Rolling Stones "Sympathy For The Devil"

This Week: Excerpts From That Novel I'm Never Going To Write.

20 pages after looking at buttons, I delve into the history of The Zipper.

I wrote 2 possible endings for this chapter. I think the first one is a little truer to the whole premise, but relies on a "The Rolling Stones Are Old" joke. The second ending is a little snappier. Your pick.


The Amish think that zippers are the tool of the Devil.

What makes anyone think that the Devil uses tools?

Hell is pretty well known for its natural phenomena—the molten lakes, the brimstone-singed air, the occasional snowball-—but in no depiction of Hell is there ever any mention of a fine, handcrafted wooden cabinet or lawnmower go-cart.

The Devil never built a birdhouse.

No, tool of the Devil seems wildly inappropriate.

Really, if the Devil has any handicraft, it’s in the culinary arts.

He’s responsible for deviled eggs, deviled ham and devil’s food cake, among other sinful delights.

Yes, “appliance of the Devil” would be far more appropriate than “tool.”

Or “utensil of the Devil.”

The Charlie Daniels Band came close to popularizing the phrase ‘Instrument of the Devil’ with their 1982 hit “Devil Went Down To Georgia.” But the plan backfired when the Devil blew the fiddle contest and violin playing subsequently became associated with weakness, i.e. non-mastery of the forces of darkness.

Leaving us stuck with the nonsensical “Tool of the Devil.”

Really, even if you believed that zippers were evil, aren’t they more of a “Gadget of the Devil”?

So let’s examine this contraption of the damned. Go ahead, look at your zipper.

For love of God, please tell me you aren’t reading this book naked.

Can you believe that the first place you looked is the last place anyone thought to put a zipper?

Well, they say that inventions rarely end up being used for what they were originally intended. Thomas Edison invented the phonograph so people would be able to recall the voices of the dead. An intended use that seems lost on today’s music fans. Unless you listen to The Dead.

In 1851, Elias Howe patented the "automatic, continuous clothing closure,” a precursor to the zipper, but got distracted when another of his inventions caught fire. After dousing the flames and clearing the smoke from his workspace, Howe completed and patented the sewing machine, which then figuratively caught fire among consumers.

It wasn’t until 44 years later that Whitcomb Judson created the “clasp locker” to replace those anachronistic “laces” in shoes. This complex eye-and-hook system-—only marginally like the zippers of today--was marketed by Judson’s own Universal Fastener Company, the place where in 1911 a young Gideon Sundback was making a name for himself as an electrical engineer. A recent widower, Gideon—-who knew the idle mind is the Devil’s playground--filled his lonely hours at the workbench. Two years later, he emerged from his grief with the familiar design that so frightens the Pennsylvania Dutch.

Yet to be called the “zipper” Sundback’s “Separable Fastener” set a zipping standard still adhered to today, consisting of about ten fastening elements per inch, with two facing rows of teeth that are pulled into a single piece by the slider.

It was the B.F. Goodrich Company that developed the name “Zipper,” using the Devil’s gadget on their rubber footwear. For reasons beyond modern comprehension, for the next twenty years zippers were used only on galoshes and tobacco pouches. It wasn’t until the 1930s that fashion designers put zippers on the crotch of children’s clothing. Soon zippers were replacing buttons on men’s “trousers.” Trousers, of course, would later be replaced by “slacks” during the Nixon administration, which would in turn be replaced by our modern day “pants.”

Through Howe, Judson and Sundback, from shoes to pouches to pants, the zippers’ journey from inception to acceptance took over eighty years.

The years following the trouser triumph have not been particularly eventful for the zipper. Oh sure, zippers can now be made of plastic and yes, they’re not just for the crotch anymore, but only one truly significant zipper innovation has occurred since the 1930s. That was The Rolling Stones 1971 release “Sticky Fingers,” which featured on the album cover an actual working zipper sewn into a photograph of leather pants.

(ending a)

Leaving it to the zipper to fulfill Edison’s promise of an invention that would help recall the voices of the dead.

(Note: as of this writing, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are still alive, but I’m hoping that this book will be in print for a long, long time)

(ending b)

Perhaps that was just Sympathy For The Devil.

The Beatles "I Am The Walrus"

This Week: Excerpts From That Novel I'm Never Going To Write.

One of the good things about this story/project was that the loose format allowed me to toss in all kinds of scraps of ideas and lines from elsewhere.

Because you could go in-depth on a subject (buttons, for instance) that were only tangentially related to the plot, I had the opportunity to shoe-horn in all kinds of jokes and vignettes and poems and such, that I'd had in mind, or had actually written, before I started writing "Fruitless Minutiae."

I've long had this idea of a book of children's rhymes that had more mature/nuanced-themed morals. And the poem in the section of story below was one of my favorites.


I know these excerpts are a little out of context, but basically, 30 pages or so into the story, I break to clear up the action. On the previous pages, I've been jumping back and forth between scenes of meeting a girl named Alison and scenes conversation/arguing with my large friend Reilly, who I have described as looking like a bear.


Reilly had faith in you. The editors of America do not.

Are you having trouble following this story? The editors of America are concerned you might be. I’ve got a bunch of things going on at once and the editors of America tell me that my timeline is random and confusing. But you’re probably used to that sort of thing in real life—I bet you’re the kind of person who can simultaneously drive, shave and/or apply makeup, and sing “The Humpty Hump” at 75 miles an hour on the freeway.

But for the sake of clarity and highway safety, let me give you an overview.

Reilly is my friend. I’m relating to you a story about the time Reilly and I took a trip to the stereo place.

I’m also telling you about Alison. In a completely separate series of events that took place on a completely separate day.

And then there are the random rants by me. I am the author. I am the protagonist. And I am the walrus. Goo goo g’joob.

So as not to confuse you, let me point out that I am not a walrus. I’m a man. The walrus thing was just a snappy Beatles reference. But seeing as how I’ve asked you to accept that Reilly is a bear, I suppose it’s plausible that I am a walrus. Which I am not.

But how about a quick poem, where you can imagine that I AM a walrus.

THE WALRUS AND THE BEAR

The walrus had whiskers but was otherwise bare,
The bear was quite furry and proud of his hair,
The walrus’ jealousy and the bear’s hirsute pride,
Set the stage for a scene called “The Day The Walrus Dyed.”

The bear he was coaxed to a place by the dockside,
Where the walrus produced a small flask of peroxide.
“Pour this on your fur and do not wash it out,
And the smell will react like a magnet for trout.”

The bear, unaware that he’d just been conned,
Took a flask full of liquid to turn his fur blonde.
The walrus he rolled on his back on the beach,
Laughing, “Who doesn’t know that peroxide is bleach?”

By morning, the bear, to the walrus’ delight,
Had turned from all black, to a milky off-white,
But the walrus, it seemed, he fell short of his goal,
When the bear said, “Hey cool! Like I’m from the North Pole!”

The moral of the story, and there is one of course,
Whether porcupine, person, pig, penguin or horse,
Know you can’t contend with another’s mane vanity,
If the real problem is you’re a bald, bucktooth manatee.

Now let me remind you, again, I am not a walrus.

I’m a handsome devil, a luddite, a modern day Deney Terrio, an occasional family embarrassment, a chocolate monkey enthusiast, a sub-genius, and an editor’s nightmare.

But definitely not a walrus.

Jonathan Richman "There's Something About Mary"

This Week: Excerpts From That Novel I'm Never Going To Write.

I don't think I mentioned in my first post, that this story was intended to a comedy. Or at least to make you laugh a bit.

This next segment was one of the first profile/asides where I really did some research and tried to write some funny lines around it.

And at the time (1996 or so) I was pretty pleased with my "YKK" line.

Unfortunately, two years later "There's Something About Mary" came out, with a much funnier zipper joke. And I realized that anybody who read my zipper reference would think I was calling back to Ben Stiller's painful moment.

I made a note to myself to come back and somehow rewrite that section.

Never got around to it.

So here is my exploration of that everyday object and its complex life and etiology, The Button, zipper line in tact.


I think about the Amish sometimes.

Not so much about the hats. Or the barn-raisings. Or “Witness.” Or Kelly McGillis when her hair springs loose from the constraints of that dowdy kerchief and softly falls along the nape of her neck and her innocent--but no less ferocious--dormant sexuality becomes a warm rush that seeps to her core and radiates outward ten-fold.

That's not really what I think about when I think about the Amish.

Buttons.

Buttons is the answer. When the question is "What do I think about when I think about the Amish?" the answer is buttons.

The Amish consider zippers to be the tool of the devil. Those of you snickering have obviously never caught your wee-wee in a metal YKK. Yowch.

When I think about the Amish I think about the beauty of simplicity. I think about the Amish man, blinking awake with morning's first light, propping himself up on one elbow, shaking off his slow dreams of floating and spinning above sunny yellow fields. He rises, grounding himself in thoughts of the tasks of the day ahead. A simple, honest, ritualistic existence restarts anew with the fastening of the wooden buttons on his shirt.

From the buttoned-down executive to the button-fly fly-guys, buttons clasp together the fabric of our cotton/poly-blended lives, our cotton/poly-blended history. When blackouts during World War II threatened American nocturnal movement, what was the fashion industry's response? Buttons, chemically impregnated to glow in the dark. What put the town of Waterbury, Connecticut on the map? Buttons. It was in Waterbury that a small factory produced buttons for the Army and Navy when imported button supplies grew short during the War Of 1812. What made Shirley Temple so cute? Her Button nose--cute as a button that tyke. Who held the unprecedented feat of holding five major world figure skating titles (Olympic, world, North American, United States and European) all at the same time? The answer is Buttons. Dick Buttons. So? So, you say? You say, So? I say, Sew Buttons on your underwear. And button your lip.

And while you're there quietly thinking, answer me this--What do sitcom writers call the snappy crack that ends the scene with a big laugh?

Answer: The Button.

Tommy Conwell & The Young Rumblers "I'm Not Your Man"

There was a time, a long time ago, when I wanted to write.

It's so long ago that I'm not even sure what my aspirations were. But I used to write.

Tucked away in folders and on floppy discs are a few dozen short, and not so short, stories that I worked on in the post-college years. It was the kind of thing I'd do when I got home from work, late at night, to both unwind and to feel creative.

Whenever I'd get stuck, blocked, or unmotivated, I'd put whatever I was working on to the side and do a little exercise.

I'd write a scene. Just one short page. And then I would pick some inanimate object featured in that scene, and I'd write about its story. Just one page.

Every object has a story that we don't think too much about. A simple pencil in your hand is the product of thousands of decisions made by lumberjacks and writing utensil designers and pencil company marketers and truck drivers and sales clerks and absent-minded co-workers who leave that pencil in your office. The pencil, as in invention, didn't exist at one point in history, but somebody dreamed it up. And others, maybe hundreds or thousands of others, refined that idea. The simplest thing has a complex history. I'd write about those things.

I started having fun, researching Corn Flakes and Bag Pipes and Donuts and Narwhales and soon the exercise became the project.

Characters started to form and a small storyline developed and objects (and jokes) would boomerang around from scene to profile to scene.

I never had a huge amount of time to work on this story, but because it only required a page or two at a time, I could put it down for months and pick right back up when I did find the time.

Unfortunately for my writing hobby, my other creative pursuits---radio and, uh, life---were getting more and more complex. As the years progressed, mvyradio demanded more of my time and creative energy (which is a good thing). And my life went from only being responsible for myself, to getting married, to becoming a parent of two.

Creative writing---and free time itself---stopped being an option.

Then, mvy asked some of the DJs to write blogs. And, because it was part of my job, writing became a daily thing again. And it made me think of my story.

I re-read it. It's about 80 pages long. It's better than I remember. I wrote more than a couple of jokes and lines that I'm proud of, and I wish I could say I'll finish it.

But shit, I started it nearly 15 years ago.

So this week, I'm sharing 5 excerpts from "Fruitless Minutae," the book I'll never get around to writing.


The main character is a college-age Record Store clerk, so there is plenty of music mentioned throughout the story. I was spent some time, while writing this section, trying to come up with some kind of obscure 80s pop-rock tune to reference, that even a snobby record store clerk might not recall. Anyone remember WBCN playing the heck out of the song mentioned at the top of the post?

So in this scene, he meets a woman who will turn out to be his nemesis and perhaps is the most wretched, annoying person on the planet. But for now he's intrigued, as she has just, dramatically, entered his store:

If Goth guy were here, he’d be all over this girl in the Misfits t-shirt.

Thankfully---for so many reasons---my co-worker has left the record store. He’s on a “coffee break.”

“So what is it, exactly, that you might, want to be, trying to find. Here.” I am poetry in motion.

“I heard you have inexpensive vinyl,” she says. “I need it. Armloads of it.”

“Well,” I tell her, “we have armloads and more. Carloads. Alpaca loads.”

“Alpaca loads?”

“Uh, Alpaca. It’s a small kind of llama.”

“Yes, I know. It’s just that I left mine at home. Couldn’t I use a shopping cart or something?”

She’s playing along, sure, but she seems to be looking right through my soul.

“Sure, sure.” My eyes begin to dart around her, shifting nervously from her eyes to her feet to her hands to the wall 10 feet behind her. “So what are you looking for? New stuff? Old stuff? We’ve got a few Misfits imports I think.”

“Misfits?” she asks.

“Here.” I lead her over to the M’s.

“Oh!” she says. “Classic vinyl.”

“Are you a big Misfits fan?”

“Of course, of course,” she says absently, as her eyes run over the cartoon cover. “This is a little more expensive than I had in mind.”

“Yeah, if you’re going for value, stay away from the imports. They’re basically just for collectors.”

“I’m much more in the mind for volume. I need to replace a whole bunch of vinyl that . . . that I . . .”

Her eyes begin to well. Internally I wince a bit, but turn that awkward moment inside out by smiling warmly and turning her to the back of the store.

“It’s gone, huh? That happened to me once, too.” My ex- took the REM singles and Prince’s Black album when she moved out. Technically, she was the one who paid for them. But I was the one who listened to them. “We’ll check out the used vinyl section and see if we can’t replenish your collection.”

I lead her to the back section, which is a step lower than the main floor of the store, lit by a couple of weak fluorescent lights. “Try to find some stuff here,” I say. “What’s your name?”

“It’s Cassie, it’s Cassie,” she says. She grabs my wrist and looks me straight in the eyes. “Thank you.”

For the next hour I watch her hunt and peck through the bins. She discovers the used 45s, which are only 25 cents apiece. I just sit on the stair, staring, and I pretend I don’t work there. Hopefully no one is stealing anything.

“You’ve got some great stuff,” I say, surveying her bounty I as ring it up at the front counter.

“Yes, yes. I think this shall do,” she says, the relief in her voice apparent.

“This Replacements 45 has ‘Date To Church’ on the b-side, with Tom Waits.”

“You don’t say? Interesting. I suppose you know a lot about these artists?”

“Many of them. You’ve got a few in here that I don’t know. Who is Tommy Conwell?”

“Oh, I’m not sure,” says Cassie with a flip of her hair, “I just liked the looks of it.”

“Well, you’ve got a pretty good collection going here, Cassie.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you.” Again she makes hard eye contact. “You must let me repay you.”

“Well, you just spent 40 dollars in my store.” I’m awe-shucks-ing. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“Oh but I do, but I do. You’ve given me such inspiration. I just must have you over. Will you come over?”

“Come over to your place?” I hope I didn’t just audibly gulp. “Sure!” Say it cooler. “Uh, I mean, yeah, sure, if you want. That’d be great.”

“I’ll make you a fabulous dinner. Oh, but it will have to wait until next week, until I get my remodeling done. Come next Wednesday at 8, won’t you please? Let me write down my address.”

Day after day we suffer countless indignities. But every once in a while you do the right thing, you say the right line, you make the right move, you’re in the right place at the right time, and, if only for a moment, your human spirit swells and those countless indignities melt into the distant haze for a moment.

I have a date.

Smoke that on your coffee break, Goth guy.