The Bar Stool from San Diego CityBEAT

August 30, 2006

Scaring beautiful blondes for fun and karma
There’s no sense being dishonest about things. Writers drink. Period. I write. I drink. That’s that. And like any writer of caustic satire with a chip on his shoulder, I don’t just drink, I also smoke. A lot. A whole lot, as in, I would rather drive than fly to Las Vegas because an hour without a cigarette and I might storm the cockpit with a plastic fork.

So the other night I was sitting in my favorite watering hole. It was getting late, and I was pretty lit. I wasn’t three sheets to the wind, but I had two sheets dry and the third was flapping crisply. I got up to smoke and, as is my custom, I left a beer and a shot on the bar, both covered by a coaster, with a pack of cigarettes in front of them, the universal symbol for “Somebody’s sitting here.”

I remember particularly enjoying that cigarette. Sometimes addicts like me rush through a smoke without appreciating the sharp metallic surge of carcinogens slicing our capillaries and steeling us with the stink and resolve to get back down to beer and whiskey business. This time, however, I appreciated every long, slow drag and every curl of blue exhale that hung wispily in the acetylene light. God damn that was a good cigarette.

It is not uncommon upon my return from such indulgence to spot an interloper on or near my stool. Usually the offender is just making use of a bare spot at the bar to order a drink. That doesn’t bother me. But on the night in question, just after that orgasmic cigarette, I returned to my stool to find a stool thief. A stool thief flounces down on one’s stool, pushes one’s things aside, and upon one’s return, ignores one’s request to reclaim one’s rightful stool. I hate stool thieves.

And this was no common stool thief. This was a beautiful girl stool thief, the rarest of all species, scientific name candybreasticus intrudicus regina. We’re not talking about a run-of-the-mill cute chick. We’re talking perfect skin, neon smile, piercing eyes, strong cheekbones, huge blonde hair, taut body, long legs and a nice set of sewn-ins. She was fine, all right, but I wasn’t about to get swooped by a stool thief, sewn-in tits or no sewn-in tits.

As I walked up behind her, something in my head began to hiss and it must have been audible outside my head because I had no sooner folded my arms and tightened my jaw than my bartender said preemptively, “Tony, do you want your stool back?” I answered, “I sure do.”

This rather loud exchange occurred across a gap of not more than five feet amid which sat the stool thief, who kept running her silly mouth to the youngster on her right. I rolled around to her left. The blind-side roll is a menacing maneuver that would have caught the concerned attention of a male stool thief. My quarry paid no heed, confident that her sexiness granted her immunity.

I said, “Honey, you had best jump up out of my stool now. I’m not playing around.” At that point I had the attention of every one of the dozen or so men in the place, including the one to whom the stool thief was still gabbing away. Had she not heard me the first time, which I’m convinced she did, she definitely heard me this time. The whole bar heard me. She ignored me.

It’s a well-known fact that pretty women often do not play by the rules. It’s a well-known fact to anyone who knows me that pretty women not playing by the rules piss me off. In fact, had the stool thief been a homely woman who had to buy her own drinks, I might have acted differently. But a pretty woman drinking on strange men’s tabs, stealing my stool and ignoring direct invocation of the rules of decency, well, she’s going to get dealt with. So I leaned into her, my mouth perhaps eight inches from her ear, and growled, “Get the fuck out of my fucking stool, now!” Every mouth in the bar fell open. Every eye widened. Every throat tightened.

The stool thief spun slowly around all smugly and asked, in that sing-songy chick tone that everyone hates, “Oh my God! Did you just tell me to get the fuck out of your stool?” I answered, “No, kitten. I told you to get the fuck out of my fucking stool. You might have heard me the first two times if the peroxide hadn’t soaked through your skull and ruined your ears.”

I don’t know where most people come down on bar etiquette, but I’m certain most would ordinarily avoid dropping F-bombs on strange women, even women who pander their prurience to win free alcohol. But I am also certain now, days after the fact, that I don’t regret a thing about that night. I’m certain I would do it again and I’m certain she probably would, too. And that’s the way the world is. There are those who steal stools and those who punish them. I’m a punisher.

At first I didn’t feel very good about being mean to a girl. As she slinked out the door, it took all the conviction I could muster not to chase after her and apologize. But I thought of Shakespeare’s Richard III and told myself, “No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none and therefore am no beast.” And if the Bard’s consolation were not enough, I was rewarded by the cheers and back claps of an enthusiastic crowd of men, three of whom bought me a round for doing the right thing.

In time, my recollection of that night will fade. I won’t even remember what the stool thief looked like and I will forget how to tell the story. But I’ll tell you one thing for sure—I will never forget that cigarette.

The Arms Race from San Diego CityBEAT

June 14, 2006

The new arms race
Does China’s capacity to breed multi-limbed humans make it a bigger threat?
In yet another instance of China’s emergence as a global power, doctors at the Shanghai Medical Center circulated images last week of the infant, Jie-jie, who was born with three arms. For many Americans, Jie-jie evoked recollection of George Mulrooney, the boy from Tennessee born in 1997 with five penises whose diaper fit him like a glove (ba-dum-bum).

Before ergonomists could study the principles of pentipedal locomotion by watching the baby crawl about on all fives, a team of Chinese surgeons successfully removed one of Jie-jie’s supernumerary left limbs on June 6, leading many to ask why. While China continues to develop its technology, infrastructure and competitiveness on the world stage at a staggering pace, it remains a nation with a disproportionate concentration of abject poverty. And whereas now Jie-jie is merely a young Chinese boy with a disabled left arm, pre-operatively he held the promise of a highly employable oddity.

But regardless of the wisdom or lack thereof behind the hacking off of the arm, what concerns U.S. scientists and trend trackers is how the Chinese managed to breed a healthy, three-armed kid in the first place. Until the images of Jie-jie were released, U.S. scientists seemed unshakably confident of their pre-eminence in the field of genetic manipulation of the unborn. But while the U.S. focus has been on the engineering of two-headed goats and five-legged frogs, the Chinese have upped the ante by moving boldly, and some say predictably, into the arena of human extremity alteration.

According to Dr. J. Anders Moreau of Temple University’s Institute for Superfluous Studies, “For far too long, American mad scientists have rested on their laurels with a smug self-assurance that our hegemony in ghastly genetic engineering was unassailable,” adding, “We accept him, we accept him, one of us, one of us.”

It now appears that Moreau’s observations only hint at the vastness that separates East from West on the issue of human morphology. A recently released Pentagon report on the issue points out the military advantage of breeding soldiers with eyes in the backs of their heads, and military implications are just the beginning.

“We’ve been asleep at the wheel,” says U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. “We aren’t just talking about super soldiers and sideshows. The Chinese bred a three-armed infant this time, but our intelligence suggests that they’re only halfway to their goal. Imagine how quickly a Chinese teenager could stitch a pair of Nikes with four functional arms. The U.S. working class is in danger of being left behind.”

The possibility of plus-armed immigrants is of particular concern to Chao. “We have 10 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.,” she said at a hastily called press conference. “Their willingness to do unsavory jobs for little pay gives them an advantage over U.S. citizens. How much greater would that advantage be if they could wash dishes or pick fruit twice as fast?”

At present, hard numbers are unavailable since little has been done to study the question of multi-limbed laborers. However, prior to last weekend’s opening of the World Cup, the results of a study were released that suggest a correlation between possession of multiple limbs and success in sports. Conducted over a five-year period by the Academy of Sport Self Evidence, the study tracked a sample of 1,500 athletes from their earliest entry into the sport of soccer and found that a young athlete is 17 times more likely to succeed in soccer if he has two legs rather than one.

Real Madrid’s David Beckham admitted that his own bipedalism does offer an advantage. “Sure,” said Beckham, “I’ve been blessed. I don’t think I could have had as much success had I been born a unilegger. What worries most of us about the Chinese research is the possibility that they will move on to legs. There’s no way I could bend it around a four-legged Ronaldinho.”

Yet according to sources close to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the biggest threat to the U.S. doesn’t come from enhanced athletes or immigrants with more than the usual compliment of arms. Evidence suggests that several nations with regimes openly hostile to the U.S. are working on programs to breed humans with certain gastrointestinal augmentations. Said one source on the condition of anonymity, “What would happen if they could make a man with two rectums? How many more drugs, or explosives, for that matter, would a double-bummed border crosser be able to smuggle into the southern states?”

In a startling reverse-course from their usual orthodoxy on the issue of human genetic engineering, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are urging President Bush to play God by increasing federal funding for research programs that will allow the U.S. to keep up with China and other nations in the production of freaks. Falwell appeared with Robertson on the latter’s long-running television show, The 700 Club, to appeal directly to Washington for what the pair dubbed, “the single greatest threat to America’s God-given right to supremacy since Brazil kicked its oil habit.”

“I am calling on all Christians,” said Falwell, “to contact your elected officials and tell them their jobs depend upon them taking action to keep America ahead of the three-armed, Godless yellow hordes.”

Robertson amplified Falwell’s remarks, saying, “I am persuaded that God has sent us a message. We must take His warning seriously. If we don’t do something soon, before long we will be slaves of Buddhist octopides.”

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the president of India, many of whose citizens worship an entity with four arms, said, “You think you’re scared—we have a 2,100-mile border with China. First it’s the arms, then just sharpen the nose, lighten the skin, round out the eyes, stick a dot on the forehead and they’ll have us bowing at their feet.”

Minutemen Letter from San Diego CityBEAT

May 31, 2006

Say it ain’t so, W
An open letter to the president from a San Diego Minuteman

Dear Dubyah,
You know, we’ve been working mighty hard out here to keep hate alive. My buddies and I have to get up early and load into Steve’s truck to head out to the day-laborer pick-up spots so we can harass undocumented immigrants and still make it to work on time. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it.

Mind you, I’m not complaining. I’m proud to be among the chosen few whose lot in life it is to threaten brown people. I’ve been called, and I answered without hesitation. I don’t care if nary a head of lettuce gets picked this summer—show me a wetback and he’s going to hear from me and the rest of the Minutemen. We’re vigilantes. That’s how we roll.

You mightn’t be surprised to learn that it hasn’t been all slap and tickle sticking up for you these past few years. I know you’ve noticed your poll numbers. You might have asked yourself why your approval rating is lower than a well-digger’s ass. Well, I’ll tell you why. It’s on account of folks have been jumping off your bandwagon like they’ve got Lysol on their tails. Most people aren’t exactly nuts about you, Dub, and you need to come to terms with that fact.

You also need to accept that the third-or-so of us that haven’t run away from any association with your idiocy need a stroke once in a while. Remember the time you flew onto the deck of an aircraft carrier and climbed down out of a fighter jet sporting a flight suit that made your package look ridiculously huge? That was cool. We were with you then, as we were when you rattled your saber at terrorists atop the still-smoking rubble of the World Trade Center.

So why, oh why, did you have to go and deliver a well-reasoned speech about comprehensive immigration reform just when we had things going our way? Come on, Dub. This is one hell of a time to start making sense, don’t you think? I mean, we’ve got us some serious Mexican ass to kick and we sure as by-God don’t need no interference from the one irrational nut job we thought we could count on. We’re busy trampling migrant camps, and you just up and go on TV and tell people that all human lives have dignity. That ain’t gonna work, brother. You need to knock off the human-dignity crap right quick. Really. How are we supposed to go about hassling roach-coach drivers if you’re telling people they’ve got dignity? Dignity, my butt. They don’t have green cards, and that fact alone not only authorizes us, it mandates us to carry out our mission of harassment by any means necessary.

Now, seeing as how the overwhelming majority of Americans didn’t hear your sweet little pandering to moderation the other night (that’s what comes of being electorally posthumous in one’s own time), we’re gonna let this one slide. We owe you one for six years of race baiting, gay bashing, intrusion into women’s rights, glorification of violence and celebration of heedless machismo. But that’s it. I’ve had it up to here with the logic thing. You get a pass this time, but don’t push it. Once is enough.

And since we’re so willing to kiss and make up, we’d like a little payback. In exchange for your public faux pas, we expect you to start bombing Iran pronto. Let us handle the Mexican thing. You’ve got bigger fish to fry. We’ll deal with Jorge and Pedro; you deal with Mahmoud and Mohammed.

I hear the President of Iran had the temerity to write you a letter not long back. Rumor has it that it was 18 pages long. Frankly, I think you’d best deal with that uppity camel jockey post haste. Seriously. You’d best smite him a blow before other folks go getting ideas. I mean, if you’re just going to sit back and let heads of state fire off lengthy, thoroughly thought-out missives without repercussion, well, what has this world come to? Somebody’s got to put him and his unpronounceable surname in their place, and I think you’re the man to do it. Don’t even read that letter. Just bomb his palace.

That’s what presidents do, after all. Presidents bomb people. We don’t need a president telling us to respect the dignity of human life. If we needed that, we’d ask Jimmy Carter to run again. No sir, we don’t need a decent, compassionate, generous president. We need a president who’s hell-bent on blowing things up and cheering on the destruction of ancient civilizations. It’s your fate, it’s your duty and it’s your solemn obligation to devastate Iran while we bully illegal immigrants. You might not like it, but that’s the way it is. Live with it.

And one other thing—Lou Dobbs has been walking point on the broken-borders issue for a good long while now and he could use some relief. It wouldn’t kill you to give Lou some on-camera kudos. He’s on the air darn near every day, some days twice or thrice. You could do him a solid and go on with him. He can shake his head and opine rhapsodically while you talk about things like securing the homeland and our common, uniting language. Lou’s a good guy. Help him out.

That’s about it, Dub. I’m sorry to have to get tough on you. I hope you know I love you, and I’m proud of you. Just knock off the tolerance and inclusiveness and everything will get back to normal. I promise.

Best wishes,
Jim Bob Earl George,
San Diego Minutemen

Patrick Kennedy from San Diego CityBEAT

May 10, 2006

Mayo schmayo
Drinking, driving and getting your groove on Kennedy-style
Apparently, Ted Kennedy’s kid has a problem with controlled substances. Quelle surprise. The good people of Rhode Island (that’s a state) knew that the lifelong bachelor they sent to Congress was no tea-totaller long before they sent him there. They knew he liked to tie one on and go for a spin. That’s how he rolls. His constituents are down with that.

So when Pat choked down a fistful of Ambien and consumed no alcohol (yeah, right), then banged up his Mustang after careening down a capital street at 3 in the morning with the headlights off, it wasn’t exactly a shock. Nor was it much of a surprise to learn that the D.C. cops sent in the Obfuscation Brigade to offer a lift home to the six-termer who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. That’s how Washington works. We all know it. Of course it isn’t fair that Pat gets to buzz off to the Mayo Clinic to dry out for a few days while the rest of us would be doing time. But there’s no sense griping about it. Until you’re a Kennedy, don’t drink and drive.

It was rather touching, actually, for Kennedy to go on national television and tell us what he’s told us a dozen times now—that he struggles with addiction. Struggles, my ass. Seems to me he has addiction mastered. So do I. But if I bounced a Ford off a security gate a quarter-mile from the White House, I doubt the feds would pack me up, cart me home and tuck me in for the night. If it were up to me, we’d all get to call the brass-and-khaki shuttle any time we dent our ride after tipping a few dozen martinis. But we don’t. We have to call Yellow Cab and shell out a 10-spot to get our butts to bed.

I’ll admit it. I’m envious. I’ve always wanted to get away with partying like the Kennedys. My most dearly held private fantasy is to jump into a Leer jet with Winona Ryder, Courtney Love and Robert Downey Jr., fly out to Massachusetts, meet up with Ted and the clan and get just magnificently shit-faced. Sadly, I haven’t been invited.

Which is why I am particularly grateful to have a column in this esteemed publication. I look upon it as an opportunity to network. Surely, at least one CityBeat reader knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who knows a Kennedy. It doesn’t need to be a famous one. An in-law will do. I’ll even settle for one of the ugly, dumb ones they don’t let go on television or run for public office. Anyone with a key to the compound is sufficient.

Here’s what I’m offering. My girlfriend has a little more than 3 million unused frequent flyer miles, so she will cover the travel costs for you and a friend to accompany us. All you need to be able to do is to gain access to a Kennedy mansion and point us to the wet bar and the medicine cabinet.

I figure we can leave on a Thursday and fly back on a Monday. That way, come Saturday night we’ll already be two days into a bender, just right for hopping in the Hummer and tearing up the suburbs. When we finally end up mired to the floorboard in a peat bog, we’ll still have a good 36 hours to sleep it off before we have to hop a flight westward. If you happen to know how to get hold of Gary Busey and Nick Nolte, invite them along. They can play chicken on their motorcycles and shoot the neighbors’ show pony. That’s always fun.

Mind you, this trip is not for the faint of heart. We’re talking about some world-class drinking and pill-popping here. We’re not just talking knee-crawling drunk; we’re talking the kind of drunk that eats the worm, drinks the bong water and wakes up and can’t remember shaving your pubic hair off. I mean real, serious, lasting-damage drunk—the kind of drunk that breaks your hand and doesn’t care.

And there’s not going to be any of this Mayo Clinic crap, either. Rehab is for quitters. You’re going to fly back home feeling like a family of goats moved into your skull, you’re going to spend Monday night puking and you’re going to get up and go to work on Tuesday just like everyone else, because no matter how hard you like to party, you are not Ted Kennedy’s kid.

And because you’re not Ted Kennedy’s kid, I don’t want to hear you telling me things like, “Setbacks are a part of recovery.” Having no recollection of wrecking your car at First and C, SE, is not a setback; it’s getting hammered. Drinking is an art form, and like all art forms, practice makes perfect. Patrick Kennedy does not need to stop drinking. He needs to start drinking better. And because I’m fond of him and his kinfolk, if I can’t go to him, he is certainly invited to come to me. I know every bar in San Diego, and there are still a dozen or so where I’m allowed to drink. My favorite is just two blocks from my house. You can’t wreck a car if you don’t drive.

Of course, to be fair to the Congressman, he had to drive. He was way too trashed to walk. And to be fair to the Capitol Police, what else were they supposed to do—give Ted Kennedy’s kid a breathalyzer? Don’t be dense. When a Kennedy wrecks a car and sleeps off a hard night of partying, it’s not a crime—it’s a tradition. It’s part of the great American saga.

So give Patrick Kennedy a break. After all, it’s not like he killed someone. That’s been done already.

Move Israel to Arizona from the Fifth Avenue Gazette

April 12, 2006

Editor’s note – I have a friend who drinks light beer for breakfast and who doesn’t want any credit for the best story idea I have heard in months. Fine, Jack. I will take the credit, but I owe you a shot.

Mideast Meets Southwest
Tucson – I’m no Bible scholar, but if I recall correctly from my Southern Baptist boyhood, it has been a good five thousand years since Noah and his kin folk survived the flood along with a pair of every critter they could round up (the unicorns didn’t make it on the boat). That’s roughly 250 generations since two of Noah’s sons, Ham and Shem, set about repopulating the earth by siring, respectively, the Hamites and the Semites. In that time, one thing has become unavoidably obvious – your Ay-rabs and your Jew sorts just can’t get along.

For a good long while that fact didn’t matter much to anyone but them. Other than the Crusades, the rest of us (who, it would seem, just sprang up out of nowhere) haven’t had much reason to care about what happens in the Middle East until about a century ago. In fact, it wasn’t until August of 1920 when the victorious Allied Powers carved up the carcass of the former Ottoman Empire following the First World War that the West had any real stake in the region. At that time, the place wasn’t exactly crawling with Jews, most of whom had been scattered around Europe over the millenia.

In 1948, however, the Brits (who hold onto their Empire like the Irish hold their tempers) went and chopped Palestine (the land of the Philistines) into two parts creating the modern-day states of Jordan and Israel. Ever since then . . . well, you know the rest.

To start with, the Jewish homeland was about as big as the flight deck of the USS Midway and the immigrants that flocked there were packed in like sacrificial sheep. Once the English up and skedaddled, it wasn’t long before a bunch of pissed-off Muslims decided to roust the Red Sea pedestrians permanently. But you have to hand it to the Jews – they might not be much good at peace, but they can damn sure fight a war.

Skipping several decades, the question of the hour yesterday was, “what, exactly, is W intending to do about Iran?” I happen to think I know what he intends to do, but that’s beside the point. Given that he is hell-bent on busting up some more towel-heads to make the world safe for extremism, just what is his motivation?

Said one friend, “Because they’re intent on building nuclear weapons.”

Said another, “Yes, but India, Pakistan, North Korea, shit damn near everybody has nukes now days.”

Said a third, “But Iran is committed to the destruction of Israel.”


Well if that’s the case, then why is Iran the problem? I propose that the problem is Israel (which almost certainly has its own nukes and you know it). The problem we’ve got here is that the Brits (those wankers) couldn’t see that asking Menachem and Mustapha to live next door to each other is a recipe for catastrophe.

And don’t give me the “promised land” bull shit. I don’t care who thinks they’re entitled to what and neither does God. I asked her and she told me she never promised anything to anybody, except when she promised Alabama to the West Africans.

So here’s what ought to happen – Israel should move to Arizona.

Think on it for a second. Where it is now, Israel is surrounded by Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria – four places not noted for their fondness of Hebrews. Arizona, by contrast, abuts Mexico, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California. Other than Brigham Young’s tribe of polygamous weirdos to the north, that makes Arizona a pretty safe place for Israel.

Here are a few more selling points. Just like Israel, Arizona is a dry, barren, rocky, ugly moonscape. Just like Israel, there is no oil in Arizona. Just like Israel, Arizona didn’t really exist until some white people stole it from the brown people who lived there and built golf courses. And one more thing about Arizona – just like Israel, most Americans don’t really want to go there.

Sure enough, it would be quite a trick to convince a whole nation to pull up stakes and move halfway around the globe. You no doubt saw what a mess it caused when Ariel Sharon (who they tell me is still resting) told a passel of settlers they had to get out of the West Bank. So I suggest we enlist the rabbis. Have a cleric tell the Israelis that some new scrolls have been discovered that are encoded with Jehovah’s own ancient words. Whereas the old translation read “the land of the Red Sea,” what the Torah actually says is “the land of the Red People.” Dead Sea scrolls – nope, they’re the Death Valley scrolls. Land of milk and honey? Easy. Longhorns and beehives.

As for the lack of a Wailing Wall and a Temple Mount, give me a break. Three words – Universal Studios Florida. If you don’t think today’s set-builders can pull off a convincing replica of Jerusalem, rent a movie. Have you seen Las Vegas lately?

And even if you can’t sell them on the prophecy angle, there are lots more reasons that Arizona is a way better place than Israel. For starters Arizona is nearly six times as big. You can build all the kibutz you like out around Gila Bend. There’s also a plentiful source of cheap labor in Arizona. Israelis are accustomed to exploiting folks and unlike Palestinians, Mexicans almost never blow up sidewalk cafés.

Affluent Israelizonians can live in Scottsdale. The working class can live in Tucson and pressure their sons to go to the U of A and study medicine. On long weekends (because God knows those people have a shit load of holidays) they can go to Sedona. If we’re lucky, a good portion of New York City might make the move.

You might be wondering, “Yes Tony, but if Israel leaves, what will become of the Middle East.” I hate to answer a question with a question, but who gives a shit? Let’s face it. There are precisely two reasons we’re in the Middle East at all: one – Israel, two – oil. With Israel gone, that just leaves oil and do you know what? Last I heard there were no Al Quaeda cells in Venezuela. Hugo Chavez better watch his ass.

Despite my friend's desire for anonymity, I will call this version of a Middle East Peace Plan the Jack Initiative. I’ll be sending a draft version of the plan to Tel Aviv later this week, once I can figure out how to write backwards and leave out all the vowels.

Vietnam/Iraq from the Fifth Avenue Gazette

January 17, 2006

A Mess by Any Other Name
Washington, D.C. – I’m trying to recall exactly how many officials from W’s administration have told us so far that Iraq and Afghanistan are NOT Vietnam. Suffice it to say, it’s been a bunch. I can’t remember back that far, but I’m fairly certain that a bunch of Jack Kennedy’s minions tried to tell us that Vietnam was not Vietnam. I’m getting a bad feeling.

You might recall that while we were mired in Vietnam, Washington called up reserves and extended tours of duty for reservists and regulars. I’m glad we haven’t done that yet. I’m glad that the trickle homeward of dead teenagers and the appearance that the situation in Iraq is unwinnable hasn’t begun to erode the confident edifice even of former supporters of W’s policy. That happened during the war in Vietnam – not at all like the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

You might also recollect that in that extremely popular war that started four decades ago, the indigenous people were fodder for the guerillas that fought a war of opportunistic sniping, never once engaging US troops in any fixed battle. That’s way different than Iraq, isn’t it? Vietnam, which ultimately claimed nearly 60,000 US lives with a median age of 23.11 years, proved even deadlier for Vietnamese civilians. They paid the hghest price and saw their society dismantled and their economy ravaged as it was overrun by warring extremist factions. The instability spilled out into the entire region, spawning the Kmer Rouge and one of the worst holocausts in human history. Iraq’s not like that one bit.

Robert McNamara got hung out to dry over a pack of lies Lyndon Johnson’s administration kept trying to sell to the American public. George W. Bush didn’t do that to Colin Powell. The puppet government in South Vietnam was so corrupt and so disrespectful of basic human rights that it ultimately collapsed from within, under constant siege by rebel forces that were willing to blow themselves up for what they believed in. That won’t happen in Iraq.

Another thing that happened in Vietnam is that a Republican President and his shadow government decided to pursue targets outside the actual theater of operations, like in Cambodia and Thailand and Laos, for instance. Other than us destroying a village in Pakistan – not Afghanistan, Pakistan – the other day to try to kill an Arab septuagenarian, we haven’t really done much of that. Nor have we tortured any captured combatants, nor have we run any secret facilities to detain and “debrief” them.

I can sort of understand the administration, or at least the soldiers, not knowing the difference between Afghanistan and Pakistan, they both end in “stan” and they sort of sound alike. And guess what other two countries sound alike – Iraq and Iran. Hell they even have the same number of letters in their names.

W dubbed Iran a member of the “Axis of Evil” five years ago. Today he’s talking about their nuclear capacity. Go figure. It’s just coincidental, I suppose, that he’s managed to get a whole shitload of American troops on either side of Iran?

You read it here first – Iran is fucked. I don’t think Syria should get overly comfortable, but Iran – well, those people might as well just hug their families and kiss their asses goodbye because W’s got every intention of blasting that place. It’s all lined up for him – kind of like he planned it.

But he didn’t plan it. He just failed to listen to wise people – including the heads of state of Russia, France, Germany, Mexico and Canada – who told him not to go to war in the first place. They told him that it isn’t winning the war that is impossible, it’s establishing the peace. Actually, I think that also happened during Vietnam, and it was as right then as it is now.

Bad Places to Live from the Fifth Avenue Gazette

January 19, 2006

The Worst Places to Live
Hillcrest – Today the Fifth Avenue Gazette presents the results of a months-long study conducted by the prestigious research firm of Norton and Associates, Llp. Undertaken in the days immediately following the devastation in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina, the study concludes that no matter how bad things are in the Big Easy, there are still places far worse off. In fact, New Orleans finished 74th on the list of shitty places to live, prompting Mayor Ray Nagin to remark, “I told all y’all fools to get yo black asses back here. San Antonio’s a cracker town. Y’all belong down here. We be fixin' to go straight chocolate all up in dis piece.”

Ten Worst Places to Live (in reverse order):
10. Mars – Named for the Roman god of war, the fourth planet from the sun has long been a favorite of science fiction writers as the second best planet to inhabit in the solar system. However, the Fifth Avenue Gazette study revealed that rumors of canals and Barsoomian princesses on the surface of Mars are grossly exaggerated. Mars also scores low in the areas of community amenities, climate, roads and schools. Still, to its credit, Mars has never been invaded by Mongols and was not involved in the United Nations oil-for-food scandal.

9. Bangladesh – Since winning its independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh, the world’s most densely populated country, has had 13 different heads of state, two assassinations, and two military coups. Not bad for a 34-year history. Uncertainty and crowdedness are facts of life in Bangladesh, as are hunger and floods. Add to that the disease and pestilence, the rickets, the naked orphans in the streets - well let's just say that Bangladesh has something for everybody. By Bangladeshi standards, the flooding in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward was a neighborhood clean-up. It’s hard to believe there are eight worse places to live than Bangladesh – but I assure you there are.

8. Manhattan, Kansas – Holy fuck. The editors were stunned to learn that Manhattan, Kansas, did not finish first on this list. I have not the words to describe Manhattan, Kansas. To get some idea of what it is like to live there, just imagine yourself seated for eternity in a vinyl-covered recliner. On your lap is a TV tray with a self-replenishing plate of egg salad sandwiches on white bread and an endless glass of sugary Lipton iced tea. Your television choices consist of reruns of The Lawrence Welk Show and Hee Haw. Now imagine that for six months the sweat pours from your head leaving tracks down your face that are stained brown by a constant howling wind that somehow manages to just make things hotter. Then imagine yourself for the next six months shaking in a cold that knows no depth. Finally, imagine that every few hours a neighbor with black fingernails and a Mack Truck cap pops by, spits tobacco juice on your rug and asks, “Hey, you wanna run down to the Piggly Wiggly and pick up a carton of Winstons?”

7. Pelican Bay State Correctional Facility – In 1989 the California Department of Corrections unveiled its state-of-the-art 1,056-cell Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay. If you’re considering a move to Pelican Bay, be sure you’re o.k. with your own company. If you land in the SHU, you’ll be guaranteed at least 22 ½ hours per day of confinement to a room designed for one occupant, but probably shared by a violent predator. Charles Manson has never been in an SHU. California Department of Corrections officials told the Fifth Avenue Gazette that Manson is far too affable to make it at Pelican Bay.

6. Antarctica – At 14 million square kilometers, the world’s fifth largest continent is home to researchers from several nations. It has no drive-throughs, no video stores, no nightclubs, no parades, and no permanent government. The terrain is 98 percent ice and 2 percent barren rock. It has 17,968 miles of coastline and not a single beach. If you visit Antarctica, be sure to check out the Bentley Subglacial Trench, the continent’s lowest point, at approximately 8,000 feet below sea level.

5. Manhattan (the other one) – Purchased from the Native Americans for some beads, two shiny buttons, a bottle of rum and two handfuls of smallpox spores, the worst thing about the Island of Manhattan is that it is full of New Yorkers. Some ten million people per day clamber aboard this nasty, fetid, swarming barge to produce, quite literally, nothing but waste. When it’s not frozen, Manhattan is world renowned for its ubiquitous aroma of urine. The very best thing about Manhattan is that I shan't ever go there again.

4. Burundi – Largely unknown to the Western world and virtually ignored by Western governments, Burundi, with a land mass slightly smaller than Maryland, boasts a seven percent infant mortality rate, a 51 percent literacy rate, a life expectancy of 50 years and a per capita income of 25 cents per day. Civil war has raged in Burundi for more than four decades since the Belgians gave it back to the indigenous Hutu and Tutsi tribes from whom they stole it, and whose cultures they all but destroyed by raping the land and enslaving the people. It’s a bad, bad, bad fucking place. On a serious note, if the advanced nations of the world want to be properly so-called wouldn't you think they could do something to keep thugs from cutting off villagers hands in an impoverished, landlocked nation? Maybe once we get through fighting for important things like petroleum reserves we can get around to the low-priority stuff like tribal genocide, starvation and child slavery.

3. Canada –Insightful readers will wonder why the nation of Canada, with free universal health care, universal access to safe, high-quality affordable housing, almost no violent crime, clean cities, a stable economy and peaceful relations with every other nation in the world even makes the list. Canada is a shitty place to live because of its proximity to the United States and the tendency for everyone in the world to assume that Canadians are just like Americans. If you happen to be Canadian, and if you happen to get abducted in, oh, let’s say the outskirts of Baghdad, it won’t matter to your captors that you come from a nice, respectable place. They will still saw your white head off and broadcast it over the internet. It sucks to be Canadian.

2. Alabama – (I don’t really need to explain this one, do I? All right, fine.) The State of Alabama, home to such attractions as the Johnson Ranch Automatic Rifle Range and The Place Where Those Negro Kids Got Blowed Up, is the only state in the union with four a's in its name. It also proudly bosts three k's. The Fifth Avenue Gazette study revealed that not everyone in Alabama is his or her cousin's son or daughter (that's a covoluted incest reference if I've ever heard one) and that not everyone in Alabama is a redneck, genetic mutant, hate-filled, spouse-beating piece of backward white trash. Those are just the people in charge.

* * *

1. My girlfriend’s house – While Marie has been in New York City shopping for the past three days, I have spent time at her house trying to learn to play her piano. I haven’t gotten any better at the piano, but I do finally understand why it is that she likes to stay at my place pretty regularly. I can confidently declare that Marie's house is the shittiest place to live in the universe, ever.

Marie lives between two of Hillcrest's leading businesses - the Hash House a Go Go (http://www.hashhouseagogo.com/) and the Loft (yeah, like they've got a website). I'm pretty familiar with the Loft, to say the least, not so much with the Hash House. So let's take these two establishments in reverse order, shall we?

In the litany of great neighborhood pubs at which to get oneself good and drunk in this town, there is none finer than the Loft. Good drinks generously poured by attentive bartenders, along with one of the more colorful regular patronages on the West Coast are just the beginning of it. What makes the Loft really special is the fact that on any given night you can expect to meet up with a good two dozen or so opinionated snots like me who enjoy drinking to excess and arguing loudly on the sidewalk over such important things as whether the fact that he was never elected either to the presidency or the vice presidency makes Gerald Ford a significant anomaly in presidential history or whether that fact is just a curious bit of trivia that people like to trot out anytime that Ford, 92, gets a little under the weather. (For the record, it's the latter). We Lofters can get loud. I have no idea why the neighbors haven't planted a bomb at the Loft yet.

But the Loft doesn't hold a candle to the Hash House. Marie's bed is separated from the Hash House patio by a thin plate of shaky glass and six feet of air. The Hash House loading area and storage facilities are just another ten feet further away. To sleep earlier than 11:00 p.m. or later than 6:00 a.m. in Marie's bed requires at least three glasses of wine, two Excedrin PM's, a white noise machine, ear plugs and a smart blow to the back of the head. (For the record - the Hash House a Go Go is one of the best reviewed and busiest restaurants in Uptown San Diego, and deservedly so. I am not picking a fight with the Hash House. I hope they know this because someday I might steal one of their images from the internet and publish it on this page).

In front of Marie's home there are about 200 square feet of grass. I believe it is the only grass anywhere on Fifth Avenue. Someone write to me if I'm wrong. Two words - dog shit. You would not believe the mountains of shit that pile up on her lawn. It's a veritable poop garden. This fact, however, does not deter the literal scores of people who line up for as long as an hour in the mornings waiting to get into the Hash House. Neither does it deter the late night Loft-goers from frequenting her lawn for less passive reasons.

The single worst part of Marie's house, however, has nothing to do with either of her nextdoor neighbors. Her upstairs neighbors have a cat. Judging by the sound of it, I would guess it tips the scales at about 140 pounds. Marie's bed is eight feet beneath her upstairs neighbors' kitchen floor. Given that her building is of Victorian vintage and the kitchen floor in question consists of two milimeters of linoleum sitting atop old creaky wood, the acoustic properties of Marie's bedroom are roughly equivalent to the inside of a snare drum.

Now whereas humans are diurnal critters who like to sleep at night, cats tend to get rather active at around one in the morning. I swear, it sounds like a panther toppling over a school bus. Try this experiment. Put on a football helmet. Go to sleep. Have a friend of yours stand by and the moment you nod off have him empty a sack of ball bearings on your head. That's not quite as bad as sleeping in Marie's bed.

So there you have it. New Orleans might be a sopping wet, mold infested, nasty, dirty, shitty place to go back to, but it could be worse, it could be Marie's house.

The Hajj from the Fifth Avenue Gazette

January 13, 2006

Mecca Lecca Hi Mecca Hiney Ho
Mecca, Saudi Arabia – I still don’t completely understand what happened the other day that led to the deaths of 345 Muslim pilgrims. I know that part of the credo of that faith is the expectation that all Muslims who are able are expected to go to Mecca at least once in their lifetimes. I’ve got that. I also know that during the Hajj, there are certain rituals in which pilgrims participate, including throwing 49 stones at pillars that symbolize the devil. I’m down with that. It makes sense.

And lest you think I’m about to go into some Muslim-bashing rant, I’m not. I have actually read the Koran. I have looked into Islam. It’s a pretty sensible faith, as faiths go. At its core, Islam is a code of peace, moderation, dignity, tolerance, and humility. It’s a cool religion actually.

BUT, I think it’s a safe bet that any god worth worshipping probably does not want her acolytes to crush like lemmings into a corridor of death in which the slower ones get trampled after tripping over their own luggage.

And to me, the really weird part is that this happens every year. Last year, on February 1, the BBC ran the following story:

A stampede at the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia has left at least 244 people dead, the largest number killed at the event since 1997.

Three words – what the fuck? Are you kidding me? They keep records?

I read somewhere that officials estimate that as many as three million pilgrims came to Mecca this year. Given the trampling deaths and the 76 others who died when a hotel fell into a crowded street (the Koran is lax on code enforcement), the Hajj is still fairly safe, with 99.985% of all pilgrims surviving the event. That makes it roughly as risky as Pamplona’s annual running of the bulls, which is about four times safer than an Oakland Raiders game, which, in turn, is twice as safe as the mall on the day after Thanksgiving.

But I’m still not satisfied. I think we could make this thing a whole lot safer. So last night I talked to Mohammed. I can sense some of you pulling away from me, but hang in there for a minute. I have a special relationship with dead prophets. They like me. They take my calls. I carry on regular correspondence with Elijah and Elisha both. You didn’t think I got this smart all on my own did you? I know things because dead prophets tell them to me. That’s why I’m an emperor and you’re not.

So Mohammed and I are talking and I said, “Mo, if you can pull yourself away from the virgins for a minute, I need to ask you something. How about easing up on the pilgrimage thing?”

He answered, “Well whatever you think, Tony. I mean you’re the one who’s still alive. You’re the one who knows how the world has changed in the 1,400 years since I up and croaked. Your call will be fine with me.”

Mohammed is a pretty agreeable guy (until he gets a few drinks in him). With his backing, I hereby decree that able-bodied Muslims are no longer expected to go to Mecca. From now on, they can go to Las Vegas instead.

Las Vegas loves tourists. Las Vegas has nice wide streets, and lots of things that symbolize the devil at which to hurl stones, epithets, phlegm or whatever you want. A pilgrimage to Las Vegas can be arranged cheaply on Southwest.com where you can take advantage of some really swell travel deals. Las Vegas has good food, good shows, and plenty of parking. No one ever gets trampled in Las Vegas.

Sure, there are some things about Las Vegas that might not be all that agreeable to the more traditional Muslim set – naked girls, some of whom will have sex with you for money (God bless them), liquor, tobacco, gambling – I know Islam ain’t exactly hip to drinking, smoking, gambling and screwing. Those are mostly Christian things apparently.

But that’s not all there is to Las Vegas. There’s also the weather, and gobs of wide open space. And that’s why Las Vegas is just as good a place for a Hajj as Mecca.

I did some checking – Las Vegas has an average year-round temperature of 78 degrees and an average annual rainfall of 4.3 inches. Mecca has an average year-round temperature of 78 degrees and an average annual rainfall of 4.4 inches. In other words, but for a tenth of an inch of rain, they’re basically the same place, except that Las Vegas has law enforcement and its hotels don’t fall down. Oh yeah, there also aren’t any public beheadings in the streets of Las Vegas.

There’s boxing, though. Don King is huge in Las Vegas. Pretty much every night of the week you can find boxing in Las Vegas, and not crappy boxing like the shit they promote at the Indian (feathers, not dots) casinos. I mean real, serious boxing. It’s all rigged to make sure that Don King keeps getting richer, but it’s boxing nevertheless.

However, there’s a catch – whereas Mecca has never been noted for its popularity with the Jews, there’s a whole big whopping heap of Jews in Las Vegas. I mean they’re just all over the place. They like to wear faux turtle necks and way too much cologne and hang out at the Bellagio and the Rio and play craps. They talk on their cell phones and disturb everyone around them.

Mind you, I’m not talking about Ariel Sharon Jews, I’m talking about Richard Lewis Jews, the kind that think being Jewish means you have to drive an SUV, buy jewelry for your wife and schedule play dates for your children.

Not to worry. I am fairly certain that if three million Muslims suddenly showed up in Las Vegas and one of them scrambled to the top of the nearest minaret (perhaps the Eiffel Tower) and started bellowing “Allah, Hu Akbar,” the Jews would pack up right quick and head to Reno.

* I have long been baffled at the passion engendered in some Muslim extremists by the idea that if they die in a Jihad they will spend eternity with scores of virgins. Why virgins? If I blow myself up and get to spend eternity balling a bevy of broads, I don’t want them to be virgins. I would rather spend eternity with some chicks who know what they’re doing. I would make a good terrorist if I knew that when I die I could spend eternity in paradise in the company of 73 porn stars. You can keep the virgins, thank you.

Doug Flutie from the Fifth Avenue Gazette

January 2, 2006

Editor’s note – Marie insisted that I point out the fact that it was she who urged me to stop messing around in the kitchen and to come watch a moment in yesterday’s game between the New England Patriots and the Miami Dolphins that was one for the ages. It’s not every day you get a chance to glimpse an historic event. If I had missed it I would have cried.

Sixty-four, Forty-three, Just One
Foxboro, Massachusetts – On November 23, 1984, a 22-year-old Boston College quarterback from Natick, Massachusetts, threw a 48-yard touchdown pass on the last play of a game against heavily favored Miami in the Orange Bowl. The successful Hail Mary entered sports legend as one of the greatest moments in college football history and vaulted the diminutive Doug Flutie to national stardom.

Listed at 5’9” and 180 pounds, Flutie is actually smaller than that.

He is a rarity, a little big man, a freak of nature. In high school he was an all-league standout in football, basketball and baseball. At Boston College he won the Heisman Trophy, the Maxwell Award and the Walter Camp Award.

Deemed too small to win at quarterback in the National Football League, where quarterbacks are supposed to be able to see over their own linemen, Flutie began his professional football career with the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League. When that league folded in 1986, he joined the Chicago Bears where he appeared in only four games, throwing just 46 passes on the season. In 1987 he was signed by the New England Patriots, for whom he started just 13 games in three seasons.

In 1990 he left the NFL and signed a two-year contract with the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League. He struggled in his first season. However, the following year his star shone brightly and he signed a million-dollar-a-year deal with the Calgary Stampeders.

Flutie won his first Grey Cup in 1992 with the Stampeders. he would go on to win two more with the Toronto Argonauts, in 1996 and 1997, before returning to the NFL with the Buffalo Bills in 1998.

His career CFL statistics include 41,355 passing yards and 270 touchdowns. He holds the professional football record of 6,619 yards passing in a single season. He still holds four of the CFL's top five highest single-season completion marks, including a record 466 in 1991. His 48 touchdown passes in 1994 remains a CFL record. He earned three Grey Cup MVP awards, and was named Most Outstanding Player a record six times (1991-1994, and 1996-1997).

In his 1998 return to the NFL with the Bills, he was selected to the Pro Bowl after resurrecting a season that had begun with him on the bench and saw his team post a 1-3 record in its first four games. As a starter, Flutie posted an 8-3 record and led his team to the playoffs.

Subsequent tenures in San Diego and finally in New England have seen Flutie continue to defy age and explanation. At 43, he is playing in his 21st season of professional football. He has never been seriously injured. He boggles the mind.

This year, widely rumored to be his last, Flutie has seen limited action playing behind Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady (who was seven-years-old when Flutie won the Heisman).

Yesterday, in a meaningless game, Flutie was on the field for one play, an untimed extra point attempt.

In its infancy, the game of football closely resembled rugby, its progenitor. The football itself was much rounder than today’s prolate spheroid. As in rugby, points could be scored by kicking a dropped ball at, or immediately after the moment the ball touched the field through a goal (hence the term “field goal”). The so-called dropkick was a common feature of the game well into the 1930’s until changes to the shape of the ball were complete, and until other rule changes made it impractical.

The last recorded instance of a successful dropkick in the NFL was on December 21, 1941, when the Chicago Bears’ Ray Mclean drop-kicked an extra point against the New York Giants. That was just over 64 years ago – 21 years before Old Man Flutie was born.

However, the dropkick remains in the NFL rulebook as a legitimate means of scoring either a field goal or an extra point.

Yesterday afternoon, following a Patriots touchdown, Flutie took the field. The commentators could not fathom what was to come. Even the opposing coaching staff were mystified.

Flutie stood alone in the backfield. There was no kicker on the field. There were 10 linemen including four tight ends. Standing at the 12 yard line, Flutie took the snap from center, dropped the ball to the field, and kicked it cleanly through the uprights.

I have never seen anything like it.

I watched Kirk Gibson hit his famed walk-off home run in game one of the 1988 World Series. I watched Michael Johnson run the 200 meters in 19.32 seconds in 1996. I saw Buster Douglas knock out Mike Tyson. I have never seen a dropkick. I definitely have never seen a dropkick by a 43-year-old backup quarterback.

I know I’m probably a little bit overly sentimental about sports. But if you saw what Doug Flutie did yesterday and didn’t get choked up, you’re just not a normal person.

Sport is at its best when it lifts us out of the mundane and into the triumphant. Sport matters. Sport is a metaphor for life. Sport, done right, is sublime. Sport lays bare the character of its players, and sport shows us why character matters.

There is much to be learned from Doug Flutie – an athlete in a world of millionaire punks who founded a non-profit foundation in honor of his autistic son to raise money for research, an athlete who has never been charged with drunk driving, spousal abuse, or tax evasion, an athlete who was a finalist for a Rhodes Scholarship in the same year he was named college football’s most valuable player.

John Wooden once said that a player that makes a team great is better than a great player. How much better still must a player be if he makes all of us better?

Sure, it’s sappy. Sure it’s just football. Sure it doesn’t really matter much in a world in which 24,000 people die every day from hunger. Sure it didn’t settle anything. The Patriots still lost and even that doesn’t matter.

It was just one moment, one untimed play. It was just one point. Just one. Well, there is also just one Doug Flutie.

Injuns is Injuns from the Fifth Avenue Gazette

December 11, 2005

Editor’s note – It had to happen. With apologies to the late Dr. Seuss, Theodor Geisel, and his dear widow Audrey, today the Fifth Avenue Gazette is proud to publish its first children’s page. Enjoy kiddies.

Injuns is Injuns
Well the dot-headed Injuns had foreheads with dots,
While the feather-head Injuns had no distinct spots.
Those dots weren’t so big, they were really quite small.
You would think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all.

But because they had dots all the dot-headed sorts
Thought they were superior to those near the forts.
In their sandals and saris they’d saunter about
Boasting, “We are far better than Injuns without.”
And often it happened that when they were dining,
Or playing the sitar or simply opining
About this or that, or whose land was Kashmir,
That a feather-head kind would approach and draw near.
“Get out of here, Cochise!” The dot-heads would tell 'em.
Then they'd joke about blankets and beads they could sell 'em.

So the feather-heads, naturally, felt quite rejected,
It wasn’t exactly the life they’d elected.
For whereas the dot-heads had come from a nation,
The feather-heads just had a foul reservation.

Then one day the feather-heads got them a notion
And called an old squaw to come whip up a potion.
She took a big pot and then out of her pockets
She added some yak spleen and otter eye sockets.
She stirred and she chanted until she turned blue,
And when it was over she’d whipped up a stew.
And all the braves ate it, though it tasted quite horrid,
Yet not even one dot appeared on a forehead.
“Don’t worry,” she said, in a voice old and wheezy,
“This concoction will help you make money real easy.”

Then suddenly something quite magical happened.
The redskins’ brain cells, they all started to snappin’.
And all of them instantly put down the booze,
And thought of things other than white women’s cooze.
If the dot-heads, they figured, had slurpee machinos,
Then why shouldn’t they build themselves big casinos.

And into the game rooms the white people poured
And left behind cash for the redskins to hoard.
People gambled and drank and got mumbling and stumbling
And into the slot machines money kept tumbling.
By the time it was over, things were all in reverse.
Of the two types of Injuns, the dot-heads were worse.

They should have known better, you see, here’s the moral –
Minorities never should get in a quarrel.

If you come to the States, no matter how many,
Most white folks will just assume you’re Pakistani.
And you’ll drive a taxi, or run a motel,
Or you’ll join the service and not ask nor tell.
And maybe your children will have better chances,
They sure won’t remember traditional dances,
Or your native culture in any small way.
They’ll listen to Moby, or maybe Green Day.

And often you’ll wish you were back home in Delhi,
Though things were quite frightful there (and downright smelly).

‘Cause that’s how it is in the U. S. of A. –
White is white, green is green, and the rest is just gray.
Don’t ever forget this if you’re not a honkey,
To Washington, you’re just another porch-monkey.
If you have an earthquake they’ll show up in force,
But they’ll leave just as soon as the news runs its course.
Dots and feathers, you see, they don’t matter one bit.
Nobody in power could give a good shit.

So whether you’re brown, or perhaps red or yellow,
You really should sneak into someplace more mellow.
Up until recently France would have been it,
But all of those black folks there fucked things up in it.
So try Scandinavia, it’s still o.k.
Though the food really sucks and it snows every day.
Or if you can’t make it in Denmark or Sweden,
Then try staying put. Try to build your own Eden.

The pasture might not be too green on your side,
And your dictator might leave you no place to hide.
But keep trying, no matter how bad things may rub ya.
It could always be worse – you could be stuck with Dubyah.

I am prepared for whatever hate mail I may receive from immigrant readers. I hope everyone gets the fact that satire is satire. I like Indians. Heck, I even like Indians. Seriously – I saw Kama Sutra on IFC and the one where Ben Kingsley played the skinny bald dude, even though he was better in The House of Sand and Fog. I’ve seen Dances With Wolves and Last of the Mohicans bunches of times. I understand that some Indians don’t celebrate Christmas. I’m not sure what kind of Indians those are – the ones who don’t eat cows or the ones who don’t worship elephants. But either way, that’s totally o.k. with me. Jews don’t celebrate Christmas either, I hear. I think it’s because they’re mad at Jesus for not saving them too. Arabs don’t celebrate Christmas, but that’s because they’re just generally angry at everything.

Tookie Williams from the Fifth Avenue Gazette

Ghetto Braces for Execution
South Central Los Angeles – Korean grocers, Jewish slumlords, gentrifying corporate land barons, and long-haired faux liberal documentary film makers have embarked on a mass exodus from the war-torn urban ghettoes of most major American cities in anticipation of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s likely rejection of a clemency request for convicted multiple murderer and co-founder of the notorious Crips street gang, Stanley “Tookie” Williams, who is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on December 13th.

The evacuations began in earnest yesterday morning when the Federal Emergency Management Agency sent a fleet of one hundred busses withheld from New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina to Compton to relocate non-black people to Brentwood, Bel Air, Santa Monica and Glendale. According to authorities the evacuations are proceeding smoothly.

Former Governor Ronald Reagan granted California’s last clemency to a severely brain damaged man in 1967. Since that time 1,000 death sentences have been carried out nationwide and 3,400 men and women remain on death row, 42 percent of whom are black. During the same period, only 230 instances of clemency have been granted, 171 of those coming in 2003 in the State of Illinois when Governor George Ryan commuted the death sentences of all prisoners in that state two days before leaving office.

Excluding the Illinois cases, barely one percent of all men and women sentenced to death have received clemency in the past three decades. Clemency, an act of grace entrusted to the Executive branch, not the Judiciary, is a scarce commodity. Authorities reason that grace and politics just do not mix.

Williams’ supporters, who include over-rated actor Jamie Fox and purveyor of filth, violence and degradation of women Snoop Dog (that sage), argue that the murderers’ jailhouse conversion and his work to steer young people away from the gang lifestyle represent the sort of redemption that makes Williams an ideal candidate for clemency. Others argue that Williams, who has never admitted guilt in the four murders of which he was convicted – albeit by an all-white jury on the basis of circumstantial evidence and coerced confessions from jailhouse informants – deserves no special treatment.

Schwarzenegger, who is rumored to be none too fond of dark folks, is believed to fear alienating his eroding base of knee-jerk reactionary yuppie scum by displaying mercy in any form. A source close to the Governor told the Fifth Avenue Gazette, “I don’t care if Tookie wrote the Gospel. That brother’s dead y’all.”

Actor Jon Voight, who portrayed Pope John Paul II in an absolutely abysmal made-for-television movie last weekend, surprisingly said nothing about Williams’ case, although he is rumored to be once again talking to his daughter, Angelina Jolie.

Rage poet and jazz icon Gil Scott-Heron, who has twice served time for possession of controlled substances, spoke with the Fifth Avenue Gazette. According to Scott-Heron, the boarded up windows and vacant bank buildings might save a few honkeys, but the revolution has finally come, and it won’t be pretty.

“You will not be able to stay home brother,” he said. “You will not be able to plug in, turn on, and cop out. You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip out for beer during commercials because the revolution will not be televised.”

Although Scott-Heron might be partially correct, and although Reginald Denny definitely does not intend to go anywhere near the intersection of Florence and Normandy for a good long while, if Williams is put to death there will likely be plenty of photo opportunities for the Reverend Al Sharpton who plans to stroll through Watts in a red, black and green liberation jumpsuit that he has been saving for just the proper occasion.

As a matter of policy the Fifth Avenue Gazette does not express editorial opinions [!]. However, with respect to the morality of murder, whether committed by a violent, predatory concrete monster steeped in the ruthlessness of the angry streets, or by the cold steel and acid syringe of a faceless and unfeeling government institution, the editors will make an exception.

It is debatable whether or not sentencing a human being to spend an entire life behind bars is actually more cruel that ending a life. It is also debatable whether or not families who lose a member to particularly heinous violence derive some sense of closure upon the death of a murderer.

What is not debatable is whether or not it is just that of 222 executions in the past 30 years of killers who murdered outside their own race, 12 involved white killers and black victims, whereas 210 involved black killers and white victims. Neither is it debatable that the accident of being born black in America condemns a man to an eight-fold greater likelihood of premature death than a white man. Less still is it debatable that if Tookie Williams draws down the curtain and joins the choir invisible on Tuesday there is going to be hell to pay on the streets of the inner cities.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper will be embedded with a National Guard unit. News outlets will make comparisons with the riots following the acquittals of four storm troopers who beat the living shit out of Rodney King while he lay immobile in the street. A black man will be filmed looting a television from a Rent-a-Center. Jesse Jackson will say something that rhymes and his head will be so bulbous that small bodies will begin orbiting it spontaneously.

At the same time, members of the Minute Men, the Michigan Militia, and other organizations whose acronyms are MM will buy ammunition and hunker down in their double-wides in suburban Saginaw anticipating the imminent invasion of roving black hordes of wanton killers. When it doesn’t materialize, they will meet at the VFW and knock back a twelve-pack or so. Then they will go home and abuse their wives and children.

France will surrender.

During the uprising that is already in the planning stages, readers of the Fifth Avenue Gazette will continue to receive coverage of the important news of the day. They will read letters to the editor from William F. Buckley, Jr., and Gary Condit and they will think to themselves, “Thank God we’re white.”

Calendargate from the Fifth Avenue Gazette

Calendargate Threatens to Upset Miers’ Nomination
Washington, D.C. – Harriett Miers, W’s nominee to replace outgoing Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, refused to comment yesterday about her inclusion in the now notorious Beltway Snatch, a calendar featuring twelve graphic images of prominent women in government, “up close and personal.”

The Calendar has made the rounds of fraternity houses, taverns, and press rooms for several months, but the subject of the June pictorial was only uncovered yesterday when a former “friend with benefits” identified Miers by a birthmark in the shape of Theodore Roosevelt on the inside of her right thigh.

In the Calendar, Miers lists her turn-ons as “back hair, chicks with dicks, public sex, vegetables, and men with thick palms.” Her turn-offs are “girls who don’t go both ways, people who ask tough questions, Wolf Blitzer, and blood.”

Josh Belzer, a freshman at Georgetown University and Tau Kappa Epsilon pledge, told the Fifth Avenue Gazette, “All of us agree – She’s by far the hottest chick in the whole calendar.” Belzer added, “Janet Reno is totally smoking, but Harriet’s the fucking bomb. I’ve seen some pretty wild beaver shots in my time, but they don’t come any finer than her.”

Speaking to reporters during a photo opportunity with the Prime Minister of Albania, W responded to questions about what the calendar means for the likelihood of Miers’ confirmation by the Senate. “Look, I know Harriett Miers, I know her heart,” the President claimed, adding, “and I know she doesn’t do anal.”

The results of yesterday’s Fifth Avenue Gazette opinion poll, however, suggest that Miers might face a tough round of questioning when her confirmation hearings get under way in November. Nearly half of all respondents say that Miers’ photo spread is blurry, and more than two out of three say they think she should go ahead and shave the whole thing.

Miers is not the first prominent female official in the Bush Administration to draw criticism for her appearance in the calendar. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice came under fire from Senate Democrats who said her close-up looked like “a bulldog with a broken jaw.” Miers’ potential colleague, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, has conversely been criticized by Republicans in Congress. Said one congressman on the condition of anonymity, “I’ve seen hotter tail on a nickel.”

I’m almost certain I can get sued for this one. At the very least, I’m relatively certain it will get me a file with the Department of Homeland Security, or the FBI, or the CIA, or whatever agency is now officially responsible for suppressing free speech. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know if this is funny, or just plain gross. But whatever it is, it’s satire, and it’s constitutionally protected, even if it’s unpopular.

I wonder if it would be just as funny if it was about men, rather than women. Let’s see. Why not?

Last summer, a similar publication entitled D.C. Dick was widely circulated by bloggers and rappers (who are mostly gay, as one can tell by the misogyny of their lyrics). In that scurrilous photo essay, Dan Quayle is depicted with a crucifix inserted into his rectum while a dwarf sits on his lap and uses a sea urchin spine to pierce his nipple. Quayle claims that it was done for charity, but a raid of the offices of Wainwright and Carpenter, Llp., uncovered questionable accounting practices. The Government Accountability Office eventually reported that “not one dime out of the millions of dollars in gross sales of D.C. Dick went to the Christian Children’s Fund, despite what its publishers might claim.”

If Quayle was duped into posing for D.C. Dick, he was not alone. Retired General Norman Schwarzkopf appeared in the centerfold and was depicted in a multi-page spread that included pictures of Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell above the caption “Stormin’ Norman loves the dark meat!”

I’m not sure, but I think it’s not as funny with men. It’s an awfully funny thing to ridicule people from Bush the Elder’s administration, tough. It’s been a long-ass time since we’ve had the pleasure of picking on Dan Quayle. God I miss that silly bastard. For one who gets a kick out of picking on powerful stupid people, he’s an absolute gold mine. I mean, do you even remember the silly shit that clown pulled off? There was the time, while in Peru, that he greeted a crowd by telling them how happy he was to be in Latin America so that he could finally get a chance to use his Latin, and there was the time he corrected the school girl who had misspelled “potatoe.” Molly Ivins said it best about Dan: “If you put his brain in a bumblebee, the sumbitch would fly backward.” But I digress. Since I can’t really think up much more to round out this issue, how’s about a joke?

* * *

A farm boy is sitting at the kitchen table one morning eating his breakfast and he sees a bull in the pasture with two cows. He runs into his mother’s room and says, “Momma, there’s a bull out in the pasture with a white cow and a brown cow, and guess what Momma, the bull’s fucking the brown cow.” His mother looks at him, horrified, and says “Son, we don’t use words like that. We say the bull ‘surprised’ the brown cow.” Minutes later the boy rushes back into his mother’s room and says “Guess what’s happening now Momma.” “I know,” she says. “The bull surprised the white cow.” And the little boy answers, “He certainly did! He’s fucking the brown one again.”

Fag Hags - from the Fifth Avenue Gazette

Volume One, Issue 10
October 7, 2005

SAN DIEGO – I should forewarn my more sensitive readers – this issue is shot through with vulgarity and stereotype-bashing. Now I know what you’re thinking – “Tony, how much more vulgar and stereotypical could you be?” Well, a lot, actually. So sit tight, take a deep breath, remember that they’re just words and they can’t hurt you, and we’ll just see where this little saunter leads us. Oh yeah, one other thing. I have decided that I like Southern better than English. So forgive me if I throw in a few homely expressions along the way.

Here’s the deal – I don’t think there is anything wrong with stereotyping. I believe that by pretending like we’re all the same we miss out on life’s richness. Richness is variety, and I, for one, am for variety. Most black people are bad swimmers. Most lesbians are bad tippers. Most Indians (the feathered kind) are bad drinkers. Most Indians (the dot kind) smell funny. Most Jews make a lot more money than I do. Most Asians are questionable drivers. Most fags can sew, and most of them don’t watch boxing. Cripples are bad dancers and midgets are bad tennis players. There it is. I said it, and by God, I’m sticking by it.

I don’t know why it is that people are so afraid to say things like that, even though everybody thinks them. All of you know that stereotypes, though verboten in our postmodern world of rectitude at all costs, are types. They resonate because they’re accurate. I’m not saying that all women cry to get their way, but a whole big fucking shit-load of them do.

And there’s the next thing. Cussing is fun, no matter what we heard from the bitch in Human Resources. Cussing is mostly fun because it’s so damned unacceptable today.

I guaran-god-damn-tee you that the quickest way to get me to do a thing all the time is to tell me that I shouldn’t do it. So I’m going to use the rest of this whole piece to cuss and make sweeping generalizations about a particular group of people.

Fag hags are fucking confused. I’m not talking about the big fat ones who hang around with queers because they can’t get a boyfriend. I mean the hot ones with the wet panties who hang around grinding their pussies on some fag’s leg and getting him all hot and bothered just so they can satisfy themselves with the obvious fact that they can get a guy who likes other guys to fuck them. You know the ones. You’ve seen them. You’ve watched them snail-tracking a queer and rubbing his face in their tits, all the while pouring vodka and cranberry down him like shit through a goose.

You know what’s going on in their addled fucking skulls too. You know they’re thinking to themselves, “God I’m so fucking hot. Even he can’t resist me.” They’re also getting off the whole time on the fact that a bar full of grown men is watching them and they can get away with acting like a complete jizz junkie right out in public without the fear of getting jumped. And after they’re through pumping that big gay cock up into a hot, pulsing python, they’re probably not really gonna give him a piece anyway. The smug cunts.

Now you actually get four types of chicks in a gay bar. First are the aforementioned big fat fuckers who hang around with gay men because gay men flatter them by telling them what nice boobs they have, because gay men don’t make them feel unfuckable (even if they are), and because they’re decent human beings who just enjoy the company of kind men. I like them, and I welcome them.

Secondly, you get straight women who go as part of an office party, or perhaps with their boyfriends. Maybe their boyfriends are bisexual, or maybe they’re straight guys who just like the company of gay men and enjoy everything about the community to which they belong. I like these women too, and I welcome them.

Third are lesbians and bisexual women. Actually these are two different subspecies, but for this piece they can be treated as one. They’re fine, although they do tend to hog the pool table. Usually they come in pairs and the lesbian pretends to tolerate her bisexual girlfriend flirting openly with men, although when the night’s over she’s coming home to eat clam.

The ones I’m fed up with are the fourth type. In case you don’t remember what you read a half-page back, they’re the ones who come in half nekkid, smellin’ like a whore on a troop train, who dance to every song some guy’s five-spot can buy them, who get drinks bought for them by grinding their beef curtains on some guy’s crotch, who rub their torsos on some guy’s chest and stroke their stiff nipples across his back, who wear their low-riders one inch above their dewy cooze, and who get some guy’s balls twitchin’ like a puppy tryin’ to pass an egg shell. They’re fun to fuck, but I don’t like them, the disingenuous bitches.

In fact, I think we should help cure them. There are two schools of thought on this one. One camp suggests treating them like Jodie Foster on a pinball machine (sorry, that wasn’t nice). But I opt for the theory that says we should make them feel bad about themselves. Here are a few fun things to say:

1. “Damn girl! Is that your vagina I smell or do you have a possum in your pocket?”
2. “I’m sorry. I just ate and your ass is making my stomach grumble.”
3. “Are you dancing, or do you have Parkinson’s disease?”
4. “What a nice jacket. What is it, yak?”
5. “So what brings you here? Couldn’t find any self-respecting straight man who doesn’t think you’re a stanky-ass, cum-swilling whore?”

Try them out the next time you get a chance. It’s fun.

So there you have it – cussing, stereotyping, gender bashing, line crossing - all the little things that make life worth living. I ain’t felt this cleansed since I swallowed the soap. And it didn’t hurt a bit, did it? I hope you’re all well, and I promise to keep it up. Thank you for your readership, and may your tribe increase.