His birthday was Monday. Didn’t even know it, did you? No parade, no national holiday. Oh, they call it a holiday but we know better. Are the banks closed? Is the Post Office shuttered? I rest my case. Father of our country, for crying out loud. Now George is part of a consolidated holiday with Abe Lincoln called Presidents’ Day. Great. Martin Luther King gets a holiday and a parade. Saint Patrick gets a big parade and he’s a foreigner. Where was Martin Luther King when it was time to cross the Delaware in a leaky boat? Where was St. Patrick when everybody was freezing to death at Valley Forge? And please—don’t tell me he was chasing the snakes out of Ireland. I can get a mongoose to do that.
You should thank your lucky stars for George Washington. If it wasn’t for George, you’d be living in some place called New Sussex, drinking mead and singing God Save The Queen. Worse yet, you’d have to attend soccer games. “All right then, chappie, I’ll meet you on the morrow and we’ll take in Harwich vs. Blusterville on the pitch. After that, we can all go down to the Pig & Whistle for bangers and mash.” I’m feeling better about McDonald’s every minute.
When we were kids, our teachers talked about George Washington all the time. Okay, so maybe they exaggerated a little. “George Washington never told a lie!” I don’t think so. I bet even Jesus told a lie. Supposedly, when he was six years old, somebody gave George a hatchet. The thing was just burning a hole in his pocket so he went out and chopped down a cherry tree. Confronted by his angry farther, Washington fessed up to this heinous behavior, saying “I cannot tell a lie.” The nuns liked this kind of stuff. George didn’t lie, ergo we shouldn’t lie. We kids were more concerned with the historical accuracy of the story. I mean, who’s cutting down a serious cherry tree with a toy hatchet? I’ve been up in a few of those things and they’re not exactly bonsais. And no kid is going to believe it’s even possible to never tell a lie. George was a politician, right?
They also told us that Washington threw a silver dollar across the Rappahannock River near his house. We didn’t know a lot about out-of-state rivers but we knew you couldn’t shoot a silver dollar across the Merrimack with a cannon. Jackie Mercier found a photo of the Rappahannock and underneath the picture the text said it was 400 feet wide. Freakin’ Bob Feller couldn’t throw a silver dollar across a 400-foot river. Sister Mary Albert said the river was narrower in George Washington’s time. Nobody would ever claim Sister Mary Albert never told a lie. We liked George anyway.
Tales Of Derring-do
George Washington didn’t need all these stories of herculean feats and boyhood virtue to merit admiration. He won that with his behavior and accomplishments, overcoming impossible odds. Elected by the Virginia legislature to both the First and the Second Continental Congress (1774-1775), Washington was appointed by the latter as commander of all the colonial forces. Exhibiting typical modesty, he commented, “I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with.” Then he promptly routed the British from Boston in the Spring of 1776. That was the good news. Shortly thereafter, Washington fought a losing series of battles to defend New York. The American Revolution was on the ropes when the commander chose an unlikely time—Christmas Day, 1776—to lead his army through a ferocious blizzard, cross the Delaware River into New Jersey and defeat the surprised Hessian forces at Trenton.
In May, 1778, the French government agreed to an alliance with the Americans, marking the turning point of the war. Washington knew that one great victory by his army would collapse the British Parliament’s support for its war against the colonies. In October, l781, Washington’s troops, assisted by the French Navy, defeated General Cornwallis at Yorktown and by the following Spring the British government was ready to end hostilities.
Following the war, some of Washington’s officers sought to declare him king. He wanted no part of it, returning to his home at Mount Vernon to become a tobacco farmer. He was called out of retirement to preside at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Washington’s great stature gave credibility to the call for a new government and insured his election as first president of the United States. Washington almost single-handedly created a new government, shaping its institutions, offices and political practices, a government which still exists almost three hundred years after his birth.
And what does he get for his trouble? One cheesy half-holiday. There oughta be a law.
Don’t Just Get Mad, Get Unruly!
THIS was bound to happen.
Having a bad day? Office politics got you down? Kids won’t behave? Mother-in-law arrives tonight on the Megabus from Omaha? Have we got a deal for you! Come on down to your local ANGER ROOM!
“Anger Rooms” is an idea whose time has apparently come. They’ve been around on a very modest scale for the past eight years, but not so’s you’d notice. Now, they’re popping up everywhere. In Dallas, you can even choose from different anger packages. The I Need A Break package offers up five uninterrupted minutes of smashing the daylights out of inanimate objects provided by the business owners. Need more time? Try the Lash Out session for ten minutes or the Demolition, which goes on for twenty-five. The Anger Room proprietors will provide you with safety gear and goggles so you don’t damage yourselves during the proceedings. Music is also available. Slayer’s “Disciple” is popular, as is Judas Priest’s “Painkiller.” May we suggest “Sympathy For The Devil?” How about the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated?”
Hugo, a 24-year-old retail salesman from Dallas who asked his last name not be used said the visit was worth every penny of his $45, fifteen-minute investment. “I can’t afford a psychiatrist, but I can afford this,” he bellowed as he crushed a large TV with a baseball bat.
Founder Donna Alexander says most of her customers are ”normal 9-to-5ers.” “We get a lot of high-level executives, people who own their own businesses, they come from all walks of life,” she said. At least half of her clients are women—from mothers blowing off steam to ladies with relationship problems who take their anger out on mannequins. “They put pictures on the heads, write on them and then they beat the crap out of them,” Alexander related. She said she has had to turn down people who asked to bring in chainsaws and machetes. There is also a firm rule against ripping the wiring from the walls. Break it and you get a fearsome lifetime expulsion.
Alexander says she doesn’t pretend Anger Room is anything more than a temporary cure and not legitimate mental health treatment. To her critics who have vilified her business as dangerous and/or glorifying violence, she says “You can’t tell me that you’ve never been terribly angry before—angry enough to rip down the curtains or start throwing dishes. I don’t believe it. If you haven’t felt like that, maybe you’re the crazy one.” Namaste.
Oh, before we forget—gift cards are available.
Militia Watch
The Flying Pie is nothing if it is not civilization’s watchdog. With everyone so preoccupied these days facebooking their favorite meals and sending naked pictures of themselves to drooling old wackadoos in Canarsie, someone must be entrusted to man the parapets, to vigilantly scan the horizon for the first signs of nefarious activity, to rush to the rooftop and turn on the Batsignal when the time comes. By default, that someone seems to be us.
In the course of faithfully reporting the recent shenanigans in Oregon where a group of addled citizens (aka “Those Crazy Bastards”) decided to take over a government nature preserve, we came to realize that such factions present a clear and present danger. Oh, we know what you’re thinking: “Come on, guys, it’s Oregon. All those militias are roaming around out there in Idaho and Montana where people live in caves and eat dirt. There’s none of that stuff going on around here.”
Well, you’re wrong. The Flying Pie has managed to successfully implant a mole at the television headquarters of Duck Dynasty in West Monroe, Louisiana and that operative has secured a list of paid subscribers to the program, legions of which are proud “militia” soldiers who write fan letters to the cast members describing their yokel activities. And these merry men of mayhem are not solely on the prowl in the Pacific Northwest—they are everywhere. Okay, except maybe Boston. Take the Hutaree, for instance, a “Christian” terrorist group lurking in the wilds of otherwise civilized Michigan. A few years ago, the group was charged with plotting to murder a police officer and then to bomb the ensuing funeral, thus polishing off a few more dirty coppers. See, their Plan was that massacring all the cops would magically cause Americans to rise up and install a Christian Theocracy in the United States and the new government would abruptly foil Barack Obama’s evil plan to spend $20 million to move Hamas to the U.S. Yeah, I know, someone’s putting funny mustard on the Coney Dogs in Michigan. This bunch was so crazy the other militias—we’ll call them “Militia Lites”—turned them in.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Golden Triangle Militia in Orange County, Texas is posturing to become the county’s official army. One David W. Smith is the group’s fearless leader. When he’s not dressing up in khakis, David builds monolithic domes for fun and profit. Smith says “The GTM is a reserve militia according to that government code. That’s what I’m trying to do there, because the law says that the reserve militia is supposed to already exist but it’s never been officially organized according to the law in the state of Texas since it’s been on the statutes since 1987. Nobody’s ever done it.” The Orange County Commissioners are on the verge of approving Smith’s idea. What they’ll do with their new army is anybody’s guess. Concerned authorities in nearby Jasper County are considering posting a contingent of ROTC students from Jasper Junior High School at the border.
Another Advance For Civilization
On Wednesday, Facebook thrilled its 1.6 billion users with the big news of a new “Reaction” button, which expands the range of emotional responses far beyond “Like.” Facial expressions labeled “love,” “haha,” “sad,” “angry” and “wow” now can be used to respond to a post. Big whoop, you say. But you have to admit, the idea has possibilities. If this works out, maybe Facebook will add other responses. Like, “Enough already with your religious blather!” Or, “No, I WON’T give you a goddam ‘amen’ even if you’re a decapitated Iraq war vet who’s learned to play the xylophone.” Then there’s always, “If you don’t stop posting this silly shit, I’m coming over to your house with a dumptruck full of goose manure.” See? There are possibilities here. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. And vice-versa. Especially vice-versa.
That’s all, folks….
