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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The Longest Post Ever-A Collection of 2010 Writings and Reportage, Part II

A Scribe's Lament-A Poem
by Douglas Cate on Monday, December 27, 2010 at 3:22pm
Many times have I unfurled the dry, rolled parchment-and if I must be so anachronistic, metaphoric and romantic in my modern, typographical description-set it on my canted, dusty
scribal desk and as oil to the torch,
set my pen to it and wrote, even as a poet and
scribe, a bona fide artist, historian and journalist,
such as I, thereupon.
Now, in my room, I witness, with shocked,
bulging, incredulous eyes, myself writing on this cold, dark,
lonely, nival night yet again.
What wonder shall the scribe unfurl upon
the waiting page?
What mysteries revealed?
What secrets-if any-told?
What impenetrable, oaken, fastened, steel-girdled doors
unlocked?
What old manuscripts summoned yet
choked with dust or bespattered with viscous, brownish
malodorous mud?
What ancient miscellanies and curiosities
mellowly, regally unearthed?
What horror-told and shown?
What hope, happiness and love given?




The Immolation of the Sidonians-A Poem
by Douglas Cate on Monday, December 27, 2010 at 3:14pm
Xyloidal vessels, Etruscan in origin, arrayed with flags and striped,
fringed sails and soldiers with tasselled tunics and
leathern masses of tawny armor-armor
whose nude hue matched that of the skin and bare
portions of those maritime sentries poised in silent, still, dangerous
readiness, on those brownish, gleaming,
wet-spotted, sea-stained decks; and these numbered beyond counting,
were sighted from those white, many-columned, palatial buildings
crowding the littoral, Lebanese hills of Sidon.
But thousands of decks of hundreds of men in battle-readiness equal an overwhelming threat
to the olive-skinned, smarmy, sinful Sidonians, seemingly safe and free within the endlessly
fortressed, walled, guarded, gated confines of their notorious, altitudinous city.
With the glow of a red desert sun glinting all around them, gilding the decks and
the choppy, aquamarine seas, the soldiers
lit the oil-soaked wooden ends of massive, blunt arrows, which were
then-innovative delivery systems for the Greek fire
with which their ship's hold's were freighted
and then those centurions who lit the blunt ends ablaze, leapt out of the way, lest they be singed-or scorched.
And then, those gigantic arrows burning and blazing and as refulgent as a solar light-and as hot
and hazardous-they were aimed and propelled-shot.
Great, downward-arcing, smoketrail-depositing scores of fiery arrows filled the air,
trailing their smudgy tar-black lines behind and plunging violently onto the green-tiled roofs
and pitched, peaked white summits of various Sidonian buildings.
A sizzle, then a phoosh! of raw energy as the incendiaries were released and soon
fire reigned in Sidon as fire from the ships rained
in an unholy, destructive, unremitting volley upon Sidon.
Even some of the somehow undulant Roman marines, resplendent in their
shining, silvery armor, red skirts, and plumed helmets, grew eager in the midst of the glorious
fray (most of the raw, awful, turbulent conflagration and devastation of which they were completely isolated from) and
bent back their bows
replete and burdensome with conflagrant missiles, and shot off more vile, deadly projectiles:
those awful, Greco-Roman incendiaries.
So, Greek fire, in all it's malodorous, slaughterous, comburent glory, was
swiftly and lethally delivered to the Sidonians-and Roman victory was once again, assured.
In the vast, pillared metropolis, the people knelt
in fiendish, futile prayer to their hosts of stony, stoic, silent, unhelpful gods
as behind them, their domiciles burned without any
abatement.
Their songs and lamentations went unheard by their graven gods-gods who themselves
burned and blazed and burst.
The streets were dusty and as anhydrous as the vast Judean wilderness and now they
became congested with large plumes and fogs and palls of choking, black smoke.
The citizens began to perish in droves-even before the vile, murderous, amoral,
rabidly marauding Roman troops began to stream in through wrecked, breached gates to immolate the scant
survivors (as was always their insatiable, nefarious wont).





Of The Dreamlike Colloquy of Childhood and Adulthood-Questions To The Mature
by Douglas Cate on Thursday, December 23, 2010 at 4:27pm
Haven't you ever wondered what the
youthful you would say to the present, adult you?
Don't you at least occasionally wonder such an interview, a colloquy
a hypothetical, mythical, theoretical, impossible
scenario?
Were you ever true to your prior self-are you you now?
Aren't there myriads who, at some point, should ask themselves this?
Isn't Purgatory ( if it, in fact, exists) crowded and crammed and congested with the
blemished moieties of souls
who never queried thus of themselves?
If you were given that unique, singular
rare and ephemeral opportunity to
converse with yourself as an idealistic youth (for so are
almost every youth) would you seize it?
I wonder what would be said-what questioned, what answered-don't you?
In the end, only the lighthearted, the mad, the whimsical,
and the introspective and regretful would ask this question, right?
What life, no matter how sublime, doesn't have regrets and unanswer'd questions?




Poetical Musings on Music For Ecdysic, Terpeschorean Purposes-Dreamlike or Not
by Douglas Cate on Thursday, December 23, 2010 at 4:19pm
When I hear various certain songs, those of
or before or even after my salad days, I think
and feel various emotions-at times vague and intense, overwhelming
and sharply defined........yet there are certain
ballads and odes whose strong, emollient strains only forever
ally then with and link them to
the passionate carnality and delicate, terpeschorean ecdysia of adulthood.
There are songs which are related sublimely to
the gyrating, derobing female form
and there are those one would like to see performed.
There are songs that might be glorious or
awkward fusions of elements past and present........
but then there are those that are
purely, only, solely carnal, ecdysic experiments.
I hear a cache, a host, a junta of songs-
a pair, a brace, a gaggle, a bevy-and my musing mind's eye
imagines cinematically the voluptuousness of those few, not many;
whose promises to sensually gyrate were apparently valid.
This happens not often, though I desire to
actually witness such a personal, private performance-a performance for me-
most greatly.




The Swiftness of Time (Or Whatever Better Title Someone Else Can Come Up With)
by Douglas Cate on Thursday, December 23, 2010 at 4:10pm
The swift passage of years is like a terrific, terrible, temporal
vacuum-I feel as if I have been sucked through it and deposited
here and now. What does a
vacuum (or the hideous, murderous tyrant, Time) care for
the possible emotional maladjustment of those
it inhales and deposits?
I remember the past, my childhood
and the days and lands and locales and fertile plains and
stocky forests-through which I ran and hiked-of my youth:
the fields of victory and defeat, the apartments of salvation and rejection,
the great, grand edifices, citadels, and rambling, ancient structures that,
for a brief, fleeting, diaphanous moment that then seemed like an eon; in which
I nestled myself as firmly as a key in a lock or a wedge in a niche in a rock;
was my second home-yes, I remember that and more.........
but, due to the awful, transformative, elastic nature of time,
the swiftness, the celerity of which is not now lost on me, it all seems a dozen millennia
or even just a day ago (but it is filmy, grainy&fuzzy, spotty and flimsy).
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As Seen In or Among The Snow: A Poem (If you Don't Like this Name, Rename it!)
by Douglas Cate on Thursday, December 23, 2010 at 3:29pm
Standing on a mostly flat, niveous plain, by a fence which seemed especially low, ancient and agrarian,
beneath a sky by turns, in places, purple, orange
white, gray, red and black
looking poignantly, reflectively at a pine sapling:
tiny and short yet sturdy; thin yet tall (for it's youthful age)
it's octuple branches freighted with a glaze of snow.
In the dark, the only visible, tangible snow is
that which is lying on something, the branch of a tree, say;
yet, though when illuminated, it reduced visibility,
the flying, airborne, plummeting
cascading veils of snow-these were
never visible, not in the gray light of twilight, of gloaming.
Spurs of hills-sheer, graveled cliff-faces, speckled and blemished with
stones or trees, mantled in thin layers of nival whiteness.
Dull, distant lights, beset by
encroaching, marauding fog and snow-grayness
and whiteness-orange and yellow beacons and blobs-orbs-
barely pushing back the vile, wintry hosts.



The Time-Bridging House; A Temporal Trip
by Douglas Cate on Thursday, December 23, 2010 at 3:16pm
To cliched strains and strands of melancholy music, returning to the place of childhood
That home previously lived in, and loved-nay, beloved-
and the green grass and tall emerald pines and the leafier trees,
their leaves gilded by and glistening in that delightfully shimmering sun-
whose rays break out over the limpid, argent waters, and capture
each crest and each wave:every flat ebb and every mountainous flow, and theyreflect the rays of the sun, a dazzling array of myriad flashes borne along by
shimmering waters, borne past trees heavy with fruit swung by
the breeze-the gentle, spring breezes-
I ran there, between, behind the screen of trees and bushes, once.
You ran there, in the deliberately unfettered, careless glory of childhood: shimmering,
glistening like a bronze or golden goddess, once.
Separately, never together, we ran there once.Distantly, with leagues between us, never near, we ran there, once.



Poem One, Untitled (Help Me Title It!!!)
by Douglas Cate on Thursday, December 23, 2010 at 3:01pm
A pile of castoff cans, rusting mellowly in a dusty wastebin,
And I recalling, with a touch of melancholy, the undulant sensuality and musicality;
the brightness, the welcoming tone of your voice.
A recently cleaned bathroom scale, suffused with a moiety of immaculateness, still
whitish and blameless in places, seated somewhere in the wheaten plain; the
shining, golden plain-
And I remembering the wind and the sound of distant, crashing waves.
Reading a shopworn, much-loved book, lying recumbent on a flat, striped bed;
television at the foot of it
And I recall the dreamy promises, the rosy acts, the conditions made
the thoughts, the feelings, the intensities, the images
all those words conjured
Knowing sadly that they are gone.
As even are the days of our youth.....
sand pored out; the hourglass punctured and leaking.
The carefree days I remember-full and sunny;
But oh! I can't reconcile them with these-empty and dark.
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One Quick Note: On Short Stories/TV Shows vs. Novels/Films
by Douglas Cate on Thursday, December 23, 2010 at 2:53pm
In my opinion, and it is pretty much impeccable and universal, short stories are generally better than novels; television shows are thus generally better than movies. However, that is not to say that I hate or seldom read novels or that I never watch movies anymore for I do and have read and watched both and will probably continue to do so (at least, as soon as they actually make some good ones!)
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One Quick Note: On A Recent Commercial
by Douglas Cate on Thursday, December 23, 2010 at 2:50pm
Well, according to a commercial I saw recently, talking is now considered overrated and is poised to be replaced by......texting, of course! Hell, I'd always rather spend time typing on a tiny, hard-to-see keyboard than actually talking to people....especially when I am in the same damn car as them! I mean, who wouldn't? Wouldn't you?





A Stupid Story, Part I: Doc Granger's Visit
by Douglas Cate on Wednesday, December 22, 2010 at 4:49pm
We used to live that old dirt road that runs between two rows of trees, Momma and me, on the farm and I remember that hot July day, when I awoke with the dawn for the first time ever and I saw the red, rising sun-which was burning off all the lines of fog covering our farm-and the red streaks of light right in front of it, like a red clay road leading up to a sandstone cave; and Momma gave birth, with much sweating and swearing and cursing even of the Lord's name, to my little brother. We lived in a ramshackle, low-roofed shack, Momma and me; a house colored dull gray and weatherstained-without no weathervane up there on that roof. Wasn't even a roof with much of a pitch or a peak to it, but still 'twas a two-story house that Momma and me lived in then.
I knew that Momma was pregnant, for I noticed that her belly was fuller than before and that, no matter how much or how little she et, it stayed the same size for weeks and weeks. 'Course, it took me a while to plumb figure that out.
See, first I's of a mind that Momma done got afflicted with that cancer or a tapeworm or something.....but Lord, Momma was so young and pretty and had the damnedest glow all about it-her face, I mean. So, 'long 'bout Momma's second month of belly fullness, why I just went down to Doc Fred Granger and sent for him to visit and treat my Momma, who I'd been smart enough to tell to stay in bed-in her bare, quiet, lonely room.
So, one day, several weeks before that July day which Momma delivered that little baby boy-that brother o' mine-on, Doc Granger, in his Model A, came to our humble homestead, with his black patent-leather bag and all, and he came in and went up to Momma's bedroom-for I done showed him where it was-and then I left and went downstairs just as natural as can be, down that stairway of ours'n without no rails on it and then, when I's downstairs, why I listened to the radio in the tiny drawin' room of ours on the first floor while Doc Granger went about his business with Ma.
Well, 'long about a half-hour or so later, I hear Doc Granger, calling from the second-floor, through the stairs, acting is they was maybe a sound-hole on a gittar or somethin' :
"Marybelle?"
That's just it; that's what he said:
"Marybelle?"
Just like that, all questioning-like.
And I could tell right away that Old Doc Granger was a-callin' for me!
But what would he want with me? For I warn't nothin' special-at least, not to any medical men: I didn't have no medical training of any kind, nor much experience in nursin'-so what in Hell did he want with me, then?
Well, I didn't stop to find out nor figure it out; no, I just up and raced up them creaky old stairs, just as fast as can be, faster even than a bee going about collectin' his pollen from the flowers that growed out in our yard, so on, just straight up to the kindly, waiting Doc Granger, who had his tiny spectacles on, and I seen him there, just looking down at me, kind of grinning and I thought: ...........................






A Robbery: A Satirical, Hyperbolic Sketch (Largely Based on the Writings of Mark Twain), Part I
by Douglas Cate on Monday, December 13, 2010 at 12:38am
For very many years I was a person whose inveterate indigence resulted in the natural shabbiness and bagginess of much of my attire-including, obviously, all of my finer clothing: suits and sportcoats and such. I had never had a tailor in all those twenty-six years of my life-nor ever had once single tailored garment. Naturally, my impoverishment precluded all tailor-made, hand-stitched clothing but I could always be assured of the procurement, usually for the first decade and a half by my mother, of several articles per year of nondescript, off-the-rack clothing. Well, to make a long story short, I had always has an innate, irrepressible love of books and learning and over the years I grew to become quite intelligent and inventive (due largely to a supremely absorptive and photographic/phonographic mind)-and, in certain matters, fiercely disputatious.
Especially-most especially-in those matters, usually bipartite ones, where one of the participants was lacking in logic or knowledge or any sort of brainpower of any kind whatsoever.
Well, I'll spare you the whole story of my rise from the slums and their fetid obscurity and malodorous darkness; besides, everyone already knows the tale, anyway-I am, after all, quite a well-known, wealthy literary figure these days; however, I became a writer and considering I am only twenty-eight now, I quite literally skyrocketed to literary superstardom overnight and, in so doing, was read by millions, having secured a fairly decent contract from my publisher, and became an instant multimillionaire.
And, being in the public eye as I was, I realized, one or two years ago-I forget which, for my sense of time has been disabled thoroughly by the crazy vortex of fame, wealth and power that I've been trapped in and have risen with-I needed finer clothes, and finally I could amply afford not only finer clothes, but the FINEST clothes!: tailor-made, hand-stitched ones at long last! Finally, after all my years of shabby, baggy or too-tight handmedowns, markdowns, and secondhand, resold clothing, the ability-the FINANCIAL ability-to purchase the finest garments was well within my pecuniary purview.
Thus, almost as soon as I drew my first check-the first of many-for 10 million dollars, wisely depositing 90% of it in the bank via 36 different deposits further divided evenly between 9 accounts in my name, I rushed directly to the nearest tailor and had a well-fit suit measured out and made for me.
The cost: $4,595.00....a mere pittance compared with the almost ceaseless $10 million checks that continued to roll in, weekly; yet, I had, prior to my literary overnight superstardom, never received more than $3,500.00 and even that was an unlooked-for, ephemeral windfall that at that time I could never hope to turn again on even a yearly, to say nothing of a weekly or daily, basis ever; no, my regular pay at my various septuple employers had generally never exceeded $350.00 a week and in my menial position thereat, I could never ever expect to exceed that sum, yet in departing, I did.
So, that was the first of many suits and sportjackets I had custom-made for me-the first of many major purchases, including of course, the most obvious thing: a palatial change of address-a manor-house, in other words.
And, a new car-and a dozen finely rebuilt old ones.
Naturally there were many other significant, grandiose, transformative acquisitions-but this is not intended as an account of my purchases and acquisitions, I will leave the rest to the reader's curiosity and imagination....neither of which, in this case, shall I satisfy.
Now, at the beginning of the trouble which forms the body of this tale and the impetus for it's creation, I was scheduled to speak at City Community College in New York-not, naturally the most prestigious or effectual of lyceums to address or forums for a lecturer....but then, though I was rich and renown, I was yet a new and untried author and certainly not yet worthy of the resplendent sanctity of even the state universities, such as my alma mater (for a year and a half):UNH; to say nothing of the eternal brilliance and heavenly glory of the most sacrosanct and opulent American institutions of all-Harvard and Yale.....or even, Columbia which wasn't all that far from the CCC campus.
I got very little exercise as soon as I became wealthy, and I was determined not to become fat, lazy, and content for it had been my thinness, industriousness, and angry discontent that had instilled my work and that had led to the electrification of the reading public-MY reading public-in whose eyes I was a new, terrifying, compelling and angry voice. To them I was a prophet, a grand messenger.....a literary Christ (or at least, a Dickens or a Twain) reborn.
Thus, I was adamant not to lose my most compelling literary, stylistic feature-yet healthful, beneficial exercise was so hard to obtain at the outset of my financial halcyon days. Thankfully, as most authors tend to do, I loved to walk and did so as frequently as I could even, to my folly and shame (as you shall, in time, see) while in the city, eschewing multiple means of mass transit in favor of the vitiation or at least the variegation of good ol' shoe leather...though probably that should be amended to "good ol' sneaker rubber" for I wore tennis or running or skater shoes when at my leisure to do so, which, as I as then (and now) self-employed, independent and wealthy (which was just what I had always wanted: to work for myself, to have me as my own boss-the only borderline competent and compassionate boss I had ever had or would ever have, obviously), was often.
So, when I had completed my not very well-received address at CCC and departed the lecturn and the half-full auditorium-to no standing ovation or uproarious applause, I am sad to relate; nor even were very many of my jokes, despite their raucous risibility, laughed at....again, much to my chagrin and the wounding of my burgeoning literary career-I left the campus, signing no autographs-not a single collegiate or professorial votary accosted me-and began to walk along that street in New York, the one most plagued by crime and blighted by hideous poverty; poverty of the sort that drove men, women and children to all manners of thievery and criminal behavior, ........................................





Part Two: A Continuation and Termination of the Note that Came Befo'
by Douglas Cate on Monday, December 6, 2010 at 3:43pm
...........As they blot out all their former grandeur, beneficence and uniqueness for the holding-up of the robes of vile emperors and empires like those of, when speaking purely in the retail sphere, Walmart's, for the mindless devotion to and subjugation to places like that; this seems to be Market Basket's fate, then: in trying to implement its nonsensical stratagem to outwit and overcome it's enemy, it, in fact, becomes its own enemy by being it's puppet.
Thus, I have to say that this seems a gigantic, fatal error to me, and I really have no precise idea why MB would pursue this utterly foolhardy course, unless it's own managerial infrastructure-to use more governmental terms, it's "cabinet"-has been infiltrated, much those of the countries of West and East Europe at the beginning and end of World War Two (about which history it should be obvious I am or was reading at the time of this writing) by various German (first) and Soviet (last)agents, respectively; of course, in this case, for the purposes of this obviously satirical, exaggerated and silly article of mine, that supposes utterly fake implausible conspiracies and conspiracy theories like this, the agents would be those of either Walmart or it's puppets and imitators. I mean, either their good intentions will blow up in their face-and surely that could've been foreseen-or they never had good intentions for they were infiltrated by the insidious agents of purest evil: WM.
And, while my conclusions and hypotheses may be a bit far-fetched, sardonic, exaggerated, parodic and/or satirical, I know one thing's for certain: the first sweeping changes to make it resemble an albeit minute version of Walmart have already taken place at Market Basket and, infiltrated or not, you can be sure of one thing: That, unless its multitudes of patrons-ALL of them-stood up and threatened a permanent boycott and embargo of the store unless the changes were reversed and some little bit of the old MB were restored, they are not going to and will not change it back-EVER.
Unless, of course, this one sainted grand thing would, as it probably will, happen: the foreclosure and eternal bankruptcy of WM....it decline, fall and erasure, in other words.
For all those who pine for Montgomery Ward and keep a constant, reverent, unflagging, indefatigable candelight vigil at it's much-graphito'd tombstone (above which now stands the illumined neon sign proclaiming the twin businesses of Barnes and Noble and Best Buy; for above it they irreverently erected their signs) and for those who love and cherish individuality and the true small town business and businessman, it is a hoped-for, prayerful thing. Yet, as it was for those few determined, heroic Jewish patriots who covertly and overtly strove for the collapse of Rome and the return to freedom for their tiny, oft-oppressed people and state, it seems so impossible, so remote that the collapse and immolation of WM will ever happen.
Yet the good, idealistic and individualistic will always hope and strive for that: for true justice, true vengeance, truest fairness.....that what WM did to countless venerable, longstanding American business institutions-which long and vlouminous lsit might possibly include such former diehards and stalwarts and fixtures, mainstays of Main Street as Woolworth's and A&P and Rich's to name just a fraction of those killed by it-should befall it and it should be eternal and those killed by it, should be resurrected, and should reestablish, for the purpose of this silly, exaggerated, hilarious, satirical thought, their latent businesses on the final resting place (even as Best Buy and/or Barnes and Noble have in Newington, set up their businesses over the grave of MW) of WM's picked-clean skeleton: a skeleton which, disgustingly but appropriately enough, was picked clean by all those who it's greediness, enormity, miserliness and muscularity killed.
May those once-proud, vigilant, venerable long-time mainstys of Main Street rise again, may Market Basket resume it's former layout and individuality and respect for it's patrons, and may, if its spoils line the pockets of the destitute and downtrodden whom it once viciously and selfishly tread upon, WM fall it's coffers by emptied, awarded to the deserving thousands.
Finally, may Market Basket son realize it's stupid, lethal folly in its strange, silly attempt to imitate it's main enemy: WM.
If these sickening and highly weird trends continue, what's next for MB? Revolving bag tables? Or worse?


(Note: I am not really being completely serious at any point in time often in these words-for you see, this is essential a satirical paper, making fun of a great many things...too many, really, to mention. Not just WM or MB...and besides, though silly and exaggerated, there is some truth in this, as many of you who have visited both places may have seen for yourselves. Well, thank you. Remember again that this can never be construed, legally or otherwise, as any form or sort of libel. It is not libelous in the least. It is merely conjecture backed by proof. GB)
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Douglas Cate Remember, please, those of you who don't understand the concept of satire and sarcasm (especially as dispensed liberally and constantly by myself), that Mark Twain is one of my biggest influences and I am basically imitating him-or at least Washington Irving-here. Again: I am not being serious. Not in the least-understand that. This is a joke. Jocular, you know?
December 9 at 7:46pm · LikeUnlike







Market Basket: Puppet of WM? (That's My Assertion!)
by Douglas Cate on Sunday, December 5, 2010 at 1:08am
Let's talk about Walmart (and its far-reaching consequences to its undeserving, unimpeachable competitors) for a minute or two. Besides the various corruptions and superfluities and trivialities not only associated with it, but practiced devoutly by the corporation itself-like it's various injustices and unfairnesses that it inflicts upon its employees,-there is one major fault, superseding the superstructure/infrastructure of inanity and redundancy on which it is built, that outweighs all others: Besides the villainy and horror it inflicts upon it's utterly upstanding yet hapless competitors, in that it kills, destroys, overruns, uproots and supplants then, it also has caused it's few remaining hardy competitors to become disfigured and deformed-changed, in other words.
Let me cite an example to illustrate, even incontrovertibly prove, my point and, in so doing, reveal the hideous, insidious truth. An utterly annoying and silly and unnecessary truth-yet that annoyance, silliness and unnecessariness does not diminish or disguise the truth of it.
In illustrating my all-important point, Market Basket/Demoulas is the best example I could hope to use. Therefore, look at present-day Market Basket: It's general layout (though obviously many times smaller); the type, shape, and color of it's host of carts; the placement, height, and type of it's refrigerators, etc. Now, all these either are almost exactly similar to those of or used by Walmart or were inspired by them. All these changes, which have seemed to finally culminate and end, have taken place over the last four years. Indeed, one other major similarity with Walmart, yet another disfiguring change and development in recent years at Market Basket, is that the aisles have all been uniformly shortened, so that no one single aisle is longer (or shorter) than another.
Now, I don't know what kind of business strategy this is; I don't know what places like Market Basket (or even Walmart which precipitated this and other changes among its valiant but scant competitors) hope to achieve by implementing these kinds of transformations.....constructional or otherwise; perhaps it is done in a rather vain, inchoate, inane and misguided attempt to confuse the customers, or to rope in and dupe (even snag by hook and by crook) Walmart's regular customers; however, in so doing they drastically change the store's personality and landscape and so run the risk of losing forever their biggest, longest supporters, customers, patrons and fans; those that have faithfully stood by Market Basket, eschewing almost totally the vileness, vanity and corrupt uniformity of Walmart and it's general inexpensiveness of its various items, throughout all this long, bitter cold war with Walmart, but being not only besieged and tempted by the enemy (Walmart, which might be, for the sturdy, imperative purposes of this Cold War analogy I've concocted, likened to Soviet Russia, the tricky, duplicitous communist juggernaut of the 1940s-1990s that, every step of the way, ever since its invasion of Germany and all of Eastern Europe at the end of World War Two, has threatened to conquer and subjugate all of the world, communist and anti-communist alike; Again, this is Walmart, there is no better parallel or analogy for it) but to some noticeable extent betrayed by it's ally and friend.
Now, behavior-unreasonable, insane, unexplainable, vain behavior, might I add-like this is a component of that which leads certain sane people to disown, excoriate, desert and discredit their former friends; so, in other words, this too could be the eventual fate of Market Basket if it continues to allow hollow things like Walmart's vile, vain uniformity to overcome and replace it's own humble, quaint, homey individuality....it's once-proud, faithful customers (ones who appreciate that Non-Walmart touch that very few places are able to furnish or display today) deserting it in droves for a few of the other, more self-respecting and individualistic unique challengers who heroically battle evil Walmart each and every day, or, worse yet, decide that the real thing, in this case, Walmart, is a lesser evil than it's puppets.
In a way, those things and people that support, emulate and are unable to recognize the sinister reality, the vile infrastructure, the nefarious hierarchy of things, people, nations, governments, and places like Walmart, are themselves much worse than the real evil itself and the real evil is more cozy and beneficent than it's stupid puppets and supporters: those fools who would actually overturn their own basically good systems of, let's call it "government" for those imperialistic, nationalistic, militaristic, dystopian, chauvinistic ones of superstates (in this case, "superstores") like Walmart. Again, it is sad to witness the upheaval of individualistic structures like Market Basket.............(end page five; the rest...the remaining four pages, to be continued in another note...I am tired...so are my hands..so there!)




A Copied and Pasted Editorial Sent to TPH RE: Kittery and It's Recent Disregard for It's Schools and School System, etc.
by Douglas Cate on Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 6:01pm
Note: Is this considered a personal attack, too? I hope not-if it is, the truth may never be told! (By the way, a little something you might like to know about me: I am extremely sarcastic and dry.....and I was above, too. And, knowing me, I will be below, too. But then, all the greats, Dickens, Twain, Irving-to cite just a few-were sarcastic.....and I follow their example-here, and in all my fictional/nonfictional writing. Yet truth is also at the core of this op-ed piece, as it always is at the center of all great journalism. I hope you will enjoy. Thank You.)

Subject: My Opinions of the Recent Debacle in Kittery ie The Kittery Recreation Center/Frisbee School Debacle


In my opinion, in my capacity as both a former resident of Kittery and a former attendee of the school in question (Frisbee Middle School), I think this nonsense about the Kittery Recreation Center commandeering it and trying to turn it into some sort of urban athletic club and this actually being supported by the residents of Kittery is ridiculous. What I mean by that, is no one will pay to support the school remaining just that: a school: but they will pay an outrageous sum to convert it into their own private pleasure-dome. (Of course, it won't really be a pleasure-dome, I am merely using that as a means to categorize it....and satirize it). Now, to me, this is a clear case of people's priorities not being adequately in balance. In fact, almost everything that has gone on in Kittery recently with regard to it's schools and educational system in general is a blatant, tragic travesty. Everyone suddenly seems in favor of demolishing or transforming any number of structures that, naturally, favor the adults. Whereas, as I believe I have remarked before, the children are left out in the proverbial cold. The restructuring of the school system is a joke, too. I mean, everyone is having to be transported and relocated to an entirely different school and the schools (the two or three of them that actually remain standing, that is) are being expanded and pleasure-domes are being built for-or at least planned by-the adults. I am glad that one of my old schools-Frisbee-will not be torn down, but I think that the KRC appropriating it and turning it into a multi-million dollar project is foolish. They will never have the requisite membership in order to have and use and need a place of that size; or, they will have to charge New York prices (that is, extravagant and expensive and unaffordable) to every single member-or both. And, when you figure that they will never have that many members, you have to also figure that the few that exist will be gouged. Again, I must state that I have never seen anything so risible and insane in my life. These people's priorities are not in order in the least. Every prior place used by every committee and membership and group and faculty was perfectly fine for that particular use-and even if it wasn't, it hardly justifies these ridiculous restructurings and the thankfully avoided recent fiasco of Traip's closure. There has suddenly in the town of Kittery taken place this strange selfishness, greed/miserliness and disregard for the future of the town. In the strongest possible terms of satire, the town has become a seat of, a hotbed of hedonism and the same kind of child-hating that the ancient Phoenicians or Carthaginians practiced. Now, I don't normally indulge in such extreme terms and such borderline Biblical terms, either, but you have to admit that Kittery certainly is trying to become the Tyre and Sidon of Maine...perhaps even the Babylon of Maine. At any rate, no one should approve of such strange and self-centered behavior-and I certainly don't. I just hope the few good, normal people left in Kittery will do their best to stop even worse things happening to their town, their schools and their children, about whom it would seem few people there care, before those things happen. Well, I guess that is all I have to say about that. Thank you for listening.






A Reply and Query to An Editor's Reply to an Editorial Reply of Mine to An Insipid Editorial
by Douglas Cate on Saturday, November 13, 2010 at 11:41pm
As you may remember, I sent to you awhile ago a wonderfully satirical, robust, roguishly sardonic op-ed piece which was a reply to the inanities and imbecilities of some persons whose ramblings on the issue of their support for the closure of Traip Academy-as incoherent and unintelligible as they were-proved to be the impetus of my reply. Now, you sent me a reply to that reply that said that my piece, while entertaining and clearly pursuing a slightly Irvingian (as in similar to the great writer/satirist Washington Irving) vein, was a personal attack and you could not run it. While upsetting, I agree in general with this assessment. However, it is not completely true: with some alterations and expurgations, my reply would be, could be quite useable. I mean, there is truth in it. Every word I wrote about MSAD #35/Marshwood High School; on which I am a bit of an authority, seeing as how I attended it for three years; is the God's Honest, Gospel truth. And, the apparent miserliness and avarice of many of the people of Kittery is also either the truth or is apparent. Now, as these things form what might possibly be construed as an attack, it is not a personal attack. It is an attack on vice, stupidity and superfluity. Therefore, if you merely snip out the portions of the editorial that attack (or seem to) the two people whose idiocy occasioned it, you will have the truth and a piece you certainly can run. For, after all the current, sad trends locally of either unmitigated greed/miserliness and scholastic/administrative superfluity;-these trends, being rather unfortunate and erosive to ideality, should be given to the notice of the general public....in case they have not already noticed these almost dastardly trends.
However, I am nothing if not acquiescent, and though I'd certainly like my editorial to be run, I can accept a negative answer, and if receiving one, I will make no further mention of this brilliant, if inflammatory, editorial of mine.
In closing, I would like to thank you for your time and due consideration of the proposal made within. I hope you have a pleasant day. Goodbye.

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Douglas Cate Indeed. They are morons of the highest (or should I say "lowest") caliber. I mean, read my original editorial, which is also in my notes, and if you want, I can show you their precious, timely, saintly, fair reply to it.
November 13 at 11:54pm · LikeUnlike

Douglas Cate Yeah, they are idiots. I don't even think they actually read what they receive...at least not all the way through.
November 14 at 12:01am · LikeUnlike

Douglas Cate Was your Memorial Bridge piece in favor of it or against it? (I assume it was in favor of it...am I right to assume that?)
November 14 at 12:35am · LikeUnlike

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Reply to R. and M. Brown as Regards their Editorial in The PH of Oct. 26: My Rb in Favor of Traip
by Douglas Cate on Monday, November 1, 2010 at 3:08pm
(note: As indicated by the title above, this is a reply or rebuttal to the insenstive remarks of a R. and M. Brown of Kittery with regard to their editorial dated Oct. 26, but appearing in the Oct 31st or the Nov. 1st issue of the Portsmouth Herald that was actually in favor of the closure of Traip and the tuitioning of those students to other schools. I take the opposing side in this matter)
Nov. 1-To the Editor (but also to R. and M. Brown-RE: A Rebuttal of and Reply to their vile "Traip isn't giving quality education for the cost"): I don't know who or what you people are, but one thing is obvious, Dick and Mary: you don't have children, and thus, like many childless, elderly couples, not only are you greedy and miserly and selfish, but you have no consideration for children at all. To think that you would, in your vile greediness, actually hustle the children out of town (not to mention force them to awaken earlier and to attend a foreign environment that will be long and difficult to adjust to) is appalling and nauseating. In fact, I actually vomited with rage and sorrow midway through my perusal of your filthy editorial-I had to wipe away the vomit in order to read the rest. Let's not forget about the famous rivalry between Traip and Marshwood that has existed for the better part of five decades and the beatings that may occur if the Kittery students attend Marshwood. I live in Eliot, and I would not wish it's vile school system on my worst enemy, and later on I will outline a few of the major injustices connected with that school. Kittery is, or I should say, was once a great place. I should know, I lived there for 13 years, during 10 of which I attended those schools that greed like yours has sought to close or change or rearrange. Quite simply, you two and those like you are what is wrong with Kittery: You are idiots and painfully misinformed about and utterly insensitive to the various plights of the modern youth. You are disconnected from your childhood and thus that of others-others who would probably never choose to kick you out of your home; though you deserve it. However, back to your raving idiocy, incompetence, insensitivity and greed: You two are probably among those who voted for or somehow approved of that ridiculous Frisbee situation wherein you are willing to pay that cost, but charmingly, intelligently overlook the fact that it is at least equal to if not exceeding the figure necessary to keep that school and Traip open. It is amazing and grotesque that you would waste money on that and other utter nonsense instead of actually care about and pay for others. (You know, no one speaks for or defends children except adults, but how can that be done when the adults are childish, obstinate, unfair and greedy? What kind of lessons do actions and motivations like these teach the children? How would you like it if you had to attend a whole other, different school? I don't doubt-in fact I would wager every last cent I had-that all of Kittery could be bulldozed and paved over, transformed into one gigantic parking lot/shopping center, all of it's natural and architectural beauty rent, raped, ruined and burnt, and so long as you stood to reap the profits of it, you would be fine with that-in fact, you would applaud it. Your miserliness and avarice sickens me. Do you know what it is like at MSAD 35? Well, let me clue you in, Dick: If you miss a day due to absence, you have to produce a note from home and then you are issued a green pass, which all your teachers must sign; if you have a doctor's note, you are issued a purple pass, and your teachers must sign it; and if you can produce no note, you are issued a pink pass and it is automatically assumed that you skipped school, and this pass must also be signed and you receive one detention for every class you missed. In addition to that unfairness and injustice, you are allowed only 14 absences per semester or you stand to lose credit. It doesn't matter how hard you work or anything-you still can lose your credits. This alone would be an appalling adjustment for the Kittery students who are used to much more freedom. Furthermore, to my knowledge, Marshwood requires more credits than Traip does. In case you've forgotten, "credits" are points attained and accrued for passing a class that contribute to one's eligibility for graduation. If you don't have them, you don't graduate. Are you really so envious of youth and vigor that you hate them so much that you would put them through that-and, possibly, far worse, just to conserve your precious albeit ultimately worthless money? I am utterly staggered by your grotesque application of business terms like "investment" and "return" that you employed in your editorial. Is money really all that important to you-to all of the RCTs (Resident Childless Taxpayers) of Kittery? If this is so, perhaps the town's name should be changed to "Greedtown" and the town motto can be: " Proudly sending our kids away for the love of money. Plus, we have no sentiment whatsoever-except, of course, for money." I know why you are so willing to suggest the tuition program, which again is merely another proof of your overwhelming miserliness: Only the parents of children will have to pay, and as you either never had children or don't have any school-age ones now, you are electing this alternative in order to save your money, which is really the only money you are care about. Obviously, sentiment has little room in your heart, but I went to Traip, and so did countless others-hopefully some of whom have a soft spot in their extant heart for it and will do something to stem your foul tide. Hey, here's an idea: Why not close Traip forever, knock it over, urinate on the debris and erect an amphitheatre in it's place? Kittery doesn't have an amphitheatre. By the way, I am being sarcastic; actually, sardonic-I would never advocate such a thing. In the end, what you are suggesting (what you obviously already suggested with regard to Frisbee-another of my sainted alma maters, might I add) is an outrage. I'll tell you one thing you have no investment in nor regard for: the future of your town. It is utterly ridiculous how everything must be defined financially-what about the human factor? I think it is horribly sad to see Kittery's institutions being swept away. Obviously, I could go on naming the RCTs recent atrocities, probably for pages and pages more, but I've said enough. Let truth and sentiment stand-and let the world see what you are doing to Kittery. What a bald outrage it is!)

The Longest Post Ever-My Facebook Journalism; A Collection of Reportage 12/29

(Note: The following pieces are mostly from November and December 2010....with most of those being from the period of December 26-29th, 2010)


Today's Final Note: An Important Revelation About Me (How I am Sarcastic In Many Things; Especially Writings)
by Douglas Cate on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 6:26pm
Even in my most serious, truest writings and statements-unless they are those motivated by sharp, strong feeling like love or lust or sex or romance-I am almost always joking, satiric, dry and silly. Thus, even many of the things that I wrote and uploaded today, even for instance the "Sex Theory" piece, are in fact insincere and sardonic. They are-or might be-true, but they are also sarcastic and wry...and, if I do say so myself, utterly brilliant. However, this should not always be about me. I feel rather empty to remark upon the fact that so often am I the topic of any of my writings. It is unfair and unnecessary.
Yet, to give you a little slice about how fickle my mind can be and how short my attention span is and how easily I am distracted, let me tell you that the last sentence, the one above this one, was not meant to be written here, ever.
Yet, that is just a sample of my freewheeling literary and notional style. However, my actions are rarely so fickle.
After all, not to unduly, unnecessarily categorize and stereotype them, but in my experience, fickleness is primarily the province of women-not men. Yet, my fickleness-if existent or present at all-is not THEIR fickleness...you know?

And, now, at last, after what seems like fifty pieces and a hundred pages I am done-for today, for now, that is (sinister laughter as we:
FADE OUT).
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Douglas Cate ‎"FADE OUT" , for those of you who don't know it's meaning and usage, is what is always written at the bottom of the final page of any sort of screenplay of teleplay. It signifies the end of the show or movie as written. TY.
18 minutes ago · LikeUnlike

Douglas Cate ‎*screenplay OR teleplay.




Edit
A Story Behind One of The Two Major Comic Bits that I Created Impromptu Yesterday
by Douglas Cate on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 6:06pm
As you who have actually read my many and variously topic-driven notes know, I have already told the tale of the creation of one of the comic bits that I did yesterday-namely, the "Jackin' coke, 'cause I'm bored" song one. However, there were at least two major bits engendered in impromptu settings and by the slightest impetuses and external stimuli yesterday; and as such, there is still one hopefuly brief tale to be told.
That tale is the one that covers a comic idea that I had while at the bank yesterday.
Here it is, then:
Having received a rather substantial windfall from my previous employers on Monday, the next day, Tuesday (for those of who who don't know the progression of the days of the week), I resolved to go down to the nearest bank, which happened to be the Eliot branch of the Kennebunk Savings Bank, and start up a savings account (for my previous bank, at which I have an account or two that is still active though humble and small and nonexistent, really; that bank is too far away and there are closer ones...so why not try to save myself the trip and time and gasoline-which is so unnecessarily, conspiratorially expensive these days?). So, I went down to that particular location, entered, looked about, and seeing a rather large crowd, that significantly busied the few tellers present, I stood back a few paces, nearest the deposit/withdrawal slip table and waited until I could approach the teller's window. Now, it had been a while since I had opened an account, especially at a whole new bank-my previous one having been going on for like nine years or so already-so I was naturally trepidatious and apprehensive and in a rather incommunicative mood. So, not wanting to talk, I thought of something. However, in order to fully understand my mindset behind this particular bit, you must realize that in addition to my nervousness and embarrassment, I was starting to feel worried and especially angry and indignant at the whole prospect; so, sufficiently emotional, and in a great mood to criticize and mock things in general, I thought the following little, comical notion:
(Which shall present itself herein as a rhetorial question or "What if" style premise):
"What if I took one of those deposit/withdrawal slips, and on the back of it, because I am now so indignant and nervous that I don't want to talk to anyone; what if I wrote: I would like to open a savings account? For, as I and I am sure all the tellers well know, certain robbers who don't want to attract too much undue attention to themselves used to and still do occasionally write a note, on which is written: This is a holdup or a stickup-I forget which: and pass this to the teller.
So, knowing this, what would the teller most likely think? Of course, she would think that I was a robber-but in reality I am a prospective customer!"
And this I naturally thought was deliciously funny and I resolved to write down that calming thought when I got home; as I did-right now and right here.
So, that is the whole of that particular story and bit and the story and idea behind it.



(Note: For those of you who are always having to be politically correct and are always telling people to not be too gender-specific, or to always say "he or she" in every pronoun case; such as that one before wheere I said: "Of course, she would think that I was a robber"; to you, I have only this to say: Fuck you; I'm not changing it. And, I am certainly not being sterotypical by saying "she"; for at that bank and almost all banks, really, the tellers were and are women. So, "she" is quite apt. So, again: Fuck you all you stupid politically correct dipshits! Thank You!)
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The Sex Theory (which is also: The Slut Theory)
by Douglas Cate on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 5:44pm
I have a theory about the sexuality of certain people-of promiscuous people who love and have sex a little too much and with all manner of people. I mean, my theory about people (men and women, but especially women; though again it does apply duly and equally to both sexes) who engage often in multiple-partner sex is that these people do this, not only for the intense pleasure of it or other reasons equally relative to that, but also and more primarily for the reason that they use this, the sexual act, as a means by which to cover up, forget and otherwise avoid feeling lonely and lovelorn. That is, they do it because they can't have and be with the one person who they truly want.
In the end, these type of people (and really any person could and can become this promiscuous quite easily) are using sex as a nepenthe: a drug that helps them to forget and reassign their pain. It is sad, but true-or at least, that is my theory. I'm not entirely sure if it is true, but I certainly think it could be and does explain a lot with regard to certain kinds of sexual behavior. However, you must realize that this does not mean that that isn't about and motivated by sheer pleasure and little else, for it obviously is. All I am doing is saying that sometimes it could possibly be other things that motivate that kind of behavior as well. And avoidance or reassignment or forgetfulness are the biggest things that I can think of.

And, of course, there is now no reason to set forth the "Slut Theory" for that is already here, just under a different name, as the title clearly shows. Thank you for bearing with me while I did my insufferable "psychiatrist/philosopher/psychoanalyst" impression. I trust it wasn't TOO insufferable.
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Douglas Cate Remember that I am not saying that sex is always displacement and deference. No; it is only that (and only partly that-never ENTIRELY that) for some people, sometimes. Never all people, and never all the time. Just occasionally.




Yesteday's Revelations, The Revelations-MY Relevations
by Douglas Cate on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 5:34pm
Long story short, I told two women (one at the bank at which I opened a savings account due to Monday's windfall; and one at the local library....and no, it was never done as a come-on or a pick up line of any kind; nor was it even said to remotely impress them) that I am or want to be, a writer. In this, they encouraged me somewhat-and at this, they expressed some enthusiasm and various wishes for success. Now, short story long or to make a short tale a very long one: ...........



(Author's Note: And, pretty obviously, that is all that I have for that-so far. However, you must understand a number of things: One, these most recent pieces-of which there are I believe about fifteen or sixteen or so, thus far-all are culled from a journal that I received as a Christmas present and in which I have been very feverishly writing ever since; and two, that many pieces are unfinished and that I am somewhat of a lazy, undisciplined writer and that I hate my handwriting, but I write by hand more often than anything else; therefore, I just put things in here, whether finished or not, just so as to have a nicer, cleaner, prettier version of it. Like any other male, I am greatly attracted to and an admirer of prettiness and physical beauty...and that includes even in writing! Besides, people don't really want to read my superlong stuff anyway.)



An Imperative Note Regarding Jiltedness; or, Love Taken Away-It's Aftermath and Effects
by Douglas Cate on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 5:24pm
When anyone, man or woman, comes by some salacious means or another, to basically feel pure love or lust or adoration, fondness, compassion or any strong, romantic feelings for someone and the thrill of it all is so intense and exciting that everything seems utterly heavenly and rosy, and THEN has all that taken away from them, for any number of good or bad reasons, they feel awful, hurt, rejected and....angry.
Almost partly vengeful, really.
They cannot help this perfectly natural, usually only very temporary, emotional state; it is human, and all humans in this particular, peculiar sort of situation-a situation charged with all manner of very strong emotions by all involved parties-feel this way: namely, temporarily betrayed and victimized and even tricked. It is sad, but true. However, as I pointed out, this feeling, in the normal human being, the rational human being, is almost always very short-lived if incredibly intense and stinging during it's short life (not the human's, the intensity of the anger that the IMAGINED betrayal).




A Very Important, Unequivocal, Uncontestedly True, Entertaining Note On Women (As I Have Experienced Them)
by Douglas Cate on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 5:15pm
Namely, to sum up all of analyses and conjectures of women, I would say, simply this: Though, in my opinion, they undoubtedly deserve to be loved and worshipped (just not, EVER, too much), there hasn't been the woman born yet who could ever tolerate, understand and enjoy being worshipped. Maybe because it makes her self-conscious, in that she doesn't feel she deserves it, that she thinks she is unworthy of such affection and adoration; maybe because it is, or can be, annoying-who the hell knows?
All that I know is, oddly enough, they can have such a demystifying attitude, such a hardheaded, stubborn practicality.....they, in my experience, can be both too logical AND illogical when it comes to romantic matters-and when it comes to dealing with their usually few true adorers and admirers. Yet, if you actually love them, how can you repress that sort of fondness for them that you have?
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About Journals And My Association With Them
by Douglas Cate on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 5:08pm
Given my status as a nearly prolific sort of writer-especially, as evidenced herein, of various essayistic albeit interesting, aphoristic, true, nonfictional/fictional/autobiographical, articular things-I should think that, maybe, what I most require is a fleet of journals, especially as I write longhand and handwritten things so often; yes, I need a veritable host of leatherbound journals....so long as they are, themselves, lined-factorylined.
So that, these prospective, multitudinous, hypothetical, requisite leathern journals and antebellumlike notebooks being lined, I don't have to by hand rule and line and measure and demarcate and bound them out myself. No, thank you.
Although, on the other hand, being a writer and, in this volume at least, a rather meiotic and minimalistic/hyperbolic, reportorial, truistic one-one who often within quotes truisms and composes or points out various obviousnesses-I would think that, maybe, just maybe, I would not mind it. But then, who knows? And, besides by means of it's smallness and randomness, is this even funny?




Local Idiots, Part II: Familial and Thus Unfortunately Related To Me (A Profile of Two of My Inane Brothers)
by Douglas Cate on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 5:00pm
To begin this musing, critique, report, entry, profile, article and assessment of these really ignorant and annoying and unnecessarily merciless and self-destructive relatives of mine, primarily and entirely my two vilest brothers, who have in their time and mine caused untold and undue misery of any and every imaginable kind to my family (and who will undoubtedly cause us all more before they're through), I will ask the following, seemingly innocuous, insouciant and inane, random question:
Is it in fact at all intelligent to go about shirtless on a cold, dark, windy, snowy, wintry night-even if you are in fact indoors while doing it?
Now, obviously the meaning behind this query is...............


(Note: That is all I have written on this most annoying, disgusting, distressing and aggravating of topics. And, if any of you were me, you too would not have written much more than that-because you wouldn't have been able to stomach it for long...believe me.)




An Excerpt: A Quick Memorandum On Local Newspapers Editorials' OW Stupidity, etc.
by Douglas Cate on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 4:52pm
Based on recent findings-all of which were painstakingly gathered by me and are my conclusions with few, if any, conjectures appended to them-I believe that the local newspapers are not only NOT interested in printing the truth, but also aren't interested in printing even entertaining versions of and variations on the truth. Regardless of any conjectures I might make, they disallow a contributor to make ANY insightful, entertaining, or even lame, conjectures and hypotheses...yet, is not opinion built out of and made up of these-conjectures and hypotheses?
I mean, not only have these vile, jocular sarcasms of journals and journalism-these papers-rejected and ignored ALL of my editorial submissions (all of which funny, entertaining-and TRUE, with few notable exceptions), but those they've actually printed have been the disjointed, maniacal, unfactual ramblings and rantings and ravings of some of the stupidest, most boring and incoherent, superfluous lunatics(of which it seems our humble region is entirely composed and crammed with)-most of these being but one foot from fullest entrance and internment into the yawning, dirt-rimmed, rectangular, black grave-to have ever walked the earth (and sullied it, befouled it with their inane mumblings).
So, what these so-called papers are telling me-telling EVERYONE, really-is that they only care about publishing vile, stupid, boring, octuagenarian/septuagenarian/centenarian, biased, dull, insane tripe and nonsense. These are the ironically, unnecessarily political papers'-whose fierce political agenda is to it's publishers the crux of all things-and............


(Author's Note: And...that is all I have for that, for now. Sorry).





The Story Behind A Silly Song/Comic Bit that I Engendered Impromptu Last Night
by Douglas Cate on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 4:32pm
This is the story-the story of a funky, silly, freewheeling, freestyling song or comical routine, et. al. It is the tale of a song that I might call, based on one of it's funniest, silliest lines: "Jackin' coke, 'cause I'm bored".
Here now, with all that preamble now duly concluded, is that story:
Yesterday, I purchased a cd of an anthology of The Meters (an incredible soul-funk-rock band from New Orleans which was pretty big in the late 60s and mid-70s), and it had two discs, the first of which covered the period of 1968-1971, during which The Meters only played and recorded mostly instrumentals, and so I was in the car last night, going from Bullmoose to another store in the Uptown portion of Portsmouth (unless the Uptown is not the area nearest the Newington border) and I was listening to the cd, the first one, with my brother, Jesse, who had accompanied me on the trip to Bullmoose, and as I am likely to do when I listen to music that has no lyrics nor vocals, I added some. We both did-though, as I am pretty much a master of supersilly freestyling and impromptu vocalizing and lyricism, I was of course the better and more consistent of the two would-be singers/lyricists. And, one of the funniest songs that I made up to the intense, funky/soulful beat of one of The Meters (which New Orleanean band I liked today, just now, on Facebook) was about an unemployed black man living in the city, in the ghetto, say of New Orleans itself, and among other diversions he pursues to pass the time, he likes to steal cocaine from various drug dealers...as the line, the funniest one, the one that made me stop and laugh the hardest, because it surprised even me in it's rhyming perfection and silliness: ".......Jackin' coke, 'cause I'm bored." clearly shows. Remember that the previous line had something to do with a Ford...so, I just rhymed "Ford" with "bored".
Now, for those of you who might, in your overwhelmingly unoriginal and insufferable uberliberality and political-correctness, say that I am being stereotypical and racist in my song that I made up for laughs, I say to you: One, fuck you, it was a harmless joke; and two, I crafted a song which intense funniness and absurdity aside, is true to the music. It fits it, and it is right for it. If you-any of you; if you had a fifth of my talent for silly rhyme-making, were to listen to this particular funk/soul instrumental and you had to create impromptu lyrics for it (which, no offense, I hardly doubt that any of you could do....I mean, remember, this is something I have been doing all my life for fun, making up little stories and songs and rhymes...none of you have half of my experience and training in this particular field), undoubtedly you too would come up with something that smacked of the ghetto and the whole funk/soul/rap/hip-hop lifestyle...at least, as we people guess it to be. So, therefore, that is that. I will not defend myself nor apologize for making incredibly funny comedy...that is not even that satirical; if anything it was just absurd...I might as well have said something about purple clouds and pancake forests and ice cream mountains and kaleidoscopic tangerine fortresses. See? It is all absurdity. To prove this point, namely that one I am making about my abilities to funnily, absurdly rhyme effortlessly, I will compose a silly song or poem sometime and put it in here. Indeed, I already have written and recorded a veritable buttload (no; that's inaccurate...a boatload, actually) of songs with ubersilly rhymes and themes and rhyme-schemes in them.
And now that I have won, this is all is done.

(Note: In this case, it is always good to end with a rhyme.)




The Beliefs That I Have of Myself: A Brief Thought On My Abilities As A Writer
by Douglas Cate on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 4:08pm
I like to imagine that I have the ability and due, adept talent and literary nimbleness to make anything and everything (no matter how small, vile, strange, gross, bland, dirty, ugly, filthy, scatological, weird, smutty, raunchy, taboo, salacious, disgusting, gory, improper, prurient, nefarious, archaic, boring, dull, arcane, nauseating, etc.) better, more interesting, intelligent, exciting, poetic, engaging, and beautiful-or at least: witty, satiric, and funny. And I can achieve this usually by invariably telling (some version-perhaps strained and embellished) of the truth!





Is It For It or Against It?
by Douglas Cate on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 4:00pm
In late 2005 or early 2006-I forget which; but I do know it was cold and wintertime-, at a certain now defunct paperback and comicbook and used bookstore in Somersworth, I saw a black-dustjacketed book entitled:
"Everything You Know About Sex Is Wrong: The Misinformation of Extreme Sexuality."
Now, basically ever since ( and I hope this doesn't make me sound like an obsessive moron, but) just one thought about that book has been in my mind, ever since that fateful, sullied day standing in front of a book display along a wall at The Paperback Bazaar:
Is it-that book-advocating a pornographic lifestyle; is it for lustfulness-or is ti denigrating just such a lifestyle and sexual philosophy; and utterly against it and all forms of carnality and lustfulness?
Well, I never did discover the true answer (though at first I thought, based on it's title alone, that is was against the adoption and application of a pornographic, lascivious lifestyle); primarily because I never read nor opened that book (I guess at the time, I was too embarrassed and afraid to); but that store also sold various XXX magazines and this book (EYKASIW:TMOES) was right next to them, so..........

(Note: And of course, there is now no reason to continue that sentence; trailing off is the best way to end this.)






A Few Diarrheal Thoughts....that is, The Machinations and Duplicities of That Grim, Seasonal Tyrant
by Douglas Cate on Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 4:58pm
Having myself fallen victim to it recently, I feel this current, prostrating, toilet-confining, agonizing affliction of mine, coupled with overmuch misfortunate, abject and terrifying cold and flu symptoms; such as feverishness, puts me in the way of an authority, and thus endowed and enabled, to talk without fear of contradiction, equivocation and undue, unbidden conjecture about it. The number one, supremest awfulness associated with that vile, strickening fiend Diarrhea (that odious brigand) is its satanic unfairness and malignant trickery.
It is most duplicitous and treacherous; it dupes you at almost every turn primarily with the ruse of (false) evacuation........that is, the definite, bowel-clenching sensation that portends defecation.
Such is but a moiety of its fiendishness and chicanery, but there are more vile machinations to report and expose and more deep descriptions required to be carried out with regard to its most dastardly treachery-of which I've already spoken.
To say nothing of the aridity it employs whilst one is seated upon, glued to, imprisoned on, confined to the commode: For even in the starkest, barest, coldest, emptiest bathroom, even one lacking in heaters, even on the snowiest day of winter-the snowiest, darkest day-even with all that compacted and compounded gelidity and inertia of temperature, even then, one's forehead perspires, as the fiend turns up the heat, though it is not a comfortable, sexual, pleasant heat; no, it is an awful, anhydrous, afflictive desert heat, a heat that ephemerally makes you wish you were dead.
However, I must expatiate and bloviate more on the topic of diarrhea's foulest, most duplicitous machination: that of its false feeling of evacuation.
Now, you must understand that..............








Local Idiots, Part I-Those Fools in Eliot, Who Are Nameless, That Are Unrelated to Me
by Douglas Cate on Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 4:46pm
The supreme selfishness of the men of this town with regard to the use and possible sharing of their precious plows is singular and appalling-in that, in the midst of a vile, crushing, unremitting blizzard, such as that that raged unchecked all around me a few days ago when I first wrote this in my notebook....that blizzard being full of wind and snow and cold and darkness......yet, in it, in one, they pass an area not yet passed or cleared by the town plow trucks (of which I judge there must be a brace...that is, a pair) and humped with snowy almost impassable drifts, and their oft-rusty, always trusty plows-where are they?
Why, in that most natural and beneficial of positions: poised several dozen lofty inches above the swiftly gathering, unplowed, unbroken ridges of snow!
You can imagine these blackguards, enscounced in their warm, dark cabins of their trucks, rushing down the road, in a driving, bitter snow, to make money: really, to take rough, undue advantage of others-..........(and that is all I have for now; to be completed later. See earlier pieces and notes to understand why this is even inputted to here.)
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Brief, Explanatory Note on My Notes
by Douglas Cate on Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 4:38pm
As you may have noticed, all my most recent pieces, even those that are complete, are singularly brief and short and are not longer than perhaps 300 words long. In explanation of this radical transformation in my work, I say: Given the ridiculously attentuated (that is, short) attention spans of the average "reader" , I have decided it is for the best to significantly shorten my works.
Now, perhaps, by doing this, by making this unprecedented move towards tighter writing, more laconic writing....perhaps, people will finally persue and pore over that which I have to say and in doing so, will comment upon it.
For once.
Note if you will, that this seeming rant is not a rant at all and is certainly not a complaint, either. Thank You.
And, though you all obviously never do it, keep reading!






Reply and Recommendation to My Most Ardent Critics and Detractors Who Might Turn Out To Be Idiots, etc.
by Douglas Cate on Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 4:32pm
To those who accuse me and all of my writing of being unnecessarily didactic and pedantic and who cite my supposedly constant use of large, intelligent, recondite words (designed, perhaps to make some of them feel even stupider) in a broad way of inflicting people with my "smartness"; to these I say, in definite defense, explanation, suggestion and possibly scathing rebuttal:
You are not comprehending the fullness of my meaning. You are looking at and reading pare of the thing-instead of, as I intended, the whole thing.
The content, the body, the context, the wholeness-these are what matter.
It is not ever how I am saying something, but rather what it is itself (the entire statement) that matters. Otherwise, all this-all my work-is for nothing. And I'd really hate to think that!






Note Explaining Why So Many of My Incomplete Fragments Are Put Up Here and Otherwise Typed Up
by Douglas Cate on Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 4:26pm
I do put up these and other, earlier writings and various fragments on places like Facebook, Blogspot, and Myspace, et. al-even when incomplete, fragmentary, and half or a quarter-finished primarily because I am either A) Proud of and desirous to share them-even in their most uncomplete, inchoate stage; or B) Disgusted thoroughly by their hideous, illegible (sometimes even to me) appearence; their common, overarching unreadableness-the fact-nay, the truism; the obviousness-that all handwritten work always takes on a finer, purer luster when duly transformed by word processor, typewriter, or computer into the clear, bold, always readable, black-and-white typewritten page. And........that's all I got on that one!
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An Autobiographical Pause; or Sketch; (From The Rush, Influx and Flow of All Previous Writings in Their Currentness)
by Douglas Cate on Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 4:19pm
I should like to, if I may, speak somewhat briefly of my one-time stint as an invalid and my simultaneous periods of convalescence and quarantine, most of which (though certainly not all of which) occurred between my 7th and 10th years.
Thus, by that it is proven that then I was a rather unfortunately sickly child-if only thankfully occasionally.
Yet, before I ever speak deeply, fully, descriptively in a veritable narrative about that, I think it is important to digress, as all the great, immortal writers do and did, and to consequently remark the following: That, to recall this time in any depth, is to cause myself some momentary uneasiness, uncomfortableness and occasional flashes of unpleasantness, misery, melancholy, awfulness, and ironically enough, sentimentality, oddest, briefest romanticism and nostalgia...................




A Quick Note on Writing; or, I've Got 135 Words Here You've Just Got to Read!
by Douglas Cate on Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 4:12pm
In regard to one of the strangest conceits and concepts in writing, I have only this to say-or to query:
"Why is it that everything, with regard to output, is measured in words and amounts of words?"
I mean, what is often said about the daily output of writers?
It is never: "Oh, he wrote about 12 pages a day."
No; it is always: "Oh, he wrote 4,500 words a day."
That is the singular, eternal rule of writing and writers: that everything with regard to composition and all within it's purview; it's solid, plastic scope; all of that, all work, all production, all output-it is all invariably measured-for God knows why-in words; not pages.





A Thought About Raucous Parties and Palatial, Immaculate Bathrooms (Especially when in the same Locale)
by Douglas Cate on Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 4:05pm
In my time, I have been to admittedly few raucous parties, but I have attended, been invited to and gatecrashed enough of them to remark with some authority on them. Therefore, being the sort of basically soberly reserved person that I am, I have often sought momentary refuge from the cacophony and dissonance and the din of the damned-you know, all their hollering and such-in the nearest, safest, quietest, cleanest bathroom of whichever sullied, debauched house the party I happening to attend is being held in.
Now, to my mind, the actual numerical definition of "raucous party" with regard to the number of attendees, occupants, gatecrashers and invitees is fourteen or more-or seven or more-and in this way, I can truly say that I've................





A Sarcastic, but Seemingly True, Musing of Mine Concerning Composition
by Douglas Cate on Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 3:56pm
A new thought has emerged in the literary world-the reading, and writing, public (as small as it now is):

Writing is of no consequence and is not an apt, adept art-if even an art at all.

And finally, the literary construction of a wholly new and original-and true and entertaining-though, should be considered as the most detestable act committed or perpetrated (or perpetuated) by any humans..........
or, at least, that is what all their current behaviors and attitudes about it clearly imply.
It seems all these travesties and sarcasms of intelligentsia say to me-about my writing:
"Who the hell are you? What is your purpose? What is this-you call this writing? It is far too abstruse, unclear, obscure and obviously untalented."
And that's what those bastards-with all their precious, environmentally-sound, ultramodern Ebooks and fucking Nooks-say, do, think.....and, very seldom, write.
That, then, is their one, overarching thought.





Designs on Modern Scribing ( )
by Douglas Cate on Monday, December 27, 2010 at 3:35pm
A confederation, dark and nimble, of thoughts to be poured out........
nay, what a cup, a tankard, a goblet, a vessel of
distilled, wondrous notions is
the inked pen!
It is a great conduit, linking the fevered, excited mind to the oft-empty page; but
how many still write and express themselves-if at all-in just that way-pen and ink to paper as the imbibed,
ink-surfeited quill to the crumbling, torn
frayed, blemished parchment?
No; it is an anachronism-let's update it....nay,
to use the neologism: upgrade it.
Therefore, what a flask of opinions is the keyboard!
What a conduit between the rambling, unsettled,
too-expressive, mad mind and the blinking, black
cursor, flitting on and off at the top of the
lonely white unlined expanse of the page
is the typewriter, the computer,
the keyboard, the laptop......the -to go back to anachronisms and archaisms-
notebook...but not the same 'notebook' I write this in!
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Okay, that's it; End of Part One of the Longest Post Ever-A Collection of My 2010 Facebook Reportage