Thursday, March 1, 2012

BUY WAR BONDS!

What a travesty.  According to reliable sources, I haven't updated this weblog since June of 2011.  Why is this such a travesty?  I cannot even begin to atone for not recording all the fantastical events of my life in the past 8 or so months.  What in the hell has happened in all that time.
Well, for one, Maria and I were married.  You know, no big deal.  I've noticed that an awful lot of traffic for this website comes from the multitudes of other fancy gentlemen wishing to look like Atticus Finch and where to find a tie with a whale pattern.  It just so happens that both of those search criteria will land you on my blog entries pertaining to how I'd like to dress for the wedding.  The votes were cast and the whale tie won.  And what of the seersucker suit?  Was I able to do the legendary Southern lawyer a good turn?  I leave that for the Court of the World to decide:


Fig. 1: This style brought to you by J. Press and its finest salesman, Mark Clark.  And under the advice of one Jon Meier, who then proceeded to buy me very expensive cocktails at the Algonquin to stave off the panic attack triggered by the ludicrous amount of money I dropped on a suit.  And still it was outshone by the ethereal brilliance of my bride.  To quote Mary Poppins, "That's as it should be."

Anyhow, I really do enjoy updating this thing.  And I also enjoy the minute of fame the entry pertaining to Oscar the Grouch's Timelordship brought me.  And look, I even have a sticky on my desktop with all the thoughts on VERY IMPORTANT MATTERS that I wanted to share with the interweb.  I here share the contents of that sticky:

-Wedding
-Clamming
-Boston / J. Press
-UConn Dairy Bar
-Moynihan Tufts
-Comparing cameras
-5 things I'd do with a time machine
 >1964 World's Fair
 >

And that's it.  A lone "greater than" sign is where I left off.  And OH the wonderful stories that could be  told about all the things I wrote on the sticky.  I will discuss all these topics (with the exception of our INCREDIBLE wedding - because a blurb could scarcely do it justice) VERY QUICKLY RIGHT NOW.
I intended to talk about the new jargon invented by the roughest, toughest bunch of clammers the Great South Bay ever saw.  Because of my neglect, perhaps no one will know what a braggart's dozen is.  Centuries from now, English speakers will be entirely ignorant of that fact that placing clams in a bucket ought to be referred to as "making a deposit," meaning that a handful of clams ought to be referred to as a "deposit."  I ought to at least make these precious gems of the English language look fancy!  In fact I will right now:

deposit \di-POZ-it\
noun
1. a number of clams that fits in two hands... and possibly in your swim trunks as well: Seany Mikes placed an incredible deposit of clams into the bucket... and then chugged like 4 Miller High Lifes to celebrate.

braggart's dozen \BRAG-ertz  DUH-zin\
noun 
1. Seven or eight clams: Derek claimed he gleaned 48 clams from the murky waters of the Great South Bay, when he in fact only retrieved a braggarts dozen.  That didn't stop him from eating all the clams anyway.  Asshole.


As for Boston and J. Press - I was going to compare the Harvard Square store to the Madison Avenue store.  That doesn't seem as interesting in retrospect.  Moving on.

UConn Dairy Bar.  It's a magical place that we stopped at on our way back from Boston to visit our friend Alex. Um... it was.  Magical.  Once again, loses its luster in hindsight.  It was probably the most fantastic strawberry ice cream I've ever tasted.

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan attended Tufts for both his Master and Doctorate.  Also, I found this picture of him.  DPM is the OFFICIAL mascot of The Elegance of Humanity in America.


Fig. 2: The Gentleman from New York.

I was going to compare my Mamiya C220 photos with those from my shitty Diana plastic hipster piece of shit.  But I have yet to make prints from ANY of these rolls of film.  Also, FAR TOO HIPSTERY.

Five things I'd do with a Time Machine.  Oh god, I don't think I'd be able to hew this down to only 5 events.  And... FINE, quickly!  The first five that come to mind!
  1.  The 1964 World's Fair.
  2. The meetings of the First Continental Congress.
  3. Abraham Lincoln doing SOMETHING awesome.  I mean, for him that could mean something as menial as shaving for God's sake.
  4.  The primordial soup mix that created life on Earth.
  5. D-Day.  No.  Wait.  I'd cry.  No.  I'd still go.
Maybe I'll flesh the discussion of time travel out more thoroughly at a later time.
And so many more things have happened.  We left our old crappy apartment for a much nicer one in a much worse part of Brooklyn.  We visited Hawai'i.  We welcomed the birth of our first nephew!  All of these just absolutely brilliantly wonderful things have happened in the past 8 months... and the thing that made me want to blog again was this:


 Fig. 3: If you're going to do propaganda, you might as well do it right.

I saw this poster today, and I realized that America doesn't urge its citizens to buy war bonds anymore.  During the First and Second World Wars, posters, cartoons, radio announcers all urged every red-blooded American to buy war bonds.  And there's something satisfying about giving over money to a good cause in return for a piece of paper that guarantees payback upon the victorious end of a war.  Hell, if I were in a position to give $25 to Uncle Sam in the 1910s or 1940s, I'd be first in line to buy my war bond.  But in our country's most recent conflicts: Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I, Gulf War II, Afghanistan, &c., the Congress didn't even ponder to ask its citizens for money.  What does that tell us of these obnoxious conflicts?
I could seriously go on about other subjects that boggle my mind.  Among them include the continuing flagrant abuse of food stamps programs that I see across the street from my apartment.  Ah... I think it's time to get back in the saddle.  It would be a vicious crime for me to deprive the masses of my ALWAYS 100% ACCURATE AND CORRECT commentaries and observations of THE ELEGANCE OF HUMANITY IN AMERICA - REDUX.
I think I will attempt to discuss the wedding and Hawaii in attempt to get back into form.
Until then, I am forever.
BARON THE REV. DR. MAYOR SIR WILLIAM, ESQ., BTT
Please comment if you know of a way that I can add "President" to my ever expanding collection of titles.

1 comment:

  1. More more more ! Missed reading you. I'd love to hear about your wedding and the food stamp abuse.
    Also, what did ya think of St. Maarten? I love reading my name in print.

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