[This winds up my Substack publication of stories from Self-Evident. Next week I’ll start publication of stories from Waist Not, Want Knot. The big change will be that PAID subscribers will get weekly stories but FREE subscribers will only get ONE per month. Seems reasonable to me. And as always, many thanks to you who pay. You float my boat!]
[This is the back cover illustration from Seize You on the Dark Side of the Moo, Brave Ulysses Books, 2019, the collection in which Macallan the talking steer first debuted.]
Had rather hoped this would be good to the last drop.
But, as ever, my efforts have run downhill. That previous go was … [Here I wobble my hand as we saw Donna do, referring to a job situation and a proposal that seemed a bit loosey-goosey.] [Page 95 in the print edition. The story titled “B” on Substack.]
“Now it's come to this,” as Sinatra® framed it. [A last hurrah.] “End of the line,” per the Traveling Wilburys.® “Final Frontier,” per Star Trek.®
I've been hearing a lot of questions about Macallan's radio talk show and blog, which is perfectly understandable. We only touched on those efforts, briefly at that, five pages back, and I imagine it was news to many.
For those who've avoided my previous work [tsk], the very idea of a steer given to rational vocalization probably came as something of a shock. [Well, that's certainly not my fault!]
The thing here is, I can tell you he/it (castrato1) has that show and that blog, but I can't quote except for very brief excerpts in the course of review. Macallan drives a very hard bargain and is extremely protective of his (going with gendered pronoun after all, seems kinder) copyrighted material. Recall that Greg Samsa was the only person Mac would speak to until they had at least a solid verbal agreement. Then it was only Greg and Chelsea until everything was nailed down, in writing. Notarized.
There was quite a “media splash” back in 2019 when Greg and Macallan held their first news conference. Some immediately called it “fake news,” but I was there and heard him myself. There was no way that Greg was pulling some kind of ventriloquist trick. For one thing, Greg went over to the goat barn part way through the interview and Mac continued to answer questions, laugh at the skeptics, and discuss topics ranging from the price of alfalfa hay to an upcoming SpaceX® launch. The real deal, indeed.
Mac named his radio show “Dark Side of the Moo,” and there was nothing I could do about it. You can't copyright a title it turns out. On top of that, of course, his show is a lot better known than my book, and I'll admit to taking a bit of pride in having come up with the phrase.
As might be expected, Mac has staked out a strong position regarding the consumption of beef, but self-interested business-cow that he is, accepts underwriting by chicken, pork, fish, shrimp and many other fleshly edible vendors—taking a page from the ChickFilet® billboards. He's also good to go with goat or sheep cheese, and eggs. His attitude is that he's doing what he can for his own—including the part of the contract with Greg that saved his brother from the knife—and if other species want to speak up on their own behalf, he'd be happy to have them on the show.
No takers so far.
I should probably note that Mac is pretty sophisticated, with a wide range of interests, and has the very good taste not to chew cud on the air.
As to where he was educated, I have to admit running into a factual dead end, so I'll have to make something up. Given that accents are not heritable, among either Angus cattle or humans, I have to guess that his brogue stems from youthful exposure to a Scot.
Taking a cue from slave-holding plantation lords, most modern farmers know that teaching their chattel to read and write is a non-starter, not that “writing” would be an issue with the cloven-hoofed as mentioned on page 184. In any event, I'm thinking it was more than likely Sheamus McTaggart's wife Aehd who took a liking to the calf when she discovered his talent for speech, named him Macallan and read aloud to him when hubby Sheamus was off galavanting, or whatever it was he did when he was away from the barn. [“Turning the caber,” he claimed, though we know better.]
“Aehd,” by the way, is a real woman's name drawn from the Gaelic word for “fire,” and as you've just now guessed … yes, she's a redhead with A Mind Of Her Own!
By the time Macallan and his brother had been sent to the auction barn, presumably to be purchased by ranchers who would grow them to market size before dispatching them to the abattoir, Aehd had delivered a pretty solid K-12 education and Mac was reading Shakespeare on his own. She was quite distressed at what seemed to be a sadly abbreviated future for her pupil but hoped he could talk his way into some better outcome.
She was thrilled, absolutely thrilled, when she first heard Mac on the radio! “Tha's me laddie!” she'd whispered. [Sheamus was in the room and she dasn't let on.]
We see here a divide between husband and wife built on what we can only describe as “a lie.” Aehd can't tell Sheamus that she taught a steer to read or he'd almost certainly divorce her. It just isn't done. If all the animals on farms had even a third grade education, why, think of it! They'd want to vote, sit on juries, have self-determination regarding employment and wages! Beyond the pale, as it were. [Which she is, as are many or most carrot-tops.]
This seems kind of a shame. Does it mean that the two will never bridge the gap and be fully honest with each other?
Sorry to break this news so very late in the current volume: We are never fully honest with each other. Never ever.
As Leo Kottke so succinctly captured the fact, “Everybody lies.”2
Mark Twain pretty much nailed it when he wrote, ““A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.”
Okay Sam. Geez. I want my readers to know this: Not every single thing which I have indicated was true over the last 192-1/2 pages actually was true. Most of it. But not all. I will try to do better.
[Glad to get that off my chest.]
We generally enjoy imagining ourselves to be honest, and the argument has been made that we developed self-deception as a way to lie more successfully. After all, if we believe the things we tell others it is way more likely to “ring true.” On the flipside, if we were always and ever absolutely honest with one another, I'm pretty sure the social fabric would turn to thread.
If you, for instance, were to tell me your sincere opinion of what I've written to this point, I would be totally crushed. I'd likely never speak to you again. And if I told you what I think about that article of clothing you wear all the time … no, not that one, the other … your reaction would be similar. We'd all end up like devotees at a Buddhist® vihara3 sweeping the pathway with tiny whisk brooms in sullen4 silence.
Not much fun in that!
Lies are the grease that keeps the world's wheels turning.
Even when we “good eggs”5 know we are doing it—say, oh, 20 percent of the time—we easily justify it in terms of sparing feelings, or putting a good face on things, or making a story just a little “better” and no harm done.
The point being, in regard to our Scottish farm couple, that of course they lie to each other. They do it mostly because everybody lies, but partly because they love each other.
Leaving open the question regarding Aehd's secret: Has she kept her steer schooling from Sheamus because she's afraid he'd be angry, or because he'd think less of her, or because she's protecting him from the knowledge that his farm may be the fountainhead from which emerges a domestic animal revolution?
That would be good to know.
But we don't. Meanwhile it's fairly certain she won't say. At least here. [Sheamus is a reader and has a strange interest in teeth. This book could land on his reading list at any moment.]
What we do know is this: Macallan speaks in a Scots brogue, which pretty clearly suggests that Aehd does as well, and for that matter Sheamus. Mac picked up the accent he heard as a wee wad—as do we all. As do we all.
So were they in Scotland?
Pretty clearly not. There's no way anyone would pay to transport a pair of Angus calves from Bonnie Scotland to a cattle auction barn in Madison County, North Carolina.
So I guess the happy farm couple spent their childhoods in the Highlands and emigrated in their twenties, separately. They hadn't met. Yet.
Let's see. Aehd had found a job as a nanny6 for a well-to-do couple outside of Raleigh. They thought it quite charming to have a Scot adding a bit of worldliness to the children's lives and she was (and is) good with kids.7
For his part, Sheamus had met a farmer from the Western Carolina mountains who'd been on a hiking venture in the Grampians.8 They'd hit it off and Randy Gorsten had invited his new friend to pay a visit. Sheamus came, overstayed his visa, and ended up in partnership with Gorsten up in Yancey County.
Then Aehd and Sheamus both showed up at the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games9 ...
1 Italian again! And closing in on our goal of 300 footnotes!
2 In the song, “Everybody Lies,” Leo Kottke, 1989.
3 In the Pali language. #13!
4 You think those people like not talking? (Five to go.)
5 The “bad eggs” are horses of a different color.
6 A harbinger? Of her later education of a steer who would end up on the dairy farm of a goat-herd? Spooky, seems to me.
7 And again? Greg's life is all about nannies and kids. Plus the electrician gig. Greg having employed Sheamus. See?
8 One of three mountain ranges in Scotland. [Just one more to go now.]
9 Where we recall Davis Turned the Caber. Page 156. And Bingo! We've reached our footnote goal, and need proceed no longer. Whew! (This is footnote #300 in the print edition.)