Go To Sleep

It is that time of year, warm one day and cold the next. The old bio-computer seems to be reflecting the weather with thoughts that do not have the energy to flow. Which is to say that it feels like there are ice crystals in the brain inhibiting the creative spark. That is not much of an excuse for not posting, but it is the best I can do at the moment. When I suffer from writer’s block I usually try to write my way out of it. I sit down and record meandering thoughts until an idea I can work with finally emerges. Not surprisingly, my efforts are interrupted by my need to support myself and by my need to relax after putting in a days work at my place of employment. During those moments of relaxation I usually read in an effort to supplement what I consider to be the mind pap served up by television. A lady at work added to my reading by loaning me a book she was sure that I would enjoy. The book was so short that I was able to read it during one of my breaks at work.

The title of the book is “Go the fuck to sleep” by Adam Mansbach. It is very cleverly laid out like a children’s book. By that I mean it is written in simple verse and contains the illustrations one would expect to find in a children’s book. As the title suggests, however, it is very much a book for adults. It is a hilariously funny expression of a father’s frustration as he tries to get his two year old to settle down for the night. It is very rare, no matter how good a book may be, that I will say I wish I had written it, but this book struck that chord with me. I might add that it is a chord that will resonate with all parents. It also had me thinking.

We humans have a distinct disadvantage in the dark and an instinctive fear of things we cannot see. Every parent knows that children fear the dark. Furthermore, the thoughts that give comfort to an adult do not necessarily give comfort to a child. Thus our efforts to allay a child’s fear often go for naught until the child is old enough to understand why we take comfort in the thoughts we are trying to teach. A good example of this is a bedtime rhyme often recited:

“Now I lay me down to sleep.

I pray the Lord my soul will keep.

If I die before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul will take.”

Forget the theology. Children instinctively know that death is not a good thing. They may not know what it is, but they know we try to protect them from it. They soon learn that we do this because dead people are no longer here. Since children want to be here the thing very much on their minds when they hear this rhyme is why they might die in their sleep. Their vivid imaginations then conjure up images of monsters under the bed or lurking in the dark. An unexplained noise is very likely to have them darting into your bedroom to seek your protection. Fortunately for me, my parents did not recite this rhyme to me at bedtime. I do not recall more than one or two times when I was afraid to sleep.

The thing that kept me awake was restlessness. I wanted to be a part of whatever was going on. The one ploy that allowed me to get out of bed was having pee. There was an implied threat there. I say implied because I never said I would wet the bed, nor would I intentionally do it. There was also the excuse of getting a drink of water, but that could be problematical. Timing is everything. If I had already climbed out of bed to pee my parents did not want to give me the excuse I needed to get up again to pee. Although they did not exactly limit the number times I could get up to pee, they had a way of discouraging it as a ploy. After one or two times one of my parents, usually my mother, would accompany me to the bathroom. At that point it was put up or shut up. I had to demonstrate that I really had to pee. Obviously I was older than two when all of this was taking place, but the bedtime battle lasts well beyond the toddler stage.

First published in macsbackporch.fictionforall.com on May 18, 2011

Super Bowl of Weddings

It was not just a wedding; it was the super bowl of weddings. It was not just a royal wedding; it was a fairy tale royal wedding. A handsome prince was marrying a beautiful commoner. He was taking this middle class girl as his bride and making her a princess. It is what little girls read about, dream about, and fantasize about. The wedding of Will and Kate and their romance was and is a feast for the news media, and the media is determined to present it to us until we are gorged.

I turned on the television while eating breakfast. I wanted to get the weather forecast and the latest news. What I got was the Royal Wedding. Well, not exactly the royal wedding; it was actually the parade of people going to Buckingham Palace after the wedding. They were in no hurry to get there either. The reporters were babbling about the crowd, the wedding dress, the beautiful bride, the police, the soldiers, etc. It did not matter which television station I tried. None of them were telling me what I wanted to know because they were all too busy covering every detail of every event having anything to with the royal wedding. By the time I left for work my frustration and impatience was quite evident.

“The news coverage of the royal wedding was so damn boring this morning that I was actually looking forward to the ads,” I said to a bright young lady I work with.

This young lady, however, was very interested in the wedding. In fact, she could not get enough of it. She defended what I considered to be an excessive interest in it by telling me it was an important historical event. I suppose it has historical significance, but it is not the first time a member of the royal family has married a commoner. Edward VIII actually gave up his thrown to marry Wallis Simpson. Unlike Edward VIII, it does not appear that Prince William has to make that choice. This means we do not have to worry about him defending his decision by saying “it’s a hell of a lot better than giving up my kingdom for a horse.” It also means that the beautiful commoner, now Princess Kate, might become the wife of a king. In which case the story of their romance and wedding becomes a bit more significant.

In spite of the potential historical importance of the marriage, I still think the coverage of the wedding was excessive. With all due respect to the young lady I work with, the British, and the royal family, a three or four minute highlight film of the event is about as much as I have the patience to watch. I feel that way about most ceremonial things. For instance, I like to hear the inaugural speeches of Presidents and Prime Ministers because those speeches set the tone for how they will govern, but the swearing in ceremonies and inaugural balls bore the hell out of me. I, however, am not a part of the demographic group television networks consider to be their major market. I can almost hear you cheering over that and probably with good reason.

I would like to see television news programs spend less time on the trivial stuff and more time on the things that really matter. I would like to see them go beyond merely reporting what a politician says and do a little fact checking regardless of the party affiliation of the politician they happen to be covering that day. In regard to entertainment, I dislike the contrived scenarios networks tout as reality shows. In my opinion those reality shows are a poor substitute sports. Furthermore, all award shows would be banished to some obscure “Ain’t We Bitchen” cable station. I hate to sound like an economist, but there are so damn many award shows that they have all become devalued. Besides, I do not see the newest movies. I wait for those movies to hit the movie channels. I guess I have reached the age when men do not take young ladies to romantic movies to get them in the mood. Most of the ladies I know prefer live shows anyhow, and I am afraid this economy has made plays an infrequent treat.

All right, I am being a bit grumpy. I do not expect you to agree with what I have just written. The market is what it is, and I accept that. If you enjoy the current television programs and the coverage of Will and Kate’s wedding I am happy for you. As for me, it is time to fire up my Kindle and download another book to read. I will catch up with you on the next news cycle unless the networks are covering something that bores you or me enough to tune them out for a while.

First published in macsbackporch.fictionforall.com on May 3, 2011