American Fez

New World Order

Although we live in what appears to be a free and democratic country, in reality there are many malign and influential secret societies at large in American government today. Yale's Skull and Crossbones, International Freemasonry, the American Salsa Dancing Association, Fraternal Order of Tassled Moccasin Wearers, Stephenesque, Facebook and the Mickey Mouse Club are just some of the nefarious and shadowy organizations whose Satanic rites and black arts are practiced in the White House green room.
"People" will claim that the Mickey Mouse Club is not a secret society. But do you know what goes on behind the locked doors of the Magic Castle? In fact, would you be surprised to learn that the Ark of the Covenant was hidden inside Walt Disney's frozen head by the Knights Templar disguised as Mouseketeers? George W. Bush wouldn't, because it was him that put it there.
When John McCain's plane was shot down over Rennes Le Chateau during the Vietnam War, many investigators thought it was no accident that he had flown so far off course. Exactly what is he mysterious connection that binds together McCain, the Holy Grail, Rasputin, the Pyramids, Batman and Campaign Finance Reform? I don't know. But that won't stop me writing a bestselling conspiracy theory about it.

A World Lit Only By Fire

Earth Hour must be a particularly ironic time of day for anyone whose electricity supply has been terminated by their utility company for non-payment. How can these poor souls demonstrate solidarity with such an environmental initiative when they have nothing to turn off?
And exactly how is the homeless community supposed to contribute? By only urinating in doorways of those stores that fail to switch their neon signage off at night? Apparently only the rich and socially well-adjusted are invited to this eco-friendly feel-good festival.
And then there's me. I am Baron Frankenstein and I have a monster I want to bring to life. I could suck zillions of volts from the central grid to animate my creation, but I have decided to harness the power of the heavens instead. Think about how much energy I shall save the world by using my own electro-magnetic charge. These Earth Hour people should give me a medal, but they'll just chase me around my castle with flaming torches like everybody else always does. One day, many years from now, the people of the future will embrace science and its achievements, and then these dark, dark ages will finally be over.

Per Aspera Ad Astra

Space Tourism has always fascinated me, and so I am thinking of taking an interplanetary star cruise sometime this summer. The Costa del Asteroid is very nice in early August according to the colorful brochure I received from NASA Travel Agents.
However, I am extremely confused about what time I should arrive at the launchpad before blast-off. Terrestrial airports usually recommend two hours for normal international departures, but Cape Canaveral is telling me two months for anti-gravity training and pressurization sessions. Needless to say, this is rather inconvenient since I only get three weeks vacation time every year, and so my holiday plans have been sucked into a black hole.
Of course, I could always go to Istria or Ljubljana like everybody else does, but I've already invested in special rocket boots with Dr. Scholl's Ejector insoles and two silver utility togas, one with a red flash insignia for gala functions and another with a insulation cape for moon landings. Then there is the Mars-Earth phrase book and dictionary that I've had implanted in my cerebral cortex. It is currently giving me so many terrible headaches that I can barely leave the house, never mind zoom through the galaxy at maximum velocity.
At least the store I bought my ray gun and laser javelin from has a decent return policy.

Multicultural Fare

The host ushered us inside with extravagantly mysterious gestures, as if we were entering a gypsy caravan to have our fortunes revealed by some wrinkled sage, rather than being seated for an early evening meal at an Indian restaurant we'd been told was "good."
Above the table hung a picture of a prancing, ruby-eyed elephant dressed in the sort of sequined body armor that Cher usually wears to the Oscars.
"I always get the same thing." I said, "Vegetable samosa, lamb saag, garlic nan bread, mango juice and a kingfisher beer."
Two somber waiters hovered silently over us like grim mourners anticipating throwing their handful of earth into a grave. One slid a saucer of chutney between my companion and I; the other followed suit with a plate of papadums.
I know next to nothing about the conventions of Indian cuisine. In fact, I always worry that my order is comparable to someone entering an American restaurant in New Delhi and demanding a plate oysters covered in ketchup, two boiled eggs in mint sauce, and a glass of chocolate milk with a stick of celery in it.
After deciphering our food requests the waiters scurried back to the steamy kitchen, an environment they apparently found more congenial, since they suddenly burst into life there, laughing and shouting and singing amongst themselves. When they returned to the dining room, however, tight-lipped and slump-shouldered, you could have been forgiven for thinking that the Taj Mahal had just collapsed.
At the end of dinner, when standing to leave, I hit my head against a clay tandoor suspended from the ceiling.

Pulp: Voila!

Long awaited by both serious scholars and the curious public, 'Dear Poopie,' a selection of the most revealing and gossipy letters from my voluminous and very private correspondence with Marie Antoinette will finally be published this Spring to great acclaim.
Obviously, this is rather one-sided correspondence since Madame had been dead for many years before I started writing to her, so most of the letters are addressed from me to her. In fact all of them are, but this in no way way detracts from the historical value of such important documents.
Indeed, I feel that any student of eighteenth-century French history, and just anyone looking for a cheap thrill, will find much of interest in this fascinating and frequently shockingly frank collection of scandalous billet-doux.
For instance, on page thirty-seven readers can discover the extremely controversial missive wherein I sagely advise Marie not to use the phrase, "Let them eat cake."
The critics will undoubtedly remark that the letter was sent a few hundred years too late, and that its composition, dispatch and subsequent publication were therefore completely pointless. However, I have seen the weary rubes with their discount coupons wandering aimlessly around Borders Bookstores and I'm pretty sure that they will buy absolutely anything.

Hard Boiled Art Fraud Detectives

Suitable For Framing
A Sir Samuel Spade, R.A. mystery

It had been a long time since I'd been back in the Big Easel, so I hailed a hay wain from a passing constable and headed up east to the Goblin Market.
She was sprawled on the divan like some kind of Persian fantasy by Frederic Leighton. Her full-on Oriental splendour caught me smack dab right in the old Jamie Whistlers. But I had to admit, the Garden of the Hesperides never looked so good and I have always been a sucker for significant form.
"So what's it to be, Babe?" I demanded, "Venus Disrobing For Her Bath or Truth Revealed By Time? I've counted six Pre-Raphaelites in this town in the past twenty-four hours, and I'm going to find out what the whole Helen Of Troy has been going on."
She shook her garland of daisies scornfully: "This ain't no ordinary Blue Rider Group, Sam," she spat. "Pack up your paint tubes and go home before your sienna gets burnt."
"I don't like your exaggerated perspective, sweetheart. We're mixing from different palettes and we always have."
"What do you know about Pablo 'Pick' Picasso?" I asked her. ''They tell me he's some big shot Cubist from over the water who can really put a man's nose out of joint."
She just sat there smiling enigmatically like a cheap Chinese reproduction of the Mona Lisa, so I gave her a swift brush-stroke across the face.
She bristled: "You sure know how to make a bad first post-impression on a girl, Sam."

The Easter Story

Easter, as you probably know, is when Christians celebrate their myth of a dark-skinned Middle Eastern man emerging from his tomb looking like a very white, neatly-bearded Mid-Western Bible salesman wearing a dressing gown and sandals.
Imagine being provided with an alternative ethnicity by a bunch of hymn-singing, tambourine-rattling maniacs from North Dakota? Talk about having a cross to bear!
Coming back from the dead, of course, is a trick previous Spring deities have been performing for centuries, but Jesus was a little different. And so, to prove that he was truly risen from the grave, Jesus appeared to his rather doubtful disciples in a series of early church fresco equivalents of a photo opportunity. In these attractive tableaux he can be seen commanding his followers to spread the good word of his resurrection in distant lands, which they did, and consequently the desert religion of Christianity made its way to our green and fertile shores where it doesn't really belong.
This is why representations of the messiah in our churches look more like a crucified Toby of Boston, or Donald of Wisconsin, rather than a similarly tortured Jesus of Nazareth. We can maintain faith in quite a lot, but we can accept only so much.

Food Glorious Fraud

Food seldom tastes like what it actually is these days, especially when consumed in a chain restaurant. Regular mashed potato flavor, for instance, is either obliterated by enough garlic to make a Frenchman sick, or has been transformed into a new variety of cheese.
Almost all chain restaurants list garlic mashed potatoes on their menus these days. And although they have become more common than ketchup, waiters still announce them with such enthusiasm that you assume it must be some especially lucky day when garlic mashed potatoes are finally available again after an interminable absence.
Last night, to complement my garlic mashed potatoes, I ordered a herb-encrusted salmon from one of these establishments. Alas, the herb was encrusted so very thickly that I would never have guessed that there was a salmon steak involved in the meal.
Indeed, a more accurate description might have been "crusted herb with a bit of salmon stuck underneath." A six-man road gang could not have tarred a highway more effectively. I could imagine the chef standing over the salmon while surrounded by orange traffic cones, turning the handle of a tiny herb-encrusting cement mixer as a policeman directs waiters along some alternate route through the kitchen.
Frankly I think I could have done better at home, even though I have difficulty frying an egg. And it wouldn't have cost me thirty bucks either.

The Chic of Araby

The most successful method of monitoring terrorist activity, it seems to me, would be to track the movements of anyone making bulk camouflage jacket purchases from Army and Navy Stores, since terrorists obviously shop at these establishments more than most people do. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that Osama Bin Laden owns one of those chunky sweatshirts with a moonlit timber wolf silk-screened on the front, or perhaps even a shiny black POW/MIA bandana.

But as the photograph above clearly illustrates, Osama mostly prefers to combine a gleaming white turban with his camouflage jacket. You would think such resplendently inappropriate  headgear for hiding-out would make him easily spottable in the black, subterranean caves he apparently inhabits, and therefore much easier for US agents to apprehend.
However, this does not appear to be the case. Perhaps Osama, with all his perfidious brilliance, has painted the inside of the caves white to match his turban. At any rate, there is absolutely no need for him to be wearing green camouflage in the desert, except to announce poseurishly to the world "Hey! Look at me! I'm a terrorist!"

The Serious Historian's Girlfriend

Despite the majestic palaces, romantic waterways and priceless art works, the truly Serious Historian understands that there is only one good reason for visiting Venice: to examine "The Leads," the forbidding prison from which Casanova escaped by clambering across the roof in his frock-coat and knee-breeches.
Of course, the Serious Historian will encounter many difficulties while attempting to conduct his important research. Most notably, the Serious Historian's girlfriend will demand that they actually spend their time touring those aforementioned palaces, canals and museums, perhaps even doing a little shopping, rather than tramping around a gloomy dungeon all day long. She will also undoubtedly ask the penetrating and insightful question, "Why are you so interested in this  Casanova guy anyway?"
At this point, with his studies in such great peril, the Serious Historian will reply: "It was the same thing when we went to Greece and you couldn't be bothered to climb up the hill to see the Acropolis. There I was on the verge making new and valuable discoveries about classical society and you kept going on and on about island hopping the whole time."
Alas, it is the Serious Historian's girlfriend who will finally triumph in this battle of wills since ultimately it is she who "hands out the grants," as they say in academia

Heads Or Tails?

Since the value of our conventional American dollar has sunk lower than Eliot Spitzer's reputation, and because Wall Street is now officially the boulevard of broken brokers, my financial advisers and I have decided to invest what remains of my savings in Radio City Rockettes Silver Eagle Dollars instead of regular stocks and shares.

I could have purchased many ounces of fool's gold, I suppose, just like everyone else is doing, but where's the fun in that? And besides, Radio City Rockettes Silver Eagle Dollars are legal tender in any country you care to name, since everyone accepts that leggy broads are very stable currency.

Star of the West

Personally, I would rather boycott Tibetan Buddhism than the Beijing Olympics. At least the Olympics are exciting and inclusive; and furthermore, the athletes don't shake jangly bells in your face.
I tell you, until this dreary Dalek Llama and his equally fatuous followers stop filling the heads of impressionable middle-aged women with pseudo-spiritual, wind-chiming nonsense I will pay zero attention to their repetitive chanted protestations about "Chinese oppression."
If you want to know what oppression is, try squatting on the bare floorboards of an uncomfortable, incense-polluted community center while some cross-legged hippy has-been wearing a yellow hat searches for your chakras by cramming wads of rancid salad down your throat. Chinese, on the other hand, always provides a convenient, no hassle take-out option.

Sunday Jumble

As is well documented, I disagree with the Pope about many things. Witness our long running and very public dispute concerning the appropriate elasticity of Pontifical undergarments. Not for nothing did my gut instincts lead me to support an expansion of waistband allowances during heated deliberations at the Council of Fatima in 1873. Nor did I storm out of the chic dining room at Chez Fisherman's Shoes purely for the want of low-calorie puddings, as was reported at the time. In fact, the garlic mashed potatoes were whipped with excessive amounts of extremely heavy cream; a fact that has hitherto remained unrevealed (unlike the bulging stomachs of the other ecclesiastical diners who frequent that Vatican approved establishment).
Where am I going with all this? I don't know. It is Sunday and the relentless tailor tolling of bells from St. Igbert's has been annoying me all morning. And besides, I would rather write nonsense than sort through my paint cans to see which ones are still usable and which ones have gone all thick and weird. Hence this Sunday jumble.

Gnome News (Updated)

The headline boldly exclaimed: Creepy gnome terrorizes town. At first I thought it was just another tedious article about Senator McCain cobbling his way along the campaign trail, but I was very wrong.
According to Britain's vividly illustrated The Sun newspaper, a night-prowling gnome wearing a pointy hat is scaring the living guano out of locals in a South American town. The link provided above contains some excellent video footage of the gnome emerging from a shadowy shrubbery.
Oddly enough, many years ago, I myself observed a gnome waddling through the dark tunnels of Boston's subway system. Closer examination, however, revealed this wizened apparition to be merely former Governor and Presidential hopeful Mike Dukakis inspecting track improvements.

Politicians and Prostitutes

Of course, we've always known that the world's first and second oldest professions don't make strange bedfellows. I only hope more of them are caught in, er, one form of congress or another. Perhaps "I just like to talk" could then become the new "I didn't inhale."

Obituary Lost and Found

Sir Esmond Inarage Whyte-Knuckleby

Sir Esmond Inarage Whyte-Knuckleby was born at 11:15am on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 in a small office in Boston. He sadly passed away at 11:34am on the same day.
Throughout his very short but active life Sir Esmond suffered from a singular tragic malady that eventually killed him off for good; namely, the man who created him could think of nothing for Sir Esmond's character to do, although not for the want of trying.
Briefly, at about 11:21am, Sir Esmond tried to make his narrative way in a traditional haunted house ghost story. Unfortunately would prove to be a phantom hope. A minute later, it was believed that Sir Esmond might find his fictional feet in a spoof Victorian poem about India. Alas, this adventure was also doomed to failure.
Many theories have been put forward for Sir Esmond's failure as a character. Just moments prior to Sir Esmond's demise, his creator was heard to say, "I am not sure that silly names are all that funny, and the only justification for Sir Esmond's existence is as a silly name."
And so it seems probable that Sir Esmond Inarage Whyte-Knuckleby will only be remembered - if he is remembered at all - as a character who was born too late, perhaps sixty or seventy years too late. Ultimately, he was a man whose time had long since passed: "The future," as Sir Esmond's creator so rightly remarked at 11:35am, "belongs to characters with names like Andy Assworth."

Pope Blog

"In Nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus et damn this infernal wind to hell ... (inaudible) ... Why the Devil can't one of those good-for-nothing Swiss Guards erect a windbreak or something, instead of lazing about in their pajamas doing nothing all day? Would a small, suitably frescoed palisade be too much to ask, oh Lord?"

"Let him that hath understanding of the Beaufort Scale count the number of the Beast for his number is Gale Force six  .... hundred threescore and six."

Photo credit: Eliot Spitzer

Poseidon's Toothbrush

If you know where to look, as Leonard Cohen once crooned, "amongst the garbage and the seaweed," then you can often spot a toothbrush floating in the river; and with all the luck of an amateur photographer strolling besides the banks of Loch Ness, I was able to capture this example on film (it's that long aquamarine thing in the upper center of the frame that looks like a prehistoric plesiosaur with an easy grip handle).

When faced with such strange phenomena, one can't help but wonder if the toothbrush is perhaps a component of Poseidon's overnight bag. After all, when he wants to get close and intimate with Amphitrite, surely even the great sea God himself requires the fresh, minty confidence that only  Atlantis brand super soft bristles with extra whitening action can provide.
As for the other filthy pollutants evident in the picture, I'm afraid you're just going to have to come to your own conclusions about that.

Photograph credit: taken by me this morning on Boston's Charles River "Esplanade."

The Amish Beard

I have never understood the Amish beard. Such an unattractive growth, thrusting forwards like the bristles of an industrial paintbrush set at right angles to a Hapsburg jaw. It resembles an unimaginatively pruned topiary sprouting on the edge of the moon.
And who sports this hairy sprout? Dogmatic arable farmers, Victorian maniacs obsessed with bed-wetting curatives, D. H Lawrence, sensitive adolescent males, and awkward musicians who are photographed with lutes on the covers of classical CDs. In other words, people with something to hide.

Effluvian Economics

In these dark days of financial crisis, credit crunchery and general belt-tightening, I think it a great shame that there exists no adult equivalent of the Tooth Fairy, who leaves a silver dollar for every molar she collects from beneath a child's pillow.
If, for example, there were a Hair Fairy, I would be a millionaire by now, and have no fear of these much touted inflations and recessions. The Hair Fairy could reside in shower drains, and leave a quarter for each strand of hair he harvested. According to my calculations that works out at about roughly ten bucks a day for the average male. Perhaps there might be an Ear Wax Elf also, or even a Toe Cheese Genie, all dispensing petty cash to the physically impaired. A really unhygienic person could be looking at a fairy distributed stipend of about seventy bucks per month. And, obviously, the older and more decrepit you grow, the bigger your fairy bonus will become.
I know that this isn't a lot of money in real terms, but still, it's more that we can expect to receive from Social Security.

Everything I Need To Know About Politics I Learned From King Zog

Knowing the who, the what, the why, and the when is a fundamental strategy for understanding any situation, and this precise methodology can be applied to our upcoming Presidential election also, like so: Who cares? What is the point?  Why bother? When will it stop?
If you answered John McCaroon, Hilarious Clinton or Barack O' Bummer to these or any similar questions, then you will be required to return to the remedial class immediately, and ask Mrs. Gleedle for a pillow so that you can go back to sleep.

* King Zog, ruler of Albania from 1928 to 1939, was notable for firing back at armed assailants who were trying to assassinate him. He is played by Theresa Russell in Nicholas Roeg's segment of the 1987 portmanteau film Aria.

Unto That Last Minute

John Ruskin, the famous Victorian lamp expert, prude and socialist, claimed that man can better understand the sublime nature of the world that surrounds him by sketching it with a pencil.
Therefore I spent most of last night drawing my 2007 tax return with a 9B from Staples, but, sad to relate, at no point during this intense activity was the profound beauty of the Internal Revenue Service revealed to me.
In fact, when I was finished, my picture looked more like a study for Goya's 'Dog' than IRS form 1040A.
Consequently, at the desperate hour of midnight, I decided that the only way I could complete filling in all my forms was to pretend that I was Lord Curzon, and that my tax returns were important administrative papers connected with the government of colonial India.
This trick seemed to work quite well, and in addition to a sizable monetary refund this year, I shall also be expecting a souvenir jigsaw of the Taj Mahal (10,000 pieces) and an assortment of Punjabi cooking spices.
So much for Ruskin's lunatic theories!

The Devil's Subway Pass

"The forthcoming end of the world," wrote the Reverend Dr. John Cumming in 1860, "Will be hastened by the construction of underground railways burrowing into infernal regions and thereby disturbing the Devil."
Personally, although I vaguely sympathize with his conclusions, I'm not entirely convinced that the author of  'The Destiny of Nations as Indicated in Prophecy' got it completely right. After all, it seems unlikely that such excavations and tunnelings, or even the subsequent early morning rumbling of subterranean trains themselves would bother Satan very much, since development of Commuter Hell is surely all part of the great Demonic plan rather than an annoying inconvenience.
Indeed, descending into the murky depths of the subway, reciting my Starbucks coffee order backwards, I often feel as if I am engaging in some ritual Black Mass, awaiting the arrival of the Horned One from out of the darkness beyond.  This is especially true during the summer months, when certain types of female commuter wear so little clothing that, all squashed sweatily together in a tiny train compartment, we might as well be participating in some writhing orgy of naked Devil worship. Then there are the evil subway smells, of course: stale brimstone and rancid sulphur farts. Believe me, sometimes I think the end of the world cannot come soon enough.

The Enochian Calls

BBC Radio 4 revisits Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' immigration speech of 1968: "one of the most explosive in living memory by a British politician."
Editors of the Spectator and other Enoch apologists have long maintained that Powell's words were ripped out of context and reshaped as inflammatory news: an object lesson in how the media plays cynical games of Exquisite Corpse with facts to the detriment of everyone and everything concerned.
Indeed, my own first exposure to Enoch Powell was Gerald Scarfe's wonderfully vicious caricature depicting Enoch's horror as he unearths a novelty Golliwog from a jar of marmalade, which can be seen here. It's still very funny after all these years.
I wonder what the breakfasting Powell would have said about the fences in Mexifornia.

Creme de la Kremlin

Although his election victory was as predictable as Ivan the Terrible's mood must have been, I can't help but assume that Dmitry Medvedev's premiership will prove to be more successful than that of our own democratically appointed President. Even those gloomy Russians who bemoan their lack of choice admit that another period of Putin sanctioned stability and growth may not be such a bad thing. After all, Vladimir has an eighty-five percent approval rating amongst the Russian public, a figure no recent American president could claim no matter how popular he may have been.
Why can't we have a leader like Putin? Instead, once again, unfortunately we will bget stuck with yet another Take-out.