Sinister

The gong smash in "Cornucopia" is sinister.

So, too, are the Dixie Youth Pirates, dressed in full black attire as they take the field. Preschoolers unwittingly intimidating other preschoolers by sheer visual presence.

The baseball uniforms. The piercing smash of the gong. Both assaulting the psyche with an instinctual, preeminent, blacked-out aura of aggressive abandon.

Little is so ominous, so assertively defiant, so ... sinister ... as Black Sabbath. As the sinister poet Henry Rollins would say, something as destructive as El Nino shouldn't be called El Nino. It should be called the first four Black Sabbath albums.

Black Sabbath, even today, is feared by those mindless masses who cry blasphemy at the mere thought of comparing 5-year-old children to "devil music."

But look beyond the moody dropped tuning, the screeching voice reverb, the forboding refrains.

The essence of it is clear.

We all must embrace what is sinister inside us.

Sinister is not evil. It's not hopeless. It is braving darkness and marching blindly onward in a frightening pursuit of the unknown.

Black Sabbath spoke bluntly and artfully on subjects that require such a journey of uncomfortable depth: the cold politics of war, emotional isolation, religious hypocrisy, the vices of greed and materialism.

Despite their contrived and overwrought allusions to the occult -- done for effect, the band readily admits, to create a noticeable identity -- they believed in the idea of something beyond the mortal coil.

Along the way as they obssessed over what else might be, they sermonized to a generation (and themselves) the dangers of excess, self-absorption and apathy.

Believing in something -- anything -- is far moless unsettling than the impressionable mind believing in a belief in nothing.

Black Sabbath faced, with chest bowed, whatever darkness inside us we must trudge awkardly through to be complete.

Idealistic.

Hopeful.

Intimidating.

Sinister.




_____

"Is your mind so small/
that you have to fall/
In with the pack/
wherever they run?

Will you still sneer/
when death is near/
And say that you might as well/
worship the sun?"

- "After Forever"

_____


"Too much in the truth/
they say/
Keep it till/
another day

Let them have/
their little game/
Illusion helps/
to keep them sane"

- "Cornucopia"

_____

"Now from darkness/
there springs light/
Wall of sleep/
is cold and bright/

Wall of sleep/
is lying broken/
Sun shines in/
you are awoken"

- "Behind The Wall Of Sleep"

_____

Man Size Wad

When you make the perfect slide ...

When you keep the team alive ...

When you block a shot or two ...

How do you know you're in the Big Leagues?

There is only one way ...




... when you're into Big League Chew.

We walked, a dollar in our pocket in the humid summer sunshine, to the air conditioned confines of the grimy conveinence store to buy the first issue of Alpha Flight and a pouch of Big League Chew sporting the bold and brash "Man Size Wads" plastered across in large type.

The guy in the commercial with the raspy, authorative voice extolling the virtues of the "Man Size Wads" growled in our psyches, echoing the propanganda designed to manipulate the tastes of children who wanted to be men before their time.

Children who wanted to be strong when they were weak.

Children who wanted to emulate with shredded bubble gum the virile sports symbolism of chewing tobaccy.

It was the yesteryears of the early 1980s: when offensive lineman never weighed more than 300 pounds; when basketball players wore Daisy Dukes and rims refused to collapse; when baseball players chewed tobacco as their shaggy mops flowed from their crusty mesh hats before shaggy mops and crusty mesh hats became a new retro; when the term "Man Size Wads" evoked images of larger-than-life ballplayers like LeBron James instead of larger-than-life creeps like Michael Jackson.

Their masculinity was confirmed -- the jingle suggested -- between the cheek and gum, chewing with passion and competitive spirit.

Winners.

Big League Chew bridged a gap of inappropriateness between sports gods and the young disciples who worshipped them.

A gob of gook puffing out the cheek was OK -- as long as it was shredded bubblegum, in keeping with true, conservative, Reaganesque '80s moral values.

Now it's not OK.

The philistines of today have relegated Big League Chew to the same fate as the candy cigarette.

Candy now demogogued as a gateway drug.

Grown, we long for the "Man Size Wads," knowing that so many of us never really ended up chewing ... or dipping ... or smoking ... even if we briefly ventured into the teen realm of addictive coolness.

For those of us who stayed, it wasn't the gum that did it.

Thank you, Indian/English-language-challenged/mall-confectionary-store proprietor, for keeping even the most miniscule stock of "'Outta Here Original," "Curveball Cotton Candy," "Slammin' Strawberry," "Swingin' Sour Apple" and "Wild Pitch Watermelon."

Thank you, Napoleon Dynamite, for stuffing that shredded cocktail of sugar and gum base in your mouth in the bathroom and swallowing it whole when you realized Trisha had ditched you.

You are the faithful torch-bearers of the persecuted pouch.

May The Chew be with you.

So, What's Your Sign?

The pear tree lilts with the wind.

Its clothes are on now, a suggestive robe of white petals.

Revealing, appealing; wooing so that it's life might perpetuate.

"So, yeah, anyway, what's your sign?"

Androgynous, it is both hiking its skirt and flexing its pectorals.

A saturating stench of springtime is invading the nose, clogging the pathways to living and breathing to sow life in futile ground.

It muddies the cool clearness of air that has no ambition.

Lilting with the wind, posing with bravado, imposing its erotic will.

"The money's on the table, baby. Buy yourself some Sudafed."

31 Minutes

The presents on the table are torture.

"When can I open them?"

"On your birthday."

"When's my birthday going to be here?"

"When you go to sleep."

Approaching midnight, the cartoon has sung him a lullaby, diffusing the anxiety of anticipation and calming him into sleep.

In 31 minutes, 5 conquers 4. In 31 minutes, a father's heart sinks, and he wants nothing more than to kiss the cheek of a sleeping boy who will suddenly grow into a man.

It is a nightly ritual, a desperate -- and ultimately futile -- act to freeze an age of innocence.

Less than a second it lasts, a mere moment that time erodes.

The minutes grind, relentlessly -- 1:12 ... 1:13 ... 1:14.

The moments within seconds chip away like a determined river with an endless source: A boulder becomes a stone; a stone becomes a pebble; a pebble blends into the great, complicated tapestry.

Time both gives and takes: Minutes become months; months become years; years become a lifetime.

Spider-Man pajamas become business suits.

Knowledge is gained and innocence is lost.

Slow down. You'll realize your Daddy is not a hero.

Stop growing, son, because he always wants to be one in your eyes.

Nonplussed

Is there any word more awkward than "nonplussed?"

Well, maybe. But let's deconstruct it anyway.

To be "plussed" would insinuate addition, perhaps an improvement on something that already exists. But who goes around saying "Oh yeah, I'm great today. Thanks for asking. I guess you could say that -- what with my new job and my wife and kids and all -- I'm really plussed at the moment."

So to be "nonplussed" would mean a state of not being improved. Seems kind of unnecessary, like sticking your hand up through your butt to pick your nose. Why go through the trouble of explaining what you're not?

It could have its uses. Perhaps the best means to point out to someone attempting to impart some wisdom or technical know-how exactly how much what they had to say didn't improve you or your understanding of anything in any way whatsoever.

Let's see.

What does this mean? ...

Precious cups within the flower
deadly petals with strange power
faces shine a deadly smile
look upon you at your trial

or this? ...




OK. How about this? Does this serve any significant symbolic value in your life? ...




Right. It doesn't. Maybe in context. But there is no context. It's meant to leave you nonplussed.

Unless, of course, it leaves you plussed, which is always great.