Large Fierce Mammal

INTRODUCTION

“Cracks in the Foundation” refers to those parts of the societal fabric so rickety that they have widened to the point where most can no longer be plugged even by something as magnificently huge as the ass of the elephant in the room.

It is these that have attracted the investigative efforts of the LFM Home Office Of Pestilential and Legal Affairs (HOOPLA), and what you will read today is but a small result of the ongoing efforts of that august body.

Before we begin, I will put before you, Goode Reader, the following three axioms that I will posit as True:

1. In the course of a long life, the Wise Man will be prepared to abandon his luggage several times.
2. In pursuit of happiness, do not offer disrespect to anyone who will be cutting your hair or handling your food.
3. If your customers don’t complain about your prices now and then, you aren’t charging enough.

PREVIOUSLY ON “CRACKS IN THE FOUNDATION“

Cracks in the Foundation — The Matter of a “Living Wage”: Part the First

Cracks in the Foundation — The Matter of a “Living Wage”: Part the Second

PROLOGUE

be·ta test
/?b?d? ?test/

noun

a trial of machinery, software, or other products, in the final stages of its development, carried out by a party unconnected with its development.

verb

subject (a product) to a beta test.
“the system was still being beta-tested for practical music applications”

Definition from Oxford Languages

The Grand Beta Test is yet another subset of our greater Cracks in the Foundation series. What you will read today is the first episode of that subset which deals with the development and deployment of vaccines for immunization against COVID-19, government involvement and salesmanship, spin doctors, and societal division.

TODAY’S BROADCAST

I had occasion recently to extend birthday greetings by way of a telephone call to a gent of our acquaintance. Among wide ranging topics discussed in the course of the ensuing hour, he disclosed his personal disinclination to receive any of the vaccines currently on offer as immunization against COVID-19; not any vaccine as a matter of principle mind you, only those presently available; and further went on to relate an experience of some few days prior in which he found his choice, and he himself, reduced to the status of a label, the implications of which I have previously defined:

“A label can be a physical object that, when applied to another object, conveys important information about it. What it is, who made it, what it’s made of, how to use it, how long it may be kept, and the best means of storage before use or consumption. Things like that. These sorts of labels abound in today’s world and are vital to navigating the perils and pitfalls of acquiring and using the commodities we take for granted to feed ourselves and our families, clean our homes, ourselves, and possessions, and maintain our surroundings. To wipe our bums and blow our noses. Cure a headache.

“And then there’s the other kind of label. This kind also abounds in today’s world, but less as a means of conveying important information than as a short cut around understanding. Understanding requires a desire for knowledge, and a willingness to be observant. To study, think, and draw conclusions. Unlike labels of any description, these attributes are not common in the world. If this type of label is applied to a controversial thing – a firearm for example – or worse yet, a person, the label alone comes to replace the true substance of that to which it’s applied. That’s how we get terms like “gun violence” for example, flying in the face of the fact that violence doesn’t come in flavours, and notwithstanding the implement that is used to bring it about, there is only violence, and it springs exclusively from the mind of its perpetrator

“Similarly, there is no ‘gay love’ or ‘straight love’, there is only love. There is no ‘gay marriage’ or ‘mixed marriage’, there is only marriage. There are no ‘women’s rights’ or ‘gay rights’, there are only rights. In not one of these examples is there justification for tagging violence, love, marriage, or rights with a qualifying label branding it as something different from every other expression of it. The term ‘racial hatred’ doesn’t define a special brand of hatred. There is only hatred, and ‘racial’ is the excuse for its existence – a label. The same goes for ‘religious intolerance'”. ~ Worldly Wisdom Wednesday — Beware of Labels

Under circumstances now lost in antiquity, our man once experienced a nearly crippling workplace injury from which he fortuitously recovered, but that left him needful of regular physical therapy to maintain full functionality. That person, a local practitioner, has not changed from the beginning, and with time has come friendly familiarity; but friendly or not, don’t forget what is said of the breeding proclivities of familiarity. (more…)

INTRODUCTION

“Cracks in the Foundation” refers to the rickety parts of the societal fabric that have been under scrutiny by the ongoing investigative efforts of the LFM Home Office Of Pestilential and Legal Affairs (HOOPLA). What you will read today is the second and final segment of a short series dealing with the value of human time and effort as it is seen in action rather than words, and that is in turn a subset of a larger study of such cracks as we have observed them widen to the point where most can no longer be plugged even by something as magnificently huge as the ass of the elephant in the room.

Before we begin, I will put before you, Goode Reader, the following three axioms that I will posit as True:

1. In the course of a long life, the Wise Man will be prepared to abandon his luggage several times.
2. In pursuit of happiness, do not offer disrespect to anyone who will be cutting your hair or handling your food.
3. If your customers don’t complain about your prices now and then, you aren’t charging enough.

PREVIOUSLY ON “CRACKS IN THE FOUNDATION“

Cracks in the Foundation — The Matter of a “Living Wage”: Part the First

PROLOGUE

“… When I was 15 years old I got a summer job with what used to be called National Sea Products just outside Lunenburg, standing for eight hours at a stretch, in a shed built on a concrete wharf protruding into Lunenburg harbour, skinning pickled herring fillets and packing them in a neat, radial pattern in large wooden barrels. The smell of marinade permeated my hands to the point where I think I can still smell it after all these years, and I had the indescribable joy of working cheek by jowl with a pair of skeletal twins whose intellectual capacity made the banjo playing kid in Deliverance look like a Nobel Prize winner but without the musical gift. I remember that they were annoying in that manner peculiar to people who combine idiocy with a complete inability to shut up, but I was on a mission to pay for flying lessons, and so I skun my herring with added passion, all the while fantasizing about two narrow, empty spaces in the production line, and a couple of herring barrels being rolled out the door that weighed a little heavier than all the rest.” ~ The Best Marinated Herring I’ve Ever Tasted

A component of our Cracks in the Foundation series, this is the second and final installment of our look into the concepts of “minimum” wage, “living” wage, and what happens when they both come to mean same thing. As a cautionary note, some of what you are about to read may be triggering to the indignation of readers either unable or unwilling to absorb statements of reality without invalidating them as ideologically motivated criticism uttered absent suggestions of improvement where shortcomings may be identified here. In point of fact, we have no suggestions for improvement; only things we will and will not tolerate, and if at any point in this discussion, Goode Reader, you find yourself at risk of believing I am taking this discussion down some ideological rabbit hole, let me pause here to assure you that here at HOOPLA we view all ideologies with equal disdain, preferring to base our analyses on the H. L. Mencken Principle —

“It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.”

TODAY’S BROADCAST

When last we convened, we looked at how my Father grappled with setting a value for the singular expertise he brought to his field. Setting aside the part played in his travails by a pleasantly conciliatory nature that too often marked him as a doormat, and the matter of being paid on time which is a universal Truth coming forward to us through history from the first days of prostitution, we still have the pesky Constant of determining suitably scaled compensation.

Unless you die before reaching adulthood, you’re going to have to grow up, and what that means will depend on your demographic as you transition from the unquestioned dependence of childhood, through the vehemently denied but still very real dependence of adolescence, into the state of “adulthood” which, for purposes of today’s discussion we will call “paying your own way”, also known as “independent”. For most, this will involve running face first into the sobering and (hopefully) character improving experience of having a quantitative value placed upon your efforts by persons and circumstances beyond your control. (more…)

INTRODUCTION

“Cracks in the Foundation” refers to the rickety parts of the societal fabric that have been under scrutiny by the ongoing investigative efforts of the LFM Home Office Of Pestilential and Legal Affairs (HOOPLA). What you will read today is the introductory backgrounder for a short series dealing with the value of human time and effort as it is seen in action rather than words, and that is in turn a subset of a larger study of cracks as we have observed them widen to the point where most can no longer be plugged even by something as magnificently huge as the ass of the elephant in the room.

Before we begin, I will put before you, Goode Reader, the following three axioms that I will posit as True:

1. In the course of a long life, the Wise Man will be prepared to abandon his luggage several times.
2. In pursuit of happiness, do not offer disrespect to anyone who will be cutting your hair or handling your food.
3. If your customers don’t complain about your prices now and then, you aren’t charging enough.

TODAY’S BROADCAST

Through most parts of my upbringing that occurred when I was old enough to understand what was going on, my Father ran Whynacht’s Radio & Television Service out of his home based workshop on Cumberland Street in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. As I’ve previously mentioned, he was a technician possessed of skills beyond compare, but soon found himself adrift in those matters of business generally described as “management”.

There are three essentials to the doing of business then and now, whether by employer or employee, proprietor or cog in the machine, in which my Father was above reproach — proficiency in his field to the highest standards of professionalism, uncompromising tenacity, and an unyielding work ethic. But there was another that had grown along with the business until it came to stand in opposition to his overt success and the widespread respect offered even by his competitors — respect and recognition weren’t enough; he wanted to be liked, and in this lay the seeds of an existential crisis.

To understand the gravity of that last point requires an explanation of how things worked back in a time when electronics were designed to be fixed when they broke rather than sent to the landfill and replaced every 18 to 24 months. Back in the last century, before the internet and streaming entertainment on demand, people listened to the radio in their car or while puttering in the workshop, and watched TV at home. The failure of either to function — but most particularly the TV if “the Missus” followed “the stories”, there were pre-school aged children to entertain in the morning with Romper Room, Mr. Dressup, Chez Helen, and The Friendly Giant while household cleaning and baking needed to be done with minimal interruptions, or “the Mister” was at risk of missing the playoffs — was a five alarm household emergency justifying a dip into the deepest pits of self-serving subterfuge. In other words, they wanted the repair of their television treated with the same sense of priority they felt it deserved, at the same time expressing shocked disdain when the same priority was expected when the bill was proferred.

Empathy, like pure oxygen, is toxic when taken to uncontrolled excess, and my Father had it in spades. He would pick up a television from the customer’s house, bring it back to his shop, diagnose and repair it using parts drawn either from stock on hand or obtained from suppliers in Halifax (60 miles away), ordered by long distance telephone call and picked up in person, and deliver it, usually in the evening when it was most convenient to the customer. My Father never left the scene without first setting up the equipment and tuning it to perfection, and only then did he present his bill. Far too often this was to the lady of the house, in the presence of the family’s eager urchins, but not her husband who was “at sea” or otherwise engaged supporting the family so he would certainly settle the bill as soon as he returned … soon. Another empty handed return and another parental argument over past due bills with our family’s name on them.

My Father saw setting firm terms of payment and enforcing them as somehow an admission of poverty rather than what it was — setting a value for your service and expecting accounts to be settled promptly for the same reason anyone else would be gainfully employed; to avoid poverty. By the time all this came to a head, I was in High School and my Mother had enjoyed a monumental lack of success both in convincing him of this, and in taking on the collection role herself. It is, I think, an indication of just how horrendous things had become that I was granted the post of family collector, which all came about because of a suggestion I offered one evening while making myself a cup of coffee as the same argument raged beside me in the kitchen flopping flaccidly in quest of a different outcome.

“Why not just take away their chance to stiff you?”

They stared at me as though I had just materialized in a cloud of pixie dust and unicorn farts with lobsters for hair.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” said my Mother.

“Maybe nobody here does,” I said, sipping my coffee, “But if it were me, they wouldn’t get their TV back until they coughed up the money.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” asked my Mother, my silent Father looking like he was ready to throw up.

I explained, and in so doing, offered to try. Hearing my idea changed my Father’s complexion that, while still unsettled, was slightly less green.

So the next time my Father had a TV ready for delivery it was me who made the call. Everybody knew me both because I had been intermittently accompanying him on house calls from early childhood, and as my physical stature grew, I was a part of any call requiring help with the heavy lifting. That conversation and those that came after it went like this, using fictional names to protect the guilty:

“Hello Mrs. Smith? This is Randy Whynacht, Lawrence Whynacht’s son, calling about your TV.”

“Oh my dear, yes! How are you? Your Father always speaks so highly of you and what a good student you are! What about my TV, is it fixed? There weren’t any serious problems I hope.”

“No, your TV is fixed and we can drop it off this evening right after supper if that works for you.”

“Oh, that would be marvelous! Yes, after supper will be wonderful.”

“Great, now I have the bill here and the total will be X dollars and x-ty two cents. I know most people like to pay in cash so I’m telling you that now so if you’re going to need change we can come equipped to make it for you.”

For some Mrs. Smiths, this was no matter and prompt payment was assured. For others, the message had been delivered loud and clear, and while her tone of voice changed, she seemed to mistake me for my Father.

“Oh my dear, I had no idea you would want to be paid so fast! My husband won’t be home from sea for another two weeks and he will certainly pay you then.”

“Well, that’s fine Mrs. Smith. We’ll keep your TV here safe and sound for up to 30 days. When your husband is home just call us again and we’ll bring it by when money isn’t an issue!”

Sometimes that news dropped on someone who was actually going to have to wait for payday and so were legitimately caught short in the face of this new COD (Cunt On Da-phone) reality.

For still others it stimulated a sudden remembrance of a clutch of cash on hand that was being kept for some other noble purpose but that she supposed she would have to delve into since we, “expected to be paid right away.”

And there were a very few who, after exhausting all the “oh dears” and “oh mys” went straight to, “Can I speak with your Father?”, and for those I had formulated a special treatment:

“Oh, I’m sorry but he’s busy repairing a TV for another customer. He’s always busy, I’m sure you understand. He does this for a living, after all!”

COD, don’t you know.

This approach was very effective, but not bulletproof in the face of those voicing acquiescence on the phone with every intention pulling a fast one after seeing their TV safely ensconced upon its living room perch. Not so fast my darlin’! For you I’m your CAD (Cunt At Da-door)!

We pull into the driveway. My Father feigns unstrapping the TV in the back of the station wagon (nobody had vans back then) while I go to the door, bill book in hand.

Knock, knock, and Mrs. Smith comes to the door, smiling sweetly through the window as she opens it.

“Hello hello! My you are getting tall!”

“Yes I am ma’am, it’s good of you to notice.”

I bring the bill book up between us causing her eyes to drop with an accompanying change of expression.

“Now while my Father unties your TV we can deal with the bill which as I said on the phone is …”

Most often this resulted in a stern countenance on the face of a person doling out the cash as though held at gunpoint, and notwithstanding demeanour, crossing my palm with silver would bring about the desired happy ending. For those few who met the bill with any late breaking delaying excuse at all there was:

“OK, I understand. Just call us when you have the money and we’ll bring your TV back then. Meanwhile, here is your bill so you won’t forget the amount.”

I always tore the bill out of the book in a series of clearly audible short jerks, so as not to tear it don’t you know.

I will say that unlike the ones on the phone who suddenly remembered they had cash on hand after all, once it got to the door there was too much face to lose, so every one of those turnarounds went back to the shop, usually to be returned the next day accompanied by the same CAD.

THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY

Thank you for remaining awake to this point, Good Reader, and I look forward to seeing you next time.

Well-worn bandana courtesy of my Esteemed Friend, Master At Arms James A. Keating. Some days, a hat isn’t what you need. (LFM photo)

“Modern society is not Nature so much as it is an intellectual construct loosely based on Nature with the sharp edges rounded off for a price. Its inhabitants, though, are demonstrably resistant to domestication, their brains and instincts, though slowed through disuse, little different from their cave dwelling ancestors for whom choice of response to a threat was governed by flight, fight, or an end in sight. Applying the laws of man to limit those options can lead to nothing sustainable, and anyone who holds a position of such empowerment as to take the helm of such a ship of fools and believably steer her to the Promised Land had better keep that in the forefront of his lizard brain.” ~ Dark Sentiments Season 11 — Day 17: The New Normal

A Slippery Slope

By LFM

Though bent a jolly time or two,
My nose grew straighter than you’d think,
The perfect slope for looking down
Whenever I disdain the stink.

“Quaere verum,” speaks my heart,
Each stalking step to Nature’s rule.
However sore beset, Her Truths
Will guide the wise, and kill the fool.

Source here.

The first song by a Canadian to sell more than one million copies was born out of a simple, beautiful moment in the life of an ailing child.

(There’s a) Bluebird on Your Windowsill was written by Vancouver nurse (Carmen) Elizabeth Clarke in 1947, who worked at what was then called the Hospital for Sick and Crippled Children (now the Children’s Hospital) in Vancouver. ~ Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame

Recorded by such notables as Wilf Carter and Doris Day, my version of the song tells a story of youthful affectation and Fatherly travail. So now, with apologies to all who have gone before, here is …

The Earwig Song

By LFM

There’s a Horsefly on your windowsill,
There’s an Earwig up your bum,
So now you’ve got to tweeze it out
With your pointer and your thumb.
Oh sure it’s gonna pinch you bad,
But that don’t matter none,
Nobody else here likes backdoor bugs,
Son, you’re the only one.

I warned you once, I warned you twice
‘Bout sleepin’ on your knees.
Both buttons wore off your trap door
It’s flappin’ in the breeze.
You promised you would heed my words
But oh my boy you’ve sinned,
With an open invitation and
Your butt hole suckin’ wind.

There’s a Horsefly on your windowsill,
There’s an Earwig up your bum,
So now you’ve got to tweeze it out
With your pointer and your thumb.
Oh sure it’s gonna pinch you bad,
But that don’t matter none,
Nobody else here likes backdoor bugs,
Son, you’re the only one.

Northern Spotted Owl (Source: Smithsonian Magazine)

Hunter’s Truth

By LFM

No sunset on a dirty gun,
Nor blade that’s less than keen.
See to your Horse and Dog my boy,
Before your boots are clean.

By night array your clothes and arms
So dark won’t hide their place,
Ere comes the call for girding up
And joining in the chase!

Strike only when the moment’s True,
Leave nought to be forgiven,
Who’s worthy of the Quarry’s Gift,
Bears not a soul that’s riven.

Pure purpose is the Hunter’s Way,
Stripped free of self-delusion,
And lesser men who think him owned
Are prey to his illusion.

I do my best thinking in the woods. (Mrs. LFM photo) Click for more me!

I once watched a standup comedian talking about some bad advice given to him while he was growing up. He said he was warned that you always have to watch “the quiet ones”, and even at a young age that didn’t sit well with him. He wondered, while you’re busy watching the quiet ones, what’s to keep some noisy bastard from coming up and killing you?

Good question.

Those of you pining for my august presence here in these erstwhile silent halls may have even mistaken me for one of “the quiet ones” as my attention, energies, and talents have been directed down avenues that are at once parallel, and now about to be convergent with, those illuminated by these pages. Today I’ll bring you up date and prepare you for things to come.

In my most recent utterance to appear here on New Years Day, I spoke of my (other) professional calling, and offered certain insights into the wellspring from which it draws its nourishment. As I did so, and promised further enlightenment, it was with the knowledge that much of what I intend to convey going forward, and indeed more of what I have already conveyed since this all sprang from the bushes in September of 2008, isn’t well enough served by the written word alone, eloquence and wit bedamned. On top of that, tales from the adventures of the LFM Clan cry out to be free of such encumbrance and will not be denied!

So, while this site will continue as always, it will be augmented by a Large Fierce Mammal move into the realms of other platforms including video and podcasts. Stay tuned here, and watch for this avatar, lovingly created by the inestimable talents of Mrs. LFM.

Driftwood by Adam Oehlers (2017) — Brought to my attention by the Esteemed Master At Arms James Albert Keating

If I were to sum up application of my billable skills in one easy to digest term, it would be “professional troubleshooter”. In general, this means Mrs. LFM and I solve the problems of other people for a living.

What typically motivates someone to pick up their phone and dial us, or equally as common send an email, is loss of stability in the realms of safety and security that may be demonstrably real or simply perceived to the degree where it’s become the same thing for them.

As I write to you on this first calendar day of the year 2021, you will not be surprised to learn that the twelve months just expired were the busiest in the 40 years since I first exposed my ass shingle to the brisk and inconsiderate winds of fate, and I am pleased to report that even that percentage of our clientele who learned to their chagrin that they, or those acting under their guidance, were the common thread in all their misfortunes, paid our fee absent encouragement. This, even if in their heart of hearts they never wanted to lay eyes on us again.

The situations we are called to consult on inevitably affect people, but with amazing regularity come in two flavours:

1. They have a technical; i. e., scientifically identifiable source and path to correction or implementation; that may not have found its origins or perpetuation in human involvement; OR
2. Every aspect of the problem has grown out of, and been perpetuated by, people.

With this in mind, I will leave you today with a little pro bono advice:

1. Beware and eschew misleading vividness.
2. Don’t let your apophenia run away with you.
3. Accept no unfiltered eyewitness testimony, especially when it comes from officialdom, and most particularly when the official is you.
4. When you discover a bomb, don’t assume it’s the only one in the place.
5. When someone suddenly demands your attention and wants you to “look over there”, “there” is not where you should look.

For those of you who survive the next few weeks, I will be elaborating on each of those points, and in whatever order I see fit. As you will come to understand, even if not particularly like, every moment of this year, and that you may ever come to have in or beyond any mark on a calendar, will quite literally be what you make of it.

And as to the stern admonishment that is the title of this particular brain dropping, viewing a new year as a chance for a fresh start is low resolution thinking indeed when, in fact, every moment is — including this one.

Happy New Year.

On this date last year I treated you to a Christmas ghost story, The Shepherd,  written by Frederick Forsyth as a Christmas gift for his wife, Carrie.

“‘The Shepherd’ is set on the Christmas Eve of 1957, at which time I would have been eight months plus a day upon the Earth, snug as a bug in a rug far away from the fictional runway in Germany from which our 20 year old hero is about to launch his de Havilland Vampire into the night on a routine flight to spend the holidays with family in England. Along the way, Murphy’s Law, unfortunate weather, serendipity, and the timely assistance of a de Havilland Mosquito converge.” ~ A Long Winter’s Night — 2019 Edition Day 5: The Shepherd

This year I’m going to continue the tradition with another offering of Human travail in the face of every portent doom can provide. Tonight I offer Christmas at Sea written by Robert Louise Stevenson, and as presented by the YouTube channel Way of the World. (more…)

“Hands up!” (1912) by Will Crawford. Original from Library of Congress.

My message for this Christmas Eve comes from the perspective of my 17 years as a police and fire dispatcher, taking the reports and facilitating the arrests of belligerent half wits who can’t stand the sight of each other at any other time, but who annually, and if temporarily experiencing the convenience of being out of jail, feel the compulsion to assemble in a volatile mixture of sibling hatred, testosterone, alcohol, recreational pharmaceuticals, hot chip fat forgotten on the stove, candles, and one or two of their dysfunctional geriatric parents, because somehow, this time the magic of Christmas will make it all different.

The Gift of Choice

By LFM

Each Christmas Eve throughout the land
Goode Santa comes with bag in hand,
Inside it gifts rewarding good,
And all that’s sweet in childhood.

And also there, though seldom seen’s,
His penalty for being mean.
A darkling lump of anthracite
For those imbued with bile and spite.

Yet each year on his next return,
Olde Santa finds some never learn,
And so for those he changes gears —
A binding choice for future years.

So hearken to the coal’s demand
Or meet what fills his other hand.
Learn bugger all from coal in stocking,
And hear his big revolver cocking.

Choose what’s in the bag or gun,
Two choices and no other one.
Don’t try to claim it isn’t fair,
Your time is up, he doesn’t care.

Tearful lies that sound sincere
May work in court but never here.
Try to waft that bullshit smell
And Santa blows your soul to Hell.