Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Mourning the Dead Men


Big fucking deal, Saddam Hussein’s dead and Gerald Ford is dead. Now, please, can we just move on? Actually, we shouldn’t really move on from the Saddam death. We should be using the injustice of it all to rally the citizen troops to bring the military troops home right this minute. How many blunders, after all, are we going to let this idiot-boy-king president of ours get away with?

Time’s up, Georgie. In fact, you’ve been playing in what seems like the world’s longest game of overtime ninniness. Oh yeah, that’s why we have what they call “oppositional” parties, right? Now THAT’S funny.

If any of you so-called insiders have an ear with the new majority Dems, do me a favor and wake the bastards up. And, yes, I want a hell of a lot more from them than this silly little public relations bullshit from Nancy Pelosi about working really, really hard in their “first 100 hours.” Sorry, but that’s exactly what we saw when Clinton became president in 1993. He talked real cool for about 100 hours – you remember, he jazzed us up about health care and letting gays have the same rights to kill in the military (oh baby, purr, purr) and then the opposition said “boo” and he turned his creepy eyes toward interns. The rest, as they say, is history.

And, if history really repeats itself, old Nancy will be caught lifting her skirt for some power-hungry intern in the 101st hour of her great legislative revolution.

[Snarky editor intervenes: Yo, Snarky, you’re on the wrong track here. And, besides, you’re making me sick.]

Sorry about that.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah, death. Saddam is still dead. Gerald Ford is still dead. And, goddamn it, James Brown is still dead, too. Personally, I’m getting through this first day back to work bullshit by entertaining my mind with notions of the three of them all spending some quiet time together in purgatory. Face it, there’s endless entertainment in that scenario. And at least I’ll admit it.

While toiling away today on some ridiculous inside paint job, with some nagging homeowner with way too much fucking time on her hands watching my every move, I got to listen to some of the Gerald Ford funeral proceedings. It really only needs one word to describe it: Boring. And, being the Snarky Boy of wordiness, I’m going to use some more words: Goofy, pompous, suffocating, artificially spiritual, and, well, a complete waste to time and resources.

Despite the typical rush by nearly everyone to anoint the newly dead as shitters of the great stinkless shit, let me be among the lonely few who will say: Gerald Ford was a Republican Ass. He was a keeper of the Republican flame of protecting those with wealth and power and – on his good days – throwing crumbs to the rest of us. He was hideous on Middle Eastern politics – just go back and listen/watch the debates with Carter. He denied the country the right to truly right the wrongs of Tricky Dick, thus carrying on the notion to this day that presidents should be allowed to get away with all kinds of illegal shit. Notice, dear readers, I said “illegal shit,” thus denying Clinton’s constant pursuit of the legal blowjob from the umbrella of presidential forgiveness. Whatever.

My favorite radio station, WDEV, made one of its few programming errors – outside of still giving the rightwing lunatic Paul whatever-the-fuck-is-his-last-name and Anthony Tediously Boring Pollina their programs – by trying to broadcast the funeral live. Ouch. While it was still a bit more lively than the average Pollina show (and without the apologies, platitudes, and healthy doses of “ums,” “whatchacallits” and all-too-frequent assaults on the English language), it was a super bad decision to carry such an event on live radio.

If you don’t believe me, consider the fact that it took the pickled Betty Ford about 15 minutes to walk to her seat. Yep, 15 minutes to walk. Now imagine how fucking exciting that was on the radio.

The truth is, no one really seemed to want to be at the Ford funeral, and I’m sure there couldn’t have been more than a few political lunatics like yours truly who bothered to listen. I mean, come on, he was an accidental president whose most important acts were letting a felonious president walk scot-free and entertaining a nation by stumbling over his own tongue or feet.

Oh fuck, just bury the guy, and stop dragging his shriveling wife all over the goddamn country for these ridiculous public farewells. Shit, old Betty was probably just hoping the cameras would all just go away so she could finally have that drink she promised Gerald she’d never have again. Halleluiah, she must have been thinking, put the fucker in the ground and get me a Vodka Gimlet.

Sorry, Betty, no such luck today, because the pompous asses of politics and power elite etiquette would be forcing a nation to endure the nonsensical droning of the likes of the Bush presidents, Henry Kissinger and Tom Brokaw. Yikes.

The best performance was clearly by Henry Kissinger because I’m sure no one could understand a goddamn word he was saying. He clearly forgot to spit out the mouthful of gravel he gulped before taking the podium. And as Central Vermont listeners of Jim Hogue’s WGDR radio show know, Jim does a better imitation of Kissinger than Kissinger does of himself. Thus, I was sure old Jim made the pilgrimage to DC to pull one over on the nest of ninnies who gathered for this presidential farewell.

But since I know Hogue didn’t travel to DC – mostly because I doubt he had permission from Craig Hill – I’ll have to withdraw my nomination of Kissinger and, instead, hand my best performance at the Ford funeral nomination to George Bush the Senior. And that’s only because George Sr. actually did an imitation of Dana Carvey imitating him as president. It was way surreal. All I can add is, if you missed it, look it up.

Oh fuck it, I’m done with this shit. I’m going to go and try to find Betty Ford at the bar. You’re on your own folks. Thanks for stopping by.