As I Please

For some years, George Orwell wrote a column in the London Tribune called simply “As I Please.” The title was not deceptive. The column had no particular focus, except to the extent that Orwell was generally focused on politics, world affairs and social change: he simply talked about whatever happened to interest, amuse or outrage him at a particular moment, be it German air raids or the degeneration of English beer; the things you could find prowling junk shops, or the best way to serve tea. Orwell was often justly attacked for possessing misanthropic views about the human race, and misanthropy and introversion are quite common elements in the makeup of writers, but they are hardly the only elements. In many ways, “As I Please” simply reflected Orwell's more positive characteristics: namely his intense curiosity about life and his love of useless (but often amusing and interesting) facts and anecdotes.

The other day I was putting the finishing touches on a blog I was quite pleased with, and quite literally reaching to tap the “save” button, when my knuckle chanced over the wrong key and the web-page upon which I was writing disappeared. An entire morning's writing disappeared with it. This exasperating little incident, so common in modern, electronicized life, got me thinking that perhaps I ought to take a page out of Orwell's book from time to time and pen an “As I Please” column of my own, one which did not require so much time and energy to compose, for use when writing a larger essay is impossible due to time constraints or computer mishaps. So on this cool and quiet Sunday I am going to do just exactly that, and leave you with a series of random thoughts, observations and memories. If nothing else, they may show you why I have always regarded Orwell as the greatest of all writers I have encountered on the page -- we think alike!

* In my Twitter feed, I have noticed that a large number of people who claim to be “writers” frequently make rather passionate arguments in favor of various types of censorship. They do not, of course, use the word “censorship” – no one who wants to censor your thoughts, writings, speeches or lyrics ever does – but the positions they advocate deserve no other description. Not only is this tendency cowardly and disgusting, it is also deeply hypocritical, for the very same lot who work themselves into a foam-flecked rage over men writing women, straight writing gay, white writing black, etc. are also the same who shriek like demented cats over the lack of racial, ethnic, and sexual diversity in novels, television shows and movies. As a straight white man, I have literally been told in so many words both A) I ought to write more characters of color or who belong to some type of minority group, and B) questioned as to whether I as a straight white man am “qualified” to write for gay characters or characters of color. Presumably such people desire a world where every completed creative endeavor resembles a kind of human rainbow, yet at the same time, they seem to desire a situation where only a rainbow can write a rainbow: in practical terms, this would lead to a world where, presumably, only (for example) a black gay female writer would be allowed to write anything at all. Yet I have to ask: why would she be qualified to write a straight white male? The people who say these sort of things, and make these self-contradictory demands, never seem to grasp what the inevitable result of this kind of logic must be: a world where no on is allowed to exercise their imagination or their qualities of empathy and projection, a world in which every creative person must stay in their own lane lest they be attacked for assuming a foreign point of view. Such a world could create nothing of literary or artistic value; by its very nature it would spend all of its time poking around the bona fides of a writer, trying to determine if some act of cultural or sexual theft had been committed. This ought to be obvious even to the stupidest person, yet uncountable numbers of people seem oblivious to it. The concept of the “slippery slope,” which used to be taught to our children in Civics classes from a very young age, has evidently found itself a casualty of the endless pogrom presently being conducted by our society against the concept of critical thinking.

*There comes a moment in everyone's life when they can no longer kid themselves and accept that their youth is finished. By a series of contortions worthy of Neo in THE MATRIX I was able to avoid accepting the arrival of middle age far longer than anyone I know, but some recent photos posted online by the woman to whom I lost my virginity have left me no doubt that it is here and has been for some time. The photos in question are of her oldest daughter, who is now 18 years old – the same age I was when met her mother.

*I have been a practicing libertarian since 2016, but my libertarian sentiments were probably awakened fifteen years ago or more, when I began to grasp that we had invested so much power in the presidency and the courts that congress, the most democratic and vital branch of government, seemed to be in danger of becoming little more than a figurehead, like the Senate after the consecration of the Roman Empire. The Trump Presidency has proven to me beyond on doubt that America is now in very much the same shoes as Rome was just before the death of the Republic. Militarily and economically we remain very nearly all-powerful, but morally and ethically we are in a state of collapse, and this collapse has manifested in an ever-increasing concentration of power into individuals, specifically federal and SC justices and the president. If you doubt this, ask yourself how important it is that the next president be stable and sane. A hundred years ago it scarcely mattered if he were either: now the fate of all humanity depends upon both. Technology is of course the principal architect here, because 100 years ago we didn't possess nuclear bombs, but the fact remains every election has become a GAME OF THRONES-esque exercise in holding one's breath in the hopes that the next king – or queen – isn't a fire-breathing lunatic. We must find a way to rein in the immense and unhealthy power of the presidency and the courts and return both institutions into balance they once shared with the third co-equal branch of our government, congress. Because as a rule of thumb, if you fear who occupies a particular office – I mean really fear it, in the mortal sense – then that office has too much power.

* Today, as I was leaving a diner after breakfast, the sun hit me rather uncomfortably on the face and I noted, not for the first time, that Southern California does not possess four seasons but only one and a half. I call them “summer” and “not-summer.” The interesting thing about these seasons is that when one is in the midst of of either, it is natural to believe the other does not exist. In August, in the San Fernando Valley, it is so mercilessly hot – 112 degrees is not unknown – that the very existence of such things as space heaters and wool socks strikes you as ridiculous. In February, when you require both to avoid freezing your toes off while you sleep, and the back yard is a swamp of cold mud, the notion that you will soon require both your air conditioning and your ceiling fan merely to get to sleep at night – and then only barely – comes off as equally nonsensical. In states where the typical "four seasons" model exists, life seems far less of a syllogism.

* A friend of mine caught me watching bare-knuckle boxing the other day and remarked about my “insatiable bloodlust.” He also made comments to the effect that a civilized society would not allow such things as mixed martial arts or bare-knuckle boxing even to exist, much less publicize, normalize and reward them. You can make a case that he is correct on both counts, but I believe such arguments to be of the debate-society type – all style and no substance. The brute fact is that there are many human beings who are in essence, hunters in a farmer's world. Such people require outlets for their savagery and it is far better for them to release their primal urges toward violence, risk-taking and adrenaline rushes via combat sports, bungee jumping, sky-diving, race-car driving, etc., etc. than it would be to ban such things and let these impulses build to the explosion point. To simply deny that humans have savage elements is as foolish and self-destructive as letting them run riot. The savage has his uses just as the civilized man does: it is merely a question of harnessing the primal energies in a modern way. As the character of Uncle Kelloway pointed out in “Piece of Cake,” apropos of R.A.F. pilots, “It's a good job these fellows are flying fighters for His Majesty; otherwise they'd be out robbing banks.”

* When I was about ten or eleven years old, my friend Erik and I engaged in a complex, extremely well-planned scheme to obtain a copy of PLAYBOY from the local store. I cannot begin to tell you how thoroughly we drew up our plans or how meticulous we were in executing them. We had an alibi for our absence from school, a store of money, and an expertly forged note, ostensibly from Erik's father, with which we were going to fool the clerk at the store. All this plotting came to naught, however – not because we were caught, but because we had forgotten about sales tax and were short something like ten or fifteen cents. I mention this story in large part because it goes to show both the immense curiosity which boys of that age have about women and sex, and also because such an event would never happen today. The existence of the Internet has utterly and completely de-mystified the female body as well as the sexual act, to the point that even very young children whose hormones are years from awakening know far more than is desirable or necessary about both. The effect that pornography and semi-pornographic imagery will have on the sexuality and social interaction of future generations is a cause for study, and perhaps for worry, too. There is, after all, something to be said for the air of mystery.