Thanks to Alert Reader and emailer we'll call "jt", I sit here just a little more disappointed than at this time yesterday.
Because I love me some James Wolcott. Oh my yes.
He’s a genius. A slinger of words of the First Water. A banger of words into other words with such imparted velocity and fire they actually split and create wholly new words that had existed before only as formulas written in really excellent cursive in the spiral-bound notebooks of MLA theoreticians.
So imagine my shock when I awoke in the small hours to hear someone rustling around in my tiny truck garden. Legging it into into my overalls and Adventures of Gulliver peejay tops (Hey, “vintage”, not creepy) and grabbing my scatter gun and Box Brownie, I threw on the porch light in time to glimpse a city slicker making for the shadows with a couple of my musk melons under his arms.
How sad I was when I got the pics back from the Fotomat and saw who 'twas.
These are alternately from Wolcott yesterday, and from me on August 17th.
Wolcott, yesterday, opens with the Petticoat Junction gambit. A bold move.
"Future President of Petticoat Junction Seeks Florida Fun"
Me, from not yesterday.
"Wake me when I’m Preznit -- Uncle Caesar of Petticoat Junction."
Wolcott deploys the lyrically effective multi-fake riff yesterday (On Thompson)
"Thompson's somewhat lackadaisacal lope is a smart counterfoil to Mitt Romney's executive-vampire zeal and glinty opportunism--maybe it takes a real fake to show up a fake fake."
Me, from not yesterday (On Dubya):
"…
A transparently fake vet, fake mogul, figurehead-governor-turned-fake-cowboy who sat on the prop porch of his fake ranch basking in the bogus light of his sham faith…"
Wolcott, gravy, and the sopping up thereof (On Thompson):
"Sopping up gravy wherever he goes, Republican hopeful Fred Thompson pays his respects to the good people gathered around the filling station."
Me, not yesterday (On Dubya):
"…while the pig people sopped it up with a fucking biscuit."
Wolcott, extended excerpt, because, well, he is just so freakin’ good at this:
"It's good to be back among neighbors," he said. "You know, in Tennessee, every time I had a day or two I always would try and find an excuse to get down to Florida. Well, it looks like I found a pretty doggone good one. I'm going to be down here a whole lot."
One wonders why the former Senator from Tennessee was always itching so bad to get down to Florida. It's not as if Tennessee and Florida are right next door to each other; it's not a brief commute.
Given my extensive reading of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee novels, where rich women with coral toenails hide their inscrutable pasts and bitter sorrows behind tinted sunglasses as their nymphomaniac stepdaughters go missing, I have a fair idea of what might have been enticing the Fredmobile southward on the flimiest of excuses, but it would be imprudent to speculate further.
I do think it's fair to speculate how long someone with Thompson's history as a politician, lobbyist, and film-TV actor can get by with this Goober-Gomer "doggone" shtick. It's true that Reagan had his folksy side, complete with cheeks that blushed like painted roses, but he also delivered fully-rounded speeches with rhetorical bridges and perorations; he didn't just show up as if to shuck corn. I will say this, though: Thompson's somewhat lackadaisacal lope is a smart counterfoil to Mitt Romney's executive-vampire zeal and glinty opportunism--maybe it takes a real fake to show up a fake fake. Thompson at least seems to be composed of organic material; Romney is pure vinyl exterior down to the empty core.
Mine came with
purdy pitchers.
James, just to be clear: your mother and I are not angry.
We're just very, very disappointed.
Now because there are no emoticons for “tweaking in good humor”, do I really think Jim Wolcott has gone all rogue and lightfingers?
Oh hell no. There are times when certain irresistible themes and beats so fill the air that they lure many a man into the same smoky bar. No, it's just that I think it rocks that on this occasion I got set up in my sweet booth by the band with my single malt a month before a writer of Wolcott's talent and stature caught the Petticoat Bat Signal and swept in the door.
Bwahaha!
Still, if you're feeling a little guilty for any reason, Jim, and in need of some dollar store redemption, you could perhaps find solace and sate your gnawing conscience by reading across the tracks and linking to any of these fine, smaller blogs who don’t get near enough attention (Which, for the record, Wolcott has always been pretty generous about doing.) And note that for every one I pulled from my top-of-my-Friday-head list, there are a dozen more.
I’m sure any Betty Jo, Bobbie Jo, or Billie Jo Blogger would appreciate a kind word from a Big City feller such as yourself.
12 comments:
Drifty, you are a gentleman. And beyond tactful.
At least folks like Wolcott steal from the best.
Honored, driftglass.
Oh my....many thanks, d r i f t g l a s s.
Just in case - I have to make a clarification/disclaimer. Blogger "Have Skunk" is not moi, le stinquey skunq. That said, the dude does indeed abide (and it's a short hop from Walt Kelly's to Kelly Johnson's end of the swamp)
and in a more perfect galaxy, Cap'n James (T) Wolcott ought to be buying you the first round before busting out the karoake
DG, Thankee kindly for the linkie-love, for exposing us to Wolcott's seeming petty larceny and allow me to welcome you to my fucking world of petty larceny.
Bill Maher's people have been ripping me off occasionally and I know for a fact Air America did it a couple of years ago, with no renumeration or even acknowlegement, not a pat on the ass or a reacharound before the prison shower booty call of the wild.
None of that. So I feel your pain. I may write what the Blogger Gods of Posterity will decide, in the end, pure unadulterated shit.
But at least I can say that it's mine and that I didn't have to rip anyone off even once.
Thank you sweetheart, and I reiterate the "gentleman" comment above.
You certainly are.
Leave your pies upon the sill,
They'll walk away before they chill. :)
What to say? Perhaps great minds think alike.
Mayhap you and Jim sipped at the Oban near the same time on the same day, and the ol' brain waves synced up.
And maybe he sleepwalked and caught a whiff o' that delicious pie a' coolin'.—whereupon waking, there is no memory of it.
Who knows?
What I do know is that I supremely appreciate acknowledgement and a link from one of the people in the blogosphere I truly respect and look up to—Thank you so much, Drifty
And might I say, that having done the damn thang for ten weeks, I have a newfound appreciation for what it is you do every day. It ain't easy, folks.
The man pours you a fresh cuppa damn near every day—brewed special and with care.
Thank you again, D—for all you do.
And I know I'm not alone. :)
Really dude. No kidding around now.
What LM said. You're not just one of the good guys. But one of my heroes.
You know how to write the good stuff.
I threw on the porch light in time to glimpse a city slicker making for the shadows with a couple of my musk melons under his arms.
I have been thinking about this post a lot. That you feel a (slickster, a writer for the slicks) a writer of prodigious gifts, has lifted or borrowed, unconsciously, or not, your very own unique and brilliant inventions. And at first I felt it diminished you to point it out, that you were sinking into your friend JP's territory, where he is constantly aggrieved for the lack of recognition...and then I thought about the model of the jazz riff, and a collective, and how I even mentioned Travis McGee on my little unread (literally) blog the other day, or how once, long ago I wrote about Cynthia Ozick, and the great JW wrote about her the next day, and I knew for sure he hadn't seen my musings. This kind of thing happens all the time, and it fascinates me, the connections, how we are all connected...beyond the cocktail party or the endorsement or the recognition of genius. I guess I'd ask, what do you want? What is it you want from your blog writing?
leigh
leigh,
Let me re-iterate:
"Now because there are no emoticons for “tweaking in good humor”, do I really think Jim Wolcott has gone all rogue and lightfingers?
Oh hell no. There are times when certain irresistible themes and beats so fill the air that they lure many a man into the same smoky bar. No, it's just that I think it rocks that on this occasion I got set up in my sweet booth by the band with my single malt a month before a writer of Wolcott's talent and stature caught the Petticoat Bat Signal and swept in the door."
I thought that was pretty clear, and anyone who thinks I'm beefing needs to read the whole thing.
jp,
I have no idea about any of that and would never make any such accusations without a clear chain of evidence.
At one end of the spectrum, writers land at the same watering hole all the time, and come up withe similar beats all the time.
At the middle of the spectrum, writers read constantly, discover themes and then re-knit them.
At the other end of the spectrum is theft: the producer who drops a stack of old science fiction magazines next to a writer and says "Pick one and write me a show" (and anecdote I am lifting from Harlan Ellison)
I assume honorable behavior and/or serendipitous convergence until proven otherwise and am not disappointed often enough to make me change that policy. However it was interesting and it did give me an excuse to promote some little guys who don't get enough attention IMHO.
LM/Jesse,
Kindnesses from everywhere.
Many thanks.
Let me re-iterate:
I thought that was pretty clear, and anyone who thinks I'm beefing needs to read the whole thing.
Thanks for the conversation.
Crystal clear. No beef.
Slinks away into the great Jungian jazz riff outside of the coterie of kindness.
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