Looking for a little help from a few good behavioral psychologists/philosophers/theologians...A little help.

Question: How come there is a universal opposition to physically advertising exactly what we've paid for our various possessions? Some people will talk about this sort of stuff, but we don't leave up signs, on our houses, our cars, our clothes. Why not? And more importantly, how come I peel off the $2.69 price tag on my small shaving cream before I put it in my medicine cabinet where I, and I alone, will be the one to see it and use it and eventually throw it -- sputtering -- away?


Reading: Walker Percy's LOST IN THE COSMOS, Joseph O'Neill's NETHERLAND

Mood: slightly intoxicated

Liver status: slightly swollen

Glass: half empty

mantra

Well, at least I'm not dead
he said, he said

And whatever became of Right Said Fred?
he said, he said

The opening scene to a really fantastic movie I'm hard at work on.

Exterior shot of the front porch of a red brick apartment building. It is a turn of the century row home, three stories, with two doors on the porch. The camera pans out to focus on the right side of the building, and holds the door and three stories in its frame. It is an overcast day. The view then is down the street to the right where we see a figure walking towards the building. Dressed in a suit, tie slightly loosened, he possesses an occupied countenance. Bears a striking resemblance to a young Timothy Bottoms. The camera backs away to hold he entire tableau: Apartment building on the far left, man walking towards it on the the right.


A phone rings.


We zoom to the second story window and hold. A second ring. The man has now reached the door where the camera joins him. He retrieves his mail, and enters the apartment. We next see him walking up the stairwell where we - the audience and the man - hear the phone ring again through the apartment door. There is a scramble now to juggle mail, briefcase, umbrella, whilst opening the door into his apartment. We follow him into a small studio where he drops all of the mail and his umbrella onto the kitchen bar. It spills. The briefcase slips out of his hands and falls onto the floor. There should be a sense of minor chaos. He rushes to the phone,which is on a nightstand next to his rumpled bed.

MAN: Hello?

VOICE:(faint, recorded) We've been trying to reach you! You or one of your family members...

MAN:(Aggravated) Is this a recording?! Is this a fucking recording?! I'm going to hang up!

Slams phone down. Sits on bed. Puts head in hands.

MAN: FUCK!!!!


Cue TITLE SCREEN, and music.

An account of my day, Sunday, the first day of June, 2008.

Sunday 10:07 AM

The sky is bright blue, cloudless. The trees in the little yard behind my apartment are green and full. A breeze blows, branches bend, that rustle of summer. The curtains in my bathroom fill like a little sail. The sound of a Polish pop band rehearsing comes from the neighboring school, their doors to a fire escape wide open, my door to my fire escape wide open, a keyboard, drums, and a straining tenor singing sadly. There must be a reception later on for the parishioners of St Stanislaus Church. This is Sunday morning.

“I can;/Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.”

“The old adage that actions speak louder than words is applicable here.” So the elderly Dominican priest abruptly ended an already brief sermon at the early mass this morning. The gospel was the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, with the terrifying reminder that not everyone who cries out to the Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven.

I’m going to dust off my golf clubs today and hit the driving range! First time out this year, I can already feel the blisters.


Sunday 2:12 PM

The beginning of an epic poem about Jay to the Zed, to be completed years from now, when his full legacy can be more honestly assessed.


Yes! Yes, you will be remembered after you’re dead,
You, our rap’s Grateful Dead.
We delight in your names. Iceberg. Hov.
And we are wealthier from the richness of your rhymes, a treasure trove.

What, you have asked, is left to prove?
Only the beating of our hearts, and the beats to which they move.


Sunday 3:09 PM

Crap! Here’s something interesting and potentially comical. My friends, back from a sojourn to Northern California, got me some kind of Redwood spore. You’re supposed to keep it in a couple of inches of water, out of sunlight, and I guess it begins to grow. Well, as I was changing the water after its initial submersion (changing the water regularly seems to be crucial to its survival) a not insignificant chunk broke off and went down my drain. I think it is wedged in there. It is certainly out of reach. And deep in a drain seems, based on a quick reading of the instructions, to basically be the ideal place for this thing. It will get plenty of water, and it is definitely out of the sun.

What are the chances of this little spore really taking to its improvised location and thriving? One doesn’t think of Redwoods as the most adaptable of trees.

I’m imagining in richly illustrated (perhaps by Shel Silverstein?) detail how this Redwood might grow, week by week, throughout the pipes in my building and then one day -- one fateful day! -- burst throughout the entire building! Shower nozzles pop off and out springs a branch! Tree parts -- trunk, branches, knobs -- come up through toilets, kitchen sinks, bathroom sinks!

Then what?

Perhaps the residents of my building all have a good laugh and move into swanky new digs!

Perhaps this tree, Ent-like, comes to life and A. befriends a troubled small child in the building, putting him on his Redwood shoulder and walking him about the world; or, equally possible, B. bloodthirstily wreaks havoc on the city! (Kind of like the alligator tales that we all know, where a little six-inch baby gator is flushed down the toilet, only to survive and then quietly haunt our sewer system as a sixteen-foot child-nabbing beast!)

There are many more scenarios, I’m sure. Perhaps the least amusing but most likely one is that nothing happens. Nothing at all.


Sunday 9:37 PM

Golf balls were hit today and I do have a blister. I tried to go see Carousel, but tickets were too expensive. I did, however, go a barbeque this evening which was fun. I even took a turn at the grill and flipped burgers with the best of them! I’m bushed, dear readers. Bushed!