Larry the Lobster: Apostatizing By Any Means Necessary
by Richard Oxman

-On the 16th (1989)- four golfers shot holes-in-one on the same 6th hole ON THE SAME DAY of the U.S. Open, played in Atlanta, Georgia.- — excerpt from -Today's Alternative Blind Dates- on www.oxtogrind.org (which no reader commented on last year).

I should say -bye-bye,- not *by* Richard Oxman, perhaps. I could go on-with Larry.

I wonder.

During the production of the 1978 Bay Area-based version of *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* there was panic from Sacramento to Morgan Hill over the appearance of -silvery threads- — thought to be evidence of alien -angel hair.- The phenomenon freaked people out left and right.

As you might know (or have guessed), however, the gossamer threads were nothing to dread. Zero-but offshoot webs of baby spiders, hatching by the billions following a long Northern California drought.

My saying *so long* has to do with real pods, or rather the dispassionate throngs of ding dongs who populate the pseudo-people places which terrify the -uninitiated- like me.

It hasn't always been like this. It's never been like this. I've got to ship out of here.

Permit me to give you an anecdote on this count, wherein I can make use of a Larry the Lobster Lesson.

The other day Sylvie and Marcel were doin' food prep in the kitchen when I returned home, absorbed a bit too much –me– in some kind of mental masturbation.

They were very excited about something that had happened at one of the local pet stores. A lobster, they said (with very wide eyes, them), had made his own version of The Great Escape, doing a Nemo turn of sorts as he managed to climb out of his tank-and then-do a bit from another Steve McQueen movie, by diving off of a very high table onto the pet shop floor (which was standing in for the *Papillon* ocean). Without anyone like Dustin Hoffman's character, I might add, with whom to hold hands.

Larry made it all the way to the sliding front doors before he was caught, red-clawed, as it were. On the threshold of EXIT.

Now, by me, that's quite a story. It certainly got me to stop jerking off cerebrally when I heard it. Right away. Suddenly I had a top priority. To wit, to try to-*understand*, for want of a better expression. Better, to fall on knees to Mystery.

The whole amazing scenario begged quite a few questions, not the least of which was: -How was it that Larry knew where to head?- He had made a lobster-like beeline, apparently.

Let's jump to the chase, though. And I don't mean the pursuit of Larry. I mean, the punch line. The punch I drank from over this a few days later.

I'm talking about later in the week when Syl and Marcel did the obligatory introduction for me and Larry.

-Bonjour, Larry.-

I had just uttered the final vowel in my fake French accent, when I heard Syl exclaiming, :What?!-.

She had been going back and forth with the Head Clerk prior to my slipping through the sliding doors for my meeting with destiny, a beaming Marcel holding my -shaking hand- like a good substitute father, reassuring me that Larry would love me.

What was the -What?!-? Apparently, Larry had pulled his number not once, not twice, BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT THREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE times.

Hey, don't pull a -pod- on me. This THREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE is the first of its kind for me, and I've never used three -BUTs- in a row in my life.

We're not finished, however. Not by a long shot.

The Pet Food Express staff surrounding us, privy to our expressions of monumental astonishment, weren't the only dispassionate souls in the store; there was a twenty-something customer waiting on line, impatiently waiting for us to stop roaring with laughter and curiosity. Tap, tap, tap.

This was different than the New Pace, the embrace of technology till it's coming out of our ears till we can't hear anymore. Different than not knowing how to till the soil any longer. Not acknowledging hand-in-till–spiritual till-empty syndrome. This not being able to turn over-an expression of awe.

C'mon, folks, how does El Lorenzo pull out the hat trick pill thrice without all the employees relating such a feat (without feet!); without treating Syl and Marcel to that bit of newsworthy nicety *initially*? With megaphones! Larry had done The Triple Turn –burning all records out of Guinness, no doubt– without a mention of anything except The First Incredible Incident. The act as generic fact.

And-no one present showed any sign of relating to even our puzzlement on that count.

Trying to compose myself, I asked the obvious gnawer: -Didn't you guys secure the top following the first break?- -Oh, we put more tape on, yeah.- And what about the breach of security second-time around? I didn't ask *that* question 'cause by the time I thought of it –which was immediately– it was clear as lobster wine (Don't you dare fault me for playing with unreal referents here!)-that it wouldn't have mattered.

The eyes were glazed over. It was crystal clear that IT was all over. Something had taken over what was-life.

I still wonder. Do some do without it to avoid deep pain?

If you read Beckett's -Dante and the Lobster,- published by London's Chatto and Windus in the 1934 collection of *More Pricks Than Kicks*, you'll see –at its end– people at such opposite ends of a pole, so to speak. Stake?

But no polls are necessary. To debate whether or not lobsters feel pain when dropped into boiling water is tantamount to arguing whether or not this thing we call life is too painful. To bounce off of Beckett, -It is.-

It has become so. As painful as it is to pretend that any kind of broad-based humanity or left solidarity can rise above the bubbles. It can not.

The only question that remains is *how* to liberate Larry.

Funny footnote:
-Right, lobsters don't feel pain when you boil them alive, they just have this thing about being confined, and they'll go to any lengths to free themselves; from that angle they're smarter than the Jews at Auschwitz.- — the author's vegan rabbi neighbor, after having read the first draft of this article, touching on a peripheral point in the piece.

It is the considered opinion of Richard Oxman of Los Gatos, California, author here, that readers should move hell and hot water to increase his readership, *listenership*. Or to find a ship for him heading *that way* on the boiling sea. Any success should be reported to info@parisgraves.com. But we should remember that failing, and having *failing better* as an ongoing goal, might make for -happier- times, better times. As per Beckett, who wasn't born into this world a hundred years ago, but *out of it*-like a wave emerges from the ocean. The most updated versions of Ox's articles are always at www.oxtogrind.org.