Thomas Jefferson going through customs:
"…and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. I also have a carton of cigarettes."
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
A Rebuttal
Aaron-
I’m going to put aside, for the moment, the two major factors that, I suspect, underscore your reaction to my, imperfect, yet quite excellent piece entitled “The Driver.” As a point of interest, these two factors are:
1. English is your second language.
2. You were exceedingly drunk when you wrote your response.
Either of these, or both, would explain your failure to notice the subtle, and obvious, ironies that always lurk “between the lines” in this kind of satire. They would also go a long way in helping to explain your post’s absence of a single complete or accurately punctuated sentence, your madcap approach subject-verb agreement, and how you allowed a sentence like, “my intentional is far from offensive” to become part of your final draft. But as I said, I will leave both of these factors, as they are mere guesses, alone for now, and approach the rest your criticism with the assumption that we are on equal footing with respect to our grasp of English and sobriety.
The thrust of your frustration with the piece seems to come from your views on race and class. You make the charge of “implied racism” and then fail to point out a single example of where you think this occurs. Your failure to include any examples leaves us to make the following assumption; you couldn’t find any. Not a single word is mentioned about race until the beautifully sown together “stupid old Mexican” line; which we will examine. Stupid is derogatory. Old can be derogatory. Mexican is not derogatory (and not a race, but I’ll try to stay focused). How, or why, you chose to draw racism from this says more about you than it does about me. I’m being glib, of course, but again, with no examples given you leave your arguments exposed and at my mercy. I’m going to ignore the rest of your trite points about kindness, bitterness, misanthropy, and ignorance for fear of falling asleep from boredom by dealing with them. In your post you mention serenity at one point, and I believe even God makes a brief appearance. I hope you find both, but I’m interested in discussing neither.
This brings us to a point, by contrast, of great interest to me, which is your attempt at an actual literary critique of my fine, fine work. If you think I’ve had a lot to say so far, buckle up buddy! Your audacious claim that my plot line is “vague” and I miss “vital details” will not be tolerated. If there were ever a time for a well placed “How dare you, sir!” I would say this is it.
Let us begin. There is, and has always been, a good deal of confusion, among the lay, surrounding the subtle difference between plot and story. You sir, I’m afraid, are a part of this vast and troublesome group. I will now take you on a step-by-step tour through, what are generally regarded to be, the six major elements of “plot.” I will include a brief description of each plot element and an example of how my fine piece, “The Driver,” achieves all six with clarity, purpose, and style. Get your notebook out!
Exposition: The beginning of the plot usually concerned with establishing characters and setting. In the exposition of “The Driver” we meet an idiot, fat fuck, bus driver and our hero. We also find out that they are on a bus.
There, off and running! Characters and setting established perfectly. Anything to say? Didn’t think so.
Conflict – the actual or perceived opposition of need, values and interests. The conflict in “The Driver” immediately establishes that the idiot, fat fuck, bus driver is rude, without provocation, to her passengers and that our hero is not a man to tolerate such rudeness.
Bang! Conflict.
Rising action - builds suspense leading to the climax. The driver tells our hero to get off the bus. Our hero refuses.
The suspense can be cut with a dull knife, can’t it Aaron?
Climax – The high point, a moment most intense, a turning point, a major culmination of events. Climax can be murky at times given that the narrative climax doesn’t always coincide with the psychological climax, never the less, when our hero leaves the bus, resorting order, and perhaps joy, to the lives of the riffraff on the bus, both are achieved.
Anyone else climaxing around here? If I had two pistols I’d be firing them into the air right now, Aaron.
Falling action - following the climax and shows the effects of the climax. Our hero faces off with the idiot, fat fuck, bus driver. He doesn’t tell her that he hopes she gets lung cancer, further establishing him as the story’s moral center.
Five down, one to go, Aaron. And the next one is in French!
Denouement - Conflicts are resolved, creating normality for the characters and a sense of catharsis, or release of tension and anxiety, for the reader. Simply put, dénouement is the unraveling or untying of the complexities of a plot. One of the passengers gives our hero the finger, demonstrating that the people on the bus have learned nothing and our hero has learned everything. He sees another bus coming off in the distance, and sees it as another opportunity to “do right” in a world full of people who care very little about “right.”
Well Aaron I’m afraid it looks like, you’re a jackass!
There are countless other points I could make, but what would the point be?
In your response to my post you recommended that I peruse a few of you blogs. I did so. I hope you had a good time in Peru.
You closed one of your pieces with this:
I am less than a gob of spit in the river of time, but I have tasted its greatest and I am blessed. Gratitude to God. God bless all the Americas!
Far be it from me to try and figure out what the fuck that’s supposed to mean, but as an American I will say, I appreciate your blessing. And I hope in the future you are able to come across blogs that better suit your sensibilities.
- JP
Aaron-
I’m going to put aside, for the moment, the two major factors that, I suspect, underscore your reaction to my, imperfect, yet quite excellent piece entitled “The Driver.” As a point of interest, these two factors are:
1. English is your second language.
2. You were exceedingly drunk when you wrote your response.
Either of these, or both, would explain your failure to notice the subtle, and obvious, ironies that always lurk “between the lines” in this kind of satire. They would also go a long way in helping to explain your post’s absence of a single complete or accurately punctuated sentence, your madcap approach subject-verb agreement, and how you allowed a sentence like, “my intentional is far from offensive” to become part of your final draft. But as I said, I will leave both of these factors, as they are mere guesses, alone for now, and approach the rest your criticism with the assumption that we are on equal footing with respect to our grasp of English and sobriety.
The thrust of your frustration with the piece seems to come from your views on race and class. You make the charge of “implied racism” and then fail to point out a single example of where you think this occurs. Your failure to include any examples leaves us to make the following assumption; you couldn’t find any. Not a single word is mentioned about race until the beautifully sown together “stupid old Mexican” line; which we will examine. Stupid is derogatory. Old can be derogatory. Mexican is not derogatory (and not a race, but I’ll try to stay focused). How, or why, you chose to draw racism from this says more about you than it does about me. I’m being glib, of course, but again, with no examples given you leave your arguments exposed and at my mercy. I’m going to ignore the rest of your trite points about kindness, bitterness, misanthropy, and ignorance for fear of falling asleep from boredom by dealing with them. In your post you mention serenity at one point, and I believe even God makes a brief appearance. I hope you find both, but I’m interested in discussing neither.
This brings us to a point, by contrast, of great interest to me, which is your attempt at an actual literary critique of my fine, fine work. If you think I’ve had a lot to say so far, buckle up buddy! Your audacious claim that my plot line is “vague” and I miss “vital details” will not be tolerated. If there were ever a time for a well placed “How dare you, sir!” I would say this is it.
Let us begin. There is, and has always been, a good deal of confusion, among the lay, surrounding the subtle difference between plot and story. You sir, I’m afraid, are a part of this vast and troublesome group. I will now take you on a step-by-step tour through, what are generally regarded to be, the six major elements of “plot.” I will include a brief description of each plot element and an example of how my fine piece, “The Driver,” achieves all six with clarity, purpose, and style. Get your notebook out!
Exposition: The beginning of the plot usually concerned with establishing characters and setting. In the exposition of “The Driver” we meet an idiot, fat fuck, bus driver and our hero. We also find out that they are on a bus.
There, off and running! Characters and setting established perfectly. Anything to say? Didn’t think so.
Conflict – the actual or perceived opposition of need, values and interests. The conflict in “The Driver” immediately establishes that the idiot, fat fuck, bus driver is rude, without provocation, to her passengers and that our hero is not a man to tolerate such rudeness.
Bang! Conflict.
Rising action - builds suspense leading to the climax. The driver tells our hero to get off the bus. Our hero refuses.
The suspense can be cut with a dull knife, can’t it Aaron?
Climax – The high point, a moment most intense, a turning point, a major culmination of events. Climax can be murky at times given that the narrative climax doesn’t always coincide with the psychological climax, never the less, when our hero leaves the bus, resorting order, and perhaps joy, to the lives of the riffraff on the bus, both are achieved.
Anyone else climaxing around here? If I had two pistols I’d be firing them into the air right now, Aaron.
Falling action - following the climax and shows the effects of the climax. Our hero faces off with the idiot, fat fuck, bus driver. He doesn’t tell her that he hopes she gets lung cancer, further establishing him as the story’s moral center.
Five down, one to go, Aaron. And the next one is in French!
Denouement - Conflicts are resolved, creating normality for the characters and a sense of catharsis, or release of tension and anxiety, for the reader. Simply put, dénouement is the unraveling or untying of the complexities of a plot. One of the passengers gives our hero the finger, demonstrating that the people on the bus have learned nothing and our hero has learned everything. He sees another bus coming off in the distance, and sees it as another opportunity to “do right” in a world full of people who care very little about “right.”
Well Aaron I’m afraid it looks like, you’re a jackass!
There are countless other points I could make, but what would the point be?
In your response to my post you recommended that I peruse a few of you blogs. I did so. I hope you had a good time in Peru.
You closed one of your pieces with this:
I am less than a gob of spit in the river of time, but I have tasted its greatest and I am blessed. Gratitude to God. God bless all the Americas!
Far be it from me to try and figure out what the fuck that’s supposed to mean, but as an American I will say, I appreciate your blessing. And I hope in the future you are able to come across blogs that better suit your sensibilities.
- JP
Friday, October 16, 2009
THE DRIVER
Nobody worth anything takes the bus in LA. I dropped my fare, all nickels and dimes, into the machine too quickly and they got jammed in the slot. “The sign says ONE at a time!” the driver scolded me. I hesitated. “Fuck you, you fat fuck!” I said finally. She looked me dead in the eyes, she was angry, really angry, but she curbed it. She knew what she was doing. She had been called a fat fuck before.
She pulled the bus over and opened the door. “Get off my bus!” She barked. I said fuck you again. No hesitation this time. The second one is always easier than the first.
She said she wasn’t going anywhere until I got off with her eyes. I called her bluff and didn’t move. She called mine. She radioed her superior, which by the looks and sound of this fat animal, could have been just about anyone in America. She told whoever was on the other end of the radio that she had an “abusive passenger.” She looked right at me and stressed “ABUSIVE” when she said it. I think she thought it would rattle me. Abusive is a heavy word. She miscalculated. Every girlfriend I’ve ever had has accused me of being verbally “abusive.” I handled it with the same familiarity and ease as she handled “fat fuck.”
With less effort than I would have guessed necessary, she managed to dislodge herself from behind the steering wheel and announced to all the passengers that we weren’t leaving until I got off. She pointed right at me so everyone would know I was the one to punch. Then she calmly got off the bus and stood on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette. “Touché, you massive pig,” I thought, “Touché.”
The other passengers, filthy monkeys every last one of them, all started yelling at me immediately. “Just get off!” they shouted. “We shouldn’t all have to sit here because of you!” One of them reasoned. I looked back at all their dirty faces. It was me against everyone. I knew I’d come out on top.
I tried to make eye contact with the skinny old Mexican man, who was now sitting in one of the handicapped accessible seats, staring straight ahead, in my mind, trying not to look at me. The ingrate. He was the one who got me into this in the first place.
We had been waiting at the bus stop together for about twenty minutes. He was in his eighties I guessed, but he could have been anywhere up to the oldest man alive. He had worn out doormat skin. He was wearing a little brown suit. He had some kind of old-man tear-duct malfunction that made him look perpetually misty eyed in a bloodhound way. If you could draw cartoons and some one told you to draw one of a cute little old man, you’d draw something that looked like him. He was no more than 5’2 and weighed 75 pounds, about as much as one of the bus driver’s knees.
I let him get on the bus before me, which took a while. When he got up to pay his fare he struggled to get his senior pass out of his wallet. His hands were shaking. The driver glared at him and sharply told him to hurry. After a few more seconds of fumbling with his wallet she shouted, “SIR, YOU CAN NOT MAKE EVERYONE WAIT FOR YOU! JUST STEP INTO THE BUS!” He, as always, looked like he was about to cry. I wanted to dive at her throat. I tried to get myself to call her a fat fuck right then and there but I couldn’t get the words to leap out of my mouth. I froze up. As I often do.
As much as I enjoy doing the right thing by calling someone a fat gorilla or a mindless cunt when the situation calls for it, I’m not the most natural at it. I usually just stay quiet and then I spend the rest of the day wishing I had said something. On the occasions that I do say something, for an hour afterward, my hands shake like I was trying to get my senior pass out of my wallet. But courage isn’t doing something when you’re not afraid. It’s doing something when you are.
The passenger’s chants of “get off the bus” were reaching a fever pitch. It was becoming more threatening, but in an empty way. I looked back at their dirty faces again. I knew none of these walking trashcans had anywhere pressing to be. They just like it when the bus keeps moving. I was taking the one thing they had from them. It was time for me to go.
As I passed the old man on my way off the bus I said, “Last time I stick up for you.” in a joking tone. He just kept staring straight ahead, refusing to look up at me. He didn’t speak English, or he was brain dead. He probably hadn’t even realized that the driver had yelled at him in the first place. “Stupid old Mexican.” I muttered.
I walked down the steps and readied myself for the big showdown. I wasn’t nervous now. I was ready to work. She was standing there ripping streams of toxic smoke deep down into her garbage dump of a body. There was a time I would have said something about lung cancer. Not now though. I’m a lot more mature than I once was. “You want to be careful with cigarettes.” I said casually. “People say when you quit, you tend to put on a few pounds. You wouldn’t want that.” She glared at me in blubbery confusion before telling me to go fuck myself. She waddled back up the steps and shut the door in what, she probably didn’t realize, was defeat.
As the bus engine came back to life a guy sitting in the back gave me the finger through the window. I mouthed the words “FUCK YOU” to him as the bus pulled away. Then I sat down on a bench. She was nice enough, or legally obligated, to have left me at another bus stop. I looked down the street and saw there was already another bus, full of potential victories, coming, off in the distance. My Tuesday was officially underway.
Nobody worth anything takes the bus in LA. I dropped my fare, all nickels and dimes, into the machine too quickly and they got jammed in the slot. “The sign says ONE at a time!” the driver scolded me. I hesitated. “Fuck you, you fat fuck!” I said finally. She looked me dead in the eyes, she was angry, really angry, but she curbed it. She knew what she was doing. She had been called a fat fuck before.
She pulled the bus over and opened the door. “Get off my bus!” She barked. I said fuck you again. No hesitation this time. The second one is always easier than the first.
She said she wasn’t going anywhere until I got off with her eyes. I called her bluff and didn’t move. She called mine. She radioed her superior, which by the looks and sound of this fat animal, could have been just about anyone in America. She told whoever was on the other end of the radio that she had an “abusive passenger.” She looked right at me and stressed “ABUSIVE” when she said it. I think she thought it would rattle me. Abusive is a heavy word. She miscalculated. Every girlfriend I’ve ever had has accused me of being verbally “abusive.” I handled it with the same familiarity and ease as she handled “fat fuck.”
With less effort than I would have guessed necessary, she managed to dislodge herself from behind the steering wheel and announced to all the passengers that we weren’t leaving until I got off. She pointed right at me so everyone would know I was the one to punch. Then she calmly got off the bus and stood on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette. “Touché, you massive pig,” I thought, “Touché.”
The other passengers, filthy monkeys every last one of them, all started yelling at me immediately. “Just get off!” they shouted. “We shouldn’t all have to sit here because of you!” One of them reasoned. I looked back at all their dirty faces. It was me against everyone. I knew I’d come out on top.
I tried to make eye contact with the skinny old Mexican man, who was now sitting in one of the handicapped accessible seats, staring straight ahead, in my mind, trying not to look at me. The ingrate. He was the one who got me into this in the first place.
We had been waiting at the bus stop together for about twenty minutes. He was in his eighties I guessed, but he could have been anywhere up to the oldest man alive. He had worn out doormat skin. He was wearing a little brown suit. He had some kind of old-man tear-duct malfunction that made him look perpetually misty eyed in a bloodhound way. If you could draw cartoons and some one told you to draw one of a cute little old man, you’d draw something that looked like him. He was no more than 5’2 and weighed 75 pounds, about as much as one of the bus driver’s knees.
I let him get on the bus before me, which took a while. When he got up to pay his fare he struggled to get his senior pass out of his wallet. His hands were shaking. The driver glared at him and sharply told him to hurry. After a few more seconds of fumbling with his wallet she shouted, “SIR, YOU CAN NOT MAKE EVERYONE WAIT FOR YOU! JUST STEP INTO THE BUS!” He, as always, looked like he was about to cry. I wanted to dive at her throat. I tried to get myself to call her a fat fuck right then and there but I couldn’t get the words to leap out of my mouth. I froze up. As I often do.
As much as I enjoy doing the right thing by calling someone a fat gorilla or a mindless cunt when the situation calls for it, I’m not the most natural at it. I usually just stay quiet and then I spend the rest of the day wishing I had said something. On the occasions that I do say something, for an hour afterward, my hands shake like I was trying to get my senior pass out of my wallet. But courage isn’t doing something when you’re not afraid. It’s doing something when you are.
The passenger’s chants of “get off the bus” were reaching a fever pitch. It was becoming more threatening, but in an empty way. I looked back at their dirty faces again. I knew none of these walking trashcans had anywhere pressing to be. They just like it when the bus keeps moving. I was taking the one thing they had from them. It was time for me to go.
As I passed the old man on my way off the bus I said, “Last time I stick up for you.” in a joking tone. He just kept staring straight ahead, refusing to look up at me. He didn’t speak English, or he was brain dead. He probably hadn’t even realized that the driver had yelled at him in the first place. “Stupid old Mexican.” I muttered.
I walked down the steps and readied myself for the big showdown. I wasn’t nervous now. I was ready to work. She was standing there ripping streams of toxic smoke deep down into her garbage dump of a body. There was a time I would have said something about lung cancer. Not now though. I’m a lot more mature than I once was. “You want to be careful with cigarettes.” I said casually. “People say when you quit, you tend to put on a few pounds. You wouldn’t want that.” She glared at me in blubbery confusion before telling me to go fuck myself. She waddled back up the steps and shut the door in what, she probably didn’t realize, was defeat.
As the bus engine came back to life a guy sitting in the back gave me the finger through the window. I mouthed the words “FUCK YOU” to him as the bus pulled away. Then I sat down on a bench. She was nice enough, or legally obligated, to have left me at another bus stop. I looked down the street and saw there was already another bus, full of potential victories, coming, off in the distance. My Tuesday was officially underway.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)