Author: Fred Blahnik

• It’s NEVER about the words and creeds that you outwardly profess; it’s ALWAYS about the actions that you take and the examples that you set for others, especially youngsters or naïfs who may be closely observing you and holding you up as an exemplar. Show me, don’t tell me.  Act, don’t mime.  Lead, don’t follow.  Do, don’t talk.  Words may have consequences, but they are not lasting ones; they are mere puny surrogates wobbling precariously on spindly legs.  Contrarily, the consequences stemming from actions can be significant, long-lasting, life-altering, and sometimes even permanent.  Never forget that!   Words may help shape opinions, but actions shape lives.

• …..her life was sailing along smoothly–She was happier than she could ever remember being in the past; the woman was nearly drowning in a heretofore uncharted reservoir of happiness!–when she was ambushed by a cruel epiphany one day. This epiphany informed her that if happiness resides on a spectrum–And of course such is true because everything else in life most assuredly does–if the spectral needle was to shift, albeit even mildly–Once again, it invariably will do that over time secondary to the inviolable Second Law of Thermodynamics which holds that change of any variety is inevitable and irreversible–then the only direction her personal happiness meter could move would be in the direction of unhappiness. YUKKKKK!!!  Talk about a cruel epiphany, huh?!  The lady couldn’t refute the underlying logic of this calculus, but the thought still gave her pause and great consternation.  And, more insidiously, this epiphany began to erode the thick layer of happiness she was relishing at the moment, despite the fact nothing of substance had yet happened or was threatening to happen to undermine her elation.  Her blessed period of happiness could stretch on for ten minutes or ten weeks or ten more years; only the gods of fate knew the answer to that transcendent question, and they are immanently averse to sharing such knowledge with mere mortals.  Still….she wavered and equivocated and worried and chewed on her fingernails.  “Why can’t I just appreciate and luxuriate in what I have right now instead of wondering what unkind twists of fate the future holds in store for me?!” she implored of both herself and her Supreme Maker.  Yet when no suitable answer was forthcoming from her inner being or the grand deity, her happiness eroded even further and the already naturally anxious woman worried still more about what dark clouds might be sinisterly lurking beyond the immediate horizon even though the sky at present was bright, effervescent, and abjectly cloud-free.  This negative thought process sank roots into the lady’s psyche–powerful, rapacious roots that grew deeper and ever more entrenched with the passage of time–and ultimately and quite predictably, it brought to bleak fruition that which she feared the most…..

• For those of you who fancy such a thing, time travel is alive and well; it goes by the more commonly known name of nighttime dreaming. During our nightly slumber and completely free of charge, each and every one of us can return to any prior point in our lifetime, visit long forgotten venues that were integral in shaping our current essences, and even freely converse with long deceased family members or friends.  We can effectively breach the bounds of accepted consciousness without ever leaving our skin sarcophagi.  So let me ask you this now:  Where else can we do this???  Where else can we visit the netherworld without having first paid the ultimate dowry???  Where else can we move unconstrained through the various layers of our lifetimes–past, present, and future–and subsequently return safely to the present timeframe in the literal blink of an eye???  Nowhere else, of course.  Sleep is the inscrutable portal into the netherworld–an otherwise inaccessible world where anything; yes, ANYTHING!!!–is possible, including and especially time travel.  Quite amazing–yet undeniably true!!

• You can never outrun your mistakes of the past, no matter how hard you try and how much distance you manage to cover and how mightily you struggle to rationalize them; they become a permanent part of you, no different than your physical features or your God-given personality. You must thus somehow come to terms with these mistakes in a manner which allows you to proceed forward with a clear conscience and an unburdened mind.  Mistakes will affect and bedevil everyone throughout the course of their lifetimes; that much is a given and as etched in stone as Moses’ Ten Commandments.  Yet this we know for sure:  How we react to mistakes that occur spontaneously and in no logical order is the true test of our character and the only meaningful variable secondary to that larger-than-life equation which governs our day-to-day existence.

• Each new day is a day spent in school. Oh, not a school of the bricks and mortar and stern headmaster variety, but rather the school of life.  There are new lessons to be learned every day out there–Valuable, transcendent lessons, to be sure!!–but we must eternally embrace the attitude of the student and be willing to engage and participate and learn.  The learning process doesn’t come to an end as we age, nor does anyone ever become so full of knowledge that they become overly saturated with the irreplaceable stuff, causing it to begin dripping out of their pores analogous to sweat.  We should all continue learning new things until the day we die, because if we are ever of the supercilious attitude that we know everything……well then, you may as well be dead at that juncture, since the amount of value you bring to society and to those who live within it is thereafter nil and you hastily mutate from an asset into a loathsome burden.

My  Long-necked Lover

By Frederick J. Blahnik

 

Scoping the town last Friday night

McMurphy’s Saloon…..

Patrons crammed together shoulder-to-shoulder in the dim light

But then I spied HER, standing up at the bar

And, honey, it was love at first sight!

 

Sidled right up next to her, my eyes never once leaving her shapely curves

Yet when I slyly slipped my right hand around her body, I could tell the bartender thought I had a lot of nerve

I looked him square in the eye, winked and smiled….the guy just shook his head.

Then as my lips daintily brushed up against her fragile mouth

I heard him whisper, but couldn’t understand what he said.

 

So I escorted my baby out to the dance floor

All the while relishing her smooth feel and exquisite aroma

As my lips once again reached to envelope her mouth

Someone clubbed me hard from behind on the shoulder.

 

I saw my love tumbling fast toward the dance floor

Couldn’t catch her in time–I’m not sure it mattered

She hit the ground with a resounding crash

Then lay there helpless…..visibly shattered…..

 

Anger boiled over inside my breast at that moment; totally furious, Fred turned bright red

I next wheeled around to confront the bartender sneering at me, and this is exactly what I said:

 

“Why’d you have to do that, you miserable, cold-cockin’, son-of-a-bitchin’ asshole?!!  I’d have gladly paid for that long-necked bottle of Grain Belt beer if you’d only had the balls to ask me!!!”

• …..he thought about it more and more as he grew older–thought about it way too much, in fact–namely: If terrible things can happen to him and to her and to him and to her and to him and to her as well as to countless other unwitting victims like those you read about in the daily newspapers or hear about on the nightly news broadcasts…..then why couldn’t they and–more importantly–why shouldn’t they happen to him or one of his loved ones?  Who or what is in control of such things?  Who is selected for martyrdom?  Is it by grand design or is it entirely random?  Is there any rhyme or reason as to why some people are chosen to be victimized while others–oftentimes inarguably less deserving–are spared bad happenstance?  Is there any logic at work behind the hand of fate?  Does the Law of Averages apply to any degree here?  And this preoccupation with death tainted his every action and relationship, to the point where he imagined only the worst things occurring under even the most mundane of circumstances.  He couldn’t watch a loved one leave on a routine errand anymore without worrying fate would nefariously intervene on this particular occasion, that said person might be killed in an auto accident, and it therefore could quite easily be the last time he would ever see that cherished individual alive.  He couldn’t watch a loved one cross through a T.S.A. screening line at the airport anymore without ghoulishly thinking theirs might be the one plane in ten million (?) that crashes or is hijacked by deranged terrorists.  He couldn’t watch a loved one frolicking in the ocean surf anymore without imagining a diabolical riptide would carry them away to their screaming death in the deep bowels of the ocean.  He couldn’t attend a major league baseball game anymore without thinking a ferociously hit foul ball would target either him or one of his loved ones sitting nearby out of the fifty thousand other attendees.  He couldn’t read about rogue, Armageddonesque asteroids in scientific journals anymore without believing, in the furthest reaches of his mind, that one of those destructive bastards would choose to target Earth in his lifetime.  He couldn’t go to sleep at night anymore without the passing thought he might never wake up the following morning. He couldn’t live life anymore without fear this divine stuff mirroring consciousness would suddenly and cruelly be snatched away from him–either directly or by close proxy.  The vagaries of fate, the whims of fate, the erratic unpredictability of fate–whatever you want to call those kismet-serving goblins–they bothered him more and more the older he got.  Yes, constantly!  Every hour of the day and night, it seemed.  And, logically speaking, one would think the opposite should be true, inasmuch as when one’s fuel meter draws nearer  and nearer to empty, theoretically the value of one’s life becomes less extravagant and hence more affordable i.e. disposable…..

• There is a good side and a bad side to every situation you’ll ever face in life–not always in equal proportions of course–but that doesn’t mean the good side will be plainly visible to the naked eye. Oftentimes you will have to go hunting for this so-called good component–They tend to be bashful little creatures who hide out in dark corners and don’t like to be seen or heard!–but bear in mind, they do exist and they are present in any dynamic you’ll ever face.  So let this be your rubric, then, along with your attendant ongoing goal in life:  Struggle to find the good in any situation or predicament, even–and ESPECIALLY–if it is not readily apparent on the surface.   You owe it to yourself and, more importantly, you owe it to those around you.

• …..she hid behind the night, laid low behind the curtain of darkness. It provided her with cover that wasn’t available in the glaring sunlight of daytime.  The night served as a protective shield for her; it shrouded her in secrecy and resisted the peeling away of various layers of her persona and, attendant to that, the peeling away of various layers of secrets she held which the sun not only allowed but seemed to actively and enthusiastically promote.  So for that reason and that reason alone she hated the sun, hated it with a fulminating passion which defied logic.  The night?  Ah, yes, the night!  The night allowed her to hide on certain occasions, to hide from the intense scrutiny of others’ vicarious desires and too-big expectations, and consequently the night was her dear dear friend, one of the few authentic friends she could implicitly rely on anymore…..

• The early sixtyish man watched the watershed New York Stock Exchange thoroughly crater in less than a month’s time, and his instinctive reaction to this ongoing debacle materialized in a matter of a few days, if not hours: I need to batten down my financial matters NOW, I need to spend markedly less money NOW, and I need to weather this economic calamity all the way through to its conclusion starting right NOW!!!  I need to spend less less LESS money until the Stock Market and, generally speaking, the national economy as a whole recovers substantially and things ultimately return to “normal”, whatever normal might be.  And so our late middle-aged securities maven obdurately resolved right there on the spot to follow this financially prudent course of action and spend less money until the dire monetary situation found a modicum of traction, gradually achieved solid footing, and ultimately resolved itself.  Doesn’t that sound logical?  Doesn’t that conservative financial strategy make sense and resonate with you, the reader?  Isn’t that the right and proper and intelligent way to address a pressing monetary matter like the one I just described?  Meanwhile, the sexagenarian’s life clock continued to tick along relentlessly and unheeding with a mind of its own, wholly oblivious to abstract concepts such as normalcy, fairness, logic, and blindly waiting for desired outcomes. It didn’t give a rat’s ass about rankling human problems; it’s only mission was to move mesmerizingly in a rightward direction while never stopping.