Wake Up Call with a Snooze Alarm on it

By John Saleeby
September 1, 2002

A whole year has gone by since September 11 and I am still very worried about something like that happening again. So worried, in fact, that I think we should be doing things to prevent that sort of thing from happening again. I remember a whole lot of us felt that way back in late 2001 right after the attacks, but as of now, those who still feel that way are fewer and fewer with each passing day. Why, how silly of me to speak of Al Quada without the same disdainful tone the hip and sophisticated reserve for NASCAR! What a schmuck I am to view Donald Rumsfeld as anything but a doddering old diaper wearing fogie! Wake up, Old Boy, The Terror War - Oh, I'm sorry - "The Terror War" is a hoax, a fraud! It's only about oil and keeping Bush's poll ratings up. Come on, it's okay! What you really should be worried about is if the Baby Boomers will be able to retire in comfort at age fifty. Now  THAT'S an emergency!

So I apologize if more rational minds find this offensive, but I can't help but think how really, really BAD it would be if another couple thousand Americans were killed by Muslim Fundamentalist terrorists. Maybe I'm a crazy cracker, but something like that would upset me. Not only that, but I believe that the people at the highest levels of our government should think the same way. Boy, am I an asshole!

See, I grew up in The Cold War when it was assumed that if an American city like New York was bombed by the Soviet Union citizens in other towns all across the USA would go to war to prevent the Russians from inflicting further damage. How silly that seems in 2002! Oh! I get it - If the Soviets had nuked New York back in the fifties we all would have agreed that it was all our fault for segregation in the Deep South and not allowing Liberace and Sal Mineo to come out of the closet. Oh okay, great! That's why I spent four years in the United States Army, so if I ever get blown to smithereens my fellow citizens will see it on the news and wonder how long until the "Seinfeld" rerun comes on. "Eh, he'd been in the Army? He musta done somethin' to provoke it."

But everything - And I do mean EVERYTHING - that the Bush Administration wants to do to prevent future terror attacks is viewed as Just Another Step In The Straight White Man's Evil Plan To Exterminate The Blacks, Gays, And Jews. (Editor’s Note: Hey John, SHUT UP! You know we're not supposed to talk about the plan in public!) The United States military attack on Afghanistan had absolutely nothing to do with the Taliban or Al Queda, it was Just Another Step In The Straight White Man's Evil Plan To Exterminate The Blacks, Gays, And Jews. Why couldn't the straight white men exterminate the blacks, gays, and Jews without attacking Afghanistan? Who knows, those bastards are out of their minds! But, hey - Why blame anybody in Afghanistan or anybody in the Middle East at all for the September 11 attack when everybody knows that those planes crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was Just Another Step In The Straight White Man's Evil Plan To Exterminate The Blacks, Gays, And Jews?

And don't even mention John Ashcroft! Was the weekend I spent darting through the woods chasing small animals after injecting Ted Nugent's pineal gland fluid into my arm the same weekend they found a gas chamber, an incinerator, and a bin full of gold molars on John Ashcroft's property? John Ashcroft says "Hello! I'm John Ashcroft, the Attorney General Of The United States!" and to some people it sounds like "KILL THE QUEERS! KILL THE NIGGERS! KILL THE CHRIST KILLERS! KILL! KILL! KILL!" But they're not the first people to suffer from this affliction, back in the early sixties when JFK said "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" a lot of people heard "I only get to be President cause my daddy's really rich and now I'm gonna get all the really nice pussy! Ha ha ha!" But we had the Vietnam War for that Patrician turd and if your face was on fire and John Ashcroft offered you a bucket of water you'd let your eyeballs turn into meatballs just to spite him. And how are you gonna make bitchy remarks about the dresses on Oscar night, then?

President Bush says we should attack Iraq before Saddam Hussein can use weapons of mass destruction (We have really gotta come up with a catchier phrase for ‘em than that. How about "Germans"?) against us. But Henry Kissinger has gone on record as opposing an attack on Iraq because it would constitute a violation of the 1648 Treaty Of Westphalia. Did he just make that up? Is there really such a thing as the 1648 Treaty Of Westphalia? I bet he's just pulling that out of his ass. Send Condoleezza Rice out there with the 1709 Treaty Of Van Halen and shut Kissinger up for good. If he's such a great example we'd bomb Baghdad in secret. So we just have to give Saddam Hussein the benefit of a doubt and just sit around watching Phil Donahue on MSNBC until we finally get definite proof of his Bad Guyness by him doing something even the New York Times might take offense to, like nuking Chicago and killing a few thousand people. Yeah, maybe if a coupla hundred thousand people in Illinois die in a blinding flash Europeans and the staff of Salon.com will give the United States permission to go out and defend itself. But we'd better remember to say "Please".

And everyone dumb enough to fly on the airlines since September 11 knows what a stinking shitstorm we've made out of Orville Wright's Great Miracle O' Flight. The stupidity of the whole thing has already been well covered by Anne Coulter. Me, now that I've managed to survive the ordeal without sucking the eyeballs right of a Memphis Security Goon's head and spitting them right in a FBI's Agent's face, I'd rather just write about how much I love Anne Coulter! Sure, she's completely out of her gourd and she's way too skinny - But she's really pretty, she's funny, and she's got more money than all them miserable liberal columnists combined (Which is what you'd think they'd do if socialism was really as great an idea as they make out to be.) Marry me, Anne Coulter! Marry me and maybe I'll even bother to read your book. Marry me, you big beautiful bulimic  party girl you! If you think Bill Maher is a fun guy to hang around with just wait until you make it with a really funny guy who blew off that cornball stand up jazz to . . . uh . . . Dedicate my talents to furthering the Conservative cause! Yeah! That's it! That's why I quit stand up - Sure! You can fill the kid's heads with any kind of wierd crap you want, Anne. With you and me as parents they're doomed to be the kind of country club trash that bashes somebody's skull in with a piece of sporting equipment no matter what kind of bullshit you scream at ‘em about Franklin Roosevelt and The New Deal over dinner while I'm in the kitchen doing Marlon Brando's "Stick Of Butter" trick from "Last Tango In Paris" to the Maid. Ah, yes - You'll put on some weight and I'll stop reciting dialogue from "Boogie Nights" whenever grown ups try to have conversations with me. Have I gone on too long with the Anne Coulter thing? I don't care - I LOVE HER!!! There! I said it - BOLD AND UNASHAMED!

Nothing really matters
Anyone can see
Nothing really matters
Nothing really matters to meeeee
Anyway the wind blows -
"Bohemian Rhapsody" which might as well be the Battle Hymn Of Our Generation after the way you faggots have carried on for the past year. Freddie Mercury was George Patton compared to you shits. Hhhhmmm, maybe typing up the last draft of this while playing The Sex Pistols after drinking six cups of coffee isn't such a great idea.

Here's an indication of how worthless we are today in 2002 - The families of more than three thousand people killed on September 11 are eligible to collect almost one and a half million dollars in financial compensation for their loss. But, get a load of THIS, so far only about six hundred claims have been made. Why? Because they don't think it's enough money! God help us if all the players in the NBA are killed in a terror attack. If I thought I felt bad for the people who died on September 11 before my heart really goes out to them now that I know what kind of people they had for relatives. Their lives must have been a living Hell. Maybe now they can finally get some rest and peace.

Yep, on September 11, 2002 they'll all be gathered at Ground Zero swapping funny stories about appearing on all the morning news shows, gossiping about whose literary agent is handling whose book deal, offering advice about how to and how not to act when pitching script treatments to Hollywood studio executives, and then . . . BAG PIPES!!!

I don't recall the exact details because as soon as I heard about ‘em on TV I launched projectile vomiting with such tremendous velocity I knocked a hole in the wall and now the Chinese Man who lives next door can watch me do the "Run To The Radio And Change The Station" dance everytime Bob Seger comes on, but on the morning of September 11, 2002 bag pipe marching bands from every borough will come squealing and squawking into Manhattan to coverge on Ground Zero and . . . Ugh. Like I said, I'm shakey on the exact details, but one thing's f' sho - I won't be watchin'!

How did this shit come to pass? We didn't have all these bag pipes when I was little, if they did I would have grown up into even more of a mad man than I am right now. Now there's a staggering thought. I mean SHIT! If bag pipes are really going to be a permanent, pervasive presence on the American scene I want to go record as saying I don't wanna have anymore to do with American Culture (And I'm being generous as Hell with that capital "C”) than crazy Fundamentalist Muslims and Christians do. Did Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and the Beats feel as alienated from the America of the fifties as I do every time I hear a bunch of guys playing bag pipes in front of a whole bunch of people, not a single one of which is writhing in agony? I'd pack up and go to Tangier but nowadays they'd really think you were a traitor for that.

I can't remember the last time I heard "Amazing Grace" sung by a big fat black woman - the way God meant it to be performed. I bet I'm the only guy who remembers the lyrics -

Don't play bag pipes
They sound like shit
You big dumb cracker assholes
Army, Navy, Marine Corps guys kick Fireman ass
Go home and slide on yer poles

 

 

John Saleeby wrote for The National Lampoon while he was in high school, was a stand up comic in New York, and has contributed to the net humor zines Schmuck.com, Campaign Central, and the legendary American Jerk. He's on medication now so he's probably a little nicer now than he was when you met him earlier. Email - jacksaleeby1@hotmail.com