"Vainglorious" Notes from Under The Volcano...character sketches.

He had that mixture of arrogance and intelligence that made his mind attractive to thinkers and threatening to everyone else. He even revelled in his smugness at times, realizing that affectation was as much a tool of persuasion as facts and sound arguments. It had served him well, earning him a good income in the rarefied cultural environment of the wealthy and culturally influential. His knowledge, experience and skills, had made his life comfortable. He had rubbed elbows with the greats of contemporary art, the collectors and shining stars from both coasts were no stranger to him. He had enjoyed many conversations with masters in their field who often ended up disagreeing with his points but would remain engaged...

"He was the kind of old fool that burst into a house, shouted nonsense and returned twice more to drive the point home."

To be "enabled" means so little on the face of it. Unless one finds oneself disabled, limited, perhaps by another's hand?... Born enabled to be myself means nothing more than being myself, which I can afford to be. Enabling another, (what could that possibly mean) leaving them to be themselves, seems not much either.

...couldn't paint a stroke that wasn't copied from a photo, couldn't draw a simple image without tracing it on the canvas, couldn't explore the real because it offered too much detail, couldn't figure out how the materials work, couldn't form an original image, couldn't escape the trivial and hackneyed, couldn't understand that freedom of thought is the heart of creativity, so all that came out were bad paintings of flat looking flowers that made most shake their heads at the absurd prices asked for such little effort and talent.

A superior woman does not gossip, has no hidden agenda, is not duplicitous or vain, a superior woman does good for no reason, not to be seen as "good", a superior woman doesn't plan to drug her mate, doesn't accentuate the negatives of those around her, a superior woman doesn't covet what is not hers, does not bear a grudge for 40 years, a superior woman doesn't pass final judgments, a superior woman is what she appears to be and not some mask grafted onto her face, a superior woman doesn't sharpen knives for dorsal use, a superior woman does not punish , is not obtuse. A superior woman is loved by her man, a superior woman doesn't live in the past. A superior woman has no need for a weak-kneed husband whom she fears. A superior woman doesn't pick a fight with a skunk...

Best insult heard recently: "What do Canadians do with all the extra space in their heads?" "Nothing"...

He was a father at 14, he decided that his child deserved his presence. He realized she could save him from himself. The years he invested and the jobs he worked, he did for the idea of his family. He did it for the right reasons, to be here and to be as good a father as he could be with his limited means. He lost years to work, to weekends not spent with his wife and daughter at the beach, to economic needs that he had to fulfill. He remained simple, except in his thoughts. It was the one place where he could be rich and certain of his choices. These thoughts led him away from a middle-class life to a life of cultural engagement, to a life of achievement and to a life in which others trusted his opinions. He kept his nose to the grindstone, he knew the work he had to do to become the man he wanted to see. His dreams he fulfilled in short order, for respect once earned is one's own forever.

I yearn for nothing, I regret nothing, I desire only what I can make for myself and the good that I am in others' lives. Those who benefit from my humanity are just as likely to spit in my eye or insult me as to accept the kindness I have given freely. But I don't mind, because I know of what I speak, I know why I work and I know that others are jealous of my vigor, intelligence and capacity. I feel insulted only when I find that would be friends are simply hollow and have no heart for anything resembling truth, those who dare to compliment me for my intelligence and damn me for using it. I laugh at you, I laugh at the petty feelings that drive you daily. I laugh from the heart of my happiness and I wish you the same...laughter in your face.

"She fancied herself an heiress. In her mind, she remained young, blonde, thin (and just waiting for the cash to come in). But others saw her as a shrew, a hook-nosed busybody who's judgments were harsh and unadulterated by compassion or knowledge of what or of whom she spoke. Daddy had divorced mommie, leaving her and her siblings with out one red cent. Now old, her crone-like demeanour and secret withholdings had warped what beauty she had and given her the appearance of an old miser, her crippled hands hardened from the pinching of pennies, her mind fixated on what she imagined due. But daddy had moved on, become a daddy once again and his so desired fortune and earnings had been spent on his new clan. She dreamt of the day when she would proudly claim the "millions" her daddy had set aside for her. She imagined jazz cruises in the tropics, fine wines and five star hotels. She awaited the day when her prefab house could be abandoned to the natives, the day she would would gain possession of what was "rightfully" hers."

{What amazes me is that anyone would accept this cartoon as a biography, and then get upset that they see themselves in it...? Art imitates life, but usually a life worth admiring.}

Daddy's house...daddy's house, a gift to her because he's a mouse.
Daddy's house...up from the south, with begging mouths

Daddy's house all in her name, he gets none, none of the game
Because he 's seen as lame, and not because of his leg.
Daddy's house, so proud to own, daddy's house, one day alone, daddy;s house, do I drug him secretly?
daddy's house, duplicitously?

She owns the deed, she owns the title, he gets kept, like fed from a bottle in Daddy's house, in daddy's house, in daddy's house...

So, you write nasty, condescending and insulting letters to your friends and then you get upset when they fail to respond in kind. So you go looking for anything and settle on your friends fiction as proof of how much he dislikes you. Yet, the matter remains one of doubt. The ex-friend has no comment. No line of his thought has even been directed to the undeserved slights delivered by intolerant and fearful people. But others claim that said sketches are of you. Funny that your ex-friend spends no time thinking on you, but you fully see yourselves in his sketches, funny too that your other friends see you in the sketches too. I'd be more insulted by what my friends are implying than by the fictions someone else has written. maybe your friends will pass this along to you as well? You must be nuts.

The sad fact is that those who are fake always are revealed. Like a secret life that actually entails cooking for your friend and cleaning her dishes and doing her shopping, but gets characterized as luxurious weekend getaways, a fake life always reveals the hollow inside of the legend. Ugly crones become desirable beauties, failed gamblers become "hardworking and honest men", debts welched on become a choice to live in another place for other reasons. Failure is not an accident, it is planned for with each lie told, each bloated self image cherished and each vengeful thought kept bottled up inside. When lies are the basis for one's self image, one should avoid getting into a pissing contest with an honest man.

[For those who saw themselves in my character sketches for a short story. I love it when art imitates vapid...]

"I would like to do an unsolicited book review on a proposed novella posted on this Facebook page by an appropriately named, apeman. In the first chapter he verbally attacks a woman. far superior to himself , of whom he is obviously fearful.(he might secretly have a crush on her).This woman had over 20 years experience as an independent insurance adjuster and took no crap from weak kneed males who also feared her.The author needs to get his facts and grammar straight. The author spent several years of his time getting a degree at some school in Chicago, where he grew up. Like many degrees these days, rather useless for earning a living. He therefore, should not disparage people who tried to earn a living honestly like contracting, tough at the best of times, when he has never had a meaningfull(sic) job in his life. My advice is to give up writing these thinly veiled assasinations(sic), which you are good at, having done it several times recently and stick to the hobby farm. The book will never sell."

[The sad part is that they are not the characters I was writing about...laughable and vain that you would see yourselves in these sketches. PS, already shopped it around and I have a publisher for the short

story collection. Thanks for the support.]

He was a disc jockey, or had been one, once. He yearned to be a pilot, so he studied and became licensed. But flying is an expensive hobby and a working class young man with heavenly dreams soon learned that his ambitions far exceeded his means. He was a stuccador, a plasterer of walls who fancied himself a contractor, until the jobs he took became a drain on his bank account and his crew left him, taking all the tools he invested in. This failure to consider the course of one's life became his method...

In life one also encounters those who's main joys are found in falsehoods. They imagine themselves to be important people, accomplished people even when they have nothing to show for the years. They take credit for other's work. Those "independent" types who imagine themselves free, while sucking off another for their monetary needs. Itinerant trollops holed up in decaying hotels and bars, those addled by too much drink and drug abuse, those who long to wallow in lives of rich luxury, they who can't comport themselves, those who harbour anger and vent it with each fake compliment they pay. Those damaged children of divorce whom daddy must redeem. Those for whom the passing years have been a disaster, for they have learned nothing of value and their youth has faded. I see their passive aggressions, I see their envy and greed, I see their baggy eyes, I see their droopy bodies, I see through their lies and self-inflated egos as they play out the same games that worked in their ancient youth but now only serve to reveal how vapid they have become. These believers in fantasy, these "centers of attention", these "special people" are as common as dirt these days. Spent, they waste their remaining days obstructing, vilifying and revising histories, trying desperately to lash themselves to someone or something in order to glean the value they never made of and for themselves. You false hostesses, you malignant fraudeurs, you crones and fools still have a day left, a day to recover what you have thrown away. Pay attention and see, see if you can find yourself in the pile of ashes and dust that is your life.

She'd spent many years on the street, many years working hard . It had taken all the best she had to offer and she felt hollow. Man after man had damaged her image of herself and her idea of what men were. She never told her "friends" what she did for a living. Instead she made up stories of an L.A. real estate past, or maybe she had been a wedding planner or maybe owned a yoga school. She enjoyed her work. Married men and lonely guys, "as if there's a difference", didn't need much emotionally and they treated her nice. So when she moved to the tropics, to retire or to get away from her problems, she figured she would be able to pick up the married and lonely old retirees...

"...during his tirade against the ladies in the room, seconded venomously by his mate scowling outside the doorway, he managed to insult and shock them in much the way he accused another of having done. The irony went unnoticed, even when he barged into the room again to drop a type-written rant. After he left, the 3 ladies cleared the room of his negativity, removing the mantle of anger he had draped them with. "Crazy old man, doing such stupid things" lamented the hostess."

They wondered if he realized that he had first eaten the rabbit, then cooked it, then hunted it down...His work was rife with confusing passages, tangents and flashbacks so poorly written that kindness warranted silence. But his insistence that the book receive a review, forced them to read as much as they could, piecing the story together from the poor grammar, syntax and misspellings that formed the body of the work, eventually allocating the manuscript to a drawer where it lay for months before they found it and returned it to him...

In keeping up with the Jones's, it was hard for them to be gracious or truly kind. The jealousy that had always been at the heart of their shared life kept emerging and tarnishing their friendships. Friends were valuable for what material benefits they could offer, but not for the phenomena they actually were. In unguarded moments, she would let slip statements that revealed her ulterior motives. A good friend was one who "had expensive tastes", those who didn't drink the national brand, those who ate imported meats and goods from Europe and Walmart.