You are all funny people (Blessèd Failure 2)

Did this little vid years ago. Been dere, done dat.

I know by now who I’m supposed to be. A simple-minded, flag-waving white male supremacist with no experience or understanding of feminism, race grievances, homosexuality, or trans issues. Cool. Except I was there long before most of the contemporary Woke gladiators were born. 

Thing is, in my day, it was all boiled in the same melting pot. I knew gay guys aplenty at Harvard, including the closeted/uncloseted members of the Hasty Pudding Society, famous for decades for the drag chorus line in defiance of social norms. I was there the night my black-tied drunk friend stood up on his chair and yelled “What a piece of ass” when Gloria Steinem shimmered down the aisle to receive the first ever ”Person of the Year” Award in the club’s 200-year history. Yes, I was a member of the Pudding (saw Julia Child actually present our president with a real ‘hasty pudding’ pot and watched him taste and spit it out.). I was also President of the Phoenix SK club, whose prior (gay) president was the author and composer of “Rhinestones in the Rough,” the best Pudding show I saw at Harvard. One of our members was Philip Core, an immensely talented artist who did our dinner posters and some amazing works of art before he died too young.

A Philip Core painting it might cost you your net worth to buy now.

Actually, we were the smartest of the Harvard Final Clubs, which are now reduced to a tainted memory rankling inside the bankrupt memory of a once-great university. We had Rhodes Scholars, Marshall Scholars, valedictorians, and law students bound for glory. Only none of them ultimately panned out as Hot Stuff (saw Billy Preston live with the Stones I did, in ‘75), and I turned out to be the one who did something completely different called The Boomer Bible.

All that’s waiting me for me in terms of acclaim will come after my death.

While I was there, I also fell in love with a Jew and a Chinese. Women, feminists, both. But beautiful. I also fell half in love with my roommate’s Pine Manor girlfriend, who dragged him and me to see Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens). And, the whole time, I was a cis-normal white middle-clsss dude from the New Jersey marshlands.

Think what you like. Of all Phoenix Club boys, mine is the only truly interesting long-life story. I was a hellion then and for many years after, failing, succeeding, failing, succeeding, etc, risking my life the entire time. I drove this thing at its spec top speed, 97 mph, more than 50 years ago. In my mind, never stopped pushing the pedal to its aluminium metal.

1927, Type 27. Two years after Gatsby. Crash gearbox, right-hand drive. Fitting somehow.

Yes, you are all funny. Progressive, no-account, know-nothing brats. In charge of everything, conscious of nothing. Why I even had license from friends to make fun of gay guys in the way back when. I bring you, “Shit, I’m Dying.” My lovely paean to homosexual love. From Moon Books at Shuteye Town 1999. 

A nod to my friend Duane, who drifted away after he
discovered I told him the truth about sucking at chess.
He was disappointed. But I never did like chess. Sorry.

When everybody not dumb enough to be a Millennial 
 knows that the definitive version of this song was this
one. But I was white and Duane was black. So, agin
 our will, we just Drifted Away. Still can’t play chess.

If you want to learn more about how funny you are, you could also try flying to Shuteye Nation. In particular, check out The Glossary and look yourself up label by label. (After I published this Doughty Dictionary, I had a ghost visitation by Ambrose Bierce from the dive in Tijuana he’s been haunting since his unfortunate death after a bar fight there. He looked me in the eye — handsome man with a great shock of white hair and a mellifluous voice — and said, “Can I get the next shot with a slightly less sour lime?” I replied, “Hell no,” and woke up with an orange cat named Elliott hissing on my lap. Go figure.)

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