Tag Archives: war

Portrait of the artist looking real fine

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Licketysplit

There’s my title, now all I need are some characters, a plot, and umpteen thousand adjectives, verbs, and conjunctions. Oh, and articles, both definite and indefinite. Maybe some adverbs or prepositions. Punctuation. Why, this practically writes itself!

My younger sister is writing a book. And she’s not even out of college yet. I have scarcely the motivation to write a check to my mobile service provider, and there she is, poised to be the next Eggers, Eggers, Leggo my Eggers. See, I suck. I even stole Leggo My Eggers from her. Ah Grasshopper! The student has surpassed the teacher.

Anyway, she suggested my book should be about a post-bohemian self-actualizing in the face of a life-changing event. OF COURSE she was kidding. Still, I think I’ll just write about how annoying hipsters are. Po-Boho. Huh huh, Beavis.

Oh, a few housekeeping announcements, then on with the news of the day! You may notice a strange new box on the left. A coalition force from Amazon.com seems to have installed it in the night. Please use it to buy lots of things, as hosting costs money, and so do tampons and Lee Press-On Nails.

Secondly, we have secured the services of a music critic! Mr. Howell Fairly will debut shortly. I believe he’s working on a review of the new EP by Snout, a promising group of tow-headed, tie-wearing youths. Also a real think piece entitled “Emo: Tears like grapes squashed on the supermarket floor.”

Now for the news: Aaron tells me that some wackadoos from particularly fundamentalist-leaning states have proposed a resolution asking the president to designate a national day of fasting and prayer, so that God may shine his heavenly light of favor on America.

In other masticating developments, New Yorkers are staying home from restaurants [NYT, reg. req.]. People are opting to stay at home, eating massive quantities of cheap takeout, keening softly until they fall into a bloated slumber. Heather was just saying that the new trend won’t be Terror Sex, but the Terror 15. See, that’s obviously where the fasting and prayer is supposed to come in! “I pray my ass won’t spread as I watch all this war coverage.” Balance in all things, we say.

I checked my favorite snack portal, Taquitos.net, to see if they have any stress eating data. They don’t. But they do have this article about Krispy Kreme’s inexorable advance into Massachusetts, a topic near and dear to my ass.

Oh, for the record, we are not a bunch of bulimics just because we like to keep slim and trim and happen to have a site called Vomitola! I know the deck appears to be stacked against us, but we are prepared to be hated for our natural beauty. That’s nothing new anyway. If we don’t exfoliate, the terrorists will have won!

xxoo

Obla di Indeedy

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lambchop

The video of captured american soldiers was impossible to escape on television here in Europa. But tears and hours of shaking my fist at the screen, enraged at the folly of humanity, was not doing any good. My usual civic philosophy is that you cannot change people, make them less apt to failure and unmerciful behavior. That the most you can do is arrange the world to make the best of our given nature. In this case, we have the opposite- everything is giving way to hunger for dominance, fanaticism, and brutality.

To combat such lowly thoughts, Steele shanghaied me from my television and my overflowing ashtray and took me for a ride on his BMW motorcycle. Its a high powered touring bike that he got for desert racing in Dakar. Vroom vroom! We would have kept going all the way to France, but I was getting a bit of a chill, and we had an oscar party to go to! Sunday night found us in the Hollywood hills toasting with Harvey Weinstein and chuckling amongst ourselves over Nicole Kidman’s oratory skills, which go something like “the world situation is ummm crazy. and umm, uhh, I believe that people are getting hurt in other countries, for example”.

Lunch is served, America, and it’s a giant shit sandwich. But darned if Steele didn’t look marvelous in his oscar night suit.

smooch

The humanity

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Licketysplit

In these times of “AUGGGHHHHH,” it is somehow less appealing to natter away about boys and makeup and low-fat yogurt, but I’ll just have to give it the old college try. I just got an email about a mass “die-in” scheduled for this Saturday in the Boston Common. Hoo boy. Guess I will be avoiding that area. So much for walking uninterrupted between my house and the gym! Shouldn’t I be fit in case I’m called to serve my country? Perhaps in the Miss World pageant, or an international swimsuit model-off? Americans have the poweful Mother of All Bikini Waxes on their side. Not to mention Pilates and numerous Sephora locations. It would be a slaughter.

But the gym is depressing. Everyone stares bug-eyed at CNN on the individual TVs on the cardio machines. It is pretty hard to slack off when you’re watching marines slinking around on their bellies via a night vision cam. There is nothing you can possibly think but “Damn, do I have it good right now. Now I must PAY.” So everyone is limping pitifully when they get off the machines. And no one is obviously picking each other up, phooey on terror sex.

My actual opinion about current events changes every 10 or 15 minutes. I am in no way an accurate barometer of American pacifism or jingoism. Right now I’m wavering in the camp of “Enough of this shit, I’ll personally go over and rip off some moustaches and berets.” Just get it over with. I know people who are serving in the middle east, and I’d quite like to get them back. The TV news is also stepping up Iraqi human rights atrocity footage. The best story so far was unquestionably the human meat grinder with direct outlet to the sewer. You have to wonder how much is true, but Barbara Walters has recruited a prodigious amount of people with hideous scars. I am certainly all for ending torture (who isn’t! Well, maybe Barbara Walters.), but we are establishing a dangerous precedent of intervention, and we all know that Iraqi human rights are not the real motivation for this war. Ugh ugh ugh.

Oh, what was I talking about? Makeup! Yes. I may have to totter over to Sephora at lunch and spritz myself with various fragrant potions ’til I reek like a French whore. Or I could just sniff this whiteboard cleaner….mmm tolulene. I believe that’s the stuff that melts styrofoam.

Ah, but let’s not forget my real port in a storm! Heather has introduced me to Steele’s twin brother Sloane. Sloane is a pillar of the community. He looks good in bike shorts. He makes a stunning spring vegetable risotto. Sloane is always available for consultation on matters of fashion. He plucked my eyebrows the other day, and I must say he uncovered a natural arch I never thought possible.

xxoo

Some people just buy corvettes

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Licketysplit

George: thanks for involving us all in your mid-life crisis! Aging is tough on anyone, especially on those with a prodigal son complex. So I feel for you, I do. Dad’s going to be so proud at long last! Some people just bang a secretary, some people start riding a Harley. But you are doing such a great Yosemite Sam. Whatever works for you! Pow! Pow!

But sillyness aside, folks, I have gotten my war on, and I have taken Kitty Winn’s advice. I sallied forth and bought a fetching pink shirt. I got my hair did. I have informed friends and loved ones of favorable language to be used to describe my life to date.

After work today, I went over to the Gap on Newbury to get one of those fancy t-shirt bras. They are on sale, by the way! As I was walking home, I heard cow bells and hooting coming from Copley Square, so I meandered by. I passed a batallion of cops in riot wear, well stocked with those plastic handcuffs. I stood towards the back of the crowd looking on, and I kept getting accosted by grubby socialists. After the 5th or 6th be-dreadlocked urchin asked me if I had my copy of Worker’s Vanguard yet, I said “I am carrying a Gap bag. What do you THINK?” I got a hearty “fuck you!” and she scuttled off in a huff.

I perused the various signs and pondered the general lack of credibility of the assembled throng. My photo was snapped multiple times, and I hope to god it doesn’t appear anywhere newsworthy. I’m not worried about the Feds since I pretty much get cavity searched any time I fly already. I am against the war but against the anti-war movement, if that’s possible. These kids strike me as opportunistic protestors, forsaking their devil sticks for the latest trendy thing, be it IMF or WTO. It’s not the 60’s, and you can’t get stoned in public, as nice as that might be. Sure, the Unitarian lesbians were sincere and respectful, but the “face” of this movement that attracts the most media attention is largely young, grubby, and unruly. It’s a PR disaster! Middle America sees these candy-ass hijinks and recoils. They aren’t going to stick around to hear the message when the messenger frightens them.

What really sticks in my craw is that these well-intentioned people were nowhere to be found when the presidency was finagled two and a half years ago. Were there demonstrations? I don’t remember any in Boston. Why is it so surprising that our president does not heed popular opinion when he wasn’t installed by the popular vote? I hope this same kind of enthusiasm for activism is still in place when the next election comes around. The irony is that a lot of these kids probably voted for Nader anyway. I recall people saying things might get worse, but they’d get better. Well, they are worse. I can’t wait for the better.

Who knows, maybe in ten or twenty years people will vacation in a rebuilt Iraq. The entire peaceful Middle East will be a holiday paradise. Surf’s up in Tel Aviv, booty be shakin’ in Baghdad, duty free in Dubai! Hussein and his regime are evil and corrupt, no question about it. But there has to be a better way to do this. Even if there were no alternative, having the effort led up by an oaf who can’t even pronounce “nuclear” and his band of profiteering henchman does not exactly inspire confidence.

Enough prattling for one night.

Thel’ About Town

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Thelma Haney

You probably all know that our boys are about to go to war, God Bless ’em. Licketysplit and Lambchop want to know, “what is America thinking?!” And darned if they didn’t ask me, Thelma Haney! Now I don’t know much about politicking, but I can tell you all about life here in Epsom. Even with Mr. Haney gone (God rest his soul) life here is pretty exciting. Just last week my niece wanted to take me to dinner, and I had just seen an advertisement for a shrimp platter at the Ground Round on the TV! I don’t normally go in for a fuss, but I like to spoil myself now and again, so off we went. As I was driving home in my Buick Skylark, I passed the neighborhood arcade, where all the youths go to play the pinball, and it looked like the whole P.T.A. was out there protesting. Apparently, the young people of this town use the arcade as a meeting place to go out into the woods and drink alcohol! I am not really clear on what became of the matter, but my good neighbor Flora said it had something to do with Heavy Metal music.

This afternoon I was down the beauty shop to give Rosie all my soda can pull tabs for all those poor kids with leukemia, and I decided to have my usual wash and set. And she told me that George Clooney would not be present at the Oscars this year because he is a terrorist. I was shocked! Handsome Dr. Doug Ross, I told her it can’t be true. He’s a Kentucky boy! So I was out in the yard reading my papers (Flora gives me her Enquirers when she is finished with them), and that was no baloney. Rosie is known to exaggerate, but it said right there, George Clooney to be barred from the Oscars. It’s a shame when a handsome boy goes bad. I better call up my son and make sure he is keeping up with his studies.

Good day from Epsom,

Thelma Haney

He’s got the whole world in his hands

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It hasn’t been all cocktails and soda crackers for yours truly. The fate of the world has been laying heavily on my mind. Just yesterday I was in a French restaurant having medallions of monkfish and a salmon carpaccio drizzled in this wonderful creamy mustard, and i was thinking “damn those french, pass me another slice of that lovely lovely bread”.

I am afraid that I side with Michael Moore, on being a great fan of the french, if not Chirac. And “freedom fries” is a concept that makes me shudder. Our president is the only person buffoon enough to think that changing the name of that particular snack is a slight against the french. Freedom fries must have something to do with every american’s right to get fat while our government dupes us out of our own rights and brings down its imperialist fist wherever it chooses.

The pope has branded this war a Sin. I am no Catholic, but I agree. And so Steele and I went to Rome to ask the Pope personally if maybe it would be possible to dust off the Rack for Mr. Bush. Or perhaps at least some thumb screws.

pleading our case with the pope

smooch