It's the Song that They Don't Sing

Out walking the other day, I passed a Chevy of some kind (I think) with Connecticut tags wrapped in a chrome frame with black lettering inset that, above the plate, read: "Sexually Deprived" while below it, "For Your Security and Protection."

I had walked perhaps three steps beyond the car when my brain managed to make my legs stop as it finally processed what my eyes had told it, and I walked back to take a second look. Yep, that's what it said. Would that there had been nothing more, both I and Edgar Allan might have been content, but no.

On the back window shelf, facing whoever would be following the car, was a stuffed brown and white toy bear, maybe ten inches high or tall, wearing a red negligee and black racing goggles. 

Looking again at the car (tearing myself away from the Teddy in a teddy was an herculean struggle), I realized the car's tires had four different rims as well. If the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse decide to use the HOV lane, I have a funny feeling I've just spotted their vehicle.

I've spent a great deal of time between then and now pondering all of this, and not just because my life is surprisingly empty. I'm seeking an explanation that would, in turn, lead me to a conclusion as to its meaning, and I have to tell you, I have nothing. Nichts, Nada, Zip.

I'm left to wonder if it's part of a postcard from a brave new world tomorrow or just more roadkill on the human highway. I fear it's a whole lot of nothing and a little bit of everything.
-bill kenny

You Were Bigger than the Whole Sky

The Age of Connectivity has enabled us to attempt relationships with people from across the globe whom we might not otherwise ever know or know of. I joke, but not really, about answering 'YES!' to the question, "Are Friends Electric?" because in my case, I have ten times more online ether acquaintances than actual flesh-and-blood ones. 

The interactions, as you know if you too are a netizen, are so much easier than in real life. You choose to respond to someone, or you stop responding. No awkward silences, no sense of guilt, just ones and zeroes.

And there are so many platforms to choose from in which to be alone in the crowd. Whether you choose to embrace the world or hold it at arm's length, you have the control, but it comes with a price. Real human emotions, happiness, anger, sadness- the whole panoply on the spectrum can be voiced in cold type, but the heartbeat behind the machinery can be lost or misconstrued.    

This stopped me cold yesterday, as the hole in this person's heart is so large and so deep, even if every one of us responded to them, it would be meaningless. 

Saying goodbye to someone whose existence you never knew is worse than failing to say hello to someone you'll never meet. And it's the price we pay for the shared community we think we're building online.
-bill kenny

The Only Consonant Is Change

Have you ever heard 'no good deed goes unpunished'? Now you have. The other day, exiting my local grocery store and walking through the parking lot, a car passed me in search of a parking spot. He found one just up ahead, signaled, and made the turn into the spot all in one motion. Game over.

I continued to walk towards my car, which took me past his. The driver was just getting out as I walked by. My Imp of the Perverse, having successfully ignored most of the world's population for most of yet another day, decided that social intercourse and human interaction were just the ticket and lurched into action.

My ears heard my mouth offer in an extremely cheerful voice (I hate when I do that bonhomie 'hail fellow! well met!' crap) 'just so you know, your driver's side brake light is out,' which, as a conversational opening gambit, falls squarely in the innocuous bordering on moronic scale of exchanges. The driver, now standing beside his own vehicle looking at me evenly, noted in a flat tone of voice, "what's your fluckin' point" (but without the L).

I've collected good questions much of my life. I started out trying to pair each of them with good answers, but that rapidly became a bridge too far, so questions it is. And this was a fine one.

All I could do was smile-no words could adequately explain to the driver that I had only attempted to be helpful, but no worries (as my children's generation was fond of saying), SB, it won't happen again. Ever. As for that good deed, hardly a trace left in the here and now, just junk all across the horizon-a real highwayman's farewell.

-bill kenny

Busy Weekend?

If you weren't following World Cup first-round action, or the rage in the cage event on the White House lawn, I'm telling you something you already know.

Riddle me this: who had his name taken off a Washington, D.C., landmark almost as quickly as he forced it? I'm sure the President isn't happy about this turn of events, but before he has Kash Patel unleash the FBI to investigate all the folks on scaffolds who made it happen. 

Equal parts unseemly and illegal, though neither of those reasons is even vaguely compelling for the crawlers who enable the man and reinforce his bad impulses.

I propose a compromise to satisfy all parties. No, President Trump's name will not be on the Kennedy Center, but we'll put up something that will instantly call him to mind.

Sometimes the simplest solution is the best one of all.
-bill kenny

No Flag Has Ever Stopped a Bullet from a Gun

Between now and Election Day, we will hear every single person seeking office in these United States of America invoke 'the flag' in support of whatever it is they are advocating.

That is their right, just as it is mine to arch my right eyebrow and aim a caustic comment or two (I get them by the gross, they're much cheaper that way) in their general direction, certainly no longer in the hope of dissuading them or any adherent from pursuing a particular course of action I'd rather they not, but because it's hygienic and perhaps therapeutic for my own mental state.

I, along with millions of others since before this nation was a nation, served in its armed forces, wore its uniform, followed the lawful orders of those placed in leadership positions, and did as best I could what was expected of me in defense of my country and my family. In recent times, we've had ample, egregiously awful proof of the importance of defining and defending both in the broadest sense possible.

The American flag is a symbol of that nation and means to each of us what we wish to see in it when we look to it. Today is Flag Day, and we are going to hear a lot about 'the flag' and 'our country' before we make decisions this November about who we are and who we shall continue to be. 

I always think of Carl Schurz's words about "my country" and how far too often pseudo-patriots have selectively edited and condensed/corrupted them to support their own agenda. Here's all of it in one place: 

"(O)ur free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: ‘Our country—when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.’”

It doesn't fit on a bumper sticker, so you rarely hear the whole quote in much the same way as we use the flag to cover a multitude of venalities. Today, Flag Day, it's good to remember our flag shouldn't be a prop of personal or political posturing but rather a symbol of our nation's resolve and unity.
-bill kenny

Thinking about Mom

At some point on most days, I have a moment where something triggers a memory of my mother, who passed away several years ago in 2017. The memories are always happy, which I think she would have appreciated. This was my celebration of her birthday from a very long time ago. I called it: 

Expecting Me to Remember

Timing is everything, and if I wait too long, she'll probably be at the beach, just leaving for the beach or returning from the beach. Today is my mother's birthday, and when you live in Florida because you hate the snow of New Jersey, that's how you roll.

My mom married my Dad shortly before she celebrated her twenty-third birthday and was my mother before she was twenty-four. She lived with and loved a man who loved her and all of us very much but didn't know how to say it or show it. She could hear it and see it, and that's all that really needed to count. It took me a lifetime to accept that.

When I was a kid, she was my intermediary in every transaction with my dad-walking a fine line between a proud man and a headstrong son who were so alike they couldn't see the forest for the family tree. 

She negotiated not only safe passage for me to adulthood but for all of my brothers and sisters, including the youngest three for whom she was all the parent they were to have at a critical point in their lives when Dad died.

My mother is not a sweet old lady-she is a tough broad who has stared into the maw of terrifying illnesses and diseases and never blinked. She doesn't meddle in the lives of her children or those of her grandchildren, but when you ask her for advice, you get it with the bark off. When you buy a ticket from Joan, "Joanie" as her younger brother Jim always called her, you get the whole ride.

Whenever I call her at the holidays, be it Christmas or Mother's Day, she's on beach time. Hell, I could call her on Two for Tuesdays at Hannafin's, and she'd be calculating high tides at the beach, which is on the other side of the road from where she lives. I promise her someday we'll get down to see her, but I am my father's son, and she knows that won't happen and she's okay with it.

I'll spend a great deal of time today trying to get her on the phone. And when she answers, she'll be surprised that I called, as she always is even though I always do. 

Some Moms are frozen in a moment. Others seize the day and live every moment of it and more. Happy Birthday, Mom. Life's a beach.
-bill kenny         

Pop Goes...

What did I do before the Internet? Drink, mostly. Okay, not all the time, only while awake. Too much sharing, perhaps? Fair enough. 

I used to type on a keyboard connected to a typewriter that had a computer screen (word processor), and when I would reach the end of my story and letters and punctuation, I would turn off the monitor and off to heaven went the words (I guess). It was a hard life, but I was happy.

Now, I have more bandwidth than cents-but not by much, and some days, not at all. The amazing thing about the internet is it exposes you to a reality far more surreal than any Hawaiian Hallucination Song could ever produce. 

Here's what I mean. 

I've always loved James Joyce. The Dubliners and Ulysses are true wonders of wordplay. "'History,' said Stephen, 'is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.'" No worry about hitting the snooze button today.

It is against just such a verbal banquet that you must judge this paragraph from an ancient Associated Press report. The victim asked, "Why are you carrying a weasel?" Police said the attacker answered, "It's not a weasel, it's a marten," then punched him in the nose and fled.

Take that Beckett and the Waiting for Godot you rode in on!! 

We have your sweeping narrative-your dynamic tension and your unresolved drama. I'm in love with the notion that none of the characters in this story have names-they are pawns in a game of which they have no awareness, much less chance of winning.

The names have not been changed to protect the innocent-the names haven't been used at all because they're not essential to the story. But what is essential? It's in the second paragraph, my friend, everything you, the lonely sojourner on your unarmed road of flight, needs to know: it's a marten carcass and NOT A WEASEL. Thanks for making that clear. "Meanwhile, way across town in the penthouse suite of the tallest building..."
-bill kenny