Giant-Size Transgressive Issue
Mens Sana in Corpore Sano
Alfie’s business manager, Wim, was recently away traveling and attending spiritual retreats with Babaji Jimmy to do some deep work on himself. Now back at work, Wim FaceTimed Alfie and they chatted for a bit.
We join their conversation in progress:
Wim: The Substack community is artistically inclined, intellectually ambitious, and rotten with people who just want to look at pornography… when they’re not reposting memes of Tom Waits and Charles Bukowski, or frustrated screeds on MAGA. It bores me.
Alfie: I don’t think that’s true.
Wim: What are you talking about? Just take a look.
They don’t call it porn of course. They call it “dirty realism”. Or Erotica. Capital E.
Alfie: Hm… A little bit. I’m just scrolling through YouTube right now. ooh, There’s Werner Herzog. I love that guy. He’s good. What’s Nastassja Kinski up to now?
Wim: Who’s that?
Alfie: Remember her in Cat People? With the snake?
Wim: Oh yeah, she was hot.
Alfie: Her dad really messed her up, apparently.
[There’s a moment of reflective silence while Alfie Googles her and shares the link with Wim]
Wim: Oh damn. Still looking good, girl.
Alfie: Who do you prefer? Ginger or Mary Anne?
Wim: Ginger. I bet you like Mary Anne.
Alfie: Absolutely true. So wholesome. She was in Playboy in the eighties. That changed my life.
[Alfie tries to look up the back issue and ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude all tell him that Dawn Wells never posed nude anywhere. That Mary Anne never posed for Playboy.]
At least I thought she posed nude in Playboy. J— C—!
I’ve been living a lie my whole life. Maybe it was Pam Grier?
Wim: Oh man, really? You’re losing it, bro’.
Alfie: Do you know what I used to have to do to get a Playboy when I was fourteen?
Wim: What?
Alfie: I used to have to walk two kilometres, take a ferry for twenty minutes, take a bus for fourty-five minutes, and then walk down Granville Street to go to the smoke shop at Nelson and Granville.
The old lady there would let me buy whatever I wanted and they had old Playboys for sale.
Wim: Ja, det är lagom!
Alfie: What?
Wim: That is just the right amount of effort.
Alfie: What do you mean?
Wim: Kids today don’t appreciate how good they got it. twenty-four-hour-a-day hot and cold running Scheiße porn on their handies. It makes them soft.
Alfie: You know what else I was thinking this morning?
Wim: What?
Alfie: I haven’t had a straight job for a couple of years now and it occurred to me this morning that retirement is like being deprogrammed after leaving a cult.
Wim: How so?
Alfie: Well, you know the idea of rescuing young people from a cult, taking them away from the influence of their charismatic leader, hiding them away, and deprogramming them?
Wim: Yeah?
Alfie: Retirement and being away from the repetitive work cycle, its bosses and its demands, has really changed the contents of my head. I’m a different person now. To such a degree that now I can’t imagine going back.
“You want to spend eight hours doing what?” I don’t think so.
Wim: Huh. That’s interesting.
Alfie: Here’s another thing. I always thought of the subconscious as “A Level,” quote, end-quote. Maybe it isn’t. Not a reified thing… Just whatever’s below “This Level.”
Wim: So?
Alfie: And I wonder if I might not have one.
Wim: What do you mean?
Alfie: Well, my neighbour and I have the same floorplan in our complex, only, she has a five-foot crawl space that mirrors her main level’s floor plan. So she can store a shit-tonne of stuff down there. Her kid even set up his own separate home down there.
My other neighbour has two lower levels. A family room and a storage room beneath that, just like my first neighbour.
My unit doesn’t have any of that. It’s just one level. Walk in and that’s all I’ve got. That’s it.
Wim: And?
Alfie: So I might not have one. Or if I do, it’s not some interesting treasure chest.
What if a main level is all I’ve got? It would mean that I have no hidden depths to plumb. Nothing repressed or occult or whatever to discover. So maybe that’s it for me. What you see is what you get.
I find that disappointing.
Wim: So you’re just a boring middle-aged f—?
Alfie: Ha. Maybe.
Wim: Well, I could have told you that.
I think you’ve maybe been living there. In your head. You need to find the trap door above your head and move up to the main level.
Alfie: So I had better build up, then.
Wim: Yeah, it’s your supraconscious you need to explore.
Alfie: Huh. I have to think about that.
Wim: Do you remember when we were walking around and went into that bar in Montreal?
Alfie: Yeah.
Wim: All those chicks were really hot for you. And that came completely out of nowhere.
One moment we’re sitting at the bar and flirting with a lesbian, then when we were walking out, all of a sudden, you were surrounded by half a dozen women who wanted to take their photographs with you.
Alfie: That was an unexpected surprise.
Wim: You were the King of Kensington. Blam! Life is like that, bitchass.
[Wim turns his head to look at people outside his window, walking down Bloor.]
Wim: Oh sh—. Look at her. I love summer. All the spaghetti straps and shorts come out. That makes me happy.
I was talking to one of my clients yesterday. He told me he left his wife of thirty years and is seeing a woman thirty years younger than he is.
Alfie: That’s too young.
Wim: Why?
Alfie: That would be great for an hour, but then what the hell are they going to talk about?
Wim: They just enjoy each other’s company. “He feels alive when he’s with her”, he says.
Alfie: Yeah, but at his age, he’s just looking for a nurse. I mean… I guess that’s what she signed up for. Ten years is the limit, I think.
Wim: I think you need to get out of your head.
You remember how I lost my virginity?
Alfie: I do, but tell me again.
Wim: On the roof in the motherland. It was real hot, so we would sleep on the roof at night. So the maid came up and woke me up in the middle of the night.
Alfie: Oh my God. That must’ve been the best day of your life.
Wim: Today’s kids gotta get off their phones. They’re missing out.
Up until I escaped the gravitational pull of my family, that was my best memory.
Alfie: Maybe. I think maybe I have some closets, but I might not have a basement.
Wim: If you don’t have a subconscious then you’re just a complete psychopath.
Alfie: Thank you for really seeing me, you’re a good friend.
Wim: I’m just keeping it real. You know I’m here for you, baby.
Oh, Sh—! I gotta go, my client’s here.
Alfie: OK, man, love you. Say “hi” to everyone for me.
Wim: Peace out.
□
References:
Wheelis, A. (1950). The place of action in personality change. Psychiatry, 13(2), 135–148. https://doi.org/10.1080/00332747.11022770