LILEKS (James) :: The Bleat 2014

Yeeeeahhh, I’m going to take it slightly easy this week, having been doing something that actually approximates work for the last fortnight. Also, I am not the sort of person who says, or writes, Yeeeeahhh, so you should know I’m in a lazy mood. Wastin’ away in Margaritaville, you ask? No. I hate that song. Mostly I hate what it’s associated with; just gives off the worst sort of boomer-vibe, with the Parrothead crowd and the tropical shirts and the rest. No offense intended; we all have our little subcultures we like that the rest of the world regards as silly and annoying, and if you are Parrothead I intend no disrespect. I confess to enjoying a drink at one of the Margaritaville bars in the Caribbean. But I listened to the song all the way through on the radio the other day, wondering if I’d just stopped listening to it 30 years ago and needed to give it a fresh appraisal.

Nope! The line that always seems inauthentic: “some people say that there’s a woman to blame.” Who are these people? The ones who notice that the singer is constantly slurring his words and seems unfocused at noon and even more so by five, and relieves himself in the alley? “Boy, that guy is a drunk, and despite the roguish charm one detects in fleeting glimpses, his devotion to a particular beverage doesn’t really set him apart from the guys who just pound beers all day.”

“Well, some say a woman’s to blame.”

“Who?”

“Harvey. Bob. I think Pete mentioned it once.”

“What woman?”

“He had his heart broken. It was tragic.”

“And this sets him apart from the rest of humanity how, exactly? I think at this point the continual consumption of these fruit-based inebriating liquids is more about sustaining a level of numbness that masks a failed life, and the women who broke his heart - if indeed there was a relationship at all, when it seems more likely there was just a blurry attachment whose conclusion he blamed on the vagaries of the heart instead of his aimless stagger through his life - is probably a reflection of his failings, not a cause.”

“Well, he does say it wasn’t her, but that he is well aware it’s his own damn fault.”

“What is?”

“His wasting away.”

“Oh. Well, has he taken the matter up with those who say a woman’s to blame? Because if they’re spreading that story around, they’re giving him cover and enabling his self-destructiveness.”

“I think he likes to have the story out there. Makes him, I don’t know, sort of tragic.”

“He drinks blender drinks. This is Omaha. It’s November. I don’t know why that should be elevated to the level of Russian drama. And why is he talking about salt?”

“Oh. That. He’s always searching for his lost shaker of salt. It’s sort of a running joke.”

“They sell them for a dollar at the store. Buy another one.”

“I think it represents something. An essential element of life that is forever lost, but somehow must be close.”

“It represents something that rolled under the sofa, is what it represents.”

Went to the secret dog park tonight to give Scout some exercise. Two dozen dogs, a great weedy field, combat and chasing and balls to run after. In the distance, a tractor mowing the thistles:

A small dog chased it. This was unwise. Poor driver probably worried he was going to hit one of the dogs, but on the other hand, maybe not.

The difference between cat people and dog people is that cat people do not get together in big fields while their cats play, and strike up conversations about Dogs and Work and Life. Everyone is different except for The Dog, a thing we all have in common. Scout loves the place, and leaps into the car with excitement. Jasper never leaped into the car; he never figured it would end well. Scout sits on the front seat and observes everything.

There are planes, since it’s close to the airport. One after the other, magnificent machines lancing up into the sunset. All that power and racket; all those people with plans and destinations. An ordinary place at this time in human history, its miracles commonplace and taken for granted.

There are days I stand there looking at the planes on the runway and the jets leaping up to follow the setting sun and it all seems so horribly naked. If you wanted to make a glorious world with no bad actors, just power and opportunity and the lure of the journey, it would look like this. A tractor shaving the green, a few folks on phones, the whine of the highway, the yipes and barks and happy combat of dogs in the grass.

There is a sign on the fence that designates the area as an EVACUATION GATHERING LOCATION.

Things around the internet today: I have been saying this for years.

At some point a bird that was mostly chicken but not entirely chicken laid an egg that had mutated enough to become Chicken as we know it today. Ta da.

This I found in another form, with different words; it's used for different purposes and political opinions. Tell me what’s odd.

Yes. The signature. Winsor McCay. That looks nothing like the work of Winsor McCay.

Chapter four reminds us that the titles of these episodes are rather generic, in a war-time sense.

No "slaves" in the sense of Chinese citizens cruelly impressed to Imperial work. But guys with zombie-controllers on their heads, yes, so technically it's correct.

So: when last we saw our heroes, Batman was unconscious on a bridge with train bearing down him at high speed. Perilous situation, but at least it was shot with rear-projection, so there was hope. How could he escape? Simple: shove the unconscious man off the bridge into the water then jump after him, and hope neither of you drowns because the cape gets over your head.

Back at the lair of the Evil Japanese Criminal Genius, we see him feeding the crocodiles he has in a pit under his office. Man, that’s got to smell. No one would say anything, of course. Maybe sprays some Glade around before he has guests.

The henchman tasked with destroying the train, getting the Radium Gun and killing Batman comes back to HQ to report that he did not destroy the train, get the Radium Gun, and probably didn’t kill Batman.

He ain't looking forward to this.

But you know what? He’s not going to take any lip from his erstwhile “master.” He says he’s switching to the winning side, pal, and you’d better believe he’s going to come out on top.

This of course is far wiser than just not showing up at spy ring HQ, and going to the FBI, which would protect you and carry out your new desire for Allied victory by smashing the viper’s nest. When has that ever worked out? How can that be satisfying, when you could just walk into the office of the guy who’s been implanting Zombie Brain-Control devices on lesser minions, and tell him what’s what?

Those were the days when you could reference a NEWSPAPER to prove your point. Well, one of the Zombies comes from him; he shoots it. Demands that the Evil Genius let him go. Will he? WILL HE ADMIT DEFEAT?

Aw. man, you didn't have to go there.

And so:

It’s the scream that makes the scene, I think. Meanwhile, Linda, the sorta-girlfriend says she got a call to meet a fortune teller for information that will advice the plot. Bruce declines to go because it’s in a bad neighborhood, and she rings off in disgust. Weakling. Bruce goes ahead in non-Batman form, meets the Swami:

Sees all, knows all, derps all. Bruce Wayne knocks him unconscious, so he can take his place and pretend to be the Swami when Linda shows up.

Somehow this seems like a peculiar scheme to learn what the Swami was going to tell Linda.

So . . . he turns down the lights so she won't think “say, that aftershave is just what my sort-of boyfriend wears, and the voice is familiar.” He tells her to leave now, because she’s in danger. Indeed she is: in between her leaving the Swami and making the front door, she’s chloroformed and dragged into a secret room where the receipt for some radium - which she was just carrying around with her lipstick and cigarettes - were removed. Bruce Wayne follows the abductors, as Barman, in Bruce Wayne’s car complete with tell-tale license plate. He gets on top of the armored car with the Radium gun, and . . .