So Yoko Calls

No question, though the man personally ticked me off, Dan Lyons’ “Diary of Steve Jobs” was genius funny, the voice so fully blended with the real madness of Steve at his most Steve-like—or so it felt … well, let me put it this way. Since we knew almost nothing of RSJ’s life, Fake Steve was a seamless extension, until, I swear, the fantasy was more real than the real.

Or, more likely, Fake Steve instantly became so vivid, so at once very Steve-like and at the same time over the edge — Bono driving Steve in his Mercedes at incredible speed down the 580 til he lightly taps the bumper of the car ahead of him, and they pull over and the guy is of course livid until he sees who it is, upon which he falls all over himself apologizing until Bono and Steve let him off the hook. And Bono tosses the poor sod one of those red iPods. “Because,” Steve writes, “that’s just the kind of guy he is.”

Oh I could go on. A friend asked, what was the deal with Yoko in my last post, and there you are, Dan Lyons. A bit of the fantasy that so had to be real, I remembered it as such. In the beginning, FS had a brilliant series of post each titled “So [somebody] Called.” Larry, Al, Eric (nickname Little Squirrel) and …. Yoko. Biggest pain in Steve’s ass ever—-his goal, of course, to get the Beatles on iTunes, her conditions the likes of “Yoko Ono and The Beatles.” Or, when she weakened just a tad, “The Beatles With Yoko Ono.” Hysterical not only funny-hysterical but tinged with the rueful hysteria everyone felt when this woman appeared who in every way did not fit in and was also naturally annoying. Annoying still, showing strained cleavage and an unbuttoned sweater at the anniversary of John’s death—what the hell was with that, Yoko? I mean, great, she has very large breasts, but we saw you naked how many years ago? So we know it took a hoist, now.

More later. My assistant, BreezeAnn, is bringing my morning smoothie, and then I have to meditate and fire somebody.

Namaste.

Fuck Me, I Think I’m Elder

Is this like something you have to be?

Or automatically become?

And why are there these special, all-cringeworthy words for getting older?

Why aren’t I the same person, granted in somewhat different form?

More bouts with that chronic illness that periodically take me off to OtherLand. You know, the one where you don’t live. Least not if you take life for granted. Your physical life, your mind. Which my illness blows all to hell. The body produces some killer chemicals, trying to keep it all in check. Whereas you, you lucky dogs, you just piss it out.

Naw, not during this whole time that I haven’t posted here. What that’s about is … I don’t know what that’s about, except I think it’s lousy to walk away from a blog without a word, which is what it looked like.

Men. Women. Just Saying.

Heart-rending story in the New York Times, The Life and Death of Therapist Bob Bergeron.… but perhaps not in the way you think. Depending perhaps on whether you are gay, a man. I’m not, but the beauty-fade? The loss of looks?  Getting old? The Creeping Decrepits, my son calls them. He, however, is only eighteen years younger than I, so he’ll get his. (He’s a Good Boy.) (Also a Senior GeoTech engineer, so I probably won’t be sending him this post.) You know the first thing I was thinking? Ladies,  do we kill ourselves when our looks disappear? The bright and shiny looks of youth? Noooo. And guys: this meat market, the whole guy hookup thing. Of which the Bergeron obit writes so blithely, so blindly. You think maybe it’s a tad empty? A tad suicidal, in and of itself?

Fish Knives

“Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages.”

While quoting Dave Barry is always an exercise in sheer comic bliss, here he has put his finger on something eternal, something existential, something irritatingly true.

And that is, other people are so terribly, awfully … other.

For one thing, they understand the gibberish with which they speak to one another. Whereas I, a proper English-speaking person, fail to see any difference between their babblage—however mellifluous (en Francais) or, as is the case far more frequently, just plain strange—and the language my sister and I made up on the spot, on long boring car rides. Complete with hand gestures. Never understanding, of course, a word that was said.

String Theory

Margaret Cho “I don’t know where sorrow is anymore . . .”

Such a lovely, haunting line, makes a person want to draw out the novel behind those words. Oh, yeah, that’s what it’s like, you hear a title—in the world, in your head—and if you can catch the end of that string—not easy—and have learned the patient art of holding—pulling—it’s rather like giving birth, in that you are an essential part of the process but not exactly in control. It’s a whole lot like a birth. I had to deliver a baby alpaca once when her exceptionally dimwitted mother kept spinning around to see what in god’s name was happening to her behind, the feeb. Fortunately she was a smallish animal—alpaca are not as large as llamas, nor do they spit as much. In fact, they reminded me, in style and personality, of nothing so much as cats.

North Korea: Failure to Launch

I never watch the news, but you know what I saw on the news? The fucking humanitarian aid, the food and supplies, North Korea receives?  The North Korean people are told that these are tributes. To their Leader. Then, if they’re lucky, I guess they get to eat.

I imagine the sun shines and the rice grows to the greater glory of the current Kim. I imagine all of creation has been made into one big tribute—especially the bad parts. For there is no one for turning his own crimes into personal glory like the professional narcissist. But even if all you know is the amateur, it’s all the same. The absence, the carefully cultivated inability to acknowledge other people. These people are the Sun King, in their own lives.

You Don’t Know What Is Happening Here, Do You, Ms. Katehi?

Verrry interesting. The slow tap tap of her heels … in all that silence. Just devastating.

Depending on which video you see, her face is quite visible, and she seems to look out over that long line of students with some surprise. No threat. That there was no threat to her was palpable. That extraordinary silence. The smartest damn protest I’ve ever seen. We’ve come a long way since the Sixties. When general melee was all. That or stopping troop trains, that was a fair biggie. Then of course the trains were routed elsewhere, and eventually the tracks torn up. But whoa, lost in the past again.

Letting Go Of Steve

Jobs had been teaching us to say goodbye to all that for decades — we just didn’t know it.

… in these final years, when the auditorium lights in would go down and the crowd would go wild for Jobs, who increasingly greeted his followers and touted the latest neat, new thing even as he wore the look of a person who was not going into that future with us.

He would be getting off here; we were to proceed without him … Let it go and look ahead was the message all along.
Hank Stueval in the Washington Post

Okay, I’m going to cry some more.

Such a lovely piece. Not that Steve’s death has sunk in—I can’t think of anything weirder than seeing the words Steve Jobs and Dead together. Was there ever anybody more alive, more publicly embracing of this temporary condition we call our lives. And Jobs and I had so much in common. Hippies who wouldn’t take direction from anybody, the kind of people who have to do things their own way. Perhaps that’s what made it so personal; I recognized his star—you know, the one by which you set your course. Not that my own outcome didn’t fall apart, but still, if you are born that way, you are.