The Milk Truck Hauls the Sun Up Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Descending further into faux fatherhood. I'm into the 300s on Dr. Spock's list of talking points, most of which advise me to ignore received wisdom and be sensible. I don't think Dr. Spock knows who he's dealing with. But things are good. Mrs. WTJ is serene and I think I'm slowly becoming a human being again, after a yearlong absence from the planet. As Gore Vidal said of J.D. Salinger: "It is very cold where he lives..."

Stray thought: Listened to a friend's copy of Randy Newman's "Faust" the other night. I have a few of Newman's records but on the whole am not blown away. "Faust" helped me nail down what I dislike about him, and his spiritual successors, such as Graham Parker and Joe Jackson. We all know the world can be a terrible place; we all know that bad things happen to good people; but Newman et al want to be congratulated for pointing that stuff out. It's easy to be mordant and wittily sarcastic if you stop the discussion at that point; but a much more interesting argument lies just beyond it, as does real wisdom.

Philip K. Dick, who I haven't mentioned in an unsconsionably long time, had a great example of this in his autobiographical novel "Valis." Kevin, a friend of the narrator(s), refuses to believe in God because his (Kevin's) cat got smashed by a truck. What did the cat do wrong? Why did it have to die? He goes on with this village-atheist argument until someone gets exasperated and says (I paraphrase): "You know why your cat died? Because it was too fucking stupid to know better than to run into the street."

That, I think, is the proper response to Newman, Parker, Jackson and all the rest of them. Yup, people cheat, murder and hypocritize. You nailed that. So when are you gonna stop pouting and come on up to the grown-up table already?

@ 3:16:00 PM,

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