The Gelding: A Poem about the End

The Gelding

The Race Track (Death on a Pale Horse), Ryder

The palomino wheezed and soughed

away from his companion.

Strangles had gripped the ranch.

This had been his life.

The barren, windswept landscape,

the oats nearby, at length—

not hungry. How was Charlie?

He had been his life.

The palomino had a purpose,

a watchcry, was loved, so where

were the others, he thought.

He had used to belong.

Every horse in its own stable,

the disparate and neutered.

How he longed to be a part.

This was not his life.

The dying light and the dying gelding

nursed each other in the throes of

The all-around darkness. The abyss,

The sun fell. A view of the world was lost.

Holiday Explosion

World Turtle Day? Really?

One of my frequent quibbles with society—I know not the real important stuff, but the things that bother me the most—include making every day a holiday. National Donut, National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, National Milkshake Day, International Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day, etc. But June and July are full of legitimate holi-days if not holy days, which was the original intent.

Last weekend saw me celebrating a different holiday nearly every day on my 365scripts Facebook, X, and Instagram accounts. Saturday the 14th was Flag Day, in commemoration of the stars and stripes of Betsy Ross, et al. It was also a day of mass protesting and the 250th anniversary of the United States’ ground troops.

Anyone who knows me knows my love of flags. Besides books and percussion instruments, they are the only other items I collect. I don’t travel much anymore, so sometimes folks bring me flags from the countries they visit. Some of my favorites are the handmade ones from Mexico and Jamaica and those that bring me great memories of visiting cities like Victoria, British Columbia and my parents’ Caribbean escapades.

I’m not sure what it is about flags that makes me love them. I do love the American flag but probably not more than specific state flags, like the pennant of Ohio or even the simple beauty of Alabama’s flag. So, Flag Day for me is not just about Betsy Ross, but about the images we use to represent lands, states, nation-states, nations. What I thought was an original joke in my 2013 play Cry of the Native Children (about the Jamestown colony) had a wry Englishman asks the Natives, “You don’t have a flag? How uncivilized.” Turns out Eddie Izzard did a much better version onstage years before. Heck, I might have heard it and added it unconsciously.

The following day was Father’s Day, a day that is now more bitter than sweet. I lost Dad in 2021 (not to COVID) and I thought of ways I could honor him. It happened to be that the libretto I was reading Saturday was Lin-Manuel Miranda’s remarkable Hamilton, so I decided to watch it on Sunday on Disney+. A few years before, I had convinced Dad to watch it and I was so shocked when he loved it, particularly Daveed Diggs as Lafayette/Jefferson. I cried watching the first act, wishing he was in the living room with me.

Then Monday came with Bloomsday. I wish I had the time to re-read James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses every year. I do well enough to revisit it every three years or so. Besides Lolita and the work of Conrad, it is still the best piece of prose I’ve ever read—some sort of calling for newer ways to think that was never answered—and the cornerstone of the last great literary movement, Modernism.

Juneteenth, our most recent national holiday, and an appropriate one, came next. The only thing you can’t truly celebrate is being off on Thursday and then having to go back to work Friday. That needs to be fixed. In fact, all holidays should be on Friday. Can we do that?

Right around the corner, we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence in a country which has, perhaps, never seen so much division. I will do what I normally do—watch Peter H. Hunt’s 1776 and dream of a calmer country. And, I suppose, in between, scroll through social media to see who’s damning us and who’s thankful for the blessing, rough as it is.

Then comes August, the hottest month of the year where no legitimate holidays occur, at least in America. I have decided to take my vacation the last week of that month to bask in the air conditioning and the love of my chiweenie and tabby cat. (It also will lead into another holiday, Labor Day, so an extended vacation at that—ha ha). Labor Day sets into gear another holiday spiral that ends with MLK Day in January.

We definitely need days of rest and days of celebration. Heck, maybe even some people need a National Milkshake Day, I don’t know. I was about to write not every day is special, but the truth is it should be. This doesn’t necessarily warrant a “World Turtle Day,” but just the joy of seeing another day to spend with loved ones or the things you love. It’s not a bad deal.

I Watched All of SOUTH PARK and I Love Eric Cartman

American Legend.

Not too long ago, I gave myself a task, a treat, a treat-task—everyday during my lunch break, I would watch two episodes of South Park, and, by that, I intended to watch the entire series (with all attendant specials and the movie—nearly 330 separate embodiments of the four foul-mouthed boys in their “quiet mountain town” in Colorado). Sometimes I took in a few episodes over the weekends and, of course, the film South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, deserved its own special screening.

Watching the show in this manner brought to mind several of the major and some minor but interesting American cultural moments over a vast swath of time (the show first aired in the fall of 1997), capturing (literally) a generation of American hysteria over one thing or another. I still believe South Park is at its best when it is entirely random and the humor is more Pythonesque (and has no overt ripped-from-the-headlines story)—episodes like “Free Willzyk” and “Quest for Ratings,” the latter of which resulted from the creators not being able to come up with an episode. I still think, overall, “Woodland Critter Christmas” is the best episode of the series. But, as I had already made my own Top 10 (and the show has had many seasons since the writing of that list, most of them of a generally lower quality than the earlier seasons yet never missing some spot-on satire, such as the PC Babies), it was interesting to re-evaluate after being a fan since high school.

It also reminded me that though America has produced a few great fictional characters—Ichabod Crane, Captain Ahab, Hester Prynne, Zack Morris—we do have our equivalent of Hamlet, King Lear, and Falstaff—Eric Cartman. What surprised me as I watched the show in order was how much there is to admire about the filthy racist and sexist who does (“whatever, whatever”) what he wants. Who demands his mother has no gainful employment because he is her job. Whose “little schemes” are diabolical (“Scott Tenorman Must Die”) and hysterically funny “Christian Rock Hard.”

First of all, unlike the new crop of American TV characters, he knows who he is and what he’s about. He likes himself. Occasionally, he briefly believes he’s a bad person, but this is always resolved at the end of the episode (back when that’s how South Park acted, before it became more “cereal”…I mean “serial”). He is only temporarily cowed down by Cesar Milan in one episode (“Tsst”) before once again turning into a raging nightmare that has kept us laughing for nearly thirty years.

Some moments from my trip to South Park:

The initial episode (after two pilot specials) was “Cartman Gets an Anal Probe,” which later became fodder for the terrific season seven opener “Cancelled.” It was clear, early on, that Cartman’s bark was worse than his bite, much like Stewie in Family Guy (I know Trey Parker and Matt Stone would hate that comparison). It took a few seasons for him to act out on his promise. The best episode of the first season has to be “Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo,” but who doesn’t remember “Weight Gain 4000?” “Beefcake! Beefcake!” While “Gnomes” comes out on top in season two, we are introduced to Eric’s extended family in “Merry Christmas, Charlie Manson!” who all are plus-sized with intentions to kick people “square in the n*ts.”

Season three, though it has terrific episodes like “Sexual Harassment Panda” and “Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics,” is all over the place, mainly because of the simultaneous making of the film adaptation in which Cartman performs a song I, personally, think is better than the Oscar-nominated “Blame Canada”—“Kyle’s Mom’s a…” well, you know. Season four began South Park’s golden age with at least eight terrific episodes including Cartman accidentally joining NAMbLA, becoming a Marjoe-like evangelist, and showing off more remarkable singing abilities when he misses the simplicity of the third grade.

Season five brought us “Scott Tenorman Must Die” which officially established Cartman as a genuine threat to peace and stability. In this season, Cartman acquired his own theme park just for himself and joins the Blainetology cult in an episode we can no longer watch legally—“Super Best Friends”—because it featured an image of Mohammed. At the time, it raised no red flags. But, after 9/11 which occurred mid-season, no more “Super Best Friends.” In season six, Cartman enjoyed the ironic Museum of Tolerance, particularly its ride that featured several ethnic slurs—not beyond our xenophobic Eric.

The slapped mouth.

Season 7 had some terrific Cartman moments: forming a Christian rock band to beat the music-free band Moop, hiding Butters from society so he could accompany Kyle to Casa Bonita (a real restaurant now owned by Parker and Stone), and the time Kyle called Eric’s bluff and slapped the crap out of him in Canada. The one scene required a new mouth for Cartman to be etched into the animation. Season 8 reveals Cartman to be the author of “Woodland Critter Christmas,” an episode so jaw-droppingly funny and offensive that it pre-dated Parker and Stone’s accomplishment with something similar in the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon (co-written by Robert Lopez).

Season 9 eventually gained momentum after a few episode slumps, culminating in three classics to finish out the programming: “Trapped in the Closet,” “Free Willzyk,” and “Bloody Mary,” episodes that build on the strength of the other kids and Randy Marsh (at first an ancillary character who has become more prominent because of the aging and maturation of his creators). Season 10 was particularly strong in the aftermath of Isaac Hayes’ departure. The season featured ManBearPig and Cartman taking on a bounty hunter/hall monitor position as he helps expose a scandal at South Park Elementary.

Season 11’s best Cartman moments were in “Le Petit Tourette” (where he faked Tourtette’s syndrome only to succumb to its symptoms) and the “Imaginationland” trilogy in which Cartman takes his hatred for Kyle to strange places. Continuing in this low-brown vein, Season 12 sees Cartman get AIDS from a blood transfusion, which he passes along to Kyle and this somehow leads to a cure being found. He also “fought” the Chinese using Butters (as he always does) as the one to carry all the harder work.

While Season 13 gave us Cartman’s superhero character “The Coon,” his best moment is in one of the worst episodes of the series, “Pee,” in which his song about the plurality of race in America is the satiric stuff that should keep us laughing, except we’re not supposed to laugh anymore. The Season 14 slump did have one saving grace—an episode where Cartman becomes Scarface as he works schlepping and slurping KFC.

Cartman as a Jewish man in the POST-COVID specials.

To me, Season 15 is when South Park broke. A false promise of more serial storytelling and change in the nature of the series, the two episodes “You’re Getting Old” and “@ss Burgers” are bizarre in a non-SP way, so much so that the show has barely recovered from it since. In its later seasons and specials, long-form storytelling (not Trey and Matt’s strong suit) took more hold and as the mid-2010s approached, South Park was one of only many off-color satirical shows that Americans could tune into see. The same problem has happened with The Simpsons, Family Guy, and other shows which have no business running ten series.

After that, don’t get me wrong, there are good episodes and good stuff for Cartman to do: Season 16’s “Raising the Bar” is a splendid episode I can quote from memory as Cartman begins riding a mobility scooter and forcing the town to comply with his disability (being fat); Season 18 saw Cartman lampoon crowd fundraising in “Go Fund Yourself;” and a few others. In general, the show has lost so much of its bite because what is being satirized is already so ridiculous. Tom Lehrer once said he stopped writing humorous satirical songs because he started reading the paper and, instead of laughing, he began crying. One can see Parker and Stone in the same vein as they have chosen not to even premiere the next season until later this year as they wanted to skip the last election entirely (probably because it was Mr. Garrison who was Trump in the first term and that would be a bit much).

Do I still love South Park? Of course, but more the idea of it. I will always love Cartman. He stands for nothing I stand for and is against everything I am and, yet, just the way he says “Kyle” or “Kenny” can always make me laugh.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker. American Geniuses.