Loads of Bon Mots

Welcome to a special non-topical version of these Adventures! Take this one internally and let it work globally!

There are a couple of reasons for going the non-topical route this week. One of them, which also may apply next week, is the little fact that even editors are human (!) and want Christmases and New Yearses off. So I have to turn this in several days before Christmas so that somebody else can have a Wonderful Life.

The other reason that this column is going to be utterly non-topical is that six days ago I fell off a rolling platform and got a significant “owie” involving pain in multiple places. I don’t know about you, but for me pain induces an impatience for the minutiae of the daily news, and turns my thoughts to the universal and timeless. And, where my thoughts go, there I must Adventure also, or my thoughts and I would become separated. (Get it? Advent; advent-ure.)

So what I thought I’d do today is share some little sayings that I either have lived by for years, or just made up recently out of crushing boredom.

“The essence of humor is clown squeezings.” A lot of people misread this one as saying we should go squeeze a clown for jollies. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying hurt begets humor. Some of these are metaphoric, damn it!

“A baby is nothing to sneeze at.” I think that can’t be said often enough.

“When life gives you lemons, pucker up.” I know, it doesn’t quite work, but the meaning comes across anyway, doesn’t it?

“Honesty is the best front.” This is one of my all time favorites. Remember kids; don’t waste your lies getting dimes and candies, cigarettes and kisses. Save your fibs for the big stuff, like escaping the death penalty, or truly worthwhile wide-awake debauchery that you’ll be able to remember when you’re in the rest home while being “tidied up” by the nurse after your daily business.

“Politics is never a dirty word.” Sometimes politicians will counter critics by saying, “You’re just playing politics.” They want to make it a dirty word so they can have it all for themselves. They know that all politics is about the exercise of power, that’s why they want to alienate you from the very word, so you can’t exercise power that you are entitled to. So whenever someone, even be they on your own side, says someone else is just playing politics, you should make vigorous expressions of disapproval.

“If you let a wild pig eat off your ass, it's your fault when he bites it.” That was the cleaned up version. At the moment I’m imagining Karl Rove as the pig, but it could be anybody. “Codependence kills,” is another one in the same vein.

“Never do anything you would be ashamed of. First, stop feeling you should be ashamed of it. Then do it.” Some of these are just plain obvious.

“When a 250 pound man gives the seat next to me to a 90 pound woman, and the bus slams to a halt, the 250 pound man will collide with my face.” I learned this one long before Homelessness Czar Philip Mangano cooked up the whole “house the chronically homeless first” line he’s been selling. I still would add to it though: “Better yet, buy bigger busses, seat everybody.”

“Beating your neighbor’s spouse doesn’t show how much you love your own.” These days what passes for patriotism is really national chauvinism. No one loves any one country that doesn’t first love humanity, as a whole.

“Language matters.” Sticks and stones may break my bones, but the constant abuse of language, especially by authorities, is making slaves out of us all.

This one’s just for me: “My mind is like a Border Collie, it needs to drive sheep.” While you think about that, I’ll get next week’s column ready.
Have a Happy, and may Bono be pleased with the New Year.

When Chickens Come Knocking

It’s been a slow week in the Emerald City. No off-duty police officers have shot anyone. No plain-clothes County Cops have beat up bicyclists our Seattle Police had dibs on. So I’d like to take this time to breathe deeply and to reflect on a general trend I see establishing itself here.

I think what epitomizes the trend is the Supreme Court decision last month which excluded the exclusionary rule from the ways civil libertarians could hope to enforce the knock-and-announce rule.

Just a little more than a decade earlier a differently constituted Supreme Court told us that our Founding Fathers, writing the 4th Amendment, considered the common law principle that the police knock and announce themselves before breaking into your home a key ingredient of a reasonable search.

Not that they didn’t have other ways in mind that searches should be reasonable. Madison may have been the anonymous author of a tract railing against searches that required house owners to say Please and Thank You. Ben Franklin is believed to have thought searches dressed in clown or chicken costumes were unreasonable. Tom Paine more than likely thought it was unreasonable to search for intangibles, like the color purple, shrugs and sighs, affection, etc.

But not knocking and letting the people inside know you were the police was considered by our Founding Fathers the height of unreasonable. Why do I know that? Because it IS the height of unreasonable! It was unreasonable in the Middle Ages, it was unreasonable in 1776, it’s unreasonable now!

If they don’t let me know that they are the police, how do I know criminals aren’t invading my house? How do I know the people breaking in aren’t going to rape my kids and then kill them and kill me for being a witness? I’ll tell you how I know that. I know that ‘cause I’m going to use my Second Amendment guaranteed arms to shoot them all when they come in. Hey, even if they say they’re police, if they don’t show me badges and a warrant, maybe I should shoot them anyway. How do I know they aren’t lying?

The point is, knock-and-announce, and warrants, and badges, and uniforms, are all reasonable because without them the police are indistinguishable from a criminal mob, AND PEOPLE HAVE THE RIGHT TO DEFEND THEMSELVES.

I really think the average American, and I’m including Supreme Court justices in the average for the purposes of this sentence, don’t understand these principles because they’ve all been too privileged and too empowered and too ensconced in a majority of their own mental making to even imagine what it’s like to have total strangers, dressed in chicken suits, breaking into your home without warning, pointing guns at you, and screaming in your and your family’s faces. Hint: it looks just like terrorism, when it happens to you without cause. And it does happen without cause often enough to be safeguarded against. The Founding Fathers safeguarded against it with a mass insurrection.

We could safeguard against it by applying the exclusionary rule against evidence procured by unreasonable means, but the Supreme Court just complicated all our lives by preventing that. Thank you Supreme Court! We are now all officially living in interesting times!

Anyway, the trend is: you never know who’s going to beat you up under the color of authority next. They don’t have to tell you they’re coming in. They don’t have to be wearing uniforms to demand that you bend your knees to them. They only have to say, “You’re under arrest,” and that is supposed to justify any force they use, and constitute proof that they are entitled to use it.

And, who needs a secret police when you’ve got a whole army of off-duty cops to do the work of one?

And, what good is a democratic society if any clown in a chicken suit, or whatever, riding a motorcycle, or not, can shoot a bystander at 2am and get away with it because they happen to be cops 9am-5pm?

Easy Poems The Angst-Driven Way

Let's talk about existential angst!

Existential angst is my favorite kind of angst. It is much preferable to being-bombed angst or starvation angst or any of the other kind of normal everyday angsts that leap to mind.

Wes, what is this thing called existential angst? Where does it come from? How will I know it when I have it? Will it help me to write easier poems? What else is existential angst good for? What should I wear when I'm having existential angst? How old should my children be before I teach them the facts about existential angst? These are just a few of the existential angst related questions that can be asked.

Existential angst is that feeling you get when you discover that you aren't a drill bit or a box of white-board markers or an anti-fungal cream or any such similar thing. You weren't made for any evident purpose. This makes you feel left out. All the other things have meaning to their existence. You don't. Why oh why couldn't I have been born as a socket tool kit?

You have to wonder how this ever got to be important to anyone. The answer to that is easy. Two words: chronic underemployment. Existential angst is the whine that societies generate whenever a critical mass of its people are over-qualified for everything they can do. Look out, Seattle!

Let's say you have a degree in philology and the guy interviewing you for McDonalds doesn't know philology from stamp collecting. You may have existential angst. Are you 52% brain in a 20% brain world, assigned to pushing a broom for a 9% brain employer? If you don't have existential angst yet, just you wait, Bunky.

Existential angst is great for writing poems. If you get stuck you have lots of cool words to fall back on, like "abyss" and "nausea". Always wear lots of black. The following illustration has been graciously supplied by one of our avid readers who wouldn't be caught dead wearing white.

Life Stinks Somewhat

by Poetry Legend and Excellent Rodeo Clown

Melissa "Missy" Schmertzgarten

No one can relieve this churning dread

that's fastened itself inside my head.

Not that I would ever sincerely complain --

since without my dread I would go insane.

A little dread is such a happy thing!

I feel just like a harried king.

Questions & Aids for Further Discussion

Do you think socket tool kits have their own kind of angst? What would that be called?

Which of the following famous people do you think have experienced significant amounts of existential angst: George W. Bush, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh? Which of them do you think could use some? What does "use" mean in this context? If existential angst can have a purpose, can Carrot Top be far behind?

Everyone set down your pencils and take five minutes to fret over the meaning of life. Then, compare your reflections with those of your neighbors. Did you all see the same gaping abyss? Did any of you see down a garbage disposal? Because that would be weird. Give yourself 5 extra points if you felt fear, and another 5 if you experienced loathing.

Space-time Keeps It's Shape

A Poem Regarding Humor’s Essence,

Or Opus I Lost Count, Can I Get Back to You on That?

by © Dr. Wes Browning

Some say the essence of humor is hostility.

I say it’s clown squeezings.

Extra virgin clown, first cold press.

Some say comedy is always ultimately cruel.

I say, here, have some grated Bozo.

Or, clown-ka-bob, made from tenderized marinated clown.

Or, crushed clown with chives, clown croutons,

or filet of clown, minced mime,

chipped clown on toast,

mime pâté, or clown à la mode

Yes, these are all excellent, I admit,

but I still say the essence of humor is

clown squeezings.

I think it is high time to give credit where credit is due to some of the many wonderful people who help make this paper the constantly changing reality that it is. I don’t know what that has to do with the poem above.

No, wait! Yes I do! I wouldn’t feel so generous if the Real Change weren’t “featuring” me this month. I am feeling heartily squeezed! And look out, I am about to squeeze back! I’m a little garlic, and I’ve got some juices!

I’m being “featured” because I went to Portland. Imagine that. Think what would have happened if I had went all the way to Walla Walla! Or Boise. Or San Jose! Especially since I don’t know where San Jose is. Do you know where San Jose is? Never mind.

As usual I digress. I also exaggerate. I had another reason to think of talking about other people besides me — Stan “two r’s, two s’s, eight lines” Burriss, glorious editor person, remarked in his official editorial capacity last Wednesday, at an official editorial meeting, that he didn’t have a clue where Tent City 3 is anymore, and hadn’t for 4 days.

Let me put this in perspective.

We are talking about Stan Burriss, former president of SHARE (Seattle Housing And I forget what the R and the E stand for. SHARE. You know. Look them up in the phone book. Homeless organization. Runs self-managed shelters, Tent Cities, stuff like that. We’ve written about them three hundred times.)

This is the man who for the last five years, every time there has been a Tent City, of any number, has said to me, “Say, Wes, you know, it wouldn’t hurt you to go up to Tent City and look around. You just might learn something. And you could write about it, and educate people.”

Every time he has said that, I have said, “What? I’m a teacher now? I’m writing a humor column! Knock, knock, is anyone home?”

So do you all see what an amazing turn of events we have witnessed here? If Tent City has had to move so often that Stan Burriss, of all people, can’t keep track of where it is, surely the foundation has moved under our blush and highlight, so to speak, hasn’t it? Or anyway, that’s how I feel about it.

There is another man who is deeply involved with Real Change whom I’d like to talk about. I am speaking of a man who I have known for many, many minutes, nay, days, Scott “SXN” Nodland, Real Change Board Member, once and probably future Treasurer of the Board and Real Change Landlord.

Scott once told me (this is an exact quote) “I want all the money!” That helps explain why those of us at the Real Change affectionately refer to Scott as “our Real Change Yuppy-Scum Landlord.”

Don’t misunderstand, we love our landlord. The expression Yuppy-Scum is just our way of acknowledging that Scott makes both Frazier and Niles Crane look like trailer trash. If there’s a Yuppy in Seattle who can kick Crane butt it’s our Scott! You want to talk Brie? You better know your French provinces buddy, ‘cause our guy is fully armed!

Anyway I’ve gotten carried away again, and have failed to explain that the reason I should be calling attention to Mr. Nodland is that he has somehow managed to become some kind of housing director or other at the Low Income Housing Institute, aka LIHI, aka, some other organization we’ve written about a half zillion or hundred times.

The way I see it, I live in the best of all possible worlds. Tent City keeps finding places to move to, not only faster than the city can follow, but also even faster than Stan can follow. The Real Change maintains a presence on LIHI. Meanwhile, space-time retains it’s shape, as I was sure it would.