I remember when I was a young boy growing up in Wisconsin, back in the 1950's. That time of year (Autumn) was special. It was a wonderful time sitting on the back porch of Great Great Grandaddy Gein's cheese plantation watching all his slaves pick the cheese from the fromage trees in the blazing sun. The sight of them lugging those massive aromatic bags slung over their shoulders silhouetted in the setting sun as they sung hymns and wrestled with those pesky leg chains always made me giggle and be proud to be an American. 'Pappy (as we used to call him) used to pound a gallon of scotch before noon,
which was immediately before he started pounding Great Great Granma Gein---and he used to teeter back and forth and tell us the same old story every fucking night but when you're a kid it's like a hypnotic metronome ticking back and forth and putting you to sleep with a big smile on your face.
'Pappy, who in his school days in rural Illinois used to manufacture
Rohypnol for some of the wealthier people in town, actually had gone to school with Abraham Lincoln and they had stayed fast friends for years. "Honest Abe" as he was known before he became the 16th President---was known in Washington as a massive partier and big on the
Laudanum scene at the time. (Lincoln used to love DEADWOOD and would always have people over to the White House to get high, watch episodes, and yell "cocksuckers!" out the window at passersby). But one night, 'Pappy' gave him a batch of Rohypnol and as legend has it, Abbie Baby disappeared for almost two fucking years! He woke up next to his wife--who legend also has it was the meanest ugliest white woman in history until
Laura Andrassy came along---bolted upright in a cold sweat, shat the bed, looked around the room and screamed to no one in particular:
"I freed WHAT!!!!???"
Well, I don’t have to tell you what happened the next day. Lincoln traveled to North Carolina to have a post-war brunch and debrief with Al Gore’s great-great-grandpa Al “Hardcore” Gore, Sr on his tobacco plantation where they both decided they’d made some big mistakes and had to move on. Sweltering in 110° heat on the porch sipping mint juleps and Laudanum, 'Hardcore" blamed Lincoln for the demise of his slaves which meant he had to start dealing with unions and criminals (the two basically inseparable) and declared "
one day one of my boys is gonna be President and fix this fucking country up AND sort out this global fucking warming" as he wiped his brow with the panties of his housemaid, Jemima. Lincoln shook his hand, smiled knowingly, and said
"I've sworn off politics. I need this shit like a hole in the head---I'm gonna go see a play tonight and retire..."
Those were the days. Back then if a black man came running at you carrying a big stick and threatened to take your money and steal your blonde girlfriend there'd be hell to pay! Today we call that same man Tiger Woods.
So it was almost a hundred years later that John F. Kennedy got up and gave that famous speech about civil rights and that since there wasn't slavery anymore, that everyone---including Canadian children and Gomer Pyle could and should go to the same school--even if it meant putting them on buses and driving them 83 hours each way to prove it. My mom and dad had been saving up for a Lincoln Continental convertible just like Kennedy used to ride a lot because they both admired him. They liked his sense of fairness and the fact that he took drugs and fucked Marilyn Monroe and wore nice suits. In later years they were upset that their car lost 93% of it's value one November afternoon when they took it to Dallas to return some books. Returning books has caused a lot of grief over the years, I'll tell you.
Knowing that the demise of American cars, returning books, and the country as a whole was around the corner, I left for Australia in 1995 just ahead of the PC wave and when I arrived one of the more popular TV shows here was in it's waning moments---HEY HEY IT'S SATURDAY. I was amused because the show wasn't even on a fucking Saturday but
midweek. This is one of the endearing things about Australia to this day. Time and schedule doesn't matter. A TV show or sporting event may or may not start at the scheduled time and certainly won't end with any regularity or confirmation. A TV network here (sic) might show the ending or simply whisk you away to the news or more importantly a cricket match being played in some pathetic fly-infested third world outpost where they are continually perplexed about why their buses or hotels were under constant attack from local terrorists. Go figure.
But "Hey Hey" was interesting. It was like "The Ed Sullivan Show" but with guests of no particular importance other than they had been important somewhere else at some previous time, and were available. It had wonderful music, strange live ensemble performances from local children who had escaped the special bus, a man with a head on a stick, a pedophile running around in a gigantic duck costume, relatively hot women, and a host who whilst engaging, was certain to be a closet alcoholic and wife-beater as
he just had that look---kind of like Don Adams in Get Smart. It was engaging to watch and I felt a certain warmth sitting on the sofa in Paddington popping large amounts of high quality ecstasy scooped up from the sidewalk aftermath of Mardi Gras,and drinking Bundaberg rum through a straw. I felt instantly Australian, and cemented this by stopping work and registering at Centerlink with a fake NZ passport I had lifted from a transexual backpacker named
Clover who later went on to new lows as Lord Mayor of Sydney. Apologies to Laura Andrassy for the previous remark....
By the time I had worn out my welcome in Sydney and the little woman (GeinSpouse 2.0) had realized I wasn't going join her in stupid activities like "
saving money" or "coming home on time
or at all" and banished me to Melbourne, "Hey Hey" was only a memory. Australia had found cable television (or semblance thereof) and you could actually watch quality (read: AMERICAN) TV series within the same decade that they were aired in the USA. The era of fat country cops in shows named after a fucking dog and variety comedy shows hosted by dwarves who were neither funny nor particularly talented had arrived.
Last evening (sigh) I was ensconced in paperwork deciphering mounds of Excel spreadsheets, receipts, notes, bank statements, and years of garbage collecting with Glen Wheatley and Wesley Snipes assembling a tax return that would at least appear like I had a modicum of business knowledge--noting that prostitutes and cocaine were items that are tax deductible so long as they were during the opening and closing hours of a film festival or within 50 metres of a Beyond Blue office. Without warning, our book keeper, who has worked tirelessly for three years without one cent of remuneration but has probably consumed $98,450 of champagne per quarter in this loyal service---shunted us over to the TV whilst gargling her Moet and burbling
"Ess Hay Hee Ooos Sooterday". Yes, Part Deux of the "Hey Hey It's Saturday" reunion was live on TV and certainly cause to drop all work in Australia---not that one ever needed a reason.
There was a wonderful skit in progress of five grown men reprising their Jackson Five skit from 20 years ago. Led by an Indian (
an out of work taxi driver turned cardiologist) in whiteface as Michael Jackson, and the rest in blackface---they danced and sang and brought the time before my arrival in the Year 6 B.G. (Before Gein) to the delight of many, or most...or some.
One of the judges in the skit comp was the previously interesting and mildly talented Harry Connick, Jr. Best known as the only white man living in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina (
when George Bush called him the week before and said "I'm a gonna bring a big fukkin' storm down there and clean up the area---why don't you jus' go on tour and get your white ass outta there Harry?") and also known eons ago as the guy who married Victoria Secret goddess Jill Goodacre. I used to have her lingerie photos in my wallet when I was a travelling man, and keep them handy for the bathroom or bedroom or any other time I needed some assistance before Viagra was invented. (
Please note these were photos taken BEFORE she had three children and is now modeling for Big and Tall Girls of Des Moines) I still have a few matted glossies slipped between the mattress and bedframe that GeinLove (c) hasn't yet found and will have to take action lest she want to 'flip the mattress' sometime soon...
Well, as you would know by now, Prince Harry went mental and gave the band a "zero" and was embarrassed and upset to be part of a 'racist' performance. A white man, from the Deep South, embarrassed to be part of a 'racist' performance. (once more please, with vigor:) A
white man, from the
Deep South, embarrassed to be part of... okay okay you've got the picture.
I called my black friend Rick this morning in Thailand to wake him up and ask him about this. I suspect that his name is Rick, and I know he lives in Cambodia--but he calls himself David and has a Thai address. I've never met him but we've been friends for a couple years. I know he's black because he's in the film industry, is from New York City originally and is a Giants Fan. I admit I've also seen his picture on Facebook but I knew he was black when he said the Giants were the greatest team in NFL history. If he was in musical theatre and from Sydney I would know he is white and gay. If he liked Rugby League and pack raping young girls I'd know he's from Western Sydney via Beirut. But that's not the point. The point is that in all the years I've spoken to him the 'black' thing has never come up in any of our hours of conversations and SKYPEs and emails and things.
So I tried to ask David what his thoughts were about the whole thing but he was busy frying up some chicken necks and pigs' ears and with eleven children under twelve in the house he was way too busy to talk and said we'd talk later when he could rustle up some prepaid and call me back in a week or two.
So I'm in the dark here (no pun intended). If you dress up and do a skit on religious Jews, it's FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. If you make fun of Arabs, it's THE CHASER AT THE G20. If you make fun of Indians, you've never been in a fucking taxi in Melbourne or Sydney. But if you do a parody or skit about blacks and you are not blacks, you're a racist inhuman yobbo redneck motherfucker. Please explain? (NB: In Australia doing a skit about children with cancer has repercussions too but not internationally. Proof positive people fear blacks more than children with cancer for no logical reason)
What would Obama say about this?
John Safran was going to tell us but I suspect that show will be lifted before it sees the light (or darkness) of day. I'm perfect content with the abolition of lynch mobs and the dissolution of manchester sales (eye holes sold separately) in Alabama and I am proud of my Four Tops and Diana Ross CD collection (which I do keep on the bottom shelf, in back, behind the Neil Young boxed sets, mind you). So when did it happen that suddenly only blacks were immune from criticism? Was it when O.J. got set free and LA celebrated by burning the entire south side to the fucking ground in pure joy? When will Las Vegas people learn he's misunderstood and let him free to go back and play golf?
The point of this, and there is a point my friends, is that when you do something out of satire, entertainment, pure joy, homage, or nostalgia as what we saw last night and most hopefully within this tome----it is something to admire and enjoy. It is not ignorance nor hatred nor racism. Rather the opposite--- it is the ignorance and fear that cause those who condemn it most, as those who fear that they might be seen as racist or ignorance for understanding or enjoying the event.
Maybe Harry Connick, Jr needs to take a step back and see things in context. Maybe we all need to lighten up a bit and understand the difference between well-meant entertainment and hatred is fear and ignorance, small-mindedness and insanity.
Mebbe the boy needs to get hisself some manners?
