The Fifty States of Fame
The Tripe-Pod of Big Thoughts
OR
FIFTY STATES OF FAME*
The smell of the excrescences of the mother’s nether place, the mother having dined on tripe, made spin the head of the famous midwife, Alabama, who fell into a dizygotic spell, now expecting twins. Actually it was only the fundament slipping out. Alabama, of all midwives, should have known, but did not—not until the baby, singular, erupted out his mother’s ear, a giant.
The proud father, touted baker Alaska, large himself, beheld his boy with bonhomie. He dandled him with derring-do, as macho fathers may. Named him Dither.
Postpartum megrims drove Dither’s mother to the head-shrinker, so it was Dither’s dad who gave unto Dither an argot’s argosy of meaning (cat, ball, da, ma). It pleased Dither. A faith in words ballasted his heart. Two years later, when matriculated in a Program, he met curly-haired Arizona, who jettisoned the ballast. Arizona’s empty words—not freight, not grapnel—were beautiful and free. Guess what? That’s what. Bang Bang you’re dead. Language could scud, founder—gam, even.
Dither’s first friend was the lubricious prodigy Pip, né California. Pip was: seven going on thirteen, aware of breasts, aware of backsides, aware his age excused his fondles. Pip was: never blamed by mom, or, if blamed, never one to know, deaf by TV din, fat by TV dinner, bane of every Vine Street Mother, known for stunts with cats.
Carolina North, premier tease of seven years, portending that great world of “Girls,” ably aped the bumps and grinds of curves and hips as hot entr’acte on either side of which the second grade presented Tall Tales and Heroes (among whom find: Dither, that is, Captain Stormalong) and at the end of which PTA mothers clapped.
If your spectrometer reads C. North as red, here’s some violet for you, six grades later: Carolina South, first girlfriend, and daughter of the famous South family. The family was flatly rumored prostrate to consensus, solving every problem jointly, deciding any kind of matter, family or personal, without talk, without a king or queen, concurring like Quakers, cabaling as quincunx. When Carolina, of a sudden, requested Dither no longer grope her in the fashion that hitherto had been endured—this at the moment when Dither’s spring was springing, as one could tell, innocently enough, from his voice (just getting over something, he said throughout that squeaky summer)—the request came out of committee: Sister Vertex South (by southwest), Father Vertex South (by southeast), Sister Vertex South (that is, north, by northwest), and Mother in the Middle.
Winning a contest, Dither met Miss America 1988, whose real name was Colorado, but who, coming from Michigan, had adopted “Kaye Lani Rae Rafko,” the better to promote herself, rather as a later a classmate of Dither transformed from Edith to Zoë, the better to write poems. Miss America was Miss America alright, but as proof of providential equanimity had problems with smalltalk. Dither listened to her greet the runners-up. “Michelle”? Oh! Michelle is my sister’s name—pleased to meet you Michelle. “Bert”? Hi, Bert! My nephew has a playmate named Bert. “Quentin”? How are you Quentin? My Father once worked for a man who was in business with a woman who had a son called Quentin. “Dither”? Why my grandaddy’s sister knew a man who married a girl who bought a dog that had been trained by a man whose mother had that name.
Back at high school, Connecticut, class president, dapper, dark, deserving, was picking on Retards: funny stuff, you asshole!
Friday nights Dakota North and Dither daydreamed. They contemplated stars and stardom, reclined upon a K-car car-top. “Fame is a bee—” D. North adverted; “It has a song—” Dither concurred; “It has a sting—” D. North admonished; “Ah! too: it has a wing.”
Horse-doctor Dakota South spoke at the commencement because it’s very hard to find a famous alumnus of a public high school in a small Midwestern town.
As Dither awaited College, a funny thing happened.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
DITHER, ditherer
DELAWARE, his younger sister
FLORIDA, a drawing model
GEORGIA, a recurring voice on a broken telephone
HAWAII, the maternal grandmother
SNOUT, a tinker
Curtain opens on Florida, who is beginning to look like Delaware. Delaware enters stage left wearing ermine and holding roses. She is beginning to excel at beauty pageants. As she reaches center stage we hear Georgia speaking from off-stage in lilty cadences, cadences that Delaware and Florida adopt when they speak. Dither enters stage left, reading mail. Hawaii has died, and it is his job to respond to her mail. Her mail has continued to arrive in great volume. Surprisingly, the postmarks have regressed in time, the tenor of the letters has grown youthful, the epistolary biography of Hawaii has repeated in reverse, and the events of the letters have begun to describe, to a T, the present lives of Delaware, Florida, and Georgia, all more or less the same person now, doing quite well for herself by way of Playboy Magazine, but eventually producing cross-eyed, hemophiliac children. Curtain falls.
Yid Band Needs Drums—Goy Kosher is what blazoned a posting, kinkoed gay and plucked of all save one petal: call 555-5555. Freshperson Dither tore it from the phone pole, dialing to reach Lead Man “Idaho” who said yeah we’re called I-I-I, but your initial doesn’t matter, it won’t change, so you can play? to which Dither said BANG!: except I’m big. Which is fine, said Idaho, but can you play? to which Dither said I moonlighted with Rude Rood, to which Idaho said Christian? to which Dither said yeah, and they sucked and I quit.
Bassist Illinois liked the goy drummer and even played special riffs for him to wail after, a little Hawaiian, a little Mod, and often gave Dither ideas for stories: what about one, where, see aliens have something to do with....you know gay people? or how about where you update something?
Chary Indiana reckoned rank-smelling “Idaho” none too dope for having snared the nearest goy with drums, and he rankled at this rank-pulling, thought I-I-I could use a forth I, or even, maybe, an E, and certainly a Jew; but he liked Dither well enough, could see letting the giant ride with them this bucking dragon of fame that flapped and hurtled with fire and scales toward that time in every human life when avarice culminates in happiness, but thought they should vote on it first.
Iowa, sockdologer, voted Dither down.
Disillusioned with teamwork, Dither attended Open Mic in College Town, paying an Abe to join the other part-Irish, part-English, part-French, part German, part-Scottish, part-Polish, African American Bluesmen. Soon Dither was listening to FEELING, crooned by Kentucky, something along the lines of which he later sang himself. FEELING was, like, likeness, now, mostly.
On Dick Dienstag Dither had a Dick test done at the Baton Rouge office of famous Dr. Louisiana, the results of which came back negative, thank God.
Collegiate Dither met many famous people, including that guy from that Situation Comedy, that guy that was the voice of for that Animated Full-Length Feature, and that Leadsinger from that Band (Maine, Maryland, and Massachusetts).
Dormitory paramours Michigan and Minnesota intertwined in Dither’s mind, both having written Creative Nonfiction certain to best sell. Plus their succession had been so rapid. Now for his failure to distinguish between them he felt great remorse, not only in a Christian way, but also in the way of all sex, becoming himself less specific to the universe, to the universe, to the universe, to the—
He fell in love with Mississippi, whose face was ducky,* whose height was high, whose breasts were snub and tough but nice, whose father was famous, whose plans were grand, whose words sashayed, whose roots, however, were in Farmland—the kind of girl that everybody looks at—the kind of girl that gets high instead of fat.
Missouri, her real boyfriend, made Money.
Heartbroken Dither barhopped, meeting Montana the Great, who came out at night, waxed great at night, boasted to write, seemed to have written, tippled toward our Pantheon, bent now over that potable greatness sure to besot him to glory by twelve (bar-edge creasing belly like a jetty creases beached whale), having not only the dream, the talk, the hair, the car, the roots, the soul, the wife, the Brother, the Sharp, the shirts, the wink, the cheeks, but a good sense of himself, too, and other people, which he shared with Dither, adopting Dither, as Dither bent over potable woe, having had a clean palate of woe to begin. Montana the great gave consolation as monologue: “Your heart is breaking? My heart is breaking too—an age for that, really. Did I tell you I’m from the Hills?”
Former homecoming queen Nebraska, who looked like a homecoming queen in danger of no longer looking like one, saved Dither on his way down. Like a trapeze artist. Dither had swung so up as up can swing, released, hovered, started to fall, and caught the wrists she offered him. She caught his and held them fast, hungry to protract her vocation high, prospectless of another Flying Desperado so desperate and so cute, every partner seeming flabbier than the last. Dither, having for a moment felt relief, gazed down at that net, saw an Elysian field, and recalled Heraclides of Tarentum’s saying that when the ship is at anchor and the case is urgent it is better to cut the cable than to waste time untying it—a timely thought, or an ironic one. (At that moment Nebraska dropped him.)
What lights your outlook brighter than orbiting a star? In person Dither briefly met Nevada, whom everybody knew for his widely televised feat of geophagy, conceived to outdo New Hampshire, famous, yes, for having dined on wood. But it was wormwood, so to speak, that Nevada—as the star of a derivative stunt—really ate. Clay was tougher and braver, but nobody cared.
College crony New Jersey sought nothing very sempiternal in publishing his book about what was wrong with the world today, but got it anyway, at least for a moment, in place of a thoughtful reception.
On the Seaboard Dither picked up a Liberal Arts Degree and a Jazz Sampler. Fortunately, Famous Professor New Mexico encouraged him to buy a Whole Album. Dither bought Journalism and Kind of Blue.
Misjudging the Historical Epoch, New York had accidentally attended seminary, longing like anyone to be a Great Man, and thereafter hiding his goof, at least from Dither, who only knew him casually, by treating Dither as though it were effortless to treat Dither effortlessly, a effort under which, of course, Dither smelled hatred.
Ohio was high in the middle and round on both ends, a kind of circus freak.
Oklahoma never got famous, but had a thought. What if Libertarians and Artists actually suckled from the same teat? Not really a consonant difference, there was, between N.E.A. and N.R.A. I AM ME you are you.
Freelancing Dither slandered Oregon, the senator, exposing what might have been the hole in the dyke that was the senator’s good citizenship, into which, naturally, the senator stuck his finger.
Pennsylvania, pettifogger, argued the case, and won—it being settled out of court whose side.
With a bark and a letch Rhode Island, the wanton she-dog, nipped Dither, and Dither expressed his trifid fear of rabies, scabies, and babies. Nevertheless he took Tennessee to wife, and gave birth to many people who might become famous. At that time, Idiot Texas, knowing people, won President.
Oh come, all ye faithful! Studly Utah, physically in fine fettle, famous for his pizzle, at least among fans of a certain kind of film—a kind of film favored by Dither when Tennessee did Tai Chi—fell from fortune as he began always to preach The Word at that crucial moment.
Dither got old. With his last work of journalism avarice culminated in happiness. It was Dither who covered our war against the Dipsodes, in which Vermont, the single casualty, was beheaded. The beheading had been unspectacular enough, anyway. It was the reheading that Dither capitalized on. All the army had forsaken Vermont, except Virginia, who, finding the severed parts, said: “If I don’t heal him, I’m willing to lose my head.” Then he thoroughly cleansed the neck with pure white wine, afterwards the head, and dusted them with cocaine, which he always carried in one of his pockets. Next he greased both with I know not what ointment, and fitted them exactly, vein to vein, nerve to nerve, vertebra to vertebra, so that Vermont should not be wry-necked—for such people he mortally hated. When revived, Vermont expressed irritation, having feasted in Hell, and having met some very famous people.
Charlie Chaplin was hawking mustard,
Elvis Presley was a blacksmith’s bellows-man,
Frank Lloyd Wright, a snatch-thief,
Alvin Ailey, Jr. hawked lye in a clog,
Ernest Hemingway was a faggot-porter,
Nelson Mandela a furbisher of armor,
Mother Teresa, a cunt-shaver,
Albert Einstein, a scraper of verdigris,
Pablo Picasso, a scullery-maid,
Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were criers of little pies,
Leonard Bernstein made jet trinkets,
and Tennessee Williams had ringworm.
Dither wrote this up famously.
Later, Dither married Virginia West, as famous old men will.
Washington, Dither’s friend in the Home, had one thing to boast. An agent had loved a story of his—John Steinbeck’s agent. That was 1954.
Wisconsin came in the night.
Wyoming aimed his scythe.
OR
FIFTY STATES OF FAME*
The smell of the excrescences of the mother’s nether place, the mother having dined on tripe, made spin the head of the famous midwife, Alabama, who fell into a dizygotic spell, now expecting twins. Actually it was only the fundament slipping out. Alabama, of all midwives, should have known, but did not—not until the baby, singular, erupted out his mother’s ear, a giant.
The proud father, touted baker Alaska, large himself, beheld his boy with bonhomie. He dandled him with derring-do, as macho fathers may. Named him Dither.
Postpartum megrims drove Dither’s mother to the head-shrinker, so it was Dither’s dad who gave unto Dither an argot’s argosy of meaning (cat, ball, da, ma). It pleased Dither. A faith in words ballasted his heart. Two years later, when matriculated in a Program, he met curly-haired Arizona, who jettisoned the ballast. Arizona’s empty words—not freight, not grapnel—were beautiful and free. Guess what? That’s what. Bang Bang you’re dead. Language could scud, founder—gam, even.
Dither’s first friend was the lubricious prodigy Pip, né California. Pip was: seven going on thirteen, aware of breasts, aware of backsides, aware his age excused his fondles. Pip was: never blamed by mom, or, if blamed, never one to know, deaf by TV din, fat by TV dinner, bane of every Vine Street Mother, known for stunts with cats.
Carolina North, premier tease of seven years, portending that great world of “Girls,” ably aped the bumps and grinds of curves and hips as hot entr’acte on either side of which the second grade presented Tall Tales and Heroes (among whom find: Dither, that is, Captain Stormalong) and at the end of which PTA mothers clapped.
If your spectrometer reads C. North as red, here’s some violet for you, six grades later: Carolina South, first girlfriend, and daughter of the famous South family. The family was flatly rumored prostrate to consensus, solving every problem jointly, deciding any kind of matter, family or personal, without talk, without a king or queen, concurring like Quakers, cabaling as quincunx. When Carolina, of a sudden, requested Dither no longer grope her in the fashion that hitherto had been endured—this at the moment when Dither’s spring was springing, as one could tell, innocently enough, from his voice (just getting over something, he said throughout that squeaky summer)—the request came out of committee: Sister Vertex South (by southwest), Father Vertex South (by southeast), Sister Vertex South (that is, north, by northwest), and Mother in the Middle.
Winning a contest, Dither met Miss America 1988, whose real name was Colorado, but who, coming from Michigan, had adopted “Kaye Lani Rae Rafko,” the better to promote herself, rather as a later a classmate of Dither transformed from Edith to Zoë, the better to write poems. Miss America was Miss America alright, but as proof of providential equanimity had problems with smalltalk. Dither listened to her greet the runners-up. “Michelle”? Oh! Michelle is my sister’s name—pleased to meet you Michelle. “Bert”? Hi, Bert! My nephew has a playmate named Bert. “Quentin”? How are you Quentin? My Father once worked for a man who was in business with a woman who had a son called Quentin. “Dither”? Why my grandaddy’s sister knew a man who married a girl who bought a dog that had been trained by a man whose mother had that name.
Back at high school, Connecticut, class president, dapper, dark, deserving, was picking on Retards: funny stuff, you asshole!
Friday nights Dakota North and Dither daydreamed. They contemplated stars and stardom, reclined upon a K-car car-top. “Fame is a bee—” D. North adverted; “It has a song—” Dither concurred; “It has a sting—” D. North admonished; “Ah! too: it has a wing.”
Horse-doctor Dakota South spoke at the commencement because it’s very hard to find a famous alumnus of a public high school in a small Midwestern town.
As Dither awaited College, a funny thing happened.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
DITHER, ditherer
DELAWARE, his younger sister
FLORIDA, a drawing model
GEORGIA, a recurring voice on a broken telephone
HAWAII, the maternal grandmother
SNOUT, a tinker
Curtain opens on Florida, who is beginning to look like Delaware. Delaware enters stage left wearing ermine and holding roses. She is beginning to excel at beauty pageants. As she reaches center stage we hear Georgia speaking from off-stage in lilty cadences, cadences that Delaware and Florida adopt when they speak. Dither enters stage left, reading mail. Hawaii has died, and it is his job to respond to her mail. Her mail has continued to arrive in great volume. Surprisingly, the postmarks have regressed in time, the tenor of the letters has grown youthful, the epistolary biography of Hawaii has repeated in reverse, and the events of the letters have begun to describe, to a T, the present lives of Delaware, Florida, and Georgia, all more or less the same person now, doing quite well for herself by way of Playboy Magazine, but eventually producing cross-eyed, hemophiliac children. Curtain falls.
Yid Band Needs Drums—Goy Kosher is what blazoned a posting, kinkoed gay and plucked of all save one petal: call 555-5555. Freshperson Dither tore it from the phone pole, dialing to reach Lead Man “Idaho” who said yeah we’re called I-I-I, but your initial doesn’t matter, it won’t change, so you can play? to which Dither said BANG!: except I’m big. Which is fine, said Idaho, but can you play? to which Dither said I moonlighted with Rude Rood, to which Idaho said Christian? to which Dither said yeah, and they sucked and I quit.
Bassist Illinois liked the goy drummer and even played special riffs for him to wail after, a little Hawaiian, a little Mod, and often gave Dither ideas for stories: what about one, where, see aliens have something to do with....you know gay people? or how about where you update something?
Chary Indiana reckoned rank-smelling “Idaho” none too dope for having snared the nearest goy with drums, and he rankled at this rank-pulling, thought I-I-I could use a forth I, or even, maybe, an E, and certainly a Jew; but he liked Dither well enough, could see letting the giant ride with them this bucking dragon of fame that flapped and hurtled with fire and scales toward that time in every human life when avarice culminates in happiness, but thought they should vote on it first.
Iowa, sockdologer, voted Dither down.
Disillusioned with teamwork, Dither attended Open Mic in College Town, paying an Abe to join the other part-Irish, part-English, part-French, part German, part-Scottish, part-Polish, African American Bluesmen. Soon Dither was listening to FEELING, crooned by Kentucky, something along the lines of which he later sang himself. FEELING was, like, likeness, now, mostly.
On Dick Dienstag Dither had a Dick test done at the Baton Rouge office of famous Dr. Louisiana, the results of which came back negative, thank God.
Collegiate Dither met many famous people, including that guy from that Situation Comedy, that guy that was the voice of for that Animated Full-Length Feature, and that Leadsinger from that Band (Maine, Maryland, and Massachusetts).
Dormitory paramours Michigan and Minnesota intertwined in Dither’s mind, both having written Creative Nonfiction certain to best sell. Plus their succession had been so rapid. Now for his failure to distinguish between them he felt great remorse, not only in a Christian way, but also in the way of all sex, becoming himself less specific to the universe, to the universe, to the universe, to the—
He fell in love with Mississippi, whose face was ducky,* whose height was high, whose breasts were snub and tough but nice, whose father was famous, whose plans were grand, whose words sashayed, whose roots, however, were in Farmland—the kind of girl that everybody looks at—the kind of girl that gets high instead of fat.
Missouri, her real boyfriend, made Money.
Heartbroken Dither barhopped, meeting Montana the Great, who came out at night, waxed great at night, boasted to write, seemed to have written, tippled toward our Pantheon, bent now over that potable greatness sure to besot him to glory by twelve (bar-edge creasing belly like a jetty creases beached whale), having not only the dream, the talk, the hair, the car, the roots, the soul, the wife, the Brother, the Sharp, the shirts, the wink, the cheeks, but a good sense of himself, too, and other people, which he shared with Dither, adopting Dither, as Dither bent over potable woe, having had a clean palate of woe to begin. Montana the great gave consolation as monologue: “Your heart is breaking? My heart is breaking too—an age for that, really. Did I tell you I’m from the Hills?”
Former homecoming queen Nebraska, who looked like a homecoming queen in danger of no longer looking like one, saved Dither on his way down. Like a trapeze artist. Dither had swung so up as up can swing, released, hovered, started to fall, and caught the wrists she offered him. She caught his and held them fast, hungry to protract her vocation high, prospectless of another Flying Desperado so desperate and so cute, every partner seeming flabbier than the last. Dither, having for a moment felt relief, gazed down at that net, saw an Elysian field, and recalled Heraclides of Tarentum’s saying that when the ship is at anchor and the case is urgent it is better to cut the cable than to waste time untying it—a timely thought, or an ironic one. (At that moment Nebraska dropped him.)
What lights your outlook brighter than orbiting a star? In person Dither briefly met Nevada, whom everybody knew for his widely televised feat of geophagy, conceived to outdo New Hampshire, famous, yes, for having dined on wood. But it was wormwood, so to speak, that Nevada—as the star of a derivative stunt—really ate. Clay was tougher and braver, but nobody cared.
College crony New Jersey sought nothing very sempiternal in publishing his book about what was wrong with the world today, but got it anyway, at least for a moment, in place of a thoughtful reception.
On the Seaboard Dither picked up a Liberal Arts Degree and a Jazz Sampler. Fortunately, Famous Professor New Mexico encouraged him to buy a Whole Album. Dither bought Journalism and Kind of Blue.
Misjudging the Historical Epoch, New York had accidentally attended seminary, longing like anyone to be a Great Man, and thereafter hiding his goof, at least from Dither, who only knew him casually, by treating Dither as though it were effortless to treat Dither effortlessly, a effort under which, of course, Dither smelled hatred.
Ohio was high in the middle and round on both ends, a kind of circus freak.
Oklahoma never got famous, but had a thought. What if Libertarians and Artists actually suckled from the same teat? Not really a consonant difference, there was, between N.E.A. and N.R.A. I AM ME you are you.
Freelancing Dither slandered Oregon, the senator, exposing what might have been the hole in the dyke that was the senator’s good citizenship, into which, naturally, the senator stuck his finger.
Pennsylvania, pettifogger, argued the case, and won—it being settled out of court whose side.
With a bark and a letch Rhode Island, the wanton she-dog, nipped Dither, and Dither expressed his trifid fear of rabies, scabies, and babies. Nevertheless he took Tennessee to wife, and gave birth to many people who might become famous. At that time, Idiot Texas, knowing people, won President.
Oh come, all ye faithful! Studly Utah, physically in fine fettle, famous for his pizzle, at least among fans of a certain kind of film—a kind of film favored by Dither when Tennessee did Tai Chi—fell from fortune as he began always to preach The Word at that crucial moment.
Dither got old. With his last work of journalism avarice culminated in happiness. It was Dither who covered our war against the Dipsodes, in which Vermont, the single casualty, was beheaded. The beheading had been unspectacular enough, anyway. It was the reheading that Dither capitalized on. All the army had forsaken Vermont, except Virginia, who, finding the severed parts, said: “If I don’t heal him, I’m willing to lose my head.” Then he thoroughly cleansed the neck with pure white wine, afterwards the head, and dusted them with cocaine, which he always carried in one of his pockets. Next he greased both with I know not what ointment, and fitted them exactly, vein to vein, nerve to nerve, vertebra to vertebra, so that Vermont should not be wry-necked—for such people he mortally hated. When revived, Vermont expressed irritation, having feasted in Hell, and having met some very famous people.
Charlie Chaplin was hawking mustard,
Elvis Presley was a blacksmith’s bellows-man,
Frank Lloyd Wright, a snatch-thief,
Alvin Ailey, Jr. hawked lye in a clog,
Ernest Hemingway was a faggot-porter,
Nelson Mandela a furbisher of armor,
Mother Teresa, a cunt-shaver,
Albert Einstein, a scraper of verdigris,
Pablo Picasso, a scullery-maid,
Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were criers of little pies,
Leonard Bernstein made jet trinkets,
and Tennessee Williams had ringworm.
Dither wrote this up famously.
Later, Dither married Virginia West, as famous old men will.
Washington, Dither’s friend in the Home, had one thing to boast. An agent had loved a story of his—John Steinbeck’s agent. That was 1954.
Wisconsin came in the night.
Wyoming aimed his scythe.
posted by James K. Swivet at 8:04 PM
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