Broken Sparrows And Wild Duct Tape

Whatever possesses a body to dream up a name for the title of anything? The answer is as varied as the number of souls who are still respiring blue-faced on this planet’s variegated greenhouse gases. (As an inveterate smoker I find that notion somewhat amusing…”Ugh!”, you gasp, the myth of another author’s supposed perfection irretrievably dashed. Well, for all you folks who do not know, there are three fingers pointing back when you point the one at a lesser-than, and you may rest assured you will one day die of fat or drink or sex, or any other number of “personal preferences”.)
       Rather than slog needlessly through a long and tiresome list of suppositions, most of which the reader is perfectly capable of enumerating himself, I will simply cut to the chase and spell it out. First and foremost, one has to have the temerity to think that the something “whatever” is of some import, like the name of a child or a book title. Nolo contendere. Broken Sparrows And Wild Duct Tape came to me in two parts, both symbolic.
       (Yes, feminists. I used the masculine reflexive! So, pull up your big girl panties and either get over or used to it. I am doing the writing here, and there is a certain economy to it, which is why I also use contractions. A real bargain for those who are afflicted with word-counting fetishes!...I also coin words, if the spirit moves me– the more erudite reader will almost immediately realize this.)
       A sparrow is a nondescript ave of diminutive stature– no doubt; it is also, by virtue of it size, one of the frailer of fowls, and so evokes a certain sense of sympathy from some of the more empathetic of us higher-ups in the food chain. But before you pull out your hankies, let’s home in on the little fellow a bit further. Nature, with its indisputable genius for compensation, has also endowed the sparrow with a few weapons of its own. Few birds are quicker, as acrobatic, more intelligent, and none is as aggressive ounce for ounce. Who among us hasn’t glanced up in awe to see an enraged sparrow literally flying circles and doing cartwheels around a besieged crow, or a hawk or an eagle? Winged carrion devotees and taloned assassins appear to be and are indeed feckless under the onslaught of such a fearless aerial gymnast on a mission. So, while the sparrow has its niche in the scheme of things– be it ever so humble, it is also endowed and designed for maximum survivability. That said, a sparrow with a broken wing is, pardon the expression, a horse of quite another color. No amount of celerity, maneuverability, guile, or blind courage can offset misfortunate on such a scale. A sparrow with a broken wing is truly a hapless cripple and very much knee-deep in the last of its hourglass sand. Now, this would be yours truly. And this would also be the reader, to one extent or another, as well as everyone else who has ever lived or is still alive. No one, says the bard, escapes the “slings and arrows”, not one of us. Rightly said. Hence, we have the first part of the title and hopefully your empathy, please?...You will, in return, hopefully reap some benefit from what follows as delineated in my own unique and inimitable perspective, if I may indulge in such a presumption.
       But we are not finished yet. The title of this exposition has another half, as yet to be explained. Being reared by parents who were the product of the Great Depression, certain of their values were naturally ingrained in me. Too many to mention (and all good at least in intention), the operative ones I am concerned with here have bourgeois, blue-collar names like “self-reliance”, “independence”, “honesty”, “integrity”, “work ethic”, and so on. Examined more closely, as before, I could just as easily include more patchwork clichés, such as “truth”, “justice”, “apple pie” and “the American way”– and why not throw “Superman” into the mix?– because, you see, I am a “crippled sparrow”, who has tried most of his life to “mend” himself with little more than duct tape, and the result, while stupendous at least on one level, has, by and large, been anything but an unqualified success. Translation: where you and probably the vast majority of my fellow countrymen see goodness and light, I, on the other hand, see little more than an unadulterated heap of fetid horseshit.
       Do I have your attention yet?...
       Now, before you leap “great bounds with the greatest of ease” to render any perfunctory judgments about what is to follow, as we of so-little-patience Americans are wont to do in the hustle and bustle and over-compartmentalization of our O, so important little lives, allow me to inform you that what I am challenging you to read will be nothing resembling the nonsensical bombast of a politico. Quite the contrary. While Plato my have said that everything we do is “political”, it does not follow that what a person does is so intended, and the essays herein most assuredly are not; though, as you should by now suspect, I will not hesitate to position myself as I see fit and let the chips fall where they may. Second translation: I take no prisoners. (What else is an “essay”, anyway? And who the hell said Plato was right?) Inside this jacket you will find anything and everything from the absurd to the profound. So, you heavy-hitting intellectuals may be assured of having some “meat” on your plate; the rest of you “unfortunates” will just have to settle for an abundance of contemporary humor and razor-sharp satire, interspersed with a healthy dose of admittedly mindless commentary. (Pity you? Pity me!...I have to write this crap!) For those of you who require the distinction of regarding yourselves as “mature adults”, I humbly beg your consent to submit to the succeeding, or at least try. This is not cheap television, so your remotes will be of no use to you for the duration of this “flight”. (“Whew!” some of you may exclaim, “…At least he doesn’t intend to feel me up in the name of national security!” In that same vein, others of you may well feel some small measure of disappointment at not being subjected to a thorough “pat-down”…Go figure. It takes all kinds of driver’s to fill the freeways.) It is instead something I meekly regard as becoming a rarity in this or any other culture nowadays: a book worth reading. And, like any other book you who may find that it isn’t all it’s “cracked up” (in deference to my more liberal audience) to be, you will still have the option of putting it down and walking away. You could have fared no worse by frittering away two hours and twenty bucks watching a B-rated rerun in high density.
       Finally, a word or two about the title of my introductory remarks: I like it– a lot.
       Keep reading. More will be revealed, I promise.