In my second year at Cornell my family were happy because they thought they could finally stop worrying about me. I don’t know why they worried so much; I thought I was doing fine. Of course, I was still a virgin, but so what? I had some pretty deep crushes: one on Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, the other was on Alan Ladd in the movie Shane. Anyway, we were all on the quad to take part in the new art form, a Happening. We covered an entire car in strawberry jam. It was a long hot day and by the end of it I was convinced I would never eat jam again.
The teacher who organized the Happening told me he was from San Francisco and he had dropped acid with the Indians. Which Indians did he mean, I wondered: the ones in the movies? He also said he wanted me to help when he did this Happening again at Franconia College. I didn’t want to help this guy do anything, but when he told me I would get credit, I agreed. On the drive there he talked about looking for mushrooms in the woods and how much fun the Happening was going to be.
Franconia College was a place for stupid rich kids who couldn’t get into a better college. Upon our arrival we were immediately warned, “Don’t get into the swimming pool because if you do you will get clap of the eyeball.” These students were real hippies. There was dog shit in the buildings and some of the kids were living in teepees in the woods.
I went up on the roof to get high. Just as I was opening my trusty little pill bottle and preparing to flush my brains down the toilet with a dose of the pharmaceutical amphetamine that my father was giving my mom to help her clean our apartment faster, I heard a distinctly feminine whimpering.
You didn’t want to hear somebody crying directly after taking as much speed as I had; it could send you down a very dark hallway. My choice was either to push her off the roof or ask her what the matter was. She was a tiny fragile girl and what came out of her mouth truly presented a predicament:
“I don’t have a boyfriend so when they want sex they come after me and I have to do it because sex is free now and everyone has to do it and I love it, but I can’t do it so much… so I hide up here. ”
“Why don’t you just say No?” I volunteered bluntly.
“And get ostracized… I just take acid, it makes it easier.”
“No shit… well, you can come back to New York with us if you want.”
“Oh no, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“What about my education?”
Oh, man, I freaking LOVE Smuckers jam! Strawberry, in particular. (Although boysenberry is a personal favorite, too.) Looking at that glass jar of jam brings up the memory of Soylent Green, when the woman is enjoying some strawberry jam and there’s a knock on the door. It’s Charlton Heston’s detective character, following up a lead. She hides the spoon, fixes herself in that nearly see-through dress she’s wearing without a bra (a guy like me notices and remembers stuff like that), and then opens the door. He enters, grills her, wanders around the place, then leaves. She’s glad he’s finally gone, but then notices that he stole her spoon. Back home, he gives the spoon with strawberry still on it to the old man, who about melts at the sight. The moral to this story? It doesn’t matter how hot the day or how much strawberry jam you spread all over the car, it is impossible to keep a vow of never eating it again. Besides, everybody knows that nothing goes better with a soylent green cracker than strawberry jam!
Oh, and thanks a lot, Mary! Now I’ve got The Blob in my mind! Visions of strawberry jam coming out of movie theaters. I wonder what red blob on soylent green tastes like? Boy would that make a killer art poster, huh? A person eating a soylent green cracker topped with red blob (and a blob “digit” moving towards the dummy’s mouth), with the caption, “It’s got a killer taste!” I wonder if the Wacky Packages guys ever thought of that? (Probably. They think of everything, after all.)
As for the drugs, I just can’t relate. I’ve been clean and sober since I was born. Yeah, I know, kinda boring. I’ve always wondered, though, what drugs would do to my particular brain. Would they make me smarter, funnier, sexier? You know, an upgrade? Or would it be a downgrade? I just don’t know. I don’t even know whether I’m a fun drunk or a mean drunk. Ain’t never been drunk, either. But I have eaten strawberry jam. THAT I can relate to.
Anyway, enough of this rambling. I’m gonna go eat a strawberry jam sandwich (now that you’ve whet my appetite with that lovely and enticing piece of commercial art), search up some images of Cheryl Ladd and read me a couple of Heathcliff comics.
P.S. Thank you very much for this very informative Retrospective. It has made me realize that I really need to go back to school. Franconia College sounds like the perfect place for me to learn all about drugs and promiscuous sex. Unfortunately, with the Arctic Blast the country is currently under, that college is probably buried in snow. So, maybe I’ll pass on going back east again, and just stay in cozy and warm California. (Returning to one’s roots is only fun if they ain’t frozen roots.) Is there a left coast college you would suggest I attend, specifically one that has the same wonderful qualifications that Franconia does? (I ain’t interested in the dog shit, tepees or clap, though.)
P.P.S. I once was in a spelling bee in the 4th grade. I beat everyone in the class, except for Jill. She and I kept at it with no winner. We went for days. The teacher kept giving us bigger words, 5th grade words, then 6th grade words, then 7th grade words. Finally, on Friday, she handed us both an 8th grade vocabulary book and told us to study it and on Monday the contest would resume. Now Jill at that time was the most desirable and smartest 4th grade girl around. Every boy wanted her as his girlfriend. (I was no exception.) So I had kind of a dilemma. If I beat her, then I might ruin my chances. But I was practically a child prodigy, so there was no freaking way she could beat me. Therefore I decided to stack the odds in her favor and not study. Being the laziest boy (now man) on the planet, fully allergic to studying, this was an easy path for me to take. So I never picked up that book and I secretly hoped that she would beat me. (Plus I didn’t want to beat a girl, and especially not Jill.) Monday came, and despite no studying, the contest went on forever. Then the teacher tossed in “tepee.” I couldn’t see the word in my mind (for I had refused to study anything) so I just made a guess, winging it, and the teacher said I got it wrong. I think I told the teacher it was spelled “teepee,” but she marked it wrong. Seeing you write “teepee” brought back the memory and so now looking it up in the dictionary, I see that “teepee” is a freaking variant spelling! The teacher marked it wrong when I had actually spelled it right! But, whatever. I’m still glad she won.
P.P.P.S. Seeing how adept you are with a mere picture strawberry jam, if the resident art deejay takes requests, I’d like to see what you can make of Bob Ross in a future column. 😉
I take back my request. I don’t want you fired from Artillery for columnizing Bob Ross. One must confine oneself to fine art, not “coarse” art. (Making 30,000 paintings, all of nature scenes, is certainly obsessive like a fine artist, but probably still doesn’t make the grade.) So, here’s a new request: a “happening” low budget art picture musical made out of pure unadulterated love called, Forbidden Zone. That won’t get you fired. (I hope.)