The Velvet Machine: A Plush Collection of Unshaven Essays

By S.K. Black and D.J. Blue

The Velvet Machine is a unique blend of thought-provoking essays, humorous anecdotes and real-life adventures as told by two of today's most bold and candid authors.

In Part One, D.J. Blue (The Good Life Chronicles) features sociological food for thought in his Velvet Communique series. He tackles a variety of issues, including the root of all sociological evil, a hypothetical explanation of the sleep mechanism from a mathematical perspective, the meaning of dreams, as well as opinions on education, marriage, baseball, and glazed doughnut selection.

In Part Two, newcomer S.K. Black paints a colorful, honest and sometimes amusing portrait of Midwestern culture. He also pushes the boundaries of decency with some eyebrow-raising poetry. But the cornerstone of Black's piece is his droll yet insightful narrative of a trip through America's heartland, where everything from Kansas cowgirls to Texas State Troopers is experienced and discussed.

The Velvet Machine is a cerebral, boldly provocative, and sometimes amusing book which will make an impression on the reader and will not soon be forgotten.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491739884

S.K. Black

S.K. Black resides in Omaha and has two wonderful daughters. He has been writing informally for over 20 years. This is his first book. D.J. Blue has been writing extensively for over 20 years and is the author of The Good Life Chronicles. A native Minnesotan, he now resides in California.

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Copyright © 2006, 2014 by D. J. Blue and S. K. Black.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-3987-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-3988-4 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 07/01/2014

CONTENTS

Part I BLUE

The Velvet Communique

List of Classic Quotes from the summer of 1989

Screaming Blue

Part II BLACK

The Good Things in Life in Beulah, North Dakota

She’ll Stab You in Nightmares

Banana Man, Watermelon Woman

August 30, 1990

Bathroom Humor

Oklahoma Dust

Good

The Fire and Brimstone Incident

Billy Joe Jim Bob

Herm Aphrodite

Bob Seger

Hair

She Likes Me

Classic lines from days gone by.

Sinister Minister

Ice Cream Cone

The Hollow Road to Circumstance

Symphonies in Silence

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are several people whom I wish to thank that have been instrumental in the making of this book.

Firstly, I wish to thank my parents. They have provided me with a wonderful childhood and equipped me with everything I needed to be a good and successful person, and have supported me and been the best of friends in my adulthood. They have instilled in me the important values of courtesy, humanity and the pursuit of knowledge. But most importantly, they have loved me unconditionally.

Secondly, I wish to thank Lynne. Aside from being a great partner and friend, she has provided me with a sense of humor like no other and a mind to challenge my own thinking. She has encouraged me and inspired me.

Thirdly, I wish to thank D.J. Blue. He invited me to collaborate with him on this book, which I never would have done on my own. And although he may not know it, his style of writing was the main reason I started writing about twenty years ago.

And lastly, I wish to recognize all those classic characters that make up the backdrop for everything moving or amusing in this book. Without them, life would be an unpainted canvas and there would be nothing to write about.

S.K.B.

Special thanks goes out to all those who have supported me throughout the years. This includes my parents and relatives, who taught me, among other things, the virtues of creativity and independent thinking. Also, special thanks goes out to those who showed encouragement of The Velvet Communique when it was initially written. The Communique was basically the springboard for everything that followed. I’m also grateful to all the readers who showed support for my previous book The Good Life Chronicles. Even though that was a separate book (and follows this one chronologically), I still feel compelled to voice my appreciation for their support. I’d like to thank S.K., C.M., and J.K. for letting me use their initials in the context of this book. And finally, I’d like to thank S.K. Black for being a great co-author and editorial consultant, and for providing insights and ideas I wouldn’t have come up with.

D.J.B.

INTRODUCTION

If this thing sells more than ten copies, I’ll probably crap my pants.

After being featured as a guest writer in D.B.’s first book, The Good Life Chronicles, he came up with the idea of a collaborative effort between the two of us. A little of his analytical stylings and a little of my feckless ramblings. I thought it was a good idea, and would be an easy way to fulfill the ubiquitous and now banal American dream of authoring a book. It would be as easy as getting drunk and falling into a ditch. No particular structure, no strict format, no specific topics – just a mishmash of musings thrown together and bound for eternity in a dark cover of velvet.

I must admit, there is within me a flicker of desire to be successful at this. But success in this case is not defined by market penetration or the talk-show circuit or even having a cavalcade of sex-starved groupies chasing after me from coffee house to coffee house. Well, okay – maybe there is more than a flicker of desire there. But I think success can be defined by two important factors: happiness and a sense of accomplishment. If I can manage to actually complete enough readable material to say, Hey! I wrote a book! a la John Madden, that will pretty much cover all the bases. Money? Nahh – who needs it? Fame? Don’t want it. Bespectacled bookworms fawning over me for a salacious autograph? Yawn – get me a Geritol instead. I got a freakin’ book written and published, and I’m pretty damn proud of that.

Going into this, it should be noted that I’ve got some issues with non-fiction. Really, it’s the only thing I read, and I get brain candy and even some nutrition from it. The thing that is disheartening is that there are a growing number of megalomaniacs out there who write books to influence the masses for their own benefit. Pardon my French, but I hate those assholes. Their measure of success is defined not by creating something novel, useful and of quality, but by book sales, polls and an increasing sphere of influence. They get off on power and prestige. Go to your local bookstore. The world of non-fiction is saturated with a heapin’ helpin’ of muck by corrupt politicians, short-dick fitness gurus, closet sneaker-sniffer psychologists, broke salespeople, cross-dressing financial pedagogues and bad-haircut evangelists. They’ve all got something self-serving to peddle, and they love to just keep churning it out. I mean, for crying out loud, Steven Covey has cranked out at least eight different variations of his Seven Habits mantra under different titles. Will this guy ever stop? Just how much have his principles of success changed over the past two decades? Certainly not enough to merit a new bestseller every couple of years. When it comes to power and influence, he’s got a corner on the self-help market. My biggest fear in writing a book (aside from offending every member of my family by using the f-word and covering taboo subject matter), is that I will be classified as some sort of blowhard know-it-all. I’ll set the record straight from the get-go: there is no agenda here. I just wanted to write a book.

One of my favorite bands is Galaxie 500, a trio of college friends who got together in 1986 with the idea of making a record. They were the exact opposite of what is today’s American Idol type of shitty popular music. They created unadulterated, gorgeous music (some from the incontinent generation would probably call it noise) with no ambition ever to actually sell it. They created art very close to its truest form – for the sake of art, not commercial viability. Their ultimate dream was to one day be in a record store sifting through the bargain bin and finding one of their 45’s. That was it. They just wanted to be on the map – just a smudge of dirt next to a wayside rest marker on the road of rock and roll. Put out a solid effort, keep the word processing day job, and do a few shows where there were five people in the crowd. Fate would prove differently, however – as they would posthumously be regarded as one of the most important independent bands of their era. It has been said that not many people ever listened to Galaxie 500; but of those that did, they all formed a band. Well, almost all of them.

There is a similar undercurrent in this book – it is not meant to be smoothly palatable or easily digestible like vanilla ice cream. This is more like rocky road. Oh sure, there will be rich moments of succulent chocolate and marshmallow fluff that will make you smile and feel satisfied you dipped a spoonful in your mouth. But then there will be an occasional nut – sometimes a stale one – that will jam in your bum tooth and make you scream obscenities at the cat.

I hope you feel entertained at times while reading this. I hope it inspires you to think. I hope it causes you to laugh or bitch or judge. I don’t want or expect you to think like me, and I don’t want to persuade you away from your current set of values or beliefs. Those are yours and you should keep them. But I think there is merit in seeing beyond your backyard. If there is one guilt that could be laid upon me in terms of trying to influence readers, it would just be that I want a reaction – something that gets to you. I hope that you manage to read beyond the raunchy poems and peruse some of the more gelatinous material. The pale concrete slab has been jack hammered out, the rubble crushed and sifted. What’s left is panhandle sand. You should take off your shoes and enjoy a walk in it. Beware of the stale nuts though.

And that is how I like to envision a piece of art: it should be quality, but a couple bricks short of a load. Perfection is ugly and unappealing because it is not approachable, believable or relatable. That’s why guys never go after the really hot chick in the bar. Perfection lies at the infinity-end of the quality scale where there is no longer a relative measure of good and bad. Perfection is, quite frankly, boring. Steven Covey is, quite frankly, boring. Nobody would ever want to chill out on the porch and kick back a few brewskis with Steven Covey. That would not only be intimidating, but it would be boring as hell. Fortunately for you, the reader, this book is far from perfection. And that is one of its best qualities. Why? Because it can offer hope. Hope in possibly inspiring you to go out and write a similar piece of dreck and being able to say you wrote a book too. Just don’t write a bestseller or I may have to say I influenced you.

So kick back on your porch, crack open a beer, and enjoy.

S.K. Black

The idea of co-authoring a book with S. K. Black was an intriguing one. After doing some guest writing for The Good Life, I thought S.K.’s writings contrasted well with my own material.

Part 1 consists of writings by myself between the years of 1989 and 1993. The bulk of this is writings I collectively called The Velvet Communique, written on a semi-regular basis from 1991 to 1993. In addition to this are a few other scattered writings from that time period.

Part 2 consists of writings by S.K. Black from the 1980s to the present.

One of the main points I strive for as a writer is I want to make the reader think and react to what they’re reading. Whether it’s in agreement or disagreement, pleasant or sad, it’s all about making the reader become a proactive thinker. Even though S.K. Black has a different writing style and content than my own, I believe our writing materials both share that same sentiment. My hope is that you will think, react, and ultimately enjoy the book that we’ve put together.

With that being said, let the journey begin. As Casey Kasem used to say, on with the countdown!….

D.J.Blue

Part I

BLUE

Introduction to The Velvet Communique

The Velvet Communique was a sociological food for thought newsletter that I wrote on a semi-regular basis, starting in the summer of 1991 and concluding in the summer of 1993. It consisted of 13 issues, mostly sociological in nature. It was a precursor to The Good Life, but it was very different writing material—whereas the Good Life would turn out to be light, airy, and for the most part breezy, The Velvet Communique was more cerebral, dark, and intense. Many of the writing styles and ideas used in the Good Life were originally first used or originated in The Velvet Communique. Going back and reading them 12-14 years later, it was obvious that some of the issues were worthy of being published while others were not. What follows are the issues that I’ve decided to include in this book, as well as a brief introduction to each chapter. For the most part, I still agree with the majority of opinions written down many years ago and expressed on the following pages. There are a few which I subsequently do not; however, I’ve decided to leave the writings intact as they were originally written, to preserve them as they were originally intended to be.

1

In the beginning, there was the d.m.v.s. My sociological thesis on the dependent minded value system was the foundation that started the series, constituted the first issue, and was the very first piece of opinionated writing that I ever did. I had developed strong sociological feelings on the way society operated and congregated. In the summer of 1991, I sat down and wrote my original thesis on the dependent minded value system. However, it soon became evident that the subject matter was very complex and may not have been as simplistic as I had originally envisioned. So over the years I revised it a few times. The version I’ve included here is the most recent version, written in 1997 for the 100th issue of The Good Life.

The Velvet Communique

"It’s a strange world"

Sociological Thesis on the Dependent Minded Value System

The dependent minded value system is the root of all sociological evil. Everything that is socially evil is directly or indirectly related to or a direct result of it. This writing will define what the d.m.v.s. is, coupled with characteristics and examples. Other aspects of the d.m.v.s. will also be discussed, including examples in history.

Definition. The definition of the dependent minded value system can be broken down by its grammatical components: dependent–relying on somebody else; minded–cognitive processes; value system–a person’s beliefs. So a person who belongs to (or has a) dependent minded value system is a person who relies on another person’s thought processes and beliefs on which they base their own value system, which is manifested in thoughts and actions.

So by its very definition, the d.m.v.s., this sociological evil, is very much of a cognitive construct. However, its very nature is that those who belong to it tend to socially congregate together. The reason for this is one of the motivating factors that drives a person to immerse him/herself in the d.m.v.s. in the first place.

What is the motivational factor to join the d.m.v.s.? The primary factor–a strong urge of belonging, of being part of the crowd and not being isolated. The urge is frequently caused by insecurity. A person who is insecure is much more likely to fall prey to the d.m.v.s. A person who is desperate for acceptance will be more likely to subscribe to another person’s thought process without questioning it. By doing so, he/she gets what he/she is craving for–social acceptance. Now it is true that no man or woman is an island; we must all have social contact not only to exist but also to lead mentally healthy lives. The key word here is relative–to what extent do we sacrifice our individualism to buy social acceptance? It’s obvious that conformity is a part of life. It’s what makes the real world go ’round. But likewise, independent thinking is an important, crucial and positive benefit to society in the long run. Examples will be given shortly.

One of the things the d.m.v.s. values can be summed up in one word: status. This is another motivational factor that compels a