Page Title

“Welcome to Lucha Libre Night at the Taco Bell Arena in Chihuahua,
Mexico. I’m Edificio Del Huevo, your color commentator, and I’ll be
assisted by six-time Mexican female mud wrestling champion, Rosita
La Chingada.”

“¡Hola amigos!”

“We’ll be reporting on the hugely anticipated grudge match tonight
between Mexican champion Comandante Marco and his American
rival, El Grande Bush. There’s a lot at stake in this battle for North
American supremacy, wouldn’t you say, Rosie?”

“¡Ooooh sííííí! Mexico has been pushing for a rematch since 1846,
when the malditos gringos cabrones put a gun to our heads and
made us sign over Texas and California. Now if we want to go there
for a vacation we have to swim through rat-infested sewer pipes, and
mutherfuckers telling us ‘Speak English! Speak English!’ I like English.
I luv it! But I don’t need no gringo mutherfucker breathin’ down my
neck.

“Anyway, if Comandante Marco wins the match tonight, we gonna get
back all our land and then we be telling you cocksuckers to speak
Spanish.

“I know the first thing I’m gonna do when we take over is to move into
the Presidential Suite at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas and go
skinny-dipping in the Grand Canal. Show the mutherfuckers what a
real Mexican chocha looks like!”

“Sounds good to me, Rosie, but as they say ‘Don’t count your huevos
rancheros before they’re hatched.’ Remember, the norteamericanos
are not going to give up all that loot without a fight.

“And as we speak, El Grande Bush is entering the ring. He’s wearing
his trademark pink tu-tu, dunce cap and glitter mask, and they’re
playing his music, ‘Cheeseburger in Paradise.’”

“Hey, Bushie, Bushie! Can we get a word from you for our studio
audience?”

“Waal, I’d like to address my remarks to the brave men and women
fighting in Eye-Rack for the forty-second consecutive year. I honor the
sacrifice you are making in the war on terror, and I want you to know
that I plan to win tonight so that when you come home you’ll have a
home to come home to.

“The threat we are facing in this arena here tonight is whether our
western states will remain The Home of The Free And The Brave, or
are allowed to become an open-air taco stand like the one on
Alvarado Street in downtown LA, where the crackheads and stray
dogs hang out, behind the convention center.”

“How inspiring! What’s your strategy for fighting Comandante Marco?"

“I plan to shock and awe him with my lightning speed, twist his head in
the ropes and bite his knuckles.”

“Excuse me, Ed, cut out that shit. Here comes Mexico’s national hero,
Comandante Marco of the Zapatista Revolutionary Army of Chiapas.
He looks ready for battle with his headdress of quetzal feathers,
jaguar-skin tights and crocodile nose mask. His musical
accompaniment is the Mexico City rock band Molotov singing their
anthem ''Viva México Cabrones.' Every time I hear that song it brings
tears of pride to my eyes, especially the part where they sing ‘No Me
Llames Cerdo.’ When I was a leetle girl in the shantytown overlooking
the security wall separating Nuevo Laredo from Brownsville, Texas,
my mother used to lull me to sleep by singing to me from Molotov’s
romantic love song ‘Chinga Tu Madre’, where they sing:

Nos vemos Acapulco a la fin de semana
Mientras yo cuido à tu hermana
Chinga tú chinga tu madre
[Ed. See you in Acapulco
But first I fuck your sister]

“Hey, big boy! You got something to say to your fans?”

“Hola, Rosie. I dedicate my life to the glory of Mexico. After I win, not
only are we going to reconquer our lost territories, but we are going to
sacrifice El Grande Bush on the ancient Mayan altar at Chichen Itzà
by ripping out his still beating heart and feeding it to the pirhana fish
that swim in the holy cenote. The whole ceremony is going to be
filmed by Mel Gibson for his upcoming movie “Jews of The Jungle.”

“Sounds great, sweetie. Only how do you plan to vanquish such a
great warrior like El Grande Bush?”

“I plan to shoot him with a curare-tipped blow dart and then, when he’s
paralyzed, I’m going to stomp on his balls.”

“And there’s the bell! The two fighters are circling each other warily,
looking for an opening, and they are being watched by the masked
referee, El Misterioso, who is also wearing a mask. Ed, what do we
know about El Misterioso?”

“Only that he gained fame as the fiercest lucha libre fighter in South
America.”

“Wow! Now El Grande Bush leaps forward and head butts
Comandante Marco in the chest, but instead of falling onto the mat El
Comandante does a backflip, kicking Bush in the face. Bush goes
down and Comandante Marco sits on his face, locking him in a French
Butt Hold, squeezing the air out of Bush like an Anaconda python
between the steel vise grip of his powerful glutes.”

“With his last, dying breath Bush reaches between Marco’s legs and
manages to insert his two fingers in the man’s nostrils and flip him
across the ring like a slingshot. Bush jumps to his feet and delivers a
shattering roundkick to the head of El Comandante, who goes flying
into El Misterioso who, enraged, punches him in the face. Hey, he’s
not supposed to do that. He’s the ref!”

“Wait a minute! Now El Misterioso grabs a folding chair and breaks it
over the head of El Grande Bush.”

“The audience is going berserk. The mariachi band Los Tigres Del
Norte has started playing the romantic sentimental love song ‘Volver’,
I suppose expressing their wish for a return of Mexico’s northern
territories. Meantime, on the American side, Ted Nugent is shooting
off machine gun riffs from his guitar. Oh no, that’s not his guitar, it’s a
real machine gun! Now gunfire is breaking out all over the place and
bullets are flying.”

“Comandante Marco and El Grande Bush have recovered from the
surprise attack by El Misterioso, and they’re punching the shit out of
him in the corner of the ring. They rip off his mask.”

“Omigod, it’s Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, and he’s got
an oil gusher shooting out of his butt!”

“Well, let’s get out of here before the whole place explodes. Reporting
to you from Taco Bell Arena, I’m Edificio Del Huevo.”

“And I’m Rosita La Chingada…”

“Wishing you a big cuevo en el culo, cabrones!”

CHUCHA LIBRE

200motels POLITICS

Comedy

Tragedy

Nonsense

Bullshit

Yeah, Brooklyn After Dark! It ain’t no Disneyland. When the sun
goes down the eagle flies and all bets are off.

On our way to Coney Island Beach my girlfriend, Magpie, and I
stopped off at one of the conveniently located liquor stores on
Brighton Beach Avenue for a pint of Cossack Vodka. It being
the height of summer, we determined that a moonlight swim was
in order before the Natalie Cole concert just across the street
from the boardwalk, in Asher Levy Park.

The beach was animated at dusk with beautiful Russian girls in
expensive bikinis, their less beautiful parents showing
unsightly bulges in no less expensive bathing suits,
bodybuilders with shoulder-length bleached-blonde hair, plus
assorted psychos and freaks who looked as though they were
on a day pass from Bellevue.

The sun shone brightly as it descended in a scarlet ball of fire
to the west, resembling the opening credits for a Charles
Bronson cowboy movie. A sprightly breeze animated choppy
waves as Magpie and I frolicked in the surf. Big waves crashed
into the shore, and Magpie and I bounced around happily like
little waterlogged tennis balls, diving into the surf, doing the
breast stroke, the back stroke, floating on our backs. I had
brought along a mask and snorkel, and that was fun for a while,
but I could barely see beyond my arms in the brown, murky
mulch, a far cry from the crystal waters of the Caribbean, to be
sure!

Coney Island Beach/Brighton Beach may not be Cheeseburger
in Paradise, but you won’t hear any complaints from the
immigrants who migrated there from the former Soviet Union.
For somebody who traces his origins back to Kazakhstan or
some little shit industrial city situated in the Ural Mountains,
Brooklyn is paradise. The beaches may not be as pristine as
those that line Israel’s seafront, but the money is American, and
there’s no way you can beat that.

The lifeguards had ended their shift at 6:00, and the beach
patrols in little green dune buggies blew little party horns and
tried half-heartedly to coax swimmers out of the water. This the
city is obliged to do to protect itself from giant lawsuits in case
a swimmer drowns. Naturally the swimmers ignore the
warnings, but that is not the point. The point is, if somebody
drowns, city lawyers can claim, “We took every reasonable
measure to warn him.”

Magpie and I left the beach as night fell, just in time for the
Natalie Cole concert. You could see and hear perfectly from the
boardwalk, which is much more agreeable than sitting in folding
chairs across the street at the band shell. Natalie Cole was in
excellent voice, and she sang a variety of genres from Nat King
Cole material to disco to blues and rock. We found ourselves
next to a lively group of black people who called themselves
“The Jazz Family.” With their beach chairs, their voluminous
picnic food, their dancing feet and their enthusiasm for soul
music, The Jazz Family were the stars of the boardwalk.

The first pint of vodka having long previously bit the dust at the
beach, I ran over to Brighton Beach Avenue for another pint of
rotgut, which we cut with pomegranate juice. Magpie lost her
mind and I had to lead her back onto the darkened beach so
that she could take a leak. Magpie can’t hold her liquor,
particularly when she’s happy. She has almost gotten us
arrested any number of times for trying to sweet talk police
officers who don’t have any sense of humor. Also, she loses
control of her motor functions and I have to lead her around
like the guy in the Times Square subway station with the
dancing dummy that he ties to his legs. The only difference is,
Magpie ain’t no lightweight. At 5’9”, she’s larger than most
men. She’s strong as an ox. She can bring home fantastic
loads of groceries and, one time, when we got snowed in at JFK
Airport, instead of quietly acquiescing and sleeping in the
airport waiting area, she marched across a field of waist-deep
snow in her Miami shoes lugging two huge suitcases to catch a
bus that would take us to the subway so that we could sleep in
our own beds in the city.

Magpie is the kind of girl every peasant farmer dreams of
marrying. She’s intelligent, she keeps an immaculate home like
a European. And, she’s so strong you can hook her up to a plow
and she’ll furrow 40 acres. But when she gets loaded she’s all
dead weight, and I was already carrying a big backpack filled
with our beach supplies.

The full moon in the eastern sky shined portentously red, while
to the west the lights of Coney Island beckoned like a Greek
fable. Out to sea the huge cruise liners leaving New York
Harbor glistened like miraculous jewels of the universe like the
Fellini movie “Amarcord” where the simple people go out to sea
in boats to be dazzled and amazed by the ocean liner, but what
we have in modern New York is so much grander, more like
science fiction.

After Magpie finished her feminine business on the beach, we
went back to the boardwalk to see the remainder of the Natalie
Cole show. In the summer the people of Brighton Beach are the
luckiest in the world, and I’m a die-hard Manhattanite who’s
testifying to that. Even late into the night the boardwalk is
hopping. Kids playing ball in the sand under the protective
glare of streetlights, overfed Russian couples having their
promenade, rollerbladers holding hands, wild kids on bicycles
with boom boxes attached. One joker even had a tiny television
attached between his handlebars, I kid you not!

On the avenue cops’ sirens blared an incessant howl,
reminding you that you might be at the beach, but you were still
in Brooklyn. Groups of motorcyclists roared by, rich Harleys
dressed up with fantastic light shows like Christmas trees,
super jazzed-up “Too Fast Too Furious” Japanese Ninja bikes
painted iridescent green and orange, the female passengers
holding on for dear life in the back, their butts stuck up in the
air like a fertility ceremony.

The show finally ended and The Jazz Family turned on their own
boom box, alternating John Coltrane saxophone pieces with
Sam and Dave soul music. I went over to speak to them. The
men shook my hand and presented me to their charming
women. Eugene from Far Rockaway told me, “New York is
brutal, man, but we shall persevere.”

BROOKLYN AFTER DARK

200motels NEW YORK AREA

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CHUCHA LIBRE

200motels POLITICS

Comedy

Tragedy

Nonsense

Bullshit

Whatever you think about gay marriage, it is
essentially great for comedians. Disgusting Larry
Craig, nauseating Jim McGreevey, loathsome Rosie
O’Donnell, just plain repulsive Ellen DeGenerate. Let
‘em all marry each other with Oscar de la Hoya as
the freakin bridesmaid! What do I care?

Unfortunately, it’s also a bullshit issue made to
ordure for the Republicans, and it cannot have raised
its pointy little head at a more opportune time for
them than the present, when they are stinking worse
than a barrel of rancid fish head offal left out too long
behind the outhouse of a leper colony.

If Obama gets the Democratic nomination, gay
marriage is going to be a major sinkhole for him. He
can’t afford to hedge on it for fear of losing a major
element of his constituency.

The Republicans have already started their strategy
of burying Obama under a manure pile of nonsense,
with the analogy calling him an appeaser (is that like
an appetizer?) like Neville Chamberlain. 99% of the
population think Neville Chamberlain is the new
Yankees reliever, but they sure understand the
concept of caving in to a bunch of despotic terrorist
pricks.

Just making the accusation has accomplished the
Republican goal of internalizing it in the public’s
minds. You don’t have to substantiate it, just get it
out there. That’s how Reagan got in, that’s how both
Bushes got in, that’s what sunk Kerry, and that’s the
strategy they’re counting on to sink Obama.

Today it was appeasement, tomorrow gay marriage,
then they got abortion, gun control, Louis Farrakhan,
you name it. They can accuse Obama of being a
secret demon worshipper at Farrakhan’s Nation of
Islam Mosque on the South Side of Chicago and he
can issue an outraged denial, but it will already have
been internalized by all the freakin Wal-Mart
shoppers, and the damage will have been done.

Naturally, the appeasement remark threw the liberal
commentators into a frenzy, but that was already
after the fact. Nobody cares about appeals to reason.
In fact, all the denials and outraged sanctimony in
the world just give the accusation more currency.

Republicans are like a wounded beast, and that is
when they are most dangerous. Their campaign
against Obama will be a one-loaded-innuendo-a-day
affair until it finally piles up to a critical mass, some
true, some imagined, that will destroy his credibility
even among voters who are kindly disposed toward
him (which I’m not).

The Republicans’ great fear is that Clinton will still
manage to win the nomination, in which case they
know they are sunk. She and her husband have
always beat them at any game they have chosen to
play, usually by turning their own piggish behavior
against them.

I am not as smart as the Clintons, so I only have my
own limited intellectual resources to draw on, and
believe me, they are diminishing by the day. What
they are telling me is that the Democrats need to
wise up and fight Republican insults and innuendo
by smearing them worse. Start by announcing that
the high gas prices and the Iran war are a Republican
conspiracy to get rich off the backs of the people.
That sounds pretty credible. Attack John McCain on
the grounds of senility and losing his marbles.
Obama gingerly touched upon that approach, but
was too nervous to go for a full frontal assault and
hammer away at McCain in a substantial way, which
he so richly deserves.

I definitely would go after McCain on the basis of his
age, and not tenderly. Show up at his rallies with
canes and walking sticks and wheeled walkers. Put
him on the defensive, making him prove he’s really
fit. Even if he is, so what? Call him grandpa, the ol’
geezer. That’s how you play politics!

Republicans are easy bait. If freakin Vito Fosella,
Staten Island’s piece of Great Kills garbage, decides
to run for congress again, show up at his campaign
speeches waving a pepperoni salami and scream for
him to keep it in his pants! That’s how you handle
those pricks!

Barack Obama’s home district, the Hyde Park
section of Chicago has the distinction of being the
birthplace of this writer, and also the area where my
uncle, Saul Bellow, lived and wrote his greatest
books. Bellow was living in Paris when he wrote the
story of my birth to use as the denouement for “The
Adventure of Augie March”, so I can also claim to
have been born in Paris, at least in the literary
sense. How many nasty little no-talent mediocre
strivers can make that assertion? The vicious little
dorks who compose New York’s literary
establishment, if you care to grace those grasping
porkers, stuffing themselves at the trough, with such
an elegant appelation, can never forgive me for
having such a notable history. Fuck ‘em!

Hyde Park is also distinguished as being the location
of the intersection of 47th Street and South Parkway,
a corner that was immortalized by blues singer Lou
Rawls in his classic hit “World of Trouble”. The
hysterical lead-up to the song is the tale of a young
black man, all pimped out with freshly processed
hair, standing in front of the Walgreens. He is
awestruck in admiration of his automobile, which is
parked at the curb, a Cadillac, naturally, or as Rawls
sings it, “white on white in white”.

The guy’s reverie is broken by the advancing fury of
his high-stepping girlfriend, in a night dress and
slippers, hair still in curlers, and bearing a huge
butcher knife. It seems that word has eventually
gotten back to her that he has done her wrong, and
she has made a determination to do a little elective
surgery on him (surgery of her election). Hence the
name of the song.

Now in the prevalent political environment, I think I
can be excused for casting Barack Obama as the
young man in this picture, with Hillary as his hatchet
wielding pursuer. It’s not that far from reality. Hell
hath no fury like a brass battle axe who feels she is
being juked out of the presidential nomination that
she and her future ex-husband have been plotting
for years to seize, particularly when the Republican
Party is collapsing at lightning speed like the putrid
maggot-ridden, termite infested structure that it so
manifestly deserves to be.

One summer beach day I was sitting at a bar on the
Jersey shore waiting for my girlfriend, Magpie, to
finish raising the sea level in the ladies’ room. On
the barstool next to me was a real Hillary Clinton
voter, built like a fireplug with a mouth to match. This
old broad was a real comedian. After she had gotten
tired of exchanging wisecracks with a couple of old
gents seated to the other side of her, she turned to
me and addressed me:

“Y’know, men are a pain in the ass!”

Not able to resist my inner OJ, I shot back:

“Maybe you’re doing it wrong.”

Cymbals clash! End of conversation. I don’t exactly
have the common touch when relating to Wal-Mart
shoppers. But I can talk. Oh yeah!I have never had a
problem with an audience in a comedy club. My
problem has always been with management.

An old boss of mine who really loved me once
complimented me by asking me why I had never
gone into politics. His meaning was clear – you could
make a lot more money stealing than you’ll ever
make working for me.

First of all, I was doing fine working for him. I was
living very well styling ladies’ accessories, and it
kept my hands busy.

Secondly, I don’t car about people that much, which
is to say, not at all. In politics, even when you’re
betraying the public trust, which surely would have
been my role in the process, there is an element of
priesthood, of the laying on of hands.

“Congressman, my neighbor plays his radio too loud.”

“Certainly, madam. I will send somebody over to ask
him to turn it down.”

“You’re such a good boy! I’m going to tell all my
friends to vote for you.”

Put in an equivalent position, I likely would have
advised the old doll to tell her neighbor to worry his
iPod up his butt – sideways.

It’s unfathomable to me why somebody would go
into politics without wanting to steal. That’s the only
sane rationale. That’s how Republicans see it as well
(that boss of mine was a Republican). That’s why
they spent millions going through the Clintons’
finances. They figured that no matter how smart he
was, they could catch him at stealing at something,
though they never did. The Clintons had gone into
politics for the most altruistic of reasons. Also, the
way they saw it, it beats working at a job for a boss.

Nevertheless, whatever illusions they ever had have
been beat out of them by the same forces they had
gone in to conquer and what we are left with is street
hustler Obama, with his skinny pimping suit, being
chased down South Parkway by high-steppin’ fat
mama Hillary packing a pistol in one hand and a
meat axe in the other as Bubba wails “Abide By Me”
on his saxophone under the harvest moon.

THE WAR OF
THE ROSES

200motels MODERN ROMANCE
BARACK + HILLARY??????

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