W
elcome to Hotel Satire, a
place for people who believe that Dad should be in command, Mom
should be in the kitchen, ready to serve (and look good while doing
it), the kids should be studying bible verses, and Armageddon is
coming soon, so we can start over and get it RIGHT this time. This
month, Hotel Satire is pleased to being you comments from our own
Mrs. Geoffrey about the current state of affairs.
Hello, this is Mrs. Geoffrey. I am sitting here in my expensive
townhouse, gazing out the window at the beauty of an approaching
New England fall foliage season. A bird flutters by on its way south.
Nature looks so beautiful and peaceful this time of year. And yet,
I feel quite sad—sad and terrified.
I wander to the breakfast nook where the maid pours me a second
cup of coffee. My eyes alight on the latest
Boston Globe
headlines. “More than 70 held as Al Qaeda Link is probed.”
It’s all about how the U.S., British, and Pakistani investigators
suspect “the foiled plot to bomb airliners bound from London
to the United States was organized with support from surviving elements
of the Al Qaeda network that launched the September 11, 2001 attacks
in the United States…. Dozens of arrests were made in Italy
and Pakistan….”
“Pakistan and Italy,” I shriek. “Surely, we
should immediately resume bombing Iraq!? Or is it Iran?” The
newspaper falls from my lap to the floor. A tear forms and I moan,
“What will happen to the investments my hard-working husband
bought with money he inherited?”
I instruct the maid to make sure the windows and doors are locked
and to check on the Mercedes. I rush to draw the curtains when I
notice a homeless person staggering toward the house. I check that
the safe in Geoffrey’s study is locked. I am reminded of an
article I read in a recent newspaper about a reality TV-style independent
DVD series called
Bumfights.
The series was filmed on the
streets of suburban San Diego and Las Vegas and “portrays homeless
people fighting one another, being pushed down hills in shopping
carts and jumping off buildings into Dumpsters.” Terrifying!
Although the producers seem to have been charged with conspiracy
to stage illegal fights (they paid homeless men $5 to, for instance,
run headfirst into milk crates stacked in parking lots), no matter.
Clearly, homeless people are brutes and terrorists out to steal
my expensive jewelry. They may even have ties to Al Qaeda, for all
we know, reason enough to bomb Iraq—along with some random
strafing of suspicious types (you know who I mean).
I cancel reservations to our favorite exclusive resort/spa in the
Bahamas and call Chuck at Charles Schwab. His ad in the morning
Boston Globe
, reminds me that “with the CD market hot
right now, it’s easy to go with the CD rate…, but with
Schwab CD OneSource, you can get CD rates from banks across the
country, all in one place.” Chuck will enable me to keep my
cash where it’s ready for even greater opportunities in my
husband Geoffrey’s investment portfolio. Chuck, after all,
says “I’m sitting in cash. I’m moving to cash. How
about, I’m investing in cash.”
I don’t have a clue what Chuck is talking about, but his ad
makes me feel a tad better—until I return to the morning news.
This time I read all about how the neighbors of the “terror
bombing suspects” dismiss the “notion of a plot to bomb
airliners.” Rather, they say, “The arrests this week were
part of a plot to demonize Islam and divert attention from trouble
zones in the Middle East…. Most said they were stunned by the
arrests and skeptical that the nine young men arrested from this
community could have done anything wrong.” Seems they were
all nice young Islamic British citizens and “wouldn’t
hurt anyone.”
Some of those neighbors go so far as to blame the current situation
on Blair and Bush!!!! I shriek for the maid to take the newspaper
away. “Surely,” I stammer in terror, “this means
we need to nuke the young people, as well as their naive neighbors,
as well as North Korea or…Iraq, yes, Iraq.
I turn on the expensive plasma TV in our media room and hear all
about Fidel Castro’s operation. “Thank goodness, we don’t
have to worry about Cuba invading the U.S. anymore,” I remark
nervously. Wait, what if Castro’s illness is a plot? Is the
U.S. government under Castro’s orders because they keep harassing
that nice Posada Carriles whose freedom fighting fervor saved us
from an attack by Flight 455? I hear the TV pundits talk of an upcoming
invasion, but they seem to be talking about the U.S. invasion of
Cuba. What a relief. It’s about time. Castro has curtailed
our investment opportunities long enough. Bomb Iraq (and Cuba),
please, so we can all carry toiletries on airplanes again on our
way to searching out lucrative investments.
I turn off the TV and peruse the
NY Times
. There’s a
reassuring article about “Spartan,” a decorated war veteran,
Buddhist (?), lover of books, and member of the Minutemen, who are
“dedicated to fighting illegal immigration on the Mexican border.”
I order his video interview
Meeting a Minuteman
. Some call
him a vigilante, but to me, sitting in my townhouse waiting in fear
for immigrant scum to pillage my Persian carpets and bric-a-brac,
this Spartan fellow is a 12-gauge, 9-millimeter carrying concerned
citizen/freedom fighter. I feel reassured enough to order a noon
cocktail with my cracked crab and Waldorf salad.
But I am not reassured for long. Another
Times
article writes
how the “Partisan Divide on Iraq Exceeds Split on Vietnam.”
It’s all about how my beloved Republicans are trying to preserve
our freedoms and weed out bad people while the Democrats are criticizing
them for doing just that, thereby laying us open to more 9/11 type
of horrors. “‘The present divisions are quite without
precedent,’ said Ole R. Holsit, a professor of political science
at Duke University….”
Says the
Times
, “The White House’s top political
advisors are advancing a strategy [pre-election] built around national
security, arguing that Iraq is a central front in the battle against
global terrorism and that opposition to the war is tantamount to
‘cutting and running’ in a broader struggle to keep America
safe.”
“Noooooooo,” I scream, “Cancel the elections. Democrats
should be declared illegal under the PATRIOT Act. All this dissension
and discussion is destroying our democracy.”
I continue in a state of fear until my husband Geoffrey comes home.
I ask him about his day. He tells me he just came from a chat with
Governor Romney. Apparently, the usual pinkos are accusing Romney
of racism because he referred to the Civil War as the “war
of Northern aggression,” while speaking in Charleston, South
Carolina.
I sympathize with that nice Romney (he’s so good looking),
but can’t really concentrate, due to my anxiety over an imminent
terrorist attack on our exclusive townhouse neighborhood. I spout
stridently, grabbing at Geoffrey’s ascot. “What’s
to become of us? I can’t even carry-on my favorite perfume,
at $2,000 an ounce, when we fly to our plantation in the Dominican
Republic where we had to relocate because of that nasty Castro person.”
“Smurf?” asks Geoffrey, smacking me affectionately on
the cheek. “Geoffrey,” I gurgle. “The homeless are
bumfighting whilst no doubt plotting to steal our Mercedes; the
Democrats would have us cut and run; immigrants are sneaking across
the border to steal our children and jewels whilst terrorist bombing
plots are interfering with our investment portfolios.”
“Nosens,” says Geoffrey, spitting a bit. “What?”
I twitter. “Nonsense,” Geoffrey barks, clearly annoyed
at having to repeat himself. “But Geoffrey,” I sputter,
veins popping. “The country is more divided than during the
Vietnam thingie. And you remember what that did to our stock options.”
I hyperventilate.
Geoffrey tells me to get a grip. He says that regarding our investments,
nothing can really make a dent in the amount of wealth we’ve
been able to accumulate since the Reagan/Bush (the elder) 1980s.
As company CEO he says we are earning twice the GNP of Central and
South America.
“Blurp,” I reply, somewhat cheered. He tells me that our
beloved Bush has made moves to prevent unpatriotic attempts to bring
charges against government officials and others for “committing
war crimes,” thereby adding to the aforemention divisiveness.
It seems the Bush administration has “drafted amendments to
the War Crimes Act that would retroactively protect policy makers
from possible criminal charges for authorizing humiliating and degrading
treatment of detainees.”
“Oh, how lovely,” I mince. “How could anyone find
fault with the Bush administration for waterpicking these middle
eastern types?”
“How indeed,” slurps Geoffrey. He continues, saying that—regardless
of attempts by rabid divisiveness of peace and justice activists
during the Vietnam War that prevented the U.S. from annexing that
country and teaching it a thing or two about democracy—investments
in Vietnam have now, finally, opened up and there’s millions
to be made.
He shows me an article in the “Business” section of the
Boston Globe
all about how rising costs in India and China
mean, according to Than Trong Phue, manager of Intel Corp, that
“Vietnam is where the action is now—it’s like a gold
rush.” Geoffrey points out that it costs around $125 a month
to hire a factory worker in China, $750 to hire a moderately skilled
engineer in India, but in Ho Chi Minh City, the minimum monthly
wage for factory workers is $65.
“Bleep,” I sigh, somewhat reassured by the possible pillaging
of— oops, I mean investment opportunities in—Vietnam.
“But, Geoffrey, what of these terrorists posing as nice young
men?” I show him the article about the foiled plot. “Phooey,”
opines Geoffrey.
For once Geoffrey’s "phooey” doesn’t convince
me. I ask him how I’m going to purchase the lovely $2 million
beach house in the Hamptons we’ve had our eye on if I can’t
leave the townhouse for fear of terrorist bumfighters behind every
bush. Geoffrey tells me that I don’t need to worry my pretty
little head about any of this. I ask him “Why, Geoffrey, why?”
and order cocktails to bolster my spirits.
He
says he has a present for me. “A present?” I yelp. I try
to guess what it is—that beautiful ($20,000) emerald ring I
saw the other day in the store window? “Tsk, tsk,” admonishes
Geoffrey, reminding me that we don’t talk about specific amounts
of money, as we don’t earn money, we deserve it, just as our
government deserves to have at any country it pleases. “Sorry,
Geoffrey,” I twitter.
Geoffrey calls me “silly,” his pet name for me and opens
my present—a lovely Glock 9 mm pistol and a Walther P22. “Geoffrey,”
I gasp, my loins beginning to quiver at all that firepower. “What
inspired this?” Geoffrey reads me an article he read in the
Globe,
titled “Annie, get your Glock,” all about
women becoming “at home on the range.” The article describes
how “Devon Chester, a petite 24-year-old in a pink sweater
and designer jeans, plants her white Puma sneakers a little more
than shoulder-width apart, squares her body, leans back slightly,
aims her targeting laser, and empties the magazine of her Glock
9 mm pistol— bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang— into the paper
target 10 yards away…. It’s Sunday evening, Ladies Night
at the Manchester Firing Line….”
Geoffrey tells me that if I don’t like the Glock 9 or the Walther
22, I can trade it in for an Uzi, as one couple in the
Globe
article did. “As Ladies Night draws to an end, the crowd at
the Firing Line starts to thin out, but the Somerville couple who
had never tried a gun before are still in their lane, having traded
out their medium-weight Smith & Wesson revolver for an Uzi—an
Israeli submachine gun that was illegal in the United States from
1994 to 2003, when President Clinton’s assault weapons ban…quietly
expired. When working properly, the Uzi fires 650 rounds per minute.”
I mutter something about that nasty commie Clinton preventing decent
citizens from getting their hands on 650 rounds per minute. Geoffrey
concurs and promises to take me to our country estate for target
practice. “Oh, Geoffrey, I feel safe now.” I move to the
window, Glock in one hand, wine spritzer in the other, and take
aim on the homeless welfare cheater still loitering outside. I tell
Geoffrey about Spartan and ask if we can join him for target practice
along the Mexican border.
Geoffrey slurps his scotch/rocks and adds that there’s no need
to worry about war or divisiveness or the wrong kind of immigrants
sneaking over borders. He says nothing can interfere with our god-given
right to investment opportunities. He points out that no matter
what the resistance, what the terrorist bombing plots, in the end,
the world will be like our own personal country estate, country
by country, continent by continent, as per Vietnam.
I chirp happily. Geoffrey finishes his scotch and lights a cigar—Cuban,
his favorite brand. He says he feels inspired by the photo of Israeli
paratroopers returning from bombing the crap out of Lebanon, singing
happily as they carry a wounded comrade. Geoffrey can be so crass
at times, but I love him—although I could do without the chewed
up cigar that so often drips ashes down his starched shirts.
I roll back the expensive rug we had shipped from apparently terrorist-free
Pakistan (since we haven’t bombed/invaded them, have we) and
we do our favorite dance. You can do it too, just act out the words
and sing along. Ready? All together now.
You put your taxes inWe take our tax breaks out
Blame the homeless bums
No one will figure it out
The rich you will not soaky
Cause we’ll put you in the pokey
And that’s what it’s all about
Yeah!
We put our businesses inYou try to kick them out
We send our troops in
Spread them all about
We bomb you to the Stone Age
With massive weapons tonnage
That’s what free trade’s all about
Yeah!
(
we pause in the dance
)
GEOFFREY: Happy darling?MRS. GEOFFREY: Oh yes, Geoffrey.
GEOFFREY: Any particular reason?
MRS. GEOFFREY: Why, yes, Geoffrey, (screaming) it’s because
we’re sooooo fucking rich.ALL: (we dance again; big finish)
That’s what it’s all about. Yeah!
Lydia
Sargent is co-founder of South End Press and
Z
(where
she has been on the staff since 1988). She is also an actor and playwright.
