Category: Larry Brody Post

LB: Live! From Paradise #223 – “All Woods are Magic Woods”

(The Intro above is from this column's previous web incarnation)

by Larry Brody

 

Before we came to Paradise, Gwen the Beautiful and I lived just outside L.A., in an area known as Malibu, Hidden Valley, Westlake Village, or Thousand Oaks, depending on who was doing the knowing. Mail addressed to any of those towns would arrive in our mailbox at the original Cloud Creek Ranch.

Yes, I said “original.” Before we came to our mountaintop in the Ozarks we lived on one in—well, in Malibu-Hidden Valley-Westlake Village-Thousand Oaks. The ranch spread out over acreage with craggy cliffs, level pasture, rolling hills, a seasonal stream with a funky land bridge, 40-foot cedars and live oaks.

At the time, the live oaks were the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. Green all year round. Trunks three feet around that called out to be leaned against because each tree could, and gladly would, hold you upright forever.

The woods that surrounded our compound were a year-round trove of beauty. I still remember the first time I walked through them, and how I called out to the Wind:

“I love this place! It’s perfect! I’ve got to live here…forever!”

And how, for the first time in my life, I heard the Wind call back to me:

“Forever? Absolutely. As long as you do your part.”

“What’s my part?”

“Take care of this land. Guard it. Keep it safe.”

“Guard it how? From what? I can’t stop fires. Or earthquakes.”

“Keep its spirit safe. Keep it pure. The land and the trees have a purpose. They love to be lived on…and in. To provide. Don’t do anything that would make them regret their love. Live well here, and you can live here forever.”

“I’m happy to make that deal,” I said, and I barely got the words out of my mouth before the Wind rustled through the oaks with a long, drawn-out, and oh-so-beautiful to me, “Done!”

The first Cloud Creek Ranch’s magic held true. It was a place where my highly allergic self never reacted badly to the touch of any plant. Where any sore on any horse—even cancer—healed. Where no matter where on the property you stood, you always were looking down at the rest of the land, including the place where you’d last stood and which at the time had seemed so much higher than where you were now.

The trees and I talked every day.

The stars and I talked every night.

Day or night, Gwen could sit in the living room, on the Saltillo tile floor, and talk to the spirit of a gnarled Old Cowboy who would appear in the periphery of her vision. Translucently beautiful in his well-worn buckskins, he would rock in our old rocking chair and smile, leaving only when she forgot herself and turned to make direct eye contact. (That’s when we learned such behavior is a no-no when dealing with ghosts.)

Oh, it was quite a place, that property deeded to my heart by the Wind.

There were problems, though. Aren’t there always problems? Everywhere?

The beauty of the woods made for a huge surcharge on our homeowners’ insurance, adding a sum greater than our entire monthly mortgage payment here in Paradise to our monthly budget…and our house payment itself was six times what we pay now.

California property taxes weren’t exactly nickels and dimes either, and the fact that our stream was seasonal combined with the complete lack of any underground water source to create a situation where we had to pay to have fresh water trucked in and stored in a tank so massive it could’ve said, “City of Malibu-Hidden Valley-Westlake Village-Thousand Oaks” on the side.

To say we were “house poor” would be understating the situation. We were “house destitute.” No matter how much I earned, it wasn’t enough to stay where we were.

We had no choice but to sell and move on to new magic.

The situation enraged me. I ranted. I raged.

“You lied to me!” I screamed out to the Wind. “We had a deal! I kept my part of the bargain, but you betrayed me!”

“Not so,” said the Wind, quiet as a breeze, the night before Gwen and I left for Paradise.. “I said you could live here forever, and I meant it. All woods are one wood. You’re just heading into a different neck of the woods now.

“You won’t be missing anything,” continued the Wind. “I promise. This place is magic, but so is where you’re going. All woods are magic. Every last one.”

And, as Gwen and I and everyone who visits this space knows, the Wind spoke true.

“Resistance is Futile”

(Talk about people with karma problems!)

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, never have. However, I have of late done my absolute best to be less snarky because…well, someone in my household (no, not Layla) has pointed out to me the benefits of behaving like the elder statesman said someone believes me to be.

The main benefit, the one that made me give kindness and understanding a try, was when Gwen (oh, shit, I gave it away!) casually mentioned that “When you’re nicer to people, or at least about them, they’ll be nicer to you. It’s a good karma thing, you know?”

Anyway, I’ve been practicing non-snarkyness for a while now – which is one of the reasons I haven’t posted much lately – but this morning I saw the following headline on avclub.com:

“Dr. Phil to cease playing pretend TV doctor this spring”

And, sorry Gwen and anyone else who’s hoping for a dignified elder statesman LB, but I just can’t resist bringing y’all this:

by Matt Schimkowitz

The doctor is out.

Dr. Phil, the long-running daytime television show in which a guy without a medical license yells at vulnerable people seeking help until he determines they’re cured, is coming to an end. This spring, the series will wrap its 21 seasons on CBS, opening the door for another one of Oprah’s grifter buddies to come in and fill the void.

Phil McGraw, who stopped renewing his medical license in 2006, will continue to play pretend doctor on television in all likelihood. As Variety notes, he plans on announcing a “strategic primetime partnership” that will allow him “increase his impact on television and viewers” because he’s “compelled to engage with a broader audience.” McGraw says he has “grave concerns for the American family,” which means he presumably wants more teens on his television show to yell at and diagnose.

There’s more to this article, of course. So if you want to read the work of a true Snarkmeister, hie thyselves HERE ASAP.

Um, I do get some karmic credit for not actually being the writer of this bit of genius, right?

Big thanks to Matt Schimkowitz for making my day.

 

LB: Live! From Paradise #222 – “Connections”

(The Intro above is from this column's previous web incarnation)

by Larry Brody

Several months ago in this space I came out of the closet of normality and ‘fessed up to having Asperger’s Syndrome, a mild form of autism. After which I braced myself and waited—

For a firestorm never happened.

No, “I always knew you were weird, Larry B.”

Or, “Yep, if ever there was a crackpot writer it’s you, dude.”

After a few weeks a response to my announcement finally came. In the form of an invitation to contribute to a book a friend was writing about his theory that autistic men and women have a greater than normal awareness of what is known by some as “the Great Unknown,” by others as “the Wind of Mystery,” and by still others as:

God.

Turned out he too is an Asperger’s kind of guy (my friend writing the book, not God), and to him it was no big deal. Certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

So why was I?

I’ve been letting that question percolate for awhile and finally have an answer. I think it’s because in the environment in which I grew up—family, school, neighborhood—I was made to feel guilty about who and what I was. I was regarded as “antisocial” and “introverted,” and being antisocial and introverted were considered bigger sins than gluttony, sloth, and just about anything else short of murder.

“Why don’t you want to talk to people?” my mother would ask when I was a little kid. “Why don’t you want to go outside and play with Melvin and

Bumpy when they call for you?”

And, when I was older:

“Aren’t you lonely staying in your room like this?” my father would say. And from more than one teacher: “Don’t you want to just go out and have the kind of fun most teenagers do?”

The replies to those questions were: “I don’t like talking to people. It hurts me too much.”

“Playing with Melvin and Bumpy is fun for Melvin and Bumpy, but not for me.”

“But I’m not alone. I’m with a terrific book.”

And, “The kind of fun most teenagers have isn’t fun for me.”

I didn’t utter any of those replies because the interaction itself would’ve been way too painful. I always felt on the defensive. Under attack.

Simply because I didn’t belong.

And not belonging, not feeling part of any group, is what Asperger’s is all about.

As an adult I’ve kept all this a secret so I wouldn’t have to re-fight my youthful battles. It’s only now that I’m more mature that I’m able to stand up for myself to the outside world the same way I always stood up for myself in my interior one.

I’m comfortable with the differences between the way I perceive and react to the universe and the way most other people do. As I see it, I’m not the one with the problem. Those who’ve spent so much energy unknowingly inflicting pain on me in order to make me more “social” have always been the ones with the problem.

My perception is that because of the way my brain works I’m able to focus on what’s important to me more than most human beings can. I can analyze myself and others and see our foibles from a perspective available only to a watcher who is distanced from his subject. Yet I can go so far inside myself that I connect with the Great Unknown, the Wind of Mystery, and, yes, even God much more intimately than I’m able to communicate with words.

And if in return I lack the wherewithal to make cold phone calls or connect with small talk at parties or feel the joy of leaping from my seat to cheer for my team in the Super Bowl, so be it. I understand that life is a trade-off.

Because I actively take part in that trade every minute of every day.

I understand that I’m luckier than other Asperger’s types. I can feel love for others and love in return. And I’ve learned how to communicate these facts with them using my body and my words and my soul.

I like these things about myself. They give me great joy.

And I appreciate, possibly also more than I can describe in words, what another friend said to me recently. “You’re the least obnoxious guy with Asperger’s I know.”

In fact, for one brief but shining moment I came this-close to feeling that he and I were connected.

The Eternal Resonance of Daily Cartoons

I have no idea what the title of this post means, but I made it up and I’ll stick by it to the end.

Erm, whatever that means as well.

Regardless (see how smart I am? I haven’t made the oh-so-common mistake of using the nonexistent word “irregardless”), I’m here to say that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the January 21st through January 26th run of Arlo and Janis at GoComics.Com. Everything in it is highly recommended because:

  1. It’s all new jokes, which certainly isn’t something we see very often, especially in newspaper comic strips
  2. In spite of being new jokes, the interaction here is so very, very familiar to me, all of it having occurred (many, many times) in Gwendoland, AKA, the 30 year long life of moi and, of course, G the B.

My suggestion is that you start reading HERE and continue through to HERE.

FTR: That’s my favorite in this particular run of A & J at the top of this post.

Why is it at the top? To grab your attention, natch.

Why is it my fave? Probably because, as you-know-who can tell you, I do my best to live a life in which I can always be proud of myself. (And no, I’m not going to tell you about the times I’ve failed. That would pretty much ruin things, don’t you think?)

LYMI,

LB