Lorton's Quick Reads - Volume I
William F. Lorton, Sr.
Lorton’s Quick Reads - Volume I
William F. Lorton, Sr.
Copyright 2011 William F. Lorton, Sr.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Introduction: Welcome to Lorton’s Quick Reads. Why they are so quick.
Ads: Thoughts on advertising and values.
Alien Brains: A theory of human origins.
Artificial Audience Enjoyment Integrator Aptitude Test: An inside look at television comedy strategies.
Alone Again…: A comment on relationships
The Body: About our struggles with our bodies.
The Smile: A smile is a smile is a smile…
Thank You: What more can I say?
Introduction
Welcome to Lorton’s Quick Reads, Volume I.
This is the first in a series of quick reads. While you may find some deep important philosophical meaning or messages in these stories, their intent is sheer entertainment.
They are very brief. There are a couple of reasons for this, and they both have to do with attention span.
First, is my attention span. I can only seem to hold my creative juices in an active state long enough to complete stories of these lengths.
Second, is your attention span. There are so many things competing for our attention in today’s world, that it is nearly impossible to focus on any one thing for more than a few minutes. These stories should fit right into that environment.
Happy Reading!
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Ads
Well here’s today’s prize. I heard this ad on the radio and it really got my attention. Usually I mentally tune these things out, a trick that drives my kids and the ad people crazy. When the music or the talk show goes off for the commercial, so goes my mind. I’m not exactly sure where it goes, but it sure doesn’t stay around to see who’s selling what.
Well anyway, this ad caught my fleeting attention today. See if you can observe the same social pressures at work...
Two people are talking about some beautiful photograph they have taken on a recent vacation and they are marveling about how clear the colors are and how hunky-dory everything is. But wait!
What’s this? What disaster has come into our instant works of art?
Louise says to her friend, who is patiently reviewing the vacation photographs, “Arrrrgggg! Our two best friends and traveling companions have absolutely ruined our vacation pictures with their gross, ugly, disgusting, furry, slimy, yellow, cigarette stained teeth. Yuucko barfo! Burn the pictures! Lynch these former friends! Relegate them to the land of disgusting former persons! Ruin my vacation pictures?! A pox on them!”
The sympathetic, yet wise and patient friend, Virginia, holds up her hand and says, “But soft, wait a moment. In the spirit of good clean fun, charity, and friendship let us not show anger, hatred, ugliness, and shallow materialism. Let us instead show them the light and tell them about a magic tooth whitener that will remove any and all stains known to mankind from any enamel surface from toilet bowls to bath tubs and from tomb stones to people teeth!”
You should tell them about DENTURE-SCOUR, the miracle tooth whitener that transformed our yellow, slimy, gross, disgusting teeth to starlight bright and white only just last week! “
To which Louise replies, “Oh heavens, what a marvelous idea. I should have thought of that. And after they’ve done their teeth, they can use the stuff to unclog their drains...”
So what is my problem with this ad you might ask? A simple commercial for a simple product to a simple audience. Maybe, but I don’t think so. What I see here is one of the flaws of 20th Century society and morality.
Got a problem? Not to worry... don’t analyze it to see what is really wrong, and forget even trying to fix it... just cover it UP! Nuts, these people don’t even look at the problem. They just stay on the surface and tackle the symptom!
There seems to be a lot of that kind of mind-set in our culture. Any time something seems to be wrong the first thought is, “cover it up” .
If your arm pits smell funny, don’t wash them, cover the aroma with pine scent. Now you smell like a tree, heaven forbid, not like a person! Got a zit? No problem... cover it up! Got an age freckle? No problem... cover it up! Steal from the old boss? No problem... cover it up! Lie to the Congress? No problem...
The characters in this commercial will pay just like all the rest of us who cover things up. If you don’t fix the problem, it will just get worse. I mean, really, if smoking is going to turn your teeth yellow and slimy, what do think it’s doing to your lungs...?
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Alien Brains
This is a simple story about evolution.
Admiral: “Farblitz! It is time for your report.”
Farblitz: “Yes Sir! I am prepared for my report. I have made a detailed study of the problem and have some outstanding recommendations.”
Admiral: “Farblitz, I will be the judge of whether your recommendations are worth a fig.”
Farblitz: “Yes, Sir!”
Admiral: “Get on with it, Farblitz!”
Farblitz: “Officers and commanders of the Starship Werfling. I want to begin my presentation with a review of our present plight. After that, I will explain how we can address our impending doom. I will, of necessity speak quickly, because our starship planetoid is due to explode within three hours.
To put the problem in a nutshell, one thousand years ago we shipped out from our home planet on the Starship Werfling with the express purpose of exploring the universe. We were equipped with a complete, and self-sustaining life support system that would allow us to survive on the Starship as if it were a real, life-sized planet. Our journey was to last two thousand years. The starship was designed to accommodate our normally growing population for that period of time. At the end of the two thousand years we were to have completed our mission and returned to the home planet, Mother .
All went according to plan, until about one hundred years ago when our video and games system broke down. Since that time our population growth has gotten so far out of hand that our starship can no longer support life as we know it. In just a few hours, when the two hundred thousandth Werfling citizen is born to the ship, the life counting, correlating, and accommodating computer will determine that we have reached maximum population and therefore conclude that we must be home at Mother. Based on this conclusion, the computer model will attempt to land the ship and open all doors on touchdown. Since touchdown is based on time of descent, all ports will open whether we have landed on anything or not. This means if we have not landed, we will all be dumped into deep space like so many empty beer cans in the Toxic river on a hot summer Sunday.
The obvious solution to this problem is that we fix the stupid computer program before it seals our doom. Unfortunately, this obvious solution has been tried for the last fifty years with no success. When we left Mother, someone forgot to bring along the computer instructions. As a result, it has been running itself for the last thousand years.
This leaves us with only one other alternative to sitting back and accepting our doom.”
Admiral: “Farblitz, please continue. Your review has been excellent to this point. Keep going. We are running out of time. And I am sure all of the other officers and commanders are just dying to know what our remaining alternative is.”
Farblitz: “Yes, sir. That alternative is to get the hell off this ship before it falls apart!”
Farblitz took this moment to pause and survey the room to see if his analysis of the situation had achieved the expected effect. He was hoping to hold the senior officers and commanders of the
Starship Werfling in rapt attention, looking to him as the genius savior, the one and only person who could lead them out of this crisis. Rapt attention was not exactly what he saw. It was more like serious impatience.
Admiral: “Farblitz! Quit fooling around! Of course we have to get off the ship. But then what? Where do we go? How do we get there? And how do we survive when we get there?
Farblitz: “Good questions, sir. And I have all the answers. First, we have to load everyone into the sub planetoid starshiplets, or asteroids, and get off the ship. From them we can gradually invade one of the local planets. We happen to be near one we have labeled as “Earth” on our star charts. It also happens to have a climate and life support system very much like our own planet, Mother.
I know you will ask why we have to do the invasion gradually. Well, the ecological system cannot support all of us at once. We have to go down and get it ready bit by bit. This may take millions of years, but eventually we will get everyone down there. Those who must stay aboard their asteroids will be allowed to live in a state of suspended animation until they are called down to Earth.”
Admiral: “So far so good, Farblitz. Now how do we live down there?”
Farblitz: “Well, sir, we don’t exactly look like any of the locals. The nearest thing to our appearance is something they call ‘cow flop’. Now believe me, the life of a ‘cow flop’ is not very interesting, so we want to avoid appearing in our natural state.
There is another creature down there that would provide a very good host for our systems. It walks around on two things they call legs. It has arms and hands for holding stuff. It also has organs that see, and holes in its head to allow sound to come in. The head generally seems to house a light weight organ of questionable function. My proposition is that we use the head of these creatures to set up our own housekeeping and run the rest of the creature’s body to support our life form.”
Admiral: “Good idea! How do we get inside the head?”
Farblitz: “These creatures lie down in the darkness to regenerate their body systems. They call this activity “sleep”. While they are asleep we can slip inside their ears, digest whatever is in their heads and be in complete control of their systems before they awake.
We will be able to communicate with each other as we do now. The survivors will never understand what is going on. They are so gullible they will make up some reason about how we can communicate with each other and they can’t. We’ll call it something like a sixth sense, or E.S.P., or whatever.
We can also compensate for their abbreviated life span by leaving their bodies at death to inhabit a new one. When we recognize or remember things that come from a previous life we can take advantage of their gullibility yet again by claiming that we live more than once. That will also give us a chance to explore other life forms. We can probably even claim to have lived as a cow or something. Remember, these guys will believe anything...”
Admiral: “Very good Farblitz. Officers, do you have any comments?”
No comments were forthcoming.
Admiral: “Very good. As Commander in Chief, I direct that we take Farblitz’s recommendation and get the hell out of here. Subsequent details will be worked out on the planet as we need them. All commanders get your people to their asteroids. Let us hope we can all get along on the new planet as well as we did here on the good Starship Werfling. Good bye, and good luck to you all.”
Meanwhile down below, on earth, two shepherds were preparing to lie down for their night’s rest.
Aristotle: “Hey look at dat!”
Plato: “What?”
Aristotle: “Dat big shiny ting up in da sky. What do ya tink dat is?”
Plato: “Don’ know, don’ care, g’night.’
Aristotle: “Yeah. See ya in da mornin’.”
I wonder how they sounded in the morning?
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Artificial Audience Enjoyment Integrator Aptitude Test
This is your aptitude test for the job of Artificial Audience Enjoyment Integrator. This job is critically important to the television industry. It is this function which guides the television audience to its understanding of how well it is enjoying the programming under view.
It is the opinion of television production executives that without skilled Artificial Audience Enjoyment Integrators the television viewer would not have any idea whether a television show was a drama, comedy, game show, news event, or basic bore. Your test scores will be evaluated to determine how well you will be able to perform this extremely important viewer guidance function.
Please answer the following multiple-choice questions. Your aptitude for this job will be determined by the accuracy of your answers as measured against the Television Writers’ Guild Job-Security and Insincerity Index.
To avoid any possibility of your imagination confusing you, each question is immediately followed by the correct answer.
1. Show star enters the set:
Audience reaction:
a. Applause
b. Light laughter
c. Uproarious laughter
d. Standing ovation
Correct answer:
a. Applause
2. Show star greets show second star (best friend, wife, dog etc.):
Audience reaction:
a. Applause
b. Light laughter
c. Uproarious laughter
d. One loud guffaw from the back
Correct answer:
Either: b. Light laughter or d. One loud guffaw from the back
3. Late night talk show: Host says to a female guest, “My goodness, you look so lovely tonight you just tickle my fancy...”
Audience reaction:
a. Applause
b. Light laughter
c. Uproarious laughter
d. One loud guffaw from the back
Correct answer:
None of the above. Late night talk shows are already filled with enough idiots who will voluntarily do all of the above.
4. Situation Comedy: Very popular supporting actor or actors come on set.
Audience reaction:
a. Polite Applause
b. Thunderous applause with whoops and hollers
c. Light laughter
d. Uproarious laughter
Correct answer:
b. Thunderous applause with whoops and hollers
5. Situation Comedy: Very popular supporting actor or actors say something (it doesn’t matter what is said).
Audience reaction:
a. Polite Applause
b. Thunderous applause with whoops and hollers
c. Light laughter
d. Uproarious laughter
Correct answer:
d. Uproarious laughter
6. Children’s Cartoon Show: Animal star says ,”I see them. Let’s go get ‘em!” (Situation is irrelevant.)
Audience reaction:
a. Polite Applause
b. Thunderous applause with whoops and hollers
c. Light laughter
d. Uproarious laughter
Correct answer:
c. Light laughter
7. Children’s Cartoon Show: Main set of characters is walking from one scene to another. (Situation is irrelevant.)
Audience reaction:
a. Polite Applause
b. Thunderous applause with whoops and hollers
c. Light laughter
d. Uproarious laughter
Correct answer:
c. Light laughter (This is a trick question. Light laughter is always, NOTE: ALWAYS, present on children’s cartoon shows. Children do not know they are enjoying something unless someone else is enjoying it with them. All other artificial audience enjoyment effects must be over-dubbed on top of this foundation sound.)
8. Any Show: Child star, as regular cast member or guest says, “HI POPS!”
Audience reaction:
a. Polit
e Applause
b. Thunderous applause with whoops and hollers
c. Light laughter
d. Uproarious laughter
Correct answer:
d. Uproarious laughter
9. Game Show: Show resumes after brief sponsor’s message.
Audience reaction:
a. Polite Applause
b. Thunderous applause with whoops and hollers
c. Light laughter
d. Uproarious laughter
Correct answer:
b. Thunderous applause with whoops and hollers
This completes today’s Artificial Audience Enjoyment Integrator Aptitude Test. Thank you for investing your time in taking this valuable test for the furtherance of your career. On your way out of the building this morning, please pat yourself on the back for a job well done and a test well taken.
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Alone Again…
Well, here I am, alone again. Sigh...
Enough moping. I am in the process of ending a brief attempt at maintaining a relationship with another human being. So, I am licking my wounds. I tried, but I just couldn’t make the relationship work. There wasn’t enough of me to go around.
My initial culture-bound response to this situation is to plead with the gods in power for the answer to, “What’s wrong with me?!”
We are made to feel hopelessly inadequate if we cannot be with someone. To be alone is some kind of sin against God and nature. Friends shun us as if we are some kind of sideshow freak, not fit for polite company. Alone-ones should only be with other alone-ones. Couples avoid you, as if they fear you might give them something catching. Perhaps it is some form of contagious independence they dread.
Gee, folks, I don’t want to sound like sour grapes, but my aloneness is a sought condition. This is not to say that I will never be ready to share my life with someone, but for now, me is it.
Please do not confuse this with the me-firsters of the 70’s and 80’s. I am talking about the “me, myself, and I” by myself, an independent being.
If you are interested, let’s take a look and see, briefly, how I got to this place in my life.
I am presently 45, father of three, ex-husband of 1, ex-boyfriend of a few.
Raised in the forties and fifties, I was immersed in the romantic babble of the time. Every movie, radio show, television show, piece of music, literature, etc. pounded the theme of “love conquers all” into our innocent, impressionable little brains. We were trained to believe that there was one, and only one life-mate out there for us, and we would find her (him if you are a female) if you looked hard enough.
A moment’s digression...
Funny how this one and only life mate was coincidentally living just a few miles from your teenage home. Hardly any of us ever put in half the struggle for love that a silly salmon does, giving its very life’s strength just to get upstream to that great love-nest-in-the-river. Our greatest challenge is not the glorious struggle to conquer for love, but in the battle to survive after having given away half our earnings to a spouse gone south.
Now, to un-digress...
After absorbing all this babble over the years, somewhere in my early twenties I made a very romantic decision. It was to marry the girl I loved and start a family while we were both young enough to have the strength to pull it off. We would be struggling for the first ten or twenty years, but since love was going to conquer everything anyway, we would be happy, and all grow together, and become one joyful and fulfilled family. Yes, a family built on a foundation of love, sharing, caring, and hard work. (Would you buy a used car from anyone with such a simple minded line of trash?)
Something was wrong with this strategy from the first. I never understood what happened until several years after the truck had plowed through my marriage and family. It seems that I had found a girl of the sixties. One who had been brought up to expect more out of life than just being a doting mother and dutiful wife. I’m still not sure what she was looking for, she may not know either, but whatever it was, I wasn’t it.
Now, you have to believe me when I say that I was not, and am not a bad person. Nevertheless, after fifteen or so years of wedded melancholy, the marriage just died. I had seen my own father stay in a marriage for the kids, and since I was not terribly satisfied with the outcome of that experiment, I decided that this generation would break the marital bonds for the kids. I’m not too sure this worked out perfectly either.
Remembering the love babble I had been brought up on, I found the end of my marriage an incomprehensible disaster. I had failed at the most basic event of human society. I had not been able to keep my family together. I had failed! I was divorced! I was a bad person! I was also un-loved, un-lovable, and alone. The sins and failures mounted so fast my head was constantly spinning.
