Perchance to Dream

I love dreams. The prospect of dreaming is one of the high points of my going to bed.  

Last night I woke up with a topic for a fantastic blog, and had the perfect title: “Whither Luxembourg?” It was to be a lighthearted piece (and, as I recall, actually had me chuckling) speculating on how, if people can’t find the United States on a map, they could ever be expected to find Luxembourg…let alone Andorra…and whether, since no one could find them, if they suddenly disappeared, anyone would notice.

As with all my dreams, it had deeply profound undertones, though I can seldom recall exactly what they were.

The study of dreams is a fascinating one, though it does have the element of removing petals from a rose to find out what makes the rose beautiful. To me, dreaming is vaguely like writing without the use of the fingers―and totally free of the confines of logic. When I write, I tell you stories. When I dream, I tell myself stories.

I’m pretty sure I’ve done a blog on dreams before; I’ve reached the point where after seven or eight years of  blogs there is bound to be some repetition, so I hope you’ll excuse me if I say some of the same things I’ve said before. (Though if I can’t remember them, how can I expect you to?)

At any rate, I am blessed that I cannot remember the last time I had a nightmare, though occasionally a disturbing one will crop up. On a scale of 1-10, the vast majority of my dreams fall into the 7-and-above range. Dreams of flying, in one form are another, are my favorite, but the very best, most euphoric dreams of all are those happy dreams which I swear are reality. Leaping off a cliff and soaring through forested canyons and knowing…knowing…that I really, really am flying is nothing short of euphoric. On thinking of it, however, it occurs to me that I’ve not had any euphoric dreams of late, and I miss them. Well, maybe tonight….

They say that the fact that one tends to dream just before waking up makes it seem as though one has been dreaming longer than actually is the case. But it does seem to me that I spend much of the night dreaming.

Perhaps it is because I am a writer that my dreams are so varied, and so vivid. I dream in dream-logical stories, I usually dream in color, I have dreamt full musicals with original choreography and score and a cast of hundreds, and on occasion I dream…and this is very difficult to explain…in concepts. I have dreamed in weights and in reams of paper and in cardboard boxes instead of word-thoughts. Interesting, but confusing and not really all that much fun.

Though I seldom dream about my parents or those people whose loss I so frequently bewail here in my blogs, when I do dream of them it is wonderful because the wall of knowing they are dead comes completely down. So when Dad walks into the kitchen in a dream, or Mom appears in some setting, doing something, it’s as simple as that. Dad is walking into the kitchen; Mom is wherever she appears, doing whatever it is she is doing. No need for grief or a sense of loss. Everything is fine.

And that for me is what dreams are…assurance that things are fine, and that all I have to do is lie back, relax, and enjoy them. I hope they are the same for you.

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Thursday. Please take a moment to visit his website (http://www.doriengrey.com) and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1), which is also available as an audiobook (http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00DJAJYCS&qid=1372629062&sr=1-1).

Moods

mood, n.: a temporary state of mind or feeling

We all experience moods, some more frequently and/or more intensely than others. They are yet another means of providing an overall balance to life. We often call them “mood swings,” though in most people, they’re like small ripples on a pond, and pass with relatively little notice. But there are times in every life where the difference between mood highs and lows become more intrusive—traumatic experiences which jolt the mind one way or the other—a new love affair, the loss of something very important to us. 

For most of us, mood swings vary from generalized happiness and contentment to generalized dissatisfaction and unhappiness.

But in certain people—manic depressives—these mood swings can be seriously disruptive, taking over and all but controlling the sufferer's life. The high end of the manic depressive’s mood swing is often a state of euphoria most of us rarely experience for more than a very short time, where everything is wonderful and positive. But the lows are bottomless chasms from which there appears to be no hope for escape. There are seldom if ever gentle slopes between them.

Some manic depressives become fairly adept at disguising their condition, giving the outward appearance of normalcy.

Clinical depression differs from manic depression and other lesser “moods” because it is ongoing, with no “upswings” and despite what many people may think, cannot really be considered a “mood.” Those who have never experienced it have no real idea of its impact on a the person suffering from it. I personally have come far too close to experiencing it only once in my life, and for a relatively short time, while recovering from my bout with tongue cancer in 2003. I’d been released from the hospital, the treatments were behind me, and I should have been elated. But I wasn’t. It was though I were plodding 24 hours a day through a dark, swampy forest where the sun never shown. I cried often, and for no good reason; I didn’t want to do anything, go anywhere, see anyone. Finally I contacted my doctor, who prescribed an anti-depressant, advising me that it would probably take a couple of weeks to kick in, which was the case. 

Lately, I’ve just realized, I’ve been undergoing what is probably a mild form of depression. The onset of a number of serious oral problems, the inevitable long-term side effect of radiation therapy, and my concern with how to deal with them has made me generally unhappy and ill at easy. I’ve largely lost my interest in writing—which was a major warning sign.

Moods are something we learn to live with, and they take up very little of our overall lives. It is when they begin taking up an inordinate amount of time that we should try to learn how to deal with them. 

When I was originally diagnosed with tongue cancer, I determined that I would not allow it to be anything other than a disruption and inconvenience, and viewed my treatment as such. While “the power of positive thinking,” is pretty much considered a cliché, I firmly believe it—as should you. It may not be easy, but it is well worth it, and far better than the alternative.

So, while wishing you success in dealing with any mood swing that may be outside your normal range, for myself I simply have to concentrate on looking upon my new set of obstacles and problems as merely inconveniences, and i know I’ll get through this as well.

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Thursday. Please take a moment to visit his website (http://www.doriengrey.com) and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1), which is also available as an audiobook (http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00DJAJYCS&qid=1372629062&sr=1-1).

Sharing Dreams

There is a trinity of dreams. First are the collective dreams of our race, which guide us toward a better future and urge us to strive to make them come true. That all these dreams have not yet been realized—and may never be—does not deter us from having them. We are an indomitable race, and we are patient.

Second are our individual dreams—our daydreams while awake and those which come with sleep. Our daydreams are generally centered on our wishes for the future and can be whatever we wish them to be. Sleeping dreams are totally beyond our conscious control, and serve a valuable purpose as a form of mental “housekeeping”—a way for us to seek resolution to our inner conflicts within ourselves and accommodation with the waking world around us. We seldom have any recollection of our sleep dreams, and if we can recall them or pieces of them, their meaning is almost always hidden from us.

The third of the trinity of dreams is what prompted this entry: those dreams which are conceived in the mind of individuals—artists, musicians, and writers and translated into words and sounds and images which build bridges between individuals and between the individuals and our collective culture. Born in a single mind, they can go on to encompass us all. John Philip Sousa, for example, is said to have dreamed every note of “The Stars and Stripes Forever” on a ship returning from Europe on Christmas Eve, 1896.

Books are the writer’s dreams set to paper: I know mine are. They are formed, as are all dreams, in the imagination while, for the most part, the writer is awake. And unlike sleep dreams, the writer has some degree of control over them. If unable to direct the dream’s every aspect, at least the writer can consciously influence them by nudging them in certain directions. But for writers like myself, it is the mind which frequently overrides writer's original intentions, and takes the story where it wants it to go. A relatively few writers are able, and prefer, to plot out every single step and detail of a story before actually sitting down to write. It works for J.K. Rowling, who has made more money from putting her dreams of Harry Potter on paper than I will ever see in ten lifetimes. But it would never work for me. The element of spontaneity, both in sleep dreams and writing, is far too crucial for me.

To use flowing water as an analogy, the detailed-plotting method seems to be like one of Los Angeles’ drainage canals—straight as an arrow and contained within concrete walls. I prefer mine to be like a meandering river: I know where it’s going, but while I can see the bends coming up, I have no idea what lies beyond them. And I am always aware that I am not on the journey alone: the reader and I are Huck and Jim on the raft, flowing through the story together. I can’t imagine it being any other way.

People frequently ask writers where they get the ideas for their books. Whenever I'm asked, my answer is always the same: I quite honestly have no idea. They just appear. I’ll be minding my own business, thinking of almost anything except where my next story idea is going to come from, when I’ll be aware of something rising to the surface of my mind like a bubble in a tar pit. I’ll watch while it emerges and forms a bubble of thought and finally bursts, leaving me with a topic or plot idea. I love it!

For me to try to explain how these bubbles form and exactly how I handle them when they do appear is as impossible as explaining how we dream what we dream when we’re asleep.

All dreams are born and are nourished in the nursery of the subconscious, and there they remain until they are ready to emerge, either as a sleep dream or as a book or a painting or a sculpture or a symphony. Dreams are our humanity, and I cherish them, whatever form they take.

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Thursday. Please take a moment to visit his website (http://www.doriengrey.com) and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1), which is also available as an audiobook (http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00DJAJYCS&qid=1372629062&sr=1-1).

The Diamond Lady

Looking back at my 17 years in Los Angeles (1966-1983) brings back a flood of memories of the people I knew there. And I immediately thought of Pat.

Pat was one of my favorite people during my Los Angeles days. I first met her while I was working as an editor for a public relations firm which was contracted to produce a glossy house organ for the statewide (and politically powerful) Engineering and Grading Contractors Association. Pat was the secretary for the association's president. Through my duties, Pat and I were in frequent contact, which developed into a friendship.

Pat was…well, to call her ‘one of a kind’ would not come near to doing her justice. She was one of those wonderful Charo-like souls who, in her passion for life, simply ignored age. She was probably in her 60s when we met. Her hair was almost waist-long and pitch black. She wore about as much makeup as Tammy Fae Baker, but she wore it much better. She favored toreador pants, spiked heels, low-cut blouses (often tube-top) and lots of expensive  jewelry. (She at one time had worked with noted jeweler Harry Winston and conducted  a side business selling jewelry. She referred to herself, on her business card, as “The Diamond Lady.”) Unlike so many outwardly effusive people, her joy for living went to her very core. In many ways, including her voice and certain of her actions, she reminded me of Carol Channing, and I found her just as charming.

I’d see her every time I went to the EGCA offices, but our friendship was cemented during an EGCA conclave in Las Vegas, over several French Cannons...a delightfully refreshing libation consisting of a equal parts champagne and brandy, three of which could easily have rendered me comatose. But Pat could belt them back like water and never bat an eye.

When we first became friends, she was married to a great guy named Chuck Blair, who had been a singer with one of the big bands in the 40s. They lived in a beautiful house in the hills overlooking the entire San Fernando Valley. The memory of looking out from their patio at night, with the valley spread out below like  a carpet of glittering jewels that put the stars to shame, is one of my fondest memories of L.A.

Chuck traveled a lot, so Pat spent a great deal of time on decorating the house to suit her unique taste, including curtains made of strands of crystal which, when the sun hit them, became a million prisms reflecting their light on every surface. She also spent literally hundreds of hours painstakingly gold-leafing every door frame in the house. 

But though I considered Pat and Bob to be the perfect couple, apparently they did not, because Pat filed for divorce and their house was put up for sale. She could not understand why the realtor did not feel that all her expensive gold-leaf and hard work would not be reflected in setting the selling price. The fact that the new owners may have different tastes or even want to repaint the house and door frames was incomprehensible to her.

Her second husband, Bob Mallon, was a very nice guy who adored her, but was not overly fond of gays, though he was always very pleasant whenever Pat would have my partner Ray and I over, or invite us to one of her lavish parties, for which she would spend several days in preparation. Their house, on a hillside just up a winding road from Ventura Blvd., did not have the view her old house did, but there was a large if steeply inclined back yard set into a hillside, on which she and Bob spent a fortune landscaping and decorating with colored lights.

After I moved from Los Angeles, we more or less lost touch, though every year I would get the same mass-printed postcard saying “Keep in touch!” and signed “The Diamond Lady.”

Several years ago now, I received a note from someone who had read my book "Short Circuits a Life in Blogs," which included an earlier blog I'd written on Pat, informing me that Pat had died in 2004, and even though I knew she almost certainly could not still be alive--she probably would be pushing 100 now--I was truly saddened to hear it. But I have developed the ability, over the years, to ignore reality. So to me Pat is still alive, bubbly as ever, sparkling like the crystal “curtains” in her windows, still throwing her parties and being her effervescent self. In some ways, Pat was for me a symbol of all my L.A. days, and every now and then―today especially--I truly miss them…and her.

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please take a moment to visit his website (http://www.doriengrey.com) and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1).

Remembering

I'm not sure why I insist on sharing these things with you...I can't expect you to have any interest in someone you never knew. Yet it is precisely because you never knew Bob Combs, my friend of more than 40 years, that I'd introduce you—however peripherally—to him here. Bob worked very hard at being a curmudgeon, scoffing at and disdainful of everything. He frequently drove me to distraction, as good friends are wont to do. And yet under that carefully-constructed outer shell beat the heart of a romantic.

During the last years of his long battle with laryngeal cancer, he wrote a column for his local newspaper. Quite by accident I came across it not ten minutes ago, and in keeping with my long-held belief that one is not truly dead until one is forgotten, I wanted to bring Bob back for a brief moment. He is not forgotten by those who knew him, and perhaps by reading his words, he may come alive for you.

Following his death, I received the following note from one of his friends. Here it is.

05-21-07

Dear Friends,

With his customary impeccable timing Bob Combs passed away on May 19th 2007, his 92nd birthday. He valued his friendship and kinship with each and every one of you. In accordance with his wishes, there will be no services of remembrance, except the ones you may choose to hold in your hearts.

Attached is Bob's final Sunny Side.

The time has come to say farewell – while it’s still possible!

It’s been such fun these past 13 or 14 years, since Lon got me started on this every-Friday essay, or column, or whatever-you may call it, in an attempt to balance out the Letters page – that is, to point out all the wonderful, beautiful, happy-making things around us. “On the Sunny Side of the Street!”

Stevenson wrote: “The world is full of such a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings!”  Well, as Kipling wrote, “The captains and the kings depart,” but we are still here – until our time runs out. There will always be spring flowers out by Shell Creek,  and the beautiful, winding, climbing,roads of our county, and Black Mountain out past Pozo, lifting its lordly beauty, with its calm and its silence.

There will always be an annual crop of children, full of curiosity and joy – sharing all their exciting discoveries with us, as we once shared with our grandparents. What delights they are, and we must strive to see that the world they grow up will be even better that the one our parents built for us.

In due season will come the breezes and the winds; the black clouds or the fleecy clouds of purest white. The trees and bushes will bud and leaf out and blossom, and flowers will pop out of the ground, seemingly overnight. The birds will come back and my favorite mockingbird, Moxie, will sing his heart out under the moons of spring and there’ll be Moxie XVIII before we can blink!

In its season will come the rain, but nothing, in our part of the world, will rule us as will the sun – and its “Cooker Days.” And so the grapes ripen, “to make glad the hearts of man..” And this old earth turns and turns, and our solar system does, too, and our galaxy goes spinning through space – a tiny dot in the vastness of the unknown.

So, let’s do the best we can, while we can, and smile oftener than we groan, and chuckle more than we sigh, and look on the sunny side….and so, goodbye.

*****

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Thursday. Please take a moment to visit his website (http://www.doriengrey.com) and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1), which is also available as an audiobook (http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00DJAJYCS&qid=1372629062&sr=1-1).

Flashbacks

For some unknown reason, I awoke this morning having flashbacks of my days (23 years, actually) in Pence, Wisconsin. I moved to Pence from Los Angeles in January of 1983, driving myself in a 24 foot U-Haul towing a second 12-foot trailer behind it. The temperature the day of my arrival was -19. After a hard-now-to-believe 23 years, I left Pence in 2006 to return to Chicago after 40 years, and never looked back.

Geographically, Pence was idyllic. Just seventeen miles south of the magnificent Lake Superior, and surrounded by thousands of acres of forest, the setting is ideal for any nature lover. Endless trails wandered through soundless woods filled with patches of wild blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries. Autumns in years with just the right mixture of rain and temperatures turned the forests into sensory overloads of color which defy description. Winters bring temperatures of -24 and colder; annual snowfalls exceeding 300 inches are common.

Once a thriving lumber and iron-and-copper mining area, the mines had all closed twenty years before my arrival, and commercial logging had been reduced to a few small-time operations. The entire area sank into an economic depression from which it has never recovered. No rail service, and only very limited bus service further isolated the area. Employment opportunities were almost nonexistent. Several local ski hills and the making of Christmas wreaths provided some seasonal employment, but that—and whatever employment could be found in local shops—left many chronically unemployed.

So very many jumbled memories of people and events flood my mind as I try to make some semblance of them without getting into overly long detail on any one of them. The bed-and-breakfast I had moved there to open proved to be a situation I would never, ever repeat despite a number of wonderful guests-who-became-friends. Because the B&B never provided enough money to live on, I had to rely on other work—managing a local food co-op, working part time at a local supermarket, then as a paralegal for a law firm. I did begin writing books, though I felt I needed a pseudonym as a buffer against the intolerance of local rednecks.

Personal relationships? One of the reasons I left L.A. was in hopes of saving my then partner and love of my life Ray from alcoholism (of course a totally futile effort). While he did try, he could not go three months without drinking, which resulted in his being arrested more than once. Finally, given the choice by a judge to either go to jail or leave the area, he chose the latter and returned to Los Angles and was dead of AIDS within a year. I had a subsequent disastrous five-year relationship with someone I really did not like but could not get out of. And finally, my taking in, at a friend’s request, of a lost soul from whom I contracted the HPV virus which resulted in my bout with tongue cancer.

Friends? I was lucky to have some good friends. Two doors west of me lived the Reinerio sisters, Louisa, 80, Rose, 82, and Amelia, 89, who were very kind to me—all three sadly died while I was still living there, Amelia first, then Rose, then finally Louisa; Esther and Albert Baker, Jody DeCarlo, and Tony Barnes, one of the very few gays in the area, and of course Ursula Schramm, a holocaust survivor. I have fond memories of all of them, and each one could be—as Ursula already has been—the subject of a full blog. 

It’s odd how completely I have been able to close the door on those 23 years of my life…it’s rather like they were washed away in a flood, leaving only scattered, fragmented memories of my life there. To this day, I still rather miss my days in Los Angeles. I have many solid, pleasant memories of my time there. Why is the same not true of Pence, I wonder?

Your life, like mine, is made up of an infinite number of pieces, large and small…of places and people and experiences and memories. As I am the sum of all of “my” pieces, so are you the sum of yours. They cannot be changed, only remembered, reflected upon, and perhaps learned from.

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Thursday. Please take a moment to visit his website (http://www.doriengrey.com) and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1), which is also available as an audiobook (http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00DJAJYCS&qid=1372629062&sr=1-1).

Dear Lord, but You're Dumb!

Disclaimer: The title of this blog is not the personal opinion of the writer, but apparently that of just about everyone out to get something from you. Please read on.

I never cease to be amazed by the extent to which those trying to sell something, be it a product or an idea, will go in their blatant assumption of your stupidity. This phenomenon is personified in a cartoon I once saw, in which a bunch of ad executives are seated at a table surrounded by graphs and charts and blown-up ads, and one is saying, "Ok, let's get down on all fours and look at it from the customer's point of view." Paraphrasing my favorite quote from H.L. Mencken, "no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American consumer." 

You've seen the ads for drugs to treat atrial fibrillation and atherosclerosis in which they go to great pains to introduce them as "Atrial fibrillation, or 'Afib'", and "Atherosclerosis, or 'Athro.'" They apparently are reluctant to just use the full and correct name for the conditions throughout the commercial because they are obviously convinced you are too stupid to handle the complexities of polysyllabics. I suppose we should be grateful that the one time in the commercial they do use the proper name of the condition they do not pause to stare intently into the camera and carefully mouth each syllable as they pronounce it (“A…tree…al...fib...ril...la...shun" and “Ath...er...oh...sklor...oh...sis").

There are two main types of assumption of stupidity. The first—the most common and most reprehensible—is the contemptuous attitude taken by spammers, religious zealots, and self-appointed pundits, who don’t bother to even pretend that you have any degree of intelligence whatsoever. In fact, intelligence and independent thinking are utterly anathema to them. (If you do believe them without question, a good case may be made for charging you with at least complicit stupidity.)

The second and equally bothersome but somewhat understandable assumption of stupidity is that routinely employed by corporations fearing lawsuits. I call this "covering our asses stupidity." In all fairness, companies and corporations have little choice but to emphasize the lowest common denominator. Directions on bottles of bleach saying "Do Not Drink" are, sadly, necessary in our increasingly litigious society to prevent costly lawsuits by those—or their survivors—who would otherwise sue claiming "but it didn't say not to drink it!" As a result, almost every prescription and even over-the-counter medication today comes with literally pages of cautions about possible side effects, even if realistically the chance of those side effects may be one in ten million or more. In television commercials relating the list of side effects is often as long as the commercial itself.

Corporations are, however, not above displaying mild contempt for your intelligence by assuming you will simply accept without question their claims that whatever they are offering at the moment is superior to every other similar product out there on the market. I must admit to being pleased by the apparent waning of the old favorite sales pitch, "New! Improved!" showing up on products every six weeks. I hope it is because the advertisers finally realized that spending millions of dollars to convince you Burp-O is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and then turning around six weeks later with a "New! Improved!" ad campaign implying that what they've been selling you wasn't really all that good might not be the best idea.

TV abounds in assumptions of stupidity. Every single time you fall for a "A $999 value for only $19.99," a "Not sold in Stores," or a "But wait! There's more!" scam, you're proving their point. (They do not want anyone to stop to think that if the product were worth the powder to blow it to hell they wouldn't need to offer you six of them "for the price of one” to get you to buy it.)

Every spam folder is heavily sprinkled with notices by glorified ambulance chasers looking to make money by convincing you to sign up for some egregious class action suit ("Have you suffered a paper cut while reading Time magazine? You may be entitled to millions in compensation!"). Of course, before you get your share of the booty, the lawyers will have taken the bulk of the total settlement for their herculean efforts on your behalf. 

But don't you worry your pretty little head about any of the above. I need your financial backing for the guaranteed best-seller I'm ghost-writing for Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee: “The Truth About Barack Obama, Spawn of Satan!” 

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Thursday. Please take a moment to visit his website (http://www.doriengrey.com) and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1), which is also available as an audiobook (http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00DJAJYCS&qid=1372629062&sr=1-1)

Ask Not

Questions can be dangerous things. They can easily disrupt the flow of one’s day and/or one’s life. Questions can be like an endless row of upended dominoes: the answer to one can lead to the asking of another, just as looking up a word in the dictionary leads one to find, in the definition sought, another word worth looking up, and so on. It is much better never to ask questions on anything, and just accept anything you are told.

Thought provokes questions, which is why so many people never seem to either think or ask. It is much easier to be told than to have to actually think and ask, which is why politicians and pundits and religious zealots have such huge followings…and gather so much power and money in the process.

There is nothing more threatening to politicians and religious zealots than people who think, which is why certain politicians do everything in their considerable power to weaken our educational system. Education encourages questions, and we can’t have that! An under-educated populace is one far more easily manipulated. 

Perhaps the bulk of social media relies on the overwhelming willingness of people to simply accept what they are told and not ask questions. The most egregiously, patently false and illogical information flows without challenge through the broad channels of social media. We’ve grown so accustomed to these things that we don’t even notice them—a case of stupidity through osmosis. Even good, decent people who do not stop to think “does this really make sense?” go along…and forward to others as gospel stories whose purpose is solely and obviously inflammatory, intent only on inciting anger and planting the seeds of prejudice and bigotry.

Commercials offer a wealth of evidence of the lack of both thinking and question. I love, for example the one that says “tell your doctor if you’ve been to an area where certain fungal infections are common.” Ok. What infections? And how the hell am I supposed to know what fungal infections are common in any specific area?

“Zero percent financing for the first month for well-qualified buyers.” What the hell is a “well-qualified” buyer?

“…and 6 is greater than 3! This changes everything!” Really? Changes what? And how, exactly?

I broke with organized religion at about the age of 8 or 9. My mother insisted that a good dose of religion would be good for me, and I attended an evangelical Sunday school…for a time. But even at that early age, I had a fairly good grasp of what was logical and what was not, and what I was hearing from the “Amen, Brother” minister was most definitely not logical. My questions were at first received with condescension and then wrapped in obfuscation. And finally, after being told that heaven was a place where everyone was happy all the time, I asked the following: “If I am good and go to heaven, and my best friend does something bad and goes to hell, won’t I miss him?” That was the end of my religious education.

Listening to the astoundingly stupid (which far surpasseth ignorance), hateful, mean-spirited garbage spewed by those who presume to be the leaders of their party absolutely dumbfounds me. That their followers cheer and stomp their feet and pump their fists in the air in wild agreement and never, ever have even a single question, leaves me dizzy in disbelief. That they so eagerly lap up each regurgitated chunk of bile they’re given, leaves me with only one general question which applies equally to each mind-numbingly illogical statement: “What the hell are you talking about?”

But there I go again, asking questions.

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Thursday. Please take a moment to visit his website (http://www.doriengrey.com) and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1), which is also available as an audiobook (http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00DJAJYCS&qid=1372629062&sr=1-1).

Hey, Rube!

In the days when carnivals and circuses roamed across America, the rides and the side-shows were the primary draws. And while the rides were generally legitimate, the same could hardly be said of the side shows. Bearded ladies, turtle boys, rubber men, and two-headed cows drew huge crowds. Barkers in bowler hats and brightly wide-striped jackets would stand in front of the "show" tents and lure people in with wildly extravagant descriptions of the wonders to be found inside. The pitch never lived up to the expectation. Hucksters and shills, all effervescence and promises, encouraged the crowds to part with their money.

People stood in line to throw hoops over bowling pins, or toss a baseball through a hole in a backdrop for a chance to win a Kewpie doll or stuffed animal. Very few, of course, did. Without exception, the games were rigged in the carnival/circus's favor, just as are gambling casinos today—though today the rigging is perhaps a bit more subtle.

Among the carnies, as they called themselves, the gullible people who flocked to their shows were known as "Rubes."

Circuses and carnivals and side show tents have largely disappeared from our culture. But the barkers and the hucksters and the rigged games most certainly have not. Nor have the Rubes.

I readily and constantly admit that I am not the brightest button in the jar. When any degree of manual or physical dexterity is involved, you can count me out before we start. I am incapable of following an instruction manual. I am incredibly easily confused, and even more easily frustrated. But I can recognize a side-show huckster at forty paces.

Computer Spam folders are perhaps the most egregious of latter day equivalent of the circus/carnival freak show. Every single item in a spam folder might as well be a "Half-Man/Half-Woman!" crossdresser sitting on the platform in front of the tent, or a scantily-clad young lady kissing the boa constrictor wrapped around her shoulder. With so few exceptions as to be totally disregarded, every item in my spam folder, and yours, is there for one purpose and one purpose only: to lure you in and get your money. No matter how attractive their offers may appear, no matter what their come-on may be—sympathy, the promise of untold wealth, or health, or success without a single bit of effort on your part—the goal is the same; to get your money. The assumption is that you are astoundingly gullible (a far kinder word than the more accurate "stupid") and, regrettably, that assumption seems to be justified.

Internet spammers are not the only morally undead out there from whom every ounce of compassion, dignity, or honor have been drained. Almost without exception today's hucksters tend to be a far more mean-spirited, malevolent lot; they do not even pretend that there is any pleasure in their pitches. Self-appointed pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck; an army of late night televangelists; Michele Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, and other politicians of their ilk all use negativism as stepping stones to power and fortune. They seldom smile, and dwell exclusively on what is wrong with whatever/whoever it is they are opposing without even bothering to offer positive, workable alternatives.

How, how, do they succeed as frighteningly well as they do? How can anyone, anyone with the I.Q. of a baked potato possibly believe a word they say? There's not a dime's worth of logic among the lot of them. I see them for what they are. You see them for what they are (oh, please do); why can't those who, like pigs at a trough, eagerly scarf up the mounds of garbage these cretins spew out, take even one second to say, "Does that really make any sense at all?" The answer is of course "no."

So next time you hear, see, or read something that doesn't sound or look quite right, rather than automatically believing whatever it is, listen closely for a small voice calling "Hey, Rube!" and be sure it isn't talking to you.

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Thursday. Please take a moment to visit his website (http://www.doriengrey.com) and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1), which is also available as an audiobook (http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00DJAJYCS&qid=1372629062&sr=1-1).