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GenePool
Humor
Working Off
the Rust
It turns out I haven't been wasting my time after all.
I recently finished a novel, and for the last month or so I've been writing to agents and begging them to represent me. (Introductory line from my query letter: "dear godlike being: please make me rich.") This is a lengthy process involving long periods of waiting, weeping, and rending of garments. I have found, as I whiled away the hours worrying incessantly, that I was completely unable to write anything. This is a problem. When I don't write for more than a week, I don't sleep well, and when I don't sleep well, I find it even harder to write, and that, in turn, makes it more difficult to sleep. It's a vicious circle of doom that ends with me transformed into a babbling insomniac drooling in a corner somewhere and trying to recall how to spell my own name.
This is not the first time I've gone down this road, of course. Every writer suffers through a period of writer's block. In the past, I've found alcohol to be a tremendously effective palliative, with alcoholism the only real drawback. But alcohol doesn't seem to be working any more. That is, I've found I need to drink a good deal more than I used to in order to obtain the desired effect, and half the time I don't ever get there at all and just skip on ahead to hangover status.
So I had to find another way to abuse my body, which is what led me to exercise. I am specifically interested in getting rid of a gut that has been growing uncontrollably for several years now. At work, I see daily reminders of my future-- should I choose to ignore this situation-- in my fellow employees, one of whom is built exactly like the title character in the childrens' show "Bear in the Big Blue House."
My problem with exercise is that it's tremendously boring. I am one of those people who require a constant supply of intellectual stimulation. At work I'm known as "the guy who walks and reads at the same time." But I can't read while exercising, because I get sweat on the book, so I have to rely on the television.
For a while, the Red Sox provided a decent solution. I begin every baseball season as a Believer, defined by this profession of faith: "The Red Sox will win it all this year." It is mandatory that every Believer make an effort to watch, listen to, or in some other way follow every single game the Sox play, in addition to reading every sports page, and keeping up with the scores of other games, the injury reports, and who is on the waiver wires. This, as you can imagine, is very time-consuming, which is why it's the perfect distraction. If, for instance, I am exercising on a night in which there is no Sox game, I can watch ESPN and find out how other teams are doing that night.
The drawback is that it is difficult to remain a Believer for an entire season, as faith is predicated on the Sox actually making it to the post-season and winning the World Series. So at some point every year, I become an Agnostic. The profession of faith for an Agnostic Red Sox fan is: "I believe it is possible for the Red Sox to win it all this year, but I don't know how." Agnosticism is much easier, especially when the Sox are losing with some regularity, because it no longer requires one to watch every game, or necessarily follow the other teams. The Agnostic may check the sports pages from time to time, and will on occasion even rediscover his or her faith, but it's fairly unlikely. I lapsed into Agnosticism right around the time the Red Sox fired their manager, who had kept them in the race with four all-stars on the disabled list for most of the season. This, to me, is like finding a guy who can spin thread into gold and then complaining about the quality of the gold.
With the Red Sox no longer a reliable option, I had to rely on other cable channels for stimulation. Which brings me to porn.
Sometime around eleven P.M. every night many of your otherwise respectable cable stations show an entertaining variety of soft porn. Well, 'entertaining' might be stretching it. So might 'variety.' But it's something. My other choices are sports I don't want to see, like competitive trick-shot pool (which, as near as I can tell, has a point system not unlike the Gong Show,) the VH1 Behind the Music hour-long life story of the guy who played the organ for the studio recording of 'Like A Rolling Stone,' or the E! True Hollywood story of the guy who played the guy who played the organ for the studio recording of 'Like A Rolling Stone' in the movie re-enactment.
And I've been feeling guilty about watching porn, because it's a self-evident waste of time. Or so I thought. Then I read the article in yesterday's Boston Globe. Apparently, a fair number of legitimate universities are teaching porn. In classrooms, even. One film class even requires students to make their own porn film as a final project. This actually sort of makes sense. I spent a lot of time in the theater when I was in college, and if there's one thing we had a surplus of, it was attractive people who couldn't act worth a damn. Just add a keg, a game of truth or dare, and a video camera, and voila. My only question is, how does one not get a passing grade?
"I'm sorry, the dialogue was too realistic and the sex lasted less than fifteen minutes. Also you presented only two positions, and the minimum was five, and neither of the positions was physically impossible, as required. However, the scene with the donkey was very inventive. C minus."
One Shakespearean professor includes pornographic renditions of the Bard's works in his course. I studied Shakespeare in school and cannot recall any pornographic scenes in any of his plays, although it occurs to me that this could spice things up considerably. Romeo and Juliet, for instance, would be much more interesting as Romeo, Juliet, and Nikki.
ROMEO: My rapier doth grow for thee, Juliet.
JULIET: Indeed it does! I believe I have just the scabbard for't.
ROMEO: I pray thee, help it find its sheathe.
NIKKI (off.): Milady?
JULIET: T'is my nurse! You must hide, fair Romeo.
ROMEO: Nay, for I cannot stand. Invite her in forthwith. Mayhaps
we could entreat her to apply her fair ministrations twofold.
JULIET: I dare not envision such a treysome!
NIKKI (off): Milady, I have drawn your bath.
JULIET: Hmm....
Viewing porn as an art form has changed the whole process for me. Before, I considered the plots ridiculous and the dialogue banal. Now I see how wrong I was. For example, I was watching a film the other night called 'Emmanuelle in Space.' The title itself is a study in irony, for as one watches one can come to only one conclusion: Emmanuelle is not in space. She is on a train, on a horse, on a boat, in a plane, but not once is she in a space ship of any kind. Then again, one wonders, perhaps she is in space. Perhaps this is another planet we are observing wherein all the men have penises in their navels. (This is the only conceivable location for their phallus given the positions they employ during intercourse.) And of course there is the brilliant dialogue, which includes the most sublime line in the history of the english language, as spoken to Emmanuelle by a tall, mysterious, weird-looking bald guy who might have been an alien: "your mind," he says, "is like a rusty muscle."
Indeed, is it not so that the mind is often like a rusty muscle? Like all great art, this incisive commentary forces us, the viewer, to consider: have my muscles developed rust? What does this tell us about ourselves? And should we, like Emmanuelle, do whatever we can to purge ourselves of this rust before it spreads to our brain, up to and including watching people have lengthy anal intercourse in a stable in front of horses?
So I applaud the efforts of our fine universities
for having the courage to study the artistic brilliance of these
fine works of art. I'm sure a degree program isn't far off.
© 2001, Gene Doucette
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