Galadriel gave everybody a pretty stern talking to, and then she handed out some rations from her personal supply of Brave Biscuits, which everyone enjoyed immensely if a bit sheepishly.
Yum yum. Pippin had two. Because Sam didn’t want his. Frodo upchucked his.
It was a good thing about the biscuits, though, because almost as soon as they had sallied out, once again, toward Mordor, they ran into a place called Moria.
We’re talking very bad place here. Underground, secret passages, and a magical doorway only Gimli could unlock, because… Dwarves.
Thanks to Gimli the Ring Pack managed to enter the right password — ARF — then they entered a place where thousands of dwarves had been massacred seven or fourteen dog years before.
The early part was very not so good.
Gandalf was leading the way, munching on Brave Biscuits as if they were Oreos, and he encouraged everyone else not to run screaming back to the entrance.
Gee whiz. Moria’s a bitch.
But then things went from bad to worse. There were orcs in there.
Not good. Way not good.
There was only one way through. It involved a bridge.
A not very safe bridge.
And the orcs were closing in.
Orcs are not nice.
Even worse, the end of the bridge was blocked by a balrog. Nobody knows what they are exactly, but balrogs make Orcs look like chihuahuas.
Gandalf was not afraid. Much.
So Gandalf attacked.
A wizard unleashed.
He and the balrog fell into the pit below the bridge. And then nobody knew what to do.
Let’s face it. The Ring Pack did not get off to the best possible start. After all the parting gifts and everything, they began the trek toward Mordor only to be interrupted by one of the nine Nazgul, who took a hefty chunk out of Frodo.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” they agreed.
Um. They all ran away, except for Sam, who fell into a hole.
But in her mystical way, Galadriel was keeping an eye on things in the elvish birdbath.
And she flew to the rescue of the injured Frodo.
So they went back to the Elf Place and got ready to start all over again.
So when everybody woke up and scratched and went out and ate some of that heavenly Elven kibble, they had a big council with the King of the Elves.
Elrond
The idea is that someone (Frodo Frodo Frodo) has to take the Ring to the Cracks of Doom and destroy it.
Where? What? Why Frodo?!
And everybody but Frodo agreed that this was the smartest plan.
Well, here’s why Frodo. After the initial planning meeting, Queen Galadriel visited Frodo while he was taking a quiet drink of green water from the Loth Lorien birdbath.
She was, like, I want the Ring!
Give me the damn Ring. I’m a queen dammit. Give’it’a’me. You little cur.
And the little guy was like WTF?!
Frodo
And then she was all sorry and explained to Frodo why he had to take the Ring to the Cracks of Doom because everyone worthwhile wanted the Ring for theirself. See?
I didn’t mean to be that nasty evil bitch you just saw. Only Elrond knows about her.
And thereupon and whereupon and thence and so forth, the Ring Pack was chartered and sent forth and so on.
There was The Ring Bearer Frodo.
Could I go back home now, please?
And the ever faithful Samwise.
Let me at’em. I’ll kill’em
And the other two hobbits too, just to keep the odds against success incredibly long.
Merry in camouflage body paint and flamethrower gear.
Pippin. Always ready to go.
And then, for the sake of diversity, we have to have a dwarf…
Gimli
An elf…
Legolas
And three big guys. Gandalf, Strider, and a shifty, mysterious stranger from Gondor.
So you come out of your garage thinking you’re all hot stuff and everything. But you’re really not. Just another mutt with a car no longer fashionable. It’s okay. You don’t have to be fashionable. Only I and all the really good, smart, superior people have to be fashionable. The rest of you should vote for Bernie. Or Hillary.
The Matador
With maybe one of these on guard, just to prove your class.
Which you don’t actually have any of.
What with being a creep and all.
And, uh, yeah, you are. You really are. A creep. Go Bernie. Go Hillary.
Mary Martin. Hot chick. Especially when you’re ten.
I had this album of .45 RPM records, all green. Mary Martin’s Peter Pan. Played them till they wore out. Thing is, I was never confused. She was a woman playing a boy and I loved her more than anything because she made it okay for me to think of a woman who knew what it was to be a boy. My first huge crush. Yes. I knew she had breasts under that costume. How cool is that?
It’s not that hard to know you’re a boy. You just have to the hear the woman in this voice. (This seems to be the whole album. Stay in there and wait for Neverland.)
Not a conservative. Doesn’t matter that he bankrolled Reagan in 1980.
A story of my morning. I had an errand to run in neighboring Delaware. Me going to Delaware in my gunmetal Jeep. Stopped listening to rock radio stations many years ago. Heard it all, you know. Chances of hearing something you actually like go down and down and down with the years. So I’m listening to this Philly Talk Radio Guy named Dom Giordano who thinks he is smart, and I’m usually content to count his malapropisms and overlook his metronome-like repetitiveness on his talking points. Usually.
I put up with it for three quarters of the trip. I commend myself for my patience. He was constant in his mischaracterization of Trump’s Israel policy. He kept repeating (and repeating and repeating) that Trump said he would be neutral in Israel Palestinian negotiations. He was jazzed up by the story that 40 rabbis were planning to walk out on Trump’s AIPAC speech. At no time did Giordano mention that Trump prefaced his comments about Israel and Palestinians with doubt that an agreement was even possible. A preface repeated several times because Trump also repeats and repeats. Then Giordano blew by a caller, a Jewish caller, who said everyone knows Trump is pro-Israel, what with his lifetime behavior with the Jewish community and his Jewish family members, and everyone knows that protests announced ahead of time are organized liberal political theatrics. So Giordano thanked him and went back to repeating that Trump declared himself neutral and that’s not the position of the United States.
At which point, alone in the Jeep, I said “F**k you, Dom,” and stabbed the radio’s FM button, which my wife had preset to a classic rock station.
Where the serendipity comes in. No sooner had I changed the station than I heard the beat that reawakens even an old cold heart like mine. AC/DC.
And while I was hammering the steering wheel in time to the song, I was also thinking this should be THE Trump campaign song. Dirt cheap? How about the most successful, most watched political ad of the campaign, posted on YouTube for zero advertising dollars.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QMZqS7q7voY
Dirty deeds? Everyone in Mediamerica accuses Trump without cease. Brooks doesn’t like the crease in his pants. Krauthammer doesn’t like the cut of his jib. Williamson thinks he should have been aborted, the sole exception to his pro-life stance. So I say “Embrace the Dirty.” And to all the haters, say “F**k you and the horse you rode in on.” An old time curse. Back when people knew the difference between roughshod male vulgarity and criminal, treasonous corruption (Hillary!!! We luuuuuuuv you!)
So that was a lightning strike. A switch from Dom to a Campaign Dream. And then lightning struck a second time. Only a female DJ would do this. Dirty Dreams was immediately followed by a song so dated and dumb, and treacly and transparently troglodytic, that it’s an automatic pick for Bernie Sanders’s campaign song.
And that’s my home where dreams are born, And time is never planned. Just think of lovely things. And your heart will fly on wings, Forever in Never Never Land.
And here’s the song. By Styx. Perfect. The river of the dead, beyond which you are forever lost. A permanent kind of Neverland.
Just an average morning in my oh so surprising life.
This little guy stole a ring from this little guy.
Gollum
Which is when all the Wizards had to get involved.
Gandalf the Grey
Radagast the Brown
Saruman the White
So, for a long time, being Wizards, they don’t do much. Bilbo’s ring falls into the possession of his nephew.
Frodo
Which is when Gandalf finally gets off the couch and informs Frodo that he has to travel thousands of miles and throw the Ring into the Cracks of Doom.
What?!
“Why can’t you do it?” Frodo asks.
“You will have help,” Gandalf replies. “Three trusty friends who have also never been out their hobbit crates.”
Samwise
Merry
Pippin
“Cool,” they all said at once. “Let’s go. But can we eat first?”
So they set out for God knows where and immediately get lost in a forest because Gandalf had to get back to his couch. That’s when they meet up with the heroic and mysterious stranger who has been there and done that more times than you or I could count on the fingers of one paw.
Strider
After some funny adventures, Strider gets his four unruly charges to where the elves live.
The Elf Place.
They’ve got like the best beds there and all the chew toys a hobbit could want. And not only that, they have the Queen of the Elves. Cool.
Galadriel
Which is when everybody had to lie down for a nap after all the excitement.
Now think. You’ve seen all the catastrophe movies. They’ve destroyed the Golden Gate Bridge a dozen times over, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building, Times Square, L.A.’s Capitol Records Building, most of Chicago, and, well, almost every significant architectural and engineering landmark.
But never the Chrysler Building. We all know that’s off limits somehow. Why?
Art Deco. It was always the coolest of the cool. We never got close again. Art Deco was both huge and miniature. We all can have a piece of it. We do here in our little household.
What was it? Design. And attitude.
The best of times and the best of times.
There was sculpture. Scandalous sculpture.
And scandalous paintings. Because women weren’t empowered back then. Much.
Never any Lesbians in the old days. Oh. yes there were. They just had class.
Her name was Lempicka. Just imagine a Madonna with talent.
There was no Art Deco Music. Unless you count this ode to the Chrysler Building.
Come to think of it, there was Art Deco music. I think they called it jazz. Back when nobody ever thought black people had any talent.
There was Art Deco writing.
And Art Deco cars.
Income inequality. Esthetic inequality.
And more Art Deco cars.
And Art Deco women.
And Art Deco bric a brac.
Which we can still have today, just to help us remember a time when America wasn’t wearing its jeans at or below crotch level.
Life is always urgently straight up and more about stacking than shagging.
The creative process. Mostly an accident. Some stray idea is sparked in your head and then it’s off to the races. It’s all the tail wagging the dog, so to speak. The picture above was the spark. So now I’m just having fun.
Three rings for the elven kings under the sky…
Seven for the dwarf lords in their halls of stone…
Nine for Dobermans doomed to die…
One for the dark lord, on his dark throne…
In the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie…
One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them.
One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
Speaker of the House. Looks like a serial killer. Gives Obama his idiotic budget. Willing to be drafted as presidential nominee..
Let me ask. Let’s say, just for the purpose of argumentation, that you’re a Republican and would like to win a legislative battle with the Democrats, once anyway.
Uh, why would we want to do that? Do you have any idea how much money we can make as lobbyists even if the people somehow manage to throw us out of office? When the congressional majority dutifully acts like an impotent rubber-stamp minority, the federal funds jet through DC like a fire hose. Nobody in his right mind would ever want to stop that. Why we’re inexorably committed to NeverTrump and AlwaysHillary.
All the lonely people, where do they all belong? In McTammany Hall the answer is clear.
Iris and Raven do lots of ripping and tearing in the morning. Chasing each other down the stairs, thundering back up the stairs, and occasionally knocking stuff over. But then comes the midday timeout, when all that’s necessary is being close.
Can’t live with hounds for a generation without turning into one. Problem is, I’m not a nice one. I bite.
I’m not a nice guy. I have many Irish friends. Yet I wrote this. A satire of Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill, the brawny hairy chested alcoholics in remission who beat up average Joes and win acclaim for their authenticity from The New Yorker and the Times. Great life if you can get it, right? But every year, every single year, there’s a day when even the brawniest hairy fingered lout who thinks he can write has to walk by an Irish pub and not go inside. Voila! (And if you don’t pronounce the V as a V, the Jersey Latin squad will be coming for you.)
***************
March 17, 2000
The Tough Guy
It’s St. Patrick’s Day!
It’s St. Patrick’s Day!
I was going to say something there. Hold on a sec.
It’s St. Patrick’s Day!
It’s St. Patrick’s Day!
You know, the thing about these support groups is what a bunch of stuffed-shirt, killjoy, bigoted, anti-Irish, English-ass-kissing, boring sumbitches they are. Did you know that? Did you?
You hold their hand, and listen to all their dull, dull stories about their dull, dull problems, and you all sit there not drinking, and forcing down all that bad coffee, which is even decaf for God’s sake, and do they appreciate it? Do they come around on St. Patrick’s Day to say, “Thanks old man. Erin go bragh. Top o’ the mornin’ to you. And by the way, this is one day when you really should take a break from all this dull no-drinking bullcrap crap you usually do.” Do they do that?
No. They don’t. Here’s what they do. They call up that little fairy intern who works in the office next to you, and they tell him to go hunting
through all your desk drawers for the bottle of fine old Irish blarney you’ve filed away for this one extremely special, wonderful day of the year, and they order him to steal that bottle like some little damn fairy thief AND POUR IT DOWN THE TOILET.
DAMN.
But I wasn’t born yesterday. My old man didn’t raise no fool. He was Irish. He was a cop. He was in the big one. He knew all the tricks. And I know’em too. I wouldn’t leave no bottle of genuine fine old Irish blarney in my damn desk drawer where some little fairy intern could get at it AND POUR IT DOWN THE TOILET.
I wouldn’t do that. What I would do, if you’re asking me, is this. I would replace the genuine old Irish blarney in that bottle with some cheap, lousy, made-last-week- in-New-Joisey crap, and I would make sure that I had the real blarney in my briefcase, right where I could get at it if some little fairy thief decided to listen to a bunch of stuffed-shirt support-group Republians and take my blarney AND POUR IT DOWN THE TOILET.
That’s what I would do. If you’re asking.
By the way…
It’s St. Patrick’s Day! It’s St. Patrick’s Day! How the hell are you today?
I’m fine. I really am.
There was something in particular I was going to write about in the column today. It’s on the tip of my tongue. I’ll have it in just a moment. Hold on. Gun control? Maybe that was it. Hold on a sec.
It’s St. Patrick’s Day!
Hold on.
I think it was about this Charleston Heston Republian stuffed-shirt bigoted anti-Irish support-group killjoy… Hold on.
It’s St. Patrick’s Day! It’s St. Patrick’s Day! It’s St. Patrick’s Day!
Hold on.
I’ve got it. Hold on.
It’s St. Patr
The Tough Guy is a regular Star feature contributed by columnist Jimmy Bricker.
__________________________
*************++
Being Scottish gives you lots of cover. But even I have to admit that this is a 15 year old microaggression that deserves a safe space. Good thing I know where that safe space is.
A mantra with two different meanings. On the Democrat side a mantra of fear, Type 1. On the Republican side a mantra of fear, Type 2.
Type 1 is genuine fear, akin to panic. The Dems know Hillary is an incredibly weak candidate. She’s awful on the stump. When she isn’t faking black or southern accents, or simpering little woman fake humility, she turns into a banshee, a braying, shrieking, bitter harridan whose voice is worse than chalk on blackboards. She’s got the sword of Damocles hanging over her head, investigations in the FBI and the DOJ proper that could or at least should land her in prison.
Type 2 is the fear that lies will be found out. The Republican leadership, its congressional majorities, and its politician enriching donors don’t care if Hillary is elected president. In fact, if they can’t have Jeb, they’d prefer Hillary. Their sweet deal will continue. Boundless funds for their reelection campaigns and boundless riches for the lobbying careers they will enjoy after they end their legislative careers. Absolute corruption on a scale not seen since Tammany Hall. Or Ancient Rome. Everyone for sale. Every issue and bill for sale, no matter what lies have to be told barefacedly to their party faithful. Run on border control, immediately propose amnesty. Run on fiscal responsibility, immediately ratify the Dems’ bloated budget whole hog (pun intended). Pretend you’re against ObamaCare, then do nothing to repeal, fix, or replace it.
Type 1 and Type 2 have one thing in common. At this point they both want to do whatever it takes to prevent Trump from becoming the Republican nominee. Why? Well, the George Wills and Chris Matthews and Charles Krauthammers and Anderson Coopers and David Brooks of the world don’t know much about boxing metaphors, but they can sense the excitement, danger, and unpredictability of a heavyweight prizefight. And the very thought of it terrifies them to death. Why they tell us we’re stupid. You know. If you’re David Brooks or George Will, might as well have rape enabler Hillary instead of a guy who probably pinches bottoms in Italy. Something, no doubt about canapés in the Hamptons and NR cruises with Kevin Williamson.
What a Trump-Clinton electoral campaign would be. It would be slugger against slugger, which is relatively rare even in the prizefight world. Nobody’s tried to handicap the contest as it would really unfold. There is reason to do so. Both fighters have records, both have been penalized points and rounds for unsportsmanlike conduct, but in this case they are in the ring together. Who has the edge?
Let’s pick a couple of avatars. First, Hillary as Mike Tyson. (Incredible cheap shot at 6:47 in.)
Second, The Don as Rocky Marciano.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Qv4_oKx6U Tyson had a soundtrack. Marciano should too.
Because that was the day and the life of Rocky Marciano. For all you hedge fund managers who don’t know what it’s like to fight to the death for anything.
RELATIVE STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
Both aggressive punchers and counterpunchers. Tyson the more controlled on the attack, well prepared, planned, expert at ducking and weaving, comes in willing to take a punch or two to get in some savage body body blows and head shots. Tremendous and balanced power in the overall attack, and always waiting for the inside uppercut to bring it to an end. Only sign of wildness is a practiced left hook, designed to pulverize the opponent. Weakness? Violent felony convict, sexual predator, and dirty fighter.
Chew my way to victory if necessary.
Marciano. The only ever undefeated heavyweight champion of boxing. He was a wild swinger without much of a jab. The Brockton Bomber, they called him. He fought more champions in his division than anyone but Muhammed Ali. Fabled names. Joe Louis. Jersey Joe Walcott. Ezzard Charles. What was he famous for? Taking a lot of punishment to land one telling blow. He frequently finished fights with his face a bloody mask. But he won by knockout 87.5 percent of the time. Simple arithmetic. Hit him and be prepared to be hit back harder by a factor of ten. Sledgehammer, canvas time. He won in early rounds and late rounds. Unlike Tyson or Foreman. He won when he was behind on points, as Ali was late in his career. The champion rises as his energy seems to fall. A law of physics MIT hasn’t yet explained. Weaknesses? A bleeder. Easy to cut him. Today’s referees might have stopped fights he won. Should they have? That would be a PC matter, wouldn’t it?
CAMPAIGN IMPLICATIONS
Hillary knows how to hit hard. She has teams of morlocks working day and night to compile her ammunition. But there are two factors her dimwit Yale advisers should take into account.
1. Trump has already survived the greatest prolonged assault of negative advertising in the history of televised and otherwise mass media-driven presidential campaigns. He has been called every name in the book, every nasty adjective in the book, every obscenity, every repulsive historical epithet, had his character assassinated by both snipers and organized commando teams, and there he still is, leading the pack for the Republican nomination. What’s left to throw at him? Some personal foible you’ve been hiding under your skirt, Hillary? Which brings us to Point Two.
2. Hillary’s first and only impulse, in the absence of real experience, accomplishment or policy prescriptions that aren’t mere jargon, is to go for the jugular with her famed Clinton factory for oppo research. But the sad, pitiable fact is that no matter what Hillary accuses Trump of, he can respond instantly, in her own words, on video, that she is guilty of worse. Hit him for a loose and sybaritic lifestyle, will you? Think again. He can hit you for committing felonious acts against Bill’s girlfriends. Hit him for shaving corners on construction projects, and he can demand that you lay out the whole financial history of the Clinton Foundation. Trump says stupid things. Quote them in ads. Then wait for Rocky Marciano to bludgeon you with your email server, Benghazi, and Lewinski lies. He doesn’t have to do research. You’ve revealed the reality a hundred times in a hundred on-camera lies.
In what round will she fall? Every time the Clinton machine strikes like a cobra, the Trump mongoose can take her head off with barely a hundred dollars of research. That’s how exposed and vulnerable they are. A once formidable counterpuncher actually needs to learn a defensive crouch.
Before he even gets to the question of why you keep walking around bumping into things, coughing through tiny campaign events, and braying like a donkey at everyone who asks you a question.
Trump can do all this without saying anything anti-woman to you in person. You’ve provided all the ammunition. On film, digitally available, immediately viral on command.
Champions fall. Especially would-be champions who never were.
HOW THEY FELL.
Tyson.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rt8LZ8FjGN8 Guy comes out of nowhere and knocks you on your ass.
Marciano.
He didn’t. Died in a plane crash. Don’t think about it, Hillary. You heard it here first.
AND THERE’s that little something extra. Who has it? You know.
I’m the Greatest. Best at Everything. Ever heard that before? He kind of was.
Sonny Liston was the Mike Tyson of his day. Cassius Clay, considered a lightweight amateur, beat him up to win the title. Liston got his second chance though. People thought he’d win, what with all his experience and power and whatnot. He went down in the first round. They called it a phantom punch because the camera angles couldn’t catch the blow that did it. All you had to see, though, was the ripple in Muhammed Ali’s chest muscles to understand the impact that occurred in fact. The amateur took down the invincible monster, in a single round.
Okay. We admit it. What with all the horrific political news of late, we’ve been watching Netflix reruns of CSI Miami. This Caruso guy. Actually a pretty decent actor. A little creepy sometimes but good in his role.
On the creepy side, I put on my old super expensive sunglasses and tilted my head at my wife, who threatened to run me through with a steak knife. If anyone subsequenly runs me through with a steak knife, please ask the Salem police to ask my wife about steaks, knives, and dead husbands and so forth.
I like to think my impression was pretty good or she wouldn’t have been so creeped out by it.
Anyhow. The show itself is better than we remembered. Delco is a useless male slut. Emily Procter is a walking advertisement for not having plastic surgery while you’re still alive. Jonathan Togo is a study in not acting for fun and profit. The fat old white guy cop is your standard fat old white guy cop. I think his name is Bill or Frank or something. Like it matters. But the ME played by Khandi Alexander is as terrific as Caruso. She calls her corpses baby, and talks them through the trauma of autopsy. Everybody else is just a pain in the ass.
Got a long letter from my sister. 17 pages typewritten. I had asked her what she as a professional academic was doing to fight back against the antisemitism that has taken over the two places where she built her academic resume over a decade, Vassar and Cornell, both of which are listed in the top ten antisemitic campuses in the United States.
She sent me a hummingbird card and professed, as professors do, that she had no knowledge of antisemitic behaviors on campus.
I do not recall. I have no recollection of that. Not remembering that. And “What difference does it make at this point?”
Hasn’t read my books but pats me on the head for my cleverness at satire. Mildly upset that I don’t read her academic papers on gender studies.
So here, in the graphic above, is the interior of the card she sent me, absent the 17 pages. And in the interest of full disclosure, here’s the front of the card. I’m so touched. You?
Hummingbirds have no legs. They fly all the time. Wings almost faster than time itself. Flying. All. The. Time.
Recent Comments