Digressions of a Dilettante

Digressions of a Dilettante
Vignettes of Inanity by Bud Hearn

Thursday, March 29, 2012

“You’re Not Wearing That, Are You?”


Every man who’s not living under an interstate overpass is bludgeoned by these words sooner or later. Many who have ignored them no longer live. I survive …barely.

Barely, that is, in the sense that my wardrobe has shrunk to matched colors, patterns and designs. It now fits into a matchbox. It has to. Our household cannot financially support both ‘his and hers’ wardrobes…or have a closet sufficient for storage resulting from ostentatious spending.

There’re benefits to this shrinkage. I’ve moved up the food chain. Psychiatrists have a name for this syndrome: FCF…Fashion Cognitive Function. It comes from improvement in the lower third of the male cortex, located just below the section that controls eating habits. The result is that I have accepted my wife as the Final Arbiter of style and appropriate dress.

Not all men have acceded to this level of civilized life. Their lives hang tenuously in the balance. They’re in daily jeopardy of becoming social pariahs. Social ostracism eliminates them from party lists, a total embarrassment to all wives. Divorce or death usually follows this stigma of devolution.

The finger of blame points to many possibilities. Each contains a grain of truth. The easiest answer rolling off women’s lips is this: men are basically slobs. Brando wife-beater tees are stereotypical of male fashion. This is, of course, not far from the truth. Women have ample statistics and long experience to prove it. The evidence is irrefutable…men are cave dwellers.

Most men just don’t care how they look. O, not all men. A quick glance at any gathering will reveal that girth overhangs won’t fit into the voguish-thin styles by Armani, Vuitton and Klein. Pimps excluded.

Men with undeveloped FCF wear khakis, boring blue blazers and Merrill brogans. Some accessorize their jackets. They spend thousands to have Country Club logos sewn onto front pockets. They have no social relevance beyond locker rooms, golf and crude jokes. This dress is a thin veil masking their lack of masculinity.

I’m lying if I say I’ve totally passed the dress-code test. Recently we were guests at a party given by an elegant doyenne. Her invitations are engraved, of course, and the guest list is select. Big Deal. No one sends regrets. Zip codes are matched with table seatings. It’s the kind of party where people have their feelings lacerated for failure to make ‘The List.’ Suicides have been prevalent.

I rummage through my closet, uh, matchbox, grab a shirt, a tie, shoes (no socks) and a pair of khakis. I look in the mirror, commend my choices. Then she appears.


You’re not wearing that, are you?” She’s not smiling. I look in the mirror. It shrugs. “Of course not,” I say. “I’m just experimenting with colors.” She rolls her eyes. “Shed it!”

She returns, stunned in shock disbelief at the second combination. “Really?” she says. She shakes her head in disgust. “Guess not, huh?” I say.

I’m dressing you,” she says. I become a little boy again, remembering when my mother dressed me in short pants and white shoes. I’m humiliated, but again condescend to higher authority. “Women…” I start to say, but zip it.

At the party the men stand around making men-talk. My friend, Ace, is proud of his new jacket. “Nice jacket, pal. Where’d you find it? Dollar General?” Men talk like this. It’s a sign of brotherly love, vestigial remains from high school.

He scowls. “Can you believe it? My wife made me change shirts three times to match it. She made me wear a brown tie. Says it matches my teeth. Plus, she refused to ride in my car. Said it had pollen on it. I had to wash it first.” Ace failed the FCF test. Misery loves company.

Men agree…no one can dress to please a woman. It’s a touchy subject. We order more drinks. We conclude it’s best to let the women dress us…free food and alcohol at parties are good trade-offs.

Yesterday my wife asked if I liked her new outfit. I replied, “You’re not going to wear that, are you?” The air froze. Today a picture of a man wearing Levis and living in a mobile home was lying beside my coffee pot. Point well taken, even for a fool.

Ace and I are now enrolled in the Community College for a refresher course in FCF. The engraved invitations have resumed. Life is good again.

Bud Hearn
March 29, 2012


Thursday, March 22, 2012

Memoirs of a List Addict


My days begin in desperation with a craving for caffeine. Coffee, Coke, Mello Yellow, Red Bull. Any stimulant to jump-start cognitive function. And for what? My lists, that’s what. I’m addicted to lists.

Lists never sleep. They lie awake, unfinished, lurking everywhere… kitchen table, counters, sinks, closet, my shirt pockets, and post-its stuck to my cell phone. They stalk me like starving dogs.

I sleep with notebooks. Often brainstorms attack in the middle of the night. My lists are obese. The more I check off, the fatter they get.

Life demands lists. Some use electronic devices…Blackberries, iPhones, iPads and computers. Not me. I’m old school. My lists are personal. They cling to me with claws. They completely consume me. They covet constant stroking. They demand to be touched, fondled, caressed and cuddled. I’ve bonded with them, especially those written in the palm of my left hand.

I want words written on paper…old newspapers, magazines, napkins, purchase receipts, and the like. I can’t escape their ubiquity. Pens and wads of paper hang carelessly from my shirt pockets. I’m often mistaken for an insurance salesman. You know the type…the credit-life route boys, or Mormons pimping Mitt. We’re a strange fraternity.

My lists are methodical. My first grade teacher drilled this into me. Be punctual and precise, she said. So, my lists are in sync with time sequences. No time wasted, every minute counts.


I coordinate my stops… post office, cleaners, bank. I check them off. I like patterns, so I draw outlines of my route for the day. I deal with the closest burning fire. Soon my list has a series of big red checks. It feels good to eliminate things.

My lists are models of efficiency. In these perilous times we must make the most of opportunities. Seconds count in the discharge of duties that the lists demand. However, doctor visits are always problematic. Catastrophic events can happen there. Rearrangement becomes essential…something gets shafted, shoved to the back of the bus.

Grocery lists are my favorites. I keep an inventory of our household food stocks. With the world in turmoil, the sea level rising and food costs soaring, one can’t take chances with being under-stocked. Same with ammunition for my guns. The world’s a nasty place…just this morning the paper headlines read, “Manhunt for Escaped Felon Grips the Island.” I immediately make a list of escape routes.

One of the best things about lists is that they become journals. I save mine, bind them in spiral notebooks and refer to them often. They’re alibis. My mind’s a sieve. It’s essential to justify my whereabouts in case of congressional inquiry.

Calendars are convenient ways to keep lists. Unless the spaces are too big. Lists need to be concise…no superfluity. Just enough verbiage to jolt memory. Like, “Get a haircut.” No. Just “Haircut” will suffice. You get the idea.

Today, after consuming something approaching a gallon of black coffee, my thumbs show signs of life. I pick up the Blackberry and purge names. The contact list shrinks. Only 6,000 remain. I marvel at the irrelevancy of many. I hit “delete.” Zip, they’re gone, wiped out forever from my life. Cruel, heartless, I know. It happens.

Randomly, one pops up with a memory attached. I hesitate, remembering what once connected us. I smile, or curse, or shrug. Then delete. Good riddance. At times I dwell on the name and the associated memory. I weigh the question…keep or delete? If I’m conflicted, it remains…for now.

Lists, like crack, are a fool’s game. I’m trying to kick the addiction. I’ve constructed a pyre in the back yard. I’m going cold-turkey, suffer the List DT’s and become a new man. You’ll know I’ve kicked the habit when you see the smoke…my corpse or The Lists.

If you see me, remember I will have taken W. C. Field’s advice: “Begin the day with a smile…then get over it!”

Bud Hearn
March 22, 2012

Thursday, March 15, 2012

The Incredible Shrinking Hulk



“We are the hollow men, we are the stuffed men, leaning together, headpiece filled with straw. Alas.” The Hollow Men, poem by T. S. Eliot

The expose that follows is a sordid story of emasculation. It’s painful to peel back the hideous underbelly of ego. Reader discretion is advised.

His cell rings. His wife calls. He answers.

You’re late, again. Dinner’s getting cold. Where are you?” Excuses explode in his brain. Useless platitudes…she’s heard them all before.

Working,” he says with a whimper. Before he could add, “Be there soon,” she cuts him off. He utters an expletive. Shrinkage sets in.

Terrell’s a big boy, 260 or so, 30 years young. A man’s man, a woodsman. The forest parts as he walks through. Weeds wither under his ponderous stride. His massive shadow swallows large buildings. Yet, he has a mealy-mouthed proclivity---he shrinks. He becomes a gigantic, punctured balloon. His bluff and bluster vanish at the sound of her voice.

He sits in his truck in the dark. A faint light shines from the house. He creeps to the door. Inside a baby cries, a dog barks. He thinks he might get lucky. He holds a cheap bottle of champagne. It’s lukewarm.

The door jerks open. She stands there, hands on hips (a bad sign…men know it well). Her eyes blaze with fire. Her gaze ignites him. He perspires profusely. Flames lick his flesh. His body becomes rigid. His shoulders slump, his head sags. His chin crashes to his chest. His feet and legs become butter. They melt. He watches them puddle onto the floor. He shrinks.

He offers up the champagne. She rejects the gesture. He morphs into a midget and shambles meekly across the threshold. He withers like a primordial husk. His tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth. His backbone crumbles into a clump of rattling bones. The Incredible Shrinking Hulk shrivels into a caricature of a circus clown.

He tells me this story. It must have been an ugly scene to behold…a man being stripped naked of his masculinity. “You’re not alone,” I say. “You’re just a microcosm. Millions of men shrink daily. Deal with it.”

He asks why this happens. “Pal, women have mysterious powers. Men can’t comprehend them. Neither can science. It’s the universal conundrum.”

I explain the irreconcilable irony: From weakness comes power. The profundity disturbs him. He wonders how that can be. I tell him women reduce Titans to toads. They shred bare a man’s thin veneer of pretense. It is what it is. Get over it.

Look, all men are little boys. Women know this. Boys need discipline. You know, the ‘spare-the-rod, spoil-the-child’ sort, like your mother did.” He’s confused.

Listen, why do you think Mother’s Day is such a big deal? Man up,” I say. “It’s brutal, but it must be done. Men can’t be trusted for self-discipline. Even Putin cries.”

Do you shrink?” he asks.

Every day,” I say. “I’ve licked the boots of bankers, bowed and scraped to authority and groveled more times than I care to admit. It’s a disgusting stigma.”

Why?” he asks again. “Because men are insensitive, irresponsible, embarrassing and often just plain stupid. Why do you think florists shops proliferate?”

Huh?” he says.

Flowers, man, flowers…they’re our only weapon. Forget the cheap champagne; bring home flowers, early and often. Cook dinner, clean up, walk the dog. Get domestic. You’ll survive.”

A friend recently wished me happy birthday. She reminded me that at this age we can leave some things behind. I tell her I had three teeth extracted last week. I’m becoming a shrinking man. She rolls her eyes.

She said her husband was shrinking, too. He’s been carved up so much that he made a cut-rate deal with the mortician on the premise that he needed less embalming fluid and a smaller casket.

Terrell’s disappeared. I call his home. His wife answers. Inside a baby cries, a dog barks. “He’s vanished,” she says. “Last time I saw him he was crawling on the floor with the dog. Maybe he vaporized.” Damn!

Shrinking is serious business, men. I exhort us to organize, to rise up, pour into the streets, to withstand the encroachment of this insidious injustice. Who will be its first martyr?

If shrinking makes a sound, it’s the deafening roar of silence!

Bud Hearn
March 15, 2012











Thursday, March 8, 2012

Talkin’ to the Kid


It’s early Sunday morning. The kid and I sit at the table, drugged. We look at one another with blank stares. Him, anesthetized by sleep; me, still stoned from barbiturates. I wait for Mr. Coffee’s jolt. He waits for his thumbs and iphone to warm up. Nobody talks.

But I’m thinking it’s a good time to discuss important things with the kid. After all, he’s 13 now. Yes, it’s time he hears about how messy life really is, to shake him up from his age of innocence, to prepare him for the real world. You know, things like financial messes, wars, rumors of war, starvations, mutilations. Chaos reigns.

I say, “Kid, life’s messy.” He jerks. “Huh?” he says. I repeat the premise. He searches his iphone for a clue, an app to define ‘messy.’ “Listen to me. Life’s full of problems, just look at your father.” He answers, “He’s dumb. I’d rather play baseball.” He’s quick, I’ll give him that.

Look, kid,” I say. “Life’s not about baseball. Life’s a big mess of problems. Baseball’s just a fun escape.” He thinks about it, appears unconvinced.

What’s a mess?” he asks. I tell him his room is, for starters. Then I tell him a mess is like a baseball without the cover. “It’s a mass of thread wound around a rubber cork,” I say. He shrugs. “Oh,” he says. “I know about baseballs. I’m a natural-born hitter.”

He continues. “How do you spot messes?” he asks.

I search for an academic answer. “There’s a thesis called ‘The Rule of Thumb.’ It’s like common sense,” I say. “Like a baseball field…it gets messy, needs mowing, raking.”

What’s a thesis?” he asks.

Aghhhh. “It’s like, well, it’s just kinda like a conclusion you come to in certain situations,” I say. He gives me a ‘what-kind-of-answer-is-that’ look. I tell him it’s easy to understand, especially if you happen to have dogs. Which we do. Two, in fact. I tell him we refer to it as ‘the rule of dung.’

What’s dung?” he asks. Where’s this kid been, I wonder.

I offer up a crude analogy. “Listen,” I say. “See the back yard? It’s full of grass. But it’s really a mine field of dog poop. If you walk out there barefooted, you’ll soon understand the ‘rule of dung.’ It’ll ooze between your toes. It has to be cleaned up. It’s a mess. Get it?” He consults his umbilical appendage.

He tells me baseball’s a mess, too. How so, I ask. He tells me that it’s complicated, says it’s all about strategy. I agree, saying “Yes, life’s complicated, too.”

My mindless monologue of real-world issues meanders along its tortuous trail.

What’s your favorite subject in school?” I ask. “Spanish," he replies. Can of worms opens, they crawl out. “Now, there’s a real mess. Illegal immigrants,” I say. I ask him how he’d solve that mess if he were President. His thumbs work the iphone. “Forget it kid. The President has no clue either.” He looks relieved.

I change subjects. Clearly the kid has no interest beyond his own solar system. Baseball is its sun. “Do you have a girlfriend?” I ask. He looks sick at the thought.

“Girls are a mess,” he says. “I’d rather play baseball.” I give it some thought. The kid may be on to something.

Look, kid, girls are kinda like baseballs. They’re hard at the core and wound real tight. But they’re fun to play with, unless they’re losing the game.” He slings me a vacuous fast-ball look. Metaphors are like moon rocks to kids…foreign objects.

I remember the kid playing on the beach last summer, building sand forts from crap that clutters the beaches. He was happy then. Now he’s a teenager. He’s happy now. He has a best friend in his iphone. Why am I spoiling everything with these real-life issues?

The more I talked, the less he listened. Who can blame him? Who wants to spoil a day with messy conundrums?

I give up and leave him to his innocence and cook some eggs. He promises to get a scholarship in baseball at Dawg U. Maybe that’s good enough for a Sunday morning tete-a-tete with the kid.

Besides, I have my own mess to deal with….the septic tank needs pumping. O, for a day of baseball instead!

Bud Hearn
March 8, 2012

Thursday, March 1, 2012

A Leading Citizen


“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”
Mark Antony, oration at the funeral of Julius Caesar.

Nothing ends like it begins. But it always ends.


The tour group meandered slowly among the shadows of ancient oaks in the cemetery of Christ Church, enraptured by the historical retrospectives recited by their guide. They stopped at the tombstone of John Armstrong. Chiseled on the headstone were the words, “A Leading Citizen who fell a victim to his secrets and died the 3rd of September, 1848.”

His grave marker had waxed yellow. It sagged slightly to the right. It was crumbling from the top down, as if the weight of Armstrong’s life itself, even in death, had become too heavy to bear. It seemed to be melting, dissolving slowly into the abyss of a double death…both his body and his name. The listeners stood spellbound while the guide resurrected the details of Armstrong’s abhorrent life. She began:


“As the scion of one of the island’s early settlers, Armstrong was destined for greatness. He had a certain flair for life. People loved him. Some called him lucky, others said blessed. He was endowed with a fine intellect, an amiable disposition and benevolent feelings. He excelled in all things financial, was charitable and religious. He alchemized everything into gold. He became a leading citizen.

But he had a secret. It seethed inside of him. It tortured his memory, tormented him in dreams and hounded him like a demon spirit from a body buried badly. The horror stalked him…the night, the knife, the girl, the murder, the blood, the grave. He was chained to it.

He relived the details, over and over. How he fled the scene, how he fabricated the story, how he dodged responsibility and how his cowardice clung to him like a filthy cape. It was too late to recant. Let the past lie, he said. He now had stature as a leading citizen. But the past was always present for him.

It’s tough being a leading citizen. Much is expected. It’s a hard act to follow, day after day. Always a coat and tie, deacon meetings, boards to attend, advice to give, a business to oversee, a family to nurture and always an image to maintain. It’s a high wire trapeze act, always to see and be seen, the constant clinging of the community, sapping every ounce of strength. And always the shadow of his filthy secret in relentless pursuit. He pushed against it. It pushed back.

He came to embrace the notoriety, the status that being a leading citizen bestows. His honors grew even as his hair grayed. Certificates of recognition covered the walls of his home and office. Autographed photos of important people occupied the spotlight. He had become a great man in a small place. But his past became a noose. It wound tighter.

On a certain Sunday the sermon was on the wages of sin. The preacher’s cold stare clawed his psyche. The words echoed from the walls of his wicked conscience. His demeanor slumped, his countenance contorted. Fear ate him. He fled in terror from the presence of impending judgment to his sanctuary and the bottle.

Later that day the law knocked. He knew it would. It always does. A body and a rusty knife had been exhumed. The knife bore his initials and the inscription, “A Leading Citizen.”

In a matter of minutes he aged years. He staggered backwards, his heart failed. He fell, stone-cold dead at the feet of justice. The community was shocked. It felt raped. Its leading citizen’s secret was exposed, its icon stripped naked.

With time the crime case grew stale. There was little more to say. Life moved on in the slow tick of island time. Soon another man became a leading citizen. Nothing stays the same forever.”


The tour concluded. The group departed. Left standing in rapt attention are new grave markers, spit-shined to a polished sheen. They bare other names and dates. Standing guard are sculptured seraphim and silent stone angels, stark sentinels and wardens of the secrets of the bones. They know that all have feet of clay.

Nothing ends like it begins. In the end it’s the graves that speak. They remind us that all we really possess are our names. We only borrow the dust.

Bud Hearn
March 1, 2012