Caught in the act

An aide memoire.     Belgian Misha Defoneseca, who wrote of her survival (“Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years”) by wandering Europe with a pack of friendly wolves, was later caught by literary wolves and found to be a fraudulent memoirist. It turned out she was neither a Jew nor had she ever left Belgium. Her statement upon exposure? “The story in the book is mine. It is not the actual reality – it was my reality, my way of surviving. The truth is that I have always felt Jewish.”

It is much the same that I have always felt: Pigish.I don’t know what moment de crise drove poor Misha to feel that she needed to unleash her elongated Yiddish trope on the world, but I certainly felt the drift of her bipolarity. I too have been about the world, seeking fame and fortune, and coming away with less of both than when I started out. That's typical of a journey, n'est ce pas?

Preparing for my memoirs.

As a young stud, I played the field strategically rather than whimsically, using the role of victim rather than victor to claim my prize. As the years passed, however, my “getiton” was seized – like most of many multi-legged mates – by a staggering paroxysm of “getonwithit.” That was a painful time as mentors were few, jobs were scarce, and I had yet to discover the martini.

The thing is that unlike Misha, I have no reason to believe that a memoir, however, embellished could be better than the reality itself. I mean there is no possible way that traipsing around New England with a friendly wolf (which I did one summer) would match my youthful adventures. The was the Year of the Hunt, when the coppers threw down a pre-terrorist age dragnet on the boys for throwing rock solid snowballs at the cars from on top of High Street during winter storms – driving people into nervous breakdowns with children in the car and old people and God knows what imbeciles situated behind the wheel! It was outright felonious, but also a different age when snowballs rather than guns were the weapon for juveniles. Of course, those were also the days when you could simultaneously smoke a ciggy, drink a can of beer, and drive 40 mph down a side street in a Ford full of unbuckled juveniles and not worry about cops or the little fucking brats throwing snowballs (or potatoes--another story) at your windshield.

The advantage for me was that I owned track star legs and prehensile feet. I could run faster than anyone in the neighborhood, which made for a high rate of confidence in escaping thugs and cops (sometimes the same thing), but still guarantee the tremendous rush of excitement that made life worth living. Hear me, dear friend: not getting caught was the real goal – hitting the windshield was a freaking bonus. Sadly, my brothers (especially the midget and the moron) didn’t get their priorities well ordered in this regard.

Whatever else, you could dash a boring day to hell with a timely visit to visit “Aunt Adelaide” as we affectionately called our adult friend on Lake Street. A magical knock on her back door to enquire if she needed anything at the store was all it took. This act of kindness was not so kind really. It was mainly to see her arrive at the door bearing forth the biggest set of naked titties in the western hemisphere north of the Tropic of Cancer. She was nuts, but God did we love the unburdened three-foot long swaggering globes of pendulous flesh that shouted “stand back, boys, these are out of my direct control!” at our afeared faces. And did we ever – there was no knowing how they were plausibly attached to her torso or when they might fall off, and what a mess that would be.

Nonetheless or more, we ran all over town getting her groceries, “to go” meals, and hardware oddities for small change and a peek. She’d invite us in on occasion at which times she would close the door (for what purpose?), say “wait a minute boys...” and return having donned an ancient gauze bandage that she referred to as her “let me get my bathrobe” attire. LMGMB somehow made the whole thing a little dirty because one had to fall back on memory to fill in the gaps and suddenly it was clear that you were really the pervert in this scene. Adelaide was a very tall and large woman, not handsome, but with a certain presence that made her homely features irrelevant. Her mammaries were probably “oversize average” for her body mass ratio. But they were each bigger than my younger brother (the midget one), and that caused me to know at an early age that something pretty damn interesting was up for grabs in my future.

Ah Adelaide! If only I had known how to absorb that generous gift of outrageous memory you were giving us – at such a young and unable age (in human years between 11 and 14 ans). As a parochial school pig, I didn’t know if Adelaide was part cow, part human, or just a plain ole crazy lady. The truth came out later, but at the time I truly believed she was a different class of being – perhaps this is what a Minotaur’s wife might look like. It all made sense later when I met other Minotaurian figures – but by then I’d happily moved on to other amazements of the body.

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Now let me ask you, dear leader: were these memories really worth writing down as memoir? They’re neither particularly Jewish or even Pigish. These are just ordinary memories. As a body whose nature participates in both “personhood” and “animalhood,” I travel through life with one hand on my valise and one hoof on my lunch pail. You think people have it tough? Try being a pig for a day in a human world. My experience is that you won’t have to look very far to find a working model.

Indeed, take a look around yourself the next time you are out in public, and then remove yourself into a position of slow motion observer. When I do this, I find myself entering into an exotic stare from which I must quickly turn or risk being caught in flagrante – enjoying a moment of abstract pleasure in the ridiculous and the absurd. You too might try this, but remember: no absolution for those who get caught! – PC

"Take and Go!"

An ambiguous but threatening cloud is forming around my head these days, and I don't know what its outcome or meaning for my future. I write now not knowing when I will next be able to communicate with my Dear Readers. Word up is that Friend Mark is planning to acquire a leviathan of some twisted sort. All I know at this time is what I was able to overhear this morning: "I hope Peter isn't going to freak out." That almost always means I am going to "freak out" very soon. I am doing so now, which is why I am reaching out to you Dear Reader on my Schlog. The last time this happened, he introduced a scary black cat into the house. I spent the next 10 years jumping from dresser drawer to top of bookcase to liquor cabinet (this is how I became an alcoholic) before I was dragged from behind the bitters and finally set up in my office above the filing cabinet. I don't relish the idea of another exile. My jumpers aren't what they used to be. I never thought I would be looking back nostalgically on halcyon days with Mr. Tom Legs.

My problem is not that I don’t like other quadrupedic beings in principle. I just don’t like them near me. And there are certain selfish beings – pets being the prime example – that don’t ever know how to just “take and go” as my Indian friend would say. There they are, day in, day out, eating, shitting, sucking up time and attention. For me, it is particularly unnerving because pets see in me a competitor up with which they shall not put. Mr. Legs was fortunately a pretty lazy cat although he liked sitting on Friend Mark’s desk, staring blankly at me like he was watching a mise en scene and I was the food prop. Who could work under these conditions?

The choices ahead are not pretty. I have no idea what Friend Mark actually has planned, but I am steeling myself for the worst. I was looking over the shoulder of Friend Matthew, who was in town visiting with Defriend Corry last week to celebrate the Feast of Unbridled Consumption. Called Thanksgiving by HBs, it's my favorite holiday at which time I indulge in vast quantities of my favorite foods. Suddenly, Friend Matthew had paused on a website that was awash in DIGITIZED DOG PHOTOS! What the hell could that mean except one thing? I cannot dwell in that thought right now as it really changes the picture for me in an already weird relationship.

Surely, after all our years together, Friend Mark would have the decency not to create havoc with my well being. Let’s all agree to one thing, Dear Readers: Change is almost always stupid and never “a good thing” unless you (i.e., Me) are in charge or the thing is a wet diaper. Friend Mark is a notorious pushover around his HB issue, and before you know it they’ll have him corralling some terrifying mastadon who’ll cramp up the dwelling place, and get all bossy and quickly take me for some sort of stuffed animal or worse – a fucking snack!

Calm your ample cookies, Peter! You’re losing perspective! After all you made it through the Dark Years when Friends Julia and Matthew threatened on one occasion to put you through the spin cycle of a human washing machine!

It’s just this, Dear Leaders. I’ve had my Yin cantilevered to death over the years, and my Yang is like a bungee that has been pulled and snapped and the hook has hit me in the snout too many times. (This is one reason I don’t use my bike anymore.) What’s a poor piggy to do? I don’t intend to just pack my bags without a severance and a share of our worldly goods. That would be about 63%, which is what the last pig got when she “freaked out” and took up a sordid life with an Italian called “Pinot Grigio”! I won’t settle for less. (Except it’s Noir pour moi.)

Mais vraiment, Dear Readers, I am being hasty and over reacting, est-il possible? The one thing going for Friend Mark is his scrupulous attention to cleanliness (a plus in my book). Whatever giant moron happens to saunter in and try to take over will have to put up with his weird obsession to control filth. Being an absurdly clean quadruped myself, I have every reason to believe that his genetic deviation from normal HB practice will work in my favor, especially if I start randomly dropping pet feces around the house and especially on his absurdly precious wood floors. I will not be driven from my domain without a fight. Unless, of course, he goes mental and decides not to clean up after the creature. Wow, am I ever outta here on a fast train if that happens!

But then, I could be completely wrong about all of this. They were also talking about vacations. Maybe they’re planning a family camping trip in “Leander.” Wherever in deep hell that tragedy is happening! Count me out. I’m still trying to find a pair of mittens that will keep my hooves from catching gangrene in St. Paul come January. Jesus, how did I get involved in that vacation spot? Somewhere I smell a duty, and it smells like Friend Mark’s. Wha'd I tell ya? A total pushover. His kids are, come to think of it, a lot like pets. You’d think that they would just “take and go.” But no, they insist on leaving behind a little trouble. Or a big trouble. With teeth.

Shit, I’m freaking out again.

Better Than A Bolshevik Breakfast!

Well, Dear Leaders, today was a very big day for me and my friends. Much ado about Everything. I can't tell you all because my hooves don't type that fast -- I will go with the highlights. First off, as you can see from the attached BioPic, I got to get my photo taken with two of my best friends, Mark and Mary Aspen (Mimi Gabor). She likes me a lot, I know, since we communicate in Common Grunt Language. And she left me her second favorite nipple in the world on which I could chew if I were to choose (kudos to Mom's left one for coming in first!). But this is the first time that we got to "touch," and I think it freaked her a little bit. She thought I was smooth--most humans assume that, but in fact, for those of you who don't know anything about anything and nothing about nothing, I have a serene layer of fuzz that protects me from the human genome. How do you think I've lasted all this time? Cut to the chase, Peter!

OK, so on top of Mimi giving me the cutest Evils since Baby-faced Hugh Blaisdell, I got to spend the morning with Mr. Mark, one of my dearest old-people friends, and with Julia and Jason Dzubinski, Mimi's parents, who are somehow related to Mark (who cares about that).

It was Mr. Mark's birthday--and what a gasser! We wagged our hairy chins until it was time to shave again, and still we hadn't managed to nail anyone to the cross in anything you'd proudly call a fixed state. Lovely gifts were bestowed on the birthday boy, the breakfast being my favorite part, but as usual Mr. Mark hates recognition. Of course, he thinks it's, "almost always not deserving for being noticeably shy of sufficiency." Huge Yawn Goin' On Under My Snout!

No one ever knows what the H-word he's talking about, but it's kinda fun making him think we all do. Still, I think Markie Boy was impressed nonetheless with the Lox Omelet and the Unending Americano Coffee at Watson's. I know I was, since I fertilized half the gardens on Kerby Lane on my way back to my ride. It was a terrific get together in which everything but Obama's healthy plan was discussed (I'm not covered. Thanks, Nancy for leaving me out!). Mr. Mark needs to just shut up until next year. Thanks Dzubinskis for your wonderful Nov 7 treat! Now we can remember that day for more than the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution (aka the "October Revolution." Russia--what a completely retarded country!). Love to all, PC

Swine Flu

Wake Up People: Swine Flu is a Human Epidemic Affecting Privileged White People

Many of my contacts have perhaps heard recently that it was a so-called “pig” who was infected with H1N1. JTDD is one of my contacts who has been spreading the word because she's afraid her little one -- my favorite new human -- might make accidental contact with a Pig -- on the way to the market no doubt! That victimized Pig was – in point of fact -- infected by an odious, nose-dripping, snot-ridden human swine being. Please tell me good friends, what is this thing you all do that is called “Coughing”? It is nothing other than the utterly disgusting talent that human beings have for killing other sentient beings because they don't know how to use a hankie? Dear Leader, where are you when we need you?

Turns out, that the poor pig who caught what the porcine community calls “human swine virus” actually lives in Minnesota! Let's hope that my ne’re do well friend Matthew Duffy did not sneeze the unrelenting remains of his incontinent nasal cavity all over some poor and barren barroom piggy! BTW: Matthew is known to hang out with brazen and sordid sods who reside like doormats in bars all over the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul-Duluth-Saint Cloud-Eden Prairie-und-Blaine Wilderness Statistical Region.

His best friend, another sod, whose name is I think is “Stickus Dickus,” – a Pig Latin expression for something of which I know not how “to facebook” -- is also a notorious human whore to his base senses. He is known to consort with mail order human swine on Thursday afternoons in a Chicago bar named “Duffy’s.” Can you f'ing believe that?

Beware! These are humans without virtue or conscience. Liberal arts schools produce them by the hundreds every year now. It was different when they had to do some farming in addition to the intellectual work. Boinking replaced oinking and disease followed. Pigs have nothing to do with the mess we're in today, from crotch to cranium.

This hullabaloo about H1N1 is amoozing -- as funny as learning that more people die in one year in Los Angeles from cirrhosis of the liver that have died from the start of the flu epidemic. Shut up, Dear Reader: I actually find it funny. California sods! Swine flu is the new peanut allergy, which is the new autism, which is the reigning excuse for public rudeness and general behavioral ugliness. Oh, and thanks Mr. Prez for signing a "proclamation" declaring the H1N1 influenza is a national emergency. That'll scare all those little flu buggies away!

It's all part of the long cultural out-gassing from America's benign and spineless middle class. Thank God, I am a veritable Pig!! Long live the true swine of the earth for they shall inherit the trough! In the meantime, here's an idea for what you could think of doing if you don't feel well. Instead of sneezing and coughing into your sopping wet elbow, take a fistful of Advil and fucking go to bed. Sicko!

-- PC

Callings

Without too much fanfare, I am trying my hooves at les blog lettres. I reject better judgment, and I know some family members who would like to fry me for this indulgence, but I have been down that ugly road of familial insinuation too many times to let it squat on my courage. My intent is to offer a schlep through the arbitrary pathways of the porcine mind. I do not pretend to be carrying an epistolary possey to the world of online ogling. Mine is more of a Schlog, n’est ce pas? That said, expect nothing, Dear Leader, and know that, as my great grandmama would say, from nothing comes nothing. (For a pig with a high school education, she was nonetheless quick to judge being and nothingness.)

PHOTO: I use a Mac because it's my favorite apple, and the hoof pad is particularly sensitive. You suck, Windows!

Thinking of skimming through to the end? Consider this alternative to human reproduction and observe the costly dependencies that it creates. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu-XUSFiuuQ. I think you'll agree that at the very least, we have a choice to make.

By way of introduction, my formal American name is Peter Cornichon. My formal French name is a family name, Pierre du Cochon Flou, and when I am in England, my name is "Pete Pickle". You can see that's the way these various people think. When I am in Boston, where I have many friends, I am called DB, which stands for a lot of things that are to held in pectore ('scuse the italianne). I don’t want to explore this side of my life this early in my Schlog. Turning to Texas, where I have a winter home, I am called “Brandon” for some unknown reason. I hope that goes away soon as I don't ever use it.

An aside, s'il tu plais. You know, I have found truth in the almost cliche that what people call you has no relationship to who you are on any particular day or in any particular place (shut up, Lewis!). This was one of my early discoveries and it has ever since been at the nib end of my relationship to the world: to aspire to be a constantly evolving series of alternate forms of name association. These “Callings,” if you will allow, are not just a flippity-flop, slam dang doodle sort of Alice in Wonderland word play. I’m not that literary, for chrissake. I think, rather, they are “persona of reference” to the world, what the French would call les caractères de reconnaissance, had they thought of it first. And this, Dear Reader, is one of them.

Look, my schlogging has tapped into two main facts of my life that I want to get off my nippled chest right away.

First of all, I am a pig. For a long while, I didn’t even know this. My first “real” girlfriend told me this abruptly and pretty early in our relationship, which coincidentally ended pretty early on -- not unusual for a first. There was more than enough embarrassment on that first go-around. It was about then that I first acquired a taste for Irish whiskey.

I digress. Since that revelation -- that "naming" or what I now see was my "Calling" -- I have had to adjust. When I was a pre-pubescent, my siblings and friends called me “Piggy,” but even then, I thought: "Hello! I'm not the only one who looks like their funny name!" Everyone was eponymous in those days -- although in fairness, we thought of them as endearments, not species identifiers. Let me see, there was Little Peapod, China Boy, Edward “Dog Berry” Salaway, Spastic BoyGirl (a cousin), Killer Bee, Lilly Pad, the Studebaker, Chanikka (wha?), and Hughgonot to name a few.

Did I think my friends were actually and really a bunch of freaking fauna and flora and members of an Old World religious fringe? Don't take me for a pointy-eared Fat Head. Finding out that I was actually a Pig was a cruel bit of shock to them, I suppose. I had fully accepting them for what they were: generally ugly people with matching names. Game.

Then I realized the big lie: Being accepted and loved for what lies behind the surface of your ugly face is what life is all about. Still, I have remembered the words of my Great Grandmama: Live and fucking learn. As the saying goes. "Tell that to the lost girlfriend."

Thank you, Dear Leader, for staying with me as I don't get to my point.

The second fact you need to know about me is that I have one hoof in les choses francaise and one hoof in les merde francaise. Let go of it and get used to it, Dear Reader. One sign of this spiritual ménage is that I will slip into the numerous French terms and usages that I think I know en temps des temps. Don’t get your sous-vêtements all twisted in a wad over it. The French expressions come to me in streams of consciousness -- like I can't help being a pig with panache. In fairness, there are other explanations. One friend of mine tells me that most of my conversational claptrap resembles that of a patient who has successfully overcome Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome through corrective surgery. She then points out the scar she imagines was left behind when they attached a Nutball to my frontal lobe. That explanation struck me as a remarkable insight into both my piggy-ness, and a graceful way of acknowledging my attitude on matters psychological: ça ne fait rien, bébé.

You're wondering: do I know and respect boundaries? When was the last time you heard me calling somebody a “Self-absorbed Charcuterie”? You haven’t and you won’t because, guess what? I know and inspect boundaries.

One more thing to be clear about: I am not a “French Pig.” I find that usage racist, rude, and just plain rong. I’ve been profiled before on account of my forked feet, my loutish Gallic snout, and my scarey, hairy back. I have a curly tail. I'm a glutton. Big deal.

Once, I was in a deli line at the corner of St. James and Stuart streets in Bay Village and this black lady asked me if I was “Kosher.” “Ha, ha,” I said with a stone face that made it appear that I was not affected in the slightest. Later, I cried and grunted my way across Boston Common. I remember what went through my late adolescent mind: “The sorry fact is that I am not a Jewish pig, nor a French Pig, nor even a Fucking Pig. I am just an American Pig.” As I enter post-adolescence, I re-consider all of these endless discussions with friends and family, so many of which seemed to end with, “what the hell are you talking about, anyway?” tedious and mind numbingly boring. I am what I am: an even-toed ungulate. What matters and lasts in life are the memories we make.

That’s what I hope to share with you, Dear Reader.

Alors, the Callings that I value most are those of family and friends, and even some of les arrivistes who hope to capitalize on associating with my special circle of pain and pleasure. They come and go, some hardened to my wit and wisdom, some permanently flaccid but willing to flop it on the table for the sake of showing the colors. No matter, it all gets chopped up and rendered by the notorious “Knife of Life” – a highly reliable and personally meaningful standard measure of Overall Human Worth Measured by at This Particular Moment in Time.

I can say this about my family and friends: they give one pause. Really long pauses actually. Sometimes I don't hear from them for weeks on end. Occasionally, they satisfy.

Together we have created something special – a veritable and mercifully unending soup du jour. Being a swine, I am inclined to think that I add to that soup a touch of earthy sophistication: la joie de l'animal. You know, a little truffle-sniffing at the trough of trial and tribulation – the famous "Four Ts" that help prepare you for the ride by the rough and ready – which are the now cliched "Three Rs" of the “bottom line” advice that my great grandpa essayed no matter what the social occasion: “Peter: Shit or get off the pot.” (You can imaging the damage this has done to me as a Pig. I mean it isn't even physically possible. TMI for a first Schlog entry? Think?)

Saddle up your loins, Porker Mates, we’re heading to foraging grounds. Soups on!