“When the earth gapes my body to entomb, I justly may complain of such a doom.”–Voltaire, “Poem on the Lisbon Disaster”
“And I can’t fight this feeling anymore. I’ve forgotten what I started fighting for. It’s time to bring this ship into shore. And throw away the oars, forever.”–REO Speedwagon, “Can’t Fight this Feeling Anymore”
My Sunday sing-along with the village delinquents had just reached the coda when there came a pounding at my door.
The sound startled the young ne’er-do-wells and sent our five-part harmony into a pitchy mess. Everyone stayed on key, but they lost their balance and fell from the risers into the inflatable pool of hot pitch below. I have found, in working with degenerate youth, that sometimes all it takes to bring out the golden voices slumbering inside their criminal bodies is a little tough love.
Take the Three Tenors, for example: all products of the musical pedagogy of European fascism. “Lucky” Luciano Pavarotti was a cracker thief in Mussolini’s Italy until the authoritarian youth outreach program fed him the castor oil that brought his sweet tenor gurgling up to the surface. Placido “Sleepy Sunday” Domingo was bastinadoed 16 times by the Spanish Falange before he could sing a melody instead of jimmy a lock. And Jose “Career Loiterer” Carreras would still be standing on a street corner in the Barceloneta if Franco’s Guardia Civil had not tended to his musical “reeducation.”
But back to my story: peeved that I would now have to refill the tub with freshly heated tar, I marched to the door to rage at the intruder whose knocking had interrupted my stern commitment to community service.
“Don’t you realize that I am trying to rehabilitate the malformed souls of our nation’s youth through the formidable spirit of music!” I shouted. “Account for yourself, villain!”
I concluded my greeting with a swift flick between the man’s eyes delivered by my callused bludgeon of a fingernail.
Only when his eyes failed to come uncrossed did I realize this villain was my twin brother, G.P. (Gross Product).
“G.P., you rogue! My apologies, but I didn’t recognize you dressed in your clown suit. What gives?”
G.P. was real biz-casual kind of guy. He talked a lot about synergy, diversifying stuff, stimulating investment incentives in things and all the legendary nights out he had with his boys in Palo Alto. So, you can imagine my shock when I saw him swaddled in pink robes, his hair tied in a knot and a skull tattooed across his face.
“The end is nigh, P.G.! Death has come to swallow our world, to gnash our guts betwixt his jaws.”
“That doesn’t sound like you, G.P. You’re usually so upbeat and of limited diction. What happened?”
“My real estate investments fell through, so I’ve joined an apocalyptic cult.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll get another investment opportunity,” I told him.
“You don’t understand. My penthouse vacation condos in Port-au-Prince fell through all 15 floors below them.”
“Oh,” I said. But as soon as I tried to say something comforting, something remotely optimistic, a little serving of vomit would surge into my mouth. My mind desperately searched beyond the earthquake in Haiti for a current realm of human activity that didn’t make me gag in despair. Politics, War, Healthcare, Education, Economy, Jobs, Media, Hollywood, Environment–these banal terms, fired into my brain hundreds of times a day, took on a ghoulish appearance that sent me cowering in the warm vat of hot pitch. Not even art–the cherubic voices of my village hoodlum choir singing “Waltzing Matilda” in the round–could draw me from the bilious depths of my black liquid sanctuary.
My brother’s return had sapped my resolve to live among men. In the days following his visit, I tried to carry on with my volunteer work as choirmaster for incorrigible derelicts. But I didn’t possess the strength of will to cane the sole of even a single foot. As a result, the group’s singing failed to improve and recidivism quickly replaced rehabilitation. Larceny and gambling returned to the choir room. By month’s end, my Sunday sing-alongs had become wanton orgies of disorder. There would be no great Pavarottis or Domingos made by me–only tone-deaf cracker thieves and donkey-voiced loiterers.
But, really, I’m happier here. I’m with my twin brother Gross Product, who now goes by Death Knell and all his apocalyptic cult friends. We have a lovely little stretch of hovel in the trans-Bay tube midway between S.F. and Oakland. I hear the view 300 feet above us is simply stunning. We have an ample supply of nettles and pass the time telling each other stories of the pending apocalypse and watching the BART passengers zoom by merrily on their crash course to inevitable disaster.
One thing, though. I can’t write these columns for The Stanford Daily anymore. Internet connection is too spotty down here. And ever since I’ve stopped fighting this apocalyptic feeling, I’ve forgotten what I started writing for.
But, please, I encourage you to come visit.