Books Again

Burning Books
I know right off the bat Alexander burned libraries straight down to the sorry ground during his ripping through the known world being led by the hardness of his dick. All you had to do was convince Alex he was the handsomest man next to Big Daddy himself and he'd let his mind do his prick's bidding.

Hitler burned books; oh yeah, especially tons of important books on important subjects especially those books that were written by brilliant Jewish men and women, scientists, educators, philosophers, psychologists, etc. I've heard Hitler had a prick problem with women--you know, hint-hint--he had no problem with underage girls, I've heard--nor did he have the problem with certain men. Obviously, Hitler couldn't read very well. Trying to read Hitler from a writing point of view for me was the same as trying to read Danielle Steele from the same angle--their writing so bad I saw no point in continuing reading what they were so badly writing past a paragraph or so. I must confess, as a bright-eyed college lad, I did read Hitler, most of his shit-stupid My Life and for the life of me could not see how anybody but a fool could make sense from such poor narrative--maybe it makes more sense in German, I'll give old Adolph that; you know, Der Fuhrer might explain that it was Jewish translators who translated most of his bestseller into English. Could be; I'll give him that, though surely there was an official Nazi English version of the book. I'm gonna go on my literary intuitions and say I'll bet the book is just as much bullshit in that official English version as it is translated by Jewish translators for the American market. Jesus, how stupid does that sound reading it now after it's been over for 61 years? Of course, you've gotta read a book to find out about those times--start with Theodore White's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

When I first went to work for Time-Life back in the funky seventies, Theo White was treated like a darling by old nutjob Henry Luce, who was still alive and coming to work every morning, when I went to work there. White had his own bigshot office--you know, walnut panelling, heavy real furniture, lush carpeting, new IBM Selectric typewriter, and a telephone with a WATS line--way up on the fortieth floor, up in Time Heaven just below the seat of Henry God Luce's digs--ooh, you should have seen the Time-Life Executive Club when I worked there; I never did, but I worked on a company publication that showed photos of it and one of my friends there rose high enough to get invited up there for lunch a lot, until he got stoney drunk on Beefeater martinis during a power lunch one day and told the big boys they were crazy as hell for wanting to go Hollywood--I was on a promotional team that was pushing a teevee sitcom produced by Time-Life starring that loveable old slow-drag Jimmy Stewart, you know, as a dad with a family--it was called, boringly, though they thought it would get them publicity since Jimmy was so loved by his public, The Jimmy Stewart Show. This was the sitcom my friend told the T-L bigshots they were stupid about.

I swear to God, and I only saw the pilot of The Jimmy Stewart Show--I think it did run on NBC for half a season before it tanked--but I swear Bill Cosby took the same concept and turned it into one of the most successful sitcoms on television, The Bill Cosby Show. Same plot--a same-old, same-old sitcom plot--there aren't that many stock plots in the sitcom library that have worked in the past. The ones with famous male actor fathers with level-headed wives and superbright, big-smiley children seem to work, that sort of situation--all of those kind started with, I'll go out on a limb, The Bob Cummings Show way back in the early B/W days of boring Amurican television. The twin stock plot that worked were those where famous female stars were in the same situation. You know these shows: certainly the famous I Love Lucy was one; The Donna Reed Show; I Married Joan; all starring Hollywood actresses and using their own names to draw viewers. The subplots out of that one stock plot would involve the single-male and -female sitcoms where the little budding actors and actresses start off on their own in their own apartments at their first jobs of their careers. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was one of those shows; and they had to hit with that while Mary was still young enough looking at 30 to play a woman in her early twenties just starting a career. Danny Thomas's lucky untalented daughter had a show based on that subplot. The ultimate subplot of this sitcom staple was The Brady Bunch, where a father with 3 boys married a woman with 3 girls. God, it's perfect. All sitcoms are based on the same library of stock plots.

God, don't get me started talking television. I was in the creative service departments of several television networks for many moons. Television from the get-go, same as radio, is a slushpit for the viewing of commercials, made digestible by being surrounded by puerile entertaining pros doing these "ideal" situational comedies to hold your attention until they can slip the next commercial in on your ass. Nobody ever, that I ever saw, liked staying watching television when the commercials came on. Radio sitcoms were different; those shows used to work their commercials into the show story lines. Like The Jack Benny Radio Show: always Don Wilson, his announcer, was a member of the cast and written into the show, usually making his appearance just as they were due to go into a commercial. Suddenly, Don Wilson would come on mic, jive with Jack a while, and then gradually work into the commercial selling you cigarettes. Later, when Jack Benny moved to teevee with The Jack Benny Show he kept the same concept in it--Don Wilson was still his announcer; and cigarettes were still his sponsor.

I got started on television though I started off on books. Books are so much more intelligently entertaining than teevee; even Danielle Steele is more intelligently entertaining than a soap opera, isn't she?; I don't know, I've never been able to read past the first paragraph of any of her books I've meant to fully read. Her books were in every office lending library in every NYC office I've ever worked in--you know, the office goons read their paperbacks on the subway, finish them at work then they put them in the office lending library--they always have the complete works of Danielle Steele--her books and the books of that awful writer Stephen King--another whose books I have never been able to read past the first opening paragraphs. Pet Semetary was so badly written in the lead paragraphs I threw it unconsciously in my garbage at work after giving up trying to figure it out. That heretical action almost got me kicked out of using the lending library at my last job; how dare I throw so precious a book as a Stephen King book in the garbage. Who the hell did I think I was, Alexander the Great? Hitler? Ohh, that last one hurt. Alex. I might could have filled Alex's shoes at 18. But Hitler. Hell no; his father was a drunken maniac; Alex's father was an emperor.

Dealing With Margaret Atwood
I'm trying to like her as I watch her raconteuring on Uncle Bill Moyers's new big-buck vehicle he's got running on PBS--and I thought he was so pissed off at and revolted by their new right-wing asskissing policies at PBS he would never appear on their stages again. But, here he is. With one of his specials. In this one, Bill is searching for wisdom in understanding true believers who believe firmly in unbelieveable fables by faith. "I guess God has a reason." Still hung up in his Baptist background--Texans have a very difficult time giving up their pasts, Bill worries most about whether God exists or not; is the Christian Bible, in which Bill has to believe in since it's part of his culture and beliefs from back when he was a little boy and scared to death though cynical enough to make a career out of something which to me is total bullshit. Wipe it out now, like we must wipe our asses after we take an earthquaking dump.

Margaret Atwood, who I must admit if I had heard of her I surely didn't realize I'd heard of her, is a very popular, evidently, Canadian writer from Ottawa and who as is hoped is a highly smart, logical, Protestant thinker who though she challenges the Christian religion she will not just flat say there are no gods and all the books their supernaturality is based on are big piles of bullshit fiction--books of fables, just like your books, dear Margaret, or should we believe you are getting your info from a god?--no, she won't say that god and gods are nonexistent so let's find another way to collectively save mankind; instead, she makes her career attacking Christianity from an agnostic stance.

I'm sort of put off by people who make their livings--and I'm beginning to sound like my ancient mentor of the moment, Charles Ives--off of fiction and then claim to be reality philosophers and therefore the only observers able to fairly understand why multitudes of world folk follow the foolish and deadly biases and fears, off-the-wall platitudes, and alchemistic sciences of ancient imagination, an uneducated imagination. This woman says we must understand that man has to have a god in order for him to understand this world from a human point of view. Wha? This is too thick for me to dissect in the minute time I have to blabber on a blog. A lot of it is above my head, too, as I try and stay being a realist, and a realist sees Christianity as a deadly bite from a antihuman mosquito that needs to be eradicated not understood. People should cleanse their minds of these traditional favors. Get rid of their pasts. Just shuck 'em off; shake 'em off like a dog shakes water off its back. Shake it! Shake it, baby, shake it! We got to shake it up. Forget about your past; what about a future god, an up-to-date god, one with some logic, one with a collection of the best human thought-out solutions? I thought universities were going to provide us with reality thinkers and planmakers, mapmakers of the future, but no, the best we have is a bunch of agnostics who are basing their careers on keeping so ruinous an organized crime outfit as the Christian religion going on because it's traditional and to destroy it would be to cause some poor souls to commit suicide--plus it might ruin dear Margaret's book sales. I would like to tell all Christians, I don't care your level of librality, here's the rope, you suckers. Or, hell, here's a single-edge razor blade. Or, hell, here, here's a revolver, be my guest. Or, hey, that Kool Aid over there is free; drink all you want.

Oh if these religious zealots and that includes Muslims, Islamics, Islamisists, Jews, Mormons, Catholics, Protestants, Cargo Cultists...if all of them would just disappear...go away already...go to your paradises and leave me to mine. That's why I'm an atheist, Miss Atwood, not an agnostic. An agnostic gives Christianity a chance; an atheist says all of that just flat doesn't exist; we are empiricists; that's why I write; I'm a natural born empiricist. I can't tell you how to change the world; that's what thinking is for; but I have the sense to see clear through the bullshit covering up the foul doings of the hoaxes of this world.

Martin Amis came on Uncle Bill's show next, and though he's a Brit who's in love with the U.S., I liked what he told old Uncle Bill, but still this poor soul couldn't flat out say "No, there is no god; there is only you and me; that's all we have, so let's sit down and map out a exploration of how we can recreate our societies into One World-thinking units." Martin couldn't do that; he had to tip his hat to believing in at least an idea of God. Fool. Why should I want to read your books?

It's hot as six Hadean summers but I can take it now; I'm insulated; I have four fans whirring around me now, even though, I the atheist, am totally dependent on the benevolence of a metro god who calls himself ConEd, our customer-bilking public utility here in NYC, the god of electricity, the god who really can cut the power off some brimy summer day with the temperature 110 and literally bake us all to death, same as the Christians love punishing heretics by burning them at the stake.

Just like our "president" used to love executing men and one woman back in his day when he was goobernor of Texas. What wonderful god-like power it is to hold a person's life in your hands. "Please, Mr. Bush, forgive me; let me keep my wife; I'm innocent, honest I am." "Shoot the juice to him, Bruce," shouted Goobernor Bush, "don't worry, boy, if you are innocent you'll get to go to Heaven, brother, so I'm doin' you a favor." Much laughter was heard after the goobernor was back in his comfortable mansion in his comfortable bed, sipping on his tumbler of Jack Daniels and snorting a couple'a lines'a coke "Pleasant dreams, Pickles." "Don't worry. You're my only nightmare."

I am still convinced we are natural born killers and can't help ourselves.

thegrowlingwolf
the Daily Growler