Last night I posted an email that my dad, aka wildbill, sent to his whole email list about the recent blizzard in Chicago. I shared it because I think it’s such damn excellent writing. Plus, I really love the old man.
My folks split up when I was really young. We were poor. They had bad jobs, limited education, mental health issues and serious substance abuse issues. I lived with my mom for a while but she was incapable of keeping a safe home or feeding me, so I moved in with my dad.
He was a drunk and a big-time pothead with a crap job and hardly any money. I think our household income was around $9,000 a year in the early – mid eighties. Eventually, he lost his job, and pretty much was just a drunk.
Yet, in between the cracks of all that existed an excellent musician, writer and pen and ink artist who loved movies and took me to see all kinds of things that were not age-appropriate and completely awesome, mostly horror and gore.
When I went off to college, he got sober, and got a crappy job in a book store. He married a beautiful woman he met at work. Now they have both been laid off and are living with no health insurance on early social security.
They live in a tiny apartment which is essentially a horror, science fiction and cult movie memorabilia museum. They are deeply in love. My dad, writes, draws, plays guitar and watches movies. They inherited a computer last year and my dad has been writing more and sending me wonderful emails. I think he’s a genius.
Here are some snips from his cracked and amazing brain:
On Vampire Fiction:“A friend recently asked if I thought there was a connection between the rising popularity of vampire fiction, beginning more than a century ago, and the rise of aggressive and unfeeling corporate culture, resulting in a fun exploration of the distinct parallels between these twin soulless, blood-sucking entities.”
On the Internet: “If I am not already an embittered old man (at best an open question), the detestable morass of anguish and confusion brought to daily life by the incalculably frustrating experience of necessary computer interactions will surely enable that aspect of my character to emerge like the Kraken rising from the Deep.
“But I might as well be angry at a stone.
“Artificial intelligence? Fuck all, and humbug too! We are Frankenstein, looking to invest the inanimate with unholy life. Unable to bring to bear the intelligence with which we were born, we have the monumental hubris to think we can create it anew. Having been unable to master the processes of our own thinking, we imagine machines to do it for us.”
On the TV show “Lost”: “Though the precise nature of events in "Lost" may defy logical explication to the point where, no matter how closely we examine the material at hand, we are left with a rich fund of unanswered questions, this may, after all, be precisely the point. The events and patterns of our lives are often beyond our planning, our control or our very understanding: that is life's nature. It is the values we bring to our attempts to understand and deal with these events and patterns that define us and, ultimately, deliver or doom us. We plead for explanations, but we must work with mystery, for it is the very substance of existence. As it is with ‘Lost’, so is it with the world.
“If the final episode left us fumbling to comprehend what the hell is really going on, surely this reflects the status of those of us in the ‘real’ world not hopelessly crippled by dogma. The critical question posed by ‘Lost’ has not been, ‘What does it all mean?’ Rather, it is, ‘What is my capacity to bring meaning to this experience, or any other?’”
Random Greeting:“I hope there's a smile on your face, that your day is bright, that the shifting desert sands do not disguise the camel dung in your path, and may the seven eyes of Ningauble watch over you (in a benevolent sort of way)...”
Upon First Connection to the Internet:"This is what you might call a test ramble. Not used to communicating in this fashion, so pardon my indulgence in a practice rant. I have allowed the cyber-entity into my life and now it's sinister plan is revealed. It begins by taking control slowly, as more and more of my thought and effort are devoted to absurd attempts to make the machine obey me. Meanwhile, in its stealthy way, it conditions me to obey its most minute and seemingly random instructions. I am, of course, merely a prisoner of my own ignorance, who strives to become a prisoner of his meager knowledge. That is the nefarious scheme of the cyber-entity: to condition me thoroughly to its way and its world; to enslave me to its whims. Meanwhile it tempts me with untold wonders and tantalizes me with exotic amazements, opening doors to realms perhaps charted by others but, to my own experience, unexplored and steeped in the thrill of the unknown (not to mention possibly dangerous).
"I've been places that make my neurons sizzle. I"ve seen Osho play guitar, seen Vampira dance with Liberace, seen TV in the Third Reich, encountered the cosmic wisdom of Reverend Steve (founder of the Church of Ed Wood), been back to modern day Danang to take a tour; not to mention all the hot chicks who want only to please me if I'll just visit their site. "Oh, I am a cyber-space rambler am I, a cyber-seas rover I'll be!"
"That's enough for now. May joy seep in through the cracks in your consciousness...”
Edit: Link to original post:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=9613507&mesg_id=9613507
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