Go Set Your Teeth On Edge

I downloaded Go Set A Watchman as soon as it was available on July 15, and I finished it yesterday. I’m just busting to say a few things about it, so…SPOILER ALERT!

The first part of the novel seemed rather light and breezy. Jean Louise had one comical argument after another with Henry and her aunt, and it was all very southern. I kept thinking of Truman Capote and Eudora Welty. It held my attention, and I liked it, but I kept wondering when we were going to get to the part that everyone was talking about.

The story became a little shaky for me when we were introduced to Jean Louise’s uncle, Dr. Jack Finch. There was a great effort to make him come across as eccentric, learned, funny and wise, but a bit fussy and disagreeable. However, when he launched into a rant about hymns that went on for several pages, my eyes started to glaze over. Rather than eccentric, Uncle Jack seemed contrived, self-indulgent and tedious to me, and I couldn’t figure out why his rather bizarre speech couldn’t have been reduced to a single paragraph. I was to soon find out the hymn speech was a harbinger of things to come. From that point on, the characters were often unusually wordy. Rather than talk, Jean Louise, Atticus, Henry and Uncle Jack would deliver long, drawn out and sometimes peculiar sermons to one another.

As many know by now, Jean Louise discovers her father is a racist. She learns that he, and her boyfriend Henry, are members of the local white citizens council dedicated to preserving segregation. This is presented as shocking news, and it is shocking to everyone familiar with To Kill A Mockingbird. But I don’t think it would have been much of a surprise if Go Set A Watchman had been published first. Atticus Finch is 72, and he has lived his life in this small southern town among an elite class. He’s a white man from a “fine old family.” Of course, he’d want to preserve the status quo. The status quo has been good to Atticus Finch, so it’s all well and good for him to go on about states’ rights, how odious government assistance is and how black people need to earn the right to vote.

Jean Louise idealized her father, so learning he strongly supports segregation and has such little regard for the plight of his black neighbors sickens her. She has to learn to accept that he’s human and that they will sometimes disagree or leave Maycomb never to return. That basic premise seems like a pretty good idea for a sequel, but it is all handled in a rather ham-handed way. By the time Jean Louise is working all of this out, the story has lost all subtlety and the longwinded rationalizations have set in.

Many will be hugely disappointed in Atticus Finch, but I imagine Jean Louise will lose some of her luster, too. She seemed so blissfully unaware of how the SCOTUS decision and the advent of Civil Rights was changing the south and shacking things up. Why wouldn’t she followed the news more closely? Why wouldn’t she have asked her friends and family back home more questions about what was happening? And she wants everyone to know that she didn’t like the SCOTUS decision either, and she’s firmly in favor of “states’ rights,” too.

Like so many Americans my age and younger, I first read Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird in high school. I read it again a few years later, and I’ve seen the classic film based on the novel several times. The book was published five years before I was born, and by the time I was introduced to it in the eleventh grade, it had become a major American classic. Everyone seemed to be aware of To Kill A Mockingbird. I remember Charlene referring to it on the TV series Designing Women, and I remember Mary Ann alluding to it in Tales of the City. As someone who has post traumatic stress disorder and social phobia, I relate to the character Boo Radley. So I was more than a little surprised and intrigued when I learned Harper Lee was going to publish a sequel and that this “new” novel had actually been written before To Kill A Mockingbird.

Now that I’ve read it, I’m of the opinion that Go Set A Watchman would have long been forgotten and Harper Lee would have been reduced to a literary footnote if this was her first and only book. She would have been remembered as Truman Capote’s friend who once tried her hand at novel writing. I’m glad her editor pushed her to write the story that caused Jean Louise to put her father on such a high pedestal back in the day. I think seeing Atticus Finch fall off that pedestal would be a fitting follow up. But if Lee wanted to share this story with us, I think the time to do it would have been back in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s or ’90s. She could have rewritten it then, made it a much stronger story.

Miracle Grape Juice

When I was growing up in West Virginia, many fundamentalists didn’t approve of alcohol, so they insisted that Jesus turned water into grape juice. The “wine” thing was a misunderstanding, they said.

When the prosperity gospel swept aside the admiration of simplicity, the “eye of the needle” mentioned in the Bible was said to be a reference to a kind of gate with a covering over it. A little awkward for inexperienced camels, but with practice it’s not so hard. Sort of like parallel parking, I guess.

Liberty For All

I detest Ayn Rand and a certain brand of so-called libertarianism that has seeped into our culture. I suspect that Rand and her admirers have done more to pervert the understanding of liberty in the minds of Americans than anyone else. They reduce liberty to property rights, so the more property you have, the greater your liberty. Of course, the more money you have, the freer you are given the way our economy is set up, but these people sanctify this kind of freedom. They promote the idea that to curtail property rights is an attack on everyone’s liberty. They’re basically saying that if you have yours, you can tell everyone else to go to hell.

I even see this idea at work in the debate about who should be required to serve LGBT customers. This brand of libertarianism now has such long roots that some LGBTs, without even examining what they’re promoting, will say that florists and bakers who advertise to the general public and have shops open to the public should be allowed to turn away LGBT customers even if they want the exact same products that are being sold to other customers. It’s their shop, they say. In other words, the florists and bakers own something, something belongs to them, and that’s all that matters. Ownership trumps everything else. I do not subscribe to this understanding of liberty.

Just Looking

When it comes to physical beauty, I don't mind people liking what they like and saying so. For much of my life, I was in situations where I couldn't acknowledge my attractions. When I was a teenager, I couldn't tell anyone about those feelings even though they were overwhelming. Often nearly every minute of every day. And I couldn't say a word. It was maddening.

What I don’t like is when people put down others based on what they look like, make nasty or harsh comments about someone being supposedly “too thin” or “too fat” or “too” something else. Another thing that bothers me is when people tell me my taste is wrong. Many aren’t content with telling you about their taste, they have to tell you their taste is better than yours. They seem to suggest that their ideal is what a man is supposed to look like, and if you don’t share their opinion, you don’t know nothin’ ‘bout nothin’.

But as far as people telling me about what they like, I understand the need for that. There is a tendency to overestimate the value of physical beauty, but many of those who attempt to correct this tend to go overboard and undervalue it. Beauty isn’t everything, but it is something, and that something is important.

I had an aunt who lost the sight in one of her eyes when she had a stroke. She was about sixty when that happened. Then a few years later, she fell one morning while getting out of bed and hit her other eye on the corner of the dresser. She lost the vision in that eye, too, so she was completely blind. It was extremely difficult for her to adapt, but with help, she did get by. She went on with her life. She ate, went to the bathroom, took showers, got dressed, slept, visited with people, listened to music and audio books, took trips, went to the store, talked on the telephone… Her life was full. She just couldn’t see, and that haunted her. Sometimes she could hardly stand it. She was able to do nearly everything she did before going blind, but still she ached to be able to see again until the day she died.

I like the way some men look, and I’m going to go on looking, and I’m going to tell my friends about it when they’ll listen. I appreciate them putting up with me, and I hope they know that if I seem to be obsessed, it’s only because I’ve had to hide that part of my life way too much, and I’m trying to catch up. Now that I can, I’m going to celebrate my eyes and what seeing certain guys does for me for as long as I can. I can be noble and pretend it doesn’t matter when I’m dead.

My New Phone

A few weeks ago, I sent in an application for a subsidized cell phone from Assurance Wireless. One of those infamous “Obama phones,” the ones Right Wing nutters love to bitch about because they hate anything that helps the poor, elderly or disabled. They are so sure that it’s a big free government handout started by Obama. However, that’s total bullshit. Subsidized cell phone service is merely a continuation and evolution of the subsidized landline service that’s been available to the poor, elderly and disabled for decades. Times have changed. More people are using cell phones these days, so they decided to offer them to those who otherwise might not be able to afford them.

Something else to keep in mind is that this is not top of the line service. You do not get a smart phone with internet access. It doesn’t take pictures, or take your blood pressure, or tell you if you’re pregnant if you stick it in your urine stream. You can call people or text, and that’s it. You also have to give up the subsidy on your landline phone. You can have one or the other, but not both.

Mine came in the mail about a week ago. I can tell you that it was probably quite impressive 15 years ago. Today, not so much, but I don’t use the phone often, so this new phone should meet my needs.

I have been putting off activating the thing because new technology intimidates me. The phone I got would probably seem ancient to many, but I’ve never had a cell phone, and I feared there would be complications in the setup procedure. Well, I finally found the nerve to activate the thing today, and I was right. Setting it up wasn’t so easy. Thankfully, I’ve not yet canceled my landline service, so I was able to use my old phone to call Assurance Wireless. The first person I talked to also had trouble activating my new phone. I was on the line with her for over an hour. Every few minutes, she would assure me that she was still working, and I’d say “okay.” Meanwhile, my head was beginning to split from the stress.

The assistant decided that she was taking so long that a little chat would be in order, so she asked me about my 4^th of July plans. I told her I didn’t have any. She seemed surprised, so I told her I was a homebody. I could have told her that I hardly ever leave the house except to buy food and supplies, and that I’ve even taken to pacing back and forth in my apartment for an hour a day just to get a little exercise. That probably would have sounded a little crazy, but I am getting a free “Obama phone” for a reason.

She then asked me if I had been to the beach this summer. When I said no, she said, “I thought there was a beach in California.” A beach. I told her she was right, there is “a beach” in California but that I live in the desert. Rather than remind her that I was getting a free “Obama phone” because I’m poor, and I don’t have the money to take off to the beach every time I feel like it, or that I don’t have a car and that traveling is tricky for me even when I have money because I have social phobia, I informed this person that I had been to Yosemite. She was confused at first, but then she said, “Oh, is that like Yellowstone?” To keep things simple, I said, “Yes.” They are both national parks with bears, so Yosemite is, in a way, “like” Yellowstone. She happily said, “I’ve been there!”

Throughout all of this, she periodically referred to me as “ma’am.” I never bothered to correct her because I simply no longer care if the people I talk to on the phone know if I’m a man or a woman, but she must have looked at my name near the end of our exchange and realized her mistake. She felt the need to apologize at that point. I told her it was quite all right. She then told me that she didn’t know how to get my phone to work and transferred me to a new assistant.

Thankfully, the first assistant informed the new one of the problems with the new phone, so I didn’t have to explain everything again. The first assistant must have also told the new assistant about how she had called me “ma’am” more than a dozen times in the previous hour because the new assistant kept calling me “sir” over and over again. She even started calling me “Sir Gary,” and she was finally able to activate my new phone. So not only do I have a new cell phone, I was knighted by a representative of Assurance Wireless.

Why would we need ministers and bibles in a fundamentalist universe?

I think a minister should be a wise, seasoned person who helps those in their church deal with some of life’s spiritual difficulties…morally ambiguous situations, moments of great stress, sorrow and loss. A guide, a teacher, an advisor and a confidant.

But others seem to think a minister is someone who traffics in absolutes...someone who tells you exactly what you have to do, someone who tells you exactly what God expects you to know and believe according to a book that is supposedly inerrant and plan as day if only you take the time to read it.

If things are really so black and white, I wonder why we would need ministers…or a Bible. Why make us read a book written in languages that are not our own, a book written in a far removed culture? Why make us depend on ministers who may or may not be trustworthy? Why wouldn’t a god with black and white rules and strict demands simply tell us, each and every one of us, what is expected of us in terms we can understand?

Your girlfriend's shirtless brother.

David Sedaris, in his book When You Are Engulfed In Flames, writes of visiting his father and going to a cocktail party on the street where he grew up in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. The teenage son of the hostess was flamboyant and used female pronouns when referring to Sedaris’ father. The hostess casually explained that her son was gay as if Sedaris hadn’t already figured that out. Then Sedaris remembers how no one could admit to being gay when he was young. Instead, you tried to date girls who were appreciative of sensitive boys. The mothers loved boys like that, especially if you told them you weren’t interested in having mere sex like dogs. You wanted to make love after connecting on a deeper level, and that might take ten years. Sedaris said that it was better to explain this to your girlfriend’s mother on the back deck while the girl’s brother was mowing the grass without his shirt on.