Crazy

It’s my belief that we’re all crazy—Trudy, the bag lady

Still crazy after all these years-Paul Simon

If we weren’t all crazy we would go insane—Jimmy Buffet

I think it’s safe to say that we’re crazy. And I don’t mean in that nutsy, fruity, flaky kind of way. I mean we’re crazy in that dangerous, weirdo, Glady’s grab the gun and hide the cats kind of way. We’re crazy in ways that have not even been discovered yet. They haven’t come up with a name or a diagnosis for the kind of crazy we are. It’s the kind of crazy that involves so many symptoms that they can’t even come up with a prescription drug for it and you know how that works, they stumble across some chemical and because they’ve spent like a zillion dollars on research and killed a bazillion rats they figure they need it to do something so they invent a disease for it. We all know how that works. We’ve seen the adverts. Man, I’m gonna ask my doctor if “we-don’t-have-a-clue-what-this-shit-is-amax” is right for me!

And we’re way too anal about things. We are uptight and bothered and edgy and I don’t mean that in a good way. If we weren’t Americans, we may have a chance at being normal but we are, and that’s our doom. We’re doomed. Americans have the strangest way of being in the world. We’re not like Europeans. They have their own problems but for the most part they aren’t bonkers. Oh sure, there’s a few Germans that really need to go to the Cracker Factory and there’s that one guy out there in Korea who’s a little, oh, demented and murderous and homicidal…so much so that you would think he’s an American living in a foreign land. But no, I’m pretty sure he’s Korean. Anyway, Americans are crazy because we are all suffering from a national schizophrenia. So I guess that’s two symptoms right there, anal and schizo. We’ve got an obsession with obsessions. We seem to have to be preoccupied all the time, and when we aren’t preoccupied, we’re occupied. And it’s not with important stuff either. I swear I heard my son scream the f word last night like he’d mashed his thumb with a hammer and there was blood everywhere but no, nothing like that. Nope, his avatar was under attack and had just been felled in a hail of bullets. How lame is that?

We have chicks on tv telling us to “Have a happy period!” like it was a greeting. Can you imagine the checkout clerk down to the Piggly Wiggly? He’d be this weird old guy with buck teeth and long straggly hair and skin about as yallar as a used cigarette filter and he’s saying “Thanks for shopping today Ma’am and have a happy period!” That’d be some messed up shit that would.

And we’re so schizoid. We don’t know what the hell we want. Take dogs, for example. I mean, I love dogs, right? Everyone loves dogs, they’re man’s best friend and all and that’s cool. But then as soon as your best friend pisses on your couch you’re like “Oh hell no! I need to find a home for this puppy!” Or we say we want to get a dog for protection. So we tie ‘em up in the yard and forget to feed and water ‘em but we expect they’ll be right there on the front lines if a burglar comes in. I’m tellin’ you, if there’s trouble, that dog’s gonna be truckin’ down the road and not looking back. Either that or he’ll ask the burglar to take him too! Hell, he’ll take his chances with a new owner, one that works nights this time. They’d be home during the day, maybe watch some videos together.

It’s like shopping on Canal Street. You pretend the shit is real, they pretend the shit is real, but you know that they know that you know that the shit’s not real. That’s not really a Coach purse you just bought for $20, but hey, what the hell, you pretend it is and they pretend it is and everyone’s happy, right? ‘Cept maybe those fuckers in the sweat shop somewhere just outside of Hong Kong aren’t so happy but hey, even they get paid and don’t have to worry about where their rice will come from for a day or two so everyone wins.

But I am so off point. Like, you know when you drive down a rural road and you see all those cows on the side of the road and you just have to roll down the window and tell them “Moo”? Why do we do that? I mean, in cow language does our saying “Moo” really mean just what we mean to say, which is “hey cow, enjoy it while you can, Buddy, cuz I’m actin’ all like I wanna relate and all but really, we both know that I’m gonna be stuffin’ my face with McShit tonight so rock on!”

And the cows looking back at us saying Man that is one ugly bovine. They kinda lookin’ at eachother saying “Do you know that weirdo? We got three stomachs but he got four faces lookin’ out at us ain’t that some weird stuff right there. Don’t let the bull see that, you know how he gets when he thinks he’s trippin’ on that bad grass again.”

Oh, and we Americans love our horses. We talk about how noble and magnificent they are and how they are so sensitive and oh isn’t it nice how they work with those poor kids and all but then what? We trip ‘em up with piano wire so they go flying all for some cowboy movie that makes that actor look all big and bad and all but you know that´s not real right? That actor had to pay some other dude to get up there in the saddle and take all the risk but who gets the big bucks? Not the dude in the saddle and certainly not the horse. No, it’s the pretty boy that gets the million dollar contract and for what? Just ‘cuz he ended up on some list? We are so ass backward in our thinking.

But it’s all right. We’re gonna be ok because you know what? We may have all these weird symptoms and we may be royally screwed in a lot of ways and we may be schizo and suffer from OCD and ADD and what all ever we have wrong with us but it ok because we’re Americans dammit! And we got a drug for that!

Today’s Prompt: You are in the backyard

I am in my backyard and I notice that the squirrels are waiting for me to leave. I will leave, eventually, but not before I am absolutely sure that they have everything that they need. I toss some peanuts, raw, unsalted, that I purchased at the grocery store. When I bought the bag, the cashier asked me if I was buying them to eat, to cook with, or for squirrels. I told her that they were for the squirrels who live in my backyard. She grinned, and said, “I ask everyone that and I have to say that, like, 99% of the people who buy the raw peanuts buy them for the squirrels!” That is very exciting to me. I am so happy to know that.

I also buy corn for them. Hard corn with kernels that they need to chew really hard on. They don’t seem to like them as much as the peanuts but they eat them just the same. But being that there are Palm trees, there are palm nuts. Nuts that grow like a cluster of grapes on our palm trees and they are there for the taking and I have to wonder if I didn’t give them peanuts and corn that maybe they would thrive very well on the palm nuts. I sometimes wonder if I do a big fat disservice to the wildlife in my backyard by supplying them with all the food they will ever need. I swear you would think I am an Italian Mamala with the way I act about these squirrels and birds. If I were not here to help them, well, they would have to fend for themselves and God forbid if I get hit by a Mack truck, or any other truck for that matter, what would they do? So maybe, just maybe I am not doing the right thing by supplying them with food. But I so enjoy watching the squirrels and the BlueJays and the Cardinals and the Mourning Doves, especially those doves, that I am not above being just a little selfish. But I do know that it is selfish. It is not for them that I purchase and keep these animals in food. I know that. I admit it. It’s not for them. It’s for me.

And I’m ok with that, as long as we know what’s what.

Something's burning

The job was both a blessing and a curse. At once, I was fortunate that I was able to work in an environment where I could help animals; yet unfortunate enough to be faced with the day to day consequences of humanity’s inhumanity towards our best friends, dogs and cats. I was getting paid to go into schools and teach children about animals. It was important work and certainly work I would be more than happy to do whether I was getting paid or not. Then again, I had to report each day to a shelter where animals were put to sleep on a daily basis for having done nothing wrong except be born. It was very sad work indeed.

It was a few weeks before I noticed the fine dust that had been accumulating on my vehicle day after day. I was driving a grey Camry at the time, and the grey on grey dust was not all that noticeable, nor noteworthy, it was just there. Anyone seeing the car would assume, perhaps, that I lived out in one of the areas where people lived at the end of a long dirt road. But they would be wrong. No, I live in a snooty gated community, with nary a dirt road to be seen for miles around situated as it is quite within city limits. I’m sorry, and I apologize, for all of the gopher tortoises that were displaced, no, dispatched… when my neighborhood was built. I know that it can take up to three months for a gopher tortoise to expire and for that I am truly sorry. Another day, certainly, I will write about the plight of these unassuming animals. Today, my assignment is to write about something that is burning.

Another student of writing may write, perchance, of a barbeque picnic or a forest fire. Or maybe she would wax poetic about the nights she strummed her guitar around the bonfire on the beach when she was just a bikini-wearing hippie back in the day, passing the occasional joint and chugging a warm beer or two. She may juggle words about her heartthrob Stevie Roberts or Billy, the long-haired hunk who rode the Harley. She may even try her hand at a song about how the stars at night on a tropical beach in Florida…….Oh, but that writer is not this writer. Not today, not anymore. Today, I see a writing prompt entitled “something's burning” and immediately my mind goes to the fine dust on my car that I couldn’t for the life of me figure out of which was the cause. And one day, I had the severe misfortune of asking someone, John or Phil or who the fuck knows, or cares.

So innocently. The conversation began so very innocently in the lunch room. “Do any of you guys notice that your cars are, like, I don’t know, kind of dirtier since you started working here?” I asked. They looked at one another in that knowing way, that way that people look at one another when they know something and you don’t. “What?” So very innocent. “Well, is it kind of like a whitish dust?” Someone asked. ‘Yeah,” I said, “Is there like construction going on around here or is it the shell rock in the parking lot?”

Again with the goddamned looks.

“It’s the crematorium". Someone murmured. Nobody was looking anywhere now. Suddenly everyone was very concerned with what their fingernails looked like or how their sandwich was constructed. I won’t pretend I didn’t know what a crematorium was. I knew bloody well what it was. “So the dust all over my car is, it’s dust from the chimney from the crematorium?” I asked.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. It was….

Something burning.

So you picked up a hitchhiker

Meanwhile, back at the writing exercizes, today's challenge is 'You Picked Up A Hitchhiker" so here goes:



I was driving to the beach the other day when I came upon the most distressing sight. The cars in front of me slowed down, but didn't stop. Some of them swerved to avoid the nuisance, some honked, and some just stepped a little harder on the gas pedal and just sailed on by. But of course, I couldn't do any of those things. I had to stop.



It has long been my unhappy faculty in life to be The One who notices things that others don't. Case in point: a friend of mine, Teri, was chatting amiably on the phone with me the other day when she casually mentioned she had seen the move Julie & Julia. There was an uncomfortable silence, as I didn't respond with the usual "Oh, how was it?" or "Oh, I've been meaning to see that." So when I didn't respond she asked me if I had seen it.

"No, and I don't think I will, I think it will make me very unhappy."

"Unhappy?" she laughed, "Unhappy? How can a movie make you unhappy?" She laughed again, as if I was saying something really funny. And, what the hell, maybe I was. To her.

"Well," I figured I would try to explain, futile as I knew it would be. "I was no fan of Julia Child. I didn't like her. She advocated boiling lobsters alive and she talked endlessly about tender veal meat and young spring lambs. I think it's disgusting, and I really don't want to hear about some young woman following in her footsteps. I don't want to watch a movie about killing lobsters so inhumanely and cooking meat. It doesn't sound like a happy movie to me."

She considered this. "Wow," she said, "Here I am just prattling on, trying to make happy conversation not even thinking about stuff like that and you thought of it that way. That is so weird."

Yes, it is. And it has always been my curse. I see a box on the side of the road and I just know it's full of kittens. I see a huge palm frond lying in the street a half mile down the road and I just know it's a dead dog. I see a lone duck flying overhead and I wonder if his or her mate had been shot down because I know ducks mate for life. I avoid restaurants now because I don't want to be surrounded by people shoving dead animals in their faces. Other people don't see things that way, and isn't it nice that they can go through their whole lives and be so oblivious to the pain of others? How very wonderful for them. Like the drivers in the fictional story I started to tell.



The ones who were avoiding the nuisance on the road. Well, naturally, I stopped. I didn't have to try too hard. I simply opened my back door and said 'OK, get in" and he hopped in the car as if he had been riding in my car his whole life.



But now, what to do with him. They say it's dangerous to pick up hitchhikers. But if I hadn't picked him up, it would be him in danger, not I. Besides, I think I can read body language well enough to tell the friendlys from the unfriendlys.



I eased back into traffic and back into my lane. But I didn't continue on to the beach. Now, I was on a mission. I had a hitchhiker who needed my help.



So instead of going to the beach, I brought the hitchhiker home with me. I gave him food and water, I gave him a bath. I took pictures of him and then I put those pictures up on the internet for all to see.



"Does anyone know this homeless guy? Can someone put him up for a few days?"



Because I am making this story up as I go along, I am going to give it a happy ending. I printed out flyers and put them around. My phone rang. Someone knew the homeless guy. They came to pick him up. And "Snuffy" as I later learned he was called, ran happily into the arms of his beloved human. His eyes shining bright, his tail wagging hard, his coat clean and fluffy.



The bible says that we should be kind to strangers because some have given quarter and comfort to strangers and in doing so have "entertained angels unawares."
And sometimes I think that maybe all this obsession over animals is not really a curse, but a blessing. Because just about everything good that has ever come to me in my life was because of my dedication to animals. I never would have had the first book published, let alone six. I never would have met the most wonderful and compassionate people in the world. I never would have traveled all over the country.

So I'll leave it at that. It's not a curse, it's a blessing. And I am very "awares."

Beached Whale

The television was on low in the background this morning as I sipped my coffee and pored over Ric O’Barry’s To Free A Dolphin in an effort to extrapolate some information for a new project on which I am working. It may have been divine providence that I was multi-tasking in this way when I saw the “Breaking News” from Jupiter on the TV and reached for the remote to turn up the sound. The video was obviously being shot from a helicopter and it was transmitting a picture of a small whale who had beached herself right here in Jupiter. A crowd had already begun to surround her. I grabbed my camera and shot out the door, intent on getting to the beach.

I guess I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I got there. I am not trained in marine mammal rescue, after all. But I know enough to follow directions, and I was hoping that there was someone that was in charge there, someone who knew just what to do. I was hoping that there was an expert there who could make it all better.

And, as it turns out, an expert is what this poor animal needed. An expert. One. But instead, what she got was a whole bunch of people who said they were the “deciders” and nobody who could actually make a decision. And because of this ineptitude, this poor animal had to suffer for hours on the beach, struggling to breathe beneath the her own weight pressing upon her lungs, in front of hundreds of gawkers, before she was finally, humanely put out of her misery.

It seemed to me that there were three options here. She could have been brought back out to sea; she could have been euthanized on the beach; she could have been removed to a rehabilitation center. I don’t know why it took them so long to figure out the best way to handle the emergency. And there were people standing around inside the police line that were clearly not there to help, but to gape and look important. They were making phone calls and taking photos oblivious to the fact that a magnificent and sentient being was fighting for her life right in front of them. I saw a man from The Town there who worked at the motor pool. What was his purpose there? There were scores of Jupiter Police there yet crowd control left a lot to be desired. One activist friend of mine called ahead to ask what she could bring to help. She was told to bring fresh water for the rescuers who had been out in the hot sun for hours. She stopped and purchased bottled water and ice. She dragged a cooler full of water and ice along the beach after parking far, far away. She told the police officer what she had for the rescuers only to be blown off. She had to lug her offerings all the way back to the car.

And the crowd acted as if they were at the state fair. One man commented that it was a good thing that he didn’t have to go on a whale watching trip now because the whales come to you! Kids were laughing and horsing around, as were young men. People were laughing and joking and acting like this was a party instead of a solemn tragedy. I was sickened by their attitude.

In the end she was put down. But it took too long because nobody wanted to make the decision to do the right thing. Nobody wanted to say that “No, she cannot be saved” or “Yes, let’s take her to rehab”. So they stood around and did nothing until it was too late to do anything.
We have a beach here. Now, we need a plan.