The Murder of Gonzago

or Berserkergang

Did you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it?

No.

Nor do I really.  It’s silly to be depressed by it.  I mean, one thinks of it like being alive in a box.  One keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead, which should make all the difference, shouldn’t it?  I mean, you’d never know you were in a box, would you?  It would be just like you were asleep in a box.  Not that I’d like to sleep in a box, mind you.  Not without any air.  You’d wake up dead for a start, and then where would you be?  In a box.  That’s the bit I don’t like, frankly.  That’s why I don’t think of it.  Because you’d be helpless, wouldn’t you?  Stuffed in a box like that.  I mean, you’d be in there forever, even taking into account the fact that you’re dead.  It isn’t a pleasant thought.  Especially if you’re dead really.  Ask yourself, if I asked you straight off, “I’m going to stuff you in this box.  Now, would you rather be alive or dead?”  naturally, you’d prefer to be alive.  Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect.  You’d have a chance, at least.  You could lie there thinking, “Well, at least I’m not dead.  In a minute somebody is going to bang on the lid, and tell me to come out.”

“Hey you! What’s your name? Come out of there!”

…

I think I’m going to kill you.

I am but mad north-northwest.

I’d like to thank you for choosing brand DocuDharma in 2009 which, whatever you think it is, is seldom what you expect.

buhdy and I are going to do some skull smashing together as the new year commences with the aim of expanding and enhancing your, dear reader, blogging experience.

And yet even as I name you I feel forced to remind you that you are not just an audience, a passive consumer and mindless viewer.

You are also an actor, indeed the most important in the house.

All the world’s a stage and from this Soapblox beside me we’ll together find a fulcrum and move it.

Or die trying.

Some things do not change.  This is a group blog and if our collective hive mind decision making processes have fallen into disuse we shall dust them off and do the happy sunny pollen dance again.

Follow me.

A leader is judged not by the length of his reign but by the decisions he makes. – Klingon Proverb

As the least player, a mere PEON, you already have unlimited interuption ability and 3 monologues a day.  I rarely find I have even one important thing to say, but dead air is not entertaining.

I resolve to provide more pointless noise.

We’re more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school.  Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive.  But we can’t give you love and rhetoric without the blood.  Blood is compulsory.  They’re all blood, you see.

Is that what people want?

It’s what we do.

What I think we do better than most is provide an atmosphere where you can feel safe expressing your opinions.

Which is not to say they’ll get much traction or respect, but we’re pretty flexible about ideas and more focused on behavior.

Did I mention the blood?  It’s compulsory.

It’s ok to disagree.  Nor will you generate much sympathy from me if you complain that your feelings are hurt by jeers and cat calls from the Groundlings.  They paid good money for the privilege of playing the fool just as you did.

And what part of “starving artist” are you failing to understand?  Hit that PayPal.  I may be easy but I’m not cheap!

For a handful of coin I happen to have a private and uncut performance of “The Rape of the Sabine Women,” or rather woman, or rather Alfred, and for eight you can participate.

I promise to be a better liar.

Honestly.

What I mostly want to encourage in this new year is what Armando taught me about “brave blogging”.

The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life.  You know, he showed you too!

That you don’t just give up!  You don’t just let things happen!

You make a stand, you say no, you have the guts to do what’s right when everyone else just runs away.

When I die it will be on my feet and not my knees.

I know you now, old enemies of mine!

Falsehood!

Have at you!  Ha! and Compromise!

Prejudice, Treachery!. . .

Surrender, I?

Parley?  No, never!  You too, Folly,- you?

I know that you will lay me low at last.

Let be!  Yet I fall fighting, fighting still!

You strip from me the laurel and the rose!

Take all!

Despite you there is yet one thing I hold against you all, and when tonight I enter Christ’s fair courts and, lowly bowed, sweep with doffed casque the heavens’ threshold blue; one thing is left that, void of stain or smutch, I bear away despite you.

MY PANACHE.

I also promise to show up.

Who would fardels bear to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought and enterprise of great pitch and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action.

Soft you now, the fair Ophelia!  Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.

Happy New Year!