The Empire Has No Clothes

It’s funny what sticks with us, as we lose this game of gravity and gravitas, as we age into a world that is clearly past its shelf life. We are growing into our clothes, trying to get a leg up in a hand me down world. A world roughly divided into the things we remember, and the things we would rather forget.

We have the treasured memories of the past that resonate and define us. Now we contrast those shards of sentiment with all of the petty grievances, the rat traps of yore, the little offerings of a country mouse, the feelings of being the second cousin, twice removed. This is the corollary, the things relegated to the junk drawer, the forgotten flotsam, or rather the bothersome jetsam we purposely left behind, like a shopping bag full of dog diapers at the bus stop, the bad sex of our youth, those voluminous turned up noses, the vampiric turned up collars, the lost button noses and don’t push my button downs.

No one wants to be forgettable, yet many of us prefer the anonymity of not standing out in a crowd. We learn from an early age this desire to blend in. Even when we know that blending in can be a form of drowning. This internal battle is mercilessly taught in the schoolyards, hammered into our little growing minds. Our willful forgetfulness is a kind of conversion therapy for the heart of the introvert.

What’s your pleasure Guv’ner?

Do you prefer pushing envelopes, or licking stamps? Kicking ass or kissing ass? Brown nosing or brown shirts? As Frank Sinatra said, you can’t get laid wearing brown shoes.

I awoke at 4 am, with my mind sharp like an old cheddar. I was honed on homily, raised on robbery, a family of liars spinning forgotten folk tales learned as a child. I can hear you hollering, “It’s getting crowded in this rabbit hole.” Can you get to the point? If you even have one. Well everyone is a critic, and all evidence points back to The Emperor’s New Clothes, the Hans Christian Andersen folk tale, read to me by my Mother in the Sixties,. It was written in 1835, but reportedly based on a Spanish story, El Conde Lucanor, purportedly written some 500 years before, (1335). Visualize the movie, it is black and white, the windblown pages of the book are flapping forward, then reverse themselves, flying backward in a flurry, we have gone way back to Persia, now further and farther east, finally resting in India. We have travelled back in time from 2024 to 1835, but we are driven by our insatiable thirst for authentic experience. We must find the original sources, propelling us back to 1283. But wait, it wants more! The hands stop shaking, as we have finally arrived at our destination. It is 1025. We are in India, home of spice, a land locked in a caste system. This tale of the people who recognize a pompous emperor for who he is, the crafty tailors in on the grift, and a lone voice, the voice of a child, precociously pointing out that we have come through 999 years of rabbit holes, and still he asks, “Are we there yet?”

What’s up doc? Did we take a wrong turn in Albuquerque?

Let’s just say it is a tale told by an idiot. The Emperor’s New Clothes is more than a tale, it is an idiom, it is a meme before we knew what memes even were. Please note, I am the son of angry villagers. I resent the nostalgia we soak in, yet recall buying a McDonald’s cheese burger in America for 21 cents! That was over 52 years ago. The same rat burger today is $7.99 in Canada. Speak the truth! Is this the same rat burger, faithfully preserved in greasy paper, passed on for generations? Like a dusty fruitcake found in a cedar chest in the attic, it’s actually a petrified turd in a blanket.

We all remember the basic story. The vain Emperor, a royal ninny, the original fashionista. The tailors are Irish travellers, or Gypsies, measuring the right hang, dressing his highness to the right, then leaving nothing to the imagination, they lean to the left. Oh, what do we do with his member at large? One can’t miss it, as it sticks out like a sore thumb. Engorged, enraged that it is girdled. That it curdled.

Did he even need new clothes? The tailors have come up with an ingenious tuck, an ingenuous trick, a veritable sleight of hand. Invisible threads signifying nothing. Then the furious furriers concoct a hat that goes perfectly with the suit of nothing. Spun from the old man’s hair, it resembles an old woman’s wig worn backwards. The hue of his orange skin as he parades in front of his mirror-a-lago.

The public fawns. The docile docent. A deplorable descent to folly. The crowd is aghast, but with time, the anger becomes infectious. The virus spreads, as they come to understand the brilliance of the canard.

Duck! He bellows!

“They are just jealous. Everyone wants a piece of me. No one has ever worn a suit like this.”

Witness the bright red tie, the whitest of white shirts, the Royal blue suit of bulletproof armour. It is garish, vulgar, yet if you really look closely, there is nothing to see. Tiny hands. A giant mouth painted red, yelling about how great it was Yesterday. Make America Groan Again. Is there no decency? What’s your concept of decent? A small voice in the crowd. He has no clothes. His zipper won’t close. Buttons. He popped all his buttons. He is pooping batons. Marching bands. His baboon-like ass on display. He brays like a donkey, a mule. Hell, call it like it is. He is an Ass. Swear you will tell the truth, the whole Ass and the nothing Butt.

Naomi Wood, not Naomi Klein, Naomi Wolf, or even Natalie Wood, opines that "Perhaps the truth of 'The Emperor's New Clothes' is not that the child's truth is mercifully free of adult corruption, but that it recognizes the terrifying possibility that whatever words we may use to clothe our fears, the fabric cannot protect us from them."

The fear is palpable. Pregnant with paws, hoofs, flies buzzing about the posterior. The stench is obvious, yet no one breathes a word. No one can breathe anything, as the fetid fabric is invisibility itself, that which cannot be seen. He who must not be named. It is much more than a feat of magic, as the people see the deception, and go along for the ride, but for what reason?

Fear. Fear of being exposed themselves for knowing something we have collectively agreed not to know. Not because we cannot see, but because we cannot be seen to see. We prefer to blend into the background, a kind of psychological camouflage. This ignorance of the obvious can also be termed “the elephant in the room,” which is not simply a statement of fact or agreed upon reality, but a physical gesture flung in our faces.

Speaking of flinging feces, if it sticks against the wall, the spaghetti is done.

I am reminded of the 2004 Morrissey album You are The Quarry, which doing the math is celebrating a 20 year anniversary this year. Is it just me or does it seem strange to be celebrating anniversaries of pop records? Are we so bereft of real life connections that we indulge in reinforcement strategies to help us to navigate this world of “crashing bores.”

America Is Not the World

Song by Morrissey

America, your head's too big
Because, America
Your belly's too big
And I love you, I just wish you'd stay where you belong……

It brought you the hamburger
Well, America, you know where
You can shove your hamburger
And don't you wonder
Why in Estonia they say
"Hey you, big fat pig
You fat pig, you fat pig"

The world is full of crashing bores

This world is full, oh
So full of crashing bores
And I must be one
Cause no one ever turns to me to say
"Take me in your arms
Take me in your arms
And love me"

The Pitchfork review of You Are The Quarry notes “Even those who've never choked for air while riding the 15 down Fleet Street can read the sarcasm without a spider map.”

A spider map? For those who need a refresher course, a spider map looks like this:

If I had the skill to make the graphic of my dreams, the spider map would resemble the orange women’s wig. Slightly askew. Something wrong with the picture. A small voice in the crowd whispers, “I see nothing. Nothing of value.”

A nearby cop, for there is always a nearby cop, says to move along. “Nothing to see here folks.”

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