A Sensible Fish

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 27, Verse 12

"A sensible man watches for problems ahead and prepares to meet them.  The simpleton never looks, and suffers the consequences."

 

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CHIPPED WISDOM:

 

What if you were a fish.

 

You know, in a tank.

 

(A fish tank.)

 

And there was brightly-hued gravel on the bottom and little fishy shit squiggles were all mixed in there.  And there was faux seaweed made in China and a little treasure chest, too.  And the little scuba man with the fucking Hannibal thing on his head. 

 

And you're the fish.

 

But, see, you're not just "the fish".  No, that would be too easy.  And you don't get off that easy, pard'ner.  Nah, sorry.  No, you're the fish, alright, but you're also a certain kind of fish.

 

You're a Nervous.  Fish. 

 

Nervousfish.

 

Pescadorus Nerviensus. 

 

You're one fucked fish. 

 

Now, as a Nervous Fish, you have certain... responsibilities.  Certain... obligations.

 

You have things to do, and you have to do them in a very certain way.

 

Or, rather, you have things to do, and you have to NOT do them in a very certain way.

 

Because, you know, you're a Nervous Fish, and a Nervous Fish can't just go around doing the things it has to do because it's, um, nervous.

 

TREASURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Yeah.  There's TREASURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! down there, but there's a little problem.  You're just a wee bit nervous about doing anything other than holding perfectly, serenely still in the water. 

 

Christ-like. 

 

Except he'd be on top of the water.  Wait a minute-- wasn't Jesus a fish?  And he went with a loaf of bread?  And a Bearnaise sauce?  

 

I really wanted to go to Catholic school when I was a kid, because they wore neckties.  I loved ties, even as a six year old.  I knew enough to know I couldn't get away with wearing one in public school, even an effete public school, I had enough restraint to stop myself from doing that.

 

You know, because, even at age 6, I was a pretty nervous fish.

 

What will they say about me?

 

Who will be my friend?

 

Will somebody choke me out with my tie in the bathroom?

 

Okay, maybe I didn't think that last one when I was six.  Anyway, I didn't go to the bathroom in school until I was in 12th grade. 

 

*****  SO IT WASN'T EVEN AN ISSUE  *****

 

I hate fish, not because they're boring and because they don't make sounds and because they look at you all fucked up-- I hate them because they're so free.  I mean, yeah, they're in a bowl or a tank and they're actually terribly restricted, but they don't know that.  They're too stupid, with their stupid fishy brains the size of a tick fart.  Watching a fish slide and glide through the water, that's an incredibly irritating experience for a Nervous Fish to watch. 

 

See, because there are no nervous fish.  You never see a fish hesitate.  A fish never goes "Hmm, God, I don't know, should I shoot myself effortlessly across this glistening scenery of plastic flora until I am satisfied with the distance I have achieved or shouldn't I?  Shit, um, well, let me make a pro and con list and a Ven diagram and a Zone of Proximal Development and a clothing chart and a call to my clergy and let me sleep on it and oh wait I don't sleep and let me toss it around a bit and let me run it by a few dozen people a consortium a focus group a parent teacher conference a minyan let me stroke the rabbi's beard and rub Buddah's belly and Band-Aid Christ's stigmata and let me pop a pill and canvass the neighborhood and profile suspects and step out of the car sir and wait no wait oh yes no wait should I no wait no no no no no no."

 

You never see a fish doing that. 

 

They just fucking go.

 

And I hate them. 

 

I can't just go.

 

Let it go.

 

Go.

 

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*No fish, Nervous or otherwise, were harmed in the making of this blog. 

 

**I'm lying, but that's okay.  You must be used to it by now.      

Good Old Sergeant Chevalier

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 27, Verse 20

"Ambition and death are alike in this: neither is ever satisfied."

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CHIPPED WISDOM:

"The Pink Panther Strikes Again" is, arguably, his best Panther.  Peter Sellers absolutely shines in what is a pretty poorly-constructed film.  Its plot is outlandish and ridiculous, though criticism of the plot of "Pink Panther" films is, in itself, as ludicrous as critiquing the plots of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, or, frankly, soap operas, but the slapstick comedy is some of the best you'll sever see on film.  This film boasts the quintessential Cato vs Clouseau fight-- it's as long as it is hilarious, and very creative-- and one of the best pratfalls performed by one of the best prat's (and the best prat's stuntman, too, no doubt).  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you 33 delicious seconds of Sellers: 

Beautiful, wasn't he?

One of the quieter moments of the film takes place on the pastoral grounds of a psychiatric hospital where Chief Inspector Clouseasu's former boss and rival Chief Inspector Dreyfuss has been involuntarily committed after Clouseau made him crack.  I know, I know, no one can make you crack.  Anyway, Clouseau and Dreyfuss are making a painful attempt at congenial small-talk, and Dreyfuss asks after some old colleagues.

"Sergeant Chevalier sends his regards," Clouseau says, trying for conversation.

"Sergeant Chevalier?  Ha ha ha-- good old Sergeant Chevalier.  How is he anyway?" asks Dreyfuss.

"Ah, well, you know, there are some who will be leaders, and some who will be followers.  Sergeant Chevalier, I'm afraid," opines Clouseau, "will always be a follower."

Dreyfuss can't help laugh at this, with a maniacal twitch of his eye.  

"And you, Clouseau, a leader?  Eh?  Always a leader?  Onward and upward to the top?!"

"It is my destiny," says Clouseau, "my karma."

I believe more in Peter Sellers than I believe in destiny or karma-- at least I know he existed once.  My mother is a big fan of "everything happens for a reason" which is kind of like the poor man's destiny.  I can remember, a short time ago, interviewing for a job and telling the Executive Director, "Look, I don't have designs on your job.  I just want to come in, and do a good job for an organization I care about.  I don't mind being a cog in a wheel.  I just want it to be a good wheel."  And don't you know she offered me the job?  I told her that "I basically have no ambition", and she offered me the fucking job.  Gotta love America, right?

Ambition is a funny thing.  Those of it who have too much scare the shit out of everybody, and those who have too little everyone writes off as an ass-scratch nail clipping.  I'm somewhere in the middle, but definitely closer to the ass-scratch nail clipping than, say, Mussolini.  In everything except theatre.  If there was a part in a show I wanted, I prepared for that audition.  I am an aggressive auditioner, and I will try everything I know how to do to charm my way into a director's heart.  Pants.  Whatever.  And, unlike smarter actors, I won't take another part if it's offered to me.  I am a child.

I want THAT one.

WAAAAA!

And, usually, I get what I want where the footlights are concerned.

Life is a different story.  Since college, I haven't run or walked so much as crawled.  My occupational path hasn't been linear or logical or luminous.  It's been what it's been, and I'm tired of apologizing for it.  There is a cadre of boys with whom I was very friendly back in elementary school, and they're all doctors.  They all went to the same college, and the same medical school, I think they fucked some of the same chicks and now they're all doctors.  And that's fine for them.  That didn't happen to me, partially because I didn't want it to, and partially because I can't do math without counting on my fingers and the scientific extent of my life is occasionally contemplating watching an episode of "NOVA".  But I went off that show when they re-did the theme music. 

I suppose I'm a little bit like Sergeant Chevalier-- a follower, but I'm not always sure who I'm following, and I don't know if that makes me better or worse off than the fictitious Surete police sergeant spoken about by Herbert Lom and Peter Sellers on that insane asylum bench.  I got a new position at work-- a promotion, we can call it, because I suppose that's what it is.  And I am extraordinarily grateful for it but I'm also terrified of it.  I know that I will disappoint a lot of people if I fail to perform my duties-- not that I'm even all that sure what exactly my duties are at the present moment-- and I know that the stakes, for me and for my family, are too high to crash and burn on the runway. 

Things change as you get older, and I'm not just talking about the cartilage erosion in your knees. It used to be that my ambition was to not say something idiotic during a date, or to get through a shift on the ambulance without ripping off the light-bar at a drive-thru restaurant.  Back then, that was a big fucking deal.  Today, everything feels like that.  Every second of every moment of every breath of every footstep is terribly, dreadfully important, and my ambition now is to make it to the next moment, the next foothold, the next sip of coffee and we're striving and it's furious and the wind burns the cheek and the desert goes on forever, at least, I hope it does.  Because good old Sergeant Chevalier will always be a follower.  

And I was known as the Pavlova of the parallels.