"It's a Long Time Between Drinks"

When Governor Zebulon B. Vance of North Carolina met with Governor Wade Hampton of South Carolina, the session was contentious at times.  Governor Vance was moved to comment, "It's a long time between drinks."  Wade Hampton was one of those irritating politicians who had the distinction of driving a governor of a neighboring state to drink.  I wonder about Mrs. Hampton.

Governor Vance first served as a Colonel in the Confederate Army before being elected Governor of the state during the latter part of the war.  Shortly after the war, he defended a former Confederate soldier on a charge that he murdered his girlfriend.  Unfortunately, he lost that case:

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His name was Thomas Dula.  Due to the pronunciation characteristics of the area, he was known in the folk song as Tom Dooley.  Remember that when you hear some folk singer perform that mournful ballad from western North Carolina.  Tradition says that the man who was to be hanged wrote it himself.

This link gives a fuller version of the Thomas Dula story:

http://www.murderbygaslight.com/2010/01/hang-down-your-head-tom-dula.html

The Statue of the Unknown Honest Politician

Madeline, otherwise known as the Prophetess, wanted to provide some universal moral example both to instruct and to enlighten the citizenry in general, and not simply delve into the lives of old saints.*  Accordingly, this beautiful dreamer had a vision: why not erect a secular statue to the honest politician?  It would simultaneously instruct the populace as to morals, enhance the natural beauty and culture of New Orleans, and provide needed work for underemployed sculpturers.  In all, it sounded like a splendid idea to counter the general cynicism regarding elected officials.  The New York Daily News had an apt assessment of Congress, for example.

Largely with the assistance of the Action News Team, Al Gautreaux and Missy Chauvin, the Prophetess, three old geezers from the Cafe du Monde coffeehouse, a motely assortment of history professors from Tulane, Loyola, and UNO, and with some backing that Crazy Chester secured from questionable sources, they were able to purchase a lot and erect a base to place the statue upon.  It would rival the mounted statue of Andrew Jackson in Jackson Square, sans doute!  Actually, there was a lot of local enthusiasm, given the number of people working for civic improvements but also a possible frisson of discovery of some pillar of rectitude to honor.  To select the worthy individual, an ad hoc committee was selected, with the Lucky Dog Guy serving as its chair.  They were tasked simply with finding the worthy person to honor with this monument.

The committee met for months, and seemed to come up with a few candidates; but in order to be spared future embarassment, they took a page out of the canonization process for Catholic saints: they appointed a Devil's Advocate, to dig deeply for any possible guilty secrets, any indiscretions.  Al offered to be the D.A., but the appointed an outside investigator.

And what kinds of indiscretions might be overlooked?  Financial?  Bribery?  Moral?  Untruthiness?  No, our Devil's Advocate did a job worthy of the Drudge Report: as matter of fact, he said that he only had to brush away a little of the dust to disclose the unsavoriness,

Remember that a former Democratic Governor Edwin Edwards predicted that he would win the election unless they caught him in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.  But, ultimately, the committee was unable to come up with a single honest politician to grace the base and park.

While they first contempleted an allegorical statue of the Unknown Honest Politician, they instead voted in a statue to the Unknown Stripper.  They figured that was a more apt moral example to instruct and edify the community!  Even Madeline had to agree with that.

 

 

*There was an old verse about a Breton saint, St. Yves:

"St. Yves was a Breton and an attorney as well,
But not a liar, strange to tell."

Tontos Inútils

There is an expression, supposedly originally linked to Vladimir Lenin, to refer to individuals who unwittingly help some organization or cause without intending to: useful idiots (Корисні ідіоти) .  Several come to mind, such as the long-winded display by Ted Cruz or the judge who sentenced the Montana rapist.  Ted Cruz, by his useless squandering of Senate time to no avail made the case against Obamacare (which I'm not sold on) look petty and mean-spirited.  And the judge, by giving the convicted rapist a 31-day sentence, clearly showed a mass of Americans that the crime of rape (in this case a 14-year-old child) is sometimes not taken as seriously as it should.  If I was in Montana, would this kind of slap on the wrist penalty given to this type of offender make me feel safe to walk the streets?  I hope like heck that it galvinizes people to take things like that seriously, and develop some serious deterrents.  Maybe a long sentence followed by periodic mandatory medhydroxyprogesterone acetate injections, which serve as a chemical castration!

In other words, "You serve big time first, and then no hard-ons for you afterwards, Coover."

Anyway, having let off my steam about those yo-yos, let me now turn to all of Congress: a bunch of useless idiots.

Clearly, only part of the term useful idiots would apply to them; anyway, it would be hard to sell the term to Congress itself, much less the polarized media: the NY Times, the WaPo, Fox News, National Review, the New Republic, and others.  But there is a way:  why not call them tontos inútils (useless idiots)?

They might think that they are compared to the Lone Ranger's faithful companion, Tonto! 

Incldentally, did Jay Silverheels, the actor who originally played Tonto, ever find out that Tonto meant "dumb" or "slow" in Spanish?

And our illegal immigrants (or undocumented workers; take your pick) would be laughing and our movers and shakers would not understand why!

We have 97% of genes in common with chimpanzees.

Underwater Kiss

Among some teens on the Gulf Coast, there was a protocol regarding who could initiate a kiss.  The rule was that starting a passionate kiss underwater was a female perogative, and it could last as long as both stayed underwater.  This gave the couple a modicum of privacy -- others could figure that they were kissing; but how deeply and whatever additional affection could take place was not visible to others' eyes.

Teens in a group sometimes find it hard to obtain a little privacy.

You develop over time an ability to hold your breath longer, especially there's some heavy petting that may require any adjustments!

Also, it's nice to take the lead sometimes.

Get Certified!

Michelle Fitzgerald had a reputation for being a little loose.  No, it was a little more than that: she reckoned that she had slept with at least 30 guys of varying quality.  No keepers at all.   That's what comes from having joined a sorority and leading la loca vida, Southern university-style.

However, she wised up, started studying in earnest, and was able to graduate from the university and then attend the School of Law.  She became more career-minded and became an Associate in a law firm.  Since she contemplated a career in politics, she first joined the Democratic Party but was unsuccessful in her office-seeking.

Now Michelle did have an unerrant eye on the main prize: first a seat in the State House, then after a decent period of service moving up to the State Senate, and someday moving up to at least the U.S. House of Representatives if not beyond.

The idea of Michelle Fitzgerald being a M.C. someday had a lot of appeal to her.

But, unfortunately, she had first joined the wrong party.  So she did what any good politician with negotiable principles would do: she changed parties.

However, her new Republican friends did wonder about her sincerity in her newly discovered faith.  Clearly, Republicans were no more easily misled than Democrats.  What she needed was proof of what she claimed to be, despite the rumors of her wild sorority days and her previous espousal of Democratic politics!

Finally, it came to Michelle when she pressed the Easy Button: "I'll get certified.  Then, whenever someone in her newly adopted party openly speculated on how trustworthy she might be, that she might be a RINO, and should not be the Party's nominee, she was able to show her certificate of virginity, which could be interpreted as ideological virginity.

A friend of hers, who also strategically went from Republican to Democrat while seeking office in another district, also got one of these certificates and played hers.  There's a lot of these retread virgins in politics, depending on how the political winds may blow!  Or, borrowing from the days of the Civil War, could they be called galvinized political virgins?

Later on, when she married another Associate in the law firm, she was able to show him her bonafide certificate, for some other reasons!

Everybody knows how you can tell when a lawyer is lying: when her lips are moving!

Funny Names for Horses

You can name your horse anything you please; but if you want to race him as a thoroughbred, you must register the name with the Jockey Club, which sets certain limits of horse names:

1)  They can have no more than 18 characters.
2)  They must not be obscene.
3)  They must not be a living person's name, unless that person has given signed permission.
4)  They cannot advertise a product.
5)  They cannot end in 2nd, 3rd, etc.
6)  They cannot use abbreviations, and so forth.

Still, there's a wide range of horsy onomastics to consider.  Here are a few real horse names that managed to slip by or get approved by the Jockey Club:

EighteenCharacters

Bad Cop No Donut

Dadsalittleunusual

Beer Goggles

Butter Face

Stump Hole

Pants on Fire

Swale*

Going Commando

Girls Got Skill

Papa's Got Gin

Reality Sets In

It's All Lies

Fusaichi Pegasus*

Chateuagay*

Indy Undies

Ross Is a Hoss

Hadtoomuch

Resume Innocense

Barely Legal

Four Bucks N a Doe

No Speed No Feed

Going Commando

OK Topless

You've Been Served

Oneofthebirdboys

We Both Walk

What a Bad Day

Unzippher

Pensive*

Will Run for Gin

My Office Wife

Luv Guv

Walk of Shame

Bodacious Tatas

Turducken

War Admiral*

Nosupeforyou

Cathouse Saint

Breeze the Weasel

The Wages of Sin

Junk in the Trunk

*Kentucky Derby Winner

There's a sense of wonderment that I have about these names: the cost of purchasing, training, and maintaining a thoroughbred horse is $$$; yet some owners come up with these terribly funny or even déclassé names.  It would seem to me that a committee of horse-minded tween girls could come up with better names. 

I can imagine some horseplayer going up to the pari-mutuel window and saying "Give me $20 on Walk of Shame."  Or, even better, the track announcer reporting, "And at the finish, it's Bodacious Tatas by a nipple!"

My Recurrent Characters

While writing stories, I tend to fall back on a few characters.  I didn't start out with them fully fleshed out; but they sort of evolved with time.  Here's what I see them as currently, but they may change according to my whim.

Madeline, the Prophetess -- Madeline is a woman in her mid-20's, a New Orleanian to the core.  She's Catholic, but with that peculiar tendency towards devoutness that is seen in some living in New Orleans.  She is sincerely religious in the best sense; and follows the spirit of Catholicism but not necessarily the letter of it.  In another time, she would have been like Jeanne d'Arc.  Because she is a public figure, this can get her in conflict with the Archdiocese on occasion.  Strangely enough, she doesn't mind hanging out with characters on the edge of the underworld.  While she has visions, she has lately been using them in her capacity as an equine actuary (bookie).  As a Cajun, she is also versed in folk medicine; she is a taiteur.

Cowgirl Melinda is a straight-shooting girl also in her 20's who lives by the code of the West.  Don't fence her in.  She is skeptical of authority, government, and people who put on airs, as she puts it.  That sort of stance comes with the territory of being home alone on the prairie with cows or other critters for extended periods.  She's a hard-working girl who is darned nice to have around when she doesn't get in trouble even if she has a few rough edges that she sporadically tries to smooth.

Frankly, Madeline and Cowgirl Melinda are in some ways different aspects of myself.

Officer Pete is a young NOPD patrolman who is attracted to the Prophetess, but doesn't know quite how to go about it.  The NOPD was frequently a target for lumps from the national media, but most of its members mostly do the best they could.

Crazy Chester is a large, wise, good-hearted, middle-aged African-American Creole who is Madeline's partner in bookmaking.  He also runs the numbers on the side, and sells some mind-altering herbs.  Despite his involvement with the underworld, he is sometimes called on covertly for advice by local businesspersons.  A major fear of the local ward heeler is that Crazy Chester will some day go political and run for public office, like a seat in the House.

You know, if he would become the Honorable Crazy Chester, he would improve the tone of the House, whether in Baton Rouge or Washington.

The Lucky Dog Guy is a rotund vendor of hot dogs in the French Quarter.  A graduate of Loyola University in philosophy, he provides sagacious comments to those who would listen.  He is a font of knowledge on appropriate condiments for hot dogs.   

Al Gautreaux and Missy Chauvin are two newscasters with Action News, both in their late 20's.  Missy had an escapade with The Honey Island Swamp Monster that left her well-pleased; but she does not say why.  Al is a great one with the ladies.

The Lewd Dude is a college student/tourist from Indiana; hoping for a moral holiday in New Orleans.  He saw too many DVDs of Girls Gone Wild and developed great expectations.

My Guardian Angel Steve appears now and then, but is discreet, a real gentleman! 

Sakura the Fairy is a displaced Japanese fairy who dresses in a kimono and is creatively mischievous, as fairies should be.  Although she was originally the Cherry Blossom Fairy, her lack of detail caused her to be demoted to the Fruit Cake Fairy.

I may use Suzette, the Existential Stripper, again someday if my whim goes there. 

I drew heavily on New Orleans types, partly because I grew up there and because I think New Orleans has something to offer.  I planned to write an essay on 'Why New Orleans Matters.'  But it boils down to the fact that because it is an incomplete melting pot, it forces people living there to make some form of accomodation for each other.  As a result, it has layers of several cultures there.  Where else could you find Italian-surnamed people practicing some voodoo rites, or African-Americans speaking a dialect of French (Louisiana Creole), or the various forms in which Mardi Gras is celebrated?

New Orleanians tend to be fairly tolerant of others' frailties.  Laissez les bon temps rouler! 

In short, New Orleans is different from the Great Elsewhere.  It may be a potential source of cultural renewal for the United States in the future.  I really think that our regional differences should be viewed a strengths, rather than liabilities.

In the meantime, it is extremely entertaining to live there or to visit.