Henry Throop, the Waterboy, and a Juxtaposition for the Ages (And Freebie Too!)

Henry Throop, the Waterboy 2018. Acrylic on wood panel, 48 x 24"

And here are some thoughts about where we are...

Last night my wife and I picked up where we left off on the Game of Thrones, an HBO TV series that you’ve probably heard of if presently heavy breathing in the United States. We signed up a year ago to watch the series, yet cancelled after a couple shows because of the gratuitous sex scenes reserved to teen boys getting prepared for a life of sociopathy. I hadn’t watched porn with a friend since I was 15 years old. I didn’t want to start up again with my wife.

I can’t stop thinking of how low a human being must go to acquire fame or fortune these days. I don’t mean the pornography business. That depressing bump and grind industry serves its purpose as a hand brothel for the lonely, where employees get paid and laid often enough to accept bouts of venereal disease. It is what it is. What concerns me, rather, are the modern “mature audiences only” flicks, popularized on streaming stations across the nation. Parents, even grandparents like us, watch an hour or two before bedtime. I think about the “professional” actors in the room, stark naked, pretending to have rough dog sex while a huge production team and a boom mic assess the believability of fake groans. Does the actress practice her ecstasy/pain face in the mirror beforehand? Did the actor have his wife take a photo during diarrhea cramps to remake that convincingly sardonic look that a naked alternate universe noble might make from behind a naked alternate universe whore?

Henry Working Out With Barbells He Got for His Birthday 2019. Acrylic on canvas, 16 x 20"

So although the misogynistic lines normalizing the “c” word, and a threadbare plot are much more entertaining than twiddling thumbs on a dark November night, I just can’t suspend my disbelief so much to normalize an insane culture. So I turn it off, to curse Manhattan and Los Angeles degenerates, and once again vow abstinence to their fake sex on TV.

That is, until I’m so bored that I’ll just burst if I don’t get my fill of pornographic imps, CGI neck slashings, and an eight year old boy being breastfed on a fake boob. (Though it appears the director dabbed real cow’s milk on his lips and chin.)

We’re going off the deep end folks. Getting too much inside our own heads, but never quite comfortable there either. No one looks at a three year old and desires Game of Thrones entertainment for her future. That would be insane. But here we are, normalizing it in our routines.

Way to go future great grandparents!

Sex and fantasy are wonderful and should be practiced often, as privately as possible, and preferably with one you like or love. It’s even cool for some to watch other people having sex, if that’s what moves the mountains inside. What depresses the hell out of me is that we let other people getting paid lots of money, wearing fine clothes and dining at the hotspots, to make the smutty entertainment for us. It puts me and maybe you in a class I think we’re both ashamed of. Do you ever feel that you were made human being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

I have a working memory of the past, not quite as far back as the setting in a fictional Game of Thrones, but recent enough to date the death of self-made dreams and actualization. My genealogist great grandfather Henry Throop left many of his journals to posterity. I present the following entry to juxtapose the innocent world of Henry and his friends in their late teens, yet to be kissed. Henry wrote in American Morse code to disguise his secrets. For the real gooey stuff, he made up his own cipher, which my wife Rose and I cracked. He had some early crushes and ended up marrying his best friend’s “peach”, Ruby Niles, my great grandmother. Both Henry and Ruby are in the photo below.

Photographed circa 1900. From top left: DeEtte Upham, Will Fiske (bow tie), Myrtie Morris, might be Clarence de Clercq, Newton Porter (seated at Henry’s right), Lena Seymour (seated at center with ribbon), Ruby Niles (seated at Henry’s left), Henry Grosvenor Throop, age 19 (on ground with straw hat).

Jan. 15. 1900
Last night there was a surprise party for Miss Edith Thayer at her house. It was well attended. At 10 o’clock Will Fisk took a load of boys and girls over to Hamilton and left the boys who were going to school there. These boys were Skid, Nat, John Blair, Porter, Parker and I.
We had Will’s big train and a bob sleigh with a big box and plenty of blankets. I had the darndest time I have ever had and so did some of the other people.
CODE: I took Myrtie
We were packed in like sardines in a box. There was 13 in the lead. It snowed and we had to raise umbrellas and do other things to protect us from the storm.
CODE: Parker hugged the chaperone
It is a shame that we can be young only once. Read Ecclesiastes 3 chapt. 5 verse.
[“a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing” Ecclesiastes 3:5]
Edith was much surprised.

Cover to book

This link will take you to a free download of my 2012 book End of the Line. Lots of fun stuff to look at and read.

Thank you for reading, Great Steemians of Planet Earth!