The Virgin Prince's War Journal
The grim and gritty side of things. If everyone had a soundtrack to their lives, mine would be the best.
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
I'm In Love With A Rock And Roll World
To the masses of the world,
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. As you all know, I’m generally a dashing sort of fellow, a fearless crimefighter with a strong jaw, excellent build, and gleaming teeth. I’m fast, strong, and smart, and the women of the world generally seem to find a need to change their undergarments upon spending a small amount of time in my presence, or even occasionally for just entertaining thoughts of me. I’m a clever devil of a fellow and my written word forms such poetry that even Shakespeare cries himself to sleep at night in the heavens for sheer envy of my ability. However, it’s hard being perfect all the time. Some days, I feel a need to stop being the Virgin Prince, and slip into a relaxing state of mediocrity. On these days I’m Beyonce.
Some days I’m just a shy little girl with no real talent or even personality to speak of. I just want to lay around in my multi-million-dollar mansion and eat Ben and Jerry’s while I watch Lifetime for a small while, before heading into the bathroom briefly to keep my girlish figure. What?! The Lusty Lascivian wants to lead the Genius Society of America? Mommy! Get rid of him! Replace him with someone with less self-respect! The nerve. This is my group. MY GROUP!
I’ll just be over here studying J-Lo for ideas I can borrow.
I’m bothered today over the death of my Uncle Clayton. I hadn’t seen him in years, but I always had fond memories of visiting him as a child. He was fun. Him and Jen, his wife, they were old even then, but hanging out with them didn’t feel like hanging out with old people, even as a little boy. It was just me hanging out with some cool relatives that were hip enough to be able to enjoy watching Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure with me. Every so often, my family and I would travel to their house in the city and Clayt would bring out his doll-statue-thing that looked like a bartender and had a bottle of rot-gut in hand. Uncle Clayt would turn the thing on and the bartender would start taking swigs, with steam shooting out of his ears every time. I used to get a kick out of that. I spent countless hours in his garage, observing all the neat stuff they had stored in there over the years, and playing in the backyard, where all the metal had rusted from the salt-air and sea-shells were all about. I always enjoyed visiting Clayt and Jen.
Uncle Clayt’s right hand was a claw, an unmoving thing he always kept at his side, and had adapted to living with since his youth. As a boy he’d been sitting on a fence-post and fallen off, breaking his arm in the process. Doctors then weren’t quite what they are now, and the cast had been put on too tightly, allowing the bone to heal, but cutting off circulation and denying him the use of his hand from then on. He adapted, and became adept with a typewriter regardless, a skill which paid off. The tale of the claw was one of many, he had number of stories from his life, the best of which he compiled together and committed to his memoirs, The Life and Times of Clayton Videen. We have a copy of it lying around the house somewhere, I’ve been meaning to give it a good read for years, my father says it’s great. I suppose that looking back on things now, my uncle Clayt really helped to inspire me to write. He was just a hip old dude living in San Francisco with a typewriter in his basement next to an old exercise bike.
They packed up years ago, Clayt and Jen, moved to somewhere in the mid-west and I never saw them again. I’d been wondering about them a lot these past few years, remembering they were ancient and wondering how much time they had left in them. Wondering if I’d get to see them again. Uncle Clayt’s dead now, if anything, this should serve as a reminder to start calling my grandmother and keep in better contact with her. My cool old uncle may be gone, but my grandmother is still a hip old bird, a Rosie-the-riveter, a train-hopper, mechanic, and genius, and it’d be a shame if I didn’t get to at least get to know her a little better.
On to current events, is anyone enjoying the current September 11th investigation as much as I am? The Bush administration is guilty as sin and they know it, it’s really quite enjoyable watching them squirm. The excuse that Ashcroft is currently using entertains me quite a bit, I must say.
“It’s all the fault of the Clinton administration!” he says.
Funny, I don’t recall 4 planes being simultaneously hijacked while Clinton was in office, nor do I recall the World Trade Center and three-fifths of the Pentagon being destroyed during his watch. There was the Oklahoma City bombing, yes, but that was a threat from within, and the perpetrator was dealt with. There were Al Queda attacks, yes, but they happened overseas, and served to step up Clinton’s security. Clinton and his people were still aggressively watching Al Queda up until the end of his term.
But let’s try to take Bush’s side. Let’s ignore the fact that Richard Clark, a Republican who’s been a counter-terrorism adviser since Bush Sr. was in office, and serving U.S. presidents since Reagan’s reign of terror, said the exact opposite, that anti-terrorism measures were actually better under the Clinton administration. Let’s pretend it was all the fault of the Clinton administration. This is what I take issue with: Bush was in office for nine months; if there was really problems left over from the Clinton administration, shouldn’t Bush and his administration have taken care of it by then? I mean, a president’s term is only 4 years. After 9 months, that’s nearly a fifth of Bush’s term. So shouldn’t something have been done by then? Bush certainly had plenty of time to play golf. So if Clinton’s people did a poor job, wouldn’t the fact that Bush’s people knew about it, and did nothing about it except serve as prime examples of sloth and ineptitude make them as responsible, if not more responsible?
But let’s be honest. Clinton’s team knew what they were doing. Clinton was in office for 8 years and we didn’t have a September 11th. With Bush we got one after 9 months. It’s obvious where the blame lies. Inept Texas morons with little smarts and no political ability should not be simply handed the reigns of power over an entire country, but that’s what happened. Thanks, Jeb Bush. Thanks, Katherine Harris. Thanks, Republican Party. The truth is, Bush wants you to think he’s made the country a safer place, and he has all his people lying with him, helping to try to keep people believing the myth. His entire re-election campaign is built on that. Scared people are easy to control, easy to manipulate. It’s not a safer country, it’s a much more dangerous one, it’s a much more dangerous world.
Be seeing you,
The Virgin Prince
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. As you all know, I’m generally a dashing sort of fellow, a fearless crimefighter with a strong jaw, excellent build, and gleaming teeth. I’m fast, strong, and smart, and the women of the world generally seem to find a need to change their undergarments upon spending a small amount of time in my presence, or even occasionally for just entertaining thoughts of me. I’m a clever devil of a fellow and my written word forms such poetry that even Shakespeare cries himself to sleep at night in the heavens for sheer envy of my ability. However, it’s hard being perfect all the time. Some days, I feel a need to stop being the Virgin Prince, and slip into a relaxing state of mediocrity. On these days I’m Beyonce.
Some days I’m just a shy little girl with no real talent or even personality to speak of. I just want to lay around in my multi-million-dollar mansion and eat Ben and Jerry’s while I watch Lifetime for a small while, before heading into the bathroom briefly to keep my girlish figure. What?! The Lusty Lascivian wants to lead the Genius Society of America? Mommy! Get rid of him! Replace him with someone with less self-respect! The nerve. This is my group. MY GROUP!
I’ll just be over here studying J-Lo for ideas I can borrow.
I’m bothered today over the death of my Uncle Clayton. I hadn’t seen him in years, but I always had fond memories of visiting him as a child. He was fun. Him and Jen, his wife, they were old even then, but hanging out with them didn’t feel like hanging out with old people, even as a little boy. It was just me hanging out with some cool relatives that were hip enough to be able to enjoy watching Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure with me. Every so often, my family and I would travel to their house in the city and Clayt would bring out his doll-statue-thing that looked like a bartender and had a bottle of rot-gut in hand. Uncle Clayt would turn the thing on and the bartender would start taking swigs, with steam shooting out of his ears every time. I used to get a kick out of that. I spent countless hours in his garage, observing all the neat stuff they had stored in there over the years, and playing in the backyard, where all the metal had rusted from the salt-air and sea-shells were all about. I always enjoyed visiting Clayt and Jen.
Uncle Clayt’s right hand was a claw, an unmoving thing he always kept at his side, and had adapted to living with since his youth. As a boy he’d been sitting on a fence-post and fallen off, breaking his arm in the process. Doctors then weren’t quite what they are now, and the cast had been put on too tightly, allowing the bone to heal, but cutting off circulation and denying him the use of his hand from then on. He adapted, and became adept with a typewriter regardless, a skill which paid off. The tale of the claw was one of many, he had number of stories from his life, the best of which he compiled together and committed to his memoirs, The Life and Times of Clayton Videen. We have a copy of it lying around the house somewhere, I’ve been meaning to give it a good read for years, my father says it’s great. I suppose that looking back on things now, my uncle Clayt really helped to inspire me to write. He was just a hip old dude living in San Francisco with a typewriter in his basement next to an old exercise bike.
They packed up years ago, Clayt and Jen, moved to somewhere in the mid-west and I never saw them again. I’d been wondering about them a lot these past few years, remembering they were ancient and wondering how much time they had left in them. Wondering if I’d get to see them again. Uncle Clayt’s dead now, if anything, this should serve as a reminder to start calling my grandmother and keep in better contact with her. My cool old uncle may be gone, but my grandmother is still a hip old bird, a Rosie-the-riveter, a train-hopper, mechanic, and genius, and it’d be a shame if I didn’t get to at least get to know her a little better.
On to current events, is anyone enjoying the current September 11th investigation as much as I am? The Bush administration is guilty as sin and they know it, it’s really quite enjoyable watching them squirm. The excuse that Ashcroft is currently using entertains me quite a bit, I must say.
“It’s all the fault of the Clinton administration!” he says.
Funny, I don’t recall 4 planes being simultaneously hijacked while Clinton was in office, nor do I recall the World Trade Center and three-fifths of the Pentagon being destroyed during his watch. There was the Oklahoma City bombing, yes, but that was a threat from within, and the perpetrator was dealt with. There were Al Queda attacks, yes, but they happened overseas, and served to step up Clinton’s security. Clinton and his people were still aggressively watching Al Queda up until the end of his term.
But let’s try to take Bush’s side. Let’s ignore the fact that Richard Clark, a Republican who’s been a counter-terrorism adviser since Bush Sr. was in office, and serving U.S. presidents since Reagan’s reign of terror, said the exact opposite, that anti-terrorism measures were actually better under the Clinton administration. Let’s pretend it was all the fault of the Clinton administration. This is what I take issue with: Bush was in office for nine months; if there was really problems left over from the Clinton administration, shouldn’t Bush and his administration have taken care of it by then? I mean, a president’s term is only 4 years. After 9 months, that’s nearly a fifth of Bush’s term. So shouldn’t something have been done by then? Bush certainly had plenty of time to play golf. So if Clinton’s people did a poor job, wouldn’t the fact that Bush’s people knew about it, and did nothing about it except serve as prime examples of sloth and ineptitude make them as responsible, if not more responsible?
But let’s be honest. Clinton’s team knew what they were doing. Clinton was in office for 8 years and we didn’t have a September 11th. With Bush we got one after 9 months. It’s obvious where the blame lies. Inept Texas morons with little smarts and no political ability should not be simply handed the reigns of power over an entire country, but that’s what happened. Thanks, Jeb Bush. Thanks, Katherine Harris. Thanks, Republican Party. The truth is, Bush wants you to think he’s made the country a safer place, and he has all his people lying with him, helping to try to keep people believing the myth. His entire re-election campaign is built on that. Scared people are easy to control, easy to manipulate. It’s not a safer country, it’s a much more dangerous one, it’s a much more dangerous world.
The Virgin Prince
