Just Some Thoughts III

Just Some Thoughts III:  Filial Piety
3.4.2012 -- 3.24.2012


Son, before you board that train that will take you away to college, i'd like to share some things with you.  Just some thoughts that you might find informative or enlightening, some minor factoids, some modest kernels of wisdom from your old man.  Are you down?  Yes?  Splendid.

One thing that i've learned in life is to never buy those filet'o'fish sandwiches from McDonald's.  Not only are they small, overpriced, and relatively tasteless, but they tend to have very inconvenient tartar sauce distribution.  Most of the fish patty will be dry, but there will be a hidden glob of the tangy stuff located somewhere in the center.  Not dead center, but very near.  You'll be joylessly chomping the horrid thing and lamenting the lack of sauce, but when you least expect it, your teeth will come together and the force of your bite will launch a blob of pure sauce out the side.  This has happened to me several times, and the errant sauce will almost always get smeared in the zipper teeth of my jacket.  And then i have to take the whole garment off and run it under a faucet to remove the sauce.  I don't want this to ever happen to you.

Do you know where to get a shockingly decent commercial fish sandwich?  Arby's.  I'm not joking.  But wait, you say, isn't food from Arby's terrible without exception?  Yes, oh yes, but not their fish sandwiches, which are large, flaky, savory, and dripping with properly-distributed sauce that won't result in accidental blowback.  The one downside is that they don't have american cheese, but i plan ahead and bring my own slices of Kraft American cheese product to melt over the hot fish.  It's delicious.  They also frequently sell their fish sandwiches at the superb price of two-for-four dollars.  One now, one for later.  What could be better?

Oh, fish sandwiches are all fine and good, but i bet what you really want to know about is girls.  Ha, yes, i'm getting around to those.  

Hmm.

Finding a decent partner won't be easy, my child.  You are about to enter a fast-paced world of modern relationships where the old rules of genteel courtship have largely broken down and are being replaced by a certain polymorphous anarchy.  I already know that you will be a gentleman and act only with care, and courtesy, and treat every female you meet with the same dignity with which we treat your mother.  That, i already know.  But here are a few further tips...

...for one thing, be careful if a girl tries to get you to act gay.  This is a new and curious trend, found mostly amongst the liberals and feminists.  But even an old bounder like me is aware of it.  You might be getting to know some girl that might seem a bit out of your reach, a real fast cookie that throws the good parties and sets the agenda.  And she might, in the midst of wild times, try to get you to kiss your best friend, or wear makeup, or some other silliness for her entertainment, because it "makes her moist" to see guys act like that.  Or maybe she'll just hold up a picture of one of the homosexuals from Twilight and ask you, "do you think he's hot? Oh, come on!"  Girls today have a puzzling fascination with gayness because it's risque and makes their parents squirm.  I get that.  But you should never be so tempted by some hot snatch that you'll let it turn you into her plaything.  It doesn't work, anyway.  As much as it seems that women want to boss you around, what they want even more is to be bossed around.  You'll see.  You can make out with your roommate, tag along with her to a Lady Gaga concert, listen to her cry on the phone for three hours about her sorry life... and you still won't get into her undies.  Next time you see her, she won't even have time to talk because her dirt-encrusted redneck boyfriend, some real glad-handing son-of-a-bitch, will be telling her to hurry the fuck up and get her fine ass back in his Dodge Durango.  She'll be past her experimental phase.  With the real world approaching fast on the horizon, her subconscious will have ceased to offer endorphin rewards for actions that defy her parents; the biological cluster  pulsing in her abdomen will be releasing new hormonal surges that will activate the nesting instinct and drive her to seek out a dominant male with a pheramone signature similar to that of her father.  And you'll have sold your masculine pride for jack fucking squat.  The worst part is that she won't even realize it.  Bitches don't stop to ask themselves why they pull this shit, they just do it.  Protect your mind, my son.  Greater men than us have been reduced to gibbering insanity and committed to feces-smeared asylum cells by their feeble attempts to unravel the twisted female psyche.  Such endeavors are futile.  Just remember what i've said, and what you ought to say the first time she asks you to watch The Hunger Games -- fuck that, ladypie, if we're gonna watch a movie tonight it's going to be motherfucking Iron Eagle II, and if that ain't good enough for you then go make me some goddamn stew or something.  She might stomp off in a huff, but trust me, she'll come crawling back.  

Your mother certainly did.  Many times.  

As for real homosexuals, you must still respect them.  When you encounter one, listen to what it says.  And do not kill it.  Such actions are no longer accepted by society.

Of course, your first year will hopefully be so hectic that trifles such as fish sandwiches and poontang won't be anywhere near the top of your inbox.  I trust that your relationships with your new professors will be more important to you, studious lad that you are.  While i hope that you admire, respect, and treasure the wisdom of your new mentors, always remain level-headed and even skeptical at times.  Many tenured profs are intellectually ambitious and free-thinking and have their own pet theories about this and that.  I'd be surprised if you didn't hear certain rumors circulating amongst the intellectuals concerning the emergence of a new world order.  That there is a coalescing power structure composed of international megacorporations and world banks that intends to establish a central mechanism of control that supercedes the authority of all individual nations and citizens; the ultimate goal being a single currency, a single language, and a monolithic one-world government  that will swallow virtually every organized human activity; agriculture, industry, politics, property, science, finance, communication, and the arts.  All Eight Spheres dominated by a unipolar will.... if you hear of such things, well, i can tell you with absolute certainty that this is true.  And that it is desirable, perhaps the most desirable of all things.  Only when we banish the poisons of nationalism and tribalism will we see a world united in true harmony.  Were the filthy inhabitants of Larder's Gulch lessened in any way when their wretched hamlet became part of a greater whole known as Penn's Woods, later Pennsylvania?  Were the inhabitants of Pennsylvania then diminished when they joined the American union?  Of course not.  Neither shall America suffer when it is absorbed into the One World Coalition.  If your professors object to this unifying concept, i presume that you will stand firm and remind them that any dissenters to the Unification will be violently purged in the turbulent years between 2025 and 2032.  Any who survive will be little more than slaves.

You know, that reminds me.  I've already given you the scoop when it comes to girls and queers, but i forgot to mention the pitfalls of dealing with African-Americans.  Yes, yes, we have made such great strides since the Civil Rights era, and i've heard the pundits refer to yours as the first "post-racial" generation.  Now that may be so, but deep schisms remain below the surface.  Just take this recent case in the news, that Florida whackjob who gunned down the Skittles kid for no good reason.  It's certainly affecting the dialectic and reigniting some old dialogues.  Now, i don't think you're going to kill a black person for no reason.  I'm more afraid of certain uncomfortable frictions that can arise purely from cultural differences.  For example, if you invite any of them to dinner, i'd avoid serving beef-based dishes.  It's not true so much today, but in years past, beef was expensive and therefore not accessible to post-Reconstruction black families.  Their diets were instead based on cheaper meats, legumes, and greens.  If you don't believe me, walk up to a white guy and ask him, "Porterhouse or New York Strip?" and you'll receive an immediate and enthusiastic answer.  Ask the same thing of a black guy and you'll receive naught but baffled brows and a shrug for your troubles.  So if black guests are coming to the table, you might want to serve the flesh that they are more accustomed to consuming, such as swine, river crustaceans, carp or other bottom-feeding garbage fish, and yard bird.  

Do this, and you'll win some subconscious brownie points from them.  Pun intended.

Son, i've been flipping through your iPod here and i've noticed a real dearth of rock and roll.  I suppose that's for the best.  That once-mighty genre has lost its vitality and is a pale shadow of what it once was.  What ever happened to those pitiful retro-rock bands that came into sudden vogue in the last decade -- the White Stripes, the Strokes, the Hives, the Vines?  The Killers and Franz Ferdinand?  Buoyed by artificial hype, they were pushed onto the stage and quickly withered in the heat of the klieg lights.  No true rockers, they.  The true rockers, the true tough guys, have pretty much gone extinct from alcohol poisoning and drug overdoses.  Whenever i hear an old AC/DC song on the radio i think of those wild days of pure rock and roll.  And then i usually think of rape.  Pretty much every song from that band was about rape in some way.

Son, do you believe in God?  

Have we discussed this before?

It's very possible that a supreme consciousness exists.  The real question you should ponder is -- is this to my benefit?  Does it perceive me?  Can it offer salvation?  On the hill of Kouroo where the birds gather in the Circle of Winds i beheld the ragged shaman, his brown skin turned leathery from months of exposure as he battled the limits of his endurance and the terrible crush of the cosmos.  He gave me tests, and after i had proven my mettle to him, we squatted around his cookfire and ate the secret fruits that grew in the shadows of the standing stones.  Long we had counsel around the flames in those cold Welsh highlands, our minds flayed raw by the powerful drugs within the fruits.  Naked, my skin bitten by the icy wind and scorched by the occasional popping ember, i received his knowledge.  The shaman claimed to have seen the face of God and that we are as the tiniest cells that swim in the veins of this leviathan, one with all.  Sadly the all-being is scarcely aware of us, and cannot preserve our mortal spirits in the way that the pious wish.  Nay, no more than could we rescue and protect for eternity a single mitochondrion that lives and dies within our greasy intestines.  By necessity it dies and is reabsorbed.  Such is the tragic glory of our existence!  We are vital parts of creation and still utterly disposable, transmutable, a liquid that flows from one state to another without meaning or memory.  He grasped the sides of my face and begged me to remember this; for he would endeavor to forget.  Had he brought this message to his tribe they would have killed him for blaspheming their many gods and attendant spirits to which they childishly pray and prostrate themselves before, imaginary phantoms of the primitive consciousness.

This is why i scorn our funereal practices.  When i die, i should like my mortal form to be eaten by animals, turned into fertilizer, or returned promptly to the life cycle in some other way.  Yes, you must cube my meat and feed it to the urchins, the sea cucumbers, and the sleek manta rays that creep along the bottom of the oceans.  Then i shall be at peace.  I shall no longer be your father, i shall be known as Monsieur Manta Poop.  And what eats the manta poop?  Remoras?  Brain coral?  Barracudas?  Shall i one day return to land in the form of a fish sandwich?  As you have already guessed, i would greatly prefer to have my corporeal encore as an Arby's fish sandwich and not the inferior McDonalds filet'o'fish.  To feel those creamy slices of Kraft American cheese melt over my tender, toasty backside?  Oh, would be bliss.

As my son, it is your duty to do everything in your power to make this happen.  I hope that when you return from these four years of education, you will be prepared to help me make this dream of mine come true.

Ah, son.

Son, son, son.  

I've greatly enjoyed this little chat.  I hope that you have as well.  

The last thing i'd like to impart is... look, i'm aware that you're not really my son, and that we've never met before.  I'm not that far gone.  But it's like this... i never found the proper soil in which to plant my seed, and never had a child of my own.  But if i did, i like to think that he'd be about your age now.  I think of all the wisdom that i have to pass on and how tragic that it would be to let it go to waste.  Burns me right up.  That's why i like to hang around this train station in the autumn, and bequeath these teachings to fresh-faced young bucks like you.  That way it needn't all die with me.  

I must say, you've come closer to breaking my grip than most.  

But let's be honest here, not only do i have the weight advantage and superior leverage, but my knowledge of jujitsu is such that escaping my hold would be practically impossible without advanced training.  

It would be wise to just patiently listen until i've said my peace.  

Will you do that, son?