Velociworld

The Damnable Middle Name

The one that would be, I suppose, the Un-Christian one. The Luciferian name. I am puzzled at times why humans even have three names. In the ancient times it was enough to be known by one name. Thor, for instance. Everyone knew who you were. And they occasionally trembled in awe.

Then homage kicked in, and there were scores of little Thors running about. Last names became necessary. One could not be Khan, for instance, as awesome as that is in our present thought processes. One must be Genghis Khan. Not his far less bloodthirsty, but equally formidable grandson Kublai.

I was pondering this when I read in a Jay Nordlinger column today of the possibility that Mandela was given the first name Nelson by a grade school teacher after Admiral, Lord Nelson. Heaven forfend. I also recall a rather famous statement from John Lennon that he received the middle name Winston because he was birthed during the London Blitz, and his mother had a spate, or spasm, of patriotism.

Lennon loathed it, of course, and dutifully changed it to Ono once his mind had been sufficiently reoriented by an Oriental. Which is a shame, because Winston Churchill is the greatest goddam human being to be borned in the last 2,000 years. I'm rather glad Obama sent the bust of him back to the Queen in one of his first acts of office. It would have been rather unsettling to see so magnificent a head of bronze weep blood.

But back to middle names, which was the topic before I wandered. My, how capricious the mind becomes when the jeune filles begin to knead the grapes. I was actually focused. You became unfocused. (I learned that trick from Obama, by the way).

So what is your middle name? Obviously not something worthy of being your Christian name. A filler, perhaps? A guilty salut to the nether side of the family? A transparent attempt by the mother to insinuate her family into the patriarchy? Is your middle name a nod to your creepy uncle, who became far creepier when he started talking through a tobacco-caused voice box?

For the record, my first name was explained to me by my mother alternately as that of a little Afghani spy immortalized by Kipling, and an heroic MI6 British double agent who was eventually exposed as a Soviet triple agent when I was 6, and fled to a Russian dachau amidst great scandal. Troublesome for Mom, that.

That's the easy part. I suppose my middle name is for my uncle, but I like to think I was named for the guy who played Peter Gunn. I'm pretty sure, in fact, as I write this, that my sainted mother was stoked for Peter Gunn.

So what's your middle name? And why? I seek to mock you, of course, but we can make S'mores 'round the campfire later, and commiserate. It won't be all bad for you.

Oh, and for vanderleun, because I knows he can appreciate it. My midddle namesake, sonny:

Let the Embargo Begin

I've been a Jeopardy! fan since the Art Fleming days. I'm a geek like that. I recall 1964 as a particularly vicious first year, as I grappled, mano-a-mano, with some rather brilliant minds. My seven years of age certainly handicapped me, but I learned in those tender days that a victory was any answer I knew that the three contestants did not. These were few and far between, of course, but thank heaven for the occasional Snagglepuss and Baba Looey references.

Which brings me to the current iteration of some 28 years or so, and the scrub known as Trebek. I have tolerated this fucking dilettante for decades, with his smarm and charm routine, but he has now pushed me over the edge.

First it was last week's Teen Tournament, when Jeopardy! devoted an entire category to Automobiles. Every question was a video of that insane retard Biden, pimping the GM and Chrysler bailouts. It was a goddam free campaign commercial.

Tonight kicked off "Power Players Week", pitting Chris Matthews against CNN's Lizzy O'Leary and Robert Gibbs. What a crock of shit. Just like the Teen Tournament, when boys were eliminated by carefully placed queer vampire, young adult, and chick lit answers, Matthews played the dutiful role of Rip Taylor Hollywood Squares Queen for a Day, and punted obvious answers so that Gibbs, a former Administration Man! could win. These cocksuckers are so far in the bag for Obama they even let the girl lose. But then, why would the First Gay President, or Alex Trebek, or Chris Matthews, care about a girl anyway? Cooties, and shit.

CBS should have their broadcast license revoked for this kind of blatant proselytizing. And I don't appreciate some effeminate old troll of a Québécois Separatist pole smoker like Alex Trebek to AID in advancing the agenda.

I'm starting my own Jeopardy! With any luck I can get Sam Elliot on board as my Johnny Gilbert, IYKWIMAITTYD. And my own Power Players Week.

First Answer: "He is known as America's first Black President."

Correct Question: "Who the fuck is Bill Clinton, Quizmaster."

"Right you are, Ms. Perino. Sam, hand Dana my iPhone and show her her prize. And Shannon and Kimberly, you're going to have to pick up the pace in Double Jeopardy! IYKWIMAITTYD."

Happy Mother's Day

To all the mothers who toil without tribute day in and day out. You are not forgotten, ever forgotten. The reciprocation for your kindnesses and ministrations are often forgotten, however, and so we set this day aside to spoil you a bit. A tiny measure of gratitude that will never balance the scales.

An Insight What Smote Me On the Meditation Path Today

I sometimes think, VBoy, if you were to allay the crudeness, and eschew the twin demons of blasphemy and pornography, why, you could make something of yourself on this internest. I certainly write better than Thomas Friedman, and my insights are far more pithy. Pithier. My insights are far more pithier.

Why, I could be like the next George Will, if I exhibited some discipline, hewed to the 3,000 word model, and embargoed my nipple-sucking posts. I doubt I would ever have ears so well-scrubbed they shone like little neon pink flamingoes in the dark like Mr. Wills', but I could represent a reasonable facsimile if so tasked.

However I do believe the era of the 6 and 7 figure bionic editorialist are at an end. There is too much brilliance out there to absorb for free. I wouldn't be surprised if Friedman and Will and their ilk aren't being slowly poisoned by their taskmasters as we speak. A little rodenticide in the arugula here, a curious drop of quicksilver slipped up the nostril there, these economically depraved print guilds might even be able to balance their accounts for a quarter or two.

Yes, I have these thoughts upon occasion. But then I encounter Penis Bloodletting In Mesoamerica, and it's back to square one. Like the old Onion headline, I'm like a chocoholic, only for booze! I cannot resist the profane and the degraded.

So no, my ears will not shine pink in the dark tonight, well-scrubbed, but perhaps my fingertips will.

As a bonus, here is a knock-off pre-Columbian fertility figurine I call Rapes With Gout that is yours for only $58:

Western Rifle Shooters Association

I'm not really sure who these folks are, anonymity and rectitude being prevalent there, but someone there likes me, and I appreciate the voluminous traffic. It's also a great site to go poking around in the archives, for they are totally MOA. They be on my Highly Recommend list. Right after Wild Turkey 101, and White Slavery for Dummies, which I am going to e-publish any day now.

Am I Mom Enough?

You knew I was going here. There is no way I'm not going here:

Gee, was it only a few weeks ago that I was braying about psychotic mothers breast-feeding their children far beyond healthy and meaningful time frames? Why yes, it was.

This is unspeakably crude for a newsmagazine, even one as foundering and desperate as Time. The mom will be fine. She's basking in her 15 minutes of fame, speaking dat Truth To Power, and I have a crisp fitty says she's seated next to Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention.

Her son? Doomed, baby. At least until he's 25 or so. His will be an adolescence and young adulthood of merciless hectoring. This kid is truly fucked. And as bad as I feel for him, I am insanely jealous of the classmates that will have the exquisite joy of torturing the lad. I want in.

Will mom feel bad when this poor schmuck offs himself at 17 because mommy dearest made a titty-boy out of him for the entire world to mock? Of course not. Look at the expression on her face. ME ME ME. He's just a little tit-sucking prop. This type of behavior is why DFACS exists. Not because mom can only afford unhealthy beanie-weenies for her whelps. This is psychological torture far beyond a simple waterboarding. This shit is for life.

Mea culpa: Yes, like all the rest of you men I've imagined myself on that stool, wearing my shorts and Buster Browns, suckling that rather exemplary breast. But only because it's what I do, and it's not my Mom!

Am I Mom enough? Apparently not. And as the mother of my children was wont to say as she made a bottle of formula, breast feeding is what base animals do, of necessity. Similac is what separates the human beings from the lowly beasts of the field. I always agreed, and still do. Right up until I saw this particular tit. Got a little wishy-washy for a moment.

P.S. This is kind of the reverse of the Roman Charity thing. I seem to have something on the brain, all right. Three nipple-sucking posts in six weeks? Two with pictures? It's probably time to go spend some quality time at the Mah Jongg Relaxation and Happy Ending Emporium, so that I may move on to more important issues. As if such issues exist.

The Coriolis Economy

JP Morgan has announced $2 billion in losses in the last six weeks. I knew Jamie Dimon was a douche bag when Bill Pullman played him in Too Big To Fail.

Once again our populist purveyors of prevarication will blame this on capitalism run amok. But these Wall Street greedheads aren't capitalsits in the strict sense of the word. They are crony capitalists. They donate in extremely egregious amounts to Democrat politicians who in turn feather these cronies' nests with bailouts when their insane gambles invariably go tits up. Risk management was replaced by moral hazard decades ago, to be sure, and chickens don't roost in foxholes, but Wall Street didn't crash in 1987, it belched, shed its prototype versions of extreme risk like junk bonds, and grew again. Now it is merely a collection of miscreants who move in and out of government service in between stints on each others' boards, awarding each other tens and hundreds of millions in salaries and bonuses.

Who are the true capitalists? Main Street. The strip malls of America. Not the mega-malls with their pricey chain stores. The moms and pops, the crazy couple who quit their corporate jobs to open a Murphy bed store. The lady who has a $1200 a month rent nut selling fucking birdseed. I admit I cannot fathom the business models of many of these people, but I know and have known many of them, and they struggle, but they manage to pay their mortgages and rents, educate their children, and somehow save a little bit. They are insane heroes to me.

And they used to prosper at times, and hire, and provide jobs. This is all funneling down the toilet now, counter-clockwise I suppose. It is a Coriolis economy. If you work for a Fortune 500 now, enjoy it. I can see the target on your back from here. And I wouldn't put too much faith in your defined-contribution plan, either. There is not a major corporation now that isn't neck-fucked, and borderline criminal. When many of them implode, possibly as early as August, the last people left will be the human resources screwheads and the diversity counselors.

My advice? I don't have any. Other than stay out of the way when Wall Street and Main Street finally find themselves facing off in the octagon. Wall Street's only MMA move is to withhold credit. Main Street's only MMA move is to hide their money in a mattress. Learning a trade might be useful. I'd opt for plumbing, because hot's still on the left, anf there will be a ton of shit flowing downhill very, very soon.

Crosswise

"Don't get crosswise with me," a former CEO barked at me once upon a time. I wasn't sure what he was getting at, other than I was delivering some rather sobering market forecasts at eight o'clock of the morning over coffee in his office, and his ego and hangover were having none of it. I went from rising princeling to jackanape that day, never to recover. One messenger, duly shot. Fortuitously, that type of dress down has never affected my erections, conveniently compartmentalized as I am. Man does not live by bread alone.

Speaking of crosses, I have an old dear liberal friend who resides in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, where there is an astroturf campaign to remove a World War I memorial cross honoring slain veterans outside of a fire station. Common ground, separation of church and state, that sort of thing.

Now, understanding that Rhode Island is naught but the porn fluffer for Boston, a tiny rump fiefdom known primarily as the site of a Great White pyrotechnic clusterfuck of a concert burn down, I feel for the little folks there. When they are not ignored by the rest of the country they are ridiculed, so this mighty civil liberties fight must stir their loins.

The only thing I know about the separation of church and state is it is not in the Constitution. There is a passing mention that the government shall not force a religion upon the people, otherwise the document be mute.

Here's the thing: I know another place where there are Christian crosses galore blighting the public commons. Damned Jewish Stars of David, too. It's called Arlington National Cemetery.

I would propose we raise private funds to purchase what is technically known as a fuckload of sledge hammers, select a day in the not distant future, and invite our secularist and separatist anti-Christer and anti-Semitic friends to converge upon Arlington, hoist their free sledges, and commence to smashing those crosses and stars befouling our public lands.

I know they have the courage to do it. Their lawsuits convey the high moral dudgeon of the True Believer, and I have seen them defecate in public on the internet. Let them #OccupyArlington.

Longtime readers know I have a miniature pick axe handle, given to me by Lester Maddox in 1976 outside his Underground Atlanta restaurant, because he was friends with my dad. It was a souvenir evocative of his more calamitous days, when he gave away the full-sized real deal in his original restaurant to bash the heads of integrators. I think Lester was poking fun of his old ways, although I don't believe his taste in such matters was, shall we say, quite Emily Post. One might even think it contumely.

Regardless, it is an unthinking piece of wood, boned to great hardness. I think it would be just deserts to take that thing to Arlington, there to exercise it upon the thick skulls of bigots, and reactionaries.

The great thing about religions, regardless of God philosophies, is they give us an immutable set of laws, which current favor and whim cannot challenge. These laws save us from our own everyday weaknesses and folly. This is why we protect and enshrine them.

They also empower us to crack heads with tiny pick axe handles, when our rights are abridged. At least, that's what I got out of Sunday School.

Slippery When Wet

In 1967 the United States Supreme Court decided in Loving v. Virginia that, when I became of legal age, I would be able to marry a black woman.

Well played, sirs! Several delicious specimens come to mind immediately.

Now President Obama has come out of his glass door closet to admit that he wishes that I also could marry a black man. Presumably not him, but I imagine Snipes is tiring of the prison down low, and would welcome a nice pen pal. Gay marriage is a done deal, for those not focused exclusively on their rear-view mirrors. The progress of an enlightened species is ennobling, indeed.

Therefore, given the inexorable path of Progress, I am elated to aver that in the very near future I shall be able to marry several black men and women. At which point I shall rename my abode Tara.

For at what point does a slope become not slippery? Like the venerable Slip 'N' Slide, as long as you have your hose gushing, that slide will always be slippery. I know whereof I speak.

In light of the fact of the ever-slippery slope, please allow me to introduce you to the next Mrs. Velociman:

Meet Ja'Nel. Her personality is as fetching as her instinct for sticks. And my, what a tongue! Ja'Nel was actually born Tarboy, and had nuts the size of, well, those chrome nuts hanging off the hitch receivers of pick up trucks. But we had that fixed, didn't we, girl? Yes, we had it all fixed.

Marketing types call us early adopters. And while I may not have had the first iPhone 4s on the block, I will certainly have the first transgendered Labrador Retreiver bride.

Speaking of early adopters, I wonder if I could find a preacher hereabouts to perform the banns of marriage between me and the Malibu Beach Barbie head I inserted in my rectum yesterday for safekeeping? And, more importantly, what would Ja'Nel think?

Nah, it's all a pipe dream. The sturdy cross-truss of social opprobrium is obviously firmly welded across the slide of desire, right at the gay marriage notch. They'll never allow us more open-minded folk to slide farther than that. Surely.

A DEVGRU Moment

USAID worker Warren Weinstein is a terrified man. Held captive by al-Qaeda in Pakistan, he has participated in a videotaped plea to President Obama to agree to Zawahiri's demands, and release "every single person arrested on allegations of links with al Qaeda and Taliban." As well as the Blind Sheik.

I don't blame Mr. Weinstein. I'd be terrified, too. He doesn't want his head sawed off, and Zawahiri is certainly a man of his word in that regard. Having said that, I believe Zawahiri's terms are a bit ostentatious. If I did not know better, in fact, I would suggest he is not negotiating in good faith.

I don't want my head sawed off, either. Which is precisely why I am not in a war zone full of berserkers, unarmed. I can appreciate Mr. Weinstein's good intentions, but someone should have told him we already have aid workers over there. They are called Special Forces. Yes, even in Pakistan.

Surely Mr. Weinstein, terrified as he is, realizes that we do not negotiate with terrorists (except the Taliban at the behest of Karzai, apparenty). Especially when the bargain is one innocent life in exchange for releasing hundreds, if not thousands, of terrorists.

This will not end well. My heart goes out to Mr. Weinstein, and he shall be in my prayers. But sometimes you just gotta die like a man.