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Italian artist guy
Sunday, April 25 1999
Today there was a chill in the air which didn't make this April day any better than those I remember from Oberlin, Ohio or Virginia. Overall I'd say I've been somewhat underwhelmed by the San Diego spring.
In the morning Kim and I went down to Ortega's to have a Mexican breakfast. We were pretty stoned at the time, so our minds were exploring fairly interesting nooks of reality. One particularly memorable insight I had came out of a discussion of the Littleton, Colorado mass shooting and the effects of violent media on kids. Kids have been exposed to violent media since the beginning of time, of course. One need only look as far as fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Humpty Dumpty takes a great fall, a farmer's wife cuts off mouse tails with a carving knife, Hansel and Gretle burn a witch alive in an oven, a giant with a taste for human flesh chases Jack down a beanstalk, and the list goes on. In discussing this subject, I realized something interesting about these stories. We don't remember learning them; they enter our memories well before we have the ability to remember specific events. Thus they're intricately woven into the fabric of our subconscious. Indeed, they are the very framework of our subconscious, much like language is a framework for our consciousness. They've evolved over history as a means to instill us with basic our rationality. This is particularly true of nursery rhymes, which are made into rhymes so they can be easily remembered, rehearsed, and passed on as part of our culture's basic shared wisdom to the next generation. Nursery rhymes can be thought of as programs, with each line carrying a specific moral message to be instilled in a child. Here's an example of a well-known nursery rhyme with each line commented as to its intended purpose:
| Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. | If you rise too high... |
| Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. | You're still vulnerable to fate or the whims of God. |
| All the King's horses. | All the machines |
| And all the King's men | and human resources |
| Couldn't put Humpty together again. | of our society can't always save you from your fate. |
I'd like to line-comment a few other nursery rhymes with their educational agendas sometime when I have the time.
Since we live only three blocks from the beach, we decided to head down there despite the chill in the air. We were joined by Steph and this guy named Lawrence whom Kim met as a client at her place of employment. He seemed like a nice enough guy, non-descript and unassuming, the sort who's been rendered shy by unpleasant experiences with rejection. Lawrence describes himself as the consummate slacker. He's serious about his underachieving, choosing to work as a janitor at a software firm instead of pursuing a more lucrative (and stressful) career path.
We came upon the usual faces at our spot on the Cape May beach: Scott and Justine with their friend, the wry fake-blond English woman with the twin daughters. The weather on the beach consisted of brief five-minute seasons. Whenever the clouds were in front of the sun it was late fall, but whenever the sun came out conditions were absolutely perfect. Eventually the families had all of the chill they could take headed home, but a small group of unknown young boys remained, playing Lord of the Flies-esque games on a lifeguard tower, spending more time establishing pecking order than actually playing.
The plan tonight was to head up to Escondido to attend a gala housewarming/birthday party for Kim's boss's boyfriend, Mark. All the staff members of the V!ctoria Rose, as well as their significant others, were invited. Kim and I decided to carpool with Steph and EJ. They were slow in getting going, so we went to pick them up at their place. (As a side note, it looks like they won't be kicked out of the house in which they've been squatting rent free. Evidently the landlord and owner are well aware of the value their residency has added to the property.)
The landscape up towards Escondido is comprised of dense rolling hills vegetated with little more than grass. It's nearly devoid of residents except in the valleys, where occasional highrises assert a particularly arbitrary sort of urbanity.
Mark and his party lay behind a the fences of a gated community, much of it set high on a hill in the same way as La Mirage (where Kevin lives). The population density behind the fence is high, even by suburban standards, but outside the fence the terrain was barren in an almost theatrical, surreal sort of way. It was like settlement on another planet.
We couldn't really figure out the communication system, so we were forced to simply run the gate. I was doing the driving and nearly hit one of those newfangled bubble trucks that all the Schteves are buying these days when they're not buying SUVs.
As we approached our destination, a solitary child rode his bike up and down the steep grade of the street past the tightly-shoehorned mansions of his neighbors. Aside from this child, there were absolutely no humans in sight. It brought to mind the neutron bomb, designed to kill all the people of a town while leaving their possessions behind untouched to be used by the invader. "Too bad that kid's going to shoot all his classmates some day," I joked, but I was half-serious. How could a child grow up normally in this place? I reflected on my suburban childhood and in my memories it seemed significantly less bleak.
The party wasn't exactly an "everybody who's anybody" sort of party, but overall I'd say those present were members of the ruling class. The least probable person there was probably EJ, with his scruffy hair and flannel shirt.
As usual for these sort of parties, we did the house-tour thing. It was a big house with lots of extra rooms, most of them well-furnished with gadgets and tasteful furniture. Most impressive of all were the several large palm trees that left us wondering how they made it through the door.
The cook, Carlo, was an especially dark Italian from Tuscany. He went about his business with a benevolently sadistic artistic flair, laying out the succulent food for us a full hour before he'd allow us to eat any of it. Carlo has a reputation as a great cook, but towards the late stages of my starvation I was wondering if perhaps people were so hungry (and drunk) by the time they began eating that they were in no position to judge.
So, when we were finally allowed to eat, it didn't surprise me that the food was excellent.
As he cooked, Carlo seemed to be taking a special interest in Kim, my girlfriend. I always like it when other guys lust after my girlfriend, so this was alright to me. I faded into the woodwork and let him clutch her and nuzzle her and feed her privileged bits of food. I didn't even worry when the two went outside together for a smoke.
But when they came back in, Kim told me that he'd somehow convinced her to go with him into the garage, where, with a finesse known only to artists, he pulled down her pants and underwear and beheld her naked snatch. "You have a beautiful pussy!" he said. I was a little shocked to learn of this development, to say the least, and had I been a jealous man, perhaps my gratitude for the dinner would have been re-assessed. But I was more intrigued than anything else. I already knew Carlo to be an artist, having seen a reproduction of one of his paintings. In that context, his weirdly invasive behaviour seemed somehow tolerable. I could easily imagine Picasso or Goya doing exactly the same thing. Sometimes one simply has to tolerate the obnoxious quirks of those who contribute to our culture. Besides, Kim wasn't all that freaked out by this strange occurrence. In the context of the moment it hadn't seem nearly as degrading as, say, our landlord's continual reminders to Kim about shutting the curtains over our shower window.
Still, though, when Steph and EJ heard this little tale, they were appalled. EJ certainly would never tolerate such a thing happening to Steph, and I suppose he wondered why I wasn't doing anything. But then a strange thing happened.
Carlo came over to our couch and told EJ that he had a very interesting face. Then, with all the pizzazz you'd expect from a dashingly sociopathic artist, he proceeded to scratch out a remarkably accurate portrait of EJ. At the final stage, he wetted a towel in water and washed over parts of the portrait to introduce shading. Steph and EJ were amazed. There opinion of Carlo was completely restored and then some.
On the long ride back home, Kim was very drunk and being so sexually aggressive I threatened to pull the car over. Sometimes you just don't want you dick sucked, you know what I mean?
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