Liquifying Cherophobia
Cherophobia is the fear of happiness. Fortunately, it is a treatable if not curable phobia. I guess I have the condition, but I view it as more of an aversion to buying into happiness than the fear of it. Sort of like counting a Gift Horse’s teeth, certain that your free Pony has a set similar to those of a Great White Shark, and that they will be dripping blood–and not Horse blood, either. Cherophobics suspect good news and are constantly listening for the other Horse shoe to drop.
From what worldly blather that gets through my defenses, there is a disease and/or a phobia designed to explain the less popular facets of the human personality. These range from the extremely dangerous down to the harmless.
I do not explore my mind for whatever diseases it might harbor, but I am a regular pinata of phobias–flying, buried alive, fire–mainly the popular ones that don’t get you locked away. Along with stuff like losing a thumb to a band saw, or an arrow through the head, phobias are self diagnostic. I’m not what you’d call a happy person and everytime something good happens, a demon I call “Buffy Jo” will instantly go after the happy occasion. I’ll be feeling too good and all of a sudden Buffy Jo will bring back an embarrassing or even a painful memory for a visit. I used to fear Buffy Jo, but age has robbed her of her fastball and she’s gotten lazy and predictable, but once in a while she can still rise to lowering the occasion, so I guess she ain’t dead yet.
There has always been one thing I can do about Buffy Jo, but it requires a bit of self destruction to accomplish. She doesn’t hold her liquor well and tends to pass out after three glasses of wine and/or two shots of Tennessee bourbon. Of course subduing Buffy Jo opens the door for the Tippleganger Ghost, who is a veritable wellspring of BIG IDEAS–those which immediately turn to shit the next morning and give Buffy Jo new ammo to use against me–but my personal Tippleganger is getting older, slower, like me and Buffy Jo, and is not enthusiastic about developing fresh material. His timing is off. He will suggest things that I am nowhere near drunk enough to do, thus give me fair warning–Tips thrive on the element of surprise. So the three of us just sit there, not speaking much, other than remember whening a life that used to be more entertaining.
Still, this sort of thing creates a stockpile of items to draw from when writing. Too often, writers put on the rose-colored glasses and give the Yore virtues not present at the time. When my mind returns to the tenement we lived in when I was in first grade, I do recall some of the good times, but I also remember the way the sour stink of mildew; men who resembled Richard Speck; commodities; a dead Dog that lay in in the alley for a week, and my eight-year-old brother on an ambulance gurney, at three AM, out of his mind with fever and pneumonia, and I recall how nice it was to have one less person in the apartment for a couple of weeks as he lay in the hospital–too young to feel guilty about that until Buffy Jo found it. No, there are good old times but not good old days. If everything was so hunky dory back then, how come the changes? And we have other writers who lash out at a past they were not a part of. Of course it is fine to go back in history, but I would rather see a much more objective hand applied than what I often see in submissions.
The good news is if you have a legion of what’s euphemistically called “mental issues” nowadays, you have plenty to write about. When you dig into them, you soon discover that the shelves of our libraries are an insane asylum. Mad women and men just trying to make sense of the world they did not sign up for. The best advice I have for you is to avoid writers who claim to be “normal,” because they are the craziest of all.
Looking back, I see that I might have just placed myself in an awkward position. I have a group of writers to tout and introduce, but I preface them with something that more than infers writers are nutjobs. I apologize if that offends some of you. And I beseech you to consider the source.
Sane Summer Stories
We have another group of six this week because newcomer Zary Fekete was featured on the Sunday Whatever with Mushroom Searching. For such a short work the multi-layered meanings and images are quite striking.
LS friend Michael Bloor is the king of the Sunday features now, because he is the first to cover all the categories. But this week he appeared with his eleventh regular weekly piece The Ex-Poet. The MC gets a fine surprise and perhaps a reminder that there really isn’t such a thing as an ex- or even dead poet as long as the words survive. I encourage those who have yet to do so, please check out Michael’s wonderful writing voice. You always know it is him after just a couple of looks.
The Chicken Cutlet Bra is Lisa Shimotakahara second appearance on the site. Personally, I had a quick case of “What the fu–” when I first saw this, but it worked its charm on me and was an easy winner. Lisa’s first story, the equally effective The Year of 13 has a completely different tone, which already shows her excellent range after just two pieces.
The mythology of blues and crossroads and demons and hard times made a visit on Wednesday with John Vander’s site debut Boneyard Blues. Even the song snippets that I assume were written by the author stand out with originality in an area much visited but not always as well as it was here.
The haunting L’amore di una Madre by Claire M. Welton could have gone so easily wrong, but this work is a testament to taste and restraint. Although this one has a harrowing depth of loss and doom to it, the tale does not abandon all hope and holds up to multiple readings. The MC Margaret is as fine a character you’d want to meet.
The week closed with our fourth debut writer, Charlie Sutphin. 11:11. It’s an amazing unstuck in time piece in which the future influences the past. Or so it felt to me. When this sort of thing is done correctly it is almost impossible to describe, like trying to grab handfuls of fog–and yet it is substantial.
Business
There they are, six ways to rid yourself of your own version of Buffy Jo.
Like most things in life our Sunday Feature is constantly in flux. And although we will continue to publish all four categories, there are only two that can be filled with certainty, the Sunday Whoever, which is our interview questionnaire and the Rerun.
I stopped counting how many reruns I have put together at a hundred and fifty, and I hit that mark a long time ago. And last year I got a bit fed up when two people snapped at me in their replies to my questions. I do not take that sort of thing well, but I kept my tongue. So I was determined to take my rerun ball and go home. But after so many months away, I find that I can produce them once again. And if what happened before occurs again, trust me my tongue will have plenty to say.
In the future, we will alternate reruns and interviews on a weekly basis, but when there is either an Auld Author or a piece that qualifies as a Sunday Special, we will preempt regular programming and run the special. Those two are infrequent topics. There is never enough of either to rely on for a regular slot in our every day schedule, and we are loath to have dead air (that’s twice I have used a broadcasting analogy, but it is what fits best).
So, when you see an out of the blue email from us, you can be reasonably certain that it’s either the questionnaire or rerun questions. Which spawns a new list.
Ten More Rejected Author Questions
- Do you have body parts that trigger the metal detector at the airport?
- Who’s the ginchiest: Ghengis Khan or Josef Stalin?
- Do you believe that one spouse choosing You Light Up My Life to be played at the wedding is grounds for an immediate annulment?
- If your boss were to emerge from the restroom with a long toilet paper streamer stuck to his/her shoe, would you say anything or let him/her see it on YouTube first?
- Is there a copy of Dogs Playing Poker in your house?
- How many historic heads can you name that were at one time displayed on London bridge?
- Which current royal would you like to be a correct answer to the previous question?
- What would your Romance Author nom de plume be?
- Cats: Just plain crazy or biding their time before launching the final offensive?
- Up to you….
Hold the presses. We have some more to share, courtesy of Hugh:
Would you ban cold showers?
Is there anything in the world that isn’t sexual?
Toilets – Functional or erotic?
Prompt – How could you be seduced in a marrow farm?
Pans – A few pots or a sexuality?
Do you consider yourself a big perv or is everyone else simply prudish like mother Teresa?
Mother Teresa, would you?
As you may have deduced Hugh was on a subject at the time.
Leila
literally stories 
Hi Leila,
Excellent as always.
I was just thinking, there is a toast I adapt each New Year…Adapt is the fancy term for ‘Depending how drunk I am’.
It goes something like – ‘Thank fuck that’s over, but what the fuck is coming now?’ – I reckon Buffy Jo could say that with abandon!!
Regarding the whispering Tips – I realised many moons ago that if something seems like a good idea when pished, it never is!
And thanks for adding in those questions. To clear matters up, I’m ghost writing the popes autobiography.
Hugh
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Hello Hugh
You are correct. No drunken Big Idea I have had has ever worked out. Tried drinking and writing at the same time once, after hearing that was how some writers like Bukowski did it, but I became far more interested in the booze and failed to produce a single page.
Good luck with Francis the Talking Pope.
Leila
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Hi Guys (non-gender specific guys):
No. Uncle Joe. Hell yes. What’s a Boss? Nope. None. Royals are an anachronism best wiped from the planet. Trixie LaBump. Simple: Evil.
No, I am not a shower cop. Yes: A Platypus. Functional, unless that’s your thing. If so, and the adults present say “Yes,”, have at it with my blessings. So many ways. Pans… sensing a theme here. Everyone is a big perv. Nah, couldn’t go there.
Ha! I love tests!
m
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Hello and thank you Marco
Those are some very interesting, entertaining answers. Trixie LaBump might flourish at Harlequin!
Leila
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Hi Leila,
Me again – I was thinking about the Poker Dogs Print. There was an old Urban Myth years back regarding a picture of a wee boy. (I think this may have only been amongst us mad Brits!)- You had to have the wee girl as well on your wall or the wee boy would start a fire.
Now all urban myths have an element of truth in them so please consider these facts. If you had two pictures, then they would be hung equidistant on one wall or another. If you only had one, the wee boy for example, you were more likely to hang this above the fireplace (Real fire) on your wall-boarding. I think that was banned early 1980’s. If you can ever access any, normally came in 8’x4′ sheets and made the best kindling ever for a real fire. You could fucking light it with an ice-cream!
…Can you see where I am going with this? Wee boy picture on something that was more flammable than Rocket Fuel, right above a real fire.
Man we were fucking stupid in those days!!!
Hugh
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I have heard of that! Those wide eyed children cannot be trusted.
Leila
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Hi Leila,
I think the wee fucker was crying – Either that or he had smoke in his eyes.
Awww, I just listened to The Platters early doors. Those who know state that ‘The Everley Brothers’ were the best harmony group ever – I would always argue that with ‘The Platters’!
Hugh
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Village of the damned where everybody knows your name and your shame.
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All the motowners were great at harmony. Giants walked back then because those were live recordings.
Leila
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Late very good Marvin Gaye “Got To Give It Up” is a a groove.
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Yes – the Crying Boy – there are books about that little sod as well. the dogs playing poker and I think there is one with them playing pool – they raise a cynical smile at the least but the crying boy is, in my opinion, the most miserable painting you could wish to see and why anyone would put it in their house defeats me. Great post Leila and I’m glad you are managing to keep Buffy Jo and the Tips under some sort of control. I also tried the writing while drunk thing but I kept missing the keyboard. dd
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Thank you Diane
The missing the keyboard and what did make it proved to me that I am not a drunken poet. Forgot the pool playing Dogs!
Leila
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Platters and Everlys both good. Suggest vastly underrated tear jerker B sides of the hits – “I Wonder If I Care (pronounced keer) As Much As I Did Before” and “Maybe Tomorrow”.
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Good post with much insight spear-tipped with sharp wit. I’d say Stalin was even worse than Ghengis but have nothing to back that up with. Another question: Which British royal not named Harry is most likely to marry which former American celebrity not named Megan? No fair peaking into the future or consulting a tippleganger.
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Hello and thank you David
That question is dangerous. Sounds like a bad knock knock joke!
Leila
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On at least a percent of the then human population Ghengis is the greater killer. I saw this on the internet so it must be true – he increased the forests by turning cities into wasteland followed by trees.
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-Knock, knock.
-Who’s there?
-The British monarchy.
-Why?
I have more set in Paris but I might get into a wee bit of trouble!
I don’t want a kick off of harry and his Jack-Boots.
Hugh
Ah fuck it!!! He has mental health issues due to his parents – Who the fuck hasn’t!!!!!
….My knighthood is well and truly fucked!!!
The best knock-knock joke ever is.
Knock knock.
Whose there?
Ah.
Ah who?
Werewolves In London.
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Me again – My mother certainly suffered from Cherophobia – Mind you she was from the north of England so
If you were laughing – It would end in tears
Sing before breakfast cry before supper
Don’t get too excited it’ll go wrong
Don’t tell anyone you like something (new dress – jewelry) you’ll lose it.
there were so many of these things and it took me a long time to realise most of them were just rhymes to depress.
Knife on the floor a man at the door (this would of course be a debt collector or a policeman)
Left to leave – right to receive (if you had an itchy palm and it related to money.
and itchy nose meant you were going to have a row
It’s not surprising everyone was dour and depressed.
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My heartbreaks are vivid, my triumphs – oh that’s right, what triumphs?
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No one can say “Well, isn’t that nice” and make a daughter clench her teeth to the point of turning them to dust more efficiently than Dear Old Mom.
Leila
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Hi Diane.
Sadly a lot of those resonate.
And even sadder – I still live my life to them!!
Hugh
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In a spirit of openness – so do I and I don’t put new shoes on the table and go into a meltdown if someone does. I have to salute magpies and don’t even think about spilling salt ha that was on my dad he used to say. ‘b’at salt ‘b’at brass ( if you are without salt, you will be without money. Though I wonder if it should have been the other way round. Oh that makes me think of other daft sayings. ‘let your jock stop your jabber’ (stop talking at the table – we were expected to be quiet until we had finished eating). ‘Tables were made for joints of meat’ This delivered with a slap mostly to my brother who used to rest his elbows on the table. It’s a wonder we survived it all.
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Still ignoring the classic spirit animal and favorite color.
When did you know you weren’t a writer or a poet?
Did Cindy or Ken turn you down for the prom?
Are you bigger than a breadbox?
Can you change a flat tire? Does your car have a spare tire? Does your body have a spare tire.
I’ll spare you any more, but if interested send a self addressed something.
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Hello and thank you Doug
Currently out grocery shopping, but your Marvin Gaye comment made me think about the gone way too soon Tammy Terrell.
Leila
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Good post. The Buffy Jo Painful Memory Vault opens up far too frequently. for my comfort. Suggested Rejected Author Question: can you play Chopin’s Funeral March with your big toe on the bath taps? (speaking for myself, can’t but I’ll keep trying)
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Thank you Mick,
Ah the classic toe marches! Chopin is my of yore composer. Especially the nocturnes.
Leila
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Editor who is mostly Polish and plays the clarinet is a Chopin (pronounced chopin) fan. After listening to one of his big hits, I recognized that Barry Manilow used it for the pop tune “Could This Be The Magic”. Everything old is blah blah.
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