What Election 2008 obscures is obviously more important than Election 2008, as you well know. Scholarship may make molehills out of mountains, & vice versa, & it may also choose to focus on the minutiae which is figuratively the grains of mole that make the mole hill. This is by no means meant to reference the great Battle Of Mole Hill which took the lives of seventeen brewer's aprons back in 1962, nor is this a reference to Molé Hill, a famous sauce maker from Guadalajara whose exploits involving the feeding of the Renegade Black Banditos made him very famous in his neighborhood & led unfortunately to his incarceration & death for making salsa that was just too damn delicious for the local authorities to stand.
I bring this to your attention because, as an avid newspaper clipper, I have watched my shears go rusty (so to speak) from the lack of real information given to even the specialists. As an example: once Rhinoplasty Today! was an important read if you wanted to know how the zombie technicians kept so many terrifyingly old politicians & pundits alive. But now it reads like a how-to manual for the desperate disfigurement of Generation Then. I know this can be helpful as well, but the current generation is involved only implicitly in the War On Sailing. The powers-that-are seem to know someone - I don't dare to believe it's us, friends! - are on to them.
So when the Societal Organization for Archiving, or SOFA, met in early 2008, I was there to observe in my cover identity as an advertising executive & part-time balloon dancer for the Madison Avenue firm of Blow Me & Bother, & although I have already sent a report to SOFA committee, as well as to the Wall Street Journal's matchmaker program, I can report in general that SOFA specialists are in a bind, a tizzy, a snit, a pet & most disturbingly a dither. I have never seen so many people in latex gloves raising angry fists at one another (with the exception of the famous Reagan Major Polyp Surgery of 1988, but that, of course, was a medical & not a partisan disagreement). An horrible example: when one archivist, the great Smithers Doohickey of the University of Filth, attempted to keep the peace with a tender speech & a call for a group hug, he was forced to eat acid-treated copies of what some said were unpublished Samuel Pepys scribbles, fourteen pages total, & forced to wash it down with his own tears. I can say with no doubt that SOFA has lost - well, not a good man - but a trustworthy man. A man who knew how to bag & tag, at any rate!
What is to be done? Isn't conflict the soul of drama? Yes, but whose drama are these usually quiet, unassuming, astonishingly lonesome people acting in? It is certainly not the inherently deliberate & dull drama of Information Science, where the discovery of a heretofore unknown flyleaf has caused blood pressure issues in men in their thirties. No, it is the fact that someone - who? - is involving them in a national conspiracy of which they have no part. They are forced to be extras or walk-ons or (let's face it) caterers by the powerful people - the same people who manipulate "democratic" elections & allow television shows like Jimmy Kimmel's to remain on the air.
I have sent to SOFA a detailed & anonymous list of recommendations for the organization to follow & look forward to reporting the changes made when I attend their next meeting in 2012. As for right now - those of us who require the services of archivists, librarians, data managers, astronauts & strippers - I say to you, tread lightly. They are being manipulated by forces that cannot control, mainly because the forces have no Library of Congress number. Well. Not yet!
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Wait - What Just Happened In Cuba?
Nothing happened. Don't pay attention to it. The Cheese Vendors in Miami & the Hacky-Sack Construction Company in Havana don't care, why should you? Instead, listen to this:
In eighteen eighty seven, on a Wednesday I think, the grumpy bastards who wrote that ridiculous forgery The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion were having coffee outside a well-regarded Moscow urinal. They had spent the night spreading nasty rumors about their landlord's sexuality (finally deciding that he fucked goats, although a last-minute rally to label him simply "gay" failed only because the main supporters disappeared into the bathroom for fifteen minutes), but, although they looked forward to the future tarring & feathering that was bound to happen, they were slightly dissatisfied. They had been ruining lives with rumors for years now, starting with their athletics' coach in Boy's School, but one could tell they longed for bigger prey. Why not take on an entire race?
In what is always ironic about shit like this, these ne'er-do-wells weren't exactly anti-Semitic. They frankly hated everyone. In less than a year they would have the themes for the Protocols & would only have to wait for Dmitri to come up with a good name. Dmitri wasn't much of a thinker, but he did have a fake ID so he could get the guys booze & he was a little attractive, so women would talk to him. This was an ugly bunch of fellows, so getting a girl close to them was quite the task.
This group of troublemakers need not concern us entirely. I mention that Wednesday in eighteen eighty seven because, after a fight broke up over who spilled the last of the sugar, an American who we'll call Theodore Roosevelt was stumbling out of a Moscow brothel two houses down. This man was in town on a brief Eastern European tour to promote what was soon to be a new weapon in the War On Sailing: radiation. Ostensibly looking for an attractive scientist to "discover" radiation, he had recently met a charming Polish girl named Marie who was on the top of his list. But he had plans to visit both Moscow & St Petersburg & had figured that, Russians being Russian, their scientists might spend time in whorehouses. That was his excuse anyway - he really just wanted to have sex.
As he passed the ruffians, they took notice of what was surely the bushiest damn mustache they had ever seen in their lives, & it astonished them. Their reaction, too, astonished Theodore Roosevelt (not his real name). In the way that history sometimes works - pushing two kinds of people together who probably would never have otherwise had anything to do with each other - there was a sudden moment of emotional clarity, & the coffee-drinking pranksters surrounded the man & gave him what had to be (I assert without a whole of data, but come on!) the first ever Group Hug in Russia. Tears flowed freely, &, even though they picked Roosevelt's pocket, & he stabbed one of them in the butt cheek, they remembered the meeting fondly, years later, when Roosevelt, who was an elected official at the time (but not the president because it's not the same Roosevelt I'm trying to tell you), visited the group (reduced in number to six since the one called Vlad had found a girl & was now working with Lenin as a door-to-door communist) at the circus where they were now working.
They confessed to Roosevelt their authorship of the Protocols & grumbled because they saw copies of it everywhere, & yet hadn't made a dime off it. "Maybe," said Roosevelt, "you should have put your name on it. Authors who sign their books get royalties & stuff." "D'oh!" they all said together.
What does this have to do with the recent events in Cuba? (I know you understand what this has to do with the War On Sailing! You're not idiots!) Well, at the circus, sitting in a stroller lined with the down of revolutionary geese was a young Raul Castro!
That's much more important than the puppet show going on now in Caribbean.
In eighteen eighty seven, on a Wednesday I think, the grumpy bastards who wrote that ridiculous forgery The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion were having coffee outside a well-regarded Moscow urinal. They had spent the night spreading nasty rumors about their landlord's sexuality (finally deciding that he fucked goats, although a last-minute rally to label him simply "gay" failed only because the main supporters disappeared into the bathroom for fifteen minutes), but, although they looked forward to the future tarring & feathering that was bound to happen, they were slightly dissatisfied. They had been ruining lives with rumors for years now, starting with their athletics' coach in Boy's School, but one could tell they longed for bigger prey. Why not take on an entire race?
In what is always ironic about shit like this, these ne'er-do-wells weren't exactly anti-Semitic. They frankly hated everyone. In less than a year they would have the themes for the Protocols & would only have to wait for Dmitri to come up with a good name. Dmitri wasn't much of a thinker, but he did have a fake ID so he could get the guys booze & he was a little attractive, so women would talk to him. This was an ugly bunch of fellows, so getting a girl close to them was quite the task.
This group of troublemakers need not concern us entirely. I mention that Wednesday in eighteen eighty seven because, after a fight broke up over who spilled the last of the sugar, an American who we'll call Theodore Roosevelt was stumbling out of a Moscow brothel two houses down. This man was in town on a brief Eastern European tour to promote what was soon to be a new weapon in the War On Sailing: radiation. Ostensibly looking for an attractive scientist to "discover" radiation, he had recently met a charming Polish girl named Marie who was on the top of his list. But he had plans to visit both Moscow & St Petersburg & had figured that, Russians being Russian, their scientists might spend time in whorehouses. That was his excuse anyway - he really just wanted to have sex.
As he passed the ruffians, they took notice of what was surely the bushiest damn mustache they had ever seen in their lives, & it astonished them. Their reaction, too, astonished Theodore Roosevelt (not his real name). In the way that history sometimes works - pushing two kinds of people together who probably would never have otherwise had anything to do with each other - there was a sudden moment of emotional clarity, & the coffee-drinking pranksters surrounded the man & gave him what had to be (I assert without a whole of data, but come on!) the first ever Group Hug in Russia. Tears flowed freely, &, even though they picked Roosevelt's pocket, & he stabbed one of them in the butt cheek, they remembered the meeting fondly, years later, when Roosevelt, who was an elected official at the time (but not the president because it's not the same Roosevelt I'm trying to tell you), visited the group (reduced in number to six since the one called Vlad had found a girl & was now working with Lenin as a door-to-door communist) at the circus where they were now working.
They confessed to Roosevelt their authorship of the Protocols & grumbled because they saw copies of it everywhere, & yet hadn't made a dime off it. "Maybe," said Roosevelt, "you should have put your name on it. Authors who sign their books get royalties & stuff." "D'oh!" they all said together.
What does this have to do with the recent events in Cuba? (I know you understand what this has to do with the War On Sailing! You're not idiots!) Well, at the circus, sitting in a stroller lined with the down of revolutionary geese was a young Raul Castro!
That's much more important than the puppet show going on now in Caribbean.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Generation
This was published in a recent issue of Salamander Fancy magazine. Much thanks to correspondent Hiram Thung for bringing it to our attention:
The community dance center has asked me to prepare some remarks about Lamarck for this tiresome debate about evolution versus bullheaded religious stupidity. As the one person in this room who has ever left the country, I am perhaps the cloest thing to an expert you have. I thank you for asking me up here, & wonder what the fuck is in your drinking water.
When Lamarck, the French naturalist, died in 1829, I can't honestly say I was too bummed out. I couldn't express that in French, though. In those dark days, we didn't have online resources like Babelfish to make fools of ourselves to French people. No, all I had was a phrasebook written by an American army officer from Virginia who learned French in Quebec. Most of the mourners at Lamarck's embarrassingly planned funeral didn't know what the fuck I was saying. Good for me!
How was that different from William Blake's funeral a couple of years before? Two words: the drugs. Holy shit did we get fucked up at Blake's funeral. I think even Blake was fucked up, & that motherfucker was stone cold dead. I know, I know, everyone thought Blake was some sort of crazy religious nut, but all I know is, the dude loves his psychedelics. Hell, he was the only English poet of his day who owned an electric guitar. You know?
Anyway, Lamarck. Eighty years after his death I was sitting outside the railroad station in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, when, as it happened in those days, an argument broke out between a hobo who was talking shit about Mendel & a security guard who was a total Lamarckian. To be fair, they were about to open the meat packing plant then & everyone thought they'd finally be able to quit working at the city's fast food restaurants, which, I gotta tell you, were some of the worst places to work in South Dakota at the time. The manager of the local Taco Bell, for example, was a douchebag without parallel.
So this security guard says, "Lamarck did not die no natural death. Lamarck was killed in the War on Sailing!"
Motherfucker. I nearly shit a brick. It had followed me even there, to the middle of nowhere in a country run by an asshole the size of Teddy Roosevelt's asshole. The guard was wrong, of course. Lamarck had been on the wrong side of the War On Sailing. Blake has been assassinated, though. Still, the point was made. They were on to me. Just as I know you're on to me now.
Listen: you know your enemies by the ideas they spew. Lamarckianism, like Social Darwinism, like Trickle Down Economics, like American Idol, like Intelligent Design, is a meme propagated by our foes to keep us dumbasses. Dumb people believe nearly anything. I have traveled far & wide & pretended to be a dumbass, not just because dumbasses are allowed to eat pretty well (as you well know), but because they are not always ashamed of their strings. So I can occasionally see the marionette. Just like now.
Lamarck had an ironic name, because he didn't hit "la marck." He was way off. You thing you're on the mark? Don't be too sure.
Anyway, thanks for letting me talk. Have a fun debate.
The community dance center has asked me to prepare some remarks about Lamarck for this tiresome debate about evolution versus bullheaded religious stupidity. As the one person in this room who has ever left the country, I am perhaps the cloest thing to an expert you have. I thank you for asking me up here, & wonder what the fuck is in your drinking water.
When Lamarck, the French naturalist, died in 1829, I can't honestly say I was too bummed out. I couldn't express that in French, though. In those dark days, we didn't have online resources like Babelfish to make fools of ourselves to French people. No, all I had was a phrasebook written by an American army officer from Virginia who learned French in Quebec. Most of the mourners at Lamarck's embarrassingly planned funeral didn't know what the fuck I was saying. Good for me!
How was that different from William Blake's funeral a couple of years before? Two words: the drugs. Holy shit did we get fucked up at Blake's funeral. I think even Blake was fucked up, & that motherfucker was stone cold dead. I know, I know, everyone thought Blake was some sort of crazy religious nut, but all I know is, the dude loves his psychedelics. Hell, he was the only English poet of his day who owned an electric guitar. You know?
Anyway, Lamarck. Eighty years after his death I was sitting outside the railroad station in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, when, as it happened in those days, an argument broke out between a hobo who was talking shit about Mendel & a security guard who was a total Lamarckian. To be fair, they were about to open the meat packing plant then & everyone thought they'd finally be able to quit working at the city's fast food restaurants, which, I gotta tell you, were some of the worst places to work in South Dakota at the time. The manager of the local Taco Bell, for example, was a douchebag without parallel.
So this security guard says, "Lamarck did not die no natural death. Lamarck was killed in the War on Sailing!"
Motherfucker. I nearly shit a brick. It had followed me even there, to the middle of nowhere in a country run by an asshole the size of Teddy Roosevelt's asshole. The guard was wrong, of course. Lamarck had been on the wrong side of the War On Sailing. Blake has been assassinated, though. Still, the point was made. They were on to me. Just as I know you're on to me now.
Listen: you know your enemies by the ideas they spew. Lamarckianism, like Social Darwinism, like Trickle Down Economics, like American Idol, like Intelligent Design, is a meme propagated by our foes to keep us dumbasses. Dumb people believe nearly anything. I have traveled far & wide & pretended to be a dumbass, not just because dumbasses are allowed to eat pretty well (as you well know), but because they are not always ashamed of their strings. So I can occasionally see the marionette. Just like now.
Lamarck had an ironic name, because he didn't hit "la marck." He was way off. You thing you're on the mark? Don't be too sure.
Anyway, thanks for letting me talk. Have a fun debate.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
What You Didn't Know About Wafers
Were it not always thus, the liturgical & the lazy? We who swim in the deep waters wherein the War On Sailing is fought know too too well the intricacies & therefore the inconsistencies of the religious world, the religious world-view. Many books have been written & not quite a few re-written on the subject. There are times when new evidence is apparent & other times when old evidence disappears & shows up again in another place as if to say "I can be new evidence too!" & then there are the warriors, the priests, the warrior-priests, the pedestrians, the poets, the pedestrian-poets, & the priestesses when it's later & women are allowed to become involved. It's more of a muddle than a mess, but if untangling's your thing, you could spend a decent academic career trying to make sense of it all, or an indecent academic career making a buck lying about it to students & New York Times book reviewers.
Into this milieu we throw - regretfully, hesitantly - baked goods. Since human beings need to eat to live, food early on became a regular element in rites, rituals & dinners, sometimes in gratitude for some imaginary being's providing the celebrants with the food, sometimes out of spite for the imaginary being, who often (they are told) has better food he won't share. Into this prosaic stew (no pun intended) (oh, all right, pun intended) many especially irritated initiates decided they would completely piss the imaginary being off by pretending to eat him. While cannibalism has, in most societies, been used mostly as a last-ditch effort to liven up a really awful party, cannibalism-by-proxy has been popular since primates, out of the trees & into the libraries, found out what "proxy" meant & began using the word to confuse stupid baboons. It was not a surprise when the early Christians (so early, in fact, they simply called themselves "Chrises") started to use a wafer, pretending it was their imaginary being, & fed them to each other.
There are rules for how to make & distribute the wafer, of course. In the Specific Telling of the Roman To-Do, it is recommended "that the wafer bread be made wafer thin, with only blessed tongues tasting & slightly blessed fingers touching (too much blessing of fingers makes the wafer too sweet)... When the priest, whose stomach must also be blessed, breaks the wafer thin bread into single wafer thin wafers, he must do so with a minimum of bits on the church floor. In churches where a good doggie is nearby, the good doggie may be blessed & can lick up what are obviously the crumbs of Christ... There are three words that the priest must learn to be able to successfully & regularly break up the wafer thin bread into single wafer thin wafers: practice, practice, practice... Congregants are to be strongly discouraged from watching the preparation, lest they decide that the entire wafer thin bread is the body of Christ & that the parts of the wafer thin bread are parts of Christ. In one gathering in Galatia, one woman refused the host because she was certain it was one of Christ's testicles... The priest is encouraged to break the wafer thin bread into single wafer thin wafers either alone or with colleagues who will not misunderstand the process..."
Why only some Protestants carried on the practice with wafers, while the rest moved on to tastier cookies &/or buttery crackers, is not to be discussed in this monograph. With the importance of the wafer to the regular operation of the church established early on (some say even before Christ, although this is just silly & the people who say it are obviously just looking for an argument), a shadowy group of wafer bakers soon appeared & took over the process. It was this group which gave the Pope & his poker buddies (soon to be called Cardinals) the giant staff called a monstrance, which has in it the world's biggest & tastiest host, edible only by the Holy Father when he's really hungry & the Vatican kitchen is closed. The monstrance is not, as some assume, used in the baking process, but rather is used to knock blocks of stale unleavened bread around the kitchen on breaks &, should there be two host bakeries in the neighborhood, in the streets on sunny days for unofficial street hockey tournaments.
The bakers, while not a secret society per se, are not governed by the rules of capitalism or modern finance, although they have recently gone public & this writer in particular made a sweet pile of change when I dumped my shares last year right before Pope Ratzinger's ill-advised Nazi salute some Israeli visitors to St Peter's Square. He reportedly got a giggle out of it, but it took a lot of wrangling from the two governments to stop an Israeli bombing of Vatican City. & by the way, the SEC totally cleared me of any malfeasance. I was just looking for another investment. It's not like I know anyone who works for the Host Bakers or anything. Anyway.
Going public is only the first manifestation of what two sources I have inside the group call "more publicity & therefore more power to us!" This "publicity" decision is ominous: this is the group to whom Marie Antoinette trusted the creation & distribution of the cake she intended to give to the poor of France during the great French Bread Shortage of 1789, & surely you know how that turned out. An upshot of a more public group might be access to their archives, which have been cooling for some time (apparently, they're edible), but have remained off-limits to researchers. We can hope - & maybe bring our own silverware.
While it is frustrating (& frankly clichéd) to say "time will tell," especially with the rapid speed at which both the violence & the absurdity of the War On Sailing have increased since the turn of the century, at this point this is all we can do.
As a note: Catholic Brand Eternally Good Host Crackers are now available in your grocer's freezer & are delicious with jelly on top. I recommend the "unconsecrated" style, as they have fewer calories.
Into this milieu we throw - regretfully, hesitantly - baked goods. Since human beings need to eat to live, food early on became a regular element in rites, rituals & dinners, sometimes in gratitude for some imaginary being's providing the celebrants with the food, sometimes out of spite for the imaginary being, who often (they are told) has better food he won't share. Into this prosaic stew (no pun intended) (oh, all right, pun intended) many especially irritated initiates decided they would completely piss the imaginary being off by pretending to eat him. While cannibalism has, in most societies, been used mostly as a last-ditch effort to liven up a really awful party, cannibalism-by-proxy has been popular since primates, out of the trees & into the libraries, found out what "proxy" meant & began using the word to confuse stupid baboons. It was not a surprise when the early Christians (so early, in fact, they simply called themselves "Chrises") started to use a wafer, pretending it was their imaginary being, & fed them to each other.
There are rules for how to make & distribute the wafer, of course. In the Specific Telling of the Roman To-Do, it is recommended "that the wafer bread be made wafer thin, with only blessed tongues tasting & slightly blessed fingers touching (too much blessing of fingers makes the wafer too sweet)... When the priest, whose stomach must also be blessed, breaks the wafer thin bread into single wafer thin wafers, he must do so with a minimum of bits on the church floor. In churches where a good doggie is nearby, the good doggie may be blessed & can lick up what are obviously the crumbs of Christ... There are three words that the priest must learn to be able to successfully & regularly break up the wafer thin bread into single wafer thin wafers: practice, practice, practice... Congregants are to be strongly discouraged from watching the preparation, lest they decide that the entire wafer thin bread is the body of Christ & that the parts of the wafer thin bread are parts of Christ. In one gathering in Galatia, one woman refused the host because she was certain it was one of Christ's testicles... The priest is encouraged to break the wafer thin bread into single wafer thin wafers either alone or with colleagues who will not misunderstand the process..."
Why only some Protestants carried on the practice with wafers, while the rest moved on to tastier cookies &/or buttery crackers, is not to be discussed in this monograph. With the importance of the wafer to the regular operation of the church established early on (some say even before Christ, although this is just silly & the people who say it are obviously just looking for an argument), a shadowy group of wafer bakers soon appeared & took over the process. It was this group which gave the Pope & his poker buddies (soon to be called Cardinals) the giant staff called a monstrance, which has in it the world's biggest & tastiest host, edible only by the Holy Father when he's really hungry & the Vatican kitchen is closed. The monstrance is not, as some assume, used in the baking process, but rather is used to knock blocks of stale unleavened bread around the kitchen on breaks &, should there be two host bakeries in the neighborhood, in the streets on sunny days for unofficial street hockey tournaments.
The bakers, while not a secret society per se, are not governed by the rules of capitalism or modern finance, although they have recently gone public & this writer in particular made a sweet pile of change when I dumped my shares last year right before Pope Ratzinger's ill-advised Nazi salute some Israeli visitors to St Peter's Square. He reportedly got a giggle out of it, but it took a lot of wrangling from the two governments to stop an Israeli bombing of Vatican City. & by the way, the SEC totally cleared me of any malfeasance. I was just looking for another investment. It's not like I know anyone who works for the Host Bakers or anything. Anyway.
Going public is only the first manifestation of what two sources I have inside the group call "more publicity & therefore more power to us!" This "publicity" decision is ominous: this is the group to whom Marie Antoinette trusted the creation & distribution of the cake she intended to give to the poor of France during the great French Bread Shortage of 1789, & surely you know how that turned out. An upshot of a more public group might be access to their archives, which have been cooling for some time (apparently, they're edible), but have remained off-limits to researchers. We can hope - & maybe bring our own silverware.
While it is frustrating (& frankly clichéd) to say "time will tell," especially with the rapid speed at which both the violence & the absurdity of the War On Sailing have increased since the turn of the century, at this point this is all we can do.
As a note: Catholic Brand Eternally Good Host Crackers are now available in your grocer's freezer & are delicious with jelly on top. I recommend the "unconsecrated" style, as they have fewer calories.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
When You Think You Understand Birthdays
After the last of the refugees left the crumbling canoes, stumbling onto the San Diego shore & frightening the children, the prospectors, the tree machine salespeople, they one by one turned & looked out at the smoking hulk at the horizon's edge. They wished for something like a sunset to silhouette the sinking ship, but it was midday & all they got was a half-assed fizzling fireball which hopped up like a fat man from an ant-covered garden chair, then plopped down again, rocking the distant liner nearly imperceptibly, but not making a sound nor otherwise causing any memorable pyrotechnics.
The EMT technicians who happened to be passing & said "What the hell" & went to help the wet, shocked former passengers were surprised to hear these otherwise Caucasian-appearing people speaking a medley of what a couple of skinny-dipping linguists said were South Indian languages like Tamil & Malayalam, although the cuter of the two swore she heard Comanche. Most improbably, the only word the refugees spoke in English - & the only word they used when talking to the doctors, policepeople, newspaper & television reporters, representatives of the religious community, car wash technicians & out-of-work clowns who came to help them was this: "Birthday."
How did you get out there? Birthday. What happened out there? Birthday. Where did the ship come from? Birthday. Why were all of you on the ship? Birthday. What is the name of the day when I came out of my mother's womb? Birthday.
This enigma attracted surprising little media attention at the time (it happened on either Super Bowl Sunday or Never Ending Pasta Bowl Tuesday - accounts differ) until now, when Lucas Peabody Assortment has decided to follow up on this mysterious tragedy in his new book How To Be A Man, Make Love With Men & Not Be Gay. Despite its "self help" title, this is a provocatively scholarly work which examines what Assortment calls "the wet boat surviving folks" & traces their inexplicable journey on a huge cruise ship with no international markings, no communication with any other sea- or aircraft, & no apparent survivors among the crew.
Assortment, who is an Austrian slumlord with deep ties to the Bavarian holistic capital punishment movement, provides blurry photographs & crayon-colored maps of what could possibly be images of the ocean - or maybe of a monkey getting a haircut - to discuss his incredible discovery that, despite the fact that he's never left the small village of Prigglitz, where he was born & later conceived, he has not been able to locate the ship's remains under the sea. Add to that the interesting - some might even call them mildly amusing - interviews he conducted with the survivors over internet chat from the late 1990s until shortly after the early 2000s, & you are sucked into Assortment's delicious description of an international cabal foiled by freedom fighters & earnest young men with typewriters wearing codpieces & deeply desperate for a space to practice both their music & their avant-garde cinema.
This valuable tome has begun to shed light on the hegemonic aesthetes for whom the War On Sailing is but a ploy for mind control, bigger golf courses, historical revisionism, & the renaming of an entire generation with anagrams of names everyone likes better. Assortment, though despondent about the future & really, really wanting to have sex with a man but afraid of being "outed," still manages to present a plan for scholarship & cruising which demands our attention. A gripping read.
The EMT technicians who happened to be passing & said "What the hell" & went to help the wet, shocked former passengers were surprised to hear these otherwise Caucasian-appearing people speaking a medley of what a couple of skinny-dipping linguists said were South Indian languages like Tamil & Malayalam, although the cuter of the two swore she heard Comanche. Most improbably, the only word the refugees spoke in English - & the only word they used when talking to the doctors, policepeople, newspaper & television reporters, representatives of the religious community, car wash technicians & out-of-work clowns who came to help them was this: "Birthday."
How did you get out there? Birthday. What happened out there? Birthday. Where did the ship come from? Birthday. Why were all of you on the ship? Birthday. What is the name of the day when I came out of my mother's womb? Birthday.
This enigma attracted surprising little media attention at the time (it happened on either Super Bowl Sunday or Never Ending Pasta Bowl Tuesday - accounts differ) until now, when Lucas Peabody Assortment has decided to follow up on this mysterious tragedy in his new book How To Be A Man, Make Love With Men & Not Be Gay. Despite its "self help" title, this is a provocatively scholarly work which examines what Assortment calls "the wet boat surviving folks" & traces their inexplicable journey on a huge cruise ship with no international markings, no communication with any other sea- or aircraft, & no apparent survivors among the crew.
Assortment, who is an Austrian slumlord with deep ties to the Bavarian holistic capital punishment movement, provides blurry photographs & crayon-colored maps of what could possibly be images of the ocean - or maybe of a monkey getting a haircut - to discuss his incredible discovery that, despite the fact that he's never left the small village of Prigglitz, where he was born & later conceived, he has not been able to locate the ship's remains under the sea. Add to that the interesting - some might even call them mildly amusing - interviews he conducted with the survivors over internet chat from the late 1990s until shortly after the early 2000s, & you are sucked into Assortment's delicious description of an international cabal foiled by freedom fighters & earnest young men with typewriters wearing codpieces & deeply desperate for a space to practice both their music & their avant-garde cinema.
This valuable tome has begun to shed light on the hegemonic aesthetes for whom the War On Sailing is but a ploy for mind control, bigger golf courses, historical revisionism, & the renaming of an entire generation with anagrams of names everyone likes better. Assortment, though despondent about the future & really, really wanting to have sex with a man but afraid of being "outed," still manages to present a plan for scholarship & cruising which demands our attention. A gripping read.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Sweet Dreams (An Analysis)
The War On Sailing has long been fundamentally interested in most pseudoscientific & religious dogma, ideas, theory, etc., not because they have any intrinsic value (which is to say, any intrinsic truth) but because of the use of such things as both motivation & controller by those who hold power, & of course the struggle for the ultimate power on this planet is the purpose of the War On Sailing. Why else have a war? Don't answer that.
I was reminded today of this while reading a monograph written by the late Winston Feeler, a completely discredited & therefore noted authority on dreams, in which he argued most ridiculously that dreams are more like a children's dot-to-dot puzzle than most people realize. One could keep a record of one's dreams, he argued, on a blank piece of paper, & then connect the finished record once enough dreams were recorded (say, twenty dreams) & one would have a delightful drawing which said "something" about the dreamer. In my younger days, I did attempt something of this sort, & my dreams, once connected, formed an astonishing likeness of Casper the Friendly Ghost. If I had been able to contact Feeler (he's not dead, he's serving consecutive life sentences in near-isolation for raping & eating three of his more delicious patients), I am not sure what he might have deduced from that. I was & have always been far more interested in Hot Stuff, the Little Devil.
Two dreams Feeler record were of fundamental interest to scholars of our discipline. One patient, identified as Patient Crumble, which is known to have been George H W Bush's nickname for Donald Rumsfeld, described a dream in which he was hanging out with friends in Paris, stole several things, was caught, & then was completely baffled that he couldn't just pay for them & leave, the whole "robbery" being some kind of fraternity prank. This dream was recorded in 1989.
Another dream Feeler records by someone he called Patient Alberto Gonzales (we're currently not sure to whom this refers) is even more interesting: while showing off a new house to friends, one guest of the patient notes that the walls are misaligned, & moves them, so that doorways appear in their natural place, including one doorway which opened up an entirely new room. The patient is delighted, but even in his dreams his friends call him a dumb fuck.
I draw attention to this not because the dreams have any sort of mystical or symbolic meaning - the dreamers are obviously incredibly obvious & unremarkable people whose other dreams include "flying," "watching my parents having sex," & "invading a country full of brown people who have a lot of oil" - but to show just the opposite. Dream symbolism is a cautionary tale - it leads to too many dead ends & encourages you to waste time in other peoples' heads when you least want to be there - when their brains are cleaning house.
I got all this from reading a moronic pamphlet by a damaged man. I am too afraid now to do crossword puzzles.
I was reminded today of this while reading a monograph written by the late Winston Feeler, a completely discredited & therefore noted authority on dreams, in which he argued most ridiculously that dreams are more like a children's dot-to-dot puzzle than most people realize. One could keep a record of one's dreams, he argued, on a blank piece of paper, & then connect the finished record once enough dreams were recorded (say, twenty dreams) & one would have a delightful drawing which said "something" about the dreamer. In my younger days, I did attempt something of this sort, & my dreams, once connected, formed an astonishing likeness of Casper the Friendly Ghost. If I had been able to contact Feeler (he's not dead, he's serving consecutive life sentences in near-isolation for raping & eating three of his more delicious patients), I am not sure what he might have deduced from that. I was & have always been far more interested in Hot Stuff, the Little Devil.
Two dreams Feeler record were of fundamental interest to scholars of our discipline. One patient, identified as Patient Crumble, which is known to have been George H W Bush's nickname for Donald Rumsfeld, described a dream in which he was hanging out with friends in Paris, stole several things, was caught, & then was completely baffled that he couldn't just pay for them & leave, the whole "robbery" being some kind of fraternity prank. This dream was recorded in 1989.
Another dream Feeler records by someone he called Patient Alberto Gonzales (we're currently not sure to whom this refers) is even more interesting: while showing off a new house to friends, one guest of the patient notes that the walls are misaligned, & moves them, so that doorways appear in their natural place, including one doorway which opened up an entirely new room. The patient is delighted, but even in his dreams his friends call him a dumb fuck.
I draw attention to this not because the dreams have any sort of mystical or symbolic meaning - the dreamers are obviously incredibly obvious & unremarkable people whose other dreams include "flying," "watching my parents having sex," & "invading a country full of brown people who have a lot of oil" - but to show just the opposite. Dream symbolism is a cautionary tale - it leads to too many dead ends & encourages you to waste time in other peoples' heads when you least want to be there - when their brains are cleaning house.
I got all this from reading a moronic pamphlet by a damaged man. I am too afraid now to do crossword puzzles.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Nu Jazz Is A Total Scam
A fragment from a previously unknown correspondent:
"I was walking near the corner of Mulberry & Shields in Fort Collins, Colorado, one rainy summer day when it completely dawned on me that the whole concept of 'genre' was a total scam designed to divide, not unite, music lovers. I was staying with this completely easy chick who lived down on Birch & was flunking out of Colorado State, mainly because she had never finished high school & hadn't therefore been accepted into college, but luckily I wasn't visiting her because of her intellectual properties, if you know what I mean & I think you do. But that day I was not to get to bust my nut.
I don't know if you know much about Fort Collins. Everyone agrees it's a shithole, but it's so much less than that. It's barely fifty miles south of Cheyenne, Wyoming, on I-25, which is where the good lord's bloody urine goes when it dies. I can't tell you how that colors a city, even a city with as little color as Fort Collins. But really, I kid Fort Collins. It hasn't been around for all that long. It's been making its own beer, which I appreciate. But I was there not as a tourist, but because I was forced out of Cheyenne. In Cheyenne, I had been asking around about Cheney.
Cheney! How that blowhole haunts my waking sleep! My long-anticipated expose of his Iraq-child-skull-fucking & his ability to fry fish with his spit was so close to being finished! Denise, the randy young coed whom I would never again bed, had rescued me from a Cheyenne diner/taxidermist's called The Artificial Heart, a favorite of the so-called vice president, & home to truly disgusting meals served on trays made from dead animals. My notoriety was such that only my mother knew me, & she never really knew me, because she never cared. But from my first question - 'So, has Dick Cheney stuck his cock in any of these dead warthogs or what?' - I could sense the hostility. Asking for a second cup of coffee has never been so hard.
Denise says I called her with a rambling text message. I just remember one gigantic waitress trying to poke my eye out with a stuffed eagle's outstretched wing. By the time the police arrived, I was able to excuse myself to wash my hands & slip out the back door. A chase ensued, but the wall of fire that separates Colorado from Wyoming proved protection for me & Denise, since people from Wyoming haven't yet discovered fire & aren't sure what it is. They think it's scary. They run away.
We made love, Denise, Colorado & I, that night, & the next day, as I made my way back from Colorado's apartment to get to Denise's, I was stopped short by none other than the so-called vice president's lesbian daughter. She looked more like Anderson Cooper than I had previously thought, but there was no mistaking her Cheneyness. She beckoned me to come & she promised me she would tell all. How could I refuse?
First, though, I will send this missive out to you. I will discover the truth, & it shall set me free & make me not a little bit of money. Just, if you don't hear from me, tell my mother to call the police or the FBI or something, will you? Thanks!"
"I was walking near the corner of Mulberry & Shields in Fort Collins, Colorado, one rainy summer day when it completely dawned on me that the whole concept of 'genre' was a total scam designed to divide, not unite, music lovers. I was staying with this completely easy chick who lived down on Birch & was flunking out of Colorado State, mainly because she had never finished high school & hadn't therefore been accepted into college, but luckily I wasn't visiting her because of her intellectual properties, if you know what I mean & I think you do. But that day I was not to get to bust my nut.
I don't know if you know much about Fort Collins. Everyone agrees it's a shithole, but it's so much less than that. It's barely fifty miles south of Cheyenne, Wyoming, on I-25, which is where the good lord's bloody urine goes when it dies. I can't tell you how that colors a city, even a city with as little color as Fort Collins. But really, I kid Fort Collins. It hasn't been around for all that long. It's been making its own beer, which I appreciate. But I was there not as a tourist, but because I was forced out of Cheyenne. In Cheyenne, I had been asking around about Cheney.
Cheney! How that blowhole haunts my waking sleep! My long-anticipated expose of his Iraq-child-skull-fucking & his ability to fry fish with his spit was so close to being finished! Denise, the randy young coed whom I would never again bed, had rescued me from a Cheyenne diner/taxidermist's called The Artificial Heart, a favorite of the so-called vice president, & home to truly disgusting meals served on trays made from dead animals. My notoriety was such that only my mother knew me, & she never really knew me, because she never cared. But from my first question - 'So, has Dick Cheney stuck his cock in any of these dead warthogs or what?' - I could sense the hostility. Asking for a second cup of coffee has never been so hard.
Denise says I called her with a rambling text message. I just remember one gigantic waitress trying to poke my eye out with a stuffed eagle's outstretched wing. By the time the police arrived, I was able to excuse myself to wash my hands & slip out the back door. A chase ensued, but the wall of fire that separates Colorado from Wyoming proved protection for me & Denise, since people from Wyoming haven't yet discovered fire & aren't sure what it is. They think it's scary. They run away.
We made love, Denise, Colorado & I, that night, & the next day, as I made my way back from Colorado's apartment to get to Denise's, I was stopped short by none other than the so-called vice president's lesbian daughter. She looked more like Anderson Cooper than I had previously thought, but there was no mistaking her Cheneyness. She beckoned me to come & she promised me she would tell all. How could I refuse?
First, though, I will send this missive out to you. I will discover the truth, & it shall set me free & make me not a little bit of money. Just, if you don't hear from me, tell my mother to call the police or the FBI or something, will you? Thanks!"
Monday, December 31, 2007
Six Months In A Leaky Boat
Ah, there we are. I thought we'd lost you.
Friends of this discipline, I apologize for my absence. Not only from this scholarly compendium, but also from the work altogether. It may seem trite or at the very least dull to say "My mom made me get a job," but surely we can appreciate the succinctness & pith of such a simple sentence! We can also appreciate how disastrous to this field of inquiry it would be if I had to move out of the basement where I keep all the files. Alas, six months disappear & all I have to show for it is car payments & a crush on a food prep specialist named Mandy.
As I sit here, feeding the cats on the this, the last day of what will surely be known as 2007, I am tempted to reflect upon the difficulties I've faced - me in particular - in challenging the dominant paradigm of a bullying nation. I am tempted to be reflective upon the gradual shift in University-brand scholarship which, for some reason, seems to allow people from other countries to look over & even critique your writings. I am tempted to get my ass in gear because I gotta be at the Whataburger in thirty. Which makes the other temptations frivolous indeed!
There are many insights to be gleaned from my recent experience, not the least of which is the death of the word "employee" in favor of the more cumbersome "associate," & I promise to continue with this continuous history in the new year. My deepest apologies to you for not keeping you up-to-date with my whereabouts & happenings. I so totally didn't add you as a friend on myspace, & I regret it now.
To Alabaster, one of the most ridiculous factory farmers I know: I will prepare your request for a history of innard-prophecies as soon as I can.
To Sybil, she who writes everything on the backs on cans: I cannot thank you enough for your research into the nefarious goings-on of the Campbell soup corporation. I will include it in my upcoming expose of soup in general.
To Ethan & Earl, keepers of the sacred audio collection: please stop prank calling me & playing back recordings I made as a ten year old. Dudes, we have caller ID. Mom says she'll call the cops.
To Jerry, Geoffrey & Jude: Bowling night was fun. Let's do it again. Only this time, let's bowl!
To Randolph & his PhD clan: While I can't offer academic credit for the work you're sending me, I can offer store credit. Use Chart 5A to see how we translate research into valuable prizes.
To The Society For The Second Self, Inc: Jesus, you know how to push buttons, don't you?
& finally to you, gentle reader: I shan't be away for such a length absence again. Unless I need to get offline to ditch my creditors. You know how it is. It cost a shitload of cash to get that portable scanner & all that whiskey. I had to go into a little debt. I'll let you know if/when I'll be adopting a clever pseudonym.
To the future, then! 2008 will be the year that the whole world - at least more than now - are aware of the War On Sailing!
Friends of this discipline, I apologize for my absence. Not only from this scholarly compendium, but also from the work altogether. It may seem trite or at the very least dull to say "My mom made me get a job," but surely we can appreciate the succinctness & pith of such a simple sentence! We can also appreciate how disastrous to this field of inquiry it would be if I had to move out of the basement where I keep all the files. Alas, six months disappear & all I have to show for it is car payments & a crush on a food prep specialist named Mandy.
As I sit here, feeding the cats on the this, the last day of what will surely be known as 2007, I am tempted to reflect upon the difficulties I've faced - me in particular - in challenging the dominant paradigm of a bullying nation. I am tempted to be reflective upon the gradual shift in University-brand scholarship which, for some reason, seems to allow people from other countries to look over & even critique your writings. I am tempted to get my ass in gear because I gotta be at the Whataburger in thirty. Which makes the other temptations frivolous indeed!
There are many insights to be gleaned from my recent experience, not the least of which is the death of the word "employee" in favor of the more cumbersome "associate," & I promise to continue with this continuous history in the new year. My deepest apologies to you for not keeping you up-to-date with my whereabouts & happenings. I so totally didn't add you as a friend on myspace, & I regret it now.
To Alabaster, one of the most ridiculous factory farmers I know: I will prepare your request for a history of innard-prophecies as soon as I can.
To Sybil, she who writes everything on the backs on cans: I cannot thank you enough for your research into the nefarious goings-on of the Campbell soup corporation. I will include it in my upcoming expose of soup in general.
To Ethan & Earl, keepers of the sacred audio collection: please stop prank calling me & playing back recordings I made as a ten year old. Dudes, we have caller ID. Mom says she'll call the cops.
To Jerry, Geoffrey & Jude: Bowling night was fun. Let's do it again. Only this time, let's bowl!
To Randolph & his PhD clan: While I can't offer academic credit for the work you're sending me, I can offer store credit. Use Chart 5A to see how we translate research into valuable prizes.
To The Society For The Second Self, Inc: Jesus, you know how to push buttons, don't you?
& finally to you, gentle reader: I shan't be away for such a length absence again. Unless I need to get offline to ditch my creditors. You know how it is. It cost a shitload of cash to get that portable scanner & all that whiskey. I had to go into a little debt. I'll let you know if/when I'll be adopting a clever pseudonym.
To the future, then! 2008 will be the year that the whole world - at least more than now - are aware of the War On Sailing!
Monday, July 23, 2007
The Last Nude Photographs Of Lucrezia Borgia
Daddy was a pope, the men who married her were dopes (& possibly doped), but what of the eminent scholars (or the eminent folks on scholarship) who have begun to maintain that this Renaissance Schemer was in fact one of the world's first champion speed skaters?
Most probably we can dismiss them are being quite weird, but Lucrezia Borgia often comes up - sometimes only as a fanciful interjection - in discussions of the War On Sailing. There are many allusions to her in the conspiratorial literature:
In Waldorf Salade's first series of abstracts of outlines of synopses of his upcoming series of detailed breakdowns of coffee-table books about famous people from Milan, he repeatedly refers to Lucrezia Borgia as "that fiery minx who broke my boy Giovanni [Sforza]'s heart." Sometimes the word "balls" replaces the word "heart." Salade's abstracts are thought by many to be a coded message about mineral futures between United States Senators & the minerals themselves.
In the War On Sailing, much is & will be made of the Pawhuska, Oklahoma, based screenwriter & shoe shine king, Bertie Fleck. Fleck has excelled over the past two decades at not only being the quickest shoe shiner that side of Tulsa, but also as the world's fastest playwright, having written over four thousand plays in twenty years. This does not count plays he starts but chooses not to finish (often because of spilling shoe polish on them). This also does not imply quality - some say Fleck's written works are as sloppy as his shoeshine work. Few know for sure - as soon as he's finished a play, he sends it directly to his Aunt Repo, who uses them to feed her emus. In any event, word trickled out & down that Fleck wrote a play in 2004 called "Perotto You Bastard!" in which Lucrezia Borgia's tryst with a messenger boy caused calamity at her annulment, which happened while her first famous "sex tape" was all over the Internet.
Meanwhile, in Hollywood in the 1930s, the lonely television industry, waiting for television to be invented, cranked out as many sitcoms as possible, in case television caught on really fast. Since they were basically doing this with no one watching, some of the shows were of a racy & hateful quality, & one in particular, called "Papal Bull!", was an anti-Catholic show which delighted in calling attention to hypocrisies in the Middle Ages Church. A young actress named Liz Melch played the naughty Lucrezia Borgia, & she might have gone on to play the role on real television, but she married a marble quarrier & moved to the Marmo Quarry, never to be heard of again.
A famous painting hanging in a famous waiting room of a famous New York psychoanalyst (the man who claims credit for inventing Mel Blanc) was suddenly stolen & then discovered hanging above Mamie Eisenhower's clothes hamper in the days before the McCarthy hearings. The painter is unknown, but it is said that the painting depicts the famous Cesare v. Alfonso feud, & legend has it Mamie pasted pictures of herself & Ike (& Checkers, Dick Nixon's dog) over various characters populating the canvas. The painting mysteriously disappeared after President Eisenhower's stroke.
Finally, we are reminded of a scene on a streetcorner in busiest Tokyo, where a bespectacled beard by the name of Hetero-San was seen screaming in the late days of the millenium to an uncaring sky, "Why? Why marry two dudes named Alfonso? Why? Fucking why?"
We cannot perhaps separate the Lucrezia Borgia myths from the Lucrezia Borgia truths, but we can certainly attempt to spread a few Lucrezia Borgia rumors to irk Lucrezia Borgia know-it-alls to spill the beans on the Lucrezia Borgia secrets we know they're Lucrezia Borgia keeping. That's what this entry is trying to do. The secretive fucks. This'll show them!
Most probably we can dismiss them are being quite weird, but Lucrezia Borgia often comes up - sometimes only as a fanciful interjection - in discussions of the War On Sailing. There are many allusions to her in the conspiratorial literature:
In Waldorf Salade's first series of abstracts of outlines of synopses of his upcoming series of detailed breakdowns of coffee-table books about famous people from Milan, he repeatedly refers to Lucrezia Borgia as "that fiery minx who broke my boy Giovanni [Sforza]'s heart." Sometimes the word "balls" replaces the word "heart." Salade's abstracts are thought by many to be a coded message about mineral futures between United States Senators & the minerals themselves.
In the War On Sailing, much is & will be made of the Pawhuska, Oklahoma, based screenwriter & shoe shine king, Bertie Fleck. Fleck has excelled over the past two decades at not only being the quickest shoe shiner that side of Tulsa, but also as the world's fastest playwright, having written over four thousand plays in twenty years. This does not count plays he starts but chooses not to finish (often because of spilling shoe polish on them). This also does not imply quality - some say Fleck's written works are as sloppy as his shoeshine work. Few know for sure - as soon as he's finished a play, he sends it directly to his Aunt Repo, who uses them to feed her emus. In any event, word trickled out & down that Fleck wrote a play in 2004 called "Perotto You Bastard!" in which Lucrezia Borgia's tryst with a messenger boy caused calamity at her annulment, which happened while her first famous "sex tape" was all over the Internet.
Meanwhile, in Hollywood in the 1930s, the lonely television industry, waiting for television to be invented, cranked out as many sitcoms as possible, in case television caught on really fast. Since they were basically doing this with no one watching, some of the shows were of a racy & hateful quality, & one in particular, called "Papal Bull!", was an anti-Catholic show which delighted in calling attention to hypocrisies in the Middle Ages Church. A young actress named Liz Melch played the naughty Lucrezia Borgia, & she might have gone on to play the role on real television, but she married a marble quarrier & moved to the Marmo Quarry, never to be heard of again.
A famous painting hanging in a famous waiting room of a famous New York psychoanalyst (the man who claims credit for inventing Mel Blanc) was suddenly stolen & then discovered hanging above Mamie Eisenhower's clothes hamper in the days before the McCarthy hearings. The painter is unknown, but it is said that the painting depicts the famous Cesare v. Alfonso feud, & legend has it Mamie pasted pictures of herself & Ike (& Checkers, Dick Nixon's dog) over various characters populating the canvas. The painting mysteriously disappeared after President Eisenhower's stroke.
Finally, we are reminded of a scene on a streetcorner in busiest Tokyo, where a bespectacled beard by the name of Hetero-San was seen screaming in the late days of the millenium to an uncaring sky, "Why? Why marry two dudes named Alfonso? Why? Fucking why?"
We cannot perhaps separate the Lucrezia Borgia myths from the Lucrezia Borgia truths, but we can certainly attempt to spread a few Lucrezia Borgia rumors to irk Lucrezia Borgia know-it-alls to spill the beans on the Lucrezia Borgia secrets we know they're Lucrezia Borgia keeping. That's what this entry is trying to do. The secretive fucks. This'll show them!
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
You Did It For The Right Reason
It was in France that Sam Shepard bought the famous horse that would make him a playwright. The people of the city - & the New York Critics - didn't believe he had it in him. All that was needed was a fried lizard for effect & a hit soundtrack featuring the hottest new artists of the time.
It's hard for some of us, non-famous & strangely colored, to fathom how easy it is for certain people to just "get rid" of "things" that "bother" us. Like scare quotes, apparently. But shouldn't we spend a little bit of time deciding or otherwise figuring out what sort of world we as vaguely heterosexual judges & prosecutors want? I'm not condoning the rule of law here. I am simply wanting to understand how you as an artist or artisan can accept virtually everything about your life - from people who put mayonaisse on their ice cream to ice cream that celebrates 1970's pornography - but not the War On Sailing.
It astonishes everyone, least of all me. There's hardly no time to gather, staple & bind the facts from the figures from the hot patootie you wear like an egg on the face of your shame. Let's take as an example the great Caracas Potato Misunderstanding of 1954. It's tempting to blame almost anything that happens in South America on the CIA, or Jack Lemmon, or Morrissey, but the truth is, it wasn't all these things & more - it was a minor skirmish in the War On Sailing. Seventeen people lost their potatoes. That's nothing at all to be proud of. & truth be told, though it made video games possible a lot earlier than most people had been predicting, it set back Stand Up Comedy by decades.
As an aside, when you wake up in the morning with the storm & rain, you don't have to handle the envelopes with gloves (you must know your fingertips lie to you), you don't have to butter your toast with jam, you don't even have to shower the people you love with love (even if it does show them the way that you feel): no, all you need to do is turn down the viewscreen & turn up the brain aerials. It makes navigation through the complicated complicities of modern American living only slightly more difficult than choosing a cheese for the in-law's visit. But it's as necessary as cheese. Though slightly less necessary than cheesy in-laws. See my article about this somewhere else.
One last admonishment: I know many of you love Hugo Chavez so much you want to marry him, but you should know, he was at the famous 1995 meeting with Donald Rumsfield, Saddam Hussein, Michael Jackson, Tim Blake Nelson, Erskine Caldwell, Emeril Lagasse, Henry Kissinger (the hand puppet), Bertha The Enema Queen & of course Wilma Flintstone, & he couldn't stop making farty noises with his hand under his arm whenever someone talked about Castro. What does that say to you, as a left-leaning scrotum-washer of his? Think about it.
You make me sick.
It's hard for some of us, non-famous & strangely colored, to fathom how easy it is for certain people to just "get rid" of "things" that "bother" us. Like scare quotes, apparently. But shouldn't we spend a little bit of time deciding or otherwise figuring out what sort of world we as vaguely heterosexual judges & prosecutors want? I'm not condoning the rule of law here. I am simply wanting to understand how you as an artist or artisan can accept virtually everything about your life - from people who put mayonaisse on their ice cream to ice cream that celebrates 1970's pornography - but not the War On Sailing.
It astonishes everyone, least of all me. There's hardly no time to gather, staple & bind the facts from the figures from the hot patootie you wear like an egg on the face of your shame. Let's take as an example the great Caracas Potato Misunderstanding of 1954. It's tempting to blame almost anything that happens in South America on the CIA, or Jack Lemmon, or Morrissey, but the truth is, it wasn't all these things & more - it was a minor skirmish in the War On Sailing. Seventeen people lost their potatoes. That's nothing at all to be proud of. & truth be told, though it made video games possible a lot earlier than most people had been predicting, it set back Stand Up Comedy by decades.
As an aside, when you wake up in the morning with the storm & rain, you don't have to handle the envelopes with gloves (you must know your fingertips lie to you), you don't have to butter your toast with jam, you don't even have to shower the people you love with love (even if it does show them the way that you feel): no, all you need to do is turn down the viewscreen & turn up the brain aerials. It makes navigation through the complicated complicities of modern American living only slightly more difficult than choosing a cheese for the in-law's visit. But it's as necessary as cheese. Though slightly less necessary than cheesy in-laws. See my article about this somewhere else.
One last admonishment: I know many of you love Hugo Chavez so much you want to marry him, but you should know, he was at the famous 1995 meeting with Donald Rumsfield, Saddam Hussein, Michael Jackson, Tim Blake Nelson, Erskine Caldwell, Emeril Lagasse, Henry Kissinger (the hand puppet), Bertha The Enema Queen & of course Wilma Flintstone, & he couldn't stop making farty noises with his hand under his arm whenever someone talked about Castro. What does that say to you, as a left-leaning scrotum-washer of his? Think about it.
You make me sick.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
New Direct - Or, The Reason We Need Self Help
Despite the overwhelming number of graduate students who refuse to dig through musty library stacks to do research (preferring instead the non-mustiness of Google), there is much hope for scholars of the War On Sailing, thanks to a concerted effort from the Weebelos of Bowlus, Minnesota, on a visit to the state capitol & library stand in Saint Paul. They dug up no less than eleven articles which bear directly on our research but which will never be available online. A brief listing follows:
"Marrying The Same Sex In The Lebu Republic Of Dakar" by Mortimer Spine, African Cities Illuminated, Issue 1, Volume 1, 1947
"Don't Kid Me!" starring Archie Andrews appearing in Archie Comics No. 56 (May/June 1952)
"Is That A Baboon? Holy Fuck!" by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Letters To My Grocer &/or Stripper, Accattone Press, 1970.
Brief mention in George Will's 1982 column, "How Far Can An Op-Ed Writer Stick His Tongue Up A President's Ass?" - Washington Embarrassment, August 23, 1982.
Chapters 14 - 19 of Vince Pederast's monumental half-novel It's Raining Catamites & Dogons, 1972, Spleen Press.
Mike Wallace interview of Bottom Fedora, the California Lettuce King, 60 Minutes, April 12, 1968.
"Can I Get A Good God Damn!" exhortation by Spanky D, number one MC of La Grande, Idaho, y'all, yeh.
"Tips, The Tipping, & The People Who Tip," editorial piece, Dining Monthly, September 1955.
That scene in Caddyshack 2 with Randy Quaid that you just fucking know would have been ten time funnier with Ted Knight or, really, anyone with half a sense of motherfucking comic timing.
"Dreamweaver," as sung by children trapped in a sinking boat, trying to keep their spirits up, taped by the Coast Guard at their most perverse, June 4, 1997, off the coast of North Carolina.
The Wikipedia entry on Ted Knight, printed out & left by the door.
We salute the inquisitive spirit of our nation's youth & promise to act accordingly.
"Marrying The Same Sex In The Lebu Republic Of Dakar" by Mortimer Spine, African Cities Illuminated, Issue 1, Volume 1, 1947
"Don't Kid Me!" starring Archie Andrews appearing in Archie Comics No. 56 (May/June 1952)
"Is That A Baboon? Holy Fuck!" by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Letters To My Grocer &/or Stripper, Accattone Press, 1970.
Brief mention in George Will's 1982 column, "How Far Can An Op-Ed Writer Stick His Tongue Up A President's Ass?" - Washington Embarrassment, August 23, 1982.
Chapters 14 - 19 of Vince Pederast's monumental half-novel It's Raining Catamites & Dogons, 1972, Spleen Press.
Mike Wallace interview of Bottom Fedora, the California Lettuce King, 60 Minutes, April 12, 1968.
"Can I Get A Good God Damn!" exhortation by Spanky D, number one MC of La Grande, Idaho, y'all, yeh.
"Tips, The Tipping, & The People Who Tip," editorial piece, Dining Monthly, September 1955.
That scene in Caddyshack 2 with Randy Quaid that you just fucking know would have been ten time funnier with Ted Knight or, really, anyone with half a sense of motherfucking comic timing.
"Dreamweaver," as sung by children trapped in a sinking boat, trying to keep their spirits up, taped by the Coast Guard at their most perverse, June 4, 1997, off the coast of North Carolina.
The Wikipedia entry on Ted Knight, printed out & left by the door.
We salute the inquisitive spirit of our nation's youth & promise to act accordingly.
Friday, May 4, 2007
Happy Fists
The War On Sailing makes orphans of us all. Consider this wise anecdote anecdocumented in the personal library of a former United States President, unavailable until recently because of the usual excuses: men in black, violated constitutional rights, the Freedom Of Information Act, the faked moon landing, etc.:
Once upon a time, before the wedding, I took her to a place outside Oshkosh (on a dare!) that catered to couples who couldn't decide between eloping & shotgun weddings. If I mentioned the place, you'd know exactly where it was. We drove in circles on the 116, even though it's mostly straight, when she, with her usual aplomb, said, "I know a sleazy little den of cheese in Waukau." In those days, before the brain transplant, I was always up for anything, the skeezier the better. I hadn't yet had a chat with Dr. Jesus, if you know what I mean. I used to say every four-letter-word except love.
Well, the place, strangely enough, was a burned-out old tattoo parlor which was the site of the Brandy Night Siege*. I had read about it, of course, but I had never seen it - & like the General† said, it smelled of day-old bread in a Hollandaise sauce. I hadn't really expected the rumors to be true.
What was most surprising is that she seemed to know about the siege. We snorted fluff & head-butted to prepare us for what was going to be a decidedly queer evening. Once we found our way indoors, by means of moving about crispy furniture & a couple of intact metal doors, we found, to my surprise, but obviously not hers, a poker game going on! & not just any poker game: this game was attended by the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse!**
One of them pointed a Frito at me & said, "What the hell are you doing here, boy? Ain't you got a political career to worry about?"
Another blew a smoke ring at me. Needless to say, she wasn't as frightened as I, & she said, "Can it, salad fork. I brought him here. Give him the goods."
I wanted to ask questions, but of course I couldn't - she invoked the salad fork.†† However, the night which began with me wanting to get her drunk, fornicate with her, then ask her to marry me, had been turned on its heels. Now I was being forced to dress & act like a duck while the Four Horsemen made movies & she got five dollars for every tear I shed. I had never been so proud in my life - & so glad I chose her as my running mate - er, partner - er, wife.
I wish one day I could tell my grandchildren, but I have even changed my own name in this account to protect everyone. May God have tender mercies on my soil.
[Signature Removed]
NOTES:
* As will be discussed in an upcoming issue of Goof Royalty Quarterly, the Brandy Night Siege was a pitched battle during the War On Sailing which has so far been kept out of the history books - & the memories of the people of Oshkosh, Wisconsion - because of a surprise visit by Belgian nobles the morning after the siege. That this writer knows about the siege attests to his deep involvement with movers & shakers in the War On Sailing.
† In other works, "the General" usually refers, oddly enough, to Margaret Thatcher.
** For students of the War On Sailing, this label is usually meant to refer to four high school students who once visited Washington to read a paper about celery in the future to President Dwight D Eisenhower. Each of them received a gold star & Ike's blessing. Because of this, they stayed in touch, & the legend of the celery that melted General Eisenhower's heart gave them credibility that K Streeters can't buy. Needless to say, they were not there by accident.
†† For some conspirators in the War On Sailing, cutlery has tremendous power.
Once upon a time, before the wedding, I took her to a place outside Oshkosh (on a dare!) that catered to couples who couldn't decide between eloping & shotgun weddings. If I mentioned the place, you'd know exactly where it was. We drove in circles on the 116, even though it's mostly straight, when she, with her usual aplomb, said, "I know a sleazy little den of cheese in Waukau." In those days, before the brain transplant, I was always up for anything, the skeezier the better. I hadn't yet had a chat with Dr. Jesus, if you know what I mean. I used to say every four-letter-word except love.
Well, the place, strangely enough, was a burned-out old tattoo parlor which was the site of the Brandy Night Siege*. I had read about it, of course, but I had never seen it - & like the General† said, it smelled of day-old bread in a Hollandaise sauce. I hadn't really expected the rumors to be true.
What was most surprising is that she seemed to know about the siege. We snorted fluff & head-butted to prepare us for what was going to be a decidedly queer evening. Once we found our way indoors, by means of moving about crispy furniture & a couple of intact metal doors, we found, to my surprise, but obviously not hers, a poker game going on! & not just any poker game: this game was attended by the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse!**
One of them pointed a Frito at me & said, "What the hell are you doing here, boy? Ain't you got a political career to worry about?"
Another blew a smoke ring at me. Needless to say, she wasn't as frightened as I, & she said, "Can it, salad fork. I brought him here. Give him the goods."
I wanted to ask questions, but of course I couldn't - she invoked the salad fork.†† However, the night which began with me wanting to get her drunk, fornicate with her, then ask her to marry me, had been turned on its heels. Now I was being forced to dress & act like a duck while the Four Horsemen made movies & she got five dollars for every tear I shed. I had never been so proud in my life - & so glad I chose her as my running mate - er, partner - er, wife.
I wish one day I could tell my grandchildren, but I have even changed my own name in this account to protect everyone. May God have tender mercies on my soil.
[Signature Removed]
NOTES:
* As will be discussed in an upcoming issue of Goof Royalty Quarterly, the Brandy Night Siege was a pitched battle during the War On Sailing which has so far been kept out of the history books - & the memories of the people of Oshkosh, Wisconsion - because of a surprise visit by Belgian nobles the morning after the siege. That this writer knows about the siege attests to his deep involvement with movers & shakers in the War On Sailing.
† In other works, "the General" usually refers, oddly enough, to Margaret Thatcher.
** For students of the War On Sailing, this label is usually meant to refer to four high school students who once visited Washington to read a paper about celery in the future to President Dwight D Eisenhower. Each of them received a gold star & Ike's blessing. Because of this, they stayed in touch, & the legend of the celery that melted General Eisenhower's heart gave them credibility that K Streeters can't buy. Needless to say, they were not there by accident.
†† For some conspirators in the War On Sailing, cutlery has tremendous power.
Sunday, April 8, 2007
I Once Played On A Jungle Gym I Called Dear Old Dad
From Our Correspondent in middle America:
Relationships with fathers have been strained all over these United States since masculinity was defeated by sonar & wit. To finance the NRA memberships & the stripped clutches, men of America have taken on health club memberships & subscribed to online gaming/porn sites to make ends meet. But was it always thus?
If there's anything we need to discuss in this War On Sailing, it's perspective. Not to be confused with Perspective, which was an Innovation of the Renaissance - itself a major turning point in this hateful, senseless, stupid war - but simple perspective: a sense that not only do you know where the butter on your side of the bread is coming from, but also how it might actually affect the cholesterol of your other meals not currently associated with butter nor bread. Therefore it behooves us as educators & litigators to look back into the past & ask ourselves: patriarchy, what the hell?
There are three interesting historical models which may serve as skin blisters on the road to today's ridiculous ruin of modern manhood. All three are at the very least documented, even if that documentation begins here:
1) Ancient Persia: the manly swagger. With interest in Persia increasing as American invasion draws near - &/or with the popularity of ball-less entertainment like 300, itself a particularly nasty bit of back-hair-shaving defeat - it's fascinating to note that testicles first dropped in Persia nearly four thousand years ago. Fossils from the period show that, before that period, men & the other seven sexes tended to walk roughly the same. After this siren moment, you could tell a man by the way he walked.
2) The Far East - the closer Far East, though: Ruins completely destroyed by bored soldiers during the Vietnam War showed interesting markings which scholars have gleaned from highly medicated veterans with PTSD in a series of remarkable interviews conducted for the past thirty years over the phone disguised as telemarketing calls quizzing subjects about their long distance rates. These ruins evidently tell of a two-hundred-year-long bachelor party which did not - some even argue could not - end in marriage. While reports of American GIs "going native" when the ruins were discovered are unconfirmed - & have in fact been made up by me - I confess I'll be consulting on a Hollywood movie on this subject for the next few months. Apologies if I don't return your calls.
3) Homosexuality in Cleveland, circa 1972: Two camps have sprung up in the discussion of homosexuality in the War On Sailing - two rivalries that have shaken the foundations of this young but important scholarly pursuit. From an outside perspective (I've never had homosexual relations with a scholar), the two camps might be described as "the Frisky" & "the Flabbergasted." In particular, a meeting of the Closet Club of Cleveland in May (some say June) 1972 came as close as we can tell to predicting changing roles for men in the late twentieth century. While the gay men in the club pretended to be selling closets wholesale, the police began investigating similar clubs for possible fraud. The subsequent "outing" of the club & the end to fabulous parties in Cleveland for a decade sent a shock through the zeitgeist of the time. It is worth noting that that particular shock was sent through the mails & was the first shock to utilize the new "zip code" system.
While it may be tempting to draw a line from a to c to b in this situation, further research will doubtless need to be done. Some even recommend sandblasting. While many of us continue to fret over the changing state of manhood in North America today, it is worth noting that, when some of us read, our lips still move.
Wilbur Cormorant, middle America
Relationships with fathers have been strained all over these United States since masculinity was defeated by sonar & wit. To finance the NRA memberships & the stripped clutches, men of America have taken on health club memberships & subscribed to online gaming/porn sites to make ends meet. But was it always thus?
If there's anything we need to discuss in this War On Sailing, it's perspective. Not to be confused with Perspective, which was an Innovation of the Renaissance - itself a major turning point in this hateful, senseless, stupid war - but simple perspective: a sense that not only do you know where the butter on your side of the bread is coming from, but also how it might actually affect the cholesterol of your other meals not currently associated with butter nor bread. Therefore it behooves us as educators & litigators to look back into the past & ask ourselves: patriarchy, what the hell?
There are three interesting historical models which may serve as skin blisters on the road to today's ridiculous ruin of modern manhood. All three are at the very least documented, even if that documentation begins here:
1) Ancient Persia: the manly swagger. With interest in Persia increasing as American invasion draws near - &/or with the popularity of ball-less entertainment like 300, itself a particularly nasty bit of back-hair-shaving defeat - it's fascinating to note that testicles first dropped in Persia nearly four thousand years ago. Fossils from the period show that, before that period, men & the other seven sexes tended to walk roughly the same. After this siren moment, you could tell a man by the way he walked.
2) The Far East - the closer Far East, though: Ruins completely destroyed by bored soldiers during the Vietnam War showed interesting markings which scholars have gleaned from highly medicated veterans with PTSD in a series of remarkable interviews conducted for the past thirty years over the phone disguised as telemarketing calls quizzing subjects about their long distance rates. These ruins evidently tell of a two-hundred-year-long bachelor party which did not - some even argue could not - end in marriage. While reports of American GIs "going native" when the ruins were discovered are unconfirmed - & have in fact been made up by me - I confess I'll be consulting on a Hollywood movie on this subject for the next few months. Apologies if I don't return your calls.
3) Homosexuality in Cleveland, circa 1972: Two camps have sprung up in the discussion of homosexuality in the War On Sailing - two rivalries that have shaken the foundations of this young but important scholarly pursuit. From an outside perspective (I've never had homosexual relations with a scholar), the two camps might be described as "the Frisky" & "the Flabbergasted." In particular, a meeting of the Closet Club of Cleveland in May (some say June) 1972 came as close as we can tell to predicting changing roles for men in the late twentieth century. While the gay men in the club pretended to be selling closets wholesale, the police began investigating similar clubs for possible fraud. The subsequent "outing" of the club & the end to fabulous parties in Cleveland for a decade sent a shock through the zeitgeist of the time. It is worth noting that that particular shock was sent through the mails & was the first shock to utilize the new "zip code" system.
While it may be tempting to draw a line from a to c to b in this situation, further research will doubtless need to be done. Some even recommend sandblasting. While many of us continue to fret over the changing state of manhood in North America today, it is worth noting that, when some of us read, our lips still move.
Wilbur Cormorant, middle America
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
She Dreams Pissarro Dreams (A Fragment)
Pontoise, France, 1898. Summer.
The rain north of Paris has a feeble air in this sultry suburb. She might as well be making macaroons for money rather than spying for the Northwest Arts Alliance. No one is here. No one is here! They've all gone to open fields & laser light shows at the Stadium. She remembers she's a volunteer, lights another lollipop, & waits. She has two baquettes & a six-pack of brew. She can make it through the day.
Wait! Who enters the old painter's home? Why are they dressed all in black in this hot French été? This is only the third visitor he's had in a week. The first was the heiress, who left in tears. The second was a Chinese food delivery boy, who left in a wagon. The two "men in black" are entering in a haste. She wishes she had one of those things that they have in submarines - you know, those things kind of like a telescope, except it enables you to look over things, or under things, because they're got mirrors - merde, what do they call those? - you know, you can peek around corners, they advertise them in the back of comics & stuff like that - why can't I fucking remember?
Then there's a shout! She moves furtively down the empty street for a better vantage point. A sleeping dog on the sidewalk looks up at her with soggy interest. She returns the stare. The dog looks away, vaguely ashamed. She curses the animal for its disinterest. Then there's another shout! She wonders what it's all about! She scootches as closely to the front of Pissarro's building as she can, & peer through the crack.
The old painter, with globs of paint embarrassingly stuck in his beard in such a way that it looks like he's wearing some kind of beads or something, sits in a creaky lawnchair & waves a paintbrush in the two mens' faces. They are as stone, unmoved, patiently letting him scream at them & then, when he slumps exhaustedly, talking to him in low tones, scolding almost, like the great artist is a lowly employee who's getting a dressing down.
She hears one fragment: "You wouldn't want to let what happened to Van Gogh happen to you, would you?"
"Periscope!" she screams excitedly. The two men turn almost robotically, one moving into the courtyard as if to a different entrance, the other toward the front.
The street outside is as empty as they remember it, although the transvestite with the bread on the corner is gone. There's a scrawny dog sprawled on the street between them, as the one comes around the corner. They return to Pissarro's house, but one of the men in black, as if to make sure everything is all right, kicks the dog & makes it run away before again closing the gates to the old painter's home.
The rain north of Paris has a feeble air in this sultry suburb. She might as well be making macaroons for money rather than spying for the Northwest Arts Alliance. No one is here. No one is here! They've all gone to open fields & laser light shows at the Stadium. She remembers she's a volunteer, lights another lollipop, & waits. She has two baquettes & a six-pack of brew. She can make it through the day.
Wait! Who enters the old painter's home? Why are they dressed all in black in this hot French été? This is only the third visitor he's had in a week. The first was the heiress, who left in tears. The second was a Chinese food delivery boy, who left in a wagon. The two "men in black" are entering in a haste. She wishes she had one of those things that they have in submarines - you know, those things kind of like a telescope, except it enables you to look over things, or under things, because they're got mirrors - merde, what do they call those? - you know, you can peek around corners, they advertise them in the back of comics & stuff like that - why can't I fucking remember?
Then there's a shout! She moves furtively down the empty street for a better vantage point. A sleeping dog on the sidewalk looks up at her with soggy interest. She returns the stare. The dog looks away, vaguely ashamed. She curses the animal for its disinterest. Then there's another shout! She wonders what it's all about! She scootches as closely to the front of Pissarro's building as she can, & peer through the crack.
The old painter, with globs of paint embarrassingly stuck in his beard in such a way that it looks like he's wearing some kind of beads or something, sits in a creaky lawnchair & waves a paintbrush in the two mens' faces. They are as stone, unmoved, patiently letting him scream at them & then, when he slumps exhaustedly, talking to him in low tones, scolding almost, like the great artist is a lowly employee who's getting a dressing down.
She hears one fragment: "You wouldn't want to let what happened to Van Gogh happen to you, would you?"
"Periscope!" she screams excitedly. The two men turn almost robotically, one moving into the courtyard as if to a different entrance, the other toward the front.
The street outside is as empty as they remember it, although the transvestite with the bread on the corner is gone. There's a scrawny dog sprawled on the street between them, as the one comes around the corner. They return to Pissarro's house, but one of the men in black, as if to make sure everything is all right, kicks the dog & makes it run away before again closing the gates to the old painter's home.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
A Short Biography Of A Cumbersome Man
Randolph Fol De Rol (1917 - 1971) was a stout young lass who survived three wars & two sex change operations to become the Field Marshall in charge of Mice at the Paris Vivisection Institute (L'Institute De Vivisection A La Paris) in the turbulent sixties. He is chiefly remembered for a prank he pulled on a visiting Charles De Gaulle that won him the Order Of Paris (L'Order Du Paris) medal, but toward the end of his life he wrote a series of insightful books that make him of particular interest to scholars of the War On Sailing.
Fol De Rol was born in Absence, Wyoming, to a family of Rotarians with strong ties to the barbed-wire fence industry. Young Randolph, or "Betty," as he was often known, ran away from home to watch the Reichtag burn during the first difficult years of the Depression, then settled in France just as it was occupied by Nazis. He then fled to Germany, but, realizing his mistake, thought it prudent instead to hide in a P.O.W. camp. This was the famous Stalag 13 &, despite him being a fictional character, Colonel Hogan took Fol De Rol under his wing & helped him escape to occupied Poland.
In Poland, Fol De Rol suffered untimely potato intoxication & was forced to undergo the then-popular "Fat Boy" exercise therapy in the steppes of Russia. Unfortunately, Fol De Rol's bad luck continued when he fell down the Steppes & ended up in Moscow, forced to serve as Stalin's letter opener & part-time dartboard. It was at this time, when Fol De Rol was privvy to some of the Soviet Union's greatest secrets, that he wrote his famous confessional novel, "I Moscow Quickly," in which he defended communism as "not so much a form of government as a nice idea to win arguments with." Though the novel was never published inside the Soviet Union, it did get a small engagement at a nightclub in Ghent, Belgium, where it gained a cult following & even (it's rumored) jammed with Keith Richards.
After Stalin's death, Fol De Rol hitched a ride on a westbound train going east & ended up in Japan just in time for lunch. Though already a natural philosopher, Fol De Rol tried to pass himself off as an ambassador, & then later, at the same buffet, the ambassador's wife, but he was laughed out of Kyoto society & forced to take a job at a Shinto temple selling iced sushi to tourists. Feeling his age (he was now in his forties), he proposed to several women & a couple of ladyboys, but the years had not been kind of Fol De Rol, & no one was able to find him attractive. He remained single the rest of his life, although he was not above paying for sex if the prostitute had a strong stomach.
It is believed that, on a tramp steamer heading south to the Phillipines, Fol De Rol began connecting the dots & finding the clues which would help him in his studies of the War On Sailing. In the early 60's he taught Sex Ed at the University of Manila, & later, Home Ec at the University of Hawaii at Honolulu. He returned to Wyoming in time to bury his father, then fled the country when authorities discovered his father was alive at the time. On advice from Roman Polanski, he asked for asylum in Spain. It was rejected; however, dumb luck intervened, & Fol De Rol's father's body was lost in the chain of custody, causing the charges to be dropped for Fol De Rol, & allowing many episodes of Law & Order to use the event as a plot twist.
Fol De Rol was just learning how to pronounce the name of the city of Mainz when he got word of his Paris appointment. He arrived in the City Of Lights (La Citee Du Lites) in January 1968, & took to his job with great enthusiasm, once even dissecting a mouse with his eyes closed & using only his teeth. He was well-liked & he liked his work.
However, French mice discovered that Fol De Rol was using non-union rodents & took him to court. The case dragged on for many months. Fol De Rol's health declined &, though he won the case, he left his position a broken man. Woman. Man-woman. Thing. Whatever he/she/it was. He published many screeds, each hinting at a greater, unifying novel, but his seriousness was questioned by friends & admirers because he kept referring to it as "my unfinished manuscript."
He never finished The 1972 French/English Calendar, but portions of it exist on the Internet & in every other Half Price Books. In particular, the section which details how corporate "scientists" abet the players in the War On Sailing is considered brilliant. Especially after you correct the spelling errors. Of which there are a lot. You'd never know that this dude's first language was English. For fuck's sake.
His death came as no surprise. Tragically, he died at his lab & his corpse was eaten by seven thousand spiteful lab rats.
He does live on in his work. We thank him for that & celebrate his name.
Fol De Rol was born in Absence, Wyoming, to a family of Rotarians with strong ties to the barbed-wire fence industry. Young Randolph, or "Betty," as he was often known, ran away from home to watch the Reichtag burn during the first difficult years of the Depression, then settled in France just as it was occupied by Nazis. He then fled to Germany, but, realizing his mistake, thought it prudent instead to hide in a P.O.W. camp. This was the famous Stalag 13 &, despite him being a fictional character, Colonel Hogan took Fol De Rol under his wing & helped him escape to occupied Poland.
In Poland, Fol De Rol suffered untimely potato intoxication & was forced to undergo the then-popular "Fat Boy" exercise therapy in the steppes of Russia. Unfortunately, Fol De Rol's bad luck continued when he fell down the Steppes & ended up in Moscow, forced to serve as Stalin's letter opener & part-time dartboard. It was at this time, when Fol De Rol was privvy to some of the Soviet Union's greatest secrets, that he wrote his famous confessional novel, "I Moscow Quickly," in which he defended communism as "not so much a form of government as a nice idea to win arguments with." Though the novel was never published inside the Soviet Union, it did get a small engagement at a nightclub in Ghent, Belgium, where it gained a cult following & even (it's rumored) jammed with Keith Richards.
After Stalin's death, Fol De Rol hitched a ride on a westbound train going east & ended up in Japan just in time for lunch. Though already a natural philosopher, Fol De Rol tried to pass himself off as an ambassador, & then later, at the same buffet, the ambassador's wife, but he was laughed out of Kyoto society & forced to take a job at a Shinto temple selling iced sushi to tourists. Feeling his age (he was now in his forties), he proposed to several women & a couple of ladyboys, but the years had not been kind of Fol De Rol, & no one was able to find him attractive. He remained single the rest of his life, although he was not above paying for sex if the prostitute had a strong stomach.
It is believed that, on a tramp steamer heading south to the Phillipines, Fol De Rol began connecting the dots & finding the clues which would help him in his studies of the War On Sailing. In the early 60's he taught Sex Ed at the University of Manila, & later, Home Ec at the University of Hawaii at Honolulu. He returned to Wyoming in time to bury his father, then fled the country when authorities discovered his father was alive at the time. On advice from Roman Polanski, he asked for asylum in Spain. It was rejected; however, dumb luck intervened, & Fol De Rol's father's body was lost in the chain of custody, causing the charges to be dropped for Fol De Rol, & allowing many episodes of Law & Order to use the event as a plot twist.
Fol De Rol was just learning how to pronounce the name of the city of Mainz when he got word of his Paris appointment. He arrived in the City Of Lights (La Citee Du Lites) in January 1968, & took to his job with great enthusiasm, once even dissecting a mouse with his eyes closed & using only his teeth. He was well-liked & he liked his work.
However, French mice discovered that Fol De Rol was using non-union rodents & took him to court. The case dragged on for many months. Fol De Rol's health declined &, though he won the case, he left his position a broken man. Woman. Man-woman. Thing. Whatever he/she/it was. He published many screeds, each hinting at a greater, unifying novel, but his seriousness was questioned by friends & admirers because he kept referring to it as "my unfinished manuscript."
He never finished The 1972 French/English Calendar, but portions of it exist on the Internet & in every other Half Price Books. In particular, the section which details how corporate "scientists" abet the players in the War On Sailing is considered brilliant. Especially after you correct the spelling errors. Of which there are a lot. You'd never know that this dude's first language was English. For fuck's sake.
His death came as no surprise. Tragically, he died at his lab & his corpse was eaten by seven thousand spiteful lab rats.
He does live on in his work. We thank him for that & celebrate his name.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
I Didn't Even KNOW There Was A War On Sailing!
Oh if only I had one minute of air time for every time someone said that to me! I could have my own cable channel for months. (I'd sleep nights, though - maybe make a little extra cash with infomercials.)
Scholars are not normally thought of as advocates, but sometimes, certain areas of study require that the researchers involved make the case for their field of inquiry along with the work they're doing within that field. This is not without precedent. In 1868, the troubled field of Facial Hair Studies, attempting to bring attention to the newly-created academic genre, required all the students & teachers who majored in, studied or taught the subject to have spectacular facial hair. This proved to be difficult for women who wanted to get degrees in Facial Hair Studies, & it is believed by people who know very little about history that this was the beginning of sexual oppression.
Those of us who have invested our lives in studying the War On Sailing must, however, not only immerse ourselves in historical, cultural, literary & musical materials to reconstruct trends, events & mechanations within the War On Sailing, we must also "pimp" (as the kids say) the war to the general public. Yes, this subject is so completely hidden from the view of the general public & modern academia that we who are on the cutting edge of modern thought must also convince folks that what we report & discover & discuss is of deadly seriousness. (Really, it is.)
So here are some tips when you, as a student of the War On Sailing, are confronted with skeptics or know-nothings who dismiss your work as useless, foolish or (ye gods!) a waste of time.
1) Ask them if they believe there are other dangerous events happening in the world that they don't know about. If they say "no," call them a liar. If they say "of course!", stick your tongue out at them.
2) Mention my own famous work The War On Sailing: A Continuous History & ask if they have read it. If they say they haven't, tell them to read it & then talk to you. Otherwise, tell them: talk to the hand.
3) Answer their questions with questions. It'll exhaust them.
4) Tell them that the War On Sailing is the only scholarly discipline which offers Green Stamps.
5) Sing them the War On Sailing theme song. Remember: it's sung to the tune of the theme song to "Star Blazers."
6) Look guiltily at them & say, "At least I'm not begging for money!"
7) As if possessed, rattle off a list of dates & events, countries & historical figures, & then stare them in the eyes & say, "What do these have in common?" They won't be able to answer, so tell them: "The War On Sailing!"
8) Shrug your shoulders, bum a smoke, hang out a while.
Good luck! You are fighting the good fight!
Scholars are not normally thought of as advocates, but sometimes, certain areas of study require that the researchers involved make the case for their field of inquiry along with the work they're doing within that field. This is not without precedent. In 1868, the troubled field of Facial Hair Studies, attempting to bring attention to the newly-created academic genre, required all the students & teachers who majored in, studied or taught the subject to have spectacular facial hair. This proved to be difficult for women who wanted to get degrees in Facial Hair Studies, & it is believed by people who know very little about history that this was the beginning of sexual oppression.
Those of us who have invested our lives in studying the War On Sailing must, however, not only immerse ourselves in historical, cultural, literary & musical materials to reconstruct trends, events & mechanations within the War On Sailing, we must also "pimp" (as the kids say) the war to the general public. Yes, this subject is so completely hidden from the view of the general public & modern academia that we who are on the cutting edge of modern thought must also convince folks that what we report & discover & discuss is of deadly seriousness. (Really, it is.)
So here are some tips when you, as a student of the War On Sailing, are confronted with skeptics or know-nothings who dismiss your work as useless, foolish or (ye gods!) a waste of time.
1) Ask them if they believe there are other dangerous events happening in the world that they don't know about. If they say "no," call them a liar. If they say "of course!", stick your tongue out at them.
2) Mention my own famous work The War On Sailing: A Continuous History & ask if they have read it. If they say they haven't, tell them to read it & then talk to you. Otherwise, tell them: talk to the hand.
3) Answer their questions with questions. It'll exhaust them.
4) Tell them that the War On Sailing is the only scholarly discipline which offers Green Stamps.
5) Sing them the War On Sailing theme song. Remember: it's sung to the tune of the theme song to "Star Blazers."
6) Look guiltily at them & say, "At least I'm not begging for money!"
7) As if possessed, rattle off a list of dates & events, countries & historical figures, & then stare them in the eyes & say, "What do these have in common?" They won't be able to answer, so tell them: "The War On Sailing!"
8) Shrug your shoulders, bum a smoke, hang out a while.
Good luck! You are fighting the good fight!
Monday, March 19, 2007
Video Games & The War On Sailing
An intrepid graduate student at the University Of Mainge in Neverspent, Wisconsin, has done some intriguing research into the link between video games & the War On Sailing. In her most recent paper, published in the Hallucinogen Quarterly, she outlines three commercial video games & probable reference points to the War On Sailing:
1) Panda Attack!
This game, manufactured by video game giant Alito, has boy scouts & girl scouts wandering the forest of a futuristic, capitalist China, attacked by Maoist pandas. In the paper, the author notes provocative parallels between the use of animals as the last line of defense & a famous (or infamous) guerilla battle in the War On Sailing, the Incident At Random Point (qv). In particular, the pandas in the video game seem armed mainly with eucalyptus bombs - as were the combatants at Random Point. Skeptics point out that the pandas in the video game have not been huffing Vick's Vapo-Rub for the previous thirty-six hours.
2) The New York Times' Beer & Bagel Run
In 1971, the newspaper reporter Neville Reporter (I swear, it was his real name) managed to get a brief article published, against all odds & against the better judgement of his editors, about an incident within the New York Times Lower New Jersey Bureau (Garden Division) which stands as a strange & wonderful example of how not to report on the War On Sailing. Small-town video game makers Snitchfeld have apparently used this article for a recent video game which takes place (boldly, brashly) at the New York Times main office.
In the game, a cub reporter must satisfy all the food & alcohol needs of the columnists & star reporters or else face banishment to the mail room. Though Snitchfeld claim not to remember the article (&, in fact, everyone who works at Snitchfeld was born long after the incident), the game is an uncanny reenacment of hazing rituals at the paper.
3) Gonzo Abattoir
This peculiar game, marketed for children, & featuring Jim Henson's famous Muppet (tm) characters, involves a mad Big Bird attempting to make felt sausages out of his Muppet Show counterparts. Players can choose to be Kermit, Sam The Eagle, Snuffleupagus or Gonzo & attempt to stop the war on Sesame Street. That this game is a pitch perfect reconstruction of an event in Paris in 1984 is not lost on scholars of the War On Sailing. What's most interesting (& chilling) is that, in both incidents, the main conspirator was named Gonzo. Also, they had similar noses.
Is there a link between video games & the War On Sailing? Hmm. I smell a dissertation topic!
1) Panda Attack!
This game, manufactured by video game giant Alito, has boy scouts & girl scouts wandering the forest of a futuristic, capitalist China, attacked by Maoist pandas. In the paper, the author notes provocative parallels between the use of animals as the last line of defense & a famous (or infamous) guerilla battle in the War On Sailing, the Incident At Random Point (qv). In particular, the pandas in the video game seem armed mainly with eucalyptus bombs - as were the combatants at Random Point. Skeptics point out that the pandas in the video game have not been huffing Vick's Vapo-Rub for the previous thirty-six hours.
2) The New York Times' Beer & Bagel Run
In 1971, the newspaper reporter Neville Reporter (I swear, it was his real name) managed to get a brief article published, against all odds & against the better judgement of his editors, about an incident within the New York Times Lower New Jersey Bureau (Garden Division) which stands as a strange & wonderful example of how not to report on the War On Sailing. Small-town video game makers Snitchfeld have apparently used this article for a recent video game which takes place (boldly, brashly) at the New York Times main office.
In the game, a cub reporter must satisfy all the food & alcohol needs of the columnists & star reporters or else face banishment to the mail room. Though Snitchfeld claim not to remember the article (&, in fact, everyone who works at Snitchfeld was born long after the incident), the game is an uncanny reenacment of hazing rituals at the paper.
3) Gonzo Abattoir
This peculiar game, marketed for children, & featuring Jim Henson's famous Muppet (tm) characters, involves a mad Big Bird attempting to make felt sausages out of his Muppet Show counterparts. Players can choose to be Kermit, Sam The Eagle, Snuffleupagus or Gonzo & attempt to stop the war on Sesame Street. That this game is a pitch perfect reconstruction of an event in Paris in 1984 is not lost on scholars of the War On Sailing. What's most interesting (& chilling) is that, in both incidents, the main conspirator was named Gonzo. Also, they had similar noses.
Is there a link between video games & the War On Sailing? Hmm. I smell a dissertation topic!
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Seventeen (17) Reasons To Have A Blog About The War On Sailing
I. The War On Sailing is neglected by academics, feared by politicians, hated by the powerful, suitable for framing.
II. More immediate & possibly sexier than global warming.
III. Spans several disciples, therefore requiring no real disciple to study.
IV. Key players in the War On Sailing are far more attractive than other great worldwide conspiracies.
V. Guaranteed employment for lifetime of war (which is basically forever).
VI. Allows students of the war on sailing to be righteous about the War On Sailing's wrongs while revelling in its moral ambiguity.
VII. Would make a great musical, a decent rock opera, a gory ten-part graphic novel series & several really fine sonnets.
VIII. As a fledging enterprise, the War On Sailing may replace other academic departments & philanthropic organizations over time. At this early stage, one can target those institutions & wreak havoc upon them.
IX. The War On Sailing is a brisk cardio workout.
XI. More than other disciplines, the War On Sailing appreciates & seeks out buffets.
XII. While it doesn't require the making of lists, the War On Sailing fits easily into lists.
XIII. Writing about the War On Sailing is a tremendous sleep aid.
XIV. The War On Sailing encourages drinking, living the hobo lifestyle, & petty larceny. In other words, it's a good excuse for such things.
XV. There's time for the little things.
XVI. Studying the War On Sailing encourages visual aids, costume changes, & lots of singing & dancing.
XVII. No purchase necessary.
II. More immediate & possibly sexier than global warming.
III. Spans several disciples, therefore requiring no real disciple to study.
IV. Key players in the War On Sailing are far more attractive than other great worldwide conspiracies.
V. Guaranteed employment for lifetime of war (which is basically forever).
VI. Allows students of the war on sailing to be righteous about the War On Sailing's wrongs while revelling in its moral ambiguity.
VII. Would make a great musical, a decent rock opera, a gory ten-part graphic novel series & several really fine sonnets.
VIII. As a fledging enterprise, the War On Sailing may replace other academic departments & philanthropic organizations over time. At this early stage, one can target those institutions & wreak havoc upon them.
IX. The War On Sailing is a brisk cardio workout.
XI. More than other disciplines, the War On Sailing appreciates & seeks out buffets.
XII. While it doesn't require the making of lists, the War On Sailing fits easily into lists.
XIII. Writing about the War On Sailing is a tremendous sleep aid.
XIV. The War On Sailing encourages drinking, living the hobo lifestyle, & petty larceny. In other words, it's a good excuse for such things.
XV. There's time for the little things.
XVI. Studying the War On Sailing encourages visual aids, costume changes, & lots of singing & dancing.
XVII. No purchase necessary.
Statement of Intent
As someone who loves people, freedom, history, sex with unfamiliar women & freedom, it gives me great pleasure to begin this blog to chronicle the War On Sailing. For a long time I have sat idly by (often I even stretched idly out, especially when my back was hurting me) while academic indifference & tenure-track snobbery chose - even opted - to ignore this terrible, terrible struggle, which continues to take lives, ruin lives, enrich lives & even save lives daily. It is my firm belief that most researchers, journalists & yes, academics have chosen not to study the War On Sailing because it is simply too large a task - its history spans centuries, cultures, language & color preferences; as well, its outcomes have shaped politics, literature, popular music (though not really classical music - & no one really knows why), science, technology, cuisines, religious beliefs, cheese production, addiction, the way people are in California - among other things.
If you're like me, you're wondering two things: 1) Why is this not on the front page of every paper & in the headlines of every news show on television? & 2) If it's so big, wouldn't it be a real pain in the ass to cover it? I believe the second question answers the first - we are able to map the human genome, to write complex code to make software run, to decipher ancient languages & cultures - but we can't really handle anything complicated. We are a lazy culture. & that, too, is a result of the War On Sailing.
I thought it best if we started small. A blog. Then, perhaps once we've gotten our bearings, a short book. Maybe sharing it with some Garfield cartoons. Then a sitcom - probably on Comedy Central, so if it failed, no one would notice. Then a major motion picture. & then: the Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech.
We will examine this rich & unstudied subject through many forms, although I don't really trust the epic poem & probably won't use it. If you knew about what happened to me, a randy graduate student named Eva & a copy of The Iliad, you'd understand. So please, friends, visit this blog often to learn about something that your college professors & friends in the real estate business do not want you to know. That the War On Sailing is real, & it's affecting your life right now!
If you're like me, you're wondering two things: 1) Why is this not on the front page of every paper & in the headlines of every news show on television? & 2) If it's so big, wouldn't it be a real pain in the ass to cover it? I believe the second question answers the first - we are able to map the human genome, to write complex code to make software run, to decipher ancient languages & cultures - but we can't really handle anything complicated. We are a lazy culture. & that, too, is a result of the War On Sailing.
I thought it best if we started small. A blog. Then, perhaps once we've gotten our bearings, a short book. Maybe sharing it with some Garfield cartoons. Then a sitcom - probably on Comedy Central, so if it failed, no one would notice. Then a major motion picture. & then: the Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech.
We will examine this rich & unstudied subject through many forms, although I don't really trust the epic poem & probably won't use it. If you knew about what happened to me, a randy graduate student named Eva & a copy of The Iliad, you'd understand. So please, friends, visit this blog often to learn about something that your college professors & friends in the real estate business do not want you to know. That the War On Sailing is real, & it's affecting your life right now!
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