Theater exits should remain unlocked and the practice of strapping down or supergluing patrons to their seats should be discontinued. Even people who choose to go to movies probably have the right to leave if they are offended.
(3) Good people should not be forced to walk back and forth on sidewalks with signs, to get angry or yell at people who are not doing anything to them, or to sign petitions. They may instead be loving and accepting, helpful and tolerant (but even that shouldn't be forced on them.)
(4) To maintain objectivity and keep the discussion on an intellectual plane, neither the protesters nor the theater owners should actually have seen the movie involved. There's no point in cluttering up arguments with facts: with what exists, what is. There's usually more than enough to talk about just from hearsay.
(5) Finally, perhaps the people who are most upset with the blasphemies can sponsor legislation to fix the responsibility for finding and punishing impiety where it belongs--with God. This would free the good protesters from having to concentrate on what other people have to do to keep from hurting god's feelings, and allow them to examine their own lives and actions for faults.
The deities involved in these uproars tend to be conspicuously silent. Almost as if everything in the world is exactly the way it's supposed to be, and each person has the free will to choose good or evil, tolerance or prejudice, faith or doubt. This seems to upset some people, so maybe there needs to be a law to get god to act the way they think he or she should.
This is something bigger than the Sacramento City Council or even the County Board of Supervisors can handle. Such legislation requires at the very least the full weight and authority of the State of California behind it.
After all, we are dealing with god's behavior here. If god is going to sit up and take notice, the message needs the kind of depth and importance that only the Legislature of the State of California can produce. And anyone doubting that it would work, need only look at the way the Banana Slug sat up (so to speak) and shouldered (so to speak) its responsibilities when the Legislature named it to the office of State Mollusk.
Fear of Freedom
Looking at my paycheck stub last Wednesday I noticed I had close to five weeks vacation coming to me.
Suddenly I just didn't want to play employment anymore. I asked for a month off; the next day my boss approved it. I worked one day after that, and I was free for four weeks.
Completely free; absolutely free; stark, raving, free. I went crazy and quickly learned why I had five weeks of vacation while most people had about one week. I didn't use my vacation because I'm uncomfortable outside the prison of my life.
When I work I know exactly what's expected of me: what time I get up, where I go after breakfast, what I do there, how long I stay there, when I come home, where I eat, and when I go to bed. My only freedom is the time I have between dinner and bedtime. I can socialize, or not; watch TV, or (usually) not.
Some days I'm sick, take off from work, and that day is pretty much planned for me: I flop around the house and groan all day.
Other days, an emergency comes up I can't handle on a weekend so I have to take vacation and handle that business. My weekends are no problem--I have dozens of errands to fill them, Saturday and Sunday are planned from daybreak to midnight.
I seem to be grateful to go to work because it fills my day without my having to think about it. However much I whine and complain about the work I have to do, it's actually not that hard and there's seldom too much of it.
However much I complain about what I'm paid, it's actually enough to meet my needs and most of my rational wants.
However much I complain about the people I work with, many of them qualify at least minimally as human beings. And even if I'm required to deal with a jerk daily at work, at least he's a familiar jerk--I know who he is and pretty much what he's going to say and do that I will find awful.
The framework is there, I just climb in the framework and most of my choices are made for me. New people and new situations don't bother me as long as I run into them in my framework.
But what am I supposed to do when they pay my salary to me to relax full-time?
I don't know how to relax. How does a person sit when he's having fun? What does he wear? I can't even talk about it as it relates to me, I have to say, "a person," and "he." What am I supposed to do? Paint the bushes? Mow the roof? Rotate the tires on my bicycle? Drive to Alaska?
I don't have to do anything. It's a hundred degrees outside, the most I'm expected to do is sweat, and no one is checking to see I do that.
The uncertainty is maddening. By ten in the morning my first day off my wife has thrown me out of the house (she works at home). I walk for two hours then come home for lunch.
She throws me out again at one, and I walk for two and a half hours more. Where am I walking to? noplace. What will I do when I get there? nothing. And this is the first day.
It isn't only that there is nothing to do, there isn't any order to my life at all. There are still jerks in the world, but they're not my (familiar) jerks, and some of them may be crazy. I don't know anything.
For example. On the second walk of my first day of vacation I was coming down the sidewalk on the shady side of the street. Two guys seemed to be arguing ahead. I kept walking because I figured when I got closer I could understand what they were saying and judge how serious the argument was--was it a walk-behind-the-guys argument or a cross-to-the-other-side-of-the-street argument?
When I got close enough to understand the men, I couldn't. It wasn't English, Spanish, French, or any European language. It wasn't Chinese, Japanese, or Arabic. I can't understand anything but English, but I can get the cadences.
From a distance I thought one of the guys was black, but up close, the face, the hair and even the skin color was decidedly not a black man's. I don't know what race he might be. He was skinny, stripped to the waist, so covered with sweat that it flew off him when he waved his arms. He was shouting at a sad little fat man in a language I didn't understand while scattering sweat on the sidewalk.
I know from experience that people in some cultures argue with great passion about the correct way to spice a food--without anyone getting violent. I also know (from movies) that some cultures get very quiet when they're upset, then very loud, then very violent. With hatchets.
My problem was, I didn't know what the custom was with these two men. I walked by them, but I was afraid.
Freedom is exhausting. "What next?" "Who is that?" "What am I supposed to do now?" To constantly look, think, and decide wears me out. Controlling my life seems to be just slightly beyond my ability. When I'm forced out of my routine, it becomes obvious to me that I really don't know what I'm doing.
A Chickenbeak Bouquet
The thing about any dinner meat--or art, for that matter--is that whenever you get all the attractive pieces used, you can go to the less attractive. A roast chicken is attractive. The giblets can be used for gravy, the kidneys and liver for satanic rituals (or something), and the Chinese even eat the feet.
But eventually you get to something you can't use--like the chicken beak. You don't want to throw it away, because it's neat to have, but you just can't use it for anything.
This essay is the literary equivalent of a bouquet of chicken beaks. It is all the little scraps of paper in my pockets and on my dresser that never developed into organized ravings. Some never even made complete sentences.
It is important, even vital, that the reader not try to make sense out of the pieces. They do not connect or associate in any way. There is no message.
Items for the home:
Fridge Babies. Jumpers for toddlers with magnets on the back that would allow frustrated mothers to keep overactive youngsters safe and out of the way while at the same time fastening shopping lists and grade school artwork to refrigerator doors. Just stick the rug rat to the refrigerator door.
A Flat, Level Surface. This can be fo
lded up and kept in the trunk of the car and taken out when the car's oil needs to be checked and when a tire needs to be changed. Around the house the flat, level surface would be handy whenever anyone needed to use a ladder because there's never one where the ladder has to stand.
Tear-Along Tape. A roll of perforations on cellophane tape. A person would just cut off a length of tape and press it on along the dotted lines that you're supposed to tear along to open a box that you can't get open because the damn box doesn't have any perforations, only dotted lines. Then the box would open where it's supposed to.
Easy Assembly Instructions. As a special option, inexpensive import products can include understandable instructions mentioning all the parts in the box and with pictures that match the product. And for a few dollars more, they might even leave out the steps that don't apply to the product.
Items for the skinflint's office:
Staple Glue. This would allow all the little pieces of staple bars that break off to be glued together so the staples can all be used. With the Staple Recycler (available at extra cost), used staples can be straightened, aligned and glued for re-use.
File Grease. A silicone-based spray that lubricates manila file folders and permits adding up to 20 more files to a drawer that is already stuffed full when the boss won't spring for a new file cabinet. WARNING: exceeding the 20 file limit may cause an information explosion upon opening the drawer as overpressurized greased data finds an outlet.
The panorama of Nature:
Possibly the ugliest and most irritating dog is the Pekingese-Shar Pei mix. This is basically a hairy, baggy dog that looks like it ran into a wall, that drools incessantly, and that yaps like a blue jay. Even when it's quiet, it's offensive. Its only use is for hunting velcros, and it can only do that between the months of November and February.
This time limitation has nothing to do with the dog. Rather, there is only a narrow time when the pelt of the velcro is commercially useful. The North American Velcro's summer pelt is too short and lacks the "hook" quality commerce requires.
It is only the longer winter coat of the velcro that will "attach" and velcro hunters and trappers must collect the pelts before the February mating season. This is because once the male and female velcros mate, they cannot separate until spring, when they lose their winter coats and the baby "lints" are born. Traditional folklore ("Just throw a bucket of water on them") is nonsense.
Disturbing Questions:
What do they do with all the mail addressed to resident or occupant that cemeteries receive? Cremate it?
Is the only way you can get hold of that melody-less "Boom-ta-boom--CLASH--Boom-ta-boom--CLASH" tape I'm always hearing by buying an enormous sound system for your car to play it on?
Is that really those guys' legs, or have they started manufacturing tanned, hairy, pantyhose for male joggers to wear in the winter?
& Profound Observations:
When you work in an office full of martyrs you often find yourself fighting over the hair shirt.
Finally, I end up being less a man of mystery than a man of deep personal confusion.
International Adulthood
For the past few years a Sacramento man named T.J. David has been planting rose gardens for world peace. He uses his own money, about $30,000 so far. He wasn't really asked to do this, it was his own idea.
On October 16th his latest garden was dedicated and blessed by Bishop Gallegos at Our Lady of Guadelupe Church in downtown Sacramento. It has 300 bushes.
David's diplomatic training could very well have been sharpened by his occupation as a tire store manager. Certainly the manager of a tire store needs skills in getting along with people, especially angry people, that a law school professor or a career military man would never have to acquire.
Anyway, he manages a tire store and spends his time and money planting rose gardens for peace.
One night he had a dream he owned a house with rose bushes in the back yard, so he bought just such a house. He began planting roses.
While visiting the Gandhi Memorial in Pacific Palisades, he noticed the rose garden needed work, so he offered to replant it. And did. I doubt whether the Gandhi folks bought any tires.
Since then he has planted gardens at churches in San Diego and Encinitas, and at a retreat house in Hidden Valley.
There's nothing too remarkable about this--just a guy with a love and a skill who does things to improve the world without being asked to and out of his own pocket.
David hopes to plant a rose garden at the Vatican.
These are not exactly trouble spots: Pacific Palisades, San Diego, Encinitas, Hidden Valley, Sacramento, and the Vatican. It probably would be begging the question to say, "See, the roses are working, the fighting has stopped in Sacramento."
On the other hand, chasing wars around the world with a shovel and a rose bush would be pretty pointless. There may be more wars than rose bushes. Perhaps it's best to just make the gardens where one can and trust the peace to find its way into the world.
But there are some difficult questions that need to be asked. Rather than disturb Mr. David, I made up the questions and answers myself.
Let's look at this logically. No, let's not. Let's bypass the mind and go directly to the heart for some in- depth answers:
Q) What possible good can planting roses do for world peace?
A) The question is foolish; where's the harm?
Q) What is the deterrent? Thorns don't stop multiple- warhead ICBMs or tanks.
A) They're flowers, they don't deter, they attract.
Q) What if it doesn't work?
A) It doesn't matter if it doesn't work. It doesn't matter if it doesn't work, because nothing works. The state of the art peace thinking in the most powerful country of this world is the Strategic Defense Initiative--SDI or Star Wars. We hope to spend trillions of dollars on a computerized ray gun to shoot down incoming missiles during the next nuclear war.
We want to shoot the gun out of the other guy's hand during a quick-draw. Even if SDI operates, it won't work.
Because we expect the fight, we will get it. Someday we will get it.
Today, peace is only the fear between the wars. We are driven by fear and hope to drive others the same way. We build better missiles (the new ones are faster, fly farther, and have ten warheads) and call them Peacekeeper. We are not keeping peace, we are preserving no-war through fear.
Real peace is a freedom from fear and comes from within, though roses can trigger it.
Easily the most encouraging thing I've heard in the last eight years is that in times of crisis, President Reagan would take a nap. If George Bush learned nothing but the inclination to drop off to emergency sleep during those sobering times behind the presidential desk, he's qualified to be president.
Someday we may not need to elect our leaders on the basis of their drowsiness under fire. Someday maybe countries will get pissed off at each other and instead of their leaders blowing each other to hell or taking a nap, they'll slip outside for a breath of fresh air and to see if the ladybugs took care of the aphids on that bud that was about to burst.
And after they've cooled off a bit, maybe they'll go back and work out their difficulties. Sort of like International Adulthood.
Sure, plant roses for world peace. I don't have any problem with that.
JAMA Jam
I need to find a certain issue of a magazine: the November 11, 1988 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. The libraries aren't cooperating.
The downtown library is no help because it isn't here anymore. It's being torn down, and I have no idea where the stacks are. Someone said the downtown mall. Even if I could find the library, it wouldn't be open. It's always the wrong phase of the moon for that library to be open when I go there.
So I use the college libraries because they're open all phases of the moon, but not during semester break. First I tried California State University at Sac
ramento's library. Sac State's library has five floors by subject (Science, Social Science, Humanities, and so on) and each floor has both periodical and book stacks.
I couldn't find JAMA at all. It wasn't in the library's periodical reference locater book under "Journal American," "Journal of American," or "Journal of the." I found the Journal of the American Psychiatric Association in the J's on the social science floor. I looked on each floor and couldn't find JAMA anywhere. It was Saturday and I couldn't find a librarian either.
Finally, I found a librarian in the lobby. I asked her where JAMA was. "Look in the periodical reference locater book," She said.
"I did." "Under 'American Medical Association, Journal of the'?"
It was there. It said it was on the first floor.
"This says it's on the first floor," I said.
"Yes. On the Science floor."
I had her: "Why is the Journal of the American Psychiatric Association on the third floor (Social Science) and why is it listed under 'Journal' in the locater book?"
She looked me square in the eye and said quietly, "I dunno." I almost fell in love. It was her honesty.
I found the Journal of the American Medical Association under "American" on the Science floor. They had bound issues going back decades and loose issues from 1985 to November 4, 1988.
November 11th wasn't on the shelf yet. I checked the tables for loose magazines and the refile cart. I would have asked the librarian for help, but the only one was on the second floor lobby.
I would be patient and come back.
I was patient two entire days, then I went back. It wasn't there still. Nor was the librarian. It wasn't on the refile cart either. Still. Yet.
I would take my business elsewhere.
Sacramento City College has a pretty good library; they would have JAMA. And the periodicals room at City College is one room--none of this Science floor/Humanities floor stuff. JAMA had to be in that room somewhere.
I couldn't find it. There were a few "Journal of American" magazines on the shelf in the A's, but no JAMA. It wasn't on the shelf under "American." It also wasn't under "Journal American" or "Journal of American," in the J's.