The Norm

Some of you may have read this already. Whether you have or haven't, I hope you enjoy it. I wrote it a few years ago after waking up from that place just after awake and just before asleep.



When Norm finally met his creator, he thought he was totally prepared. And so, of course, he wasn’t.

Norm opened his eyes, blinked two or three times, and gazed around him. He was floating, but this did not surprise him much. What did surprise him, however, was the little green sphere that he seemed to be floating toward.

“H-Hello?” There was no echo whatsoever.

“Hello-o-o…” Nothing. Norm could see now that the little green sphere was turning, rotating, and that there was something on the side that was about to face him. He tried to slow himself down, but just kept floating toward the sphere at the same speed, no matter how he clawed or flailed. Soon he saw a little shack, like a large outhouse, and next to it was a man in a floral-patterned shirt sitting in a lawn chair. He flicked something toward Norm and it zoomed by him with a whoosh, and was gone. The man and the house rotated out of view once more, and Norm crashed into the little green sphere. He bounced only a little.

“Where am I?” asked Norm, swatting at his shirt a couple times after realizing there was nothing to brush off. “I’m dead, right?”

The man took a bite of something, nibbled a bit, and flicked. This time, Norm recognized it as a pistachio shell. It flew off into the darkness, accelerating as it went.

“Yeh, guess you are. Or else why would you be here, am I right?” Crunch crunch crunch.

“I saw the gun pointing at me, and I remember thinking I was about to die, but then I was here. This could just be what unconsciousness is like. Or a coma, even.”

“Yeh, I suppose it could be, but most folks who come by here talk about their car being out of control or not being able to see their grandkids again. So you’re dead, likelier than not.” Nibble nibble.

“Makes sense. So where am I now?” The man looked at him and stopped nibbling the nut. “Well?” asked Norm again.

“Oh, sorry, I was just waiting for you to ask if this was Heaven or Hell. Most folks do.” Flick. Whoosh!

Norm snorted. “Huh, well, no, I don’t believe in either of those.”

“So where are you going after this?”

Norm suddenly realized that the man was wearing a Goofy hat. Not just a goofy hat, but one from Disneyland with Goofy the dog on it, his buck teeth sticking down from the bill. He had a sudden urge to say it, or better yet, shout it. I’m going to Disneyland! Later he would realize that he probably should have.

“I don’t know, I guess… I still don’t know where ‘this’ is…”

“This, my boy, is the beginning. This is where it all started. And I’m the one who started it.” Crunch crunch.

“What, the universe?” Norm was incredulous, and rightfully so. The man in the lawn chair flicked another shell. This one didn’t whoosh, but dropped down by Norm’s foot rather unimpressively.

“Huh. A dud.” The man cracked another shell.

“Where are you getting those? No – never mind. Are you telling me… are you telling me you’re… God?”

“Nah. Not any god you’ve ever heard of, anyway. Yeah, I created this universe, but I’m not exactly a deity.” Nibble nibble.

Norm thought for a moment. “This universe? You mean there’re more?”

“Shit, the guy in the next room might have one, for all I know. I’ve never been anywhere but right here, with occasional jaunts out there.” He pointed into the darkness, where tiny specks were now visible. “You’re from Earth, which is right over the chimney. See it? I drew a circle around it.” Norm saw it. It looked very small.

“So what else is out there? Is there intelligent life on any of them?”

“Yup, yup, on one of ‘em back that way.” The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “You guys’ll never find it, though. You look in all the wrong places. It’s expanding, outward, and that’s where humans look. If they would just look back this way a bit, they’d probably find me smiling and waving. They never will, though. I think it’s winding down anyway.” Flick. Whoosh!

“Winding down?”

“Yeah. See, the other world with intelligent life is almost dead. Your planet isn’t far behind. When there’s nothing left worth watching, I guess it’ll be someone else’s turn to try. When I woke up a long, long time ago, I came out of that shack right there and the guy who was sitting in this chair stood up, looked around and said ‘Good luck, kid’ and then vanished. I suppose that’s how it’ll be for me.”

Norm was getting excited. “So you created everything? How did you do it?”

“Well,” said the man, popping a whole pistachio in his mouth,” it was mostly trial and error. I started off with easy things, like plants. Easy, but boring. Then I started making little animals. Then bigger animals. Then I got really good, and I had all sorts of creatures walking around. All different. A little while longer, and I figured out how to make one like myself. He was so much fun. I never knew what he was going to do next. All of them, I mean. I made a lot, but you guys are pretty good at making yourselves. Only problem was the dinosaurs. They were eating you faster than you could reproduce. So I had to squash them. That’s when-“

“You squashed them? What do you mean?”

“Stepped on ‘em. Most of ‘em, anyway. People eventually took care of the rest.” Norm looked at the man in the Goofy hat, trying to imagine him stepping on dinosaurs.

“But what happens now?” Norm was getting impatient. “Is this it?”

“Oh no, I imagine you’ll be leaving any minute.”

“To go where?”

The man stopped munching for a few seconds. “Don’t know, kid, I honestly don’t know. Been trying to figure that out for a long, long time. I’m always hoping – well, I’m hoping that one of these days, one of you will be able to tell me.” Norm looked away, uncomfortable. But who am I uncomfortable for? he thought. Him, or me? Pretty soon, Norm started to feel a little uneven, like he was walking on the deck of a sailboat in choppy waters.

“Take it easy, kid. Looks like you’re on your way out. Some people, they just shimmer and…disappear. Some shoot off like rockets… never in the same direction though… looks to me like you’re all ashimmer… come back and let me know how it turns out, if you get a chance…”

Norm took one last wavering look, and saw the man in the lawn chair nibbling on something. Flick. Whoosh!

Love and the Blimp

There's a really ostentatious blimp that's been hanging around San Bernardino the last week or so. The whole thing is illuminated, and twice now it's had me thinking it was the moon as I left work. It has a giant scrolling marquee that's in full color, which was impressive, and then the damn thing started playing a movie or something and I had to put my eyes back on the road. It belongs to a place in Vegas that, as far as I can tell, is called 'M.' And somehow I've been getting heartburn again this week. A year ago I had strep throat, and I went from having heartburn once or twice a day to having it only once every six months. Can't explain it, but I had forgotten how annoying it was.

I was thinking today about one of my favorite movie scenes of all time. It's Gary Cooper in Love In The Afternoon, a Billy Wilder Flick from either 1954 or 1957. Audrey Hepburn's character has fallen in love with this wealthy American hot shot playboy, and in order to make him jealous she makes up a whole list of men she has been with and leaves it on his tape recorder. This scene starts shortly after he starts listening to it. You miss a little of the beginning, but frankly I was surprised to find such a good clip that had most of the scene. The scene I speak of ends at about 3:30, although if you watch the whole clip you just might want to see the movie. The playboy, Mr. Flanagan, has a mariache band of sorts that he flies all over the world with him. They always play 'Fascination' when he's putting the moves on a lady. This is him with the band while listening to the recording of the girl who's got him vexed.

Politics Explained

Omar posted this earlier. Neither he nor I knows who gets the credit for writing it, but it's good.


Politics Explained
FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all of the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and put them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you need.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both of them and shoots you.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

PURE ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

LIBERTARIAN/ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.


As soon as I get another giraffe, my plans will be complete. I'll be seceding. Who's with me? Also, I had forgotten how much I like Mazzy Star. I'm having a hard time deciding whose voice I like better - hers, or Margo's from Cowboy Junkies.






BONUS: Both songs about angels. Suddenly I'm wondering if PJ Harvey has any songs about angels.

Motivation?

Also, I just wrote a super-mini poem.

Of wine I keep my mind but lose my body
Of beer I keep them both and just go potty

Let's Hear It For Sully

Caveat: This post is not about Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

I'm sure you've seen the outstanding pictures of an even more outstanding feat by now, but This Guy has a pair that must require special drawers. Sure, his knees are probably still shaking now, but imagine how elated he's going to feel tomorrow.

So I was dining on Hamburger Helper and a fine cabernet sauvignon tonight, and reflecting on how easy it is for someone like me to fill his head with inconsequential information these days. This morning on the radio I heard "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" and could not remember who sang it. Fifteen years ago, I would've asked everyone I knew (with no luck)and then spent the whole day trying to remember. Sometime in the evening I would've remembered my Weird Al tape that had "Stop Draggin' My Car Around" and also remembered that the writer of the song being parodied was always credited in the liner notes. So if the writer was the singer, I could find out as soon as I got off work. I would've gotten home and found that this particular cassette had no liner notes, and at that point I'd've had to call a radio station or something. Now, 5 seconds on the internet and I don't have to wonder anymore. Then I spend the next two hours finding out stuff that I have no reason to know, except for the hope that I do better at trivia. I packed all kinds of knowledge into my head. Also, I forgot to pay both my credit card bills last month. But did you know that Brian Keith played Hardcastle in "Hardcastle and McCormick?" That was a trivia question earlier tonight.

Just now I read about Brian Keith. His mother was Peg Entwistle, an actress who committed suicide in 1932 by jumping off the H in the Hollywood (Hollywoodland) sign. She was in plays in Boston, Los Angeles and Broadway. I was thinking how cool it would be to live in the 20s and 30s, and not be poor, and go to plays and such, and wear a suit and hat without it being a costume. And then I thought about what's going on right now that I'm missing. Someday when I'm old or dead some kid is going to say "I wish I could have lived in the aughts." Aught nine, year of the drought. My goal is to write something someday that that kid will read. I think I need to practice. My first step is to remember how to write a sentence without having the word "that" twice in a row.

The weather in San Bernardino has been more like mid-October than January. Windy, warm and dry. The other day, when the weather was exceptionally like this, I was behind a girl in a Mitsubishi Montero that had a sticker on the back which read "Coalition For An Idiot Free America." Would you be surprised if I told you she threw her lit cigarette out the window? It was so big that she obviously only smoked half of it, and left the other half for the wind to smoke.

That reminded me of a story that I wrote exclusively in my blog about a year ago, about a guy who wishes that every piece of trash thrown out a window would come right back in. It caused chaos, and yet people didn't learn. That blog is gone so I'll have to rewrite it one of these times.

So, no original poetry today. I started a good Christmas one that I have yet to finish. But I'm really looking forward to it.

Ta ta for now.

The Future's Uncertain and the End is Always Near

So - what else could I do for my first blog, but this?

FAIL.

I wanted to post Rick Astley here, but everyone on YouTube is vying for views (still?) so embedding is disabled. Technically, you weren't even going to be RickRolled... you would've had to click play, and RickRolling involves taking away your choice to see/hear it. Anyway, now that the whole thing's ruined, you can watch "Never Gonna Give You Up" here.

NEXT: A poem I wrote last night.

WE LOVED each other like
it was our last night alive
it was
and the mountains laughed

WE TALKED like we were
meeting for the first time
we weren't
and the mountains sighed

WE CRIED like the world was
ending, already
it would
and the mountains rolled their eyes

we explained how volcanoes worked
and what they would do
they did
and the mountains shut their fucking mouths and exploded



And so it begins. Welcome!

MC