HOW DO YOU DEFINE POLITICS?

     I came to writing rather late in life. I had always wanted to write, but the seed matured slowly. In the late 1990s I read a book I had heard about on Fresh Air With Terri Gross, who has introduced me to a few wonderful writers. The author she introduced to me at that time was pen-named, F X Toole, a taxi driver, boxing trainer, and "cut-man", who at 70 wrote a book of short stories titled, Rope Burns. One of those short stories was Million Dollar Baby, which Clint Eastwood optioned as the movie of that name. Toole did not live to see his story on the big screen. Let me be clear. I am not a boxing fan. I grew up admiring Mohammed Ali, but not for his prowess in the ring. Still, the stories Toole wrote stirred something in me. Over the next decade I tried to write my own stories which ended up in the recycling bin. Around 2007, I took a writing class at Chemekata and the first shoots of inspiration emerged. 

     My style is influencerd by authors I have read all of my life. Sports writers like George Plimpton, novelists like Carl Hyacinth, Hunter S Thompson, John Steinbeck, James Michener, humorists like Mark Twain, and Will Rogers, they are a few of many influencers. Into this creative stew are stand-up humorists from Lenny Bruce and Mort Saul, The Smothers Brothers, George Carlin, to the present day TV humorists. As you might expect, politics is heavily represented in this list, for some too heavily. My response is a thing about humor that, while I cannot attribute it, has stuck with me for a very long time: "humor should oppress the comfortable and comfort the oppressed". I am not a member of the comfortable class so I cannot feel the pain of such oppression, but try as I might, it's not funny if you switch it around.

     Oklahoma gave our culture the great "Prairie Populist" Will Rogers. An irony since today it seems like a very humorless place. Rogers was taken from us too early, he lived into his 50s, documenting the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl and the politics of that era, in a state that had been heavily affected. As a member of the Cherokee Nation, he also had a unique perspective on the Oklahoma State nickname, The Sooners. One of the great pieces of wisdom attributed to Will Rogers is, "sometimes you learn from reading, sometimes you learn from observation, and sometimes you learn from pissing on the electric fence". A side note: that electric fence was not possible in Oklahoma until after the Rural Electrification Act of the New Deal.

     While I could argue that I have learned from all three sources, it goes without saying that I seem to gravitate to the pissing on the fence option. I think it's because, within my aging body there exists a kid on his grandpa's farm taking his first outside pee. Writing, or reading, or joking about politics or religion is that electrified fence for us. Those who are made uncomfortable by our remarks are inclined to oppress our ability to communicate our thoughts. Some of us are inclined to be cautious about stirring that political stew, the great authors that remain in my memory are those that were unafraid of such action. In Roughing It, Mark Twain wrote about arriving in Golden Colorado as a young man to work on his brother's paper. "It was a place of sin, loose women, and gambling. It was not a place for a young Presbyterian, and I did not long remain one". Golden Colorado today, a base of a Christian mega church, and the USAF Academy would not be pleased to hear that quote, but we learn from our past. Sometimes.

     What is meant by political, and at what point does something become "too political"? Most of us have some familiarity with Melville's Moby Dick. Some of you might have read Billy Budd and understood the overt political nature of that story, but few would find Moby Dick more than a stirring adventure. But is it? Is it just that? Ishmael announces himself in the first sentence, "They call me Ishmael". He establishes himself as having a troubled life to this point and sets off to try a life at sea. Into his cheap lodgings walks Queegeg, a son of a chieftain of his tribe, and an experienced harpoonist on whaling ships. They strike up an acquaintance and Ishmael is taken under this noble savages wing. Despite a warning from a harbor soothsayer, they ship aboard the Pequod and sign their names under the gaze of the Quaker owners and the stern captain Ahab. One could assume that Ahab, a son of Quakerism, was the savage noble. He is, while answering to God and the owners, God on his ship. He is however a troubled God, carrying a grudge for the white whale that dismasted his leg and left him with a whalebone substitute. Slowly, the story reveals that Ahab has kept a graph of Moby Dick's sightings, and the time of year he appears. When he reaches the area where Moby Dick is suspected he has the Pequod change its course from a pod of whales, to track the whale that animates his hatred. In the course of that pursuit, they run across another whaler who has lost some of its crew, including the captains son, to that very whale. The captain begs Ahab to join the search for his crew but Ahab declines, a violation of an unwritten mariners code enshrined into maritime law in this day. Queequeg, while consulting the bones has seen his death so he asks the ships carpenter to make him a casket, being specific as to its characteristics. Eventually the leviathan is engaged, after an extended chase he turns on the Pequod and rams it several times before it sinks into the ocean. The only survivor is Ishmael and he finds in the floating detritus Queeqeg's casket. Clinging to this coffin that saves him from death, he is rescued by the grieving captain whom Ahab had denied to help in searching for it's orphans. Those shipmates were not found, but Ishmael is adopted into the new crew. 

     While not outwardly political or hostile to religion, Moby Dick examines political and religious concepts still discussed today-racial differences, social castes, blind obedience to unyielding authority, even extending a helping hand to others, no matter if it costs you delay. Some are insulted when being forced to re-examine these concepts that they have become comfortable ignoring. I am sorry. Truly sorry. But I believe in speaking the truth to power, especially when that power oppresses us. I hope never to see that young boy within me become afraid to piss on the electric fence. And if more people were willing to piss on that fence, we might succeed in shorting it out.