From the webmaster: In another dip into the vast and slightly musty smelling Troutstream archives, we present this conversation with O.L.P. from Issue #47 of the printed version of Troutstream, mailed to friends and foes of DTP in May 1993. It contains eerily, spookily, goofily clairvoyant references to the impeachment of President Clinton.
They're ThereThere's no there there. Their there isn't... isn't... there.
There there. You don't have to tell me. Words are weird, wired in sound, nuance, truance, wound tightly in wondrous trickle down melancholia. Words are also where it's at when everything else is absent. If you can't fix a leaky faucet, maybe you can be a writer. If you can't operate a fork lift, go ahead, be a writer. If you've run out of just about anything else to try and do, any follicle of pursuit that borderline resembles a VERIFIABLE mode of existence, consider existing on word mode only. Try it. You'll wonder too.
Truth is, O.L. told us. Pulseloose, that is. Rrrr-ight. Guy rode in on a 727 from Jacksonville, penetrating right into the snow belt. Earlier this year, on a Thursday, around late February. Unannounced. Unexpected. Unbelievable, actually.
Intrigued if not infatuated, involved yet obscure, Troutstream's Bored of Predators met with Pulseloose near the home of Michigan's famed Doctor Jack Kervorkian to discuss issues both prominent and germane, questions any Troutstream reader would ask were they or any of you to have the chance, let alone the moxie, to go mano-a-mano with this mano, not to mention have the slightest clue, mano, how anyone could be so economically skewed as to print and literally promulgate, mano, a private (?) not hysterical newsletter.
As always, Pulseloose's answers will either shock you or leave you wishing you had a few dollars in your pocket. Whatever the case, here are excerpts from our encounter, presented verbatim unless otherwise bloated. Remember: everything O.L. Pulseloose says is immediately copywritten and thereby protected by 19th Amendment rights, which imply servitude, rectification and an obtuse gentility unusual but not unknown to various forms of poultry.
Stream: What's going on in Jacksonville?
O.L.: Don't ask me. I barely left the airport.
Stream: You mean, you stayed at the airport the entire time?
O.L.: No, I mean, when I left, I didn't have any clothes on.
Stream: Isn't that illegal?
O.L.: Not in Florida. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. Ultimately, nothing matters, not even matter itself. Isn't this supposed to be a serious interview? As usual in your insipid newsletter, I can't tell who's on first.
Stream: Excuse us. Who's on second. That's Alex Haley on first.
O.L.: Either I'm crazy or this must be some kind of supercilious exercise in word flow -- another pathetic reason for a bunch of spiritually bankrupt individuals to have a little fun at my expense. I have half a mind to walk out of here right now ... except for my exemplary curiosity about this little machine you have here on the table. What is this damn thing?
Stream: It's a tape recorder. They gave it to us at The Times Leader. It's guaranteed through the next century. Guaranteed not to disintegrate, that is.
O.L.: I've never seen one of these things. Does it run on electricity?
Steam: No. This cord actually runs down here through the floor to China.
O.L.: The country?
Stream: No, the dishware.
O.L.: Could you soften up the questioning a little bit?
Stream: Critics contend your creative style continues to be way too byzantine for the average reader, let alone discriminating ones. What's your response?
O.L.: I've tried. To be simple. With my writing. It is difficult. You see, every morning I take a pill called "B Complex." It just seems to fall apart from there. (There there). What would you do?
Stream: We'd probably read some books on the subject. Maybe switch to non alcoholic beer.
O.L.: A Sharp's idea.
Stream: What's your favorite color? Don't say blue.
O.L. It seems to me if you really want to add value to this newsletter you should try a little harder than that. The average person isn't going to care whether I favor green over red, maroon over azure, eggs over easy. The simplicity of your question reveals a deeper malaise, if you will, an obvious struggle between one man's needs and another's capabilities of fulfilling those means, if you won't. I learned early in life when the forces of evil face the countervailing forces of good, in almost every incident, the forces of righteousness will indeed overcome the ravages of spiritual neglect visited upon us by Newt Gingrich, Ollie North, Bob Dole and the entire membership of the National Rifle Association, none of whom, incidentally, are readers of this newsletter.
Stream: Aren't you a big fan of Elizabeth Dole?
O.L.: I am... and I'm not. I hope that doesn't confuse you.
Stream: No, you're perfectly oblique. What's the most amazing thing you've seen in recent days, O.L. Pulseloose?
O.L.: They closed a landfill recently after I discarded an old pair of black socks. I realize that may have been pure coincidence. I don't rule anything out, especially stealing ideas.
Stream: You shouldn't steal.
O.L.: Well, you shouldn't preach.
Stream: Okay, though. Two Wongs don't make a White. And you shouldn't answer a question with another question, even if the first question would better have been posed as a statement or even a gesture.
O.L.: Listen, you're in my igloo, so to speak, and as long as you're here and they're there, there isn't any reason for their ancestors to creep into this discussion until they're there and we're here, white?
Stream: Wong.
O.L.: Okay, then. Let's try this. I'll ask the questions and all of you do your best to come up with the answers. That'll give me a moment to figure all this out and think some more about exactly where I want to part my hair.
Stream: Sounds good to me (us). Let 'em rip.
O.L: Talk to the readers for a few minutes about Rush Limbaugh.
Stream: That's not a question, it's reason to celebrate. Just a little rephrasing and it could be a question. Certainly Limbaugh himself represents a major threat to the finer instincts of the American people. The mere fact we're talking about him in this context brings more dignity to his crass crusade than he -- or it -- deserve. Alas, we must take on the beasts as they appear, be they ever so crude.
O.L.: You're starting to sound like me.
Stream: We'd just as soon avoid that. On Limbaugh, then... a cretin, for certain. Flirtin' with revolt. Incendiary idiocy. Infantile ideology. Man is on nationally syndicated radio. Mid-day timeslot. He's on more than 500 stations, has 15 million listeners and calls himself "the most dangerous man in America" because, as I heard him say recently, "I'm right, and I know I'm right and I'm having a lot of fun doing it." His program offers a call-in format but, shoot, Limbaugh does most of the talking. He rants. He raves. He shakes things up, which is good, but he does it derisively, which is bad. To those who may disagree, Limbaugh has the intellectual disposition of a reptile. His politics are far right/long gone. Limbaugh is a stitch, a real sarcastic, monstrously opinionated guy. It not only plays in Peoria, it's a hit from Maumee to the fertile delta that gives us David Duke, an achey, breaky heart and everything else patently primitive about this polluted but plentiful land we inherit. The signature moment on each Rush Limbaugh broadcast comes when an engineer (dumber than our gunnersmate host) somehow summons the brainpower to flip on a tape featuring the sounds of massive gun shots imposed over the soundtrack of the old Andy Williams tune, "Born Free." Clever, eh? This guy's anthem is desultory and America can't get enough of him. Bigotry barely disguised as buffoonery ends up the logical by-product of an era in which rude is somehow good and intolerance rules, we suppose. However, buffoonery in the pursuit of discourse is no virtue and demagoguery in any form is but another expression of neo- intellectual capitulation. Rush takes himself seriously. We see him as a zit upon the face politic, a bad blemish in the tradition of Harley Davidson, Mormar Kadafy, the Ayatollah, Saddam, not to mention Jack Morris.
O.L.: What do you really think? C'mon... superficiality doesn't work here.
Stream: Face it, Pulse baby. Limbaugh has a constituency. What do they share in common? Well, they're all people with nothing better to do with their lives than sit around listening to a rightwing fanatic on AM radio who makes sickly fun of everything he does not agree with -- i.e., anything with even a slightly progressive social or political connotation.
O.L.: Who listens, besides a lot of people you know?
Stream: I believe the average Limbaugh listener is someone who is near the beginning of the process of developing his or her own seasoned political/social frame of reference. The guy's entertaining style and easy, sarcastic solutions appeal to people who have begun but not traveled far along the process of truly examining the depths of the issues thye're deceived into thinking they have a corner on. Never have so many morons come up with so many ill-thought superstitions as have been generated within the realm of Rush Limbaugh's radio program. Rush says Clinton is holding the country hostage. He's counting the days. Rush is a bully, folks and his program are (is) garbage. So much of talk radio is (are) garbage, unless I'm listening, of course. Sure, I listen while I'm driving... but only to programs with a moderate bent. I like Dr. Dean Adell and Bruce Williams. Once I worked for a guy named Jim who, because he had never heard of Bruce Williams, told me I was wrong when I said Bruce Williams even existed. Talk about arrogance. Rush Limbaugh, unfortunately, does not deserve serious attention, even though he's getting it. Rush, we should remember, is pure and simple a right-wing maniac, a real race-baiter, a liberal basher gone amuck. Seriously, real people with real agendas in their lives, real intellectual tolerance, should at least have better things to do with their allotted time on this planet than place madman phone calls to large but small people like Rush Limbaugh. Of course, Limbaugh loves it. He realizes he's more popular than God or The Beatles right now. You can't go more than about three miles in this country anymore without hearing Rush Limbaugh or someone even dumber. I'm not sure how this happened, or why it was he got the job and I didn't. One thing is sure: I actually think the man's ego is going to burst, they'll call it an aneurysm and no one will be demented enough to succeed him. Eventually he'll be an asterisk in the footnotes of radio history, along with a horse named Silver and an alloy named gold.
O.L.: You're rolling. How about Clinton?
Stream: The river or the president?
O.L.: How about the president?
Stream: He's only been in office a few months. We'd say the chances for impeachment are good... and that's bad. The political climate is still quite volatile, even after the elections. Of course, we could have elected David Duke or Pat Buchanan. Dan Quayle could still be one scary heartbeat away from the White House, not to mention Neil Bush. We think we're moving forward. The anti-Clinton sentiment, in any event, is a disturbing fact of life as we edge into Spring 1993. The pronounced presence of his "uppity wife" seems to upset a lot of men. We think they could find better things to worry about. Yes, there is a sinister edge to her public persona. But, to those who know her, Hillary is a highly resolved individual. Absolutely non self-absorbed, old friends say. Absolutely outward. A rare human, in fact. Admired by many, misunderstood, it seems, by the masses. As for Bill, we don't buy the slick bit. What, incidentally, is the opposite of slick? Name the last president who wasn't slick. Gerald who?
O.L.: All right. I've regained my composure. At the same time, though, I've run out of questions. Are you ready to take charge again?
Stream: This is hard. We find asking questions takes more out of us than answering them. Frankly, we'd like to hang it up.
O.L.: Seems appropriate. The kids are in the bathtub. The incense is burned out. Mom put on some jazz. No one's flying in from Jacksonville tonight. They're getting a new Troutstream ready -- the first annual edition. Maybe we should all pop a cold Sharp's and see what else is in this damn thing.
Stream: Seems reasonable. Have a good night.
O.L: Have a strong heart.
