REFLECTIONS

03-DEC-1999.

Pataphysics in Berkeley

Things happen fast.* Late Sunday afternoon, just after Thanksgiving, I stood at the intersection of Oxford and Center waiting for the light to change. The dogs stood at my feet, waiting a command. Behind me, and to the left, the second car at the intersection honked its horn at the car ahead, encouraging it to turn right on red.

The light changed. The first car turned right ahead of us. At the same moment I said, "Achilles! Paris! Cross!" and stepped out into the street just behind the lone schoolgirl, who was already crossing. Achilles was two steps ahead, and as I turned to the left to look for Paris, saw the second car coming straight at us. Not exactly. I know the maneuver. The car was going to slice between me and the curb. Except Paris was two steps back.

Instantly, I reversed course, throwing up my hands, and as it continued accelerating, bent my knees slightly and looked down at my feet. JUMP! It was pure fury that took me into the air, and as my body rolled and conformed to the shape of the still-moving car, feet, knees, finally hands slapping down, I reached for something to hold onto ... The car was still moving at five or ten miles and hour and wouldn't stop! ... I had been in a crosswalk, and now we were halfway down the block!

The wiper! I reached out and took hold, and with a diabolical twist, began to bend it. That got the driver's attention. I looked back and saw the dogs slightly ahead of the car, which was finally slowing to a halt.

"You son-of-a-bitch!" I said, through the driver's open window. I had dismounted to the right, and something about the driver's face had frightened me — making me wish for this nonsense to be over.

It would be, I realized, if I got away — So I kept moving, the dogs by my side, crossing four lanes, in the crosswalk, and before the light could change. The schoolgirl, just steps ahead, looked back with a quizzical scowl, so head up, I kept moving.

The way I was raised, you compose yourself before stepping into the public, and taking a brisk stroll though the beautiful University of California campus was a wonderful opportunity. The land near the corner of Oxford and Center is actually a forested reserve, where the North and South forks of Strawberry Creek converge before sweeping under the streets of Berkeley, and into San Francisco Bay.

The river's fate didn't concern us at the moment. The dogs had squirrels to chase, I had an angry driver to avoid, and evening had its darkening dusk, so we marched uphill. I did place my cell phone firmly in my right hand so I could pretend to call 9-1-1 if the guy came after me — It's broken, the battery is loose, I've got to get it fixed.

Continuing up the path, and away from the inner campus street now, I had visions of the guy driving around with his crooked wiper — a wonderful marker. I wondered what he would do next.

For some reason, I didn't hang out by Sather Gate, largely because I had too much energy, so we continued the loop, all downhill from here.

Wow! Looking ahead through the trees I could see a police car, maybe two, and the car with the crooked antenna, or wiper! They got him! An officer started walking up the path toward me.

I pointed at the man and the car, still some sixty yards ahead, and as the policeman reached a comfortable distance, I called out, "I bent his ..." I couldn't think of the word, "... windshield ... wiper!" I repeated it for good measure. "I bent his windshield ..." almost stuttering, "... wiper!"

"Stay right here!" the officer commanded, and continued, "So there was a deliberate crime?"

"Yes!" I said delightedly. "He hit me, and I bent his windshield ..." I couldn't figure out why this made me stutter, "... wiper!"

"So you're saying he hit you, and there was a deliberate crime?" the officer said, almost incredulously.

"Yes!" I said. "I was walking my dogs across at the crosswalk, and I turned back ... " — Here the officer interrupted me —

"You turned back?" he said. "Now you're telling me a different story."

I stopped cold.

He continued, "Do you know we have a leash law here in Berkeley?"

"Do you know if dogs are under voice control, they don't have to have leashes?" I shot back. This wasn't the first policeman to go after my dogs.

"So he hit you, is your story?" Now I knew I was in trouble. "Yes!" I repeated. "The light changed, I saw he was coming after me, so I went back ... " — Here again he interrupted me —

"He was coming after you?" he said incredulously. "Now that's a fifth story!"

"I want a lawyer!" I said, before I could say anything else.

"You aren't being charged with anything, ..." the officer said matter-of-factly, turning toward the lady officer now approaching us, leaving the man with the crooked wiper leaning jovially against the side of his car, "... yet."

"Who called you?" I finally said.

"He did!" the police officer said. "We've taken his statement, and the statements from two witnesses. You vandalized his car."

I repeated my story for the second police officer, who seemed to comprehend me. The original officer simply said, "Now that's a sixth story!" which made me a little angry.

"Listen," I said, going with the flow of my anger, "I've been telling you the same story, so quit lying about it!"

Much later I realized, you can't tell a story backward to a police officer. — They just don't get it. Where I come from, if you walked into the room and announced, "I just bent his windshield wiper!" one of my uncles would have cried out, "And justly so!" and another friend of the family would have declared, "That wasn't very sporting of you, chap!" and they would have all laughed, demanding the story from the beginning.

And somewhere I've seen guys like the driver of that sedan whose hood I had commandeered. The police officer, here in outside physical reality, had gone back to harping about the dogs, " ... if they had had a leash on, you could have pulled them out of the way," he was saying, which struck me as sort of weird. Can you imagine riding the hood of a car, dragging a little black dog along by the neck? It's almost racist.

Why did the officer keep carping on this? "And why didn't you call the dog?" he was saying now.

I looked at him incredulously. I wrote down my statement, read it aloud for the benefit of the lady officer, and handed it to her.

"We're charging you with a Misdemeanor, section 10852," the first officer said, as if he was reading me some forgotten rights. "You have to go into the police station tomorrow and get fingerprinted and booked. Then you have to appear in court on December 27th. Do you understand?"

I tried to remember something about asking for a lawyer. Then I looked at the guy who was just being released by the lady officer, some sixty yards farther down the path. Witnesses? There hadn't been any.

I watched the guy get into the car with the crooked wiper and drive away, with a smug expression, as if the world was his. I remembered the face now, the glazed, crafty eyes — the slow reflexes. In England they call guys like that "chancers." They get all dressed up in tails, as if they had been invited, and totally ignoring the man at the door — treating him like dirt, actually — attempt to crash the party.

It's funny. I'll be appearing in court on December 27th, and the next day, at L'ariosa, my niece will be celebrating her coming-out party. It's real old-fashioned, this being a debutante.

They'll be dancing to slow jazz, calling me "the wiper man."

* "Pataphysics is the science of the realm beyond metaphysics; or, Pataphysics lies as far beyond metaphysics as metaphysics lies beyond physics — in one direction or another." Also, "Pataphysics is the science of the particular, of laws governing exceptions." Roger Shattuck, "Superliminal Note," Evergreen Review 4:13, May-June, 1960, pp. 27, 28.

30-MAY-1999.

Appeals to the Superego (Guilt)

A person has a Superego, an Ego, and an Id.

The Superego is ideals.
Without a Superego, you would be a criminal.
Sometimes the Superego wants to save the world.

The Ego is perception.
Without an Ego, you would be sick.
Sometimes an Ego is swamped with confusion.

The Id is instincts.
Without an Id, you would be dead.
Sometimes the Id is like a crying child.

A person has all three aspects of inner being and needs to balance their capacity to help others with the aims and desires of their own life. When another person activates your superego (which you perceive as feeling hurt, confused, and guilty) you have to understand you can't help everyone, and in some cases you shouldn't even try. You can always attack Appeals to the Superego with good cheer.

—For nothing!

—I'll live.

I'm going to tell you the whole secret of life. Other people don't like you because they're too busy hating themselves. Since they don't like you anyway, your job is to make sure you're not carrying any shit. The idea isn't to control yourself; it's to understand yourself.

So imagine you have to take you mother's best friend's daughter out on a date, or even worse, you have a blind date with the reigning Miss Virginia, and everybody knows it — or your girlfriend is going to interview Brad Pitt for some research she's doing. Your stepfather pats you on the back and says, "Good luck, buddy boy!"

Just pay attention. Your emotions will act as an antenna.

02-SEP-2007.

As follows

CODE WORDS: buddy, career, guilty, insulted, maybe, sharing, slip, thanks, very, welcome, yeah