Wax Off

I might read To Kill a Mockingbird. I don't expect I'll ever read Catcher in the Rye. Stories of adolescence bore me. I know who I am, and I know how the world is. Self-indulgence and phony rebellions hold no fascination. I can't watch James Dean movies. Boo hoo. You're so misunderstood.

There's this one aggressive unskilled smaller teenager who, for all that he's peripheral to me, wants to roll with me, and have conversations with me, and flatter me. The rolling I don't mind, and a bit of talk. No time for flattery. Yes, I know I'm buff and ripped. No, I'm not a bodybuilder. I don't do anything for appearance. I'm too pure for that. What I am comes from what I do. Yes, I'm wonderful. Maybe he'll take the hint. You're my hero, he says, only half-jokingly. He likes to be honest and open. That's because, I reply, I'm very heroic.

Honestly though, I hardly emit a personality. Why would I even be noticed. Tonight he said I reminded him of Atticus Finch. Well I haven't read the book, although I do know the character. A morally centered guy. Even-handed, admirable. So that's nice.

He wants to be a writer, and I taught writing for many years, so he wanted me to look at his poetry, and I said sure, if he's prepared to not be flattered. Early poetic efforts are almost always obvious. Things that everyone thinks of, spoken as if they are discoveries. A mentor needs to be gentle about these things, and identify the skill of the communication, rather than the content. It's how we say it, not what we say. Nothing is new. He asked me why I write. I said, because I do it well. I don't have a lot of stories. I just like making beautiful things.

So, on that note, I was leafing through these pages and realized with a shock that it had been simply forever since I'd updated you on my penis. It's doing fantastic, slightly radioactive after the gamma ray treatment, and it should be released from the R&D lab within a week. I'm planning on promoting it to my sidekick, when I go about saving the world as Capitaine Hardbone. We haven't come up with a name for it yet, but we're working on it. I was favoring The Cheta! but then I realized the feline connection, and that just wouldn't do. And the imagery of speed doesn't really play all that well in this context. So I'm starting an online competition, to name my penis's superhero identity. Please, serious suggestions only. Grandprize will be an all-expenses-paid luxury afternoon at the fabulous Beautiful Downtown Burbank Brazilian Wax and Lazar Mole-Removal Boutique, travel expenses not included.

Politics? It's been long enough since the Great Delusion so that Obama has to take a bit of the credit for the economy, which resulted in the Republican victories of Tuesday's elections. The party in power gets the blame. Wouldn't it be nice if once in a while we elected competent people? Real leaders who have a vision and some skills? Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others? Perhaps, if by democracy we mean an informed electorate of vested patriots. We should try that. Instead of, you know, this idiot popularity contest prom queen crap. Anything that has democra in its name seems predestined for failure and corruption and shortsightedness. But maybe that's just this current election cycle speaking. Maybe things will get better. Like, human nature will change, or whales will start voting, or something.

A 22 year old man in Saudi Arabia was convicted of raping and killing a number of little boys aged between 3 and 7 years old. Left them in the desert to die. He was sentences to be beheaded and then crucified. They have the right idea, but they got the order wrong. Still and all, it's as much justice as we can expect. How come they get it and we don't?


J