LUDIC LOG

As part of the Ludic Log's one-year anniversary celebration week, I will answer questions from my devoted readership. CK of No. 14 The Cottage, Greengrocer Fen, writes:

If you could change any one thing--big or little--anything at all---from world peace to having smaller earlobes--what would you change and what would be the effect?

Well, CK, as you know, I have been blessed in this lifetime. I am remarkably attractive, and my mammoth 33-inch male endowment has assured me a constant flow of attention from the lovely ladies (and a few lucky gents); my sexual potency is spoken of in awed whispers when the lights are low and hidden truths are revealed; I am feared among even the hardest men of Connacht for my great strength and fighting prowess; my home-based internet business, eGoons Inc., has assured me a steady stream of disposable income; and I am widely considered to be the greatest writer of this or any other generation by the public and scholars of the arts alike. In addition, I am rather tall, have breathtakingly attractive wrists, and am the most intelligent man on the planet. There is very little that I lack in life. However, there is one dream -- one tiny, delicate porcelain doll of a dream -- that I have kept nurtured and warm in my heart of hearts against the simple hope I might one day see it fulfilled.

That dream is to someday be the head of an international ring of superhuman terrorists (both human and robotic) who will take over the world and destroy my enemies.

When, in those times I am feeling vulnerable or emotional, I tell others of this dreamy little dream of mine, they sometimes tell me, "But Leonard! You a man of might, a man of power. I have seen men -- huge, vicious men who could pummel The Row, Inc. founder Marion 'Suge' Knight senseless using only their foreheads -- evacuate their bowels in front of their own mothers at the very prospect of facing you in hand-to-hand combat. Everywhere you tread upon this heated earth, the great tremble in terror at the thought of incurring your wrath. Surely this must give you some satisfaction! Surely your only wish is not some puerile vengeance-fantasy of humbling your fellow man!"

And I inevitably tell them: you speak the truth, as far as you go. I am indeed a fearsome brute whose left hand is death and whose right hand is horror. No one can dispute that the earth itself shivers beneath my footfall, and that my angelic features serve only to conceal my truly demonic rage. Yes, I have the power to punish my enemies. But I do not have the power to punish them in great numbers simultaneously. Sure, I can order Chuck Norris to fellate me while wearing a Little Black Sambo outfit; but I cannot make the entire city of New York dance the gavotte at the same time lest I unleash hordes of robotic assassins on Wall Street. What joy can I take in beating a man to death, solving heretofore intractable philosophical conundrums, or subjugating a sassy gunsel with the inflexible will of my freakishly oversized cock when I cannot pick up the phone at 9:30 and see the city of Cleveland vanish from the map by 10:00?

As I said at the outset, I have truly been blessed. I am a very lucky man. But until the leather-clad, mechanically hissing, death-bristled Legions of Terror walk the streets of every metropolis, threatening doom on my nitrous-fueled whim, can I ever say I am truly happy? I don't think I can.