Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 195
Featured commentary
Let’s ride ‘Little Big Year’ down
“L
ittle Big Man” was a
classic film, back in
the day, with Dustin
Hoffman starring as Jack Crabb,
who, looking back from extreme
old age, tells of his life being
raised by Indians, and fighting
with Gen. George A. Custer.
And it was a character-shaping
movie for me, as well.
Thusly, I carry with me
all kinds of quotes from that
production. Most notable is
the explanation from Richard
Mulligan’s brilliant Gen. Custer
that, “The poison rises from the
goonads.”
This one I work into casual
conversation whenever possible.
Also notable in the film are
Crabb’s evolutions during his
more than a century of life, as he
goes through a couple of Indian
periods, a religious period, a
shopkeeper period, a gunfighter
period, a drunk period, a hermit
period, a suicidal period and a
muleskinner period.
Consequently, I will also use
Jim
WALKER
DON’T TAKE ME SERIOUSLY
a “And that was the end of my
whatever period” line whenever
I get the chance. And trust me, I
have had a lot of periods.
Well, this New Year’s Eve
ended one of those significant
periods in my life, it’s true. But
with the blush still on 2012,
I find myself identifying less
with Crabb, and more with the
Mr. Merriweather character
from “Little Big Man.”
Martin Balsam played the
snake-oil salesman, who was
whittled down over the years,
but wouldn’t give in. He lost a
hand, an ear, an eye and a leg,
but still offered up hopeful
lines such as: “Licked? I’m not
licked. I’m tarred and feathered,
that’s all.”
Now, with a large dose of
artistic license, and a heapin’
helpin’ of exaggeration, let me
say I find this new year whittling
me down, financially, spiritually
and physically.
Waking up New Year’s Day
to the fear of losing sight in
my left eye, I also find myself
regaining weight, spending far
too much, coming down with a
cold and with skin cracking and
falling off like dust from PigPen. And this is not to mention
my depression, paranoia, rickets,
boll weevils, rampant muscle
shrinkage, persistent gas and
wayward mojo.
If I could, I’d sleep 24 hours a
day and, you know, phone it all
in for 2012.
Now those one or two of you
out there who have read my
stuff of late will probably say
something like, “You called
down the thunder, bro.” And in
this you would mean that my
absolute pessimism at the turn
of the year plucked a sour note
on the fiddle of the universe
that cosmically drew in all my
misfortunes.
Well, chicken or the egg, I say.
Is a lack of positivity the cause
of negative experiences, or a
result of them?
You will have to figure this
out because, the way I see it,
visualizing life as a glass halfempty only means you have
another drink coming soon.
I stick with my earlier
predictions that this is the last
year of the world, so nothing
matters, and I am going to ride
this horse into the ground, my
friends.
Come on, who’s with me?
To misuse another famous
line, we’re all “mad as hell and
not going to take it anymore,”
right?
Let us “Storm the Bastille,”
“remember the Alamo” and
“Occupy,” well, everything.
Let’s redistribute the wealth and,
along with it, the good fortune.
Let us “mob” any establishment
that won’t let us in individually,
quit our jobs and steal Wi-Fi. Let
us eat, drink and be merry, no
matter how hard karma smacks
us upside the head and no matter
how many body parts we lose
along the way.
If I’m missing an eye and
you’re missing an ear, we’ll just
charge in together, covering
each other’s weak sides. If
you’re missing a left leg and
I’m missing a right, we’ll duct
tape our good legs together and
hop like we’re in a potato sack
race.
We’ll all go down together and
swinging, my friends, because
“Little Big Year” is going to be
the worst ever. But it will be the
last, so who cares, right?
Well … OK … you might
be wise to hold off on all this
for at least a week, because I
might have a totally different
outlook soon. You see, I’ve got
some meds coming in from
Canada.
Comment at jwalker@thesignal.com or Twitter at http://
Twitter.com/DontSeriously.
