Amazon thinks I’m a communist
And they've got evidence...
A while back I wrote a piece about Dr. Seuss (real name Theodor Geisel) and some of his critics who have theorized that the good doctor (which is pretty weird phrase because we never say the “good accountant” or the “good shoe salesman”) may have been a bit of a racist even if he wasn’t trying to be and maybe his racism was unconscious which gets us pretty far out on some very thin ice because you could accuse a lot of people of a lot of things once you start dealing in what goes on in somebody’s subconscious.
I myself just had a dream in which I was able to fly…or at least float…around some rich person’s mansion (don’t know whose or whether I was trespassing) and then wound up in a restaurant eating a very expensive steak while a gaggle of women looked on and commented.
I’m not sure what that says about me, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t complimentary and if anyone knows a “good psychiatrist” maybe I should make an appointment. Either that, or schedule a visit from a “good exorcist.”
OK, let’s clear up that “good doctor” thing.
One internet source – which it turns out exhausted my interest in the subject – says it comes from a three-volume biography of Thomas Fuller (1608-1661) which immediately makes me wonder how many volumes it will take to write my biography which will probably be more of a pamphlet unless it focuses on the Stupid Stuff I Did (which by the way is a pretty good title for a biography) like trying to find out how many kids you can fit on a moving Schwinn bicycle — it’s six —or what happens when you tie the same Schwinn bicycle to a Honda 250 Scrambler with a piece of rope and go for a spin.
In that case it won’t be a pamphlet, it will be more like a set of encyclopedias which will be delivered by a moving truck and require a handcart to be delivered to your door.
Anyway…
Knowing what I consciously think about, I can only assume my subconscious is a nightmare landscape of half-remembered experiences and poorly-digested feelings which would make a suitable setting for an episode of The Twilight Zone if only Rod Serling were still alive to narrate it.
Which makes me wonder if Rod talked in that TV voice all the time and would narrate every day events at home like: “Martha didn’t know when she opened the refrigerator door she was about to enter another dimension of time and space, a dimension known as…the vegetable bin.”
Unrelated story alert
Just googled Rod Serling and was led to a YouTube video called Rod Serling on Kamikazes and you know I had to hear that and so far he’s talking to some woman from Great Britain (her name is “Binny” which is just the kind of thing they get up to in England and why we had to start our own country) who has admitted she’s never actually seen The Twilight Zone and despite her horseshit research, Rod has confirmed that when he and his wife travel they take separate airplanes just in case one plane crashes or has one of those semi-monkey-in-a-Beatles-wig beings that romp around on the wings of flying airplanes and tear the crap out of airplane engines while scaring the living shit out of William Shatner.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, thank your lucky stars because the scene where Captain Kirk pulls back the airplane curtain window and Mighty Joe Young has his face pressed against the glass, about three inches away from Bill’s, almost made me crap my 10-year-old pants and to this day I can’t open an airplane window without thinking about that goddamn monkey and if he’s going to be peering back at me.
If it scars you for life, that’s quality TV.
And here it is just in case you want to a few scars of your own:
One of the Doctor Seuss critics is a college professor named Philip Nel who seems to have specialized in studying children’s literature and uncovering the hidden meanings and messages that the rest of us were too thick to notice.
In the process of figuring out what Mr. Nel’s deal was, I discovered he wrote a book called Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children’s Literature and I’m not making that up even though I kinda wish I was.
To give you some insight into how my mind works (whether you want it or not) I can’t read that title without questioning if the literature is radical or the children are radical and Nel managed to find some third-grade essays written by a young Leon Trotsky. It’s like when some TV reporter says, “I’m Joe Blow, in Kansas City”…I can’t help but wonder who he is when he visits Cleveland.
Which has gotten us almost completely off track and I’ll do my best to correct course in the next paragraph.
Since I went to Amazon Books to make sure Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children’s Literature is what I thought it was (and it is) Amazon took notice of my visit and has now sent an email offering me some other titles that someone of my interests might want to purchase.
Like:
Communism for Kids
The Truth About Socialism for Smart Kids (the cover features a smiling teddy bear wearing one of those Russian fur hats with a red star on the front)
A is for Activist
Learning from the Left: Children’s Literature, the Cold War, and Radical Politics in the United States 1st Edition (because apparently one edition wasn’t enough)
Workers’ Tales: Socialist Fairy Tales, Fables, and Allegories from Great Britain
A Rule is to Break: A Child’s Guide to Anarchy (yeah, I’m thinking a whole lot of parents didn’t buy this one for Little Tommy because as I discovered anarchy is overrated when it comes to food selection and bath time and my kids were reading the Berenstain Bears, so they really didn’t need any more encouragement in that direction).
So clearly, Amazon now thinks I’m a communist; a misimpression I just reinforced by looking up those titles because apparently communists are a bit long winded (Fidel Castro once gave a four-hour speech) and the full book titles wouldn’t fit in the email format that was used to deliver Amazon’s offer of radical reading for toddlers.
(And I just added to my Socialist internet profile by looking up Fidel Castro speeches.)
Which is also interesting because I just read that Amazon is fighting unionization of their workers, so while they’re not interested in becoming Socialists themselves, they don’t mind if I turn my kids into Vladimir Lenin clones as long as Amazon can make a profit off my toddler brain-washing program and my kids don’t grow up and go to work at an Amazon Fulfillment Center which sounds like something out of 1984, a high-class bordello or someplace you go to meditate and get your chakras realigned and I swear to God I just looked up “chakras” and was directed to an ad for an Anti-Anxiety bracelet for $39.99 which you probably need so you can quit worrying about all the stupid shit you buy off the internet.
The bracelet is made of “malachite” which the advertisement calls “the most popular anti-anxiety stone” which before this I thought was the stone you get off really good weed, but now that I think about it, the last time I was stoned I was pretty anxious about getting up and going to the bathroom because I wasn’t completely sure my legs still worked.
At the end of the ad the fine print says:
Note: avoid contact with water, keep the bracelet dry.
But doesn’t explain why, although if memory serves you can wind up with a house full of Gremlins, so the anti-anxiety stone just added to your list of worries. Also, right underneath the chakra bracelet link was one of those “People Also Ask” sections and the first question was “Do Chakra bracelets work?” followed by “Will monkeys fly out my butt?” and the answer is clearly no, they’re much too busy ripping up airplane engines and if you don’t believe me, just ask the Captain of the Starship Enterprise.
And speaking of worries…
Whichever way we go politically in this country I’m screwed because if the Joe McCarthys of the World takeover they can use my alleged interest in Communist material for Children to blacklist me and if the Joseph Stalins of the World takeover they can ask why I didn’t buy any of the books on offer.
“Not sufficiently dedicated to the cause, Comrade?”
Maybe when I get to the gulag they’ll let me work on the concentration camp newsletter; I’m clearly long-winded enough for the job.
So have a nice weekend and try not to worry and if you can’t help yourself, buy one of those anti-anxiety bracelets or a bag of weed.
But remember…Amazon is watching.