Jack Spratt

120821 16:40 touring car

Once committed towards a certain goal he, dad, was maniacal wouldn't stop for God playing bumper tag with Yellow Cabs just to get the fuck out of Manhattan in rush hour traffic & then somewhere around midway I'd have to pee after all when it began those school vacation days accompanying him on his weekly trips i was twelve? Didn't matter where or when we were passing filling or emptying stations by the million or so it seemed while he regaled me with legends from Shakespeare's Globe Theater where in the commoners stood in the orchestra while the Nob's stood above, no seats or toilets then, peeing indiscriminate/indeterminately into the orchestra . . . and then while banging his knee against the side door to keep awake he'd rear back his head and call; "I say Gov! Howabout waffling it about a bit" No longer curious regarding my sphincter control i'd roll my by now yellow eyes in agony.

There was no "good, better, best" mercantile mind though he taught me well to flimflam customers into buying anything; a junior always wannabe con man at thirteen to his wizardry.

But most often recalled was the open touring car with a family of sizeable proportions inclusive of Grandparents both sets or sides and distant relatives: Aunts, Uncles, cousins 1st, 2nd, 3rd generations --- you see as dad would have or describe it the open touring car was more like than unalike a gigantic Yellow International School Bus with the top torn away driven by, of course the Patriarch -- women weren't allowed to drive then -- of the current ruling family And then there were no stopping places of convenience; a sort of early deserted landscape traversed by only rich and snobbish motorist; devoid of Bill Boards, trees, the farm out buildings to vastly distant, no scrub brush in sight and yet the road ruts jiggling ones bladder back and forth, up then down, jarringly.

So the entire assemblage a sort of bump shuttle like the Staten Island Ferry's would jostle about raising and lowering skirts pantaloons petticoats bustles granny shawls straw boaters spats argil knickers with soft caps or baseball shit kicker fashion front to back or visor forward in Eagle Scout fashion canes covered in alligators goat beaver diamonds pearls wolf heads rubies and an occasional coonskin cap with tail attached. Hoping upon and down up off a rather small funnel inserted in the middle of the touring car leaving a tsunami of urine in its wake.

Oh sweet Jesus in a little red wagon towed by a dragon farting fire i'd love to see a TV movie of that!

Guess I'll have to pitch it to Rupert Murdock to fill in when he's no longer able to moon the public expressing noxious gas out of his ass or entertaining them with vacuous tits and ass Ayn Rand bobble headed dolls or Chiclets toothed reporters in Armini Suits . . . see please; for your delectation or indoctrination -- possibly dictation of attitudes selfish and screw the poor to death:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/21/ayn-rand-appeal/

I am an old man unafraid of the congress of baboons or Fox -- not news but propaganda -- TV. We are not a free democratic electorate but one attacked on all sides by fear.

The stain of Republicans seem to have decided to let the good times roll seeking more welfare for corporations & individuals of obscene wealth who in their turn have bankrupted not only The United States of America but the entire world in the bargain. I exaggerate via artistic licence no longer constrained by journalistic ethics. I was a journalist and have many friends who are conservative of/by various kinds and degrees regarding what we should all be concerned about.

Were I to be limited in choice, what I would like to view; I don't want, cannot afford, and would not view, any more than I listen to NPR, during the carnival of electoral politics. Since I am ashamed of what we've become globally. We've killed millions to achieve no victory in Iraq, Vietnam, Korea; theirs and ours.

I have neither degree nor ordination to help those in need save the all too frequent encounters with the homeless, the mentally ill (also homeless) the bereaved, or soon to be so and their beloved. And finally, perhaps, and I pray so, I will remind you that I have grievance against the entire medical community, their insurers and the entire Christian Church for not standing forward and insisting upon Jesus' recommendations regarding mercy, forgiveness and to love our enemies . . . about which I know more from eating my imaginary guilt for their deaths; my two beloved children. The why, the how, the when and then their body or ashes interred.

I have a deeply personal relationship with the person or energy we call 'God' of which I will attempt to no longer belabor you. Yet in death I look forward to debating with William F. Buckley what he imagined would become of his brilliant rhetoric and nominally Ayn Rand whose books I read during my youth.

As I did with H. L. Mencken, Kafka, Huxley and Orwell . . . the list is actually endless.

At that I have nothing higher than a suspect high school degree coupled with an actionable record of mental illness: manic depression for which there is no definitive cognitive or quantifiable medical test.

In closing I sight Pussy Riot as an example of tyrannies process of disabling protest/doubt/descent by captivity or internment in mental institutions. Wondering now why are they, the rulers of the world, so terrified of the generation to follow our failures?

All I can imagine, at this time soon to end of my life, is to encourage others, particularly the PTSD and co-dependants & actually mentally ill. To take charge and change themselves; the only part of the Universe we actually have authority over; knowing some joy and peace before it all implodes. Never forget that I, like Rush Limbaugh, are essentially entertainers in the market place of ideas.

© 2012 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved