Author: wdfyfe

Before WD called himself a writer, he worked at a number of different jobs from stacking lumber to interior design. He studied English at UBC and creative writing at ASU where one of his teachers, Rita Dove, taught him the importance of the tale. He has written for radio, magazines and newspapers, but never television. He’s published both fiction and nonfiction in Great Britain and the US. He reads French passably and speaks enough Spanish to get from A to B and find the toilet. He has interviewed John Cleese, Peter Ustinov, Margaret Drabble, Kenneth Branagh and enough other famous people to make him a hopeless name dropper. His not-so-secret passions are history and trivia, and he has never lost a game of Trivial Pursuit — although he did come 4th one drunken Quiz Night at the Uxbridge in Notting Hill. He lives on the Pacific Ocean, although, not close enough to see, so he spends his days looking at a computer screen. It’s a wonderful life and he has only one regret: he can’t type faster.

Selfies — Snapshots Of Who We Are

selfie
My Only Selfie

Although not all of us are addicted to taking endless self portraits, the Selfie is as common in our society as the codpiece once was in the Elizabethan world.  It’s our public face in Cyberspace.  It tells the world what we think of ourselves.  We do it to denote major events in our lives, trivial occurrences and pure boredom.  It’s the one thing we can say when we have nothing to say.  However, the selfie also offers some serious insights into our contemporary culture.

One — The selfie is documented proof that there’s a ton of people on this planet who actually believe they’re creative, imaginative and witty.  Unfortunately, the selfie is a doubled-edged sword — it also proves they’re not.  Perhaps the Duckface, the Rocker Devil Horns or the Gangsta Thug Crotch were brilliant and unique the first 50 million times they were done, but since then?  Not so much.  Likewise, nobody’s fooled by Photoshopped boobs anymore and half-naked photos in the toilet mirror aren’t actually sexy.  Think about it — it’s where you go to poop!  Oh, and BTW, holding up or kicking down the Leaning Tower of Pisa has been done to death.  For God’s sake!  Give it a rest!

Two — Like the Elizabethan codpiece, selfies are an In-Your-Face demonstration of just how bloated our egos have become.  Our Shakespearean ancestors thought strapping on an enormous strap-on was telling the world they were cool, trending,  popular and sexy.  The contemporary selfie works the same way.  Yes, it’s impossible to ignore, but there’s nothing particularly appealing about it, either.  There isn’t a whole lot of difference between a 16th century dandy striding around wearing the latest in See-My-Dick fashions and a 21st century millennial posting endless “See me, Seeee Meee, SEE ME!” photos of themselves at the bakery, waiting for a bus or eating a hot dog.  In fact, it takes exactly the same amount of over-inflated ego to think anybody even cares.  Look, there are seven billion people in this world, and the only reason the vast majority of them even look at selfies anymore is to find the hilarious ones.

And finally:

Three — The selfie, by its very name, indicates you have no friends — or at least no friends who like you enough to take your photograph.  How’s that for an ego killer?

Fiction VI

The Ballad of Lisa and Lacey (Part VI)
(for Part V click here)

            The telephone rang on Wednesday afternoon.  It woke Lacey and before she was conscious enough to ignore it, she picked it up and said hello.

“Hi, Lace.  This is Lisa.” There was a giggle, “Remember me?”

Foggy with sleep and fooled by her dreams, Lacey sank her head back into the pillow, relieved.

“Oh, Lis.  Where’ve you been?  I was so worried.”

There was a second of silence.

“Wisconsin?” Lisa questioned.

Lacey didn’t understand and there was more silence.

“Are you alright, Lace?  Did I call at a bad time?”

lisa and lacey1

“Yeah — uh.  No, I’m  good.  No — um — I must have fallen asleep.  I — uh — What time is it?”

“Lace.  It’s the middle of the afternoon.”

Lace?  Nobody called her Lace.  Lisa called her Lace.  Lisa?  Lisa!

“Lisa?”

“Just so. Surprised?”

Lacey was surprised.  She sat up on the sofa, closed her eyes tight, yawned and stretched her free arm out in front of her, fingers wide.

“What are you doing?  Where are you?”

“I’m at home, but I’m coming to see you — tomorrow.  I’ve got some people I need to meet and some papers I have to sign, so I’m going to fly in, in the morning.  I’ll be busy all day but we can have dinner at my hotel.  Okay?  Say, seven?”

Lacey had talked to Lisa so many times in the last few months: in the shower, on the bus, at work, slowly falling asleep.  She had said so many things to her, but now all she could manage was:

“Yeah, that’s good.  Yeah.  Seven.”

“You remember the hotel?”

“Uh huh — yeah, no problem.”

“Okay, it’ll be great.  You can tell me all your good stories and we’ll drink wine and have that chocolate — uh — chocolate, whatever we had last time.  I’m at work, Lace.  I have to go, but I’ll see you tomorrow.  Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, go back to sleep.  See you tomorrow.  Bye.”

“Bye, Lis.” But the phone was already dead.

Lacey didn’t remember what happened next — it was so long ago.  But the ache was real — she could remember that — and the excitement and the hurt at the very bottom of her belly and how all the anger dissolved away like sugar in the rain when she saw Lisa sitting in the restaurant.  She tried to appear casual.  She stopped and looked deliberately where Lisa wasn’t, but Lisa was already out of her chair, the purpose of her heels sounding on the wooden floor.  When Lacey turned her head back, Lisa was there and she had her hands on Lacey’s shoulders.  She pulled her in like a plush toy.

“Oh, I’ve missed you.  I’ve missed you.  I’ve missed you.” Lisa said, running all the words together.

Lacey knew the voice and the feel, but it was the smell of Lisa’s hair and her makeup that made Lacey cry.  She swallowed as Lisa stepped back and ran her hands down Lacey’s arms to hold her in place.

“You let your hair grow.  I love it.  Come,” Lisa said, turning and pulling Lacey along, “I’ve got the same table we had last time.”

The server was already there, holding the chair out for her.  Lacey stopped and carefully touched the tears out of the corner of her eye and then sat down.

“I’ve ordered Cote du Rhone something or other.  Can you remember what we drank on the river?  Are you hungry?  No? Right, we’ll look at the menus later.  Let’s try the wine and talk for a minute,” Lisa said, sitting down, pushing the menus aside and pointing at Lacey’s glass — all in one motion.  The server immediately poured wine for Lacey.

“Pick it up.  Pick it up.” Lisa reached across with her wine glass. There was a loud “cling” as the two women misjudged the distance between them and the glasses collided.  A couple of people turned their heads to the sound.

“I’m so excited to see you.” Lisa sipped her wine, “How are you?  You sounded terrible over the phone.  I thought I was going to have to come and pick up the pieces.”

“I’m fine, Lis.”

And Lacey knew she was going to Rome.

Leisure — The First 40,000 Years

leisureForget the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, The Age of Enlightenment, The Space Age and even The Post-Industrial Age: all human history can be divided into two distinct periods — The Age of Work and the Age of Leisure.  Our great-great-great-grandparents lived in the Age of Work; we live in The Age of Leisure.  And that, in a nutshell, is why Western Society is speeding towards the Abyss of Hell like a runaway stagecoach full of passengers shouting “WTF happened?”

Let me explain.

Give or take a day or two, human history is really only about 40,000 years long.  (Before that, it’s kinda iffy — unless you’re specifically trained to spot the difference between a stone used as an axe and an axe made out of a stone.  Even mega-smart anthropologists argue about that one.)  Anyway, for the first 39,750 years of understandable history humans worked … dawn to dusk, every day … like … endlessly.  That’s what they did and they did it because there was only one alternative.  Oops, sorry: you’re dead.  They had a purpose — work your ass off and improve your lot in life, or face the alternative.  Things was simple in those days.

Then, about 250 years ago, a guy by the name of James Watt showed up.  History tells us that Watt invented the steam engine.  (He didn’t actually, but that’s a different tale.)  What history doesn’t tell us is that Watt, by setting off the Industrial Revolution, inadvertently created leisure.

There are all kinds of myths about the brutality of the Industrial Revolution, but the reality is machines started doing our work for us.  People, therefore, didn’t have to spend all their waking hours just trying to survive anymore.  They started doing other things — leisure activities.  (It’s no coincidence that book, magazine and newspaper sales went through the stratosphere in the 19th century.)  Slowly at first, but steadily, leisure (an unknown term before 1836) became an essential component of our modern world.  But now — in the 21st century — it has turned into a monster.

We spend millions on young people who kick, hit and throw a variety of balls around — and billions more to watch them do it.  We spend millions on people who sing to us, tells us stories or tell us what to wear.  We spend so much money on the film industry and spend so much time watching television that even Stephen Hawking can’t imagine the numbers.  We have created celebrities who literally have no redeeming qualities; they just exist, and we worship them.  We spend more time and energy playing video games than we do deciding who will govern us.  My God!  Has our world gone crazy?

For the vast majority of human history, leisure was an occasional activity that took us away from the soul-eating brutality of endless toil.  However, these days, leisure has become the reason we exist, and we’re so addicted to relentless entertainment we can’t see beyond binge-watching Full House reruns.

See you at the abyss!