I am so tired of waiting,
Aren’t you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
And cut the world in two –
And see what worms are eating
At the rind.
The above is the poem “Tired” by Langston Hughes. My first encounter with Hughes was in 7th grade. That year my English teacher announced that we all had to memorize and recite a poem with at least 20 lines.
Many of the boys in the class defied Mrs. Vogel’s “no running” directive and sprinted to the bookshelves and began counting lines.
A few days later, Mrs Vogel called me to her desk and this conversation ensued:
I realize I am late to the party, but here is my obligatory David Lynch-related post.
I think that Blue Velvet is the only one of his films that I’d seen, so I’m not as knowledgeable about him as many people are. Though his work intersected with my work in the 20th century.
In 1991, I had a walk-on (uncredited) role in the Human Genome Project when a DC-area temp agency assigned me to Craig Venter’s NIH lab.
A protein chemist–who also oversaw the health and well-being of all the lab’s computers– tasked me with finding clip art that matched the names of the Macs that controlled the sequencers.
The computers were named for characters and landmarks in the “Twin Peaks” series. I didn’t recognize any of the names because I’d only seen a few minutes of the show.
After some inquiry (“Who is Dale?”) I was able to find icons browsing Apple’s Hypercard stacks (showing my age, I know.)
Occasionally, one of the scientists would pour themselves a cuppa joe near my desk and comment “Damn good coffee.” I had no idea that was a Twin Peaks reference until just a few years ago.
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(Bad Word Alert! Though it’s part of a quoted sentence…therefore even my mother would forgive its use in this case).
During my time on Facebook, I responded to a comment in a friend’s post where some of my friend’s friends–were singingthe praises of the (then) football coach at their alma mater, the University of South Carolina.
I believe I was the only interloper in the conversation, when I offered an unfavorable opinion about the coach.
What followed were several replies like this:“Of course you do. People hate Steve Spurrier just because he wins!”
My response was this, “When he became the head coach at my school it had never won a conference championship in its history thoughhis teamswon six during his tenure, as well as a national championship. He also won the Heisman Trophy when he was a student there many years before. I don’t care how many games, awards, or championships he wins. I can’t stand Steve Spurrier because he’s an asshole.”
(OK, I quoted myself….sorry, Mom).
Over the years, I have had similar exchanges with friends, acquaintances, and relative strangers (and strange relatives)if I express a negative (or even a tepid) opinion about a politician, a CEO, an athlete, or a comedian they are fond of.
People often conclude–prematurely and incorrectly– that my disdain for anypublic figure must berooted in my jealousy of: championship rings, company’s market capitalization, an election victory.
Not at all, my aversion to them is most likely because that public figure is a total asshole, or even a fractional asshole.
In a work conversation a several months ago, I used the term “Popeye Moments” to describe feelings of exasperation, where screaming Popeye the Sailor’s catchphrase “That’s all I can stands and I can’t stands no more,” seems like an appropriate next step.
Often this is a precursor to a vigorous, occasionally uncharacteristic, response to a stressful situation. Fittingly, one of my earliest Popeye moments that I can recall was directed at a member of Popeye’s family.
Actually it was an actor who portrayed a live-action version of Poopdeck Pappy (Popeye’s dad in the cartoons) on a Norfolk, Virginia-area television station.
We left that area when I was quite young, though Poopdeck Pappy was one of two children’s show hosts that I remember from that market. I didn’t mind Pappy, though the other host I recall was a man in clown makeup (oh for fuck’s sake!), I used to run from the TV when “Bungles” came on.
When I was not yet 3 years old, and seated in a shopping cart in a store–the Commissary (grocery), or the Exchange (department store)–on the naval base in Norfolk, when a man with a white beard, clad in dress blues, approached my father with a microphone and asked him a few questions.
I recognized that it was Pappy from (black and white) TV, but seeing him in three dimensions, and in color, were a bit unsettling for my young mind.
I stared at him as he and my father chatted for a few moments, then he asked me: “Hey son, how’d ya like to meet Bungles?” and he tipped the microphone toward my tiny mouth.
And then I saw him, that gawdamn TV clown, and he was approaching me, doing his trademark, pinky finger-only wave…it might as well have been Pennywise, from “It” crawling from the sewer with a knife. My thoughts were much like Tracy Morgan’s:
I’d had all I could stands and I couldn’t stands no more.
My mouth–tiny no longer– screamed (“bloody murder” according to family lore) into the microphone. I take it Bungles was accustomed to this reaction, because he did a smooth and prompt about-face and (I assume) went off to terrorize another toddler somewhere in the television market.
My father matter-of-factly informed Pappy “He’s scared of clowns.”
Though I am fairly confident that Pappy had already reached that conclusion.
