Maybe we in the U.S. have been getting it all wrong. Judging by the recent election in Canada, those folks really pay attention when they vote.
The Liberal party, under its new prime minister, Mark Carney, won handily in large part by focusing on the absurd and threatening rants of our own Ronald Chump. So, instead of Canada becoming our 51st Disunited State, why not make the U.S. Canada’s 11th province?
My fondness for the Canadian outlook [except for them limiting the alcohol content of their Yukon Jack] hit a high point after a peculiar decision by the UPenn radio station, WXPN, in the late ’80s or early ’90s. I can’t recall if this was when the university admin decided to bring in outside management to “upgrade” [beware that word] the station content, but the choice was made to include the Canadian Broadcasting System morning news. I still don’t know the reasoning behind this – and of course it didn’t last – but it was their one stroke of near genius.
Every morning we listened to the Canadian take on both their and the U.S, news, and it went leagues beyond what our “public” stations, like NPR, where shoveling out. We could listen and actually understand what was going on. To my personal shame and chagrin, I haven’t followed the Canadian radio news since. I should check it out again, if for nothing else than to see how it holds up today.
Yet another “to-do” that will probably become an “I-dint.”
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Last night, for our weekly Friday dinner out, Linda and I stopped at D&D Brew Works on Rt. 220. Over my opening shot of Yukon Jack I checked out the week’s specials… and stopped dead at the most outlandish dish I’d ever seen described on a menu.
It so blindsided me that I didn’t fully register all the ingredients, though I immediately decided to order it. I didn’t care whether it would turn out to be editable, I just had to have it on principle.
OK, it was a burger topped with a mishmash of cream cheese [cream cheese!?], dried cranberry and a third equally improbable ingredient that ran screaming from my mind. All that served on Swiss cheese and candied bacon. How in hell do you candy bacon? With caramel? Mashed 3 Musketeers?
I told the waitress exactly why I was ordering it – because it was the most bizarre item ever offered in a restaurant – and that lovely lady did not threaten to heave me bodily from my counter seat.
Yeah, you know it already: It was sticky, slimy and really good. Hat and socks off to the chef.
But what will it be next time? Penguin with horseradish and daffodils au gratin?
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I’ve been reading the daily comic strips [or “the funnies,” as they were referred to back then] since I was about 5 years old. In my ancientivity I no longer subscribe to a physical object known as a “newspaper,” but I can get them online from a couple distribution outfits that allow me to choose those – and only those – that I wish to read every morning.
In all those years, I can’t recall another period where almost every strip has been making social, political or environmental comments day after day, often howlingly funny. I mean strips like “Hagar the Horrible” or “B.C.” or “Shoe.”
Yesterday I was thinking, “yeah, just about every comic except ‘Blondie.’” So, this morning, there it was – “Blondie” too.
The world, or something, may be coming awake.
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I may have mentioned that a couple of my friends and a few of their friends have started a small book-creation outfit in Philly called Frankford Publishing. Their first short-story collection focused on SF, fantasy and such. Their second foray, Farewell My Zombie: Short Stories About the Undead, is now out on Amazon, also Barnes and Noble.
Warning: Zombie includes two of my stories, “The Children,” taken from my Back Alleys collection, along with a recent absurdity, “Zombie Dispatch.” Even so, the collection is worth buying, since it includes shorts by brothers Paradox Pollack and Jackrabbit, as well as those friends of friends.
On Amazon, you can absorb the undead on Kindle, as a paperback, or even a hardback – though I can’t yet imagine a hardback zombie.
For some reason, this damned site won’t allow me to insert the Amazon link, but here’s the cover:
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I like to envision a declining President Clump yodeling to Hank Williams:
“I’ve even lost the won’t to live
I’m so loathsome I should die.”
* * * *
Late in the evening, sitting around the firepit behind the rental cabin down by the pond, Linda and I, my daughter Morgan, grandkids Sammy and Abi, stepson Ben and his wife Meagan, got into the usual lament on the condition of the country and the drainage of meaning from life today.
All the younger squad – it’s unnerving enough to think of a daughter and stepson nearly ready to tumble into their 60s as “younger” – got to musing about which country they might move to if America did not take a sudden, unlikely turn toward sanity.
This outlook on the failure of the future really hit me for a number of reasons.
First, though I live in a heavily Republican area, I don’t feel personally threatened by the shit hitting the multiple fans of government. I’m where I what to be, happy to be here, and avoid politics in local discussions.
Second, despite five years of studying French and three of Latin, I still can’t speak any “foreign” language beyond cartoon stumbles. I think it stems from being terrified of trying to put together a coherent sentence in another language while a guest of that language’s speaker. I would feel stupid, ungrateful, unprepared, ridiculous, altogether beyond redemption.
[OK, I often feel that way by my nature. At heart, I’m still terrified of making verbal mistakes, especially in the presence of innocent listeners.]
Third, I’m convinced that Lump is an aberration who will be undone by his own blithering ignorance, and by the upwelling of those in the coming generation – once they realize that every last one of them has been abandoned by this foul fool who doesn’t care a helicoptered flying fuck for any of them beyond their vote and praise.
Ah well, what the hell, Mehitabel?
lickhaven 