The President, the Governor, and a Parrot Walk into a Bus...

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The President, the Governor, and a Parrot Walk into a Bus…

Last week we saw the televised images of poor people in Martha’s Vineyard collapsing from the summer heat at a job fair. Leaping gracefully to action like a gazelle on a mission, the President immediately boarded his armored bus (and surely it is a hybrid), Merovingian 1, and betook himself to the relief of His people.

As the armored bus blew by displaced folks forced to wait by the side of the road, many raised their clenched fists in salute and cried “Strelnikov!”

Or possibly not.

Some scriveners have compared the grim, light-absorbing, windowless Presidential wheels to a police mortuary van or perhaps Darth Vadar’s Death Star, but the careful observer will note that it is actually one of the dark obsidian slabs that keep popping up in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

On its journey to the east the Presidential ‘bus shared road-space with Texas Governor Rick Perry’s bus. Although superficially similar – the wheels on all buses go ‘round and ‘round -- confusing the two vehicles would be quite impossible. The Presidential barge features a bar stocked with French wines and all the makins’ for martinis. The Governor’s rented wagon boasts a foam cooler full of ice and Shiner.

The horn of the President’s look-at-me goes “Toot-toot.” The horn of Governor’s rented vote-for-me plays “The Aggie War Hymn.”

The President’s rolling hideout is surrounded by armed Secret Service dudes in dark glasses. The Governor’s mobile deer stand has a gun rack with an old .30-.30 and a J. C. Higgins shotgun. When Rick Perry is President he will protect the Secret Service.

On the back of the President’s bus a Raleigh 10-speed is mounted; on the front of the Governor’s bus are some steer horns from an I10 truck stop near Marfa.

The President’s bus was armored in Canada. Maybe there was no mechanic or armorer still employed in the USA. But the Governor’s bus is not armored; if Carlos the Hamster or some other unwashed liberator were to attack it, Rick Perry’s glare would cause the Russian-made 40-mike-mikes to fall to the ground in a palsy, modify their lifestyle, and take up gardening and antique collecting.

But Governor Perry did not make the pilgrimage to the Holy Island of Martha’s Vineyard, for that was pacified long ago, and the sons and daughters of farmers and fishermen were set to cleaning the houses of their mainland betters. Governor Perry knew that somewhere, along the Brazos de Dios or on some dusty jogging trail, there were coyotes that needed taming and infinitives that needed splitting, and so he turned his trusty steed west.

Martha’s Vineyard is a small island off the coast of Massachusetts. The principle towns on MV, as the in-the-know call it, are: Tsarkoye Seloe, Potemkin Village, Brigadoon, Hanging gardens of Babylon, and Versailles, although the upstart resort of Xanadu is said to be the coming scene. To this Bower of Bliss, grounded as it is in the reality of the shared sacrifices of all Americans, the leaders of government, finance, art, cinema, theatre, publishing, broadcasting, and law withdraw every summer to do penance in sackcloth and ashes from Abercrombie & Fitch.

Some old Tag Heuer watchfaces will be missing from Martha’s Vineyard this year; those number-spinners who work at Standard and Poors will soon probably summer (and winter, and summer, and winter…) on another island, Devil’s Island, but that’s another matter.

And it is a curious triangle trade: people from middle America visit Washington and New York, people from Washington and New York visit Martha’s Vineyard, and the original inhabitants of Martha’s Vineyard, who can no longer afford to live there, well, who knows where they end up?

On a bus to nowhere?

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The Governor and the Guru

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Governor and the Guru

Wel coude he rede a lesson and a storye,
But alderbest he soong an offertorye

- Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, General Prologue, 711-715


Last week the President was pleased to host the ever-fashionable Dalai Lama at The People’s House, while Governor Perry was sued for planning to attend a Christian prayer service in August.

The thesis here seems to be is that hanging out with a Buddhist of very questionable background who claims to have been reincarnated fourteen times rocks, dude, but associating with Baptists is a crime.

Folks are inexplicably drawn to trendy gurus, and without much thought in the matter: the Tibetan in Dorothy Lamour’s old sarong, Fred Phelps, the Hale-Bopp spaceship guy, John Corapi, and other opportunists all the way back to Chaucer’s Pardoner (General Prologue 671-716). They may have their eyes on the Heavens but their hands so often wish to reside in your wallet.

President Bush I, President Clinton, President Bush II, and President Obama have all had the Dalai Lama over to the White House for some greeting-card theology, and no one seems to know why. But, like, hey, the Dalai Lama’s, like, cool, y’know. One would like to think that presidents exchange, like, hey, ideas, and, like, stuff, y’know just to annoy the Chinese, who have in effect commanded the President not to receive the DL, but one never knows. The fourteenth incarnation of the Dalai Lama posing in the White House is no more significant than Elvis visiting President Nixon, and no more substantive.

The President didn’t wear a tie for the occasion, but then, neither did the DL.

The last time the DL visited the President he (the DL, not the President) had to leave by the back door, next to the Presidential garbage cans, The Garbager Can-ers of the Free World. Well, hey, can you claim that of your garbage can?

The Dalai Lama, channeling Oprah Winfrey, said of his visit to our own Dear Leader that “we developed a very close sort of feeling for each other.” Good grief, couldn’t these two just Facebook each other?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Governor Rick Perry, a Methodist, is being sued by something styling itself the Freedom from Religion Foundation because he plans to spend a day in prayer at the holy temple of Reliant Stadium, nee’ Enron Field. When you think of prayer you just naturally think of Reliant Stadium’s home plate.

If the Dalai Lama shows up, maybe to share some Green Beret stories with John Corapi, will the Freedom from Religion Foundation call off the lawsuit?

This event is being hosted by the American Family Association, which is wonderfully vague. The prayer service is billed as non-denominational and folks are encouraged to come and bring a Bible and a notebook (is the material testable?). No mention of a Rosary, though.

Governor Perry has urged other governors to declare the 6th of August a day of prayer, which implies that the 5th and the 7th aren’t. We’ll have to check in with Fred Phelps and the good folks at Westboro Baptist to see if all this caesaropapism stuff is cool with the 10th Amendment.

We haven’t heard if some large guys in leathers and Tats for Jesus are going to rip apart telephone books. Perhaps that’s how St. Paul got the attention of the crowd at Ikonium.

Security could be an issue at St. Reliant Stadium – rumors abound that Rupert Murdoch is going to try to hack in to Governor Perry’s Bible. This would be pretty easy since Rupert owns Zondervan, said to be the world’s largest publisher of Bibles. How’s that for news of the world, eh?

And speaking of security, we can only hope no one falls from the bleachers while trying to catch a pop Our Father.

The Secret Service may have to be deputed to guard the first-base ikon of the Theotokos from metal thieves.

And when the 6th of August ends, will folks leaving Notre Dame de Reliant Stadium consider the old, old question: “What went ye into the desert to see?”

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