Jesse Bram and the Power of Myth

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2018-06-24

Jesse Bram and Campbell’s Myth

By

Harley L. Sachs

Many of my stories begin with the question, “What if?” In The Mystery Club Solves a Murder, it’s “What if a body is found on the roof of the Rose Plaza?” In Stoprape.com it”s “What if the victim of a military rape gets revenge by putting up a web side with the perp’s picture and address? In White Slave, “What if Sutherland who fell off the yacht Miss Chief didn’t die?”Then there’s The Search for Jesse Bram. with the question “What if a space alien cadet is marooned on the planet URth?”

The Jesse Bram story has an ambiguous title. It is a search for the missing cadet and also Jesse’s search for his own identity. Inadvertently this science fiction saga fits into Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth. It is said there are only three plots for a story: boy meets girl (all love story variations), the Brave Little Tailor (a weakling slays the giant, dragon or whatever), and the man who learned better, as in Hamlet. Campbell defines them differently. Slaying the dragon is about conquering one’s self. The quest is the search for the Holy Grail. In the Jesse Bram story there are two parallel threads: find Jesse and Jesse finds out who he really is. There is also a love story, Jesse caught between his alien lover and the lovely URthling who helps him survive the atmosphere of a polluted URth.  Like many quests, cf Ulysses, Jesse encounters three temptations: the half breed caretaker of the life station and his voluptuous female, the crypto Christians who believe Jesse is Christ incarnate, and the crypto Jews who have the key to his identity. It all comes together in the climax when the searchers find him and he escapes the throng of cannibals who want to eat him to achieve salvation.

I named the main character Jesse, a variation of Jesus, and Bram. As in many of my books, Bram is a family name as I wish to keep the names of family alive if only in my books. 

In light of Campbell’s lecture on universal myths, I suspect that myth, like the life force in the earth, emerges in whatever soil it is found. Myth is a subconscious manifestation of forces that permeate our lives. It is in the nature of story telling itself. Myth is fundamental.

Bliss

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June 22, 2018-06-22

Bliss

By

Harley L. Sachs

When I taught at Michigan Technological University by the time the end of term came I was tired and ready for vacation. I didn’t care for attending Commencement with the tedious reading of the names of all the graduates, but on one occasion when I did go, something remarkable happened.

They were giving out the usual honorary degrees. One recipient was not scheduled to speak, but when asked if he had something to say, did. His story was an inspiration.

He had been an English foreign student, member of the fraternity down in Chassell. One of his fraternity brothers said when they graduated he was going back to Mexico to make a revolution. Would our speaker want to come along?

In those days graduates from wealthy families would make the Grand Tour, a chance for young men to see the world and sow some wild oats before returning to the firm or the estate and serious life. Our speaker wrote his father and asked if, instead of doing the Grand Tour, could he use the money to go to Mexico and make a revolution. Why not?

It’s now history. He and his two partners did make a revolution and took over Mexico. They were partners in a ranch, but when World War I intervened. he had to go back to England.

When the war ended and he returned to Mexico he discovered that his partners had been faithful. His third of their joint venture had made him rich.

He went on to success in business and philanthropy. It had all begun in Chassell, Michigan.

He had three bits of advice for our graduates: 1) Don’t worry about the money; it will come. 2) make other people happy, for their happiness comes back to you many times over. 3) follow your bliss.

Your bliss is what you really most want to do in life. It is what makes you happy and fulfilled.

For me, my bliss is to tell stories whether to a live audience or written down and published. Though I did bits and pieces of that while earning a living, I did not get to fulfill that bliss until I took early retirement. Since then I have published at least one book a year and I now read/perform my stories for live audiences.

Everyone’s bliss in what gives them joy, whether music, gardening, writing, or whatever. You must decide what your bliss is. Follow it. It is the key to your fulfillment and happiness.

Tits

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June 8, 2018

Tits

by

 Harley L. Sachs

A warning to the squeamish or faint of heart: this story may freak you out.

It’s a fact. As men grow older, besides developing a pot belly and watching your Adonis figure sag and your dingus droop, you are also going to discover that your prostate enlarges.  Nature has what appears to be a design flaw: the urethra passes through the prostate. As the prostate grows, it infringes on the urethra. Result? It may get difficult to pee. If you can’t pee at all, it time for an emergency cathartization and maybe a terp, which is a reaming out of that passage.

Side effects of a terp are bleeding, infection and incontinence. None of these sound like much fun.

An alternative is a medicine to shrink the prostate, a female hormone like estrogen. Finasteride is a powerful hormone pill so effective that a woman of child bearing age should not even touch one of those powerful little blue pills. Finasteride shrinks the prostate and takes the pressure off the urethra. You can pee again.

But it has, like all medicines, at least one side effect. Besides becoming impotent and sterile without the seminal fluid the prostate produces, the female hormone leads to what is modestly called false breasts. You grow tits.

When I first started taking that hormone I had a slight discharge from one of my nipples. For a moment I thought I’d get into the Guiness Book of Records as a male wet nurse. Didn’t happen. But I did develop some nice boobs that would be the envy of some flat chested girls.

I rationalized, I always liked boobs. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t nursed, just bottle fed as a baby. I missed out. Some man like bottoms, others, legs. I’m a boob guy.

Adolescent New York boys had the expression “to cop a feel.” I don’t have to be sneaky in a crowded subway to do that. Now I have my own!

It’s amazing.

This a side effect I can enjoy.

I mean, why risk getting slapped on the subway or charged with sexual mischief like Al Franken, Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein? I have my own boobs to cop.

It’s like a new age of discovery. The late Philip Roth built his literary career on masturbation, grossed me out. I wonder what he would have done with boobs. Maybe made a study of implants, nips and tucks like Dolly Pardon.

With me it’s not a silicone fake. My situation is not the first stage of a sex change. I’ve no impulse toward being trans or cross dressing, but it is an odd feeling, like maybe puberty, bewildering and even awesome. I never expected this benefit of old age. Sure beats incontinence. Shakespeare wrote about old age  sans teeth, sans hair. Who says growing old is always about losses.

Tits! A bonus! Remarkable.