STACY MCCAIN

You thought the Executor would set up a defense (attack) force comprised as usual of nineteen-year-olds with an expectable seventy years of additional life in the larder. I knew that's what you thought. WRONG. Instead he began at once to recruit heterosexual men who had successfully achieved the age of seventy or more, who had lost their wives, all of them, whose children had grown up and gone away, and who accordingly had little to lose and looked upon death as a sort of vacation during which they could sit around a table and reminisce about the brave days.
Amazing it was, when the recruits, some as ancient as ninety, began to flood into Richmond, scarred veterans of office work, public relations, consultancy and other parallel vocations. "Take me!" they recited. "No, take me! Me! Don't take that fellow behind the tree, take me!"
And so he did, welcoming them into the corps with open arms. With nineteen doctors standing by, they were initiated at once into officially-approved standards of rheumatism therapy, the proper usages of Bengay, Gator Aide, penile extenders, hip and brain replacement, and other kindred soldierly enhancements. He likewise accepted those clamoring for suicide missions, forming as they did an especially useful regiment in the forthcoming Canadian Campaign. Came next the need to select a commander of this fairly heterogeneous force, a post requiring a peculiar amalgam of talents and vices. Twas on a Saturday that the solution took place in his head, that soft spot just below the left brow - Stacy McCain! (http://theothermccain.com/) - a man who had risen from Private to Corporal in record time (nine year four months, a record) and could pass for ninety even if his authentic age remained forever undisclosed.
NEXT WEEK: THE SUBJUGATION OF MANITOBI

Tito Perdue & The Other McCain

Tito Perdue, literary genius -
(posted by R. Stacy McCain - The Other McCain http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/)

Woke up this morning at 8:30 a.m. after staying up until 3 a.m. talking to my old friend Tito Perdue. The morning sun is streaming down on the lakefront here about 10 miles north of Wetumpka, Alabama. It's beautiful, although I thought the midnight stars were more beautiful.We watched opera last night, and Tito reminded me how we met. I'd written a column for the Rome (Ga.) News-Tribune which (humorously, I thought) explained why I couldn't stand the caterwauling of an operatic soprano. Tito, who was then living in Cave Spring, Ga., wrote a letter to the editor denouncing me as a philistine. This was the start of a long and eventful friendship. More after this operatic interlude featuring the Russian soprano Netrebko:

Among other things, I'm semi-responsible for Tito's "outing" as something other than a liberal. (Don't ever call him a "conservative"; he'll reply, "No, I'm a reactionary!") Tito's first two novels were published to critical acclaim and he looked to be well on his way to being the next Winston Groom (who is, in fact, a cousin of his). Critics thought his Faulkneresque style was "postmodern," and he was favorably reviewed in the New York Times, etc.Then, after we met, I wrote a feature profile about Tito, describing his library full of classics, his enjoyment of Wagner, his admiration of Nietzsche, his general loathing of all things new or even recent. Among other things, he mentioned in the interview that, if there were ever to be a film made of his books, the only director he'd want would be Elia Kazan -- who, you may recall, "named names" for the House Committee on Un-American Activities.Tito thought the article was splendid, and copies of the article were distributed by his agent. At which point, the game was up. His book contract was cancelled and it was a couple of years before he published his next novel, which the New York Times didn't review. Difficult as is the life of a literary novelist in the Age of Illiteracy, imagine what it's like for Tito being marked as an antagonist of the liberal culture -- really, an antagonist of the entirety of contemporary society. And, doggone it, Elia Kazan is dead!Tito is a fine storyteller and his first novel, Lee, is great, even if the critics agree. The book introduces the protagonist Lee Pefley, who is featured in his other novels. His second book, The New Austerities, was actually better, I thought. More recently, he's published a wonderful tale of Lee Pefley's romantic youth, The Sweet Scented Manuscript. This is a roman a clef of Tito's own wild experience at Ohio's Antioch College, where he met, wooed and married his wife Judy.Their love affair was scandalous enough to get them both kicked out of school in 1957. They've now been married 51 years, and I think young readers -- who have zero idea of what the 1950s were really like, much less the kind of love that causes two kids to get married at 18 -- would get a thrill out of The Sweet Scented Manuscript. Of course, this postulates the hypothetical existence of young people who read literary novels for any reason other than being assigned to do so by their teachers. Sigh.

At any rate, I'm sitting barefoot in Tito's living room, which has a magnificent view of the lake. Last night, as we stood out on the deck underneath a star-filled sky, I said I wished my friends up in D.C. had any inkling of how wonderful Alabama is. This horrified Judy, who expressed the fear that such a revelation might result in an influx that would ruin the place.So whatever you do, don't tell anyone that the nearest place to heaven on earth is 10 miles north of Wetumpka on Alabama Highway 111, just off County Road 23. Take a right turn at Martin's Bait & Tackle and keep going until you find the end of Muscadine Lane.Of course, you'll never find the place. You probably won't even bother to try. And isn't that sad?