Pigeons, Slabs of Ham & Character Flaws

Well, it’s been 14 days since my last post – you know the one right after I vowed to write a post every single day of 2012. Allow me to explain – personally, I think it’s a character flaw… “wait” I can hear you yelling at your screen, “but, you’re just about the most perfect person I’ve ever had the fortune to encounter”… now you listen here, don’t be silly…

of course you’re right, I won’t argue with you but I do have a flaw, and I think it’s a deep-seated fear of success. It’s the only logical explanation for why I have repeatedly refused the invitation to New York to pick up my Pulitzer, the first year I was elated, then, after having some time to reflect I sent a Native woman in my place to refuse my award, in a nod to Marlon Brando’s refusal of the best actor award at the 72′ Oscars.

Admittedly, it could have happened to anyone, the pattern only became apparent to me after I also turned down the Stockholm invite to receive my Nobel. This time, I sent a 63 pound slab of ham, in a nod to late actor Dom Deluise, with my refusal scrawled in pate across the well-marbled meat.

Where does the fear of success come into it? Well let’s take a look at this post for example – right before christmas, when the posts were still a little spotty in their frequency I was averaging just over 2000 people a day. As I mentioned many times before I started out with friends and family about 35 people or so… I had no idea where the others came from, but I built it, and they came… damn if Kevin Costner wasn’t right…

About 15,000 a week, what started out as a little mouth piece to keep friends and family in the loop, turned into one of the most influential social commentary vehicles mankind had ever know, and it threw me. This little stupid thing started generating its own little pressure pulses. Was my column funny enough, did it have a point, would the readers find it entertaining… I felt some pressure to continue being, in some cases, the only reason people got out of bed in the morning, to nourish their consciousness at the fount of my radiance, being the chlorophyll to their boston fern, the nails to their hardwood floors…

Sure it’s stupid, who cares what I wrote, it was just a place to vent and empty some of the cobwebs from my head, but then……  then the letters started coming, the ones telling me how after reading my column their cancer had gone into spontaneous remission, the letters about how they were going from village to village in africa, reading my letters and virtually overnight, hunger disappeared. My words were all they needed to fill their bellies, fill them full of hope and whimsy and ultimately, life.

Letters from Asia about how farmers were reading my posts to their flocks and bird flu would simply vanish…. I tell you, it’s a huge responsibility and it began to weigh on me. Hang on while I change this water into grape juice…. relax, I didn’t say wine, I said grape juice – I’m still a ways away from that…

Here’s my point, I’m very much like John Coffee from the Green Mile, (if you’ve forgotten, I recommend a re-watch of the film before proceeding with the remainder of this post) too many people feeding off my teat of knowledge and humour – weaken me, they drain my mirthful exuberance and the ability to heal with my words, the transcendental way in which I arrange those 26 letters of our alphabet into healing poetry.

So the posts took longer and longer to write, I started agonizing over topics and writing, then re-writing and it just started not being fun anymore. So, as per usual, when I need to think and clear my head I went to my quiet place and wrote down on scraps of paper all my self doubts, all the negativity and tied them to carrier pigeons, then I lit those pigeons on fire and set them free.

Man, those pigeons sure started out strong, really giving it their all, but my god, they weren’t really making very much headway and on top of that, the whole area reeked of overdone squab and burnt feathers. Even though the little fellas didn’t get far, they were still far enough away from me to have carried my troubles away on wings of smoke and flame…

So here we are, I feel better, I’ve eaten well and I’m not making any promises but I’ll post as much as I am inclined. The daily numbers have dropped considerable but there are still about 400 of you checking in every day… you are my faithful, when I finally get my cult started you will all be placed in positions of privilege. Far subordinate to me, but privileged in relation to the other poor morons we get to sign up.

Have a Great Day