Tag Archives: Paul Simon

Bureaucracy at its finest

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You know the Paul Simon song “The Afterlife”? It’s the one where the singer imagines he has died, and even just to enter Heaven, in his words:

You got to fill out a form first
And then you wait in the line

Well, let me tell you, I know for certain now that Paul Simon never had to deal with the California Department of Motor Vehicles. I am not so lucky. Today, I had to go to the DMV to correct an error they had made on my driver’s license renewal some three or four weeks ago, and I hadn’t seen until the new license arrived in the mail two days ago.

I would have done anything to avoid going in, and judging from their website, that would have been their preference too. I might have been able to correct an error in my name or address, but they had gratuitously issued my new driver’s license with the restriction that I must wear corrective lenses.

Where had that come from? >dramatic shrug< Who knows? I had come in with a DMV form 926 properly completed by my optometrist stating that my vision is within acceptable parameters. The DMV had accepted the form as correct and waived the eye exam.

But when the brand new license came in the mail, behold! Corrective lenses required. And there was no recourse but to go in to have it corrected. I made an appointment for 9:10 a.m. in order to avoid, well, waiting in line. But of course there was a line for people who had made appointments in order to avoid waiting in line, and so . . . I waited in it.

When my turn finally came, I was told that I would have to complete a new application in order to make the correction, and for that — yes, you guessed it — there was another line I needed to wait in.

When my turn came around, the friendly staff member told me I had to — yes, you guessed it — fill out a form first. This, I was able to do at a computer electronically and was issued some sort of verification number I would need when I — yes, you guessed it again — went back to wait in line again.

The staffer reviewed the form and told me there would be a charge to issue the corrected license. Name and address corrections were free, but this . . .

I objected. It wasn’t my fault! I had done everything right! It was entirely a DMV error!

Luckily, the staffer was kind, and she had the authority to waive the charge. I just had to take my machine-issued control number and . . . wait in another line.

At the other line, I was issued a different number and told to . . . wait in the line. This time, luckily, I could just sit and wait for my number to be called. Time passed. I caught up on today’s news and on my emails. More time passed. I did a few of the puzzles from the New York Times. Finally, my number was called, and I was sent to — you knew this was coming, didn’t you? — wait in the first, no, the second line again.

This time, the staffer informed me that I would be issued a new (hopefully correct) license, and for this I would need a new photo. And for this — you saw this coming, didn’t you? — I had to wait in another line.

While waiting, I over heard the following at the next window over:

Customer: [requests the service he’d been waiting for]

Staffer: “We don’t do that here. You have to go outside to the kiosk and wait in line over there.”

I am not making this up.

Photo taken, I was told to — no joke, this really happened — go back and wait in line again at the other window, where I had to carefully review a form that did not indicate whether or not I needed corrective lenses, while the staffer printed out several forms for the DMV’s records. After receiving my approval, she also printed out some forms for me: a temporary driver’s license, and a $0 receipt for the charge that I did not pay.

By my calculations, I waited in line seven times, and participated in the generation of at least four forms, two control numbers of some kind, and one photograph. The visit took two hours, but at least I wasn’t charged for it. And I was free to go.

Paul Simon, you ain’t seen nuthin’!

A riff on rhetoric — and music

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Personal confession: I am an unabashed lover of rhetorical devices. Never thought I would be, not after my freshman year at St. John’s College, reading what Socrates says about rhetoric in Plato’s Gorgias and other dialogs. And it is not favorable:

…the rhetorician need not know the truth about things; he has only to discover some way of persuading the ignorant that he has more knowledge than those who know…

But then I became a writer and user of (I hope) beautiful language, and was fortunate to take Margie Lawson’s excellent course in deep editing, in which she taught a number of rhetorical devices. It was an eye-opener.

And zeugma is one of my favorite rhetorical devices because it invariably makes me smile—and smiling is good, right? Zeugma, per Merriam-Webster, is “the use of a word to modify or govern two or more words usually in such a manner that it applies to each in a different sense.”

I thought of zeugma recently while listening to Adam Cohen‘s song “What Other Guy” from his album Like a Man. I really like this song, it’s on my “Favorites” playlist. The lyrics are lovely, and overall the song hauntingly speaks of unrequited love. But one phrase in particular always brings a smile:

“Seen you with nothing on but the radio”

Obviously, the woman is not wearing a radio. Or anything else.

This in turn reminded me of a song, “She Moves On,” from what might be my all-time favorite album, Paul Simon‘s The Rhythm of the Saints:

“She takes the corner that’s all she takes / She moves on”

A song about a break-up, but again, I can’t help but smile.

Actually, Paul Simon uses a lot of rhetorical devices in his songs, including on the album The Rhythm of the Saints. I listened to this album over and over again as I was writing the early drafts of my book Saving Aran in late 1990 to 1991. This verse near the end of the song “The Cool, Cool River” was in many ways the inspiration for that book:

…these streets
Quiet as a sleeping army
Send their battered dreams to heaven, to heaven
For the mother’s restless son
Who is a witness to, who is a warrior
Who denies his urge to break and run

The verse contains another rhetorical device: synecdoche. Per Merriam-Webster, this is “a figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole.” Here, the streets stand for the neighborhood, perhaps even the whole city.

If you’ve read Restless Son, you might recognize the city at the foot of the aliens’ starbase, where Cort grew up. Perhaps you might even recognize Cort, the hero of the book, the earliest drafts of which were named Restless Son.

In a recent interview, Paul Simon discussed the meaning that may be found in his music. And one thing he said in particular spoke to me:

I believe that the listener completes the song.

If this is true, then I’d like to acknowledge him here as a kind of coauthor. I listened to that album every night as I wrote the book’s first drafts, and the feel of that music certainly permeates the book. Thank you, Paul Simon!

Never been lonely…

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A little while ago, Dan went on a business trip to Austin, Texas. When he came home it was late–after 10pm–but he was completely energized. And the reason was unexpected. He’d thought he had an empty seat next to his, always a pleasure on these days of (over)crowded airplanes. But at the last minute, a young woman with a four-month-old infant sat beside him. The child was fussy when the plane took off; his mother, apologetic. But we’ve taken our children on airplanes since they were that little, so Dan understood. And he was fascinated by the baby, who held Dan’s fingers so tightly that its little fingers had to be pried off. Who looked at him as if he was the most interesting creature to cross its path since the first day of creation. And hey, maybe he was.

I was reminded by this story, as I often am, of song lyrics. When I brought the song into focus, it turned out to be Paul Simon’s “Born at the Right Time”:

I see them in the airport lounge 
Upon their mother's breast 
They follow me with open eyes 
Their uninvited guest 

Never been lonely 
Never been lied to 
Never had to scuffle in fear 
Nothing denied to 
Born at the instant 
The church bells chime 
And the whole world whispering 
Born at the right time 

Well, and aren’t we all “born at the right time”? Babies are so full of promise and hope. Even young adults go out into the world, and the world tries hard to give them a break. Four years of college help them learn to be out on their own. They can do anything; all they have to do is choose. Internship positions offer work experience. Entry-level positions are made for them, not for the exit-level elderly.

Later, jobs don’t work out. Promotions are denied. Positions are downsized. Unemployment runs out. Marriages end in divorce. And the world situation, if they care about that, is getting bleaker. Depression. Medications. Arrgghh, back pain. And the chances of finding work after age fifty or so? Those entry-level positions aren’t for you any more, buddy.

Never mind. Empty nesters now, we can finally really enjoy ourselves and live the lifestyle we convince ourselves we always really wanted. People I know go on cruises, several a year. Travel. Play golf. Tennis. And as for those things we wanted to do when we were younger–you know, help to end poverty; protect the environment; work to ease the burdens of the downtrodden; seek social justice… We still believe in these things, but we no longer believe there’s very much we can do to make a difference. Except give money.

Shall I go on? We find we really love those elderly, magical people, our parents, more than we suspected at age fifteen that we ever would. But they are getting frail. Maybe also senile. They need care. Lots of care.

And we can see that, thirty years down the road, that’s where we’re going to be–old and frail, maybe suffering from dementia, and waiting, terrified, to die.

Not born at the right time any more, are we?

If you look at it that way, life is one long, slippery fall from grace.

Personally, I don’t believe it has to be this way. Maybe we were hoping for that empty seat next to us in a crowded plane, but the baby beside us turns out to be much, much better. Yes, we’ll lose jobs; have enough money to retire, or not; get old and frail. But no matter our pains, suffering, or disappointments, the opportunity for grace shines through in every moment of our lives if only we seize it.

Live fully and well. It’s all that’s left us, and it’s not half bad.