The Toastmaster Who Wasn't There

Now, how was Ace to know of my disenchantment, or whatever it is, with the idea of the Oscars? So he casually mentioned that he thought Conan O'Brien did a good job. "Well, we'll see about that!" I thought with churlish... I don't have a good noun to finish that sentence. The adjective churlish stopped my brain! So I scurried around on the "internet" like a little rat and watched a couple of minutes of Conan O'Brien doing his monologue. In my foul mood, I couldn't concentrate on his razor-sharp wit or whatever everybody thinks it is. All I noticed was how he amateurishly clapped his hands together every 10 seconds. He didn't know he was doing it! Such was my interpretation. His body was out of his control! And so on. Such was the content of my bitter thoughts. So I used email, the old person's medium, to craft a sentence only a 200-year-old man could appreciate: "All I’m saying is you wouldn’t see Bob Hope clapping his hands together every 10 seconds like the toastmaster at the Kiwanis Club." Ace responded that the Kiwanis make excellent pancake breakfasts and have programs to help children in need. So I really felt like a jerk after that. After some thought, I realized what a few of my problems were, and I encapsulated them thusly: "Once I was in a play and someone videotaped it, and when I watched the videotape I was horrified to see that I was involuntarily and unconsciously clapping my hands together every 10 seconds for no discernible reason. Conan's only real crime was reminding me of my own many failures! Also, I picked the Kiwanis Club at random, assuming they were a generic men's fraternal organization such as Fred Flintstone used to belong to. I didn't know anything about them! I should have turned the merciless spotlight on myself, not on the innocent members of the Kiwanis Club! I don't even know if they have toastmasters!" It was like when the guy in MULHOLLAND DR. (above) said "There is no band." That is, there was no toastmaster. Or to paraphrase Stanley Kubrick, I have always been the toastmaster. It's like in ANGEL HEART when... never mind. I don't want to spoil ANGEL HEART for you. I know you've been meaning to get around to it. Similar to the plot of that one Dan Duryea movie of which I can't recall the title. Wait! BLACK ANGEL. Why do they all have angel in the title? Let's forget it. Please join us tomorrow, when we start over with a clean slate, beginning with McNeil's revelation of some startling theological insights. I'm unemployed. PS The toastmaster I'm imagining wouldn't clap his hands together every 10 seconds anyway. He'd be gripping the podium in white-knuckled terror.

Single Digits

By now you must be aware of how sullen my sister and I are when it comes to the Oscars. More accurately, at this stage of our lives, we just don't care. I say "at this stage" even though she is fourteen years younger than me. I guess she just got jaded at a much quicker rate! That is really none of my business. Anyway, for whatever reason, we have become like zombies or ghosts, helplessly replaying the actions we once undertook with (though it is impossible to recall it) enthusiasm (?). By which I mean that we still try to beat each other at guessing the Oscar winners. An empty endeavor! This year, we both achieved, if you can call it that, single digits as far as correct guesses went. But I am honor-bound to report that my sister's single digit was higher than mine. And I'll tell you why. She kept guessing FRANKENSTEIN. Every time she guessed it I would laugh and mock her with harsh sarcasm... no! I would never do that to my sister. It was mild sarcasm at most. A delicate hint of sarcasm! Almost soothing! I would be like, "Snort, snort, that's not going to win anything!" All in all, a disheartening experience. Life, I mean.

Two or Three Huge Controversies

The Million Dollar Book Club got into one of its famous debates! I was saying that Witold Gombrowicz reminded me of a Bob Hope character because he was distracted by a sexy ballerina and didn't realize that, in the background, so to speak, there was a fiery political debate raging in which he should have chosen a side. So he gets called on the carpet by the Polish Legation in Argentina and they don't care for his excuses about the sexy ballerina. Can't you just see Bob Hope getting into a fix like that? I know, I know, you've never heard of Bob Hope, well, why don't you just go to hell. Anyway, Megan contends that Witold Gombrowicz is "in his head a lot more than Bob Hope." That sums up the lively discussion in question. Wow! It was really something. Anyway, the next day, I was thinking, huh, Witold Gombrowicz could have gone to see a lot of Bob Hope movies! But I bet he didn't. He never writes about the movies in his diary. That's something Megan and I discussed. He does mention television: "We cultivate television and use electric blankets, but we die wild." Ha ha! Pure Gombrowicz. But it is a generic allusion as far as popular entertainment is concerned. I'm up to 1959 in the diary... even characters in THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN go to the movies, and when does that take place? Well, it spans the course of several years, but I think they're going to the movies in 1913 or so. That's an estimate! Don't base your MAGIC MOUNTAIN book reports on my "blog." Don't use A.I. either! Yesterday, A.I. told me that I wrote a novel called YOUR BODY IS CALLING ME... ha ha! I wish! It also said I wrote GRAVESEND, which is a novel by Bill Boyle. Again: I wish! All right. How many controversies does that make? Zero? Well! Puttering around on the "blog" not too long ago... here, I'll tell you what I found by quoting an email I sent to McNeil: "According to a 'blog' 'post' from April 18, 2008, based on your own sworn testimony, you never wear a belt, not even when you tuck in your shirt. How does that square with your claim on May 7, 2024, of having [a] belt you have worn every day for almost 20 years? We're asking for your comments before we run with the story." Here is McNeil's reply: "I was probably referring to wearing a belt only at work, because my pants were too big. Outside of work, everything was 'snug'. But now it's the opposite. I have to wear [a belt] with all my pants - except I just don't anymore at work because they make me take it off anyway to go through security - which is a drag, man." Do you know where McNeil was when he sent his response? The Grand Canyon! I subsequently accused him of visiting the Grand Canyon every other week. He replied that he's been just three times, most recently in 2016. Well, now that I'm old, 2016 seems like yesterday to me. You'll find out. (I have a lingering idea that someone in Gombrowicz's novel THE POSSESSED may go to the movies. I'm probably wrong.) Wait! While innocently searching for the proper "hyperlinks," I just blew the lid off of something else! According to the "blog," McNeil was at the Grand Canyon in 2015, NOT in 2016 as he claims above. WHAT IS MCNEIL COVERING UP?

Witold Gombrowicz Is Like Jim Gaffigan

Time and time again we have established that I am wrong about everything. Here, let me give you a recent example! So, remember when I said I remembered going to Square Books and... wait. Please remind yourself that my brain was zapped by mysterious forces just a couple of years ago. But remember when I said I had seen a version of THE ILIAD blurbed by Emily Wilson but not translated by her? That can't be the case. Because I went to Square Books yesterday and saw with my own eyes Emily Wilson's translation of THE ILIAD, which I had convinced myself did not exist. And why would she blurb an ILIAD when she had a fresh new ILIAD of her own? I said to Mevelyn... wait! Let me tell you about Mevelyn. Mevelyn is from Cuba. She is a great bookseller. Case in point, she has forced me to buy a lot of Alejo Carpentier with her hypnotic powers. She tells a good ghost story. She knows everything about books! You can ask her about the different translations of DON QUIXOTE, for example, and she'll point out all their strengths and weaknesses. I always hope that Mevelyn will be working when I visit Square Books so I can hear a good ghost story or a nightmare she had about Karl Marx. Anyway, I grasped Emily Wilson's translation of THE ILIAD in my wizened paws and I says to Mevelyn, I says, "Hey! Mevelyn! Wasn't there a recent version of THE ILIAD with a blurb by Emily Wilson, but she didn't translate it? I feel like I'm going crazy!" So it sounds familiar to Mevelyn, too! She feels like she saw it recently. So we stand there a long time trying to figure out what the hell we are talking about. We are having one of those folies à deux that people enjoy so much. Anyway! When I got home, I realized what I had seen was a new translation of THE AENEID for which Emily Wilson wrote the introduction. Not a blurb! An introduction! Not THE ILIAD! THE AENEID! The important thing is that I had a coupon, so I was able to get Emily Wilson's translation of THE ILIAD for free, just about. That's the thing! Get yourself a "Constant Reader Number" at Square Books! Then you too will be able to grab an almost-free book once in a while. And so it came to pass that THE ILIAD is my current "nighttime book" and the DIARY of Witold Gombrowicz is my current "daytime book." I have reached the point in the diary where Gombrowicz has begun to attack himself, sotto voce, the way Jim Gaffigan does in his standup act. You know, Jim Gaffigan will tell a joke and then he'll switch to a soft, high-pitched, almost strangled voice, pretending to be an audience member, questioning his own premise. Is that a good description of what Jim Gaffigan does? No? How the hell would you know? Anyway, now Witold Gombrowicz is doing what Jim Gaffigan does... in diary form! It's like when Milhouse said that ALF was back in pog form. Everything is like when Milhouse said ALF was back in pog form.

I Gave Up

I thought I should tell you I stopped reading that giant hardcover "omnibus" of comics I mentioned yesterday. Why? Why did I give it up, I mean, not why did I think I should tell you. I don't have an answer for that one. Maybe because I'm unemployed and don't have anything else to do? As to the former question, however, it's not because I had shamed myself by mentioning it. It's because this "omnibus" is no damn good! The comics are too goofy. Yes, yes, I know I have often boasted perversely of loving the uncool, goofy comic book characters (not to be confused with the Disney character Goofy) the best... your Captain Marvel (the version often called "Shazam" by dimwits, for reasons I could get into here if I felt like it), your Metal Men, your Plastic Man, and so forth. But this glossy pile of junk I was reading was goofy in the wrong way. The goofiness it poured forth seemed born of bitterness and irony. The bitterness and irony of persons who have placed themselves high above goofiness. That's 1989 for you! There's a reason I originally stopped reading comic books when the price went up to 30 cents. Well, the reason was it became too expensive. Thirty cents is a lot of money! But the point is that the goofiness I like, the goofiness of your Plastic Man, your Metal Men, your Captain Marvel, is sincere and joyful... an embracing mechanism, not a distancing one. Anyway, I'd put this volume in the big overflowing garbage box of books they have for urchins to pick through in the park, but it's too damn big.

Feelin' Ancient

Am I going to read THE ILIAD? I'm afraid it appears likely. Was it Emily Wilson who got me on this ancient kick? I read her translation of THE ODYSSEY and her biography of Seneca, and then six plays by Seneca that she translated, which ruined me for reading things that were not ancient. I've even read ancient things I haven't bothered to tell you about on the "blog," such as Josephus. Josephus! And before I took up Witold Gombrowicz for the Million Dollar Book Club, Tacitus was my daytime book. Sitting around reading Tacitus in the broad daylight like some kind of animal! And I guess I'll pick up where I left off if I ever finish Gombrowicz. Okay, I'll be right back. I need to do a little research. All right, I'm back. I have confirmed a nagging feeling. It wasn't Emily Wilson who got me into all this. It was Kirk Douglas! ("Click" here for details.) Sorry, Emily Wilson! Anyway! I guess you're wondering where all this ILIAD crap is coming from, though. Well, remember when I decided to become interested in Simone Weil? I don't suppose any of us will ever forget it! So I'm going around learning stuff about Simone Weil and I see that she wrote a famous essay about THE ILIAD. So I get hold of that and I'm like, "Uh-oh! Here we go again!" And do I want to get my Robert Fagles translation of THE ILIAD off the shelf? Well, hell, no. Didn't I read it already? Or part of it? Did I ever finish it? Also, it's on a shelf behind a glass door with latches at both the top and bottom. That's a lot of work! The bottom latches, in addition, have some stuff piled in front of them, such as my blood pressure machine. Oh! Speaking of my blood pressure machine, let me come clean about something. I've told you many times that I stopped reading old comic books. I still say that is true. However! I do have a gigantic hardcover DC "omnibus edition" of comics that I currently sample while relaxing for five minutes before blood pressure time. This sturdy volume has just the kind of spine I need for laying out the book flat on the dining room table, where the medical task in question is undertaken. So yesterday, or the day before, I think, I saw a representation of the DC comics character the Spectre, and... here... allow me to quote an email I sent to Adam Muto on the subject: "I was looking at a DC comic book from 1989 and it had the Spectre in it, and he was really ripped! I was like... he's a ghost! Has he been going to the gym? You're the only person I could think of to tell." I did not add... "Or should I say RIPped?" because I thought such wordplay would make Adam sad and disappointed. Then I poked around on the "internet" because I was afraid "ripped" wasn't the right term. I spent a lot of time on "web" sites dedicated to parsing the difference between being "ripped" or "shredded" or "jacked" or "swole." But we're getting off the subject! Are we? Well, I recalled seeing a newish translation of THE ILIAD at Square Books. And given the fact that I'm going to have lunch with Tom Franklin one day soon, I just know I'll stop by on the way and pick it up. I can see the future! This ILIAD wasn't translated by Emily Wilson, but it had a blurb from Emily Wilson. [Wrong! - ed.] Now, as a person who has both given and received blurbs, I know that blurbs aren't really worth spit. Except for the time Lauren Graham blurbed one of my books! That one counted!

McNeil Absolved of Blasphemy

1. We drove down to visit my parents. We got a rental car with some of that sweet, sweet satellite radio we have learned to enjoy. So I turn it on and here comes "American Pie," Dr. Theresa's least favorite song. When he sang "Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry," Dr. Theresa said, "Drive it in! You can't drive it fast enough for me!" Ouch! Later, I was thinking, hey, shouldn't a levee be dry anyway? Isn't it supposed to keep the water out? I cannot vouch for the accuracy of my idle musing. So, anyway, changing the selection before Dr. Theresa could explode, I noticed that one of the preset stations specialized in bluegrass. "Did you set this to bluegrass?" I asked with obvious astonishment. Dr. Theresa's response, which was not exactly an answer, was something like, "What's wrong with bluegrass?" The answer is nothing. There is nothing wrong with bluegrass. But when I put it on the bluegrass channel, Dr. Theresa made me change it again because bluegrass, according to her, "sounds like they did a bunch of coke." An exact quotation! 2. My dad goes to a particular Waffle House every Saturday morning with a collection of his cronies. Dad said that someone who lives next door to this Waffle House keeps chickens, and the chickens wander over and hang out in the parking lot. People feed them. It's all part of the experience. I was of course reminded of the Original Frosty Mug, and the chickens that used to peck around your feet while you tried to drink a milkshake. I wondered glumly and aloud whether the Original Frosty Mug could possibly still be open for business seeing as how the interstate has been improved - quite a few years ago now - to bypass the town. Dad said there was a new chicken at the Waffle House. I asked him how he knew it was new. He said it had "different feathers and a different attitude." He described it as a "quick-acting, small chicken who didn't know the procedure." Quote! 3. While visiting down there on the Gulf Coast, I received an email from McNeil, indicating that he had received his copy of the Apocryphal Gospels. He waited so long for it that I was sure he would be disappointed, but such did not appear to be the case, as McNeil remarked gleefully that Young Jesus should have been sent to military school. I do not consider this blasphemy, given the apocryphal nature of the text. 4. As we began our departure from the Gulf Coast by way of the Dauphin Island Bridge, I was given to remark, "Pelicans are cool. You know, they got their big old mouths." QUOTE! I thought I could put that line in an upcoming unpublished novel. Speaking of my unpublished novels, I'll have something else to say about them below. 5. I accidentally left my hat at my parents' house! It was a nice hat I bought at a shop in Pasadena recommended by Adam Muto. I wore it to the racetrack with Pen! If I ever want my hat back, I guess I'll have to visit my parents again. 6. While down there, I received texts from Megan on the evening she attended Wallace Shawn's new play. She has a good story about all that, but I shan't share it here as it is hers alone. But I will tell you this! When I got home, I was reading the New York Times... and look, I skipped the New York Times a couple of days while traveling. Was it a relief? I think it was! But now I'm back to reading the New York Times and I see a review of Wallace Shawn's new play. And here, I'll quote a little bit from the review, which observes of one character, "given his ontological understanding of the Big Bang, all action is preordained." So! I have a character in one of my unpublished novels who thinks the same thing! And I was like, oh no, people will think I am trying to rip off Wallace Shawn in the unlikely event my unpublished novel is ever published! So I sent Megan an excerpt of my novel, to get her opinion about whether or not people in this highly improbable future I have imagined will think I'm trying to rip off Wallace Shawn. Here, I'll share a small portion of the chapter I sent Megan: "Everything was made of molecules! Every single thing that ever happened was because of a couple of molecules banging into one another, causing the creation of the universe itself, in Gram Rattan’s understanding. Everything that happened after that was just more and more molecules banging around. Even the thoughts in Gram Rattan’s head! ... Molecules obeying immutable laws! That first molecule hitting that second molecule, well, that was the only thing that had ever really 'happened' in Gram Rattan’s opinion. The rest was gravy." So anyway, Megan told me that in the Wallace Shawn play, the moment must have passed so subtly she barely noticed it. I paraphrase. Anyhow, we can all breathe a sigh of relief! 7. You know who plays the "Big Bang Guy," as I call him, in Wallace Shawn's play? John Early! He was in an episode of SUMMER CAMP ISLAND I worked on! And Wallace Shawn was on ADVENTURE TIME! I'm not 100% sure, but I think maybe he was on SUMMER CAMP ISLAND as well. Anyway, based on a profile I read of him in the New York Times, he would love it if you went up and shouted that fact in his face, especially if he happened to be standing in a "temple of art." According to the New York Times, if there is one thing Wallace Shawn can't get enough of, it is standing around in a "temple of art." 8. You know I don't care to lug a big fat book with me when I travel. So I left Witold Gombrowicz at home. Upon my return, I opened it up and the first thing I read was "God, allow me to vomit up the human body!" Ha ha. You had to be there. That's old Gomby for you. Funny, I was already thinking of him as "old Gomby" when Megan texted, referring to him as "Gommy." I bet he would love it! As much as Wallace Shawn would love to be told by strangers on the street that when he was on ADVENTURE TIME, his character farted.