Adaptive Curmudgeon

Dave Barry has the “mocking Florida” situation well in hand. For that public service we should all thank him. A while ago I bought his first pure fiction book: Big Trouble. It was excellent and I recommend it to everyone. (My dog would like to note that the book was released in 1999 and I probably read it then. My dog insists that 18 years is not “a while”. I would like to note that my dog is overly pedantic and will not get a treat after dinner tonight.)

After I read the book I eagerly awaited the move; called (creatively enough) Big Trouble. I loved the movie too. I recommend it to everyone as well. The movie playfully satirized just about everything Floridian. I think we can all agree that’s a task that needs doing.

Unfortunately, a portion of the plot involved lambasting inept airport security. With cosmic levels of bad luck, the movie was scheduled to be released on September 21, 2001. Ten days before the movie’s release, America suddenly lost all sense of humor.

Dave Barry’s movie was good. He should be living in a solid gold house. But life isn’t like that.

So, why am I rambling about a decades old movie? Because of Gator fans. Here’s a clip from the movie:

You know who else is a Gator fan? Former United States Congresswoman Corrine Brown.  She’s the one that reminded me of the menace of Gator fans. Mrs. Brown served in Congress from 1993 until she lost in 2016. Recently, in an event which I desperately want to believe would have happened no matter what party won (because to think otherwise is depressing), she was convicted of tax fraud involving a bogus charity (it sounded like an open and shut case). This Monday she was sentenced to 5 years.

More to the point, she’s a Gator fan and therefore should be mocked. In particular, at 2:20 she utters a sentence that I still, after playing it several times, cannot decode. What the fuck is she saying? The whole thing is 3:38, listen for yourself:

Yep, that’s a real Congressperson spending time at a podium during Congressional activities in 2009. She’s imparting the following crucial information:

“One, two, three, four, five, them there Gators don’t take no jive!”

Who needs to study the great philosophers? Cato the Elder, Seneca the Younger, Aristotle, Plato? Get real! All we need to know is Gators don’t take no jive. Bask in the glory of her words and wonder at the manifest excellent in governance before you!

Hat tip to Barnhardt and PJ Media and of course the great philosopher of our day, Dave Barry.

I’ve been busier than a one-armed paper hanger (hence the infrequent posts). However, I’ve blocked out a single hour in my overclocked insane unreasonable hectic schedule for my favorite show; Grand Tour. It starts again December 8th and I can’t wait:

I heartily recommend Grand Tour for the following reasons:

• Man did not invent the internal combustion engine simply to forget about it and navel gaze on Facebook.
• The “plot” of the show is to drive loud things fast. They do it for no reason other than joy; as God intended. I feel oppressed daily as nitwits tell me I should embrace the self driving car while paying for the latest light rail bond initiative and installing more speed bumps. I have to count to ten and remember that somewhere on earth the three fools from Grand Tour are happily blowing 30 liters of petrol just to start the engine of a wheeled creation that costs more than my house. Grand Tour is proof we’re not fully overrun by the humorless Borg-like hive mind of urbane human widgets that seem so numerous.
• So long as someone with a welder is doing something foolish, I’m not alone.
• They kill machinery in colorful ways that make the Dukes of Hazzard’s rein of terror on ’69 Dodge Chargers look like child’s play.
• None of them are idiots. Fine; they’re boyish, boorish, and bullshitters. But not idiots. They’re unlike the other 50 channels of room temperature IQ Ophrabots and Sportsballers.
• When Clarkson got fired from BBC for being an ass he, May, and Hammond promptly regrouped on Amazon. Thus, proving that private enterprise is awesome, the BBC are soulless harridans, and it’s fun to make bank.
• Clarkson is an ass. Not a whining little shithead who wants your vote or an apologetic wheedling little pansy, just an old fashioned ass. A loud one too. One with a budget. Who likes to blow shit up. It’s brilliant.
• May is proof that you can be a nerd yet still get to be famous and drive supercars. He also demonstrates the universal truth that “hold my beer” (or in Clarksonesque British-speak “how hard can it be”) will usually override a thoughtful discourse of weight, balance, and engineering principles.
• Hammond is proof that there are “Americans in spirit” that will inexplicably buy American muscle cars to drive around England.
• They go outlandish places in vehicles that are maladapted to the situation. They do this simply so I can enjoy the ensuing mess. They’re the reason I daydream of a motorcycle trip in Namibia. God bless em!
• The anti-binge-watch effect: Last year Amazon put out the show a week at a time (at least that’s how I remember it). Thus, I got to savor it a little at a time. Netflix’s method, delivery as if it were a load of gravel in a dump truck, turned the excellent Stranger Things into a headlong overdose that killed a weekend. I outgrew binge-watching shortly after wearing out a stack of VHS tapes when Twin Peaks went off the air in 1991. (Note: there’s no reason I can’t savor a “delivered en masse” Netflix product (as I do with BoJack Horseman which nobody in the house likes save me) but for Stranger Things it wasn’t my call.)
• Being Brits, they say things like “bloody hell” and “bollocks”. It pays to expand your vocabulary.

If you’re of a like mind, check it out. Think of it as an early Christmas moment for the “gearheads and fun” audience.

I made an editorial mistake in my last story. By the time you read this it will have been corrected. However, in the interest of transparency I’ll mention it here:

• Rand Paul is from Kentucky and he was injured in a “landscaping disagreement”. (The wombat and pencil sharpener thing is not yet public knowledge.)
• Paul Ryan is from Wisconsin and he was not injured in a “landscaping disagreement”. I’ve changed the text and apologize for the mistake.
• Harry Reid is from Nevada and he was injured in what he claimed to be “an attack by exercise equipment”. (The wombat and pencil sharpener thing is not yet public knowledge.) Harry Reid is also a lizard creature from Alpha Centauri.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got a 16 pound turkey to eat. Carry on.

What happens next is one of those black swan events that nobody (except Cokie Roberts) saw coming. Delightfully, this one made the world a better place.

Suddenly, possibly due to climate change, a blizzard swept in and blocked every street. Meanwhile the local cell service went down. For the first time in years (possibly their entire lives) the folks in Trump’s audience found themselves totally without instructions on what to do next. Meanwhile, zombies and Paul Ryan appeared and began to circle the White House.

Things look grim as the crowd stands there looking like especially stupid sheep. While the Secret Service expertly maintains a safe perimeter, they can’t coax the crowd to evacuate, or even go inside. The Secret Service has exceeded this year’s carbon emissions and thus can’t use a helicopter or vehicle to move people. They’ll just have to walk. Neither politicians nor the press are keen to do anything even remotely physical or practical, even if their life depends on it.

Not entirely unexpectedly, they’re ill-suited for the end times and they start to drop like flies. Any damn fool can get by for a while, even in bad conditions, but not so for DC Swamp Dwellers! Within eleven minutes, supplies of bottled water, tofu snacks, and Adderall have run out. Within the first hour, 80% of the assembled Congressmembers have starved. Nobody knows how a grown person can starve to death in less than two hours but Congress is up to the task! Some folks theorize that Congressional budgeting has trained them to burn through calories in mathematically improbably ways.

Fortunately, Trump is one with the twitterverse and therefore does not need to eat; he just hangs around buffering 140-character bits of wisdom for future use. The few remaining politicians with the tiniest hint of common sense slowly begin to work together. The press, at the first sign of common sense among politicians, commit suicide in a great screaming heap of irrelevancy. With few exceptions they’re all dead within minutes.

Cokie Roberts, sighing at the stupidity of it all, notices a few interns who are insufficiently indoctrinated to die at the thought of cooperation. She instructs them to toss the bodies to the zombies outside the White House barricades. “This happens all the time” she explains. The zombies are seeking brains and therefore want nothing to do with a pile of politicians and journalists. Meanwhile Ann Coulter grabs a stick and with a battle cry that would make Thor pee himself, starts stabbing zombies in an epic bloody rampage. “That happens too”, Cokie explains. The interns are learning a lot today. Cokie decides she’ll explain about the pencil sharpener and the wombat if they make it through the week.

Meanwhile, as a solution to standing in the snow and shivering, Congress informally drafts a select subcommittee to rediscover the secret of fire. This doesn’t work at all. Eventually a nearby janitor explains the whole thing. He also tries to get them to “get out of the goddamn snow and go inside” but that confuses them and they refuse.

Luckily it doesn’t matter. Bipartisanship is a powerful force for civilization and soon a bonfire is crackling merrily on the White House steps. It’s fed amply by the interns who, under Cokie’s direction, periodically disappear into the White House and emerge with armloads of unread regulatory paperwork.

Meanwhile, Trump, with his savant-like ability to see directly into the internet, has tuned to a website called “The Turkey’s Dead, Now What” and is reciting butchering instructions to Congress. The greatest minds in DC, after hours of study, eventually manage to butcher the bird. They’re all pleased to be as skilled as the average nine-year-old Amish boy.

Trump magnanimously invites anyone who’s present to join him for the “most awesomest Thanksgiving feast in the history of everything ever”. Then he tunes his mind directly into the internet trying to find out “how very great smart incredible Americans should cook this thing”. A Secret Service member makes a mental note to hire a nine-year-old Amish boy, especially if he knows how to cook, for just such situations. He glances over the crowd and makes another mental note to keep the child away from almost everyone in Congress.

The ensuing Thanksgiving dinner is delicious and everyone is happy. Except two PETA protesters that appear out of nowhere. Obviously, they’re thrown on the fire. A single octo, ovo, gluten free, vegan, localvore, emerges from the scant remaining press corps. She’s promptly fed to the zombies; who don’t like the taste.

The remaining members of congress mellow out and sit around the fire after the best meal of the year. They’re telling stories and drinking and acting like normal human beings. The snow looks beautiful. Cokie explains to the interns that this happens periodically in America; usually about once every few decades. That’s why we’re not currently living in mud huts. Alas the periodic correction has been a long time coming this cycle, which explains a lot. Cokie admits that she secretly invested in a mud hut factory several years ago but she’s happy to take the loss.

The zombies wander off to a nearby university where they seek ‘braiiiins’ in vain and eventually starve to death; though it’s rumored that several enrolled and got degrees in journalism. Rand Paul, who’s having the worst month in history, was subsequently runover by a Zamboni. Nobody seems to know why. There was a wombat painted on the machine. Don’t ask!

Within 24 hours, peace has broken out planet wide, as each nation, seeing Trump and his hair inexpertly aiming at a turkey, has a new appreciation for just how batshit crazy Americans really are. Except of course Vladimir Putin who is absolutely giddy to see someone with balls running any county anywhere. The unknown blogger remains blissfully aware of this; only pausing to muse at a Slate article titled “Turkeys Are Made Of Food, Who Knew?” and wonder what inspired such an insipid topic.

Merry Thanksgiving Y’all!

“Are you idiots finished?” Trump (or his hair) fumes.

There’s a general shuffling of feet and murmuring but yes, the remaining audience has indeed calmed down. Oddly, Rand Paul and Harry Reid are both missing. A sketchy individual had been seen lurking in their vicinity but fuhgeddaboudit. Nobody saw nuthin’ and nodoby’s sayin’ nothing ‘bout it. Trump, who has lived in New Jersey, saw the whole thing and utters not a peep about it.

The turkey is relieved the fuss has died down. It had no idea humans were so flighty.

“As I was saying, it’s a tradition that the turkey gets pardoned, but recently I talked to an obscure blogger that nobody cares about. (I Googled him and I can clearly state that there’s nobody less influential that this guy so he’s very very not important at all. I shouldn’t even mention him. People say ‘why did you mention that unpopular blogger’ and I answer ‘I don’t know.) He said I was lame. He said the ‘turkey thing’ was outdated and Washington needs new and younger players. He also said turkeys were made of food. How rude!”

Speaking of new and young players on the scene, excitable maverick Senator John McCain has fallen asleep. Next to him, fire breathing youthful powerhouse Ruth Bader Ginsburg is not only asleep but snoring loudly and drooling. She’s drooling on Cokie Robert’s shoes. Cokie thinks, for the millionth time, of retiring.

“Can you believe it?!?” Trump complains. “I’m a brazillionare, have sentient hair, and I’m the president. Yet some very not popular blogger who can barely maintain a Dodge called me lame. I’m tweeting about it.”

Every reporter’s cell phone dings as a new series of tweets assaults their inboxes. Trump has done this without moving his hands or touching a phone. Twitter is his matrix and he is the chosen one. Keanu Reeves senses a disturbance in the force and says “whoa”.

Trump continues. “I’m very very cool, almost godlike in my humility really, and it bothers me that someone who has a dog for an editor can insult me. After all I don’t have any editor at all. Plus, look at my hair. LOOK AT IT!”

Everyone looks at Trumps hair. It functions like the hypnotoad. Except Cokie, who is immune, and the turkey, which is smarter than most journalists.

“I’m calling him right now!” Trump holds up his phone. The Secret Service tenses and everyone in the White House staff begins to shake; Trump had another phone, a phone nobody knew about?!? The press leans forward. The turkey listens intently. Younger members of the press are wondering about this mysterious ‘call’ feature on his phone. Is it an app or something?

Trump dials, sets it to speaker phone, and positions it near the podium’s microphone. It rings for a full minute before it’s picked up.

“How did you get this number?” Comes a cranky voice on the other end.

“This is president Trump. I’m a president. You are not. I want you to know that I’m better than you.”

“Whatever. You killed that turkey yet?”

The press sucks in its breath. The unspeakable has been spoken!

“I’m going to pardon it. This will show I’m benevolent, except I’ll use littler words to say ‘benevolent’; maybe very very nice. I’ll be very very nice because I pardoned the turkey.”

“It’s livestock.”

“But…”

“Livestock!”

“People in cities don’t understand that food…”

“Eat. The. Turkey.”

“The PETA people will…”

“Fuck them. They’re standing around screaming helplessly at the sky. Or was that last week? I forget. Fresh turkey is delicious. Don’t forget the cranberries.”

“But the pollsters say…”

“Kill it! Now!”

Trump, and indeed the entire crowd, has never heard such a crude sentence. Is this a deplorable speaking? They can speak? They have telephones?!? Dianne Feinstein shouts from the crowd; “See what I mean? These people have guns! It’s not safe out there!”

Trump ponders for a second. The crowd waits with baited breath. The person on the phone has hung up. He said turkeys are made of food!! Most terrifyingly, he hung up on the president without asking for federal funding! Nobody meets the president without demanding money!

After three seconds, which is the longest Trump has ever pondered anything, Trump steps forward, nods to a Secret Service bodyguard who hands over his pistol, and with a smooth practiced New Jersey gangsta’ style sideways grip, aims, and fires.

He misses by a mile. The bullet ricochets off the metal bars of the turkey’s cage and spirals harmlessly off into space. Nine blocks away, Rand Paul is cowering in his natural habitat, a hipster coffeehouse, he’s just narrowly escaped [REDACTED BY THE NSA] but it was a close call. He clutches his coffee with shaking hands. The bullet flies through the window, bounces off the multiply pierced barista’s forehead (which is more metal than skin) and smacks Paul in the arm. “Ouch! What a month I’m having!” he moans.

Back at the White House steps, a thoroughly disgusted Secret Service bodyguard has retrieved his pistol and placed an expert shot in the Turkey’s head. Of course, nobody in the press really noticed. En mass, like the expert witnesses they are, they all assume Trump made the shot. Five seconds later someone documents the fact on Wikipedia and it becomes the truth.

It takes roughly four minutes for the images to float through the universe and one more minute for everyone to add their spin. In five minutes, every news website in creation has an image of an angry Donald Trump pointing a Barretta at a clueless turkey in a cage. “President Is Stone Cold Killer, This Is Not Good” is the lead on CNN. “President Is Stone Cold Killer, This Is Awesome” is the lead on Fox. “President Is Stone Cold Killer, How To Explain That You’re Gay During Thanksgiving Dinner” is the lead on MSNBC.

Only NPR leads with a different story; “Only Repubs. Can Be Pervy”. This is followed by a two-hour special program called “Squirrel!”

Stay tuned for part 3.

Front steps of the White House, President Trump is speaking.

“My fellow Americans, my hair and I are here to present to you, the American people, (and the American people are awesome, just like my hair) the turkey for today’s ceremony.”

Several Secret Service bodyguards bring out a turkey in a cage. The turkey shits itself; because that’s what turkeys do.

“As you know (and I know you know this because Americans are very, very smart) it’s a tradition that every Thanksgiving some hard-working farmer (especially one that voted for me, because that would be the hardest working of all the hard-working great smart American farmers who totally love me) presents the President with a turkey. I checked on Google and it’s not clear who started it; maybe Truman or maybe JFK or maybe some other whiny Democrat but who cares? (Well I’m sure someone cares but I don’t. Only a loser would care and I’m not a loser, I’m a winner.) Anyway, the president ‘pardons’ the turkey every Thanksgiving. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know. People ask me ‘why pardon the turkey’ and I just say ‘I don’t know’.”

Trump pauses and beams. “Now you should all take pictures.”

The press surges forward. Cameras click, flashes go off, everyone smiles, except for Steven Colbert and Ann Coulter. Steven Colbert is inexplicably dressed in a bunny suit and Ann Coulter refuses to smile because it’s Wednesday.

In the background, a battered Rand Paul is quietly discussing something with Harry Reid. The wind shifts and Paul’s words are briefly heard over the microphone: “… I told him I’d have his money by Monday but the dude’s an animal, what kind of douchebag hits a man with a metal replica of the Millennium Falcon? I had to tell the press it was a ’landscaping dispute’. That’s better than your lame excuse about a Stairmaster but only a little. What really sucks is when the wombat and the pencil sharpener…”

An eerie silence falls over the crowd as everyone realizes what Paul and Reid are discussing. This is an open secret in DC that makes Harvey Weinstein look like a nun. Paul should know better that to let word pass beyond the beltway! The turkey cocks it’s head and listens too; things are getting interesting. Paul, who still has a conscience, turns beet red. Reid, who doesn’t, stands there calculating how he can blame this faux pas on the Russians.

When the silence grows too taut, Al Franken cracks. He shouts “I like boobies!”

Pandemonium erupts! Thirty percent of the press runs off to write a story about how sexual harassment makes puppies feel bad. The Drudge report decides to link to photos of topless women for the entirety of the holiday weekend; in the interest of an informed electorate of course. The publishers of Playboy angrily shout “That’s it! We’re going to print nothing but homeopathic tomato recipes from now on.” The ghost of Hugh Hefner doesn’t notice because he’s tearing through the afterlife like a weasel in heat but the nearest Wall Street investor thinks “magazines printed on paper still exist?” and makes a mental note to short sell anything associated with Playboy and throw a brick though the nearest Barnes and Noble window… if he can find one. Meanwhile the entire contingent of National Public Radio has formed a hive mind and outlined thirty identical stories about how Al Franken is misunderstood and only evil Republicans (which is a tautology) can be pervy.

Cokie Roberts, desperately trying to be a voice of reason in an ocean of weird, watches her NPR colleagues run for their car (a Prius of course) and mutters “I carpooled with those morons, how am I going to get home?” Joe Biden scampers up and whispers “I can give you a ride… in my van. You smell nice. Would you like some candy?” Even the ghost of Hugh Hefner winces but Cokie just kicks Biden in the kneecap.

Meanwhile Trump has emitted sixteen tweets all ending with #TurkeyBoob. He’s interrupted when someone from the Cato institute tries to ask a question about capital gains taxes. The questioner is promptly curbstomped by a Fox reporter who’s loving the #TurkeyBoob tweets. Everyone in the remaining audience agrees that was the best course. They know clickbait when they see it and #TurkeyBoob is a work of genius!

Scott Adams is already drafting an article that will be titled “The TurkeyBoob Persuasive Nuke”. It will earn him a richly deserved Nobel Prize in Literature. Adams’ acceptance speech will be the first Nobel speech delivered entirely in FORTRAN. It will impress the last forty people on earth who use FORTRAN. It will simultaneously infuriate thundering herds of unemployable professors with degrees like deconstructist anti-cisnormative conceptual literature who think they deserve the Nobel for a six-page pamphlet they wrote while stoned back in their undergrad days.

In the midst of the chaos, a squirrel runs by. With absolutely no exceptions it distracts every member of the press and every politician in the audience. SQUIRREL!

Only the Secret Service people keep their heads. They form a perimeter around Trump. The woodland creature only pauses a millisecond to steal some feed from the turkey’s bowl before it tears off. Al Franken and Joe Biden stumble off after the squirrel, followed by a stray dog and two staffers.

Jerry Brown, Governor of California and Chief Moonbeam of the Universe, is inspired by the situation to pen a bill. He calls it the Turkey Feed Anti-Theft Act of 2017. It requires the state of California to give free money to turkeys who’ve had their feed stolen, and subsidize green energy, and buy glittery ponies for everyone. John McCain helpfully assists by adding a federal budget line item that will provide free underpants for Estonian ballet dancers, but only if they’re black. Everyone thinks this is a great idea.

Stay tuned for part 2. Which will (uncharacteristically) arrive as fast as I can type.

I’m still on a pattern of light posting here at Curmudgeon Compound. Don’t worry, I’ll be back. I just have things to do and shit to avoid (i.e. anything in the news). We all know life is work first and play later.

However, it’s a holiday and I insist on jocularity. I had time (barely) to whip up a story. Not edit it mind you. Just enough time to hammer it out like a monkey at a keyboard. If it sucks, that’s life. The ensuing story is my happy funtime Thanksgiving vision. Enjoy?

I’m still on hiatus and more or less off line but I bumped into this at Knuckledgaggin My Life Away and it was just so perfect (and seasonally appropriate) that I had to put it here too. Great song!

I haven’t been online in a week or so, probably won’t return again for another week. Hence the light posting.

In the meantime, I will neither confirm nor deny the authenticity of the thumbdrive with 30,000 “unofficial” state department e-mails that’s sitting on my truck’s dash. I’ll probably post something awesome about it after I’m done sorting through the details. Oh, look there’s some nice men suits pulling up in a black SUV. They seem to want to talk so I’ll log off now. See ya’ later…

This made me laugh so hard I about had a stroke. Enjoy. (Hat tip to Knuckledraggin My Life Away.)