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!)
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