Galileo’s Gambit

A recently unearthed transcript of the Inquisition’s Trial of Galileo in Rome in 1633 reveals that the astronomer’s charm offensive nearly got him off the hook.

INQUISITOR: Galileo Galilei, you have been brought before this tribunal on very serious charges. They include–

GALILEO: This isn’t about that, uh, little crack I made the other day, is it?

INQUISITOR: Crack?

GALILEO: Yeah, that silly business about the Earth rotating around the sun. You see, I was knocking off for lunch with some astronomer buddies, and my pal Enrico says, “Hey, guys, I’m treating today,” and I say, “Right, and the Earth rotates around the sun.” (laughs casually, then rises) That’s all there was to it. You know, I’m really glad to get this whole thing straightened out. (starts moving nonchalantly toward the exit) You guys have been terrific, really. I’ve always said the Inquisition gets a bad rap.

INQUISITOR: Sit down, Signor Galilei.

GALILEO stops, unnerved by the stern looks from the INQUISITOR and the JUDGES.

GALILEO: You see, Enrico’s a real skinflint. I was being sarcastic.

INQUISITOR: I said sit down.

GALILEO sheepishly returns to his seat.

INQUISITOR: And the maps illustrating a helio-centric solar system we confiscated in your study? Were those intended to be sarcastic too?

GALILEO: Oh, yeah, the maps. That’s kind of a funny story, your Honor.

INQUISITOR: Please make it brief.

GALILEO: Well…I have this, uh…nephew, you see…

INQUISITOR: Nephew?

GALILEO: (clearly winging it) Right, and he’s…how shall I put it? He’s half a bubble off plumb. A good boy, you understand, but when the Good Lord passed out the brains–

INQUISITOR: Can you get to the point?

GALILEO: Of course, your Eminence. He gets these hair-brained ideas into his head. Well, one of them was this nonsense about the Earth rotating around the sun. You try to talk sense into them, but…well, he draws up these maps, I tell him not to leave them around my study, people could get the wrong idea, but it’s in one ear and out the other. If your grace has teenagers at home–

INQUISITOR: And where is this nephew of yours now?

GALILEO: France, my Lord.

INQUISITOR: France.

GALILEO: Wants to see the world, you know. I told him, “Finish your degree first, then see the world, but–“

INQUISITOR: (holds up a book) And did this “nephew’ of yours also write this book?

GALILEO: What, uh, what book would that be, your Honor?

INQUISITOR: Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei.

GALILEO: No, um, that’s uh, that’s me, your Grace.

INQUISITOR: And doesn’t this book propagate the heretical theory that the Earth rotates around the sun?

GALILEO: “Propagate” is a strong word, your Eminence.

INQUISITOR: I would advise the accused to stop hedging.

GALILEO: Not to split hairs, your Grace, but hedging involves–

INQUISITOR: You’re doing it again.

GALILEO: I’m merely suggesting that–

INQUISITOR: Perhaps Signor Galilei would prefer to go downstairs for interrogation?

GALILEO: Downstairs?…uh, what was the question?

INQUISITOR: Does your book propagate the theory that the Earth rotates around the sun?

GALILEO: Some might interpret it that way, my Lord.

INQUISITOR: And in your book isn’t the church’s position of an Earth-centered solar system put forth by a character named “Simplicio,” which translates as simpleton?

GALILEO: I suppose one could translate–

INQUISITOR: So your book not only posits a heretical theory, Signor Galilei, but it directly ridicules the church’s position, which is taken directly from the word of God. Do you see the problem we have here?

GALILEO: You want me to denounce the book as false and recant, right?

INQUISITOR: You’re very perceptive, Signor Galileo.

GALILEO: Yeah, well, uh…look, I know the Inquisition doesn’t generally cut deals, but hear me out. Why not tell everyone I fled the country and burn me in effigy? I keep a low profile, stick around the old home front. I don’t get out much any more anyway. This way you make an example of me, people stay away from my book, and best of all, the Inquisition doesn’t come off like an ogre. No offense but your image could use a little softening.

INQUISITOR: Signor Galilei, the Holy Office has no interest in “softening its image”!

GALILEO: Forgive me if I seem impertinent, my Lord, but your public image is directly undermining your mission. Now, I’m just spit-balling it here, but I’ve got a couple of ideas that might help get John Q. Public on your side.

INQUISITOR: Signor Galilei–

GALILEO: For starters the “Inquisition” is a little on the intimidating side. Cold, unapproachable. What you’re really doing is encouraging people’s faith, am I right? So why not call it “The Holy Faith Encouragement Office”?

INQUISITOR: This is outrageous, Signor Galilei! (shouting to GUARDS) Take him downstairs for interrogation!

The GUARDS start moving toward GALILEO.

JUDGE #1: Wait a minute. What was that? The Holy Faith…?

The GUARDS stop.

GALILEO: The Holy Faith Encouragement Office, your Honor.

JUDGE#1: Interesting.

INQUISITOR: What?

JUDGE#1: Something like that might give us more of a human face.

INQUISITOR: But your Honor–

JUDGE#1: Tell me more about this “image softening,” Signor Galilei.

GALILEO: With pleasure, your Honor. I’m talking about a complete makeover. Take off the black hats, break out the million dollar smiles and charm the pants off Christendom. As it is now, you guys go out in the streets and everybody clams up, am I right?

JUDGE#1: You know, I have heard some of our officers make that complaint.

GALILEO: (approaching JUDGE#1) Now the way I see it, an officer of the Holy Faith Encouragement Office should be like a friendly teacher you had in school…someone you can kid around with but keeps you on the straight and narrow. Okay, you run some ads, do some billboards. A handsome, young officer with a winsome smile and a cute kid. With one hand, he’s warding off Satan. With the other, he’s handing the kid a piece of chewing gum.

INQUISITOR: (to JUDGE#1) Your Honor, this is really–

JUDGE#1: I like it! It gives us more of a positive image.

GALILEO: Exactly, your Honor. What image comes to mind now when people hear the Inquisition? Dungeons, instruments of torture, people being burnt at the stake. You remember all the ill will created when Giordano Bruno was burned in the Campo de’ Fiori?

JUDGE#1: What?

GALILEO: I’m just saying that when Giordano Bruno was burnt–

JUDGE#1: I was one of the judges that condemned Bruno.

GALILEO: Oh, well…I’m sure your Grace didn’t mean to–

JUDGE#1: Let me tell you something, Signor Galilei. In addition to being a heretic, he was an arrogant son-of-a-bitch!

GALILEO: Sure, I mean–

JUDGE#1: Now we’ve been patient with you, Signor Galilei because we believe you’re misguided. So if you’ll just sign the recantation form we’ve prepared for you, you’ll be home in no time, under house arrest of course.

JUDGE#1 nods to the INQUISITOR, who takes the recantation form off his desk along with a pen and presents it to GALILEO.

GALILEO: And if I don’t sign?

JUDGE#1: You have your choice of a birch or cedar wood stake.

Terrified, GALILEO grabs the pen and scribbles his signature on the document.

INQUISITOR: (to GUARDS) Get him out of here.

The GUARDS take the stunned GALILEO by the arms and lead him to the exit.

Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Schedule Freed Up to Speak at Republican Convention

Jerry Falwell Jr.’s sudden resignation from the presidency of Liberty University Monday has freed up his schedule so that he will now be able to speak to the Republican Convention on the topic of Christian values.

“I just felt that speaking to the president’s supporters, who I know take their core Christian beliefs as seriously as I do, was more important than whatever good I could do at Liberty,” Falwell told reporters.

Cynics pointed out that the stalwart defender of President Trump was more or less forced to resign in the wake of duel scandals. The most recent one involves an affair between Falwell’s wife Becki and former pool boy and business partner Giancarlo Granda, who alleged that Falwell “enjoyed watching from the corner of the room” as Granda plied his membrum virile to the former board member of Women for Trump.

This apparent breach of the strict moral code enforced at Liberty University, which forbids pre-marital sex and the use of alcohol, had ruffled feathers among the staff and students, some of whom were already leery of the president in the wake of his posting a photo of himself getting chummy with another woman with both of their pants unzipped and apparently enjoying an alcoholic beverage while partying on a yacht.

Falwell says he is not certain of the theme of his speech yet, although he is leaning in the direction of God’s infinite forgiveness and his followers’ infinite gullibility.

Did Henry VIII Really Invent Miniature Golf?

A recently discovered transcript of a conversation between King Henry VIII, his chief minister Thomas Cromwell and Queen Anne Boleyn, confirms that the paunchy potentate did indeed invent miniature golf.

Henry VIII’s office in the Palace of Whitehall, 1535. HENRY is standing over his desk, feverishly studying some plans. After a moment his minister THOMAS CROMWELL enters.

CROMWELL: Forgive me for interrupting, Majesty, but–

HENRY: Damnit, More, can’t you see that I’m busy?

CROMWELL: It’s Cromwell, Sire.

HENRY: Cromwell? Well, where the Devil is More?

CROMWELL: Executed, Majesty.

HENRY: What? On whose authority?

CROMWELL: Yours, Sire. He refused to sign the Act of Succession.

HENRY: Oh, right. Well, listen, Cromwell, I’m in the middle of something here so–

CROMWELL: It’s rather important, my Lord. The Holy Roman Emperor has refused to acknowledge your new queen.

HENRY: Well, the Holy Roman Emperor was always a bit dodgy.

CROMWELL: The international ramifications are–

HENRY (gesturing to his work) Yes, well, look, Crom’, the thing is, I think I’m onto something big here.

CROMWELL: Majesty?

HENRY (gesturing to his plans) Take a look at this.

CROMWELL: What is this?

HENRY: It’s a golf course, Cromwell.

CROMWELL: A golf course? But what is this little castle?

HENRY: That’s the beauty of it. You see, the little draw bridge goes up and down, and you have to hit the ball so it goes over the bridge when it’s down otherwise it goes into the moat.

CROMWELL: I’m sorry…I don’t understand, Sire.

HENRY: It’s an obstacle, Crom’! And all the holes have them.

CROMWELL: Okay…

HENRY: (pointing) Look at this one.

CROMWELL: Is that…a pirate ship?

HENRY: You have to hit the ball up the ramp so it lands in the bow of the ship, okay, then it goes down a tube and falls on Cannibal Island and from there you have to putt it into the hole.

CROMWELL: That’s really…uh, fascinating, Majesty, but this situation with the Holy Roman Empire–

HENRY: Oh, bugger the Holy Roman Empire, Cromwell! I’ve invented miniature golf!

CROMWELL: Yes, uh, well, congratulations, your Majesty.

HENRY: Do you realize what this means?

CROMWELL: I’m not sure I–

HENRY: The Scots invented modern golf, right? But they’ve got no castles or pirate ships or Cannibal Island. In five years nobody will be playing Scottish golf. They’ll all be miniature golfing on my royal mini-golf courses and filling the royal coffers.

ANNE BOLEYN enters, agitated.

ANNE: Henry, the Holy Roman Emperor has refused to recognize me as queen!

HENRY: Yes, I heard.

ANNE: Well, what are you going to do about it?

HENRY: I’ll take care of it, Honey.

ANNE: He called me the “Heretic Harlot.”

HENRY: I think you’re taking it the wrong way.

ANNE: What?

CROMWELL: The queen has a point, my Lord. We–

HENRY: I said I’ll take care of it!

ANNE: But we must–

HENRY: Listen, Anne, you know those Chinese pagodas you love so much? Well, look at this…(gestures to plans) I made a hole on my mini-golf course with a pagoda. You hit the ball up the ramp, it goes up to the top and then drops down one level at a time until–

ANNE: Okay, we are not talking about your mini-golf course now, Henry!

HENRY: Why can’t anyone else see this? This is the next big thing!

ANNE: I am being internationally mocked by the Catholic powers, and you–

HENRY: But the course is a political statement too, Anne. (pointing to plans) You see the “Whore of Babylon” hole? The ball goes into her mouth and drops down into Hell here with the anti-Christ Pope.

CROMWELL: That is a nice touch.

ANNE: Oh, that’s brilliant! So from now on, whenever we have a problem you can’t solve, you can just add another hole to your mini-golf course.

HENRY: I put the pagoda and the Whore of Babylon on the course as a special surprise for you, Anne, and this is the thanks I get?

ANNE: Thank you, my Lord, but the next time you want to surprise me, try picking out a dress that isn’t too tacky.

CROMWELL: I think what her Ladyship is saying is that–

HENRY: Shut-up, Cromwell!

ANNE: They’re calling me the “Protestant Prostitute,” and you’re playing at a stupid children’s game!

HENRY: Well, maybe they’re not entirely wrong. All those years in France you weren’t studying the Bible the whole time, were you?

CROMWELL: I think what his Majesty means is–

ANNE: Shut-up, Cromwell!

HENRY: Catherine never complained about the dresses I got her!

ANNE: Well, tacky was her style.

HENRY: All right, you know what? I’m taking the goddamn pagoda and the Whore of Babylon off the course! (grabs a quill and starts scratching them out on the plans) That make you happy?

ANNE: As far as I’m concerned, you can have the Whore of Babylon riding Balaam’s Ass through the Garden of Eden while Methuselah does the Dance of the Seven Veils in Sodom and Gomorrah!

ANNE turns and storms out of the office. HENRY considers her parting comment for a moment.

HENRY: That’s not a bad idea.

CROMWELL: Majesty, if I may–

HENRY: Get out, Cromwell!

CROMWELL: Right.

CROMWELL quickly flees the room as HENRY plunges back into his work on the plans with a renewed vigor.

Radical Left Forced LaPierre to Vacation in Bahamas 8 Times on NRA’s Dime

Wayne LaPierre, the embattled chief executive of the National Rifle Association, is locked and loaded and blasting away at his far left persecutors. Facing a lawsuit by the state of New York that accuses him and other top NRA officials of siphoning 64 million dollars from the non-profit in three years, LaPierre is placing the blame for his exorbitant spending right where it belongs: on his political opponents.

“The radical left’s machinations against Americans’ Second Amendment Rights were so bad that I was forced to travel by private jet with my family to the Bahamas eight times in three years,” the tanned and testy NRA skipper told reporters from the AwesomeAmerica News Network.

“They were so bad that I was forced to use a 107-foot yacht that was provided by an NRA vendor while I was there. Yes, the NRA, which is funded by the donations and membership fees of NRA members, funded all this. I make no apologies for that. Or for the designer suits or lavish dinners or penile enhancement surgery the Association ponied up. If I hadn’t taken those measures, the Marxist elitists would have confiscated all real Americans’ guns by now and forced us all to become transgender, vegan, Socialist metrosexual coastal elites.”

My Nearly Golden Years in Hollywood

If you ever ran into me on Hollywood Boulevard in my John the Baptist outfit, brandishing a fifth of Christian Brothers Brandy, howling at you to repent and squirting holy water at you with a plastic squirt gun, you probably wouldn’t suspect that I once worked with some of the greatest directors in Hollywood. D.W. Griffith, Erich Von Stroheim and Cecil B. DeMille were my mentors and colleagues, although not one of the bastards deigned to mention me in their memoirs. What precipitated my free fall from the heights of Hollywood to my new calling you might wonder?

My career in film began very inauspiciously. While hitchhiking through California as a college student in the summer of 1915, I stopped at a bar in Hollywood for a beer one sweltering afternoon. There, I struck up a conversation with a tall, striking Southerner, who having had a few drinks, spoke passionately of of the spatial and temporal fragmentation of the reality continuum to create the illusion of multiple parallel action in film. As I tried to absorb this concept, he suddenly shifted gears and began fulminating about how the South had been betrayed after the Civil War and how it would ultimately rise again. At the peak of his tirade, he gestured wildly, spilling the better part of his mint julep on my shirt.

Mortified, he apologized profusely, then cordially introduced himself as D.W. Griffith, the director. To make up for his rudeness, he insisted that I take a job as a grip on his current production, Birth of a Nation, a Civil War epic originally titled The Strom Thurmond Story. Although I had no aspirations for a career in film at the time, I decided to give it a shot. Griffith said I could start right away as one of his current grips had been inadvertently skewered by a Yankee bayonet and was distracting the rest of the crew with his incessant demands for medical attention.

A couple of drinks later we drove straight to the set and I was astonished to see Confederate soldiers facing off against a plucky battalion of Russian Cossacks. Griffith cursed at the Cossacks and drove them off, explaining that they had probably drifted in from the set of Battleship Potemkin. We spotted the Union Army some distance off, flirting with Lillian Gish, but Griffith had it back in place in no time. Griffith worked feverishly and without a script. Nobody in the cast knew exactly what they were filming, and some were convinced we were actually filming Battleship Potemkin.

My first efforts as a grip were crude but showed promise. While setting up a rack of lights for the famous surrender at Appomattox scene, I somehow managed to ensnare the actor playing General Robert E. Lee with a faulty electrical cord. Although the scene did not call for him to thrash wildly while signing the surrender document, the sudden infusion of four thousand volts into his nervous system sent the otherwise dignified general into a spasmodic, sedentary fandango that Griffith insisted detracted from the somber tone of the scene. Griffith had been having problems with the actor, however, and his temporary loss of motor skills allowed the director to replace him with a minimum of difficulty.

Though Griffith was secretly grateful to me, he temporarily reassigned me to laundering the costumes for all the cast members and extras. I managed the awesome task handily for several days, but Griffith was furious when I mixed Clansmen’s robes with Union Army uniforms, tinting the robes a garish aqua blue. At this point, we mutually agreed that our professional association had ceased to be productive, and Griffith had me tarred and feathered and thrown off the set.

Disappointing as my first experience in film production had been, I made some important contacts, including the young Erich Von Stroheim, who made a brief appearance in Birth of a Nation. Von Stroheim was impressed with my starching methods and thought I might have the makings of a cinematographer.

I ran into him years later at a Hollywood costume party where he was dressed as McTeague, the towering, moronic dentist from Frank Norris’ classic novel, complete with pliers and ether dispenser. When I mentioned my idea of doing a film based on the book from the perspective of McTeague’s giant golden molar sign, Von Stroheim showed interest, but thought imbuing an enormous, artificial tooth with human consciousness might be an artistic roll of the dice. As I began to elaborate on the concept, he pivoted suddenly and etherized me, and I awoke hours later in the arms of Russian Cossack.

Freeing myself on the pretext of getting more vodka, I woozily wended my way through the colorful revelers, looking for the exit. Just as I spotted it, a powerful, resonant voice called out “You!” and stopped me dead in my tracks. I turned around slowly to see a fiery, bearded, Old Testament Jehovah pointing a gnarled finger at me. Fearing that perhaps my host had seen me pocketing his Faberge egg earlier in the evening, I bolted for the door, but was seized by a pair of young bucks dressed like Hebrew slaves who responded to Jehovah’s commands with the alacrity of police dogs. They dragged me back to their master, and I quivered under his stony gaze.

“Barabbas,” he said coolly, looking me up and down. When I asked in amazement how he had identified the Biblical character my costume was intended to represent, he replied, “The ‘Born to Lose’ tattoo clinched it for me.” My host then introduced himself as Cecil B. DeMille and told me that he was preparing to shoot The King of Kings soon. He thought I might be perfect for the part of Barabbas and intimated that he might give me a screen test if I returned his Faberge egg.

My screen test went extremely well, although DeMille thought my malevolent grinning needed work. Within a few weeks I found myself on the spectacular set, standing before hundreds of rowdy Hebrews, all screaming in unison, “Free Barabbas, free Barabbas!” I must admit the excitement went to my head a little, and DeMille accused me of overacting when I started to do the Charleston in response to the mob.

Cecil had coached me to play Barabbas as a callous murderer, but I saw him as the brutal product of a brutal society who had the soul of a poet but the instincts of a jackal. Or maybe the soul of a jackal and the instincts of a poet. Accordingly, on the final take, I recited a poem, interspersing jackal-like howls between each line, undeterred by the fact that it was a silent film. Just as I was really beginning to connect with the character, a large rock connected with my forehead, and as I lost consciousness, the last thing I remember seeing was the actor playing Christ scrambling to pick up some rocks.

I was thrown onto a Paramount back lot, and while I lay unconscious, I had a harrowing, surreal nightmare that anticipated the work of Busby Berkeley. I was later stumbled upon by a kindly script girl, who stripped me only of my cash and gold fillings. Wardrobe came and reclaimed my Barabbas costume. Naked, battered and senseless, I was fast approaching the nadir of my film career. What final indignity could the celluloid gods inflict on me? But as I lay awaiting the coup de grace, they apparently tired of tormenting me and turned their attention elsewhere.

Oh did they? When I regained consciousness, I found myself on an antique divan in the splendidly appointed living room of a Hollywood mansion, a compress on my forehead. An eccentric-looking woman with large, hypnotic orbs, wearing a leopard-skin turbin was leaning over me and asking, “Are you all right, Joe?” In my delirium, I took her for Gloria Swanson and immediately asked for her autograph.

Fuming, she rose abruptly, then introduced herself with a grandiose flair as Norma Desmond, the silent film star. I took the opportunity to inform her that my name was not Joe but rather…nothing came into my mind. Maybe I was Joe. She continued to refer to me as such throughout the remainder of our brief but tragic acquaintance in any case, and owing to the number of rocks to the head I had taken earlier, I could not be sure that I was not, in fact, Joe. Further conversations yielded the troubling revelation that it was now 1950, silent films had given way to “talkies,” and I couldn’t account for the last twenty-three years.

Somehow, she got the idea that I was a screenwriter, and she proposed that I stay with her and help her complete a script she was working on about Salome that she called Salome. The film was to be a vehicle for her triumphant comeback in Hollywood. As I could no longer recall who I was or how I made my living, I agreed, hoping that in the next few days details about my past life would drift back into the fog of my consciousness.

I threw myself into working on the script, and spent many hours a day poring over the Bible to research the story of Salome. One morning around 2AM, as I was working and polishing off an enormous snifter of aged brandy, it suddenly came to me who I was: John the Baptist.

I remembered everything: living in the desert, wearing the caveman suit, delivering the fiery jeremiads to cringing Hebrews, baptizing Christ (he asked, “Does it count if I plug my nose?”) and having my head served on a platter to Salome. Then the image of myself baptizing lost souls on Hollywood Boulevard flashed into my mind with such dazzling clarity that I wet myself. I downed the last drop of brandy to brace myself, then rambled down the steps, wondering where I might find a fur loincloth at 2AM in Hollywood.

As I raced out the front door, I heard Norma calling after me desperately. “Don’t leave me, Joe,” she cried. Looking back I saw that she was pointing a revolver at me with a look on her face that made some of Bette Davis’ expressions in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” seem lucid by comparison. I felt the hot lead bite my flesh and then I heard the report. I stumbled toward the pool, just managing to fasten a Styrofoam egg around my waist before I fell in. I felt myself enveloped in the gentle coolness and I prepared to meet the Lord once more.

But my eyes opened later not on the ethereal white light of heaven but rather the sterile light of a hospital ward. Oddly, neither the oxygen deprivation I had suffered while in the pool nor the morphine they had administered to me helped to clarify my mind on the issue of my identity. Even my tenuous status as John the Baptist had dissolved like cornflakes in battery acid.

When I saw my nurse, who looked like Jake LaMotta in a white dress, coming at me with a hypodermic needle the size of a calking gun, I panicked. I leapt from my bed, juked LaMotta, spun out of the room, and galloped down the corridor. I looked back, and to my surpise, LaMotta was closing on me with speed that would have impressed an NFL scout. Her tackling wasn’t bad either, and after a brief scuffle on the floor in which she got in a couple of solid blows to the head, I was again convinced I was John the Baptist. Determined to begin my mission, I grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall, and it proved sufficient to subdue her.

I fled the hospital, and headed toward Hollywood Boulevard, a churning engine of salvation for the human race. On the way, I found a second hand store and filched a fur loin cloth that had supposedly been used in one of those teenage caveman movies. A nearby liquor store run by a half-blind codger obliged me with a complimentary bottle of Christian Brothers. I chanced across a kid’s plastic squirt gun on somebody’s front lawn, and I knew what God wanted me to do. Since then I’ve baptized thousands, mostly against their will, but people don’t always want what’s good for them. Oh, sure, sometimes I regret that my film career was not more successful, but then I just save another soul and have another shot of brandy.

Franz Kafka and the Inferno of Love

It hit me late one night when I was in the bookstore after my girlfriend had locked me out of the house.

Suffering through the most devastating case of writer’s block I had ever had, I had somewhat rashly destroyed a little furniture. Then at Stacey’s insistence, I went down to retrieve the remnants of the nightstand I had hurled out the second story window. When I returned to the front door, I found it locked. Knowing that no amount of pleading, self-abasement or groveling would move her to open it, I decided to slink off to my refuge: the bookstore. I set off at a brisk pace, unconcerned that I was clad only in my Baudelaire pajamas and one slipper.

I nestled into the literature section, picking up a copy of the Diary of Franz Kafka for some inexplicable reason. I opened it at random:

August 15. Today I am not so completely protected and enclosed in my work as I was two years ago, nevertheless I have a feeling my monotonous, empty, mad bachelor’s life has some justification. I can once more carry on conversations with myself, and I don’t stare so into emptiness.

Thunderstruck, I stumbled backwards, dropping the diary and falling against a shelf of self-help books. The realization was like a white-hot whiffle bat slamming over my head: there must be an inherent dichotomy between writing and love. Clearly, Kafka felt most productive as a writer while living his “monotonous, empty, mad bachelor’s life.”

Working in this life style, he had forged a magnificent body of masterworks and indisputably established his genius. In contrast, since I had moved in with Stacey, I noticed that the rejection letters I was getting had taken on a surlier tone, and the greatest accomplishment I could boast was winning honorable mention in the “How Blistex Has Improved My Life” essay competition.

Things began falling in place in my mind to support my new theory. Dante never realized his love for Beatrice. Jane Austen never found her Mr. Darcy. Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine’s torrid affair left Rimbaud with a bullet hole in his wrist and Verlaine in the hoosegow for two years. Sylvia Plath’s marriage to Ted Hughes…well, you know. Tennessee Williams’ relationship with Pancho Rodriguez survived Rodriguez’s attempt to run the playwright over with a car but not the flinging of his typewriter out the window. Yeats, spurned by the haunting Maude Gonne, later proposed to her daughter, who reportedly told him to “grow up.”

As I had fallen into the self-help section at the moment of my epiphany, I thought perhaps fate was guiding me toward some sort of solution. Scanning such titles as Ride Your Repressed Sexual Energy to the Top and Why Do I Get Gas When I Say I Love You?, I figured there would have to be something about writers and relationships, but there was nothing. I wondered how many of my fellow writers were at that moment roaming the streets in their Baudelaire pajamas, bereft of hope.

It struck me that the greatest writers seemed to have eccentric personalities singularly unsuitable for harmonious relationships. How often does one read the author biography in a great book and find a happily married, well-adjusted citizen? Usually the author suffered from mysterious nervous disorders or rare childhood maladies, was expelled from school, made suicide attempts in double digits, joined the communist party and was quickly thrown out, shacked up with a prostitute suffering from Tourette Syndrome, turned to smoking opium and swilling absinthe, voluntarily entered an asylum and emerged years later, a bedraggled lunatic cradling a bust of Nietzsche and spouting some incoherent philosophy, only to die ignominiously in front of a doughnut shop somewhere.

I wondered if this sort of suffering were a prerequisite for becoming a great writer. I wondered if my furniture-hurling were a prelude to more serious behavioral disturbances. If so, did this necessarily ensure I was on my way to becoming a celebrated literary icon or could I possibly wind up like the guy I always see downtown dressed like Rasputin and pushing a baby carriage?

All of this was, of course, beside the point. The real question, I realized, was this: was the apparent psychological instability of writers the result of the misery and frustration inherent in the writing process itself? Or was it the result of the social stigma of working at an occupation in which one could conceivably earn less than a cook at Hank’s Chuckwagon Smorgasbord? Were these the factors that made writers blue plate specials in the diner of love?

It occurred to me that I might gain some insight into the way in which the writing process affects the writer’s social self by examining the inner workings of a great writer’s mind as he worked. I hesitantly edged back to the Kafka diary and picked it up.

January 20. The end of writing. When will it take me up again? January 23. Again tried to write. Virtually useless. January 30. Complete standstill. Unending torments. February 2. Incapable of writing a line. February 5. Incapable of living with people, of speaking. Complete immersion in myself, thinking of myself. Apathetic, witless, fearful. I have nothing to say to anyone–never.

Slowly, I put the diary back on the shelf. It seemed the writing process at times made Kafka moody. I asked myself, “If I were a woman, would I want to go out on a date with Kafka? If so, what would I wear? No, I might go for coffee with him, but I definitely wouldn’t go to a movie or miniature golfing with him. I’d probably lean toward somber colors and go light on the make-up.”

How could the writing process have such a corrosive effect on a person’s social self? Was this typical of writers in general or was Kafka’s genius for portraying a dreamlike inner world symptomatic of a borderline psychosis? Was the giving of oneself over to the subconscious in the writing process a flirtation with madness and anti-social impulses?

I was suddenly overwhelmed. I realized I had to do something. I had to leave the bookstore for one thing because it was closing and the manager was warily asking me to go. I assured her I would put on my bathrobe and my other slipper the next time I came. But I knew I also had to do something about my dilemma.

“What about a disturbed writers singles association?” I proposed to myself as I hit the street. It would be revolutionary. It would be the only place where edginess, arrogance and vodka breath were considered social assets. I quickly abandoned this idea, however, after recalling that my one and only relationship with another writer had resulted in the incineration of my entire Hemingway collection after I had made an ill-advised remark about Virginia Woolf.

When I got out into the cold night air a new realization hit me: I was frigging nuts! There I was, stumbling around in my pajamas, freezing my ass off, all because that woman cared more about her crummy mahogany nightstand than my career. Why did I always run off and lick my wounds? After all, it was my house too, wasn’t it? Hadn’t I paid rent twice last year? Didn’t I keep the conversation intellectually stimulating when she was droning on endlessly about her boring job?

Maybe I needed to be more assertive. Perhaps that was the problem with most writers and our relationships; we were so engrossed in our imaginary worlds that our mates easily muscled the real power in the relationship away from us, all the while pretending to be enchanted by our ideas. Why hadn’t I seen it before? We writers were being ruthlessly exploited. What we needed was a militant political action committee with a paranoid legal apparatus. We could get Martin Sheen to stump for us on TV spots.

As I walked on in the cold, I realized that this idea, like many of my ideas, would be difficult to implement. First of all, it would be hard to explain to Stacy why I was borrowing the money. Secondly, of the two other writers I knew, one hated my guts, and the other was a hack who insisted I still owed him money although he had never paid me for my many incisive critiques of his work.

No, this would have to be a personal confrontation, with me standing in for all the oppressed writers of the world. I would march home and I would tell that woman in no uncertain terms that while it was true that I was often annoying, arrogant, destructive, self-pitying, insecure and paranoid, I couldn’t help but notice that she failed to appreciate my many positive qualities. I was sure I could think of a few by the time I got home.

Copyright, Bill Burman 2020

Trump Delays Police State Until Delayed Election

The reviews are in for President Trump’s reenactment of Terry Gilliam’s movie Brazil in the streets of Portland and so far they are less than stellar. According to local officials and pretty much everybody else, the heavily armed, federal shock troops deployed to the City of Roses exacerbated the situation by attracting larger crowds to the protests and then beating, tear gassing, and shooting them with less-than-lethal munitions.

Polls show that the president’s Lafayette Square style crackdown did not give voters the anticipated stiffies except, of course, for the usual toothless, beer-gutted red hats. However, the exercise has provided federal authorities with valuable experience in suppressing dissent that may come in handy in the event of a delayed election like the one later this year that President Trump suggested delaying.

The Department of Homeland Security made the most of its deployment to Portland. It compiled “intelligence reports” not just on protesters but on journalists reporting on the protests. Masked officers wearing no identification badges or insignia abducted protesters off the street and carted them off in unmarked vans. Department of Homeland Security tactical squads gained invaluable experience beating peaceful protesters and shooting them with “impact munitions” that can cause injuries guaranteed to keep contentious practitioners of the First Amendment off the street.

Although these types of tactics have been successful in places like Argentina and Chile as well as various eastern bloc countries in the 1970s, they have not had a proper trial run here in the United States recently. And since delaying an election could create unpredictable events on the streets of America’s cities, the Trump administration is girding its loins for November.

New Priest at Our Lady of the Irritable Bowels Adjusting Well After Abrupt Transfer From St.–Well, From Another Diocese

Some parishioners may have noticed a fresh face among the clergy here at Our Lady of the Irritable Bowels. A highly experienced priest who has worked in some sixteen different dioceses in his long and varied career, he brings a sharply honed administrative expertise that Bishop Hagan hopes will streamline church policies and finances. As such, he will not be conducting masses or performing other sacerdotal duties, and out of a perhaps excessive sense of personal humility, prefers to remain anonymous at this time.

While some parishioners expressed alarm at his sudden, late night arrival at the rectory here last week and the recent visits to the church by out of state law enforcement officers, we can assure you that there is no connection between those two entirely separate events. The father simply caught a discount red-eye flight to save the diocese money, and the police officials were making routine inquiries pertaining to Bingo gambling in Catholic Churches throughout the country.

In addition to his administrative skills, the veteran cleric has also coached the boys basketball teams to a Catholic League championship in…well, in another place, and he looks forward to leading the Our Lady of the Irritable Bowels Crusaders when team sports are no longer prohibited by the state as a result of the pandemic.

FEMA Stores Coronavirus Hoax Corpses as Texas, Arizona Morgues Overflow

Texas and Arizona have run out of space to store the bodies of victims of the Cornonavirus Hoax. But don’t worry if you live in the Lone Star or Grand Canyon states. You don’t have to wear an uncomfortable mask or practice social distancing because Uncle Sam’s got the freedom-loving Sun Belt states’ backs.

FEMA sent eight refrigerated morgue trucks to Texas in April and will be sending fourteen more next week. Arizona has requested some of the portable coolers as well so problem solved! No putrefying bodies will be unceremoniously dumped on the streets of San Antonio or Phoenix.

The trucks are filling up quickly but for a limited time you can reserve a space for yourself by registering on www.refrigerateme.com and paying a small, refundable deposit. And with Texas racking up record numbers of new cases almost daily and no statewide mask mandates in either state, you can bet the hoax victims will soon be cheek by jowl in those coolers, so claim your spot today!

Reprieve from Obnoxious American Tourists, COVID-19 Has Europe Living La Dolce Vita

Europe’s declining rates of new COVID-19 infections, paired with the macabre fiasco unfolding in the United States, has had an unexpected side benefit for Europeans: the absence of brash, tubby, monolingual, “I’m with Stupid” t-shirt-wearing American tourists.

The European Union’s travel ban on the United States, which leads the world by far in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths, has left tourist attractions around Europe free of pesky, ignorant Americans who have historically been an international embarrassment. American tourists’ potential for bringing a deadly pestilence to the recovering nations of Europe has not endeared them any more to the already wary denizens of the old world.

Italy’s declining COVID-19 rates

Salvatore DiGennaro, the owner of a trattoria in La Spezia, a picturesque seaside town on the west coast of Italy, has been enjoying a summer free of American tourists. “They yell at you for bringing the insalata after the primi and secondi piatti, they demand you speak English, they tell you about their great great grandfather who maybe was from Italia, ask you about the ‘Godfather’…they ask why you don’t have garlic bread, and now they can kill you with the COVID. No, I don’t miss the schifosi!”

USA’s dizzying COVID-19 fuck-fest