FUZZY have been my drive-by visions, of late
A fuzzy thing happened on my way to the fuzzy farm: I went nuts.
“Nuts” being a euphemism for insane. The word is also used to describe “fruits with woody pericarps developing from syncarpous gynoecia” — as well as testicles, when the expression fits.
Macauley Culkin having pressed his parents, in the movie Uncle Buck, to supply a synonym for the latter. “What’s another word for balls?” asks the cheeky 8-year-old, in full Culkin glory.
When they ignore him, he snaps his fingers after a beat and answers his own question. “Nuts!” he declares — as if he’d just discovered a continent.
These are the shapes of our lives.
I, too, am covered by a woody pericarp.
I, too, developed from syncarpous gynoecia.
So it went.
The evil tennis ball having stirred from all-day dreams to find he was about to erupt inside a microwave oven — for starters.
Then he was a planet without solar system, crashing. As well as a cockroach, a dog … a tennis nut, cracked …
Not to mention a schematic. Yes yes, a diagram of an evil tennis ball, this early in the season. It smells like … fuzzy felt gone bad.
FUZZY FELT GONE BAD / FUZZY FELT GONE BAD
… chant his deadpan followers, ever hopeful he might address why he’s evil, or how he came to be, or maybe offer a punchline, any punchline … just this once.
Then shit got real, which is to say fake plus fake. Double fake. The evil tennis ball having removed the fuzzy skin of his visions to find he’d been crossed with Oscar Wilde … at long last.
Or was he more like Wilde in lust with an evil tennis ball, a hetero-ego deploying his coveted recreational product to woo the girl next door?
“Please tend to my bouncy ball while I am warring, at the war,” this character seems to whisper. “He is … precious to me.”
Jane Austen having caught the evil tennis bug her own damn self, well before Wilde. Or do we mean to say “Devil’s Tower, Wyoming,” in place of Jane Austen? Yes yes. That’s what we mean.
Too often we confuse the two, much as we confuse cheese and glory. Or was he more like a little old bill, sittin’ on Capitol Hill? My evil tennis ball, I mean. He’s the one to keep your eye on.
“When I started I wasn't even a bill,” says the bill sittin’ on Capitol Hill, during his 15 minutes of fame. “I was just an idea.”
Such pretty eye this idea has.
We know what that little old bill meant, is the point. Too yellow have been our dreams, of late. Too full of ideas, italics, intifadas. As if a cave-painter spreading dementia on unseen walls. Our televisions kaput. The chaos convention in flames.
Having paused this extravagance to howl, “Blue pope tennis ball, blue pope tennis ball!” — as blatantly as possible.
Would Warhol approve? We think so. Our sense of style having long since swooped its hair sideways …
We said swooped its hair — not shaved.
Now we’re talkin’.
Conclusion: There are no conclusions. Streaky colors. Clownish angst. Our evil tennis ball fantasies groping for purpose, meaning, reason.
As for emancipation and beauty, we’ll take ‘em. Pink, yellow, classical … whatever you got. We ain’t picky.
Make sense?
Ok then. How about this for an explanation: Spring is nearly here, and that means tennis balls, as far as the eye can see. Doesn’t it?
Zoom in! Unnecessary close-up! FINISH STRONG!
Happy GD Leap Day, in other words. Extra, extra! The day that never was, as we leap over one more quadrennial rabbit hole.
You wish.
— Colin Sullivan
Technical note: I’ve lived through 12 quadrennials. My dog is 11. Today we are the same age, pretty much. Yippee.
Kicker: SpongeBobPutin had themselves a gas after our last post. So much so we documented their psycho-killer travels with lousy cartoons on Instagram. Here’s a few still-shots. See Stickmaninhell on IG for further delights.
Xoxo.