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Fat Like A Fatwa

            As you know, my blog post “Fat Like Arafat” went viral. It got over 30 hits (thirty!) in less than three days. Print is not dead! Nevertheless, Scully Media left this comment: “If you replace the Mexican beer advertisement with the original Swedish TV video of the Arafat interview, this will increase interest one hundred— if not one thousand— fold!” I was very grateful to Mr. Scully for his unsolicited advice. I thanked him effusively and paid him 1/100th of his requested honorarium. All is fair in love, war and business.

Shin Bet, the internal security service of Israeli intelligence, has also proven helpful. In their case, without requesting a donation, they provided the following unsolicited blow by blow transcript from the Black September & Red October Café in Ramallah. I love the Israeli defense establishment: Ostensibly, the email w/ attachment came from my old friend Baruch Atah Adonai.

Subject: F Y I.

You can’t get more concise or specific than that! Toda ra-ba, guys! Thank you very much! Oh, and Garden of Allah in White Flint Mall has closed. I’ll miss their hummus. F Y I.

Attachment: Transcript, Thurs. 16 January 2014, Ramallah, West Bank

Location: Black September & Red October Café

Time: 2:05 p.m. – 3:40 pm

Transcript has been redacted.

Resource: Aleph 1274 Gimel 34 Bet

Transcript follows.

Mahmoud: I like your shirt. Salvatore Ferragamo? Tommy Hilfiger?

Khaled: I wish! Ben Gazzi.

Mahmoud: Sit! What is wrong with you?

Khaled: I saw a stranger out front.

Mahmoud: You are in Ramallah now. It is not like in your village. You cannot know everyone! Sit.

Khaled: Insha’Allah. Have you seen the infidel’s blog? He claims there are feral dogs on our beautiful streets!

Mahmoud: That was a long time ago! That was before your time. We ate them all during the famine of 2006.

Khaled: How was I to know that? I have asked cleric Jamal al-Mufti to issue a fatwa to punish the infidel.

Mahmoud: So you are declaring a fatwa. Good! I can’t do all the work myself, you know! What did cleric al-Mufti say?

Khaled: He asked me if I was Iranian. The cleric says we Palestinians don’t issue fatwas, we assassinate our opponents with car bombs.

Mahmoud: This is true.

Khaled: But he said I could declare a fatwa as long as I keep his name out of it.

Mahmoud: Hey, wait a minute! Where is your laptop?

Khaled: Errrrr-r-r…

Mahmoud: What do you mean you don’t have your laptop? What good is a fatwa when no one has even heard of it?

Khaled: Keep your voice down! Everything is wired in Ramallah!

Mahmoud: Woman!

Khaled: Wait, I have a smartphone! I will tweet a message.

(pause)

Mahmoud: Well?

Khaled: I have a problem with the auto-correct function.

Mahmoud: Why? What does it say?

Khaled: It says “Brothers! The infidel has insulted us and we R going to get Viagra at 60% off.”

Mahmoud: Delete! You idiot! Start again. Text “The infidel has insulted us and we are marching to the border barricade in protest.”

(pause)

Khaled: Done!

Mahmoud: Let me see… Hey, wait a minute! This says “The infinite wrath insulated us from making to the hoarder barracuda in prosthesis.”

Khaled: Electronics is not my specialty, boss. Listen, why do we meet here? The coffee is miserable!

Ramzi: Les Misérables.

Mahmoud: Oh, you have awakened him! Bravo! He was up all night watching the Snow Bunny Awards on Jordanian television.

Khaled: Here, Ramzi! Look at this. You know electronics. I type in “Fatwa Kevin Feingold” and it says “My friend has a hairpiece.”

Ramzi: You must hold down the 0 and press the 1 key.

Khaled: Ah!

Mahmoud: I hate to say it, brothers, but this hummus is rancid.

Khaled: Here, Ramzi, you try!

(pause)

Mahmoud: Remind me again, young Khaled. What brought you to our movement?

Khaled: I believe I was brought here in a Citroën.

Mahmoud: I mean, what was your motivation to join us?

Khaled: Oh! My great grandfather lived in a village outside Tiberius. He had an olive orchard, lemon trees and date palms. When the Israeli army came, he approached the soldiers holding aloft a live grenade. The soldiers shot him before he could get close enough to ask how to disarm the grenade.

Mahmoud: Of course! We Palestinians are always the victim in these family histories.

Khaled: We want back our olive grove. With compound interest!

Mahmoud: I once knew an elderly man—

Khaled: Is this the start of a limerick?

Mahmoud: Please! Before the Nakba, Palestine was the Land of the Olive. We anointed ourselves in olive oil. We burned olive oil in our lamps.

Khaled: Actually, eating olives gives me cramps.

Mahmoud: Young Khaled, have you ever considered enlisting in Hamas?

Khaled: But that would mean relocating to Gaza!

Mahmoud: I say, young Khaled, have you ever considered enlisting in Hamas?

Ramzi: Okay, we try again. Maybe the phone will work now!

Khaled: Tweet “Fight the infidel and rape the horses.”

Mahmoud: Tweet “The sand is hot and irritates my hemorrhoids.”

Khaled: Well?

Ramzi: It came out “We lead revolution as soon as laundry done at half price.”

Mahmoud: Oh, that’s Suleiman Habibi’s. I get my laundry done there all the time.

Khaled: Why do French tourists come to this café expecting wine and song? What are they thinking?

Mahmoud: You are right! We should go to Starbucks at the Gamal Abdel Nasser Mall.

Ramzi: I hate that place! They charge for parking.

Mahmoud: You need to know the owner. I never pay for parking. Insha’Allah. Young Khaled here spends many hours online at their cyber café.

Khaled: I am engaged in a learned study.

Mahmoud: Ah, a history of the Palestinian liberation movement. This is very good!

Khaled: Actually, boss, I am writing a comparison between the American television documentaries “Gilligan’s Island” and its more recent spin-off “Lost.” As in Gaza, both are based on the premise of survivors stranded on a beach. Like us, these characters are struggling with the loss of their homeland. They find themselves cut off, unable to return to their homes and villages.

Mahmoud: American television? Surely you are joking! I don’t even take John Kerry’s phone calls!

Khaled: I do not joke! How do they handle the trauma? I think I can get tips from these programs about how we can better organize ourselves and regain our birthright. In one episode, Mary Ann—

Mahmoud: Enough! I shall read it when you finish. For now, let us stick to the issues at hand, please.

(pause)

Mahmoud: What are you texting now, brother?

Khaled: “Death to the imperialist running dog!”

Mahmoud: What are you, a Chinese communist?

(pause)

Mahmoud: Well?

Khaled: “We shall strike terror and get kabob at Fawzi’s.”

Mahmoud: Why did you tweet that?!

Khaled: Fawzi is my brother-in-law. He needs a little extra business. I’m using his phone.

Ramzi: Why are we trying to reinvent the wheel? Go to fatwa.com just like everybody else!

Khaled: But they charge a fee. I am trying to avoid that, brother.

Ramzi: Of course. I understand.

Mahmoud: Hey, wait a minute! I told you to post a selfie of us in warrior pose! The picture you posted looks like an overweight girl in sweatpants. A very ugly picture!

Khaled: Please don’t say that! She is my sister!

Mahmoud: She is fat like a camel’s hump! Has she been depressed? Does she have an eating disorder?

Khaled: Things are not good at home… Anyway, I came by to tell you I had our business cards printed.

Mahmoud: Good! Good! So that is what is in the box. I was hoping it was a car bomb, but let me see it, anyway.

Khaled: I myself have not yet looked, chief. I have left that honor to you.

Mahmoud: Good! Fine! Hey, wait a minute! What is this printing on the back?

Khaled: Oh! The printer gave us a discount if we allow advertising on the back of the card.

Mahmoud: But I don’t understand this. It says “Attention! If I collapse in Abu Dis or Hebron, please transport my body to Ramallah before notifying the authorities.”

Khaled: I believe that is the slogan of the Ramallah Chamber of Commerce.

Mahmoud: Hey, wait a minute! You reminded me! I told you: We shall reawaken the smoldering martyrs of Munich. WE ARE “BLACK SEPTEMBER”! Whatever happened to that? The new name thing?

Khaled: K’suh muck! I forgot to tell you! We’re getting sued by this band that have the rights in Europe.

Mahmoud: What rights?!

Khaled: It’s the name, boss. “Black September.” That’s their name in Europe. An all-girl heavy metal band.

Ramzi: Hey! Black September? I know their music! They are hot! They are the band that is protesting kitty videos on the Internet.

Mahmoud: This I do not condemn. I also oppose the exploitation of houris for vain male gratification.

Ramzi: These kitties are meow-type cats. Non-sexual.

Mahmoud: No matter! Hopefully cleric al-Mufti will give us permission to proclaim a fatwa against this heavy metal band Black September!

Khaled: Insha’Allah!

Ramzi: Insha’Allah!

(pause)

Khaled: Whoa, boss! The Israelis are on your Facebook account!

Mahmoud: Spawn of the Devil! Have they hacked my account?

Khaled: No, no, they are “friending” you.

Mahmoud: Why? What do they want now?

Khaled: It says “If you recognize Israel as a Jewish state, we offer 95% chance that we can arrange concerts in P. A. by both Justin Bieber and Justin Timberlake.”

Mahmoud: Israeli dogs! What kind of guarantees can they give? Neither of those young singers is a Jew!

Ramzi: I think the concert promoters are all Jews, boss.

Mahmoud: My answer is “no”! Reply: “Without Michael Bublé, Madonna and Beyoncé, no deal!”

Khaled: [ in English ] Okey-dokey!

Mahmoud: After that, get back on the name thing! 

(20 minute pause)

Khaled: Boss! This was a successful mission. No one else lays claim to this name! It is ours—

Mahmoud: Not another “PLO” debacle, please! Not another “Parent Liaison Organization” in Akron, Ohio. What is it this time?

Khaled: Our new name! For our organization. We are now “Black & Blue Suspenders of the Levant At Half Price.”

Ramzi: You need to get the auto-correct function fixed on Fawzi’s phone, brother.

Mahmoud: And the fatwa against the infidel? Fidel? Feinstein? Fernwhistle?

Khaled: Kevin Feingold! I’m right on it, chief!

End of transcript.

*

Fat Like Arafat

I censor myself. After a checkered military career, I don’t want to unleash a shitload of grief from foreign nationals who were— shall we say— disappointed in my ability. To save their village. To enforce a ceasefire. To hasten the arrival of food, water and medicine. Indignant with righteous anger, they might consider me a bad motherfucker who… yada, yada, yada… let them down. Bigtime.

As Paul Simon said at one of his concerts, in the middle of a bomb scare, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”

Now that the French and the Russians have both announced that Yasser Arafat died after a massive stroke— and not of radioactive Polonium poisoning— I feel liberated enough to share this anecdotal story of my dinner with Arafat.

I spent a year in Israel in the 1970’s, working as an assistant cameraman and still photog for Israeli television. A spoiled rotten brat, I had a real hard time with the Israelis. They weren’t putting up with my temper tantrums. When things didn’t go my way, they would tell me, “If you want to sulk, Kevin, it’s no skin off our noses. Sulk! Sulk all you like!”

It takes two to tango. The Israelis were not completely guiltless either. For example: Seeing my girlfriend climb on the bus, I called out in English, “Rachel! Hi! Come sit here next to me. I’ll hold the seat.”

At which point a rotund Hungarian man with a bald pate proceeded to march up to me and say, in English, “Who do you think you are!? Screw you and your Rachel! You don’t hold no seat! I’m sitting here!” Which he proceeded to do.

“GET UP!” I screamed.

Fock you ‘get up’!” he replied.

“Get up so I can stand in the aisle. If you think I’m going to sit next to you…!” I ranted, just this side of coming to blows.

He got up and let me push my way up the aisle to Rachel, who was dying a thousand deaths and pretended, desperately, not to even know me.

WELCOME TO ISRAEL, EVERYBODY!

And that was just a single incident on a typical weekday. Multiply by a thousand and you begin to fathom what it was like to spend a year in the homeland of Holocaust-scarred, battle-ready, hardnosed Israelis.

Ha! I returned to America determined to write the exposé revealing what monsters the Israelis were!

“Don’t do it!” requested Abe Horowitz, one of my mentors when I was growing up. A Talmudic scholar, when Abe made a statement, I listened. “I know you’re sore, Kevin. But I’m asking you, as a personal favor to me, not to write a book lambasting the Israelis. The anti-Semites of the world will latch onto it and use it to punish Jews everywhere. Let’s not give our enemies additional cannon fodder!”

I agreed to swallow my bile and let it go.

Ten years later, a very different Kevin Feingold, I went back to Israel to visit the very people I had befriended and irritated.

“Hey, Shlomo,” Arlene called across the TV studio. “Come here! You remember Kevin Feingold. He worked here ten years ago.”

Shlomo was extremely careful and reserved upon seeing me. “Hello,” he said.

When I started to bring him up to date on my Army career and…

“Wait a minute!” he interrupted me in the midst of my narrative. “So how do you feel about Israel today?”

“Oh! I love Israel. Israel is our homeland.”

“You were such a spoiled brat!” he burst out happily. “There were times I wanted to bop you on the head! What a pleasure that you’ve finally grown up!”

This same thing happened not only with Arlene and Shlomo, but also with Ari, Benny, Shmuel, Josef, Shimona and many, many others. They were glad to see me. I was grateful to be there.

I ended up making several visits in the 1980’s. Ariel Sharon’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, in response to escalating raids by the Palestinian Liberation Organization, badly scarred my buddies in the Israeli Defense Forces. Not an altogether successful incursion, much Israeli blood and treasure was lost. Ari, nominally retired from the military, settled on a moshav in the Valley of Jordan. A moshav is a collection of farms organized like a kibbutz, but each farmer owns his property. Ari’s particular moshav was chosen for its strategic geopolitical location. In addition to farming, the townsfolk ran nightly patrols throughout the surrounding countryside. When they found PLO raiding parties, they killed some and captured the rest. Meanwhile, daytime, Ari’s business was growing carnations for the European market. I spent many happy hours with him and his wife Erit planting and harvesting carnations. They had a sideline in eggplants for local consumption. I’m mad about eggplant, which cracked up Ari. He considers them junk food. Every evening, regardless of what else was on the menu, Erit fried me up a batch of sliced eggplant. Yum!

I didn’t know it, but those were my Halcyon days.

Since America is not a country inherently at peace with the rest of the world, my U. S. Army career took off in a big way. It was many years before I could get my sorry ass back to Israel.

By then I had a bone to pick with Mr. Yasser Arafat. At Camp David in 2000, President Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak negotiated a settlement—amidst angry recriminations and bad blood on all sides— for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Barak was elected specifically on a promise to negotiate a settlement, once and for all, between the two peoples. A workable, usable settlement. Which he, Arafat and Bill Clinton did. At which point Yasser Arafat declared, “If I sign that, when I get home to Ramallah, I am a dead man!” Gathering his papers and his retinue, Arafat traveled home to the Palestinian Authority and unleashed the Second Intifada. When asked about the riots’ bloody, horrendous carnage, Yasser said, “It makes me sad. I am so sad.”

Herblock in The Washington Post drew a cartoon of Yasser Arafat sitting on the sidelines declaring “This is so sad.” Boo hoo hoo for Yasser Arafat!

Think of Yasser Arafat as the original long distance runner. No tennis player could keep the ball in play like Arafat. As long as the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations never ended, everybody— Arabs, Palestinians, Israelis, Americans, indeed, the whole world—desperately needed the undisputed leader of the PLO, Yasser Arafat. Without him, no one knew who to negotiate with. “Mr. Palestine,” the father of his country, Yasser made sure never to become redundant, get retired emeritus or reach an accord.

*

            “We’re going,” announced Björn in 2002 over the phone from Stockholm. My Swedish buddy from my junior year abroad at the University of Uppsala, he and I stayed in touch over the Net. Whereas I had a career, Björn lived by the seat of his pants: One day he was a filmmaker, the next a journalist, a photog, a radio commentator or even a rock musician. I enjoyed the tales of his ridiculous escapades. “We’ll be accredited journalists. I can get you accreditation. We’re gonna interview Yasser Arafat.”

“No way!”

“Way! We’re Swedish neutrals. We can do anything we want!”

The Swedes enjoy a reputation for neutrality which is not entirely deserved. They are less interested in neutrality than in “What is best for Sweden?” During World War Two, the German war machine ran on ball bearings from SKF, Svenka kullagerfabriken, The Swedish Ball Bearing Factory. The king of Sweden was blatantly pro-German. At the University of Lund, students held demonstrations, protesting the arrival of German Jewish professors among the faculty. Under Germany’s Nuremberg Laws, starting in 1938, the Germans printed a red “J” in the passports of Jews. Sweden used these to more easily extradite refugees back to Germany, and almost certain death, whenever they appeared in small boats along the Swedish coast.

It wasn’t until Rommel’s defeat at El Alamein that the Swedes realized they were on the losing side in the war and switched allegiance to the British. Sweden then interred any Brit aviator who crashed on Swedish territory, giving them a safe haven from the war. One of those Joes was still broadcasting English-language shows on the Swedish Radio’s foreign program in the 1970’s! Some old soldiers never die, they just grow cornier with age. (There, but for the grace of God, go I?)

Yes, the Swedes saved the Danish Jews, but that’s because they were Danes. Their religion was secondary. And, yes, there were some true heroes. Diplomat Raoul Wallenberg played a cat and mouse game with the likes of Adolf Eichmann, saving the Jews of Budapest, Hungary. Count Folke Bernadotte, a nobleman, arranged a caravan of Red Cross buses in March,1945 to go down to German-held territory and rescue 15,345 prisoners from the concentration camps. Something which he did not have to do. He did it anyway. The Nazis used the event as a propaganda victory, but lives were saved.

These may seem like revelations to Americans, but the Swedish public has already hashed out their guilt in public discourse in the 1990’s, admitted to it and decided to let bygones be bygones. Stockholm even has a Holocaust memorial, an accomplishment that was totally inconceivable even 25 years ago in chillingly anti-Semitic Sweden.

In our modern world, with its frigid winters, Sweden found itself dependent on Arab oil. Thus the Social Democrats’ crocodile tears over the plight of the Palestinians. For over ten years, Swedish Foreign Minister Sten Andersson adamantly, repeatedly claimed he was “a friend of Israel.” He demonstrated this steadfast Freundschaft by constantly inviting Yasser Arafat to Stockholm. Where Arafat made derogatory, inflammatory statements about wiping Israel off the face of the Earth! This was the same Sten Andersson who called the reunification of Germany in 1989 “A dangerous thing for Europe.” He delivered this public announcement from Moscow, of all places! See, as foreign minister, he was on a diplomatic mission to Moskva when the Berlin Wall came crashing down and… Hey! We’re Polish-Russian Jews from Bialystok. My grandma spoke fluent Russian. That doesn’t mean I would make a public statement from the capital of the Soviet Union!

Things are not always what they appear. Perplexed by the Stalinist behavior of the Central Committee of the Swedish Environmentalist Party the Greens, it wasn’t until I perused their library that I discovered what was going on: The Communists had hijacked the Greens! Every fifth book was in Russian

*

            I burned some leave, packed my gear and flew to Stockholm. Joining Björn and his crew, we got organized and flew straight south to Israel. I knew we’d have primo weather. It’s a man thing: We control the weather through our choice of clothing. If I wear my summer khakis, the day is sure to be cold. If I pack snow boots, we’re guaranteed to have blisteringly hot, sunny days. By packing my winter duds and a pair of shorts, I could look forward to balmy days, temps in the high 80’s. Which is what we got. It never fails! Glaring, garish yellow sunlight poured down from a cloudless sky. We put our Ray-Bans to good use.

Already at Lod Airport’s Customs and Immigration we seemed suspicious as hell. Cordoned off and led to a separate, bomb-proof room, we got the third degree from an Israeli female officer of quiet determination and startling good looks. “You want to go where?” she demands.

I’m in love!

Since our papers are in order, we grab a taxi to Jerusalem. Approaching on foot the Arab bus station to the right of Damascus Gate, we catch a Palestinian taxi for Ramallah. Sitting in front with the driver, I squint at Route 60, which will eventually become the Derekh Ramal’ah, a veritable road to nowhere unspooling underneath the Mercedes hood ornament. In many ways, this asphalt highway traversing the desert is a time machine: After leaving the very modern metropolis of Jerusalem, we travel north. The further north we get, the poorer and more run-down the venue. We do see some splendid individual houses, one shaped like an alpine ski lodge, another like a Colonial mansion, a third shaped like an airplane.

“New money,” mutters our driver, smiling wolfishly.

“Israeli money?”

Palestinian money,” he grunts. “The owner of the cement plant. The Chief of Municipal Services in Ramallah…”

Aha! At least somebody knows how to work the system.

We get stopped at three separate checkpoints. Forewarned not to take photos or video, we gawk instead like a carload of tourists, admiring the various armament on display. The first checkpoint is Israeli, equipped with American M-16’s and light 50-caliber machine guns. Old home week! The second checkpoint is an all-Palestinian do, all Kalashnikov AK-47’s all the time. Finally, at the town limits of Ramallah, a Fatah roadblock directs us into the middle of their checkpoint, 7.62 mm Kalashnikovs and Dragunov sniper rifles pointed at seemingly every inch of our vehicle.

Ten dollars in baksheesh paid at the checkpoint like a toll finds us winding our way into the city. “Welcome to Ramallah,” sighs our driver.

We’re staying on the 4th floor of the Count Messerschmitt Inn, very five star, on Emil Habibi Street, paved in sand and pot-holes. The hotel, on a main drag, is a popular hangout because of its outdoor Olympic-size western swimming pool. Many cute young men sit around the pool on folding chairs, hungrily chain-smoking, flirting with their eyes.

We soon learn that Ramallah is not a town in which to take an afternoon stroll. Various scruffy A-habs in kaffiyehs openly tote AK-47’s across their backs. Today’s Palestinians are descendants of the Philistines in the Old Testament. Remember Samson and Delilah? No wonder the Palestinians can’t get along with Israelis, a Jew pulled down their temple! They’re nursing a 2,000-year-old grudge. The tension is palpable. Also, the place is infested with mangy, feral dogs. “They should shoot them,” Björn suggests diffidently, practicing his English.

This immediately puts us at the barrel end of an AK-47, shoved in our faces by a militiaman who is also an angry dog-lover or a dog-lover who is also an angry militiaman. “You… don’t… shoot… my… dogs!” he demands uncertainly.

Each time I look down the barrel of a gun, I am filled with the same sense of dread, regardless of the make and model. Since no Swede can admit error without a total breakdown of identity, I intercede. “Yes, that’s right!” I tell the Palestinian. “You got it right. You don’t shoot my dogs! It’s fine. You speak good English!”

The angry furrow on his noble Arabian brow dissipates, replaced by an enormous smile. His teeth are a wreck, but I much prefer him this way. He smells like he only bathes when the moon is full. “You Englishmen!” he exclaims.

Pushing the gun barrel ever so cautiously out of our faces, I chuckle and say, “Actually, we’re Swedes.” This leads to the usual long palaver over who is Switzerland and where is Sweden.

The more we talk, the more enraptured he becomes. “Dolph Lundgren!” he exclaims, waving his rifle and making shooting sounds, “Da da da da!

“Yup, that’s us!” I laugh. “Dolph Lundgren!”

Björn has used his contacts in the world of journalism to secure us a fixer named Fawzi. Meeting with him that afternoon in our room, we explain what we want to do.

“Yes, yes,” he tells us excitedly. “But you can’t!”

I try to ignore the fact that Fawzi resembles a ferret. People cannot be held responsible for the looks God gives them. Still, I’m not happy with his answer. “Björn! Show Fawzi the emails and stuff!”

Seeing the way Fawzi holds the paperwork, the nickel falls through the slot: Our fixer can’t read. “Let me point out some of the relevant sentences,” I gently suggest, relieving Fawzi of the documents. He looks overjoyed to hand them over. Once I’ve finished explaining that the Arafat contingent actually has agreed to a Swedish TV interview, that they are expecting us, Fawzi pulls out a cell phone and makes a few calls.

“Okay!” he announces. “We got it!”

*

            You’ve never had a full-body cavity search like what we suffer chez Arafat’s royal palace cum office building, the Muqata’a, in Ramallah. (In September, the Israelis will blow it all to hell.) Touching every part of our naked bodies, the Arab security boys leave no parts untouched. Since a Northern Alliance chieftain in Afghanistan got assassinated in 2001 by terrorists claiming to be a film team— their camera and battery pack were loaded with shaped explosive— our equipment is combed over inside and out by— get ready for it! — professional cameramen from Fatah!

“I hate to tell you this, Björn,” I remark, “but from what I can see, their camera equipment is several upgrades better than ours!”

Var tyst nån gång,” suggests Björn, polite Swedish for “Shut the fuck up!”

“SPEAK ONLY ENGLISH!” screams Arafat’s security chief. Having got our attention, he then explains that Chairman Arafat’s stomach is upset. “Please don’t aggravate him. He is forced to drink herbal tea, eschewing other beverages. This has left the chairman testy.”

We promise to be on our best behavior.

Björn: Mr. Chairman, how did you become involved in politics?

Yasser: Palestinian anger knows no bounds!

Björn: Yes. I understand that. Considering that you won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, at what point did you realize that politics would be your chosen profession?

Yasser: When the Israeli aggressor occupied Palestine, all Palestinians of courage pledged to force the occupiers back into the sea! Insha’Allah! It is a pre-condition for any negotiation with the Israeli and Jordanian occupiers, that we return to the 1923 borders. After that, we’ll talk!

Björn: Excellent! And you joined the PLO when?

Yasser: When pushed too far, back against the wall, the Palestinian fights with the might of a tiger. Always this is so!

If they were just starting out today, many of the Palestinian groups would probably end up being labeled as terrorist organizations. In September of 1970, the PFLP, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, hijacked five passenger jets and landed them in Zarka, Jordan. Holding the passengers hostage, they eventually blew up the empty aircraft rather than let them be recaptured. In 1972, the PLO’s armed wing Black September murdered eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Summer Olympics. Frustrated, angry and suicidal, Palestinian suicide bombers have become the bane of the western world. They blow up busloads of soldiers and civilians. They blow up themselves amid market squares, pizzerias, synagogues, movie theaters and hotels. Hamas in Gaza has rained thousands of missiles on Sderot and other southern Israeli towns.

Yet all you get out of chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat is how the Palestinian people are the victims of Israeli oppression. That the Palestinians themselves might be murderous sons of bitches he blithely blames on “the occupation” of Palestine. Give them back all of Palestine— goes their “narrative”— and there will be peace on Earth and good will toward man. Until then, whatever happens, it’s all Israel’s fault!

Björn: I’m just trying to get a feel for your personal history, Chairman Arafat. Where you grew up, which schools you attended, when you helped found Fatah…?

Yasser: When life under the yoke of Israeli aggression became intolerable, we Palestinians fought back with all our cunning, with total conviction. This cannot be denied! Cannot! We Palestinians have given everything to free our homeland! Everything! No one has fought harder for their freedom! This I can assure you!

Björn: Oh yes, Chairman Aeroflot, I too feel exactly similar to whatever you just said! We Swedes know which side of the bread our toast is buttered on. We’re wholly dependent on Arab oil. You shall never find a better friend than Sweden! Maybe Denmark…

Yasser: We Palestinians are prepared to begin negotiations tomorrow, but first the Israelis must show good faith by agreeing to the parameters of the guidelines for the structure of the framework for the contents of the agenda regarding the preconditions which must be met to fulfill the basis for substantive talks. Otherwise, both sides are wasting their time!

Pausing to slurp from his tea cup, the chairman then proceeds to lecture us on the nobility of his mission: “Where others have expressed doubt, I have never wavered. When my wife Suha brings my little daughter to me, I place her squarely atop my desk. ‘Why are you the leader of the PLO?’ asks my sweet child. I wag a finger in her face and say, ‘Because daddy loves you. Just as he loves all the Palestinian people and will never stop fighting in our struggle for independence from the Israeli aggressor. Never! Not until the last Palestinian has exercised his right of return to the land of Palestine! Insha’Allah!’

For many years, the PLO was headquartered in Beirut and southern Lebanon. If nothing else, the 1982 Israeli invasion forced Arafat and the PLO to flee to… Tunisia! Tunis is a long way from Palestine. During the years of their Tunisian exile, it looked almost as if Israel and the Palestinians would reach an agreement free of PLO involvement. The 1993 Oslo Accords dashed that assumption entirely. The best thing that ever happened to Yasser Arafat, they specified the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people! Not the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, not a handful of other factions. No, Oslo gave Arafat— and Arafat alone— legitimacy. Whenever Arafat went to the john, the entire Middle East was expected to hold its collective breath. When Arafat sneezed, half of Arabia caught a cold. No wonder the sheiks and kings of North Africa looked down their beaked noses at Arafat and the PLO, calling them fedayeen, peasants, rabble. No matter! The PLO came roaring back into town— figuratively speaking— waving banners proclaiming “Re-Opened For Business!”

Since then, bitching and attacking, cajoling and whining, condemning, calling for sanctions and boycotts against Israel, rioting in the streets and throwing stones, demanding recognition at the United Nations, the PLO does everything except make a final status agreement. The Palestinian Liberation Organization is immovable when it comes to this central premise: To never, ever accept anything less than the entire state of Palestine as it was in 1946, the dagger-shaped land which the Palestinians claim as their rightful homeland, but which, peculiarly, goes by the name “Israel” in western society. The vision of the Palestinian people is simply to regain everything lost in the Nakba, the “catastrophe,” that was the 1947 founding of the State of Israel. They’re not sure how it will come about, but the Palestinians certainly will never settle for anything less. By their reckoning, they have waited so long and sacrificed so much, they would have to be crazy to accept anything less than the whole loaf. That is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room: Total Palestinian intransigence. This “word on the Arab street” has made fools of western diplomats and presidents in the past. It is doing so again to Secretary of State John Kerry, who is stupidly shuttling back and forth between a rock and a hard place.

The Palestinians will never give up hope: They want their country back.

I find Arafat’s obfuscation meaningfully upsetting and upsettingly meaningful.  That doesn’t mean I’d vote for him.

“I hope this answers all of your questions,” says Chairman Arafat. “You should consider making a donation to our cause.”

Everyone knows Yasser was “fat”— not in poundage but in money. Show me an Arab and I’ll show you a man with his hand in the till who is also busy running several deals on the side. You and I should be “fat like Arafat.” We’re talking major coinage. When Yasser died in 2004, the leaders of the Palestinian Authority came to Suha Arafat, put a gun to her head and said “Give us the Swiss bank account numbers or you’ll never see daybreak.” Suha handed over the account numbers and the P.A. recovered 1.3 billion dollars Arafat had skimmed. That money was returned to the government treasury of the Palestinian Authority.

Judging from her lifestyle in Malta— Suha never so much as visits the P.A.— Suha didn’t give up all the account numbers. Such a clever girl!

Meanwhile, in Ramallah… Ushered out into the hallway by the security guards, there’s another Keystone Cops moment when Björn asks no one in particular, “That’s it? That’s the entire interview?!”

“The chairman has only limited strength,” the chief of security apologizes. When Björn begins to argue, I point out— in Swedish— “Björn! Don’t you see it is costing the security chief blood to even admit that Arafat isn’t up to snuff? Give the guy a break!”

“I have warned you before!” thunders the chief. “SPEAK ONLY ENGLISH!”

So now I ask to confer with him in private. There, I express our gratitude over his candor. “It cannot be easy dealing with someone as… difficult… as the chairman is in his old age,” I suggest.

Eyeing me craggily, the chief fingers the gun in its holster riding on his hip. He comments carefully, “You have made this statement. Not I! You have said this! Perhaps I agree, perhaps not.”

“Of course!” I gush. “I wish to thank you for whatever forbearance you can show us.”

“We Palestinians are a gracious people! I will arrange transportation back to your hotel.”

Again, comedy intercedes! Hearing my stomach growl audibly, the security chief looks me up and down, suspecting a trick. Making a face, he mutters, “Are you hungry?”

“We’ll take care of it back at the hotel,” I assure him.

“Nonsense!” Leading me back into the hallway where I join the others, the chief speaks volubly in Arabic with Fawzi, who looks more and more uneasy.

“What is it now?” grouses Björn.

“I don’t understand,” bleats Fawzi. “We are being invited to dinner by the security chief and his next in command.”

“That’s great!” I say.

“No, no, no!” whispers Fawzi dramatically, giving me meaningful looks. “We should leave now! This is a very dangerous situation! The less said, the better!”

“I want to stay,” I insist, amazed at this blatant show of cowardice. Still, Fawzi looks so forlorn and unhappy, I am prepared to give in.

“If Kevin stays, I stay!” insists Björn, in one of those mock-heroic statements which Swedes love to make.

“We would like to invite you to dinner. With whomever on your staff you would like to have accompany us,” I tell the chief.

“Come with me,” says he, leading us into a lounge adjacent to the main dining area. “Please to sit.”

I’m not blind. In the next room, at a small table, Chairman Arafat and family take their evening repast. “Well,” I tell Björn, “at least you can claim that you ate dinner with Arafat. I mean, ‘with, with.’ He’s eating. We’re eating.”

“We enjoyed an evening meal in the chairman’s dining room,” declares Björn, trying out the phrasing. “I think Swedish Television will buy that.”

Update: Having converted to Islam during the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Björn has now founded the Non-Islamic State of Unease in Sweden and Denmark, an armed, oppositional non-profit charity.

With the death of Ariel Sharon, the Asplund Vingård distillery of Hagalund is producing a Special 2014 Arik Arrack for the discerning (read: expense-be-damned) connoisseur.

As for me, I am currently dating a 19-year-old, high maintenance Vietnamese lass named Lily. Very demanding, with red-painted nails, her looks are not for the faint of heart: She has a ruby-red, pouty mouth, enormous cheek bones, a pug nose and hair like Medusa’s snakes. Coffee brown eyes and pointed teeth. Broad hips and an I-don’t-give-a-damn demeanor. Even her kneecaps are diamond-shaped and bony, usable for cracking walnuts. She speaks with the dulcet tones of a croaking frog. Sexy, she kisses like a tornado, ripping me apart with those lips of hers. This girl leaves welts! A first-year student at the community college, all Lily talks about is what she is going to do in the future, but I do get to brush up on my Vietnamese. Dating her is cheaper than flying to Vietnam, with most of the amenities. I call her “Popcorn.” Mean as an adder, she excites me, drumming her heels wherever she walks.

When my generation was 25, we said “Don’t trust anyone over 30!” At 35, we changed it to “Don’t trust anyone over 40!” In our 40’s, we said “Don’t trust anyone over 50!” Now that we’re over 50, we say “Don’t trust anyone under 30!”

Still, it’s gratifying to be part of history.

Food Fight

 

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG FOR THE FOLLOWING POSTAGE PAID ADVERTISEMENT. 

Announcer:  Hello! Look at this white lab coat! I wouldn’t be wearing a white lab coat if I wasn’t a qualified laboratory technician… or maybe even a medical doctor! Now would I? Of course not!

The good news is, yes, I am a doctor! I have a Ph. D. in Comparative Religion. I mean, if you can address Henry Kissinger as “Dr. Kissinger,” you can address me as “Doctor John.” Same difference. Listen, I wouldn’t trust Henry Kissinger to prescribe a band aid. Anyway, that’s beside the point.

Call me Dr. John! Here to share with you the good news regarding electrochemically enhanced foodstuffs. Why go hungry when the addition of a few electrochemically engineered genes, cells and what-have-you will allow us to grow enough food for everybody?! YOU’D HAVE TO BE CRAZY TO SAY “NO”!!!

People are starving in Darfur! People are starving in South Sudan! Those two— that my be the same place. We need to turn to electrochemically enhanced sources of protein, vitamins and minerals!

Look at this, I’m crying! Real tears of frustration. I don’t want to seem pushy, but if you don’t pull out your wallet anytime soon, you and I will be facing a major sales meltdown! Don’t just sit there! Reach for the phone and call the number at the bottom of the screen! Someone, somewhere— probably Mumbai— is waiting for your call. We’re multi-lingual— Hindi, Urdu, Vulcan and Pig Latin spoken here. Ucksay Onnay Isthay!

Now wait a minute! Don’t tune me out. What are the four kinds of commercials? There are humorous commercials— like this one! There are scary commercials. There are informative commercials. And, finally, there are entertaining commercials. So join us now as we present this humorously scary, informatively entertaining advertisement for electrochemically enhanced foods!

There isn’t enough to eat in the world. Here to tell us about it is beautiful, wholesome, blue-eyed, blond Peggy McGuire. Nobody who looks this good would steer you wrong! I’m right about that, aren’t I?

Peggy McGuire:  Hi-i-i! Aren’t I beautiful? You can trust me! Not only do I have this gorgeous complexion, flaxen hair and lustrous blue eyes, I am a winner! My husband Henrik works for a major multinational corporation. He earns a seven digit annual income, even if two of those digits are to the right of the decimal point!

            Even genetically, I’m gorgeous. This is my five-year-old son Hans and his three-year-old sister Gretchen. Look at those apple cheeks, their shining blue eyes and thatched blond hair. Aren’t they just adorable??? That just shows! You can trust me, my genes are the greatest! The kids haven’t learned to, y’ know, vocalize their thoughts yet, but we’re sure at some point they’ll learn to— you know— talk and all.

Meanwhile, give some thought to electrochemically enhanced food! You’ve heard of amino acids, Omega-3 lobster oil, phospholipids, antioxidants and the beneficial effects of fish oil, right? Here you get all of those benefits… and more! At a fraction of the cost. For you and your whole family!

So when they come knocking at your door, sign that petition in favor of electrochemically engineered food.

M-m-m-m, yum, yum, yum!

Wave to the camera, kids!

Announcer:  Well, I hope that’s decided you. Peggy and I wouldn’t steer you wrong, you know! We’re your friends. Omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA may just help you win the lottery. Stranger things have happened! And they’re guaranteed not to— you know— break down cell membranes or anything like that. Au contraire, this stuff is actually good for you!

So what’s your problem? If I tell you to eat your electrochemically altered fruits and veggies, DO IT! I can’t believe what a fuss you are making! Even Josef Mengele fed at least some of the victims of his laboratory experiments. Pavlov fed his dogs. True, Laika— the first pooch in space— was left up there floating around the planet to starve to death. Poor little Laika! A moment of silence for poor little Laika, please. Woof, woof!

. . .

Thank you! Even more reason to eat electrochemically fortified fruits, vegetables, baked goods and dog biscuits! Your dog will eat the dog biscuits, of course. I don’t mean to imply that you eat… you know… dog food or anything.

Speaking of munchies, the recreational marijuana industry in Colorado is taking its first baby steps. Or as we say in Denver, it “gits to git go!” Yesh! You git go, boychik! See, even homegrown can be a growth industry. Roxanne, turn on the blue light! Z-Z-Zap me, baby!!!

So what are you waiting for? Time slips away. Opportunity knocks. Complexity rears its ugly head. Fate kicks you down the stairs. My question is: When did these totally abstract concepts grow such human abilities?

Just askin’…

How about them Mets?

Listen, I’ve met John Carter! You can’t pull a wooly over my eyes! Speaking of which, I feel like Kit Carson here. Whenever anybody comes up with something new and worthwhile, there are always a load of nay-sayers crying “Foul!” DON’T LISTEN TO THEM! Go with the flow. Vote YES for electrochemically enhanced food.

Soon to appear on a grocery shelf near you!

This announcement has been brought to you by Goodness Gracious Farming Cooperative, a non-agricultural advertising entity with corporate offices on the Isle of Man in the U.K.

Horriday Cheer

  

            I’m a little ashamed, this was not supposed to happen. It feels like I’m sending you a message in a bottle from outer space. I live with my mom. Christmas Day, she had me telephone her dear friend Maggie and arrange a time when I could drive over and deliver her Christmas basket. All well and good. An hour later, shaved and showered, I load this ethereal creation of bleached wood and assorted goodies into my forest green Toyota Prius. I drive down Flanders Avenue toward Rockville Pike. The sun bathes everything in a blinding yellow light, but it’s as cold as a penguin’s feet.

Want your Prius

To break 60?

Drive off a cliff!

            One o’clock on Christmas Day, the streets are deserted. There’s nobody around.  Even from a block away, the only pedestrian stands out like a surrealist painting by Magritte. It’s a woman and she’s built like a top: Wide shoulders in a fur coat, big bosom, wide hips, tapering down to tiny feet in stiletto heels. Black hair in a pageboy cut, olive skin, a little upturned nose. It’s amazing the details you can distinguish in sunlight that bright.

Hey, I’m the only driver, she sees me, too. Arching her back, she stops and stares down at the pavement pensively. A civil engineer inspecting the sidewalk for cracks? I gotta pull over. In situations like this, I ask myself, “What would Jesus do?” It hasn’t stopped me yet. I swing a U-turn and jump out of the car. “Hi!” says I.

“Leave me alone or I’ll call the police,” she declares, reaching into her purse for— I suppose— her cell phone.

“Wow, I’m so sorry,” I babble. “You’re wonderful. I didn’t mean to bother you.” As I turn to go, she stops me dead with the simplest of questions:

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Kevin.”

“Kevin?” she chortles, flashing white teeth, smiling enormously. She folds her arms across her chest and shakes with mirth.

Hey, she had me at “Leave me alone.”

“Where are you goin’?” she drawls, walking up Flanders, dragging me in her wake.

I like this woman. God knows how old she is. Twenty? Twenty-five? Seventeen? I can’t tell. We’re talking ghetto trash, someone stepping off a bus way beyond “uptown,” out here in the ‘burbs where we never even see professional women of her ilk. Ever. “My momma has me makin’ Christmas deliveries,” I tell her. “How was your Christmas?”

“Could be better,” she says, turning to stare me full in the face. Wow! Hazel eyes. Hickory and cognac. Cajun if a day. “Christmas ain’t no fun when yo’ flat broke! ” she declares.

“Are ya flat broke?” I tease.

“Sho’ nuff, honey,” she drawls, her heels drumming on the pavement, marching along, nose in the air.

I have to run to keep up. “Geez, I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Yo’ got any… cash?” she asks me, giving me a sideways peek, a smile playing around her ruby lips. “I was on mah way t’ do a therapy session when yo’ interrupted me.” Her eyes flash.

Listen, my heart is doing flip-flops. My nether regions are getting so engorged, I’m light-headed. The lady turns, stares into my eyes and laughs. A goner, I pull out my wallet and pluck out all my cash.

This gets her full attention. Stopping and facing me, six inches away, she waits hungrily, hands stretched flat, palms up, while I count out the bills. “Twenty, thirty, five… thirty eight dollars.” Accepting this meager pittance, she folds the bills with fingers adorned with ruby-red nails sharp enough to puncture a set of radial tires. She sticks the money in her purse. “Thang kee-yu! ” she declares, Mississippi gulf dialect intersecting New Orleans.

“What’s you name?” I gasp, transfixed by the toothy smile on her young face. This is a lot of woman!

“Candy,” she murmurs.

I just manage to catch myself, so I don’t destroy the mood by shouting “You’re kidding!” We walk a couple of yards before I manage to say, “Wow, what a beautiful name.”

Thang kee-yu! Y’know, why are we walkin’ when yo’ got a car?”

“I’ll get the car!”

“Sho, honey, yo’ do that,” she smiles, right hand on hip, smirking, left leg forward like a fashion model.

Man, I jog back to my abandoned vehicle and drive to where Candy is standing. She pops the door and jumps in before I’ve even brought the car to a stop. “It’s a shame yo’ ain’t got no mo’ money,” she observes pensively.

“Well, I got another hundred something in my sock drawer. It’s Christmas, everything’s closed.”

“Tell me about it!” Candy pouts prettily.

I have an erection like nobody’s business.

“Let’s go get that money,” she suggests, cuddling in the seat, turning enormous eyes in my direction. I drive back home.

We have a carport. It’s built of red brick, but the sides are wide open to the elements. I leave Candy sitting in the Prius while I hustle to the basement and pull my stash— in its white envelope— from beneath my undershirts.

“Kevin? Is that you?” shouts my mom from the top of the stairs.

“Yeah, I’ll get back to you!” I reply.

“What’s goin’ on?”

“Nothin’. I’ll get back to you!” I swear, hustling through the basement door.

Candy sits demurely curled up in the passenger seat, staring at me with huge hazel eyes, pouting, stiletto nails poised to grab either my money or my body. “Didja git it?” she squeaks.

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Let’s see!” she sings, grabbing the envelope playfully. “Oh-h-h, twanty dollah bills! I like twanties! An’ tens! Looka all the tens! An’ fives! An’ ones! Ain’t yo’ sweet!” she remarks, folding the money quickly and stuffing it into her seemingly bottomless purse. “I ain’t told yo’ what I do! I’m a masseuse. I specialize in physical disorders,” she now informs me, her left hand migrating to my waist. Pulling the band on my sweatpants, her hand grabs my penis in a single mighty tug. I don’t wear underpants. She’s got me. “They’s two biggest prob’ems in men be erectile dysfunction an’ premature ejaculation,” she explains professionally, beginning to jerk me off rhythmically. “I can see that erectile dysfunction ain’t yo’ problem. Must be premature e-jac-u-la-tion,” she sings.

“Wait! Wait!” I plead. “Stop!” Any second I’m about to explode.

“Wassa matter?”

“At least let me get some tissue.”

“You wanna save it?”

“I wanna dispose of it!” I gasp.

“Oh, yo’ a neat freak,” Candy observes calmly, reaching into her purse and pulling out a packet of facial tissues. Plucking three, she now concentrates her full attention on the act at hand. She whacks me off.

To quote the age-old slogan, “Here at General Electric, progress is our most important product.”

Collecting my semen in the facial tissue, Candy neatly rolls it into a ball. Opening the car door, she debonairly throws it on the concrete floor of the carport.

“I’ll clean it up later,” I suggest.

“Oh, yeah. I forgot, this is yo’ property,” she admits.

I mean, what goes on in that head of hers?

Now I notice— I mean, NOW I notice— that Pamela next door is outside with Oscar the Dog, cleaning up dog poop. Naturally, she looks over at me. Sitting in the car with a strange mulatto whore. Pamela does not appear amused. I start the car and get us out of there.

As soon as we hit Rockville Pike, Candy begins ragging on me: “Ah knows hotels downtown where yo’ can rent rooms by the hour, but they’s don’ allow that at Comfort Inn, Best Western, Day’s Inn, Travelodge, Motel 8…”

Jesus, such a nag! “What d’ya want me to do about it?!” I complain.

“We gotta book fo’ the night,” she explains.

“What? I’m so horrible, you can’t spend the night with me?”

“I told ya! I gotta do a therapy session! He expectin’ me!”

“I got it! I got it! Candy, what do you want me to do?” I sigh, stopping at the traffic light at Montrose Road.

“I’se hungry!”

It’s Christmas, most everything is closed. I try my compadre Eduardo. He’s stretched a torn, painted bedsheet across the front of his taqueria, “Open On Xmas!” Hooray! At least he’s glad to see me, perched in the window of his trailer. Eyeballing Candy and listening to her drawl, he’s salivating. He gives me a look that says “I’m impressed!” Eduardo provides us with tacos, burritos and South American fizzy soda to wash it all down. Candy and I convert the front seat of my Toyota Prius into a dining room.

Candy brings out the Edgar Allan Poe in me:

Once upon a time when evening wanes

I dreamt of erasers and pencil ends,

Since I’d discovered I have no friends

And writing poetry gives me the bends.

            When we’ve eaten, Candy makes that all-important telephone call: “Hi-i-i! I’m comin’ t’ yo’ now, sweet’ums!” she croons into her cell phone. Then she directs me back into the ‘burbs to a house not five blocks from my own.

“I can let you off and deliver my package,” I suggest, brain cells once again functioning.

“No! Uh uh! Yo’ sit here an’ wait! I ain’t gettin’ stuck wi’ standin’ out inna cold an’ ordering a cab. Once Peter finish wi’ me, he boot me outta his house. Happen every time! Yo’ sit,” she commands angrily, sweetly caressing my cheek. Talk about mixed signals. Just to be safe, Candy takes my car keys! Cute kid.

With the ignition off, I can’t even listen to teen heart-throb Blind Justice on the radio. I loved his close-up at the Rally the Troops Awards: Arrested for drunk and disorderly in a Thai brothel, he could still claim to his adolescent followers, “I’m so glad to be here! I’m a glamorous person. My skin is clear… as is my conscience!” I have yet to see either of his movies. Internet, what hath thou wrought??? So I sit, alternately daydreaming and stewing, while my love object services one of her johns. Merry Christmas! Families walk by on the sidewalk in both directions. I ignore them. There’s no law against sitting in an automobile.

I am considering asking Vladimir Putin if I can do a “Dennis Rodman” and visit the premier as his new best friend. Since no one has ever heard of me, I am hoping this heightened celebrity status will benefit my blog.

It seems like forever before Candy gets finished, the sun setting majestically in the west. Since she’s driving me crazy, I attempt to analyze the situation from a military perspective: Boots on the ground, if this maneuver is necessary in the Struggle for Xmas, so be it. Anything to stem the tide of insurgent Christmas trees and minimize the flow of refugee wrapping paper.

Observing how wasted and out of sorts Candy looks coming from Peter Whoever’s house, I take pity on my newfound friend. I don’t give her a hard time. In near silence, I drive us to a motel, sign us in and follow her inside. She disappears into the bathroom. She takes a shower and, draped in a towel, comes back to me on the double bed, mightily refreshed. “Hi-i-i!” she smiles, peeling away the towel, exhibiting brown and pink marathon breasts, fulsome hips, a round little stomach and a sweet bush. “I’se ready fo’ love!”

What a screw-up! Mom is angry, Maggie is disappointed and Candy’s impatiently waiting for the banks to open on Thursday morning. This is not the way I intended to spend the holiday!

*

Season For Giving

Dear Mister, Missus, Miss or Ms.,

Ho ho ho!

Santa’s on his way

‘Though I cannot find

Where I parked my sleigh!

            Even if you have never heard of The Price of Charity Is Charity Charity, I must say I am aghast at not receiving your contribution during this season of giving. Did your check get lost in the mail? For God’s sake, we are depending on you! I was just saying to Marjorie, my secretary, “The check musta got lost in the mail.” I mean, I know you want to contribute. Your $10 contribution will

  • allow us to add a new wing to Charity Hospital in Muncie, Indiana
  • save the followers of Baha’i in Hindu Goa
  • protect the elephants of Kenya tusk by tusk
  • open a gold mine in Brazil
  • help prostitutes around the corner from our office make some money
  • find a cure for vaginal herpes

and, most importantly,

  • improve the quality of my paycheck as president and CEO of The Price of Charity Is Charity Charity.

Your contribution will be matched dollar for dollar in Spanish pesetas. Ever since Spain went over to the Euro, there have been lots of pesetas floating around. They may be totally worthless, but we guarantee to match your donation in pesetas.

We get a 4.0 out of 5 rating from the Bupkis Institute.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, including my mother, my younger brother Tim and my Uncle Sid, all equally employed this holiday season.

Each time we count your money, we’ll say a prayer especially written for YOU!

Why is this man smiling? Why are you frowning? Happiness is a contribution to The Price of Charity Is Charity Charity.

Only speak Russian? Payem parusskii? Ne problema. Telephone our multi-lingual hotline. Ask for Natasha! One sexy lady.

We are listed in Checkbook. (Actually, we’re on their mailing list. Same thing!)

Bullets bounce off us.

So don’t make me ask twice. Things could get ugly. Let’s be friends and you send me that $10 contribution. Capiche?

I’d say “tax deductible,” but what d’ I know? I’m no tax expert! Call it a “maybe.”

Are you sitting??? For every $10 contribution, you will be sent, absolutely free, a complete, thoroughly dusted signed copy of the novel The Author’s Dolls from 1977. A wrenching characterization of author Kevin Feingold’s first marriage, this book was once banned (okay, some say panned ) by much of the publishing industry. Not available in stores!

Still reading? Huh boy! So far, I’ve only spoken of piddling contributions of $10. Should you choose to become one of our Lifetime Main Man Supporters ($100,000 and above), arrangements will be made for you to dine with the founder of our organization, my mom, tax accountant Mrs. Rose Feingold! Nu? Say you won the lottery and you’ve got money to burn. Good for you! The sky’s the limit at The Price of Charity Is Charity Charity. We’ll even buy an ambulance in your name and ship it to Soweto! (NOTE: This requires a $500,000 contribution or above. Used paramedical equipment don’t come cheap.)

If you’re worried that I’m some fly-by-night shyster, a quick list of my bona fides should dispel any such qualms: Graduated with a B. A. from the University of Maryland; U.S. Army (Ret.); featured on 2005 Dutch Antilles postage stamp.

Why contribute to us rather than some niggling, greedy, onerous, pushy charity that telephones you in the middle of dinner for a donation? Why? BECAUSE WE DON’T DO THAT! Listen, I don’t even OWN a telephone! (I use my mom’s.) But enough about me… Unlike Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty, we support gay marriage! I find lesbians strangely attractive.

On those occasions when we purchase office furniture manufactured in China (please, we’re only human), I nevertheless can assure you that not one pfennig of that money goes to financing al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria and Iraq. Others may do so. Not us!

Visit us online or at specially marked locations of Stolid Gold Cadillac Groceries. We’re over by the drug department. Where else?

Ask about our Spender’s Club ! You supply the moolah, we supply ideas how you should spend it! Or book a trip with Genocidal Travels to educational flashpoints like Darfur, Rwanda, Holocaust Poland, Bosnia or Tenerife.

Wait! There’s more! Send in your contribution right now and, for a limited time only, we are not responsible for misuse of our products or services, malfeasance, malpractice or claims of ownership by others than ourselves in both domestic and foreign markets. This disclaimer applies specifically to all activities in the Continental United States as well as American territories. Sorry, but there it is! This letter contains unrated, copyrighted material which may be inappropriate for young readers. Printed on recycled trash.   

And don’t forget this holiday season, everybody, eine Tonbandaufnahme von Willy Brandt im das deutsches Reichstag haben ich nicht.

So… God bless! And thanks a mil!

Sincerely,

K. Feingold

PS. Pls put yr traytables in the upright position. Thank you!

a 301 (c) 401 (k) 9/11, 4 X 5, 8 X 10 size 34B D-cup organization

Way of the Indian

I want to go home. I am a guest of Mr. Frank Clearwater at the Stolichnaya Indian Casino in South Dakota. Right away a disclaimer is in order: This casino has absolutely nothing  to do with the Russian vodka of the same name. This Indian tribe— thirty-two members and counting— appropriated the name and incorporated themselves as an official Indian nation for the sole purpose of opening a casino thirty miles west of the Harzen Mines. Everybody knows that. There isn’t a lot of hemming and hawing, but any discussion of Indian history finds a definite vagueness about tribal origins. Who knows what the name was before they changed it to Stolichnaya?!

Frank is an old Army buddy and obviously he means well, but nothing is quite as it seems. When I arrived in the afternoon of December 15, they told me the casino would open on the 17th. Now they say we’ll open on December 19. I’d be lying if I said we’re in a blizzard. The temp is a blustery, windy 40 degrees. I trudge across rock-hard prairie in store sample snowshoes from Arctic Winter Apparel. The snowshoes are made in Taiwan. I’m wearing thermal pants and a thermal, padded jacket, both in designer black. I have set up a tent guaranteed to – 40°, but we’re at the other end of the thermometer. I am out of doors playing games to avoid spending time in the casino.

The baize tables are set up for craps, the roulette wheels are polished, the chandeliers shine brightly with nary a burned-out bulb. Even the dining room occasionally serves food. However… The women in this tribe are only five feet tall. Wide in the hips, tiny breasts, stumpy-legged, their figures don’t correspond to anything in the Victoria’s Secret catalog. Decked out in beads and Santa’s elves costumes, they flounce around the main floor with nothing to preoccupy themselves but cat fights. The men are drunk. Once in awhile, one of the cooks will suddenly become inspired and prepare a feast. “Come quickly, paleface, there is turkey dinner!” a child astride a horse signals me. Hightailing it back to the main building, I too stuff myself to satiation. Then a day or two will go by where all we have to sustain ourselves are packets of oat meal and hot coffee.

Frank, meanwhile, is trying to educate me.

“Why do you live in concrete blockhouses?” I ask.

“We need to open the casino before January 1st,” he answers, a slightly different question. “Otherwise we miss out on the Indian grants for 2013. The government built the blockhouses, so that’s where we live.”

“Do you still know how to make teepees?”

Apparently I have insulted my host! Gathering a building party, he takes me out back, just beyond the concrete apron of the parking area, and directs construction right then and there of a teepee. When I start to apologize, Frank says, “No, no, kemo sabe. A teepee will look good for the tourists.”

Taking me down the road a full fifteen paces, Frank says “And this is our Wedding Chapel.”

¿Qué?

“Why should Las Vegas get all the wedding business?” he asks rhetorically. We go inside. I can only admire the tidy rows of tiny pews.

“Do you only plan on marrying midgets?”

“We’ll expand later as business picks up,” he promises me. “Oh, here’s Pastor Daniel!”

Dressed in faux papal raiment, the pastor weaves his way down the aisle and vaults clean into the third row of pews.

“Ouch! That must have hurt,” I suspect.

“He does have a fondness for the grape,” admits Frank.

We get Pastor Daniel laid out on the floor, at which point he proceeds to shake the rafters with his sonorous snores. We decide to let him sleep it off, quietly closing the chapel door on our way out.

Frank also provides an explanation of Indian names. “Indian names,” he points out, “depend on what catches a father’s eye. The previous generation were a little irresponsible in that respect. They would go to the cantina to celebrate the birth of a new baby. Whatever caught a brave’s eye on the way back to his wigwam became fodder for naming.”

Frank’s Indian name is “Buffalo Turd Drying On Prairie.” And his is one of the better names.

One night the cooks include “buffalo taters” among the food selection. Just about to dig in, I find out that “buffalo taters” are the sexual organs of male buffalo. “Catch ya later,” I laugh, shoveling mine back onto the serving dish.

Writing this, I’m purposely avoiding one of those “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee” laments. It’s already been done. I’ll settle for a cogent narrative.

In 1862, government surveyor John Hamilton spelled the demise of the Indian way of life in the Dakotas. Standing erect on the seat of a Conestoga covered wagon, he surveyed the miles of endless steppe. Not seeing anyone, he declared, “A land without people for a people in need of more land!” Legend has it, a prairie dog then spooked the oxen pulling the wagon, jostling Hamilton off his feet. Falling to the ground, the poor man hit his head on a rock. He spent the remainder of the journey laid out in the back of the wagon with a major concussion.

“Justice is swift,” say the Indians.

A wily chief of the previous generation canoodled a willowy blonde into being his wife— one of three, the other two coming from the indigenous clan. The result is the tallest member of the Stolichnaya, Swift Wind Mitchell. The first time I met him, I only got a partial view. It was when I went to the lavatory adjacent to the mezzanine. Crapper stalls proportioned for squat Indian braves, Swifty was using the stall at the end, the door wide open, his knees, shins and black leather boots sticking out for my inspection.

“Nice boots!” I commented.

“Him USAF fighter pilot,” Frank later informed me, reverting to tribal syntax. “Him 24 years old. Him originally called Breaking Wind, but name changed when he become pilot!” It made perfect sense that they would be proud of Swifty, he has a regular pay check.

Nice as he is, some of Frank’s idiosyncrasies get on my nerves. Every night, he counts all the silverware, not concerned that we have stolen any, but worried we have accidently thrown some silver plated fork in the trashcan. Three loaves of wheat bread on a shelf over the knife rack, Frank instructs us every morning which one we should be using for the day. To prevent any one loaf from getting staler than the other two. He keeps sending squaws to my room. But not for what you might think. They are there specifically and only to give me foot massage. Period.

Since we’re still vacuuming carpets and making beds in prep for the Grand Opening, Swifty and I get assigned mattress cover duty. “Drunks throw up,” Swifty explains laconically. “But not on our mattresses they don’t !” Before housekeeping comes in and makes the beds in each room, we pull a waterproof white latex cover over each jumbo-size mattress and zip it tight. “Very nice, but too small to use as a condom,” Swifty assures me.

“You must be a USAF fighter pilot,” I reckon.

Grinning, he doesn’t deny it.

While wheelchair accessible, someone forgot to put a handrail in front of the casino for people with canes. In a mad rush, four Indians and I spend all day outside in windbreakers, jeans, work boots, gloves and baseball caps, using a blowtorch to soften up the soil and a posthole digger to make holes, a mountain of wooden posts awaiting plantation. “It doesn’t need to last,” I point out. “Next summer you can put in something permanent, with nice blocks of cement anchoring each post and all that good stuff. This is for now. Anything you sink into the ground ain’t goin’ nowhere!” My companions grunt in agreement.

How many Indians does it take to dig a posthole? How many you got?

Considering the size of our garbage, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that we attract feral cats and coyotes.

Prejudice hurts. Frank’s wife Sunflower is as emotionally scarred and neurotic as he is. “Mrs. Persecution Complex,” she’s sure we are all ganging up on her. Since she spends more time at the kitchen door than anyone else, the cat population sees her as some kind of god. In homage, they leave her a prize catch: a nice big juicy rat carcass. “These cats are terrorizing me,” she complains, “leaving dead animals on my doorstep!”

“They’re sharing.”

“Let them go share with someone else!”

Listen, nothing surprises me. For four years, I was married to Veronica a k a “Mrs. Johnny Appleseed.” Holidays, birthdays, anniversaries and weddings, she gave each lucky recipient a plant. A growing, thriving green being in need of constant care and attention. The salespeople at Herman’s Plant Farm knew my Veronica well. Finally, my next door neighbor Tom said, “If your wife gives us one more fucking plant, I’m going to get a rifle and shoot the bitch!”

“I’m sorry,” I told him. “When you say ‘the bitch,’ do you mean Veronica or the plant?”

Meanwhile, the sun beats down relentlessly on South Dakota. In the middle of trucking away dirt in a wheelbarrow, I am confronted by the first normal-looking person I’ve seen since I arrived here. Her name is Charlotte or “Charlie.” She’s the blond, 14-year-old daughter of the mural painter they have brought in from San Francisco. “What ya doin’?” she drawls, hands on hips.

“Why aren’t you in school?” I counter.

“Christmas break.”

“Oh goody!” I sneer. She laughs.

Your normal teenager, Charlie prances around the casino, flirting outrageously. Mostly with me. Dig it! An Indian casino needs an Indian mural. Native art. So they get a bearded hippie white guy high on marijuana and paint fumes to come paint it. At what point does “authenticity” enter their picture? I wonder.

“We own the casino,” Frank points out. “That makes it the real deal. This is the Indian way.”

Miss Bossypants, Charlie takes to shoving her left hand in my face, fingers splayed, barking commands like a Sergeant-Major: “Come to dinner!”

“Frank says they need you in the office!”

“The shower curtain in my room is stuck! Come unstick it!”

“Shaving your head only makes you look younger. It doesn’t change your actual age!”

“Hey, mister, your fly’s open! Hee hee hee!

Raiding the children’s library, she sits in the lounge in the evening bouncing her foot, reading aloud children’s fairy tales with licentious innuendo in all the wrong places. “Jack and the Beanstalk ” she’ll say, giving me a knowing look.

“Little Miss Muffet sat on a… tuffet

“Jack and Jill went… upthehill…” implying unspoken shenanigans of an unseemly nature.

Hey, we like each other! We also have the lounge completely to ourselves since her daddy Mark and all the Indian braves are crowded into the teepee out back smoking pipes of peace. “Come sit here,” says Charlie, scrunching up in her leather chair.

“Don’t be ridiculous! We’ll be sitting on top of each other!”

“I can sit in your lap, daddy!”

Her constant teasing has me noticeably engorged. This greatly amuses Charlie. Standing up and marching to my chair, she plops innocently into my lap, a giant grin splitting her rose-petal mouth. “Oops, what’s this?” she asks, brushing my crotch with her fingers. “Oops! Daddy, it’s alive! What’s in there?!

“What do you think is in there?” I grouse.

“Let’s look!”

“Let’s not!!!”

I mean, even South Dakota has laws.

*

            Like flies on a cow pie, the casino begins attracting some very strange birds. First to arrive is Eduardo Ramirez, ostensibly from Cartagena. “If you’re from Colombia,” I ask him, “why is your accent East L.A.?”

Whatever his mumbled answer, I never get it. He does give me his card:

Spiritualist Van Gogh

            Turning it over in my hands and examining the pristine back side, I ask, “What exactly does being a Spiritualist Van Gogh entail?”

“Coming to the Way of the Paint,” he exclaims, his left eye drifting disconcertingly off into space.

“Which you do how?”

“Such questions!… Mumble…”

“What’s that?”

“YOU SNIFF THE PAINT!” he shouts loud enough to disturb the coyotes in their lairs. Piqued, he proceeds to unload a backpack full of aerosol spray cans.

“Okay, okay, I get it!”

Next comes Baroness Van Pelz, just in time for me to inform her “We’re not open.”

“Look me up online,” she suggests in a throaty baritone, her Boston Terrier peeing on the black rubber welcome mat, made in Brazil. Once I google her, I indicate to Frank, “Jesus! She’s worth so much money, we should rent her a room!”

“I’m leaving my entire estate to Fluffy,” says the Baroness, busy signing the hotel register at the front desk.

“Good for Fluffy,” I reply, handing her a magnetic keycard.

“Come, Fluffy,” she says, leading the Boston Terrier to the elevators.

Eduardo and I exchange glances. Hearing his dog whistle, Eduardo is visibly salivating.

With Mark of San Francisco supine from an overdose of cannabis, it falls to me to find a replacement muralist. “I do it, I do it, I do it,” insists Eduardo, brandishing an entire suitcase of paint in spray cans, “if you put in a good word for me with the Baroness’s dog!”

“It’s a deal!” I lie, desperate.

“What should I paint?”

“Paint what Mark was painting,” I propose, showing him the sketches. “It’s Custer’s Last Stand. There’s Sitting Bull. There’s Custer…”

“He was gonna paint him like that? With an Indian brave slicing Custer’s throat with a Bowie knife?”

“It’s a representational depiction,” I explain lamely.

“Oh! Representational art!” enthuses Eduardo. “This I know! I can do this!”

“Please do!”
In a 16-hour methamphetamine rush of spray paint, Eduardo finishes the mural.

With more than a little trepidation, Frank, Sunflower and I unveil it before the rest of the tribe.

It’s good!!! Yellow and white cotton fields as far as the eye can see. Indians picking baskets and bales of cotton. In the distance, on a hillock, General Custer ruminates, gazing toward the clouds. The entire left side of the painting is a single giant Texas longhorn steer, floating in a glorious cloud of white light.

“Is great!” comments Hare Running With Tail On Fire. “What it means?”

With bated breath, we turn to Eduardo. “Is representational,” he explains serenely, a successful artist at peace with the world. “Is the last thoughts of General Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn: ‘Holy cow, where did all these cotton-pickin’ Indians come from?’ ”

As Fluffy’s dog walker, I now make the formal introduction. Listen, she and Eduardo get along like a house on fire! Within a day, they’ve published the banns. Less happy is the Baroness. “How can anybody marry a dog?” she gripes uncomprehendingly, marching angrily into the Wedding Chapel.

“We-ell-l-l,” explains the sheriff, making it sound like a word of three syllables. “It’s this new Obama legislation, legalizing marriages between consenting adults in non-heterosexual relationships.”

“Yes?” asks the Baroness.

“I just told you,” says the sheriff. “They’ve legalized marriages between consenting adults in non-heterosexual relationships. It’s all legal. That don’t mean I like it none.”

“The dog is four years old,” babbles the pastor, drunk as usual, weaving before our eyes. Grabbing onto a pew to keep from falling, he adds “That’s way past the age of consent in dog years!”

“I don’t mind them getting married!” replies the Baroness shrilly. “Fluffy knows her own mind. What I object to is the two of them consummating the marriage! Who knows where this young man has thrust his ding-dong!?”

“I find that offensive…” complains Eduardo.

“Woof!” says the dog.

“Not my problem,” says the sheriff.

Needless to say, I lose my job as Fluffy’s dog walker.

*

            The tribe knows they need to pipe in music. It says so right on page 3 of the “How To Run A Casino Handbook.” Unfamiliar with the nuances of elevator music, the Stolis have chosen Gustav Mahler as their auditory muse, providing some range in their choice of ambience:

Ponderous (molto bene) – Symphonies 1, 2 and 3

Boring (langsam) – Symphonies 4, 5 and 6

Screechy (purgatorio) – Symphonies 7, 8 and 9

Totally nuts (scherzo) – Symphony 10, conducted by Eugene Ormandy

*

            What a difference four days make! Grab the skis and snowshoes, it’s a teeth-chattering 8° outside and snowing.

Opening night! Under a strident moon, wolves howling, members of a dozen Indian nations from up and down the West Coast come east to check out the competition. We also have Islandic tennis pro Sigúr Isaksson and his stunning girlfriend as our guests, lending international élan to the gathering, even if they arrive flat broke and we must comp them both the room and free chips. Purgatorio Mahler groans quietly in the background. Charlie, my little minx, comes dressed in a tartan skirt and cashmere sweater, butterscotch-colored kneesocks and weejuns, her flaxen hair pulled back in a ponytail. Nose in the air, small hands clenched, she stalks the premises like a tigress. Our medical staff consists of Dr. Horatio McPherson, M.D., who proceeds to get falling down drunk, telling me, “Well, I’m bored and certified, so I guess you could say I’m board certified!”

For the sheriff, it’s a quiet night: Only one domestic dispute on the floor of the casino, as well as expelling an itinerant priest who calls himself Willie Graham. His schtick is performing a benediction over the slot machines in the name of Christ.

Warrior braves stand two deep at the bar imbibing alcohol by the bottle, before stumbling to the gaming area and staring glassy-eyed at the spinning roulette wheels or the bouncing pairs of white dice. The croupiers and dealers are all Indian squaws. Every one of them either ignores this exhibition of boorish behavior or shuts down her table and leads the miscreant into a corner— or an available broom closet— for a quick bout of surreptitious lust.

What would Opening Night be at a casino without a mathematical genius from M.I.T.? Who, using superior algorithms, intends to break the bank. Spiky hair, an ill-fitting suit, way too much dandruff and eyeglasses like Coke bottle bottoms, ours is straight out of Central Casting. Name: Richard Robinson Claverhouse. “I’m putting everything I own on red,” he exclaims gleefully. As the roulette wheel clanks out a bright green zero, Poor Richard deflates like a toy balloon.

Then there are the four merry Jamaicans dressed in après-ski and knit caps, very tall, enormous pearly white teeth, huge hands, who swing their arms to warm up and cadge drinks off the trays of passing waitresses. They say things like, “Dis place be aw’reet. So glad t’ see you, mon! Is demon cold out. We passin’ by, we hear good things ’bout dis place. Yo’ got a car? You gi’ us a ride to Rapid City!”

Curious, I ask how they got here without wheels.

“We snag a ride, mon.”

“Do you work?” I ask, emboldened by their party-hard demeanor.

“Sho! Clear we work. We work for Bose, all of da highs an’ none of da lows!” they guffaw, punching each other. An in-joke, apparently. They seem pretty high already. I tell the staff to keep them out of the hotel wing, visions of them rifling rooms, taking showers, squatting and generally raising Cain floating like sugar plums all through my head.

“Hi-i-i-i-i!”

Wherever I go, this happens. There’s some sexy, incredible, eligible lass who smiles, flirts and comes on to me JUST WHEN I’M TOTALLY ENGAGED IN OTHER BUSINESS. “Hi!” I say. I love this lady! Thirty years old, great brown eyes, gorgeous nose, high cheek bones, wide mouth, round little chin, a sweet figure in a cheap fake fur jacket, nice hands, pink gloves, bleached jeans, brown leather western boots. She sports sandy, windblown hair. Arching her blond eyebrows and laughing at me, she stands there waiting while I silently curse myself for pulling security. And, of course, I get called away to explain house rules to a group of 20-something frat boys. This always happens!

When white men in suits proceed to inspect every inch of the facility, I naturally assume they’re the Feds. It turns out they are lawyers representing the Oneida Indian Nation of New York, here to ensure that we in no way perpetrate the coinage “Redskin” in either our décor or our activities.

At precisely 10:32 p.m., with military precision, the front doors swing open and bearded young men in kaffiyehs, bearing AK-47’s, flood the casino, stamping their feet and shaking off snow. They smell of jasmine, sweat and hashish. They also seem momentarily bewildered by the scene. Gracious as always, our serving staff offers them hors d’oeuvres: pigs-in-a-blanket, bacon wrapped asparagus on a toothpick, pulled pork fritters. Our visitors, Muslims, are not amused. Their leaders quickly organize them into groups, instructing them in Arabic to put an end to this nest of Satanic, despotic idolatry. Even when the intruders physically intervene— grabbing the ball off the roulette wheel, seizing the dice— the Indians go right on drinking and carousing.

“We hereby declare this area as the Islamic Republic of South Dakota!” decree the insurgents, hoisting the yellow and green flag of Hezbollah atop the espresso machine. Even this outrage scarcely makes a dent in the bacchanalia. Only when they begin blowing up the Mercedes automobiles parked in the back lot, do the Indians go on the warpath.

“Come with me,” says Frank. Opening the door to the kitchen, he counts heads, then arms us with pig-stickers, butcher knives dipped in swine blood, sides of bacon and various dismemberment utensils. Our two most intrepid young warriors, Robin’s Egg Atop Coyote Poop and Plays With His Thingy, exit the larder wearing the heads of wild boar. Turning out the lights, the wily redmen stalk the heavily armed militants, slicing throats, stabbing and castrating with vehement determination. Many an Arab extremist is sent into the waiting arms of his 72 virgins in Paradise.

Git some! ” enthuses Frank, the banzai call of soldiers since the reign of Alexander the Great. Rarely have I witnessed a more unequal battle.

Nary a shot is fired before an eerie silence descends on the premises, the air pungent, sticky with blood.

“Indian anger knows no bounds,” say the Stolichnaya.

Weary, I sit on a twisted barstool and drink coffee while the Stolis collect scalps. Charlie climbs out of a pantry and offers me a slice of lemon pie, but my mouth is so cottony, I find it impossible to eat.

“I’m not going to die without losing my virginity!” Charlie announces, obviously traumatized, clutching my hand. Since the elevators are out of service, we trudge up three flights to her room. Locking the door and putting on the chain, we undress, my trusty pig-poker— with its scimitar blade— always within reach.

I do her. Therapeutically. To great acclaim, her rosebud mouth plastering me with kisses. “Can’t we move to a state where they let you get married at, like, thirteen?” she asks me conversationally.

“So now you want to marry me?”

“I’m just sayin’…”

*

            Flying home, momentarily B.B.E.— Befuddled By Events— I forget and try to pass through airport security with an honorary Indian tomahawk in my shoulder bag. This is seized by the TSA with a great deal of consternation.

*

My $91,000 Electric Golf Cart

 

            “This doesn’t suck,” says my younger bro’ Tim, admiring a towel-warmer for his wife. We are at the Brookstone cool knickknack store at Montgomery Mall in Rockville, Maryland. They feature a variety of 6-inch fly-in-the-house attack helicopters, as well as plastic quadricopter drones that hover at chest level and survey the room with an on-board camera.

“If people coming to dinner are greeted by a four-propeller drone, I don’t think anybody will stay for dinner,” I point out.

“Say what you will, they are pretty neat,” counters Tim.

I try the Osim all-leather electric massage chair, a $3,600 item reduced to $3,300 for the holidays. In the anti-gravity position, you float on your back helplessly ensconced in leather. Hey, it’s cheaper than a ticket for a sub-orbital flight and you don’t have to wait five years for the technology to catch up with demand. Nothing, however, beats the $60 super-bungee chair. Awesome! You sit in a web of bungee cords, bobbing up and down like a cork. For $60! Your perfect ride.

We are at the Mall to test-drive the $91,000 Model S Tesla electric auto. Because Tesla isn’t authorized to sell in Maryland, their reps are limited to general P.R. For example, the driving instructor isn’t allowed to quote me a purchase price! Fortunately, sitting in the back seat, Tim looks it up on his iPad.

The last time I got an electric car, it was under the Christmas tree. Driving the Model S feels about the same, either you’re pressing the accelerator and the car moves forward or you are not and the car slows down. Abruptly. Grinding to a halt. It corners well, driving is comfortable. The seats, steering wheel and mirrors all adjust. It is a fine ride but not a whole lot more fun than your late model Corolla.

You can adjust the rack-and-pinion steering between sport, standard and comfortable. Wow! That makes a noticeable difference: sports car tension vs. standard control vs. the floating sensation of driving a boat.

“If you’re looking to impress,” says jet pilot Tim, “buy a Mercedes or BMW for $50,000. By the time the Canadians mine the ore and ship it to China, the Chinese refine it and the Japanese manufacture the batteries and ship them State-side, the carbon footprint of an electric car is equivalent to a Hummer.”

I’m a proud supporter of Tesla — even if they never have $29 tees in stock smaller than XXL.

 

— Kevin

Killing Me Incrementally

@henrytheclear  

            It’s the last week of August, 2013. I walk through this town lonely as a bean. That’s during the daytime, of course. At night, I stand before le miroir  in the bathroom of my cheap hotel room and make love to myself. A disciple of I Ching, I embrace the power of solitude. Prostitutes hustling tricks downtown sense my power. Of course, I have to take out my roll of hundred dollar bills and wave it in their faces, but they sense it. No one ever called a harlot prescient.

I eat my meals at Ben’s Chili Bowl, an historic landmark. I’m told that even the president eats there! A little too many nègres, but they are the flavor of the month: Reverse apartheid, everybody brags about having at least one black friend.

Checking the Activities section of the newspaper, I find several public events that might attract a hard-cooked liberal like Janika: The March On Washington, the Martin Luther King, Jr. 50th Memorial celebration, a hearing regarding three ex-Naval Academy footballers accused of rape. This last is being held at the Washington Navy Yard. Excited at the prospect of imminent action, I disassemble, oil, reassemble and test-fire my firearms, sans ammo.

I think it was Alexandre Dumas Sr. who first told us to “cherchez la femme.”

I show up Tuesday morning, August 27th, for the 8:30 a.m. Navy Yard hearing, but Janika’s not there. I spot another woman with luxuriant red hair, but she lacks Janika’s Neptunian green eyes and pendulous breasts the size of fresh cantaloupes.

Turns out the March On Washington reenactment was last Saturday. That only leaves the MLK-50 event tomorrow. Knowing her, she’ll be there! I mustn’t fail! Returning to my hotel room with a fifth of Scotch, I get thoroughly plastered.

*

@janiecock

            Well! Dear “Smartyhearts,” my new smartphone diary app! — I don’t know how others spend their time here in the nation’s capital but I have bought bobble head dolls of Barack and Michelle Obama and even Bo the White House dog. I found the cutest donkey pin which the salesperson insisted represents one of the political parties. I forget which one. Imagine that! An ass! What a bunch of donkeys!

Let’s see. I’ve been to the Corcoran, the National Gallery of Art, the Air and Space Museum, the Hirshhorn and the Natural History Museum. This last to meet my contact André who told me to keep my wits about me since word has arrived that our movements haven’t completely escaped the attention of our old friends at La Sécurité.

Bliksems!

*

@henrytheclear

            I wasn’t always like this. I once had a wife named Monique, but she left me to go play the sitar in India. Effete cow! When I met her, she was a flamenco guitarist and had never touched a sitar in her life. The job opened up and within a day, she went and purchased one. How do you compete with a musical instrument as seductively round, profound and fulfilling as that? Her little baby, plink, plank, plunk! Monique spent 20 hours a day practicing. I guess I should have felt proud that my wife was becoming the new Ravi Shankar, but it also meant she was abandoning our marriage. All I know about India is how to make curry rice. Familiarity breeds contempt.

Needing to blend in here in DC, I buy a dirt bike. The black community and law enforcement are at loggerheads over off-road biking on city streets. I figure I can use that to my advantage, camouflaging myself as a local bro’ while inching closer to my prey.

“Who da fuck is you?!” ask a pack of about 20 angry young black men, roaring into a circle around me at the intersection of Alabama Ave. and Branch Ave. SE.

“Wha’ yo’ beef?!” I reply, pulling up my tee to reveal my bidness.

“FUCK YOU!” they scoff, pulling up their tees to reveal everything from Smith & Wesson .38’s to Glock 21’s to a sawed-off shotgun.

Merde! “Uh-h-h-h,” I improvise. “My bad!”

“Get the fuck off that bike!” says a gnarly older dude. No sooner have I relinquished the seat than a local kid, maybe thirteen, squeals with delight, knocks my hands from the controls and takes over my ride. From sidewalk to saddle in less than 10 seconds!

“Listen— ” I try to warn them, just as Jan & Dean sang in the 1960’s, “You’ll get a ticket sooner or later if you can’t keep your foot off the accelerator.” I’m talking to an acrid white cloud of exhaust fumes. The throaty roar of their bikes— and mine— echoes into the distance.

I start walking. I get picked up by a good Samaritan white guy driving a Prius. Concerned for my safety, he lists several reasons why I shouldn’t be in that neighborhood. “Down here, you’re right in the middle of it,” he points out. “It” being African-Americans. It’s the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s speech  and the March On Washington, and this well-wisher is suggesting that white folks avoid contact with blacks or pay the consequences. What is wrong with this picture?

*

@janiecock

            Dear diary— Aren’t I just like Anne Frank? I simply have to write things down to validate my emotions. So… Georgetown just overflows with the most fun shops ever. What a joke that Americans can’t get their fill of Danish Modern. I mean… how quaint can you get?

Adams Morgan is the perfect venue for trolling the bars and hooking up with naive young professionals. I can’t even walk into Smoke & Barrel without boys lining up to buy me a craft beer. That’s the inconvenience of being charismatic, everybody LOVES me. I order German sour ale and that floors them!

When I lead some horny young stud back to my “room” and make wild sex, he has no idea that my “uncles” will pop out of the closet and hold him at gunpoint. We show him the video on a smartphone, threaten to tweet it all over the Twitterverse and my work is done! Poor little poopsies! They look so disappointed. Hey, dudes, that’s what happens when you twerk around! Can’t you keep your hands off my swinging little derrière? Don’t roll the dice if you can’t afford the price! I know, getting sandbagged has all the appeal of rutting season at a petting zoo. Oh well! At least we don’t demand money. All we want is to influence legislation. That is worth so much more! I douche, powder myself and return to prowl the jungle of opportunity that is summer among these awkward, young millennials in Washington, DC.

*

@henrytheclear

            I’m no military historian, but I must give credit where it is due: Kurds are fearless, going to war with AK-47’s and flip-flops.

I suspect Janika is in the U.S.A. to link up with members of the Sovereign Citizen Movement. They believe that all government is oppressive. Anarchists are immature brats. Bakunin’s anarchy is a political placebo for people who are too lazy and terrified to commit themselves to a higher calling. Nietzsche’s nihilism and Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism are flamboyantly expressive, but they require you to live your life as a drama queen. I should talk! My coworkers call me “the Sam Spade of assassination.” Only Louis Ferdinand Céline and Franz Kafka successfully thread the needle of life’s incongruity. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Le Fantôme connait!

Clever, as always, Janika is financing her aggressive lifestyle with patentable inventions: Marketing online, her current product is a simple conversion kit for making your automobile into a car bomb in five minutes or less. “Who woulda thunk it,” as the Americans says. I don’t want to call Janika a sociopath. Like America’s Bill Maher, she simply has difficulty divining where the line goes between politically incorrect and totally anti-social. She lives life large, giving society an exorbitant gesture with her nuanced middle finger.

*

@janiecock

            Dear diary— Yes, they find my Dutch accent exotic, but I find their American drawl equally quixotic. I can always spot a Californian— by ear! “Rar ru ra rum na oobloo bum,” they say. How can people talk that way? Like they have a mouth full of marbles. Must run! Bert says he’s spotted a boy who sounds like he might be interning at the NSA. What a catch!

Push-up bra from Victoria’s Secret, ankle chain from Tiffany’s. Wish me luck! Cheers!

*

@henrytheclear

            August 28th. Now I’m ready! I mean, I’m here on the Mall. I’ve passed through magnetometers at three checkpoints on 17th Street and received two pat-downs. That hasn’t stopped me from visiting my secret stash amidst the shrubbery. My bidness nestles securely in my waistband, a .38 special sits in a holster at the small of my back and an ankle holster cradles a .45 under my left pant leg. It’s either kill Janika or star as Dirty Harry in a Hollywood movie. Fortunately, it’s a rainy day with a chance of thundershowers. I can wear a gray plastic raincoat and long pants without attracting undue attention. I am so ready! True, there must be 100,000 people here today, but after all, it shouldn’t be too hard to pick Janika out of the crowd.

*

@janiecock

            Dear diary— Don’t you just hate rain? My hair is a mess! I’ve been tweeting to my followers, mostly boys who paid a pound of flesh for their adulation only to discover they are UNABLE to let go! It isn’t MY FAULT that my sweet laughter has ensnared them for ever and ever and ever and ever!!! They LOVE me. I’m Janika, I’m nice. So I let them adore me. Tee-hee!

What a crowd! I say “Hi!” and everybody says “Hi!” in return. It’s like we’re all one big happy family! I make no pretense of being negroid, but in my Rihanna “Clean Your Clock” T-shirt, I fit right in. Put that weapon down, girl! (Who remembers the video?) I ask if the president will speak and people say “Oh yeah!” in that funny American sing-song. I’d rather be here than in Den Helder any day! I think it was wrong of the LAPD to beat up Martin Luther King’s nephew Rodney. For shame! Although I do enjoy watching Larry on TV. Such a talented family!!! They’re just like the Jacksons. Anyway, I want to get as close as I can to take some shots of the president with my phone. I can use them as conversation-starters anywhere— “Hi, I met the president of the United States at the Lincoln Memorial and he gave a speech.”

Zo cool!

*

@henrytheclear

            Crowds aren’t my thing. Normally, I investigate my quarry, gain an understanding of their behavioral tics, await an opportunity and… strike! Here, it’s taking hours just to locate the bitch.

I have a dream! That I’ll be able to subdue and cuff Janika without the use of lethal force. Joking! Had you going there for awhile, n’est-ce pas? Il n’y a pas raison de diminuer l’engagement. Who knows, maybe I can bore her to death. Discuss French politics…

Eventually, I find her by the Reflecting Pool, about 100 feet from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, just past the sign that says “NO GREEN PAINT BEYOND THIS POINT!” Janika is jammed in among the gawkers and tweeters. As I surge forward, making very little headway, our eyes meet.

“You!” she gasps as the president’s well-rounded phrases ring out over the crowd: “And so they came by the thousands, from every corner of our country— men and women, young and old, blacks who longed for freedom and whites who could no longer accept freedom for themselves while witnessing the subjugation of others. Across the land, congregations sent them off with food and with prayer,” says Obama. “In the middle of the night, entire blocks of Harlem came out to wish them well.”

One in five Americans think that Obama is a Muslim.

“I know you!” Janika hisses, clawing at my face with green-painted stiletto nails. “You’re a European assassin. You’re French! What the hell are you doing here?”

And then, on a hot summer day, they assembled here, in our nation’s capital, under the shadow of the great emancipator, to offer testimony of injustice, to petition their government for redress and to awaken America’s long-slumbering conscience,” says the president.

One in five Mitt Romney voters think Obama is the Antichrist.

“Hello! So how’s the terrorism business?” I growl at Janika. “Did you see where the Americans whacked al-Qaeda’s number two man? How about this Syrian Electronic Army? Pretty wild, huh? K’suckt muck! Sickening, serious snapshots supposedly show Syrian siblings suddenly stuck somewhere so sensational, someone should share some sequential solutions. Listen, that’s war! Times are tough all over. I’m not here to sing you a song of woe, Janika. I’ve been sent to even the score.” I find the crush of humanity too tight for me to get a clear shot. I’ll have to devise a feint.

“I’m getting a cop!” swears Janika.

Aha! As she slides sideways out of the crowd, I follow suit. There! Now! Reaching for my waistband, bam! Janika clobbers me over the head with a full Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center double-stitched, reinforced nylon tote bag emblazoned with black straps, a black bottom and a full-color portrait of a lighthouse. The Velcro fasteners leave welts across my face. What does she have in there? Books? Groceries? Bricks? Sacré bleu!

            Whatever.

“Every time I use this,” she screams, “I am carrying a message of hope for cancer patients and their families everywhere! Even in Malaysia!”

“Give it a rest, Janika!” I bellow, but I’m wasting my breath.

There were couples in love who couldn’t marry, soldiers who fought for freedom abroad that they found denied to them at home. They had seen loved ones beaten and children fire-hosed. And they had every reason to lash out in anger or resign themselves to a bitter fate,” says the president.

One in ten Americans think the Mid-Atlantic gray squirrel should replace the bald eagle as the symbol of American sovereignty.

Fifty years hence, the grandchildren of these Americans will hold another March On Washington, still crying for economic equality. Life is unfair, there will always be “haves” and “have-nots.”

Jamming a gun against Janika’s head, I frog-march her around to the backside of the Lincoln Memorial, the side facing the bridge. I want to drag her down to the Potomac and feed her to the bull sharks, but we are surrounded by police officers, their guns drawn. “Drop your weapon!” one screams.

I do.

“Fucking A,” he exclaims, moving closer and frisking me. “This guy is a fucking arsenal!”

I could grab le flic in a judo grip, twist him in front of me as a human shield, pull the revolver from my ankle holster and blast away in several directions. Instead, I play my ace in the hole: “I have diplomatic immunity!”

“Wha-at?”

“Get real!”

“Tell it to the judge, ass-hole!”

“You all right, young lady?”

Bâtards! “Wait!” I command, hands held high. “Unhand me! Return my armament. I am an honorary consul of República de Cabo Verde!”

They gape at me like I’ve just pulled a banana out of my nose.

“It’s true!” I insist. “The Cape Verde Islands!” Never-the-less, I am handcuffed and led away to a police van. Je ne m’en fous! Win some, lose some. When it comes to terrorism, I’d rather be on the inside looking out than on the outside looking in.

As a French citizen, I ask to speak to the judge privately in his chambers. He grants me my wish. “I am Henri Le Claire,” I explain. “The woman I was trying to eliminate is Janika Kuuk, chief operative of the DSP, La Défense Socialiste Pluviale, closely aligned with the FARC guerillas deep in the rainforest of Colombia. When we failed to get extradition papers on her, I was sent here on an ad hoc basis to… alleviate the problem.” I end lamely, holding aloft my manacled hands.

“Put your hands down,” orders the judge. “Why didn’t you tell the police officers to hold the girl for questioning?”

“I did! But they seemed to think I was the bad guy and she la victime innocente.”

“Harrumph!” grunts the judge. I’m returned to a holding cell, but eventually the French Chargé d’Affaires comes to the courthouse and arranges my release.

“You sure made a mess of this one,” he observes with Gallic forthrightness.

“The more things change,” I observe, “the more they remain the same!”

*

Eulogy to a Mystery Writer

  

            Hardboiled detective writer Arturo Dinkelstam is dead. He died as he lived, a resident of ennui, doubt and Santa Monica, California. Age: 66. Cause of death, a heart attack. L.A. isn’t my cup of tea but I’ve flown out here on a moment’s notice to do justice to an old friend with whom I grew up. Passing over innumerable wildfires, the weather is still too pristine for words, with temps in the 80’s.

Known as “Arthur” to his readers above the Rio Grande, it’s true that Arturo (his preferred handle) made his living as a copywriter grinding out luscious prose for mail order catalogs in the lingerie industry:

“This frilly, fluffy wholly appropriate teddy just waits for the right fingertips to caress its soft, supple cloth, unfasten its snaps and slink into nothing less than imperial elegance. Imported cotton/nylon/spandex. Available in Large, Special and Extra Large sizes for the discerning woman.”

There are those who will decry Arthur’s/Arturo’s place in the pantheon of hardboiled detective writers because he was self-published.

It was a dark and stormy morning at Lex & Borden copyshop. “Dinkelstam’s gone,” reported Craig “Molson” Larson to his crusty, moustachioed boss, the incorrigible James “Jim” Rothgate.

“What d’ya mean, gone?!” thundered Rothgate, who knew a thing or two about proofreading marks. His specialty was the squiggly line over the reversed letter “e”. “How can he be gone? Page 11 in the October issue. Two Brazilian supermodels entwining a mangy goat. We can get in a lot of trouble unless the copy is exactly right. I CAN’T DO IT! YOU CAN’T DO IT! Get Dinkelstam!”

“He’s dead, boss.”

The shock made Rothgate physically ill. He clutched the high, black composite plastic back of his executive office chair as images of a small dog rabidly disappearing into the middle distance flooded his brain.

*

Genealogist Lev Kosygin tells me Arturo and I may be related on Lev’s uncle’s side. Since Lev and I are fifth cousins, I find a Dinkelstam connection tenuous at best. “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” according to Lev, everyone is related to everyone else in some way. Fuhgeddaboudit!

Philologist Harvey Crystal posits Dinkel as a form of German Dunkel or “darkness.” Stam is the equivalent of the English “clan” or “tribe,” so Dinklestam comes out meaning “tribe of darkness.” Nothing would have pleased Arturo more! “Hitler’s family name,” adds Harvey, “was Schickelgruber, meaning ‘trader of the hollow.’ German is lousy with family names made up of two-word combinations.”

Arthur’s detractors will insist that the low sales figures of his three outstanding novels limited his influence. True, his first book sold only 17 copies in hardback, but Arthur contributed over 100 copies to local libraries and the USO. His second book— considered by some to be his masterpiece— sold a respectable 152 copies. Not bad for a self-published vanity project in an industry chock-a-block with talented competitors. His third and last effort returned to the disappointing teens in hardcover, but saw somewhat brisker sales as a trade paperback. Ninety-eight copies might not sound like a lot, but it is the spirit of Arthur’s writing that impresses:

“Boozily, he sucked on her D-cup sized breasts. Tammy Sue’s languid fingers massaged deep into the murky lust of his consciousness, kneading his brow and temples with uncontrollable abandon. Slowly, searchingly, her right hand extended down, down, across his chest, his stomach, along his hip to the repository of his power: His left-hand pants pocket and the brown, alligator skin wallet resting therein.”

Wow! That’s writing.

Here are three testimonials I have gathered.

Mahjong Washington, a black man discreetly panhandling on Santa Monica Pier: “You The Heat? You Five-O? No? Well, yes, I know who you talkin’ ’bout. Dinkelstam. I was in the Army an’ read one o’ his books in boot camp. Damn fine author! Say, bro’, you got change of a twenty? Or maybe you just give me a twenty an’ we calls it even.”

Leon Backus, next door neighbor: “The neighbor from Hell. No, don’t object! You asked. I expect you to be honest and include my answer. You can’t edit out negative criticism. That’s what Arthur never learned. It’s not enough to call yourself a ‘Renaissance man.’ You also need to clear the derelict jalopies on cinderblocks from your front yard.”

Juliette Bush, checkout lady at the local grocery: “Dinkelhauser? Dinkelhurst? Oh, Dinkelstam! Yes, of course. She’s Chancellor of West Germany. I admire her. I had no idea she had died!”

Perhaps soliciting comments from local denizens isn’t the best approach.

*

            Elmore Leonard, Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane and other titans of the genre exhibited styles equally distinctive as Arthur’s, to larger audiences and with greater commercial success. Never-the-less, Arthur attempted to hold his own. “I’m a leviathan,” he complained in 2010, only too aware that the proliferation of the blogosphere shattered his last, lingeringly rebellious reason for being. “How can I be the go-to guy for alternative literature when everybody is the go-to guy?” Arthur groused, still smoking a pack of menthol cigarettes a day and sinking scotch on the rocks several times every afternoon, Old School. Empty, decorative bottles littered his waste baskets both at home and at work.

His most lasting feud was with manager Stan Teller at Santa Monica Books & Smokes, the funky bookstore facing the beach. Arthur begged Stan to mix copies of his work in the remainder bin, going so far as to surreptitiously drop several into the square, dusty, black metal receptacle by the door. “I would have stocked his stuff,” reminisces Stan upon news of Arthur’s passing, “but I felt such trash lowered the quality of the entire bookstore experience, y’know?”

As with the exceptional Tesla electric automobile, it’s hard to argue with the man who owns one!

You’ll be missed, Arturo! Your penchant for maudlin self-aggrandizement. Your tendency, when criticized, to go into attack mode. Your needling, whiny demands for ever larger financial loans to support your ever more grandiose literary ambitions. You won’t be forgotten!

— Kevin Feingold

*

I Have A Dream, 2013

  

            Good day to you all here at the Lincoln Memorial.  They’ve scrubbed off the green paint and we are celebrating freedom. Your freedom and mine. Yours because you are Americans. Mine because this is my last term in office. I am a lame duck president, but I am not a quack. Get it? Duck… quack. That one is from my daughter Masha. Thank you, Masha! Okay. I like the pomp and speechmaking but not the circumstances. Too much responsibility. I like the pageantry and photo ops but not the boring administrative details. The Oval Office is for squares. Give me the campaign trail. Give me the open road! Hand me the mike! That defines who I am.

You elected me as a deeply stirring motivational speaker. That defines who you are!

I have a dream! That the people of Latvia will link hands and sing a song of freedom. I’m told the Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians did that on August 23, 1989 to great effect. They formed a human chain that stretched over 370 miles. Anyway, Latvia is important as the source of Stolichnaya vodka. Listen, if there’s no Stoli, there is a lot less fun in this world! And we surfers know fun.

Fifty years ago today, on these very steps of the Lincoln Memorial— on August 28, 1963— Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have A Dream” speech. My response at the time was “Mommy, mommy, lookee!” After all, I was living in surfurbia in Hawaii and only two years old. As a fellow orator, I admire King’s speech: his elocution, his wording, his phrasing, his extemporaneous outbursts of divine inspiration. Hopefully, today, I can emulate that fine oratory and continue in the great tradition of Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Patrick Henry, Henry Clay, John Wilkes Booth and all the other rabble-rousing, crowd-pleasing Cicero’s of their time and place. Hang five!

I speak to you today as one nation under God, indivisible. Specifically, I address all people with a room temperature I.Q. or above. You’re the ones who vote.

In spite of life inside the presidential bubble, I know blacks, liberals and Democrats are all bellyaching that I haven’t delivered. Well, that’s a two-way street. I often feel like Harrison Ford in a movie asking, “Who are you people? What do you people want?!”

I am a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness! I am a communard but not a communist. Nothing new about that. As George W. Bush’s Chief of Staff Andrew Card once pointed out, “You don’t introduce new products in August…”

In the face of Egypt’s violence and bloodletting, allow me to quote the Wiesenthal Center’s Efraim Zuroff who wisely said, “To get a Nazi in prison you have to take a photo of him in his underwear.” Take a moment, people, and think about that! All I’m saying is: Before you tweet any more selfies of your junk, folks, consider what happened to Anthony Weiner. ‘Nuff said!

I have a dream! That unlike George III, my later years will be spent as king of Togo. Stranger things have happened. Google it and you’ll find it on the map. Let me be clear. We’re black and I cannot envision a finer ending to my meaningful political career. At least as king of Togo, I’ll get a little respect! No more carping Tea Party conservatives, Fox News commentators and midwestern 47%-ers to deal with. The ethics in this country have more holes than Swiss cheese. I could drop an F bomb here, but I am showing restraint for the sake of our children. This speech is rated “G” for general audiences.

I’m criticized for letting Vladimir Putin run roughshod over human rights. I do have an answer to both the critics and President Putin: As the rock band Love‘s immortal lead singer Arthur Lee once sang, “Boo bip bip, boo bip bip, yeah!”

I have a dream! That Putin will release the imprisoned young ladies in Pussy Riot as a gesture of reconciliation toward the “Hello, Kitty” generation and freedom-loving punk music enthusiasts everywhere. Thank you Masha and Natasha for that addition to my speech!

To our visitors from outer space, quarantined in Area 51 in Nevada, I say “Greetings! Abu nabu nosferatu! ” Like at Guantanamo, we would love to release you guys, but we don’t know how to do it without polluting the atmosphere, bringing on terrorist attacks, etc. ‘Nuff said!

The staff of Secretary of State John Kerry has asked me to insert the following sentences, although I freely admit to my personal mystification as to the “why.” Well, okay, then, here goes: America is not the liberal country many of us envision and desire. We forget this at our peril. The American people prize freedom over regulation, individual rights over the good of the community, “me, me, me, I got mine.” That makes it damn hard to govern.

Thank you, John, for those kind words!

I have a dream! That here today the Esmé Louder Band will play songs from their new album “For Love of Squalor.”

We want you to have fun, we want this to be an all-day event. As soon as it turns dark, we’ll have an extra showing of “Screen on the Green” right here on The Mall. Tonight’s movie is Harry Poofter and the Songs of Usher. For ninety minutes, we watch Harry and his girlfriend Abigail Storm listen to songs by Usher on a Bose sound system in his bedroom. They also chew gum and talk. A compelling slice-of-life docudrama. Whose executive producers contributed a nice chunk of change to my 2012 campaign. See? Full disclosure. This administration has nothing to hide! Nothing we’d tell you about, at any rate.

God bless you and GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!

*