not get unrealistic here. The odds of me surviving the fall are overwhelmingly stacked against me.

Floor 7: I just wish I could have gotten laid one last time. And not with some fucking cougar either. Not some thirty-five year old booze bimbo who’s always on the prowl. No, something meaningful. Like maybe I could’ve met a girl I’d had a crush on during high school and hit it off. We’d have had coffee to “catch up” … maybe some food … maybe a movie. And WHAMMO! I’d be drilling her. Oh, well I suppose that’s taking some of the fantasy out of it. Maybe we’d go back to her house on the beach and make passionate love all night long. Not that I’d ever cared for “passion” or for “all night long.” Jesus. Maybe some cougar would have done the trick after all. Well, the point is I just wish I could’ve gotten laid one last time. Now don’t think me shallow. I haven’t taken a woman to bed in about six months, and if you want to count times I remember vividly and non-drunkenly, well now it’s more in the realm of a year and a half, closer to two years. I miss it. I have a sentimental weakness for it. I would have liked a farewell-to-the-world fuck before the outlaw jumped.

Floor 5: And also a good glass of scotch and a decent cigar. And I would have liked to enjoy the good glass of scotch and decent cigar at an outside bar – somewhere warm – while I tapped my foot and listened to a live blues band. And undoubtedly, as always, wished I had taken guitar lessons at some point. Honestly – want to hear me descend to the ultimate cliché? – my dream job would be playing the blues in local bars. Self-employment, remember? But I don’t play. And even if I did, you can’t make a living doing that. Ah, the blues, though, ain’t it? Great stuff. I mean, who doesn’t like the blues? Who doesn’t want to play the guitar? Who doesn’t love scotch and decent cigars? Boy, I could go for a cigar right now. Ah, shit! How cool would that have been? Hit the ground smoking a cigar. I would be willing to bet money that nobody’s ever done that before. Fuck. I missed my chance to make history. I can see the newspaper headlines. Cool Guy Commits Suicide: Leaps From Building Smoking a Cigar.

Floor 3: Jesus Christ, kid! Get out of the way! What, are you stupid? You’re going to get killed! Oh fuck, I did not want to go out this way. Taking some innocent kid with me. This is my problem and my way of dealing with the problem, and now this poor little boy is going to die because of it. His family’s lives will be ruined because of it. Oh shit. What have I done? Why can’t he walk faster? Come on, kid, speed it up! I’m yelling, he’s looking up at me now. He seems confused. He is not moving. Oh damn it all!

Floor 1: Oh, thank fucking God, he’s not in my path after all. Close one. He’s probably just one of those who will be sprayed by guts. What a story he’ll have to tell. The rest of his life. “When I was eight, I got sprayed by a dead guy’s guts on the sidewalk.” He can probably pick up chicks if he plays his cards right. Say it’s had some kind of emotional impact on his life. “I just can’t get the image out of my head. Poor fellow.” They’ll think he’s deep. That alone will make this whole thing worthwhile. If one person gets laid because of my death then I wouldn’t take it back for any reason at all. The outlaw has proved he can contribute in some meaningful –

SPLAT!!