American Fez

If there were dreams to sell, what would you buy? Thomas Lovell Beddoes would be as forgotten as me had he not asked this question. Of course, I was never remembered in the first place, as I only shopped for dreams in Life's bargain bins, always searching for cut-price reveries in Ambition's clearance aisle. And I got what I paid for, oh yes, just look upon my works and despair. I'd ask for my money back but there's always a 'no refunds' policy for cheap dreams and customer service is non-existent. Alas, most everyone's dreams are Made In China these days; knock-offs of the real thing; fake fur concealed inside a cubic zirconia. I suppose that's enough for most people: the illusion of good living, the chain-clanking phantom of happiness that's the same as a real ghost except it can only walk into walls and not through them. This is the endgame of a world in which we've all become well aware that we can't have nice things anymore, so why...

The sun rises like a well-rehearsed after-dinner speaker, clearing its throat of clouds before reciting the events of the day in a bright but sententious beam of a voice, making sure its rays project all the way to those slumped at the ends of the Earth. Acknowledgement and appreciation of the previous night's PowerPoint presentation of shooting stars is made, followed by polite jokes to put the atmosphere at ease, then many warm words of wisdom are spoken and the audience is baked with light. I usually find a seat back in Row Y because I'll burn if I get to close to the stage. Sometimes I listen to what the sun says but all too often I'm just checking my phone or hoping we'll take a break to find some shade. After all, the sun will loudly pontificate all day and its shadows can be very long indeed, especially when you're not in the mood for hot air. Let's not forget, my pale skin and moon face mean I'm an SPF 80 kind of guy. Only happy when it rains, as th...

I have a lot of time for Pascal's Wager, time I spend at the roulette wheel of life, shouting "everything on lucky seven." I've never broken the celestial bank but I've never lost my hair shirt either. I simply make a few bucks, enjoy a complimentary cocktail and the buffet, then quit while I'm ahead. Hallelujah. Faith, after all, is basically just another form of confidence and we all need to be confident that we backed a winner, otherwise why are we even at the table. Luck be a deity tonight, you might say. My cardinal rule is: never bet against the house, especially when it's the House of God, and the odds will always be in your favor. For God moves in mysterious ways, like a croupier in a casino of the clouds whose unseen hand distributes gaming chips according to your prayers: 'Oh Lord, may the spinning ball come to rest upon number seven, and in thy mercy deliver to thy humble high-roller another scotch and soda. I knoweth it shalt not be top sh...

The child is father to the man, according to William Wordsworth. But I'm not so sure. In fact, if you ask me, the child is more like the stepfather of the man, or perhaps the eccentric uncle of the man, who the child scarcely sees once or twice a year. After all, the lives of most men amount to little more than a shadow of their infant plans, so somewhere along the path to maturity the auto-parenting went wrong. Apparently, the negligent child spent more time at the playground and the soda fountain than to providing adequate guidance for his successful transition to adulthood. Lucky, then, the man whose younger self even manages to remembers his own birthday.  I passed a pre-school daycare center on my way to work this morning. There was a familiarity about the architecture of the building or maybe just a pattern in the cloudy weather that instantly recalled my own experience of such institutions: an unformed identity confronted by a table of crayons and blank paper, not real...

This morning, strolling somnambulantly along as usual, I suddenly woke up and took that left turn onto the shady, pedestrian path connecting Rat Alley with Easy Street. I'd been wandering up and down Rat Alley for years, gingerly sidestepping the menacing drains, tense and weary from a lifetime of constant vigilance. The path's green canopy of elm and cedar trees provided a pleasant change of scenery, and I could see Easy Street ahead like the proverbial light at the end of a tunnel; a sort of 'New Dawn' if you don't mind another cliches. And why would you? This is easy street, after all. So let's relax and kick back with our grammar and phraseology.  The residents of Easy Street were already making the most of their day: mowing luxuriant lawns and watering flowerbeds buzzing with butterflies and honey bees; clipping curbside topiaries into an entire Noah's Ark of animal shapes; shining the gleaming chrome of vintage cars or pumping up electric bicycle...

  Imagine a foreign correspondent grimly staring at his broken typewriter, sweltering in the relentless humidity of the antique land where he is stationed, weary of writing report that nobody reads and receive no response, homesick for a country that no longer understands him, that has probably forgotten that he exists. Welcome to the world of American Fez, for such is the situation here. Dog-eared notebook, five o'clock shadow, half empty bottle of whisky, anonymous sources, unverified reports, paragraphs of purple prose narrating the news from nowhere about invisible characters haunting unknowable cities. It is thin gruel for a public that demands intravenous ice cream sundae.  One of these days I might write my memoirs, not in twelve elegantly composed volumes like Casanova, but in Rorschach inkblot flip-book form. Then the reader can make up their own story by interpreting the patterns. Perhaps I'll leave some chapters blank so commentary can be added via the ve...