Friday, March 31, 2006

Ancestral Voices Prophesying War

A nice doctor lady took pity on a wheezing, choking pre-pleuritic patient yesterday and granted him the succor of a bottle of laudanum to still his racking coughs. Well, perhaps not actual laudanum -- but something that set his sleeping dreams into an unaccustomed hyper-reality, all kaleidoscopic patterns, disjointed narratives and twisted landscapes. He awoke this morning to find not a Person from Porlock but a large brown dog licking his face.*

Springing from his bed he scrabbled frantically for a pen and paper to write down immediately the details of the dream -- knowing that with every passing moment more and more of it would be lost. When finally he was able to put his hands on a crayon and piece of construction paper from the wee ones' room, the only shred that remained from the vision was one line of dialogue. And thus I present (for, dear reader, as you may have divined, the dreamer was myself) as much of it as my opiated memory could retain:

You think it's hot up here, you should check out the Mailroom! They're using the Pitney-Bowes machine to roll their own cigarettes!

No, not exactly Alph the Sacred River, is it. So, disappointed, I decreed Wonder Woman bring her stately pleasure domes over for thorough medical examination, but even that avenue of pleasure was closed off: "I'm not coming anywhere near that cough!"

I wheezed my way downstairs to find the morning WashPost. One glance at the front page and I was off -- the whole thing came flooding back: They were in it! These guys were in my dream! There was a huge Busby Berkeley number, leggy girls in giant jalapeño and maize headdresses, Aztec priests slashing still-beating hearts in an eight-sided kaleidoscopic mandala (death's-head grinning victims leaping up off the slabs and doing a kick-line afterwards, gore splattering everywhere), Santa Anna and Winfield Scott banging wooden spoons on passing helmets in a naked Duck Soup rip ("In any time and any place and any kind of weather/You'll find your mil-i-tary ace in good ol' Fuss and Feathers!"), Minute Men (pronounced My-Newt Men for some oneiric reason I'll never fathom) performing a bizarrely knock-kneed line-dance, their knees and ankles collapsing as they slipped around frenetically in a puddle of crude oil. Climaxing the spectacle, in goose-stepped a line of pith-helmeted mailmen, shoulder-bags and Sam Brownes gleaming, swastikas in place of their USPS shoulder patches, singing this catchy refrain:

When goodness sags and morals lag because of queers and queens
We'll wave the flag and run them fags through the Piiiitneeeeey-Bowes maaa-chiiiiiine!




Maybe you had to be there.

------
*This is not to imply that Slingin' Sammy Coleridge awoke to find a Person from Porlock licking his face; were this the case, "Xanadu" might have been considerably more popular in high-school literature classes.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

beautiful neddie, just beautiful. now can anyone tell me why the prime minister of my fair land (which is not to say my prime minister) is wearing what would appear to be a freakin' down vest? he must be trying to cover up that blkxb of his.

XTCfan said...

Christ, have you ever seen a more carefully staged scene than that one? "Mr. Fox, you go first, you're in the south; Mr. Bush, you're next..."

Neddie said...

"Mr. Fox, you go first, you're in the south; Mr. Bush, you're next..."

The very same thought occurred. Would love to be a fly on the wall that that protocol consultation.

Also, the guayabera shirt on George is just too fuckin' priceless. Straight from Central Costume, still stiff with starch. I bet it came off 0.00004 seconds after this photo op ended. Why not a huge sombrero and a serape while you're at it? Fuchi, qué pesta!

And you can just see the thought-balloon over Harper's head, can't you: "Yeah, you go first, you Shatner-stealing Mexico-toucher!"

I just about coughed up a uehjjkic

Anonymous said...

Great post, Jeddie! I loved it!

"the guayabera shirt on George is just too fuckin' priceless."

I completely agree. He's such an idiot. (Second most common word to describe him, ya know -- right behind *imcompetent* and right before *liar.*)

I think. A poll might find me *forgetful*

Anyway -- when Bush was in India awhile back I wished wished wished he would've done as the Romans, er, Indians do and donned a thingamajig on his head....(no disrespect intended)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/india-pakistan/

eRobin said...

I still can't figure out why this summit ever happened. Canada/US, sure. Mexico/US, sure. But all three together seemed like a really awkward three-way.

Bobby Lightfoot said...

1. It's like th' cover of Abbey Road if it had been recorded by shit heads. I wish th' shirt meant George Is Dead.

2. Pitney-Bowes actually work awesome for spinning numbers. But hey, they're no Toshiba.

3. I've got some stereo gear with your name on it you got a little more of that paragoric.

Anonymous said...

I've seen it suggested by a poster at Metafilter that Bush's unique blend of malice and incompetence requires a new coinage to describe the actions of his administration: Malcompetence.