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April 17, 2008It’s always been you, Lou…Lou who?I THOUGHT YOU’D NEVER ASK.Even though “I tried, Lou, but I failed” helped set the record for my “Best Day Ever,” at more than 100 hits (OK, it was 101), and continued on to the next day and the next, not one person has asked me, Who the hell is Lou? Who’s this Lou guy you can’t stop loving? COULD IT BE POSSIBLEthat every single reader knew that Lou is the dead father of Dick Van Dyke in “Bye, Bye, Birdie”? His mother (Maureen Stapleton, wearing a fur coat and gum-soled shoes) utters the line, addressing Lou while trying to put her head in the oven because she couldn’t raise her son right by herself. “I tried, Lou, but I failed.” And Dick chimes in, “Aw you didn’t, mama, you didn’t!” If I recall right it’s because he’d rather be a songwriter than a chemist, or wants to marry wrong, or some such. They were singing, “What’s the Matter with Kids Today?” The consensus: “Nothing’s the matter with kids today!” My sister Cruella was able to tell her partner Xena exactly where the line came from. But my friend Saand said, people just assumed it was a generic name for whomever I might love, that I could have used Bill. (Haaallo, Bill—I can’t stop loving you!) I USE THAT LINEwhen things don’t go my way. Have you found an apartment yet? I tried, Lou, but I failed (Slavic sigh). Did you get the tickets? I tried, Lou, but I failed. How’d you do on that test? I tried, Lou, but I failed. Did you try to stop loving San Francisco? I tried, Lou—I did!—but I failed. I have a (bad?) habit of sometimes talking/writing in movie references that only Pete Emerson of Bipartisan Café in Portland would pick up on, even if I’m amusing only myself (and him). “Dead dead dying dead” or something like it, for instance, is another line from “A Thousand Clowns,” which I recommend you see on the big screen at the Castro May 1st. It might have been “dying dying dead dying dead” – or another film altogether. Pete? EVER FEEL LIKE SOMEONE’S WATCHING YOU?Maybe it’s not your imagination. It could be your ISP, i.e., I Spy on People.“It’s not paranoia,” says Adam Cohen in the April 5 New York Times, “they really are spying on you.” I might have assumed that our computer use is being tracked in sophisticated subtle ways beyond cookies, which I read are partly named for “fortune cookies” because they are little packets of information, but I never saw it in action until I got access to my WordPress Blog Stats, which monitor how often how many people look at what pieces, what web sites people linked to my column from, what websites are linking to me, what links in my column people are clicking on, and… SEARCH ENGINE TERMSpeople used to find my column. Search engine terms, appearing exactly as people typed them. Which presumably means that every term I, and you, search for is being recorded—somewhere—where and by whom, I don’t know. And there’s nothing you can do about it.Sure enough, my sister just searched “I tried, Lou, but I failed,” and my column was the first result; she clicked on it, and seconds later, both her search term and the post view appeared in my stats. Isn’t that kind of schpooky? Lightning fast transfer of information between computers, servers, computers? I feel a cold chill traveling down my spine, New York cold.Linda of webstreetstudios.com says that:
I tried, Lou, but I failed to research the significance of the IP address, instead got instantly caught in the worldwide web. Jargon galore. Perhaps the glass of René Junot in my left hand as I type with my right is slowing me down. Who the fuck are all these “people seeing these reports”? Even though I’m one of them, I don’t like it. FUNNY PIECE BY ROBERT SOLISa while back about the staying power of his top post, “Sex with Auntie Em.” “I don’t know who or where the people are who love Emily [Morse]. All I know is that a whole lot of someones have been regularly clicking a post I wrote about her in September 2007. I don’t get it. The post wasn’t about sex at all but about career choices. I wondered why educated, highly intelligent and beautiful young women choose careers in the sex business. And yet my simple essay has brought a sustained hit load that today amounts to about a third or more of all visits to my site, which are scant anyway and apparently would disappear entirely if not for Emily.” Also on his greatest hits list is “Vaginal Rejuvenation” and “The Magnification of Male Gear.” MY OWN TOP POSTis “Be Ruthless,” not for its particular strength, but only, I suspect, because I had a couple of websites linking to me that week. It’s about divesting myself of my possessions, and my experience at the Noir Film Fest—hardly red-hot topics. But “Will You Put Those Nipples Away?” is also high on the list, and it has been accessed four times by the search term, “cum out her nose.” Should I know that? Schpooky. If I were the reader who made that search, and was reading this here, I’d feel a little sick right now. But I don’t know who you are, “someone,” I swear!! And nor do I care. But welcome.I’m very surprised by the traffic in my archives, more from web searches, I’d imagine, than people crawling through them looking for buried treasure. But as Kerouac put it, “Somewhere along the line…there’[ll] be visions…everything; somewhere along the line the pearl [will] be handed to [you].” I invite you to explore. VISIONS, “GIRLS,” EVERYTHING,is what I edited out of there. You won’t have many girls handed to you. (Except for the one that branded me h’s “sex columnist”). BLAST FROM CRAZY PASTMy sister also loves the Crane poem, “The Heart,” I quoted last time. I remember she used to like to draw monsters, but I was blown away when after several hours of trying, Lou, to find it and failing, she unearthed an illustration she did of the naked, bestial creature, eating his own heart in the desert, dated 6/30/75. She was 24. That is one chaotic desert–that’s apparently her eye atop the pyramid. Maybe she’s the one who’s watching us. And now I must try, Lou, to sleep.
Good work, Cruella ------------------------------------------------------------ I needn’t eat my own heart out
God help me, Lou, I can't stop loving you copyright Alexandra Jones 2008 |
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