♫So much to say, so much to SAY, so much to SAY, so much to SAY…

First among many famous Tweeters whose fleeting thoughts are memorialized in writing.  How much more would they have said if there were, first, alive today,  and “egonomically” Favrd clever?

Jack Handey

The World’s  First Tweets, though, continue to outlast even these venerable thinkers

9“…and so there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Does anything exist of which one may say: ‘See this; it is new?’” Ec 1:9, 10

Still rockin’ the Pithy. Succinct. Bound.

Remember when thoughts used to be fleeting?

♫So much to say, so much to say,  so much to sell, so much to say…

I deleted my Twitter account today.

I am just not all that clever.

little baby…♫

Mommy… Why Does Everybody Have A Blog?

“To the making of many books there is no end, and much devotion [to them] is wearisome to the flesh.”

Eccl 12:12

Mommy, why does everybody have a b—?
Mommy, why does everybody have a b—?

©1982 Controversy Music|ASCAP | Prince | 1999

You can “publish your own sound bite” on Twitter, or you can do it the old fashioned way and blog. The results will be the same– page after page after page after page after page of “many books”–” People making sense of their lives, their work, their world– or propagate their world view.

The Tweeps and the Bloggers, a lot of them women, “making” sense of men, (mostly why they don’t have, can’t get, or can’t keep a man), babies, mommyhood, work; or deconstructing religion, politics, society, God.

People who are funny or who only just think they are, mounting e-glossy magazines full of color and graphics and photos; pithy, philosophical, practical and witty, or whimsical, angst riddled and hopeful; often poignant, repulsive, rhapsodic, ironic and sarcastic, perhaps, even with a side of pathos.  So much color and content– so little time to plow through them all.  So many words, so little opportunity to transform them into a living. When the visitor counter displays hundreds, thousands, and to the mighty among them, millions, does it really mean their “makings” have been read? Is it really proof  that anyone is listening?  Is anyone  paying attention?  Does anybody really care?

Countless numbers of people turn to the Internet, self publishing with blogs or on Twitter. Why scribble “I was here” on a cliff or carve initials into tree trunks anymore when you can leave your mark on MySpace or Facebook, or form your own social network on Ning, or Ellen? I wonder if there has been a noticeable drop in graffiti?

Never in the history of man’s six thousand year existence on earth has there been so many people with the time and the access to say so much to so many.  Many “makings” go uncommented on. Why do readers stop and speak to some and merely stop to leak on others?  What makes one blog great fish and all the others plain fish wrapping?

People, young and old, smart and not so smart, poor and not so poor…  every kind of people busting out all over with thoughts and feelings, baring their souls to the world (or so they think).  All those very busy, very invisible, unreciprocated, unlistened to, unresponded to “Makers” of many blogs and tweets.

Much devotion to them is impossible to keep up with and wearisome to the flesh.

It’s only words, and words are all I have…

Words

“It’s only words, and words are all I have…”

I have always had a great love of, interest in and affinity for words. I love language. I love the music of language. I love the individual words of the English language. Even profane language has a certain musicality about it when the vituperation is strung together with the requisite amount of heat when used to punctuate anger or the right amount of wit to invoke humor.  Richard Pryor, we sorely miss you.

People are always either amused or angered by my vocabulary. It’s never made me popular at work.

My own mother hated me all her life because I was a reader and I had an affinity with words. She always told me I was acting white or that I was not smart, and when she thought she wasn’t beating me down enough with her constant assaults to my self esteem, she talked about me abusively to anyone and everyone who would listen. My mother was my most vociferous hater. After her, all others paled. And there were others. Many others.

People have said things to me, to my face, that it would never, ever even  occur to me to say out loud or maybe perhaps think to contemplate or even utter to myself, alone in the dark, under my breath about anyone I have ever met. I must be the biggest asshole I have ever known in my life or I really am Job, only without the three false friends. Even three false friends I would welcome at this point.

I love the English language. It is about big words because our small ones don’t always covey emotion. They just make you seem like you’re going with the flow. Like Elizabeth Hasselback.

The English language is not romantic like Spanish or Italian or French. It’s not necessarily meant to convey feelings or nuance. We have film for that.  It’s utilitarian. It’s cerebral. It’s meant to convey ones thought processes. Its sole purpose is to establish meaning.  In America, it’s all about making meaning, making sense, making the point, being UNDERSTOOD.

Maybe in France and Italy it’s more about expressing feelings, emotions, evoking the past; it’s playful. Here in America, it’s all business all the time.  It’s about not being misunderstood.

Language is serious, especially now in our “it’s my way or the highway” group-think, be different just like everybody else society. You will never see a fiction writer or non-fiction writer appear as a guest on Jay Leno, or sit with Matt and Meredith, or Regis and Kelly and the ladies of The View.

Nobody’s talking about books, or ballet, or opera. Nobody plays the accordion or the harp, or sings songs with intelligent, meaningful lyrics without vocal gymnastics. If they talk about a book, it’s probably written by some celebrity who thinks we “need to understand” their mental health issue, or their divorce, or their list of lovers, or their addictions. Boor..ring!

Seems the only place you can hear about books and words is on NPR or The Daily Show or The Colbert Report or the NYTimes Book Review.

Do we really need another self-help book, or celebrity “cathartic,” tell-all expose, or someone’s false-seeming memoir, or yet another book book about how to get, attract, keep, meet or marry a man? Or get a job, write a resume or network?

Do we?

smile an ever lasting smile

a smile can bring you near to me

don’t ever let me find you gone

’cause that would bring a tear to me

this world has lost its glory

let’s start a brand new story

now my love

you think that I don’t even mean

a single word I say

 

it’s only words

and words are all I have

to take your heart away

 

talk in ever lasting words

and dedicate them all to me

and I will give you all my life

i’m here if you should call to me

you think that I don’t even mean

a single word I say

 

it’s only words

and words are all I have

to take your heart away

 

it’s only words

and words are all I have

to take your heart away

 

da da da da da da da

da da da da da da da da da da

da da da da da da da

da da da da da da da da da da

 

this world has lost its glory

let’s start a brand new story

now my love

you think that I don’t even mean

a single word I say

 

it’s only words

and words are all I have

to take your heart away

Mood: Indifference

Hey Barbara! Here’s a news flash for ya… Interracial couples (specifically Blacks with Whites) have been having relationships, getting married and (Horrors!) producing offspring for hundreds of years now. Ever heard of Halle Berry? She’s over forty and the product of an interracial relationship. What about Tyne Daley and Georg Sanford Brown, or Sammy Davis Jr and May Britt ? Ever heard of them?

How about former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, or Sidney Poitier, or Diahann Carroll and David Frost? Herbie Hancock? They all had interracial relationships that did not necessarily result in their careers being ruined. I could go on and on… James Earl Jones, Mick Jagger, Quincey Jones and Peggy Lipton, Strom Thurmond and whoever that was. His career wasn’t ruined. Well at least not because of that, anyway.

His being “African American” was not the reason you had to hide your relationship, Babs. It wasn’t the racially intolerant climate of the time that would have ruined you. Infidelity is as frowned upon now as it was then, particularly when it involves someone holding public office. Adversity sometimes strengthens character, but more often than not, it reveals it. Can I get an Amen?

The initial fuss about Barbara’s book, (which I have not read but have only heard about owing to her shamelessly promiscuous media appearances to promote it, not to mention Whoopi Goldberg, the former Karen Johnson’s shamelessly obsequious cheerleading about it on The View), provided some relief for the primary symptom of “Tell-All” fatigue: indifference. Alas, it didn’t come to last. It came to pass.

Once upon a time in America, people kept their skeletons securely in closets– oops, I mean private. When indiscretions’ occasionally broke out, it was really a scandal. The stars were not always publically repentant either. In fact, I can’t recall anybody tearfully apologizing on camera for anything before Richard Nixon. When caught, they either got married, split up or went to prison. End of story. Seemed like musicians had problems with drugs and alcohol and actors had problems with sex, drugs and alcohol. When they decided their careers were important to them again, they quit those bad habits like a bad penny and went back to work. Both the industry and the public welcomed them all back with open arms.

No one went on the talk show circuit constantly talking, talking, talking about how strong, and brave, and what a fighter they were for deciding to stop being an addicted person and willfully breaking the law while they were at it. If you had a career busting secret you were keeping out of fear, people didn’t out you. They didn’t write a book or accidently on purpose blab about it during an interview.

As a kid growing up in the Bronx, even I knew Victor Mature, Raymond Burr, and Charles Nelson Reilly were gay. I admit I was surprised about Rock Hudson, but did Richard Chamberlain really believe he was fooling anybody? The press didn’t reveal FDR was a cripple or that JFK was insatiable. Back in those days it was more likely if anything salacious came out about you, you only had yourself to blame.

All that changed when Shelley Winters wrote her tell-all book and went on Merv  and Mike and Johnny and talked, talked, talked about her affair with Tony Franciosa. That was when it seems the finger over the hole in the dyke of personal restraint slipped down. And now everyone and their mother has had a “secret” drug or alcohol problem, or was sexually abused, or had a drug or alcohol problem, or had a mean mom, or had an affair with a married man, (African American not withstanding) or has a drug or alcohol problem and is going into rehab.

Every time I hear about some celebrity writing a book now I just groan.   It’s interesting when these writers are chatting with Larry or Matt, or Regis and Kelly they always say “People need to know that…”  or “People need to understand…”  What people?  Me?  Why?   TMI!! Even without ever reading the book, I’m going to learn more than I care or “need” to. 

So Donny and Marie, please don’t publish a book about how you were sexually abused by your parents. Gwyneth, please don’t publish a book about that time you left your kids alone in a London flat and pimped yourself out for a hit. Oprah, please, please, please don’t tell about that three-way between you, Stedman and Gail. I got a bad case of tell-all fatigue.