Going Down the Only Road I've Ever Known

Like a snifter I was poured to drink alone

I have a problem with communities.

I usually join them with enthusiasm, beside I enjoy the camaraderie. But eventually the cliques, backbiting, and self-absorption show their ugly face, and I make an Irish exit.¹ I remain in contact with a handful of people, but walk away, like Bill Bixby at the end of every episode of The Incredible Hulk:

Maybe it’s because my parents divorced when I was seven, and I cut ties with my father and most of his family as soon as I could strike out on my own. Or maybe, like Groucho Marx, I simply don’t care to belong to any club that will have people like me as a member. I take an unhealthy amount of pride in not needing anyone to survive. I was a loner well into my thirties, seeing friends now and then, and going silent for long periods. I never dated per se, but I had a few explosive flings all over the country that made me embrace singlehood for years on end.

But there’s surviving, and there’s living.

I’m married, and I have many friends, however physically distant we may be. I’m trying to remedy that by joining a few local communities. You’ve seen videos of the Subaru trail rides I’ve been on; I recently joined an outdoor shooting and archery range, and I signed up for a Write-In at a coffee shop, with South Jersey Writers. Which means I’ll be writing one of these newsletters at a coffee shop on a Sunday afternoon, unless I get bit by the fiction bug. I’ve had ideas. (Terrifying, I know.)

If I keep my distance, these might last.

“Familiarity breeds contempt” was tested by scientists; the more we learn about people, the more likely we are to find something we don’t like. In this culture of oversharing, it happens more quickly than if you’re stuck in an island bungalow on a vacation, or trapped in an elevator with no phone signal and have to talk for hours. Perhaps Robert Frost’s neighbor was right, and we have to keep boundaries: “Good fences make good neighbors.”

That being said, Sarah and I went to a drag brunch this Sunday and had a lovely time:

That's Buttakup. I wore my kilt to the show, so we were plaid siblings and she doted on me. Drag Queen Entertainment has been doing these all over South Jersey for 6 years, and they are a blast. Great food at the Tortilla Press Cantina, as well. Go to a show or follow them on Instagram. You will be entertained.

I’m not the only one considering loneliness and being a loner. (I like the verbing of lone here; we lone, as a rover roves.) Chris La Tray, the Irritable Métis, wrote this a few days ago:

What is the Isolation

You ought to read it, and the poem he shares at the end.

My comment:

“In some sense perhaps I too attended the dance.”

I love this. I believe we keep history and people alive in our memories, so yes, they attended the dance, in the way it still existed at that moment.

As for loneliness, I think some of us prefer to walk alone. I like good company, but I need my solitude as much if not more so. I think we writers with our empathy and self-criticism can sometimes judge others as harshly as we judge ourselves, and that can make being good company difficult. I'm writing about similar things for my mid-week newsletter. There must be something in the air. We texted about bison, not about loners and community...

A few more good reads for you. If you’ve heard of the Murdaugh murder trial in South Carolina, it beggars belief. No, it buggers belief, without even spit for lube. This NPR article gives the timeline, but for the full monty of southern Gothic, generational family of vile unchecked rakes and disaster bastards, you need to read this masterpiece by James Lasdun in the New Yorker. Trust me, it’s like Goodfellas meets Fargo in the Lowcountry. I was swearing aloud in incredulity at the Celestial Showrunner as I turned every page.

A much more delightful read is this profile of Dick Cavett, which is where I found out about Ali and Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes, and the Groucho & Cavett episode of American Masters. He’s such a charming gent, and I could listen to him read the phone book.² He’s very good at what he does, but I think he was lucky to have that voice to help him along. He even got Edward Gorey to come out of his turtleneck, in his first television appearance. If you'd told me that Dick Cavett was a Goreyphile, I would have said you were tugging my twig. But here's video proof, unless of course it's Deepfaked:

AI is really showing its ass, isn’t it? And frankly, using a supercomputer to essentially super-search the Internet and make mashups isn’t artificial intelligence, if you ask me, it’s just Eliza all over again! (To be fair, in the early days of the ‘net, I would chat at Eliza). Really, I’m not impressed at all with the AI “art” that’s just stealing from stuff posted to the internet. It’s crowdsourcing via Deep Blue. When an AI makes art without being asked, then we’re in trouble. (Which has probably happened already).

I’m getting a little optimistic that Ukraine will prevail, or sending German tanks will start World War III. I’m writing this from a basement bunker festooned with weapons in a house crammed with dry goods and enough liquor to give a middle-aged Russian half a buzz, so when the EMPs knock out the grid, I’ll party in the Lounge Pit until I run out of whisky and ammo. (That reminds me, I need more firewood.)

If you need encouragement to get exercising, Arnold Schwarzenegger has a great daily newsletter with all positive messages. And sometimes he shares photos with his critters or his mom's Kaiserschmarrn recipe. If you join, I get entered to win a signed copy of his Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding, which would really… pomp me opp!

I’ll leave you how we started: with a paean to a bygone decade of unmitigated excess, with that milquetoast of hair metal bands as meh as their names: Whitesnake.

1. That’s a silent exit. The Italian exit is hugging, kissing, and talking every three steps and taking two hours to get out the door. Or with the kitchen table flying into the air like the smoke plume above Mount Vesuvius.

2. I had a man crush on him in the late ‘70s, shortly after I outgrew Bill Bixby and his sparkling blue eyes.