Happy Father’s Day, but that’s beside the point:
Our friend Cousins has been otherwise occupied, not to say preoccupied, recently. While going through his goods and chattels for items with potential resale value, Sparky and I stumbled upon an illuminating text (this is as opposed to an illuminated text, which is a medieval manuscript with lavishly-coloured illustrations, but that’s also beside the point). What you read below will, I hope, furnish valuable insights into the workings of the mind Sparky and I (among others) use as a pied-à-terre. At least now you’ll have some idea of what we have to put up with on a daily basis.
Uncle Fun
Participating in a theatre festival, where you’re expected to rub elbows until they chafe down to the bone, is a good reminder (as if I needed one) that I am not at all at ease in large social gatherings. As well as possessing all the ebullient affability of a particularly taciturn cinder block, I have a natural disposition for sensory overload, which kicks in whenever two distinct conversations are going on within a block or two of me. The buzz of a chatting crowd effectively paralyzes some section of my cerebral cortex, mesmerizing me into a stream of free-associations which come from somewhere just north-east of the low-rent district of my subconscious. If you’re at a party, and see me gazing blankly off towards a horizon no-one else can see, I’m not being anti-social. I’ve just zoned out, and am doing my best Houdini-style escape act from a Gordian knot of thoughts that I’ve become entangled in against my will. While doing so, I may be simultaneously:
-Trying to piece together a single song out of the only fragments I can remember of several songs I’ve heard while driving with my wife when she was listening to her favourite country music station on the car radio.
-Mulling over the prospects for unsaleable TV pilots I occasionally come up with, such as:
Cole’s Law: about a deli owner who moonlights as a private detective (“He’s dishing up a side order of justice”)
Boyle’s Law: about a chemist who specialized in gas-spectrum chromatography before becoming a district attorney (“He’ll turn the heat up on hostile witnesses, and put the pressure on the criminals”)
A quiz show called Are You Really That Stupid?, hosted by Don Rickles.
Celebrity Pie-in-the-Face: people who just won’t get out of the public eye get a kisser full of custard cream, as voted on by you, the viewing audience. (There will be a weekly appearance by at least one person named Kardashian.)
-Wondering if there’s a version of jiu-jitsu for the goyim called Gentile Jitsu.
-Wondering how badly the B’nai Brith and the Jewish Anti-Defamation League will want to have me skinned alive for wondering that.
-Thinking about how the Atlanta Braves are really the Cincinnati Reds, since the original Cincinnati Red Stockings (the world’s first professional baseball team) moved lock, stock, and barrel to Boston, where they later became one of the charter members of the National League. They stayed there until 1953, when they moved to Milwaukee, then moved in 1966 to Atlanta.
-Wondering if anyone else in the world cares about this.
-Thinking about all the gadgets Wile E. Coyote used that weren’t from Acme, like the Ace Electric Motor, the power source for this contraption:
- (A related thought) Wondering why ‘Fleet-Foot’ brand Jet-Propelled Tennis Shoes never caught on.
-Trying to decide whether I really like or really hate the uniforms the California Golden Seals wore from 1974 to 1976, which look like the UCLA football Bruins had a yard sale after a bad experience with a dry cleaner (this internal debate has been going on for well over 35 years, with little sign of a resolution in sight).
-Wondering why Episcopalians, Anglicans, and C. of E.’s don’t have their own version of the Borscht Belt, a proving ground and hotbed for aspiring professional comedians.
-Remembering all the Episcopalians, Anglicans, and C. of E.’s I’ve ever met, and forgetting all about it.
Experience has taught me to keep my counsel when the moviola inside my head starts spinning out of control like this. Otherwise, disastrous faux pas are liable to occur:
PARTYGOER: Oh, hi there, buddy. So what’s new with you?
ME: ‘Fleet-Foot’ brand Jet-Propelled Tennis Shoes. Why did they never catch on? Would white skates have made the California Golden Seals’ aqua-coloured uniforms better, or worse? Episcopalian Borscht Belt.
PARTYGOER: Uh…yeah. Hey—isn’t that Whatshername over there? See ya.
So that’s why I try to stay unobtrusively in the background when I have to go to parties. It’s not that I’m difficult, or find other people difficult to deal with. It’s just that there’s a lot going on inside of me that no-one should have to deal with—me included.
I LIKE that…no-one shood otta hafta deal with me an' Uncle Fun an’ Moose an’ all? That’s rich. Why’ncha have a lissen’a the rest’a whut’s goin’ on inside this straitjacket-bait’s hollow crayneeum what WE hafta try an' avoid:
An old radio sketch by Cousins and Faught, entitled (for no immediately discernible reason) "Sock Fumes"
So now ya know why ya don’t wanna talk ta him at parties, er mebbe anywhere at all.
Sparky
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