Joy And Fun Are Fucking Killing Me ✑ Act Ⅲ

By AM Wednesday, August 17, 2022

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Michael Praetorius ✒ with the third act in his satirical series.  

Holy Day of Obligation

Traditional Feast of the Assumption Eve celebrations here the other night. Bonfire in the small meadow after dinner. I danced around it, chanting the ancient rebel mantra:

For we'll not be mastered
by no Proddy bastards . . . 

Jean, being Protestant, stayed indoors with Miss Lotte Lenya to watch some Brit sweat out a gutsy, gritty performance and finish 19th in something at the European Championships.

I had attached some firework rockets to a statue of the Blessed Virgin, and placed it on top of an old tree stump. For the festive finale I counted down from 10, NASA style, lit the rockets, and watched Mary launch herself into space. It gave me an intriguing glimpse into what it must have been like when her family, friends and neighbours watched her assumption into heaven all those years ago.

One tiny misfortune. I've been informed that after re-entry and descent, the Stella Maris eventually touched down head first through the floor of next door's outdoor trampoline. An act of God. I'm sure their insurance will cover it. 

Mass

Off to hear a sung Missa Cantata last night, part of the Charles Wood Festival and Summer School. It was a pleasure to sit among these simple Catholic folk, in their ill fitting, staunchly naff garb, and behold the performance of ludicrously superstitious rites.

Jean was there; and I noticed several other of her co-religionists dotted among the throng. This caused me to reflect that it is a good thing heaven does not exist, for even if it did, no amount of rubbing shoulders with the true faith would gain the admission of a single Prod.

Nevertheless, it was heartening to see them at last willing to make an integrationist gesture, as if to imply, maybe, that they expect to have a role, or even a job, or house, in the impending, post border-poll, united Ireland. This set me thinking; perhaps, after all, wholesale deportation to Scotland is going a bit too far . . .  ?

It occurred to me then that, in a spirit of compassionate compromise, we might instead banish them only as far as Rathlin Island, which is reached across a treacherous strait, sparsely populated, ruinously expensive to maintain, entirely unproductive in return, and therefore well worth getting rid of. Somewhere they could industriously fend for themselves, their mediaeval mind-set and customs happily undisturbed by the rest of the world.

 

Please, sir

Mind you, I used to be a teacher. English and History. When people still took subjects like that. A Promised Land, where many of us knew how to write a sentence, and punctuate it. And when we tried, at least, to take Cicero's maxim seriously: if you don't know where you come from you will always be a child.

I first taught at a school in Lurgan; a class of 'slow' 13 year old street fighters. One morning I asked one of them why he hadn't done his homework.

Sir, he said, sir, you'll never believe it, but I was just sittin' down to do it, sir, when the Brits bust into the house and knocked over the table and wrecked everything . . . 

They weren't the brightest students, and when I was on playground duty (no teaching assistants, etc., then) they'd follow me around for want of something better to do. When it came time to ring the big brass handbell I carried, signalling lunchtime over, they crowded round for a turn at doing it.

They were no good at sport. On Sports Day (or any other day) their parents never showed up, so they sat with me on a bench, watching, disconsolately, the more physically gifted Gaels being authentically Irish. It was funny . . .  the official 'retards' (as the other classes called them) on the bench with me, and the real morons on the pitch, bursting a gut for culchie Gaeldom.

When I announced I was leaving, one of them asked if it was because I had long hair. They'd overheard the headmaster, some weeks earlier, advising me, man to man, to keep the hair a bit shorter, and not let them ring the bell at lunchtime . . .  

You might have a friend

The idea of actually listening to anybody is a new one to me; I mean, I've been living with Jean for years now, and I can’t remember anything she’s ever said to me.

I Googled What is a friend? and What do friends actually do? The current thinking seems to be that a friend is a person with whom one has a 'bond of mutual affection'. I'm in terra nova there too, so I wonder what that sort of thing involves, and if it's any kind of bind.

As to what friends do . . .  a top tip from the web is to remember that most people worry about health and finances, so, and especially on these issues, a good friend should 'empathise', a novel endeavour I'd need to research further, frankly.

So a good thing to do is to ask ‘friends' if they’re well, and managing to get by. That second bit's dicey, I know, for they might get the impression I'm willing to give, or even lend, a few quid, which would, of course, be wildly overstating my position. Indeed, I wonder if the advocates of this 'empathy' business realise the inherent dangers . . . 

Superhoops . . . !

Years ago, when we first met, Jean soon realised how fortunate she was to have lucked on to someone as brill as I am. One day she even waxed on a bit about ‘love'.

As a logical positivist I knew, of course, that stuff like that is unverifiable, and therefore meaningless. Unfortunately, when I pointed this out, Jean threw a girly strop, and went off with some other guy, whose name I don't remember now, but it had 13 syllables in it, so he meant business.

It reminded me though of when I was up at Cambridge. I shared rooms with fellow logical positivist, and numero uno skirt chaser, A J 'Freddie' Ayr.

One Saturday, even though Freddie was a Spurs fan, we went to see QPR play Norwich, down at Loftus Road in Shepherd's Bush. Martin Peters played for Norwich at the time, and, being a big name, he didn't condescend to travel on the team bus with the yoicks. He drove down in his own car, a nice little Aston Martin.

Don't ask me how, things were simpler then, but en route to our seats we passed through the players' car park. Freddie spotted Peters's car, and in the noble, ageless tradition of philosophic disputation - with the enthusiastic aid of a few QPR stalwarts - he supervised us in its overturning. Roof on the ground. Ouch . . . !

The tragic thing though was QPR lost 1 - 2 that day.

 

How I became a poet

When I was about 10 I wrote a poem about primroses. It was published in the Banbridge Chronicle. My brother was a close friend of the editor. I followed that up with one on buttercups, but there had been a change of editor and, for some reason, the new man turned it down. Nevertheless, from then on I considered myself a poet, and scribbled away industriously through my teenage years.

Once, at St Colman's College, we were asked to write a poem. Mine read:

The dreamer sits with twisted eye
casting a glance upon
the blue and lonely sky
and the sad sands rolling on . . . 

I was proud of this, thinking it hinted subtly at my vulnerability, me reaching out shyly, tentatively for validation. Fr Boyle, our English teacher, was a man of his time, I suppose, and not well acquainted with the notion of how easily childhood trauma may be inflicted. Anyway, when he read my poem, he thought for a time, and said, Praetorius, exploring new depths of shallowness yet again, eh . . . ?

As a Fresher at university I joined the Poetry Society. It was run by a lad who styled himself 'Poet' Kelly. One of his poems had the lines:

I have known too many stares
for them to be of any use to me . . . 

Being shy and introverted, this chimed exactly with my own experience of social interaction. It struck me as terribly profound. So much so that I never handed over any of my own poems for consideration, because I knew they were much too shallow to live with stuff like that.

Is Bob Dylan as good as T S Eliot? my English tutor at Queen's asked me.

The fact was I hadn't a clue. And she didn't enlighten me either. But I took a chance, and when she asked me to do an essay on any new and upcoming modern poet I liked, I did about 10 pages on Paul Simon, and having read it, she invited me to catch myself on.

The greatest enemy of art is the pram in the hall, so when my son came along I had to forego the versifying for a time, to concentrate on making a hames of his upbringing.

I took it up again when I was given some staff during my time in libraries. All the library assistants multi tasked, and so would be doing different jobs daily. Each morning they would find on their desks a duty note, written by me the evening before, and in doggerel verse, indicating their individual tasks that day.

All but one of my library assistants were girls. So as the guy among them would or would not get the right or wrong idea, or whatever, I didn't write his notes in verse. He later instituted an official, and unsuccessful, harassment case; one of his examples of the alleged harassment was receiving duty notes in prose. Later on he got himself sacked for something or other.

Retirement freed me up to get writing once and for all. I bought an expensive rollerball pen, and leather bound journal. But the other great enemy of art is the dog staring at you. You have to take her for a walk.

I was on the train with her one day though, when this came to my mind:

Here, like where the railway runs,
your life is laid out, flat and sparse.
And out of the hedge blends some bare fence,
a thin grid of mostly nothing, too . . . 

That might be mistaken for profound, I said to Miss Lotte Lenya.

She was sitting on my lap, in contravention of NIR byelaws. The couple across the aisle gave me that non dog-owner contemptuous look you give people who talk to their dogs. But I've known too many stares for them to be of any use to me . . . 

 

A heavy cross I bear

There's a big world out there, said Jean, yet all you ever do is sit on the sofa with that dog.

I'm going for a spin on the bike later, I replied, to Tynan.

Tynan ... ? Goodness, electrifying ... she said.

Tynan has an ancient Celtic cross, I reminded her, although the place is full of Prods, 'flegs' everywhere.

You reduce everything to a sectarian head count, she said.

No, I don't, I replied, although I must admit it's always a bit of relief to ride on to Middletown, which is full of Taigs.

You, and people like you, she said, are the reason that this country will never change, never move on.

Jean, unlike myself, is not, of course, an Existential Nihilist, and therefore can't possibly know what she's talking about. The fact is, if everyone in the Failed Statelet was an Existential Nihilist, well aware that absolutely everything is utterly pointless, and they consequently doodled away their lives sitting on the sofa with a cocker spaniel, fiddling around with guitars, waiting for Countdown to come on, etc . . .  Nirvana

 

Unseemly fracas in Magherafelt

Magherafelt . . . ? Yes, I didn't know where it is either, and, not having satnav in the car, had no choice but to follow the signposts. My mission? To entertain punters at the Tafelta Festival, one of only 5 buskers invited by the Council to do so. So slap it into all the priests at St Colman's College who said I'd never make the big time.

Even though I spent the afternoon there, to be honest, I still don't know what the Tafelta Festival is, or what happens therein. But ours not to reason why, as the Bishop said to the Chorister, and I took up my allotted pitch outside Dunne's.

Things went well for an hour or so. Then . . .  Will You Be Damned Or Saved?!? The Lord Jesus Says . . . 

Only about 5 metres away he'd parked his van. It had two massive foghorn type speakers on top, and he was stood at the back of it, the doors open, bellowing into a hand held mic from the pages of a script laid out on the van's floor. It was astonishingly loud.

He was a youngish lad, in shirt, tie and neatly pressed slacks; somebody who should be out enjoying all the safe, consensual sex he can get, instead of chasing fairies at the bottom of his garden. I went over and said the Council had given me first dibs on this spot.

You Play Away Then, But I'm Spreading The Word Of God . . .  

I'm not sure what came over me. The fact that they can be as rude and obnoxious and arrogant as they like and still be morally correct, I suppose. Anyway, I lifted the sheets of his script and tossed them away.

For You Will Burn  . . .  was as far as he got. He put the mic down, and chased after his script. Meanwhile, the proselytising molten lava of the Lord was coursing through me, so I grabbed the cordless mic, and hurried back to my pitch.

Who Wants To Go To A Heaven Full Of Nutjobs And Fruitcakes ... ? Heaven For The Climate But Hell For The Company . . .  !! 

But by now he had recovered his script, and was heading for me. I only just managed to round off with Fuck Off , Moron . .  ! before he snatched the mic. Unfortunately, as he turned to leave, he tripped over my amp, and nearly totalled himself.

Mind my dog . . .  ! I shouted.

He gathered himself up. I Have No Time For Dogs !! There was a small crowd rubbernecking. I said to them, He doesn't like dogs: that's the sure sign of a basket case. One of them, a sanctimonious oul bollix, said, You should show a bit of respect for the Word of the Lord.

The Blood Of Our Blessed Saviour Was Shed For You, But The Self-Righteous Are Too Proud To . . .  

I contented myself with moving my amp much closer to him, turned the volume to max, and beat out a continuous twelve bar blues strum because, of course, blues is the Devil's music. I owe the Devil . . .  

The Good Samaritan

Jean was surprised to learn that for the past 6 months I've been training as a Wellness Expert, am now fully qualified, and have already been seeing clients.

Wow . . . ! she exclaimed, the Existential Nihilist is now a Wellness Expert . . . ?!?

Oh yes, I said. It's all about positive nihilism.

A session starts with making the client feel relaxed, but aware of the work ahead. So, for example, I may say, Hello there, great to see you . . .  goodness, you've fairly put the weight on . . . !

Only a tub of lard, of course, will be greeted thus; I vary it according to the physical and mental state of each punter, for many of them are shipwrecks and/or a bit dim.

Then we crack on with the programme.

Breathing technique: keep breathing regularly, but when exerting yourself it will help if you breathe a little faster. Ignore the purists: don't rule out gasping once in a while;

Diet: crucial. The body is a temple, but where are its Vestal Virgins? as the poet Juvenal enquired in one of his juvenile satires. What he was getting at here is that moderation is grand, but there's also compelling evidence to suggest that a bender on the comfort grub is holistically vital. It's all about oneness though, so do limit yourself to just the one deep, stuffed crust 16" pizza, or whatever, at each pig out;

Essential oils: recent years have seen a shift away from these to rechargeable batteries;

Acupuncture: or pins and needles, as my mother called it. Get the circulation going in the affected limb;

Career: it's 2022 and the comos is the limit. All shall have prizes. What do you want to be . . . ? Sit quietly on the sofa, and Will it to be so. Do nothing else, just repeat twice a day, until you hear the knock on the door. Let what Marcus Aurelius said to Andrew Johnson be your watchword: I was not born in a log cabin, but were that so, I would never have been Emperor of Rome;

Spirituality: we're living in high times, so dig the new demesne, but just don't crash your spiritual plane. With a little intuition you can shift position in the zeitgeist, touch the magic stone, and pick up that spiritual mobile phone. Catch the cosmic vibe. Your planets are all in line, just like '69. Hey, has Ginger Baker died . . . ?;

Exercise: more crucial. But don't underestimate the exercise you already do. Finding the remote, opening the Amazon stuff . . .  it all adds up. You don't have to cycle 22 miles at 13.5 mph (like me), but you can, for example, turn sit time into fit time. Try doing simple exercises like toe-curling, and cringing your facial muscles, as you watch Love Island. Or, another example, if you're a trans ‘woman’ set a reminder at work to get up, walk to, and try yet again - but be quite rightly barred – to enter the women's lavatory, say, every hour;

Mindfulness: more crucial still. For most people who come to me, this is the no. 1 requirement. They want that mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations.

Easy done. But softly softly catchee monkey. So, very subtly, and from the getgo, I imply that they're wired to the moon with shite, and must empty the mind of all hope, aspiration, desire, love, expectation and meaning. What's left? Sweet FA. There is no moment, no thought, no feeling, no hope, no answer; only a one-way slide into despair, horribly agonising illnesses, grotesque suffering, insanity, and infinite, black, terrifying oblivion. We'll all die roaring for the mammy.

Notwithstanding this fearful doom, however, we can turn things around, simply by accentuating the positive. After all, worse things happen at sea, and we're all in the same Lusitania . . .  Damn the torpedoes . . . !

When they finally embrace the realisation that we are hapless pawns of a malignly indifferent universe, destined for horror, anguish and brutal ruin, they exude that beautiful aura of grimly resigned Wellness. Next stop: happiness.

And it's job done, I said to Jean.

 

A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, and sometimes a man’s gotta be alone . . . 

I cut the grass earlier. Was so hot outside I then had a beer.

That's two manly type things in a row I've done, I remarked to Jean.

Sometimes, she replied, methinks there's a closet trans woman here who doth protest too much.

This is so typical of Jean. A few days ago I was out in the little paddock behind the house. I happened to be burning all my son's Harry Potter books.

What on earth are you doing? she asked.

J K Rowling said it's a fact that only a woman can be a woman, I replied, and these days we call people like that out, I mean, the brass neck of her, it's easy to prove nearly anything with just facts, for God's sake . . . !

Some people will say they told me so. When I first met her on that dating site, Jean was the typical woman: only interested in chalking up as many random sexual encounters as possible. A world apart from me, the typical man: I was seeking a mature, long term, monogamous match founded on genuine affection and shared interests.

 ⏩Michael Praetorius spent his working life in education and libraries. Now retired, he does a little busking in Belfast . . .  when he can get a pitch. He is TPQ's fortnightly Wednesday columnist.