Because You Never Asked

 

(This essay was written around 1998)

     Much has happened since I wrote my first essay on "sour grapes" almost 120 pages ago (see essay "The Art of Sour Grapes"). Millions of automobiles have been sold, jillions of ads enticing us to buy them have slid by our consciousness, and zillions of bombs have been dropped in defense of the people manufacturing them. Remarkably enough, the almost 120 pages separating Sour Grapes I from Sour Grapes II have spanned a revolutionary time frame in the history of mankind, with the routine diffusion of the Personal Computer now having become a reality. A whole new way of life has been spawned, one in which you can buy a car, new or used, without even leaving your home.

     This almost 120 page span of history has also seen the birth of my first novel, an event that has gone unnoticed in the annals of our march towards the next Super Bowl, an anonymity that I accept without the least hint of "sour grapes". Someday I hope to try again, fully appreciating that Herman Melville's place in literary history has not been challenged by my efforts.

     Hey . when's the last time a rookie quarterback won the Super Bowl?

     About the only thing that has not changed during these 120 pages of history is the lack of circulation experienced by my essays. They have still not traveled beyond a handful of friends, relatives and a smattering of counterculture publishers, some of which thanked me for thinking of them. Unlike my novel, whose worth I doubt, I believe in my essays.

     One of the more common complaints registered by those unimpressed with my work is that I "preach" too much. It's not so much what I say that irks them, but the way in which I say it. (Though I'm sure it's what I say that irks them.) In other words, if I am going to claim that the rest of you are a loutish swarm of dunces incapable of escaping the anti-social life style your pea brained intellects are constantly being led into; if I am going to claim that the reduced elite of Murdoch-like power brokers have you all by the ears as they lead you into the bathroom to have your brains washed, I must be more clever in doing so. It is imperative, if one is to accuse others of being little more than brain dead vessels working without pay as billboards for Tommy Hilfiger, that they are not aware of such accusations. If you are to call somebody stupid, they must not know it.

     A daunting task indeed.

     The inspiration for this essay was a reasonable critique of my work by a beloved close relative, generally following the lines of attack briefly sketched above. Somewhere in the midst of her constructive criticism, she produced a book of essays by one Jim Jolly, a career journalist who has been writing for a living his whole adult life, thus falling, unlike myself, within the parameters of published writers expounded upon in Sour Grapes I. (I'm not using his real name) "Here", my beloved relative said, "look how he does it, how light he is, how he doesn't offend anyone."

     For the next few days I would sample about ten of Jim Jolly's essays. He had a wonderful sense of irony that his years of professional work had molded into a writing style that was almost poetic in its lighthearted cadence. His prose seemed to float lightly on the air, like a pop melody that easily embeds itself in your brain. One found oneself liking his work almost immediately.

     But that easily digestible pop melody can be a shallow seductor one tires of quickly. Once the melody had gotten into my head and had rolled over a few times, it began to lose its impact. I failed to complete a number of his essays, mainly due to the innocuous nature of their content. Unlike the admitted belligerence shown by myself towards the most basic core values of the "Santa Monica Man" lifestyle, Mister Jolly generally dealt in topics with little capacity to offend anyone. He cleverly riled against income tax forms, he quipped about gardening with his wife (whom, of course, was the wife a wife should be), he bandied about government statistics having to do with accidents, or health, or other such yuckable topics. What my beloved relative took for inoffensive lightness was really a well-adjusted outlook I make no claim to. I am more angry than Mr. Jolly. Being innocuous is not really my goal. Wake up! . all you mongrel toads living your lives through People Magazine.

     This is a lousy job and I have decided to do it. If you would like to belittle me, deride me, or rile against me . that's OK. Simply formulating the question is the first step towards wisdom.

     But there is irony here. Having now slightly familiarized myself with Mr. Jolly's work, I would be willing to bet that his world view is closer to mine than to the people who find offense in my "preaching". Undoubtedly, he does camouflage his anger much better than I do, so much so that it obliterates his message. Other than to provide a living for its writer, it accomplishes little in a philosophical sense. And now we know why his work is circulating bountifully in the public domain, while mine is little more than therapy for a disgruntled man.

     "Sour grapes" ladies and gentlemen, "sour grapes".

     Being that Mr. Jolly and myself are contemporary philosophers operating in the same culture, it's not surprising, in spite of what has been said above, that we occasionally touch upon the same themes. One such topic is the output of our motion picture-television industries (see primarily the essay "The Movies", as well as numerous others). Strangely enough, if those upset with my "negativity" were to compare the attitude and point of view of the two writers in question here, there would be very little difference in evidence. Mr. Jolly's negativity is every bit as evident as mine and for many of the same reasons. With regard to my essay "The Movies" and the essay Mr. Jolly devoted to the same subject, there seems to be only one fundamental difference, a difference that perhaps says it all: whereas my essay was inspired by a night at the movies in company of a soon to be divorced wife, Mr. Jolly was lovingly chaperoning his children in a laudable display of fatherly dedication. Whereas I am a maladjusted, misanthropic, cultural misfit, Mr. Jolly has found his niche in Disneyland, his secure, picket-fenced reality having tempered his angst. My frontal assault on the cultural dictates of our reality is a reflection of my alienation in contrast to the far off guerrilla sniping of Mr. Jolly's more well adjusted existence. I make no excuses and no apologies. Far from claiming victory, I acknowledge a noticeable lack of headway for my point of view and even admit that it seems to be losing ground. But I also take consolation in the fact that I am playing an important (and admittedly unwelcome) role in any society that is to evolve healthily into the future. In the words of one of this century's great philosophers, the legendary Yogi Berra, "it ain't over 'til it's over."

     I finish with the following thought: I'm sure many of you out there in essayland are familiar with the comedian Jackie Mason. I heard him say in an interview that when he first started doing comedy he was frequently told he was "too Jewish". But Jackie Mason never quit being what he had to be. If he had, I'm sure none of us would know who he is today.

     With Yogi and Jackie (oy vey!) as my inspirations, I will continue to "preach" until you Monday Night Football Yokels give me something to be proud of. Think of me as that hated coach who never let up on you, who harassed and dogged you every step of the way, until you finally got it right. Think of me as Vince Lombardi laying it on a talented but lazy linebacker. "C'mon, shithead, get your flabby ass off the turf. Is that all you've got?"