No Country for Old Mentals

I'm the first to admit I'm self-indulgent, rebellious, undisciplined, unconcerned with the opinions of others, follow my own random impulses, and do not readily listen to anyone else. However,, I've accomplished quite a bit in spite of this tendency toward heedless self- indulgence. On the other hand, I often wonder how much further I could have gotten with a little discipline. Not that I ever expected to make it this far. For that matter, I never made it a habit to have expectations of any kind. My High School coach used to bellow that having expectations is a bad habit that makes an EX out of PEC and some guy named TATION. Or something like that. I think my high school coach was kinda confused from too many hits to the head.

With a messy mind like mine, accessing my knowledge on demand is a random and uncertain thing. For example, I'm a Buddhist. I've studied the Dhamma for many years, and know a lot about it. If you catch me at a time when I'm thinking about Buddhism--when my mind is in the vicinity of the subject--I can tell you a great deal about it. But if I happened to be focused on say, harmonicas and you ask me a question about Buddhism, my response may make you wonder if I've been hanging around opium dens.

This isn't a sign of age, as my aging friends piss and moan about all the time. I've been like this all my life. I have this restless mind which seizes on a subject, wears it out, then moves on. My brain packs the information away in a closet, and the information is there, and I can get to it, but I have to rummage for it. There are constants in my life, like Buddhism, music, my profession, certain literature, things like that, but they get cluttered up with the usual minutia of daily life and it all looks like your laundry at spin cycle. You reach in, grab a sock, reach in again, and only random chance and chaos theory determines if you grab the matching sock. You may grab a jock strap instead, and walk around all day mismatched and thinking very strange thoughts.

But from the juxtaposition of those two randomly-grabbed items a new amalgam is formed, and I think for some people, this is the source of humor and creativity . I'm serious. Some have a messy, cluttered mind, where all sorts of random crap tumbles around, and every now and then two or more items tangle together and seem funny. So for these people, when the mind whirls about, cluttered, tangled, messy, they have to periodically engage in some sort of creative process as a form of cleaning out the closet--mentally doing the dirty laundry. This also explains why logical, orderly people--for all their strengths and usefulness-- are rarely creative or funny: they aren't messy enough. Those highly rational people usually like puns, and as we all know, puns aren't funny; in fact, when the office rocket-head traps you in the corner and subjects you to his 101 favorite puns, you want to find the nearest window and leap to your death onto the searing pavement along with that decaying possum. And maybe the reason so many possums are seen dead on the side of the road is because foxes have a great love for puns.

This is a clumsy metaphor but maybe you see the point. I think perhaps some of our more gruesome writers may experience another form of catharsis when they put their nightmares on paper; allowing them to sleep peacefully at night, or maybe preventing them from ax-murdering their neighbor. Perhaps the difference between a Stephen King and a BTK is the ability to get it out of their head and project it onto paper. So protect the safety of your community by supporting this blog, and read it daily, and encourage all your friends to subscribe, because the more readers I have the safer civilization will be.

If You Meet Jesus on the Road...

About ten years ago at about 4 O'clock in the morning, my late friend Sam and I were driving to the Raleigh Durham airport to catch a flight to a Florida series of performances, along a very dark back road, and son of a bitch if I didn't see Jesus Christ, robe, sandals and all other Christly accouterments, walking along the roadside.

I looked at Sam, who stared at the road ahead with a glassy, dazed expression. He said, "You see Him too?"

I said, "Yes.”

"Thank God."

Sam's face worked as he struggled with a decision. He pulled over, looked at me, then spun the car in the opposite direction. He said, "If Jesus isn't on the side of that damned road—we're NOT getting on that airplane."

We drove back and there He was, the spitting image of Jesus strolling up the road. We watched as Our Savior walked up to a parking area, hitched his robes, climbed into a rusty pickup truck and drove off.

Speech failed us. Sam started the car and we continued on our way to the airport.

As we drove further up the road, and as the sun rose over the wintry horizon, we saw a sign on a church announcing an all night Christmas pageant. Obviously our Jesus was walking to his truck after the performance. It was all right though. As Christ had spun out of the parking lot, a cigarette dangling from his lips, he’d given us a thumbs-up. I took this as a portent it would be okay for us to board our flight.

For ten minutes, we almost thought we had experienced an epiphany.