I was younger than my own daughter is now. I had the same ravenous appetite for literature as she, and books were my escape from the bullying, as well as the sometimes overwhelming banality of the outside world. I had just returned from a trip to the local drug store with my mother. I had shiny quarters, nickels, and dimes in hand when we left on the excursion – my allowance earned by taking out the trash and other odd jobs around the house. Now that we returned the lion’s share of that allowance was gone, but now I held in my hand a paperback book from the spinning rack at the corner of the pharmacy. I had already devoured a chapter or two while my mother waited for her prescription to be filled and while on the ride home. This was a new kind of book. A new kind of genre. And it spoke to me.

Upon arriving home I showed my prize to my father, exclaiming with excitement that I had discovered a new type of book. One that he had surely never heard of before – Science Fiction. He looked at the paperback and scanned the back cover.

“You know, Science Fiction was around when I was a kid, too,” he told me.

I was in awe. This stuff had been out there? Why hadn’t I been informed? “Really?” I asked.

“Sure,” he replied. “H. G. Wells, Jules Verne… The list goes on and on. You know what? There’s a book I think you’d enjoy…” He rummaged around in the shelves and pulled out a copy of The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, then told me, “This was always one of my favorites.”

…And thus was my introduction to one of the greatest SF/Fantasy authors of all time.

I was fortunate enough to have met Ray Bradbury many years ago when I was still an “aspiring author in search of a publisher,” and he was on a book tour. I not only had him sign a book for me, but one for my father as well. I will always remember that.

Mr. Bradbury died this morning at the age of 91. He will be sorely missed, but he left this world a far more interesting place by being the man who illustrated it for us with his words.

http://io9.com/5916175/rip-ray-bradbury-author-of-fahrenheit-451-and-the-martian-chronicles

Gunnahdoo… It sort of sounds like a place, right?

You know, kind of like Xanadu. No, not the disco with Muses on roller skates. The other place. The one the disco was named after… “In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn, a stately pleasure dome decree, where Alph the sacred river ran, through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea…” I could go on, but that should give you the idea.

Of course, in the case of Gunnahdoo we’d probably be talking about an industrialized suburb of Xanadu. Something more on the order of, “In Gunnahdoo did James Caan, a giant Rollerdome decree, where ALF the silly alien ran, eating cats and mocking man, on the old TV…”

However, Gunnahdoo isn’t a place. It isn’t a thing. It isn’t a person. So that pretty much makes it NOT a noun, I suppose. In truth, it’s a verb. It’s a big, nasty, commonly used verb that is devoid of any true meaning whatsoever. Allow me to explain…

EVERYONE uses “gunnahdoo.” Even me. For some of us – much like the words ain’t and y’all (which are accepted parts of speech from whence I hail) – it actually does hold meaning. Gunnahdoo, put simply, means, “[I/you] [am/are] going to do something.” What that something is will usually be appended – or pre-pended – to the sentence or paragraph. For example:

“You know what I’m gunnahdoo? I’m gonna go over there and jump in that lake.”

OR

“I’m fixin’ to jump in that lake. Yep… That’s what I’m gunnahdoo…”

So here’s the thing… IF you go ahead and do what you said you were gunnahdoo, then gunnahdoo actually has meaning. However, if you DON’T follow through with the appended, pre-pended, or otherwise verbally attached “doo,” then gunnahdoo just becomes a meaningless, empty promise. Granted, in some cases it’s not the gunnahdooer’s fault that they don’t do what they were gunnahdoo, because they are blocked from doing it by circumstances, or even other gunnahdooers. Of course, IF a gunnahdooer already knows that it is, for all intents and purposes, impossible to follow through with the “doo,” then uttering “Ah’m gunnahdoo” is actually tantamount to telling a big fat lie. Or, to put it in the proper vernacular, a fib. Yes – Liar, Liar, pants on fyh-er… You get the picture.

And that brings us around to politics.

Yep. I’m gunnahdoo it. I’m gonna go there…

Politicians are perfectly happy to stand up in front of the nation and say, “I’m gunnahdoo __________.” Especially when they are running for office. However, being politicians, and hopefully having passed at least a rudimentary high school civics class, they know better than to believe that they can actually “do” anything… I mean other than spout a whole mess of “doo” at us. Especially when it comes to the office of President.

Now, before you get your shorts in a bunch, lemmeedoo this (for those keeping score at home, lemmeedoo is the “present permissive participle” of gunnahdoo)… What I’m gunnahdoo is ‘splain something, and that something is that I’m not being partisan here. I don’t care whether we are talking about Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, Tea-Whatevers, Green, Have A, or whatever party. Fact is, I’m none of them. I do vote, but let me tell you it’s not easy. For me it’s a matter of voting for the person who has spouted the least consciously empty gunnahdoos during the campaign.

Unfortunately, it seems our society has become a big ol’ nation of gunnahdooers, and one of the terrible things that comes along with that is believing the gunnahdoos of other gunnahdooers. What that means is that people are more than happy to rally behind the candidate who stands at a podium, waves his or her finger in the air, and proceeds to announce, “Elect me and I’m gunnahdoo this, and I’m gunnahdoo that. Then I’m gunnahdoo this other thing, and if you want me to do that thing, then I’m gunnahdoo that, too. And then I’m gunnahdoo this…”

And the list goes on… and on… and on… But when it comes right down to it, out of the 1289 things Candidate X is gunnahdoo if elected, maybe – and I do mean maybe – he or she will actually be able to do three, none of which have any actual impact on anything of any relevance whatsoever.

So… what do we do?

Well, I don’t know about you, but I know what I’m gunnahdoo… I’m gonna go have a beer, and you can take that promise to the bank.

More to come…

Murv

DISCLAIMER: For the purpose of not disgusting myself to the point of losing my appetite for three days, no photographs of politicians were used in this blog.