A Supposedly Posthumous Fun ...... by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Table of Contents

Preliminary Memes Subjected to Assorted Impolite Errata........ 1

The Opening Gripe............................................. 10

An Admittedly Screwed-Up Commercial Asserting a Memoir More

Noteworthy than that of Mary Karr............................. 33

Voodoo Child (A Slight Return)................................ 35

Another Word from the Money Functionaries Not Yet the Objects of

Tolerated Genocide............................................ 55

The Wrap Up (No Pun Intent Dared)............................. 60

Writer’s Concluding Un-Scientific Postscript.................. 82

Other Errant Entertainment Modules by Edward Drobinski not in

Search of Reviled Literary Marginal Acceptance................ 86

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Preliminary Memes Subjected to Assorted Impolite Errata As television canon dictated, the camera view was retrospectively chosen by the eight members of the editing team from eight photographically and digitally spawned possibilities.

Their honored participation in the “creative” process allowed them to be sequestered in their very own soundproof conference room replete with private half bath. An irregular and thereby uncalculated degree of room-length plasticized, teal-shaded glass separated them from other company employees; those grunts burdened with the lesser and un-artistic tasks of keeping and updating records. The editors were uniformed in the non-uniform manner instilled and distilled after the “revolutionary”

renunciation of the archaic, un-creative, and severely limiting requirements induced through the un-written but clear pre-1960

B.S. stipulation of matching suits which magnanimously deferred to gender considerate optional tie.

By the year of 2018, even one not attuned to contemporary office fashion could easily find guidance from Wikipedia which said;

“Appropriate business casual dress typically includes slacks or khakis, dress shirt or blouse, open-collar or polo shirt, optional tie or seasonal sport coat, a dress or skirt at knee-

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length or below, a tailored blazer, knit shirt or sweater, and loafers or dress shoes that cover all or most of the foot,”

which almost succinctly provided a useful synopsis of what is considered appropriately casual and in correctly un-stated

“rebellion” against the standardized suits fascistically dictated in the ignorant past. Only the haplessly inept, the dismissible rude, or the criminally insane would directly dare suggest otherwise; at the guaranty of the intolerable, self-induced, face-saving pronouncement of toddy time renunciation.

Of course there are the dexterous indirect. However they are either dead, the subject of the camera, or both.

The suitably un-suited arbiters, uniformed in their full, stoic regalia which primarily consisted of Chinese polyester fabrications of the increasingly dear and elusive cotton, thereby proudly displaying subtle allusions to their unique natures, never committed the faux pas of saying anything which might be interpreted as having even gently hinted at a homogeneity as crass as “The McDonaldization of the Outre.” The chronically re-purgative and camel-intending-horse committee

“selected” the least-likely-to-be viewed as a controversial opening, once again flirting with their mercenary conception of the most avants of gardes; thereby daringly displaying a man sitting at an un=propped TV prop desk.

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The desk was finished in faux wood grain plastic, no doubt to affordably and otherwise efficiently partner effectively into the camera’s visually imperfect notion and display of unprocessed arboreal warmth suitable the non-discriminating; much as that of the expected infectious cheer generated through old Ma or Pa Bell, just as reflected in the discount store electric fireplace plugged in during the holidays of unbridled celebration; referring back a bit to that which had been blended with easy-to-maintain practicality. The desk had nothing in its drawers and its viewing cameras changed periodically. The less-screen-occupational man professionally played with his management rationed papers as always in calculated but still imprecise expectation of voila’s predestined notice; in that mirthlessly filmed requirement, at least un-evocative of most any viewer inducement to consider the possibility of a condescending farce.

The audience filed into the showroom. Their expressions seemed to indicate a fashionably dour, low expectation or a restrained communal need to un-sociably issue a likely malodorous, mid-range zephyr. This, ultimately enlightened with a relentless further information scenario could have effortlessly resulted in a confusing multi-range of possibilities, which may have been

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the case on this un-particular day, as the audience’ tickets were handed out freely on Newbury Street, right next to the Goodwill facility. The un-backstage-TV-initiated, remorseless in their semi-rigidity, severely grim, lack-of-cushion not provided by the resident discount-store-folding chair accommodations which may have nonplussed the freeloaders unable to see themselves as such, as it or them appeared to more resemble the facilities utilized to amenitize the costumed house meetings held in rural Forsyth County, Georgia than that which was expected at a topnotch TV show, the likes of “Evan’s Book of the Week Club,” and/or in Occam approved simplicity, a “merely” to the truly disinterested congregation, while concurrently a

“mucho significativo” to those so afflicted with a commonly undiagnosed syndrome referred to acronyminally as IBS or the more generally accepted as severe manifestation called “Crohn’s Disease.” For those sufficiently fortunate to have been unfamiliar with those terms, suffice to say; “It’s yo ass.”

So as not to be seen as painting with too broad a brush or wand, it is noted that the audience did have substantial differences: 1) A large segment was big-city-vacationers from the outskirts of places like Lubbock, Texas;

2) Some were local codgers, many in denial as to having been three times over legally inebriated, who were primarily

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interested in having an experience which would flawlessly enable them to tell the supposedly or affected literate cohorts in their domain a story of profound personal adventure, which if properly worded was intended to camouflage being an attempt to border on a cheeky individual swagger; 3) Some were Millennials currently enrolled in the Boston University MFA program assigned to write a neither mid-term nor end-term paper, no more than two pages in length, about this show, DFW, post-modernism, the state of the literature industry with nods to quality, innovation, and the effects of Amazon on publishing, and concluding with a well-reasoned position regarding the place of literature in the larger world of art; 4) A few were sophisticated and surreptitiously cruel purveyors of alleged litblogs, and;

5) The overlapping majority consisted of sundry victims of a wide variety of an arguably overwhelming level of abysmal misfortune.

Out of the perimeters and onto the stage subjected to film, the man with the pronounced widow’s peak coupled with graying, medium length hair, who was fashionably coiffed in controlled disarray and was on occasion, politely referred to as middle aged; although he was mathematically well past that until the day science brings the average male life expectancy to 122, was

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at the aforementioned desk. Utilizing the most rudimentary and thereby also the most useful expectations of the expectations he had learned to assign to the many with an as yet un-acquired taste for a reaction contrary to his desired and outwardly well-liked manifestation of a deeply furrowed brow adjusted for camera-produced, inaccurate shadows, he had once more, consciously chosen to appear as being studious or scholarly as he shuffled the same desk-bound papers he had mastered shuffling on countless previous occasions, much like an experienced card player who is blessed with the deal depicts the mixing of his deck as a skilled, synchronous harmonization, most impressive to the cash holding neophytes in the immediate tiny real and Nielsen calculated cyber vicinity.

The man pretended not to notice the camera clusters moving as one might expect of a replica of a huge Kafa-esque, craning insect’s unhurried, confident, routine accomplishment. Possibly seen as ominous to the most squeamish of TV and web-based habitues, these large headed bugs, through their apparently well-concerted dance routine, once again, gave every indication that they are most comfortable when they work in packs. No doubt that view was fortified by their sporadic off-hours observance of the minimal effects produced by the one-issue wolf packs pathetically endemic to the below-Nielsen-radar “resplendent” in

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the acceptable-to-the-politically-correct drones who dominate

“social” media. In fact, that aspect of their existence is ridiculously funny to some and perfectly understandable to others, if not foolishly misunderstood to be an irrationally persisting remnant of “The Chorus Line” sans the cool fishnet stockings, as they are well paid union beings; on double time with the movement of a clock hand; triple on weekends; and off the charts on officially recognized holidays.

The “studious” man continued with his patented shuffling, as if he hadn’t previously observed the fading papers or glimpsed the flash “luster” of the one-size-fits-all bugs, fleetingly seen in inadvertent overlaps. As the only possible means of differentiation, the eight creatures were said to be theoretically supplementable with alternative lenses, manufacturer warrantied as opposed to guaranteed, in the standardized, economy classy cases wherein the flash storage based model was equipped with a standard optical prism block behind the discernably present lens.

Primarily in an effort to combine an image of personal nonchalance with one also consistent with that which was fitting to the nuances of lens; personally unknown regarding DSLR vs.

SLR, and even the more widely viewed as egregious implication of

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its un-caring as to techie technicality, and obviously inclusive of and the “nuance” inherent and dependent upon the black-white, zero-one technique, flagrantly and sublimely tranquil in the long standing comfort provided by the bi-weekly credits; here and there foolishly considered as a possibly un-ambitious appearance of falsified contentment or even worse, unknown as to the more simplified though combined ultra-wide angle vs. close up macro considerations, further imbued with the presently positive, but at the end of the day transitory consideration bestowed by the self-crowned-and-unchallenged-intellectually-astute segment of the audience because of their tendency to vocalize their opinions through undetected sarcastic request; his perception of acceptance and place, if not the calculated bliss engendered by the dynamic of the measured, restrained endearment of appropriately named specialization of Nielsen acquired Arbitron, was most likely the beneficiary of a popularly sheltered and dependable view which was always suggestive of an assessable quasi-torpor, not unknown, even to the Bard himself, much less the dregs of life attendant today.

Evan DeGrazia, a Spanish ex-patriate, with a thereby seductive accent in the US, had made a top 1% living for himself and his family through hosting this talk show, and he now, pastiches of past prickly pasted papers in hand, ersatz patiently awaited his

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thousandth guest. He was certain that he had been successful in manifesting the facial condition which hides being actually surreptitious in his delirious happiness, as prior to other occasions he usually felt as if it was to be the hundred thousandth; but this time he was more interested as the guest was said to be the never-dead or resurrected David Foster Wallace. Evan had determined through long, tedious experience that other shows have been nowhere near as lively as this one might potentially be. After all, Evan always was quite the optimistic fellow.

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