He Said Captain

I don't "blog" anymore but sometimes I have something in my head and nowhere else to put it. For example, I finally watched THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, which I put off for a long time, because who wants to watch a movie about unpleasant people? And last night or the night before, I thought, well, haven't I watched lots of movies about unpleasant people? And also, maybe isn't everyone unpleasant now? And at one point Leonardo DiCaprio tells his sales team he is giving them "the tools to be Captain Ahab." And someone on the sales team says, "Captain who?" What Leonardo DiCaprio means is that he is going to help his sales team target "whales," by which, in turn, he means potential customers with a lot of money. Now! I have a column on the website POPULA, in which I read MOBY-DICK and talk about each chapter into a digital recorder, transcribing the dubious results in weekly installments. And certainly, under ordinary circumstances, "Leo's" riff on Captain Ahab would have gone into one of my "columns," as I do generously call them. But, having completed my reading of the novel on July 4th, and subsequently turning in my final dispatches, I knew that this passing allusion to MOBY-DICK in popular culture would remain forever unremarked upon, at least by me, unlike the time Elvis picked up his mic stand and brandished it like a harpoon during his famous 1968 comeback special, and said, "Captain Ahab!" I saw it with my own eyes when I was staying at that Elvis-themed hotel one time, and I do believe the sighting made it into a yet-to-appear edition of the so-called column about which I continue to yammer. "Captain who?" reminds me of the song Dr. Theresa and I used to sing quite a bit early in our courtship for reasons that fade from memory as time goes on: "He said captain/ I said what/ he said captain/ I said what/ He said captain/ I said whatcha want?" I know the title of that song is "Wot," not "What," but I can't bring myself to type it that way lyrically, though I seemingly harbor no similar misgivings about "whatcha." Anyway, when you think about it, it is funny to give someone the tools to be Captain Ahab.