Tuesday, October 7, 2014

How not to do a search (or find anything)




Listen, I was just trying to find something on a site called, I think, SilentComedyMafia.com. So I thought I'd see what they had on Harold Lloyd. Their system seemed designed to help me NOT find ANYTHING EVER. I have no idea what a wildcard is. I will never look up this site again.

Information

The following words in your search query were ignored because they are too common words: harold lloyd.
You must specify at least one word to search for. Each word must consist of at least 3 characters and must not contain more than 14 characters excluding wildcards.

SEARCH QUERY

Search for keywords:
Place + in front of a word which must be found and - in front of a word which must not be found. Put a list of words separated by | into brackets if only one of the words must be found. Use * as a wildcard for partial matches.

Search for all terms or use query as entered

Search for any terms

Search for author:
Use * as a wildcard for partial matches.

(Oh-but-there's-more. There's always more. Poking a little deeper into the site, I found just ONE page of about 15 pages of regulations you must follow before even looking at the site, let alone posting a message. Don't read this, please - I use it only as an example of how a web site can drive you into the woods before you even use it.)







SILENTCOMEDYMAFIA.COM WEBSITE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF USE

Last Updated: July 2009

PLEASE READ THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF USE CAREFULLY. BY ACCESSING OR USING THIS WEBSITE, YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS DESCRIBED HEREIN AND BY ALL TERMS, POLICIES AND GUIDELINES INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ALL OF THESE TERMS, DO NOT USE THIS WEBSITE.

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SCM takes no responsibility and assumes no liability for any User Content posted, stored or uploaded by you or any third party, or for any loss or damage thereto, nor is SCM liable for any mistakes, defamation, slander, libel, omissions, falsehoods, obscenity, or profanity you may encounter. Your use of Interactive Areas is at your own risk. As a provider of interactive services, SCM is not liable for any statements, representations or User Content provided by its users in any public forum or other Interactive Area. Although SCM has no obligation to screen, edit or monitor any of the User Content posted in any Interactive Area, SCM reserves the right, and has absolute discretion, to remove, screen or edit any User Content posted or stored on the Site at any time and for any reason without notice. You are solely responsible for creating backup copies of and replacing any User Content you post or store on the Site at your sole cost and expense. Any use of the Interactive Areas or other portions of the Site in violation of the foregoing violates these Site Terms and may result in, among other things, termination or suspension of your rights to use the Interactive Areas and/or the Site. You represent and warrant that (a) you own and control all of the rights to the User Content that you post or you otherwise have the right to post such User Content to the Site; (b) the User Content is accurate and not misleading; and (c) use and posting of the User Content you supply does not violate these Site Terms and will not violate any rights of or cause injury to any person or entity.






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SCM reserves the right to change any of the terms and conditions contained in the Site Terms or any policy or guideline of the Site, at any time and in its sole discretion. Any changes will be effective immediately upon posting on the Site. Your continued use of the Site following the posting of changes will constitute your acceptance of such changes.

© 2009 SilentComedyMafia.com. All rights reserved.SCM AdminSite Admin Posts: 3Joined: Sun May 17, 2009 4:05 pm


(Post-blahhhg thoughts: hmmmm, the word Mafia may apply here, in some obscure way. But I don't know how.)



  Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

And he glittered when he walked


Richard Cory

BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was richyes, richer than a king

And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.


I remember that we "took" this poem in school, way back in Grade 7 or thereabouts, and the chagrin, the consternation of the class: "But why did he DO that?" "He had everything." "Everyone envied him." "It's not fair." "It's a joke, isn't it?" " That would never happen."

My "favorite" was this lovely statement, which I have heard echoed many times and from many people - I mean adults who should know better, not kids:

"You kill yourself because you're crazy, and you're only crazy if you want to be."


I wonder now, if that kid is still alive, whether he thinks the same way.


I'm not supposed to think about any of this, of course. As one writer said, Robin Williams' death caused many people to suddenly come out of the closet and proclaim, "Yes, me too". But where are they now? No doubt they have retreated in terror, hoping against hope that no one remembers their foolishness.



I've written about this before. Halloween is coming, and in the past I've seen "mental patient" costumes, often with restraints and lurid "nurses" with syringes full of "sedatives". It's funny, isn't it? Come on. Come on, don't you have a sense of humour?

No. If that's what humour is, then no.

My brother was in these "loony bins", "nut wards", etc., on and off for years. I loved him dearly, and by his own admission he was not just crazy but "ca-RAZY". Eerily, I used to compare him to Robin Williams in his madcap ability to riff on outrageous themes, putting on characters and taking them off like masks, only to change at light speed to another subject entirely. One time he did a riff on the '60s TV show The Real McCoys, doing every voice from Grandpa to Luke to Little Luke to Hassie to  Kate to - his personal favorite - Pepino. Some of it was so x-rated that we fell out of our chairs.


He died in 1980, not of suicide as almost everyone assumes, but an accident. Two months later, John Lennon was shot and killed. It was a point of despair in my life.

So what is it about people who seem to have everything, who do themselves in anyway? I think of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, relapsing most awfully into a habit he thought he had beaten. I think of Amy Winehouse drinking a gallon of vodka and poisoning herself at age 27. I think we think they are immune. Not just that they are rich and famous, but loved - aren't they loved, too, I mean by friends and family?

Are they? Is there - is there balm in Gilead?

I have already published a couple of eerily similar photos of Robin Williams with dear friends who hold him so tenderly, he looks like a baby bird fallen from the nest. I once read that people who don't feel loved are like sawdust dolls with a tiny hole in the bottom. It keeps trickling out, almost imperceptibly, until the person is desperate for more supplies to keep from bleeding out.



What got all this started again? Well, it's close to Halloween which makes me think of all those awful mental patient costumes, totally dehumanizing but seen as ghoulishly funny, and CERTAINLY not anything to be offended about.  (You're too sensitive, you know? That's your whole problem.) We don't have Parkinson's or MS or ALS Halloween costumes, but then again, these illnesses are "physical", "real", no one's fault, with the sufferers seen as dignified and courageous, and therefore not frightening or subject to mockery. After all, it would be in very poor taste. 

 It's also from remembering Williams, who seems to have died a very long time ago (but at the same time, only yesterday), but most of all it's because yesterday I bought Billy Crystal's memoir, Still Foolin' 'Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys? It's typical self-deprecating Crystal humour, but not excoriating, with a sweetness, a gentleness that I have always loved about him. In fact, he is my favorite comedian.

He and Robin Williams were best friends. Closer than brothers, in many ways. This book was written and published before his suicide, but on the back is a quote from Williams that now seems poignant and unsettling: "This book is kick-ass funny and truly unique. A Hollywood autobiography with only one wife, no rehab, a loving family, and loyal friends."







I wonder if Williams secretly feared he had none of those things. It's a bit scary that he focused on that, as if to shame himself for having three wives and multiple trips to rehab.  To imply, almost, that Crystal was a superior version of himself - or, at least, not so scarred, not so vulnerable.

I don't want to go much farther into this because I don't fancy triggering off a lousy day of depression. It wouldn't do anything to change the situation. But oh how I wish people would wake up. I thought of a scenario that might have saved him - everyone has a theory, so here goes, here is mine:

He is pacing the floor, both despondent and frantic, knowing there is no way out of the crushing adversity that is coming at him from all sides. Soon he will be paralyzed from Parkinson's, his career will be over, and he won't be able to take part in the cycling that has kept him sane. Rehab did no good at all and made everything worse. He looks back with shame over the battlefield of his life, and for that moment he can't see anything good about it. At all. He has made a mess of things, and there is only one way out.

Though it is agonizing to do, though he has to stand up to an immense shame that is nearly overwhelming, he goes over to the phone, picks up the receiver, dials 9-1-1.

"Hello. I'm going to kill myself. Come get me, please. NOW."


CODA. From Leonard Bernstein's Mass. I used to carry this around written on a little piece of paper. Once a counsellor took it from me and read it in a sing-songy, Betty Crocker voice, then handed it back to me saying, "Oh, that's nice."

I don't know where to start
There are scars I could show
If I opened my heart
But how far, Lord, how far can I go?
I don't know. 
What I say I don't feel
What I feel I don't show
What I show isn't real
What is real, Lord
I don't know 
No, no, no. . . I don't know.