Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
This is the Army, Princess Jones
This is the Army, Princess Jones
No private rooms or telephones
You had your breakfast in bed before
But you won’t have it there anymore!
-Not Exactly as Written by Irving Berlin
A famous actress – and, in truth, a very good actress - who twits on the ‘Net and is hurt that other people on the ‘Net twit back very bad, horrible, no-good things about her, compared her hurt feelings to being in a war.
The implied directive is this: when an actress twits her Me-Me-Me-ness on the Twooter, the people who read her Twots are required to validate her feelings. If they don’t like her, the actress suffers just like a soldier wounded in battle.
Maybe someone should honor her with a costume medal from the wardrobe department. Then she can take a bus to a VA hospital and be ignored by the unionized staff and the latest high-dollar CEO.
The misuse of war metaphors by Americans who never made the first day of recruit training is ironic in itself. A strong America needs more boot camp metaphors by actors:
“The director asked me to read my lines over. That’s like being yelled at by a sergeant, right?”
“Dancercise was sooooooooooooooooooooo demanding today – it was worse than four hours of close-order drill in August at Fort Polk after ten hours of cleanup, inspection, classes, and PT!”
“My agent telephoned and woke me up at nine in the morning. What does he think this is, the Army?”
“My personal aide was out sick today, so I had to pack my makeup bag all by myself. Now I know what sixteen hours of KP duty are like.”
“When the studio sent the car and driver around they also picked up someone else – that’s just like riding in an Army truck with twenty other people.”
“The commissary is two blocks away? What is this, a twenty-mile night march at Camp Pendleton?”
“Don’t tell me about full pack and equipment – sometimes I have to carry my own smart phone.”
“Only two hours for lunch? Now I know what it’s like in the Navy.”
“The champagne in first-class was not chilled to my specifications. It was like the Air Force.”
“My yacht features only a small kitchen, one chef, and two dining room staff – just like the Coast Guard.”
“I telephoned room service to clean my bathroom – I felt like a private in the Army.”
“After spending all morning at the jewellers’ selecting a new Swiss watch, trying on watch after watch, I was sooooooooo exhausted. I now know what Marine boot camp is like. One of the staff was not obsequious enough, so I demanded that she be fired. That part was fun.”
“What? Pay my household staff a living wage? What do military recruits pay their staffs?”
“Make my own bed? I don’t care what an admiral said in a graduation address; I have to draw the line somewhere.”
And, really, here we can agree with Princess Jones – whoever heard of an admiral making his own bed? That would be a sea story.
-30-
