God's Waiting Room/Stab-Wound Trauma Ward

Yesterday, my private zepellin was tethered at Ft. Myers airport in Florida. I was driven in from the airport to an excessively luxurious beachside penthouse in Naples Florida, which I had had Alphonso acquire for me in the mid 80's, but have, until now, never seen.

[ Don't ask; it was the fruit of a decision made at the climax of a horrible bender that ended with myself and Mr. Belvedere watching 27 consecutive, taped episodes of Miami Vice and drinking scoth that was *shudder* less than 20 years old.]

The drive was 45 minutes and until we reached the beach, we did not see a single building higher than one story. Admittedly some of these building were one very high story -- gigantic Walmarts in need of high-ceilings in order to house massive jars of mayonaise -- but, in all honesty there was literally not a single two-storey building to be seen. There is an astoundingly low population density here, not low like Canada with its endless forests, but low in the sense that a ton of people have spread themselves as thinly as possible, so as not to ever have to come in contact with one another -- except at fast-food drive-throughs and by-the-hour motels.

So it was that I arrived in Florida.

Florida; God's waiting room. The air here is scented with sea, sun, palm and imminence. At the airport I picked up a local rag, The Naples Daily News. To my well-trained eye, the very headline may as well have been "Apocalypse Expected By Early Next Week." I am only able to write about it now after continuously bracing myself with Gin and Tonics since opening the paper at 4 pm yesterday afternoon.

I'm having trouble deciding what was the most disturbing thing in this paper, but I'll take a stab at it. I will draw your attention to an advertisement on pg. 6. After leaving the seemingly innocent meadows of page 5, the reader is confronted with a full-page cover ad, which proclaims:

120 EDGED COLLECTIBLES ONLY $149.99

What could be better? Apparently these knives and perhaps swords (axes? bayonettes? halberds?) have a retail value of $300 dollars. Indeed, there is considerable savings to be had here. To quote: "Don't miss out on the unbeatable deal. We've packaged 120 collectible knives into one exclusive set. If you're just starting your collection of looking to complete it.. this is the knife set for you. Each mirror-polished blade is constructed from top quality stainless steel."

The picture features many different knifes. In the upper left there are half a dozen dark grey switchblades -- perhaps carbon fiber so as not to set off metal detectors? Below that is a buckknife in a cheesy wooden box. There are a dozen tiny red switchblades in the bottom right. A long, black curved knife that might function as a boomerang. Multi-cultured folding keychain knives. In the upper right, there is a set of kitchen knifes and two inexplicable red peppers. Beside them, passing through the middle of the image is a huge, ornate sword. There are three or four different kinds of generic stabbing knives. In the bottom left there is a JAR of coloured knives, photographed to give them a remarkable similarity to jellybeans.

What exactly this set includes is unclear. While there is a picture, the advertisement clearly proclaims that "actual knife styles may vary." It actually says that in not particularily fine print. You will not receive these knives. Upon mailing in your check all you know is that you will receive 120 "edged-collectibles." This is not for the discerning collector, this is for a man or woman who just wants to have a whole fucking mess of pointy things around the house.

Now for some reason, although I had no part in the creation of the ad, I find myself ashamed to mention the next detail. But, in unselfish service to my readers, I must press on. In the bottom right corner of the ad is a cartoon of Santa Claus and -- so help me God if I am lying -- he is proudly declaring that this set of 120 completely-random edged weapons "Makes a Great Gift for Everyone on your List." And since you don't know what's going to be in the box, it's almost like a gift for you to! Waiting in eager anticipation to see just which edged collectibles your loved-one/fellow stabbing-enthusiast will receive.

Glee!!!

Your wife --
After all, you love her because she loves stabbing as much as you do.

Your grandmother --
What better way to get people to speak up than by stabbing them?

Your children --
Never to early to start them on the wonderful road to stabbing.

With this I would like to send out an early Christmas Blessing to all the sun-loving stabbers in Florida and beyond.

This is a scary place and the posts may come fast and furious for as long as I can keep myself gin-braced and unstabbed.

Dear Countess, my deepest apologies...

I have learned something unnerving about Chanel's line of designer clothing. I must admit it has me feeling a tiny bit guilty. In the past, I have purchased Chanel gowns as little trinkets with which to tickle the fancy of some of the women in my life. These were low moments, but, be honest now, who amongst us hasn't occassionally stooped to purchasing Haute Couture in times of desperation?

Recently, one of my Belles became interested in a certain gown from last season. How gauche, I know. She has always been difficult this one. Impossible really, but my my, she certainly is gorgeous. Although I'm sure that you would all be interested to know more about my personal life, I think I will have to return to the point I was making.

I realized Karl was working for Chanel now; so I had Alphonso call and ask him about securing the aforementioned gown. Alphonso came to me in the study to inform me that apparently Chanel always destroys last year's gowns if they remain unsold. I would have had to pour myself a glass of Hennessy's Timeless, but luckily I already had a glass of Timeless in my hand. What shocking news? I would have to think of another plan to bring a smile to she of the astronomically high maintenance level.

But that aside -- Do you, gentle reader, see the implications of this destruction of property? The thinking is this: The type of stores that carry Chanel products would never be caught dead displaying last year's line. (Well I can think of one instance, but the owner really did die.) As a result, the gowns can no longer appear in the prestigious stores, but they must go somewhere no? So, they are sent back to France. But they cannot simply be placed in a warehouse in France, some employee might liberate some and they might appear in discount retailers of some kind. Remember that episode of the Simpson's where Marge finds the Chanel dress and is invited to the Country Club? Ha ha, what situational comedy. We all know this could never happen. Chanel dresses can not ever appear on sale, because the entire point of Chanel dresses is that they cost so much fucking money as to make one's eyes bleed just thinking about it. So; they are all destroyed to maintain the value of the brand.

Only in a pre-apocalyptic society would it be possible to make more money by making very elaborate and luxurious things and destroying half of them instead of selling them.

William Ashley does the same. An acquaintance of mine once worked in their stock room. Any products which were off-coloured or chipped had to be completely destroyed so that they could not be purchased for an affordable price by the masses. If every Tom, Dick and Harry had William Ashley where would we be? I would be fine, because of my 1802 piece set of original 1802 Flora Danica, but some people might be quite miffed I would assume. My acquaintance wasn't even allowed to bring the dishes home, he had to take them and smash them, virtually to dust, with a hammer.

If you remember my recent post about Fridge-o-Vision (which I'm sure you do, since I know most of my readers make the effort to memorize my communiques) I made an observation about the supposed efficiency of Capitalism. This sign only serves as further evidence for that argument. Capitalism is most certainly not the most efficient system for meeting our needs, it is structured such that it is efficient at turning a profit at any cost. In this case it is more profitable to expend more effort making less things. This is not what is generally considered efficiency.

I've been thinking deeply while writing this post and I have come upon a startling new revelation: I think I'm going to have to break-up with the Countess. But don't worry, I'll let her down gently. Many a lady has commented that, until the implications sink in, being dumped by me is almost as melodic and rapturous as being picked up by me. This cognac is quite good though, maybe I'll have Alphonso do it.

Our Hero, Average Joey!

Big boyish smile.

Huge, vacant, reassuringly idiotic eyes.

Dimples.

Joey Tribbiani is the harbinger of our destruction.

Last week I stared up in horror at his fifteen foot head grinning and beaming above a four storey building. He is still there, lording over the corner of Pape and Danforth, like some demi-godly emperor. Luckily he is still two dimensional and plastered on a billboard, otherwise our might arrive immediately in a blinding flashy of hunky destruction.


Other cultures have represented their gods and heroes larger than life in their art and repeated their heroic actions in countless plays and dances. They have served as moral examples for the people.

Hercules!
Krishna!
Daruma!
Buddha!
Jesus!

Joey!

Although our society is increasingly "objective" and "secular," and perhaps we could settle on no religious icons, we still need better heroes than this. How are we to be inspired by countless re-runs of the same saccharine jokes and comedic situations? How are we to look up to some that is glorified for being able to pretend to be harmlessly stupid and puckish? Do we have any heroes or role models at all? Sports stars seem to all be thugs and criminals. Politicians really are all thugs and criminals. TV stars and musicians are only skin-deep simulacra.

The cult of celebrity is going to sink us all. It is hero worship without a trace of heroism. One needs no worthiness at all to become a celebrity these days. Jessica Simpson's sister is going to become a music star because she is the sister of a stupid pretty girl who is already famous. This is not necessarily a criticism of Matt Le Blanc. He is being paid handsomely for his ability to pretend to be stupid and womanizing. Who knows, he might have turned out to be a wonderful human being if our society did not glorify the worst of our characteristics.

We follow these peoples lives in the papers, entire television shows are devoted to analyzing the choices made by the faceless people that dress our peculiar heroes. What is most interesting though is that people recognize that celebrities are not heroes, despite all their supposed star power, celebrities have virtually no sway on politics. They can speak out all they want, but no one changes their vote because of what Eminem or the Dixie Chicks say. We have seen these people's strengths and foibles and we recognize that they are not better people than us, they are simply richer and better looking. We have no trouble at all declaring that they "suck" or joking about their drug problems.

We are the first culture to have a set of heroes and heroines who we love and glorify, but do not respect in the least. The result is that we are completely devoid of positive moral influence. We alleviate our guilt about our constant moral failings, by glorifying heroes who are as weak, worthless and purposeless as we are. There are good people out there, but our culture is too close to the brink to recognize them.

What would happen if our television waves were saturated with broadcasts about the heroic volunteers at Doctors without Borders, risking their lives and sanity in foreign and dangerous lands to give people the gift of health?

Would it seem like such a huge sacrifice to volunteer at the local kindergarten then?

What if our tabloids were full of exposees on social workers working with street kids twelve hours a day because the job needs to get done and no one else is willing to do it for such low pay?

Would it seem so natural to be too lazy to sort garbage and recycling then?

We live in a society that consistently champions sloth, decadence and immorality in our media. Our heroes are actually some of the worst people in our society and this bizarre inversion weakens us all. We need real heroes and we need them quickly if we are to revive the sweet and sickly sludge that our consciences have devolved into.

Joey Tribbiani you are the grinning ghoulish face of our doom!

The Name of our Doom is Fridge-o-Vision!

I have noticed a most disturbing advertisement as of late. I watch a lot of television because, while the revolution will not be televised, the apocalypse certainly will. This commercial message advertizes to the viewer the possibility of purchasing a refrigerator which is also a TV. Or perhaps it is a TV which is also a refrigerator, depending on one's priorities.

The message says "Finally, the two things you love most. Eating. Watching TV." What of love and spring winds? What of fine wines and the open sea? What of glorious victory and or the thrill of finally mapping the darkest Congo? What of the female figure and a woman's touch? What of feasting? Oh, well, perhaps that's covered under eating -- but the image of a man and his daughter eating factory-made ice cream straight from the box is a far cry from a proper 12-course feast. And watching TV? This is one of the things people love most now-a-days? Have you people forgotten how to live?

While the advertizer's motto is frightening enough, the true terror lies in the product itself. It is a television-fridge. Fridge-o-Vision. We are producing more and more engineers and scientists every year. Our understanding of particle physics, biology and computing leaps forward immeasurably everyday and this is the best we can come up with? Fridge-o-Vision? This is the kind of thing children "invent" on a rainy Sunday morning by drawing a picture and shewing it to their mommies and daddies, who laugh at them and send to their room without dinner until they come up with a good invention. Nonetheless, a team of designers and engineers have been employed for a lengthy period of time to create Fridge-o-vision.

Why have we, as a society, created Fridge-o-Vision? What is the driving force behind this product? What great need is this fulfilling? Is there nothing more important that our great minds could be working on? The need that motivates this product is capitalisms structural need to sell as many things as possible at all costs. To sell something to someone you must have something that that person does not have. Many people have televisions and many people have refridgerators, but no one has a Fridge-o-Vision. Does anyone need a Fridge-o-Vision? Capitalism cries out, "Who cares?!?"

Capitalism is designed to produce and sell material goods as quickly and efficiently as possible. In North America it has reached a certain saturation point where most people have all the material goods they need and many people still have a surplus of wealth remaining. The Fridge-o-Vision is a clear sign that capitalism has been reduced to the creation of absurd, ridiculous material goods to keep people buying. Capitalism has served humanity well, but it is slipping out of our control.

People often talk about capitalism's efficiency. They say it is the most 'efficient' system. But they rarely discuss what it is efficient at. Capitalism is ruthlessly efficient at consuming our natural resources and converting them into profitable material goods. Capitalism's efficiency is in part dependent on how quickly we can be convinced to throw out one set of material goods and buy a new set. In fact, with our insatiable societal desire for wealth, our current economic system has become an unstoppable juggernaut of digging things up and turning them into garbage. It is certainly easy to see that Fridge-o-Vision is already only a few steps from the landfill. What a useless hunk of garbage.

Our world has many real and pressing problems. We don't know how to effectively distribute our over-abundance of food. We don't know how to prevent children from being abused. We don't know how to help each and every human to live a spiritually fulfilling life. These are difficult and pressing challenges, but they do not rest upon the creation of new, profitable material goods. All the problems that are likely to be solved by the creation of new and profitable material goods have already been solved. For this reason, the great minds of our time are being employed to invent and market "Fridge-o-vision," while people are starving, children are being abused and none of us (excepting myself and Conan O'Brien) have found spiritual fulfilment. Capitalism is utterly inefficient at solving these emotional and strategic dilemnas.

Mark my words, the apocalypse shall rain down upon us in the form of strange 2-in-1 products! Even while we burn and maim each other out of fear, anger and hatred, the commercial messages shall proclaim proudly "It's a car and a barbeque! Finally the two things you love most, driving and grilling meat!"

The names of our doom shall be these:

Fridge-o-Vision!

SUVCR!

Stereo-Pium-Pipe!

CARBEQUE!!!

Oh God...

It wasn't so much a sign of the apocalypse as a gargantuan flashing, neon billboard of the apocalypse as high as Heaven and as wide as Texas which read "George Bush is gonna kill us all!" Also in smaller letters at the bottom it said "Yee ha!"

Last night I sank to a new low and drank "beer." Worse still, I drank piss-poor, inexpensive beer, in order to feel an affinity for the woe-to-come of the common man. I, a man who has not touched beer since I hoisted a hollowed-out log with Friar Tuck to toast one of Mr. Hood's infamous victories, drank a case and a half of Molson Canadian. Now certainly, I have some associates in Belgium and Germany who I could have called upon to fly in a wide array of the finest beers in the world, but when I go slumming I really like to scrape the absolute bottom of the barrel, so Molson Canadian it was.

George Bush Jr. is a man who firmly believes that God has chosen him to be president. As an aside, I would like to observe that about a year ago, while chatting over a scotch with Archangel Gabriel in a club in Hong Kong, I discovered that the only intervention that Our Lord who art in Heaven has taken in the life of Dubya was to bless him with the providence of finding a whole pretzel under his seat at a baseball game. But I digress.

George Bush Jr. is a man who firmly believes that God has chosen him to be president. What of the Constitution? What of Democracy? Isn't there some sort of a conflict of interests here? Let's say for instance that George Bush Jr. has a dream wherein God speaks to him and asks him to nuke France and he wakes up in the morning and holds a referendum and the American people through some sort of unlikely turn of events recognize that this is a bad idea. Who do you think he's going to cross? The infinitely powerful guy who's got his finger on the eternal damnation in the fiery pits of hell button or the people who have difficulty finding their own country on a map of the world? He could probably just start wearing a fake mustache and thereby escape all legal retribution that might come his way.

The fate of the world is the hands of an electorate that couldn't understand that an evil terrorist mastermind might be so devious as to lie.

George Bush is the single greatest thing that ever happened to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists. How hard do you think it is to recruit new terrorists when the President of the free world unilaterally invades a Muslim nation and calls it a "crusade?"

The American people saw a video asking them not to elect Bush and they concluded that Osama really believed that his best course of actions was to clearly state what he honestly hoped would happen. They cogitated their brains out and decided that Osama bin Laden expected his mortal enemies to respect his opinion and act directly upon his advice and that the best way to defy him was to do the opposite of what he told them to do. (heh, heh, heh ain't we smrt.) Their shrewd strategic conclusion was to re-elect Bush without giving the matter any further thought. Reverse psychology is how parents convince four-year olds to take a bath, it should not allow terrorists to succesfully trick people into electing the leaders that they hope to see in power.

Actually, I guess I mis-phrased something above, the fate of the world is no longer in the hands of an electorate who failed to realize that Osama bin Laden might be a liar. It is now in the hands of the man they elected.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
_____
The above post is dedicated to my father (Count Roberto von Mustard) who is both twice as American and twice as Angry about this election as I.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Kids today!

To begin, let me relate a tale for you. It's not so much a tale as it is a conversation. Tales are few and far between these days, what with all the fairies and goblins and minotaurs and such-like spending all their time in hiding preparing for their invasion of . Oh. Drat. It seems to me they have magicked me in such a way that I can not announce where they will strike. Well, folks put your terror alert level to rainbow, because somewhere at sometime there's going to be a magically delicious invasion which I am not at liberty to discuss. Look what a little Rumsfeld I'm turning into. Blasted fairies.

But that aside, I would like to relate a conversation I had with Master Lie-Paehlke a young acquaintance of mine who is sufficiently indolent to appreciate the pleasures of lying in beds of leaves sipping mulled wine and discussing the shapes of clouds.

We were engaged in just the activities outlined above when Matthew related the following information to me. He said:

"Von Mustard, you know how people are always complaining about things breaking and saying "they don't make them like they used to?"

I replied that while I had never met anyone who said this, I had the general impression that it was a thing which was said with great frequency in certain circles. What's more I informed him that since the Buddhists and Ancient greeks, many people have bemoaned the impermanence of material goods.

Young Lie-Paehlke replied that he had not set out to discuss ancient philosophies but simply wanted to relate something that he had noticed while closing up the cottage with his grandfather. Dismayed, I allowed him to proceed. I must admit I was quite hesitant that this conversation would prove far to factual and unambiguous for our present purposes. I didn't see anyway in which we would be able to fail to understand ourselves and be left with the the feeling that our words and thoughts were as shapeless as the clouds we were watching. Such a feeling of complete semantic isolation tends to greatly enhance the flavour of mulled wine.

Seemingly unaware of the great damage he might do to our palettes, Matthew spoke thusly: "Von Mustard," He said. "My grandfather spent so much time winterizing the cottage this past weekend. He emptied out all the hoses so they wouldn't freeze. He cleaned off all the windsurfing equipment before taking it inside and covering it up for the winter. Nothing was done half-heartedly, it was all careful and exacting and methodical, repeated diligently each winter. Then he had me help him take in the boat. He did not just pull the boat up into the boathouse. Instead he had me help him open up the engine, drain and replace all the oil, and then we poured some special type of oil in and ran the motor in dry-dock producing great clouds of blue smoke. I was worried, but he merely informed me that we were "fogging the engine" to protect it for the winter. I had no idea what this meant and I still don't, but what amazed me was the length of these elaborate rituals that he performed despite the fact that he had only used the boat three times this season."

By this point I had mostly stopped listening because one of the clouds was beginning to take the shape of a hippotamus. Ah river horse, you are a most excellent beast!

"Now Von Mustard, what I noticed as I was helping him, amazed at his ability to perform all this maintenance while virtually blind, was that the boat was in perfect condition. It was purchased when I was perhaps nine or ten.. It was at least 15 years old and still looked and sounded like new. Now here's my point, if I had a boat I would never read the user's manual, I would never fog the engine, it would be lucky if I got it out of the water before the lake froze. I'm beginning to think that 'they' do make things like they used to, but we just don't take care of things like we used to. The blame is upon 'we' rather than 'they.' We live in irresponsible times with no sense of stewardship."

The river horse had dissipated without once showing it's mighty set of incredible incisors and magnificent molars, so I decided to return to the conversation. "What? I'm shocked and appalled!" Said I. "Grammar Matthew is almost as important as the fogging of engines. The blame is on 'us' not 'we.' Perhaps you had made some conscious stylistic decision, but you are far too young to have any sense of the true import of grammar and should not disregard so casually that which you have yet to comprehend. You young people will be the downfall of us all! What's more aside from the grammar, I am sickened by the fact that you were surprised by simple maintance.
I mean I don't personally perform any mechanical activities, but Alphonso always fogs the engines of my non-wind driven vessels before I return them to harbour. With such an extensive fleet I only get to each boat once every eight years or so and owning such fine boats, it would be a dishonour to the boat and myself to not care for them properly."

Matthew rightfully recalled all the forty year old motorcars in Cuba that are still in perfect working order and then became distracted by a passing pirate schooner, with billowing white cloudy sails.

So here's the point dear reader. Take care of your belongings and they will serve you longer. Maintain your possessions and you will slow the destruction of our planet. It is a very simple gentlemanly responsibility and all of you who are failing to do so, should be shamed, and perhaps consider not attending even one more masquerade ball before your own home is in order.

While we may continually blame advertising and the corporate world for the propogation of our disposal society, much of the responsibility rests on your shoulders. Only you can prevent entropy! And forest fires, get on that too. And bring me some more mulled wine, chop chop.

Kids today...