Many years ago, when I was nearly broke and I could only afford rather lame presents for my family, I started dressing the gift wrapping up a bit, adding photos and captions. My thinking was, Maybe the fun wrapping will distract them from the shitty gift I bought. Anyway, doing this became a habit, and I'm still doing it. Here are a few examples from this year and last year.
I don't generally write introductions to my stories, preferring to let them stand on their own. But "New Forms Of Identification" perhaps requires one, at least in our current mad times when people have lost their sense of humor. I wrote this short story in early 2023. My girlfriend read it at the time and advised me not to publish it, saying it would offend the wrong people. I set it aside, thinking she was probably right and figuring it would have a short shelf life anyway. But the story kept popping up, demanding to be looked at. So I reworked some parts of it, and here it is. If it offends people on either side of the issue, so be it. I think anyone on the left who is offended will be missing the point. And anyway, I'm not against offending people, especially those who lack a sense of humor. Don't take yourselves too seriously. Life is much too short.
New Forms Of Identification
by Michael Doherty
When Joseph
changed his name to Carissa, Diana was not the least bit troubled, or even
surprised. Her son had always been a bit effeminate, and had long expressed
dissatisfaction with his biblical name. Carissa made some sense to her, and
Diana quickly made the adjustment. But when a year later he announced he wanted
to be called His Majesty, The Supreme Lord Xavier The Conqueror, she refused.
“I now identify as an interplanetary pharaoh,” her son explained. This did not
surprise Diana either. Her son had always been a tad dramatic, but she had no
inclination to follow this latest directive as to how he wished to be
addressed.
There had been
enough changes in her household, Diana decided. Her couch had begun identifying
as a refrigerator, and her dog had begun identifying as a sock puppet. Her
entire bedroom set now wished to be referred to as Corky Fungi, a heavy metal
band specializing in demonic waltzes. Diana had done her best to adjust to each
of these changes, never wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings, but reality had been
lost somewhere in the many transitions, and she was no longer certain which
things were fact and which were mere fantasy. Everything was jumbled, it seemed
to her. All interactions required inquiries as to identities. But those
questions themselves required a delicacy, and had to be spoken in soft, gentle
tones, so as to imply no judgment. And the list of words one was now expected
to avoid using grew with each passing day. She kept the list taped to her
refrigerator, her real refrigerator (though she knew she shouldn’t refer to it
in such a manner aloud, at least not in front of her couch, and the word “real”
had become questionable anyway). She looked the list over each morning before
breakfast, a reminder of what it was no longer polite to utter. She had slipped
up once last week, referring to the nice woman who did her nails as a woman,
forgetting for just a moment that “woman” had recently been added to the list
of forbidden words and expressions. Plus, as Diana soon remembered, that woman
now identified as a school of angel fish. The look of anger Diana received as a
result of her social faux pas led to her decision to get her nails done at
another salon.
And now her
son, an interplanetary pharaoh? How would she ever get him to clean his room
again? Everything she’d once been certain of in life now was illusive, dubious.
Objects were nothing more than outlines, the middle being constantly emptied
and refilled with different material, the exteriors dressed and redressed. She
understood that part of it was just that she was getting older, and the world
was doing its best to shed itself of the previous generation, as it had always
done. But that couldn’t be the whole story. Could it? Besides, she was only
forty-one. Needing to at least momentarily escape her thoughts, she decided to
take in a movie (you weren’t allowed to say “film” anymore). She called in sick
at work, telling her boss (though of course not using the word “boss”) that she
was suffering from cisgender dysphoria, an excuse newly recognized as valid.
The movie was a delightful romance about two non-binary penguins who start a
dry-cleaning business on a shrinking glacier. When Diana got home, feeling much
more herself, the Moopies were there.
In other parts
of the galaxy, Moopies had a reputation for being cruel, rude and selfish, for
being prone to violent outbursts and lengthy monologues. They were also known
for making a mess, breaking things with their large bodies and awkward dancing.
This was a generalization, certainly, but one which proved true more often than
not. And the one thing that was the case with all Moopies, without exception,
and without argument, was their love of a good loud waltz. And it is for that
reason that this particular group of Moopies had traveled to Earth. They wanted
to hear Corky Fungi perform.
Diana’s first
clue that something was amiss, even before she saw the terrible state of the
kitchen, was the way her front lawn was all torn up by the monsters’ transport.
Moopies were generally fast drivers, and if you needed to get somewhere
quickly, hitching a ride with one would do the trick, but few had bothered to
master the art of landing. Diana saw that the doghouse had been crushed, and
briefly wondered if her dog had been inside it. Not that he would be much help
against the intruders now that he identified as a sock puppet. The journey had
made the Moopies hungry, and they had emptied Diana’s refrigerator, and even
her couch, of all contents, and were now consuming it while clumsily dancing to
the music of Diana’s bedroom set. Their many feet were covered not only in
dirt, as usual, but also in ketchup, mayonnaise, flour, tabasco sauce and sour
cream, sullying her expensive shag carpeting with each awkward step, while
their flailing arms knocked the artwork from the walls. The more the Moopies
enjoyed themselves, the more destruction they caused, and the more of Diana’s
reality they consumed. But no one could deny that the band was cooking. Corky Fungi,
playing to an enthusiastic audience, put on the show of its career. One of the
Moopies was moved to deliver a lengthy monologue during a break between songs
while the vanity re-tuned its instrument, the thrust of it being that the
monsters would do well to take the band back to their planet to continue the
party there. The others, seizing upon the idea, began to tear up the extra
bedding, the strips of which were then used to tie up the band members.
This proved
too much for Diana, whose relaxed mood from taking in a movie had long since evaporated.
“No, you can’t take my bedroom set,” Diana shouted, in her agitated state momentarily
forgetting what her furniture now wished to be called and reverting back to the
reality she had trusted for so much of her life. That didn’t stop the Moopies
from their task, and the largest of the creatures started to drag Gruff Iron,
the bass player, who in easier days had simply been her dresser, from the room.
This created a terrible racket, enough to draw Diana’s still-sullen son from
his room to complain.
The moment the
large Moopie saw him, he stopped dragging Gruff, dropping the rope. He then
dropped to his knees, saying, “Your majesty.”
At that,
Diana’s son straightened up, and focused his gaze slightly above the prostrate form
of the Moopie. “Yes, subject?” he said.
“What is your
pleasure, Majesty?”
And Diana’s
son said, “Corky Fungi is to remain in my mother’s room.”
And that is
how The Supreme Lord Xavier The Conqueror kept Diana’s bedroom set from being
abducted by monsters. And though Diana’s link to reality was permanently
severed, she did eventually gain an appreciation for heavy metal music.
Copyright 2023/2025 by Michael Doherty
I don’t like to complain too much about companies, but the way I was treated by certain Amazon employees today (and yes, more than one) is something that I feel I have to document. I had ordered a CD by the Waco Brothers, and it arrived today (several days later than originally promised, but that is not the issue at all). The CD case was cracked, and all the little teeth that hold the CD in place were broken, every single one. So the CD would just slide around in its case. I immediately called Amazon in order to get a replacement.
Call #1
I explained the situation, and the first person, Eve, told me she’d have to transfer me to another department. She did. The next person almost immediately hung up on me. I believe that was not deliberate. I called back.
Call #2
No one ever answered. I listened to that same jazz song multiple times and then the call just ended without my ever having spoken to someone. So I called again.
Call #3
No longer in a good mood, I explained everything that happened, and asked that they be careful not to hang up on me. The man apologized for my earlier experience, and assured me he wouldn’t hang up on me. He also told me that he couldn’t help me, that it looked like there wasn’t a replacement available for the item, and he transferred me. The guy he transferred me to was incredibly rude, and kept interrupting me as I explained what had happened. He said I would have to take a photo of the item to show that it was damaged and fill out a form he would send in an email. And that I would have to call back again after filling out the form. I said, no, let’s just stay on the line while I fill it out. He told me that wasn’t possible. As I was responding, he said he had to end the call and hung up on me.
Call #4
Now furious, I called again. I explained the entire
thing, and asked to be transferred to a supervisor. I told the supervisor that
I understood that normal procedure is to send the item back, but that I did not want to spend any more time on this, that I did not want to wait in
line at the post office to return the item. After how I'd been treated, I just wanted the money put back on
my account. He said he couldn’t offer a refund until I sent the item. I told
him to forget the item; now it was about how I was treated. Call it an act of
good will in the name of customer relations. He refused, and actually – and I
can’t believe this – he hung up on me. While I was asking him to transfer me to
whoever is above him, he just hung up the phone. The thing is, they absolutely can offer a credit to a customer. It happened to me several years ago when I had ordered something and they had - twice - sent me the wrong thing. They refunded the money and told me to keep the item for the inconvenience. It can be done. Not only did these people refuse, but they treated me incredibly poorly.
I am done with Amazon. There are other reasons to hate Amazon, of course. But I don’t think I’ve ever been treated like that by any company ever.
Station 19 recently completed shooting its one hundredth episode, something of a milestone for any series. To celebrate, there was cake. I took a few photos during the course of the episode's production, and thought I'd share a few with you. No spoilers or anything like that, so don't worry.
I don't know how I never noticed these stickers on the sound mixing cart before, but they tickled me when I did finally see them.
Yesterday the third episode of what might be the
final season of Station 19 was
completed (well, the shooting was completed, that is). It was a wild week, with five of the last six days spent at Los
Angeles Center Studios, where exterior scenes were shot. And I spent one other
day there in preparation for those days, getting to watch a stunt rehearsal. This
show has a great stunt crew, by the way, and I am always happy when I’m assigned to work on
the stunt unit. This episode promises to be a good one. I took a few photos
during the week, but not of anything related to the plot. Rather, I took
several photos of the sky. Monday was kind of miserable, as it rained all day,
sometimes hard enough that the crew took shelter and waited for it to subside
before filming could resume. But then Wednesday there was a gorgeous sunrise. I
wasn’t the only person on the crew to feel compelled to photograph it. And then
yesterday we were back on the stages at Disney in Burbank for an easy and short
day to wrap up the episode.
The sky on January 24th at 6:38 a.m.
In 2021, Theresa and I decided to visit every museum in Los Angeles. We got off to a slow start, seeing only one museum that year, and then none in 2022. Last year we visited three. But this year we got off to an excellent start with the Getty. I had been there before (I saw a couple of excellent concerts there many years ago – Greg Brown and Fur Dixon & Steve Werner), but Theresa hadn’t ever visited this museum. The museum is free, but you have to pay twenty dollars to park, and you have to make reservations. We scheduled our visit for 2:30 p.m., and as the tram took us up the hill, I noticed that the 405 freeway is a lot less stressful from that higher vantage point.
Currently, there is a special exhibit of William Blake’s art at the Getty, an exhibit that is only up for another week, and that was the main purpose of our visit. So when we arrived, that is where we headed first. Here are some photos from that exhibit.
And this one, based on the first scene from The Tempest:
From there, we went to the garden, wanting to see it
before it got dark. And yes, we had seen some incredible art, but none of it
really matched the spectacular and dramatic sunset. Most of the sky was taking
part in it. I took a few photos, but had only my cell phone with me, and the
photos don’t capture it at all.
From there, we went to the West Pavilion to check out the photo exhibits. I was particularly taken with some of the work of Arthur Tress, especially images from his Dream Collector series. That exhibit runs through February 18th.
