Minority Reports

                         Minority Report

I’ve never seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

I don’t enjoy sunshine.

High-overcast days do it for me.

I love the fog.

Brussels sprouts are my favourite vegetable.

I avoid listening to singing.

Catchy, well-loved tunes annoy me.

The last time I watched the Oscars was in 1961.

I haven’t watched the Simpsons since the mid-nineties.

I haven’t watched prime-time TV in years.

I’ve never watched The Flight of the Conchords.

I’ve never watched Dr Who.

The last time I partied past midnight on New Years’ Eve

was when I was in high school.

I avoid purely social situations if possible.

Daylight savings time irritates the hell out of me.

I like my hamburgers without onion.

I prefer to watch delayed telecasts of sporting events

because I like to know in advance who won.

My mother didn’t love me.

I drink beer only as a complement to certain food,

and wine primarily just to get blotto.

I prefer soup or coffee or stir-fries tepid rather than piping hot.

I usually go to sleep in the afternoon

and wake up in the middle of the night.

I reflexively apply rigorous analysis and an aesthetic sensibility

to even the most mundane domestic tasks.

I don’t enjoy pageantry or ceremony.

Summer is my least favourite season.

Kittens don’t seem cute to me.

Chocolate doesn’t do it for me at all.

I compose and perform stuff like this.

             Minority Report Update: Icons of Popular Culture

Every day on facebook

I read postings and comments,

and view images from media productions,

plus photos of various actors and pop stars

and other international celebrities,

usually with supposedly witty copy

superimposed within the frame.

The people who’ve posted these

have apparently just unquestioningly assumed

that everybody who reads or sees them

will automatically recognise them,

along with the undoubtedly rich tapestries

of associations and connotations involved,

as easily and thoroughly as they would

with images of their own family members.

I wouldn’t be able to distinguish most of them

from the names and pictures of Peruvian plumbers.

Minority Report Update: Covers

When I sleep away from home,

it always strikes me as foreign

that the motel, hotel, or whatever,

and indeed a woman artist

with whom I had a brief affair,

insist on tucking the top sheet

and even the blanket

tightly under the mattress.

It’s difficult for me to sleep

if I can’t wrap my covers around me

and between my legs,

cocooning cosily,

every time I shift my position,

which tends to be often.

I’m just not into bondage,

but most people apparently are,

with bed covers at least.

Minority Report Update: Microsoft, the Market, and Me

Even though the word

technology

originally meant

the application of knowledge toward practical goals,

consumers of digital products

increasingly think of them as toys

instead of as tools,

so their designers and marketers

have increasingly come to treat their targets

as the mindless, malleable children –

won over to enthusiasm

by anything that amazes them –

that most of them

seem content to be.

I strongly dislike being treated that way,

myself,

but Microsoft’s programmers don’t give a shit.

Minority Report Update: Spectatorship

Most people,

it seems to me,

really can’t enjoy

watching a sporting event

unless they’re backing

one of the teams or competitors.

Most people,

it seems to me,

find great pleasure

in the suspense involved

with watching their favoured

team or competitor

engaged in a tight contest,

with the outcome always in doubt.

I prefer matches, though,

in which I don’t give a shit who wins.

If, for some reason,

such as the locality represented

or some manner of acquaintanceship,

I do have a preference

in regard to who wins,

I’d much rather watch a delayed telecast

so that I know the outcome in advance,

as the tension and suspense are forms of stress

that suit me not at all.

         Minority Report Update: Soap

The Mill Street Pak’n Save

discontinued stocking my preferred brand of soap,

I suppose because it wasn’t moving off the shelf fast enough,

making it effectively impossible

for me to buy soap without perfume in it

without spending half a day

riding and waiting for busses.

Perfumed soap significantly decreases

the pleasure I experience when showering,

thereby reducing my quality of life

just that much more.

Big fucken deal, eh?

               Some People & Me

Some people enjoy a good argument;

I’m neurotically conflict-averse.

Some people enjoy sitting out in the sun;

I’m a shade worshipper.

Some people are social drinkers;

When I’m drinking seriously, I usually drink alone.

Some people worry about other people’s sex lives;

I’m more likely to envy other people for having them.

Some people agonise over selecting the perfect wines

to complement their celebrity-chef meals;

I buy whatever red’s cheapest that week at the Pak’n Save.

Some people enjoy outdoor activities –

boating, riding, fishing, beach volleyball;

I’m a determined indoorsman.

Some people enjoy keeping up with the latest fashions;

for me, a shirt is new till I’ve had it for at least ten years.

Some people enjoy suspense,

but do their best to avoid underlying uncertainty in their lives;

suspense seems to me to be tedious or annoying,

but I’m fine-and-dandy comfortable

with uncertainty as an approach to the unknown.

Some people choose or otherwise live happiness;

happiness just doesn’t seem to be a part of who I am.

Some people worry about encountering death;

I worry about making it through life.

                        Some of the Things I’m Not

I’m not a self-starter or a go-getter.

I’m not an automotive enthusiast.

I’m not religious.

I’m not able to use chopsticks.

I’m not a film buff.

I’m not socially or personally aggressive.

I’m not an outdoorsman.

I’m not comfortable going to gigs anymore.

I’m not violent.

I’m not an opera-lover or a heavy-metal fan.

I’m not gregarious.

I’m not a smooth operator.

I’m not favourably impressed by people who pretend to have expertise about things that they really know nothing about.

I’m not into bondage.

I’m not a war veteran.

I’m not a gull for such faith-based bullshit as astrology and homeopathy.

I’m not comfortable when I have to be enterprising.

I’m not as young as I used to be.

I’m not particularly skilled with my hands.

I’m not the way I seem to be in person.

I’m not someone who enjoys a good argument.

I’m not a country boy.

I’m not part of the luxury-goods market.

I’m not cruel.

I’m not in love with life.

I’m not an American, despite my accent.

I’m not a lounge lizard.

I’m not happy with the way things’ve been going in general.

I’m not kidding.

The Munchies

                                Open Invitation

I can prepare wonderful meals, but I don’t like to cook for myself.

I’d like to make a yummy meal for you, but first I need to know:

if you’re a vegan, a vegetarian, a pesco-vegetarian, an ovo-lacto vegetarian,

of some other semi-vegetarian persuasion,

somebody who thinks that it’s not a meal without red meat,

or basically an omnivore;

if you keep kosher or halal or Hindu beef-avoidance;

if you’re on a strict all-hors d’oeuvre diet

(it’s a one-percenter thing);

if you’re lactose-intolerant, a Celiac sufferer,

or have some other food allergy,

diagnosed, supposed, or imagined;

if you like your sauces hot, medium, or mild;

if you adhere to some natural-health,

low-or-high-carb, macrobiotic, paleo, Dukan, Atkins,

or other New Age diet or wonder-food fad;

if you require eggs, poultry, and swine meat audited as cruelty-free;

if you have such strong personal preferences or dislikes as

wanting to have plenty of salt on everything,

liking fish but not shelled seafood,

being unable to stand eating anything green in colour,

loving spuds cooked any way except mashed,

– I can’t understand it when people hate brussels sprouts, by the way,

(I think they’re divine with soy sauce and melting butter –

or marge); 

or … the possibilities are endless.

Okay, maybe I’ll just skip making dinner;

you’d probably rather get some takeaways

and eat them without me being around.

                         Souls and Soup

I made a monster soup a few days before keying this.

Starting with an oil-and-wholemeal-flour roux,

I added

salt, black pepper, stock, soy sauce,

onion, garlic,

split peas, barley, split red lentils, brown rice,

powdered mustard, cumin, turmeric, and cayenne,

cut-up carrot, Chinese turnip,

mushrooms, brussels sprouts, and chestnuts,

and wholemeal-flour-baking-powder-and-egg dumplings.

On the soup’s third day,

after I’d reheated it twice,

the flavours of all the ingredients

had blended thoroughly together

so that it was just about impossible

to isolate the flavour of any one,

even with the vegetables.

This reminded me of one of my conceptions of spiritual reality.

I think that it’s likely

that if the soul or spirit

does outlive the body

it enters a sort of spiritual soup

in which it, as an ingredient,

loses its individual flavour,

merging all that it is

with the universal

spiritual-energy broth,

as it were.

Of course, I could be wrong.

                  Selecting Hot Sauce

I’d been at Martin’s house

and a mutual acquaintance had been raving –

not about Kaitaia Fire,

a New Zealand made brand of hot sauce –

but about how wonderful his taste was because he used it,

and sneering disparagingly about anybody

with the horrendously bad taste to like Tabasco,

his voice dripping with sarcasm.

He reminded me of my mother,

and anything that reminds me of my mother

turns me off so thoroughly

that it drives me directly into avoidance behaviours,

so I left.

I had enjoyed Tabasco sauce for most of my adult life,

but at age 64 I decided to try Kaitaia Fire.

After using it for a few days I performed a mental analysis.

Tabasco has the advantages of a simpler recipe,

with no ingredients with numbers after them,

as Kaitaia Fire’s recipe does.

Kaitaia Fire, however, uses certified organic chilli peppers.

I also liked the taste of Tabasco better,

and it is noticeably hotter –

an important factor with hot sauces.

Being Kiwi-made, though, is desirable for many reasons,

and after mother’s milk they’re all acquired tastes anyway.

The most telling factor, however, was the price.

I both use hot sauce every day

and occupy the price-sensitive segment of the market.

I didn’t like Tabasco’s flavour four times more than Kaitaia Fire’s

and it isn’t four times hotter,

but it costs about four times as much.

  

                          A Man of Refined Taste

When it comes to salmon fillets and new potatoes

roasted with dill and chives and served with asparagus on the side,

all I can say is, ‘More, please.’

Sweetbreads sautéed in lemon-and-caper sauce

are something I’d like to eat once more before I die.

My summers belong to home-made gazpacho and ceviche.

Few things can sate me with a sense of well-being more

than a multi-course Neapolitan feast

centred on spaghetti alle vongole posillipo.

Enchiladas verdes and beer are, well, enchiladas verdes and beer.

Perhaps the greatest pleasure my mouth has ever experienced

was soft-shelled crabs sautéed à la meunière

accompanied by several glasses of Pouilly-Fuissé.

Still, from time to time the gastronomic sensation I crave above all

is a hot dog – preferably one cooked earlier and given time to age.

Fucken hot dogs, eh?

I can become excited at the prospect

of a pig-in-a-blanket hot dog from the hot bread shop

that I can take home and spread dijon mustard on each bite,

and although I’m fiercely anti-American, I sucker far too often

for US-style hotdogs from the 4Square’s warmer cabinet,

with mustard, sauce, and melted cheese,

although sometimes, if I can contain myself,

I might take it home and add relish

or maybe a forkful or two of canned sauerkraut.

Just what the doctor ordered.

Fried corn dogs on a stick, however,

do nothing for me.

         Strawberries and Flavoured

Like most people, I suppose,

I really do enjoy

wrapping my laughing gear

around fresh strawberries –

the fresher the better.

It was especially fine when I had some vines

growing in the back garden,

back when I had a big house.

What I have no idea about, however,

is how many people also share my indifference-to-dislike

for strawberry-flavoured stuff –

ice cream, jam, compote, preserves,

pie, syrup, milkshakes, tarts, fizzy drinks,

cheesecake, pancakes, and such.

It’s been that way ever since

I was just a wee boy.

I think it’s because the flavour of fresh strawberries

is, to me at least, just about exactly right,

and adding sugar to them simply ruins it.

   Small Cabbages From Belgium

It continually astounds me

how many people

aggressively claim

that they just can’t stand

to eat Brussels sprouts,

one of my favourite foods.

           When Goyim Discovered Bagels

When goyim discovered bagels

they couldn’t leave well enough alone.

I ate bagels for Sunday brunch every week

when I was growing up,

and sometimes at other times, too.

The stuff in the middle of the table to put on our own bagels

was always the same:

cream cheese, lox (smoked salmon to some of you),

sable (smoked black cod to most of you),

and sliced tomatoes and bermuda onions.

I skipped the onions because they gave me gas.

No capers or any of that other café la-di-da,

and certainly none of the abominations that

that fast-food monstrosity advertised

back when I watched TV.

The bagels were always fresh – baked that morning,

and never, never, toasted.

Toasting a bagel is an admission that

it’s an inferior-quality bagel, stale, or both.

I’ve had to engage in confrontations with café staff

on this issue in the past,

back when I could afford café bagels.

Despite being Jewish,

I grew up in a town in which

most of the people had either been born in Naples

or their parents or grandparents had.

Don’t get me started on subs.

                    Avocado and Chicken

I made myself a dinner

composed of a mashed avocado and some leftover chicken

with chopped tomatillos and jalapeños

folded into some frozen chapattis.

I didn’t know whether avocado

is a wonder food

that would cure all my ills

from cancer to meningitis

to being overweight to having a bad attitude,

or if it was one of the five foods I should never eat

according to the facebook advert I never click on.

I did know that the chicken had probably come

from some cruelty-oriented factory farm,

but since I’d bought it as cold, cooked

wings and drumsticks

the day before,

I told myself that I wasn’t adding significantly to demand,

and since the bird or birds was or were already dead

I was showing respect by taking it into myself as nutrition

rather than letting its carcase be disposed as rubbish.

The tomatillos came out of a can

and the pickled jalapeños out of a jar.

However healthy or unhealthy this meal was,

it didn’t kill me or cure me.

However ethical or unethical it was

is beyond my ability to judge,

the ethical complexities being what they are,

and death being, well, death.

Love Stuff

            From An Online Conversation

Hatred is not an emotion.

It’s a condition – a cold, hard thing.

I know because I am intimately familiar with it,

and it oppresses me.

Emotions, however,

are transient biochemical reactions

resulting from our evolutionary DNA

and sensory stimuli,

and tend to involve

vulnerability and heat.

Love is, of course, an impossible word

that means different things

to different people

and different things

to the same person

in different contexts.

It’s no big insight

that what I’ve called love

when with a woman who makes my hormones jump

is radically different to what I feel

towards my daughters, my dog,

my closest friends, whisky, steamed mussels,

Jean-Luc Ponty’s music, an enjoyable book,

grey autumn mornings with some bite in the air,

and other disparate entities.

I think that

those who say that love and hate

are just different sides

of the same coin

have never really hated.

If I hadn’t learnt

was hate really is,

I probably would’ve mistaken it

for that combination

of anger and outraged resentment and hostility and hurt

to which they seem to be referring,

and which is what I’ve felt towards the mother of my children,

who flaunted her indifference toward me for more than 15 years,

but whom I’ve never hated.

         Love Stanza

Before her,

my memories

of feeling unqualified love

directed toward me

by someone I loved

were limited to

a dog I once had,

my first wife

when she was all there,

and my daughters

when they were little;

the experience of shared feelings

with her, of course,

were fleeting at best.

               Skinny-Assed Shiksas

All but one of the women

with whom I’ve been involved

for any length of time

have been lean, small-breasted, and not Jewish.

This irritated my mother enormously.

Once she snarled at me,

her voice full of anger and loathing,

“Why do you always go for those

pasty-faced, skinny-assed shiksas?”

Shiksa is the Yiddish word

for a non-Jewish woman attracted to a Jewish man.

Or men.

My mother, of course, was a big, buxom unit.

I didn’t dare tell her, of course,

that anyone or anything that has ever reminded me of her

in any way

has always turned me completely off.

                        The Helena Shock

My ability to shake off romantic love,

or at least my misinterpretation of the biochemical reactions

that cause the illusion or delusion of it,

after the music has stopped and the dance has ended

has varied enormously with the women and the situations.

It hasn’t usually taken long, though.

Yet with one woman, with whom I suppose I am,

as with every other one, hopelessly incompatible,

those biochemical reactions just kept churning away,

and even in their absence

reservoirs of tenderness and concern towards her

have stubbornly held their positions

in whichever part of my brain neuroscience would tell us they’d be.

After our breakup, when I was negotiating with her stepfather

over the return of my dog

at the end of an extended, contentious day,

Helena appeared from inside the house, still some distance away,

and my entire being became consumed

with a craving to have sex with her.

When we got together years later

for a working holiday in Guadalajara,

all that desire returned when we first saw,

then embraced each other heatedly in the airport.

The holiday, of course, ended as disastrously as our marriage.

I was seriously worried about her

when that hurricane destroyed New Orleans in 2005,

but my having her new surname wrong

prevented me from finding her on the internet

until I did so by chance in 2012.

A month or two later her adult daughter, who’s an artist,

posted a photo of a collage that includes a drawing that she’d made

of her 62-year-old mother.

I felt as I had when we’d first met – when she’d been 23.

Wham! 

A SugarDaddy-BabyDoll Scenario

Lying naked with me,

far from the man she lived with,

she told me

that she’d found

a sugar daddy

who’d been hangin out

at the strip club

where she danced,

lookin for a dolly.

He wasn’t much,

but he’d pay the rent

at a nice apartment

and buy her nice things.

Even though he was kinda gross,

if she didn’t take him up

he’d get himself

some other dolly.

I tried to tell her

that she wasn’t just

some interchangeable dolly,

but she didn’t believe me.

       Free Fall

She told me

with her purring accent

that she was pregnant.

In my mid-fifties,

with teen-aged children,

I felt a strange

exhilaration

and reached out

to hug her.

She put up her arms

in front of her body

to stop me

and told me

that she was sure

that the foetus had died.

She was correct.

He was indeed dead,

as was,

I discovered,

what I’d mistaken

for our love.

            Giant and Petite

When we were apart,

and only interacting over distance,

her enormous intellect, talent,

ability to communicate,

capacity for empathy and love,

and magical charisma

filled my mind to overflowing

– hell, her personality, her psyche, her self

could fill stadiums.

But when we were together

this giant of a person

could still fit perfectly on my lap.

                    Life In Her Jewellery Box

After years of spending my waking hours

in terrified reclusive solitude,

it started out surprisingly intense and passionate,

with intimate and amusing nightly conversations via various media,

but that apparently stressed her out.

I was so dizzy with my emotional overreaction

to the attention and affection

that she’d piled on me at the start

– stimuli of a sort to which I was entirely unaccustomed –

that it took me some time to calm down enough to take in

her retreat.

Then we communicated tersely and infrequently,

and once again

I spent my waking hours in terrified reclusive solitude.

She showed up every month or so

with her luscious tits and ass and shapely legs

wanting me to provide her with a home-cooked meal

and an orgasm or two,

and offering me little in return

except an hour or so of intelligent conversation

and access to her luscious tits and ass and shapely legs.

She emphasised that she really enjoyed it when I groped her,

so this access was far from a concessional one-way street.

And then she was gone.

And it’s just the same,

except she’s not there

and once again

I spend my waking hours in terrified reclusive solitude.

       The Breaks

As much as I crave it

more than anything else,

I have to recognise the reality

that having been conditioned

from the time I was a toddler

to believe that I’m unworthy

of love,

I’ve unconsciously

made this belief

self-reinforcing

and self-fulfilling

throughout my adult life.