Candidate's Night: Red Herring Bait

Tonight in the Community Center, Muttonchop City performs its own Passion Play, an ugly bit of business held under the misapprehension that it is informational. Only confirmed partisans show up, the same hundred and fifty people year after year. The factions gather, the *Monetizers lurking near the back, much as they probably did in high school, the *Fernando-Lamas supporters (many of whom are tiny, elderly ladies), huddling together towards the front.



The candidates sit elbow to elbow at folding tables in the front, studying their 3-minute speeches. They will give their speeches, then answer questions submitted from the audience, drawn at random from a box. Each question must be addressed to a particular candidate, from a particular shareholder, signed, which quashes spontaneity, thank God.


The factions' minds are already entirely made up, so speeches have no effect but to allow the audience the pleasure of either cheering or booing.


Monetizers have a unique, emphatic style of applause: it is stiff-armed, arch-backed, and thunderous, like a cross between the universal soldier and a performing seal:




The only point of the Q and A is to embarrass the enemy. The factions brew the questions in their secret conclaves, decide which enemy candidate is either the weakest or simply the most hated, and bombard that person with poison loaded question-bombs:

To Vincent Piano: "Are you going to tell us which of your children you are illegally putting on your income affadavit this year?"

To Mr. Polly: "After only living here for two years, how did you jump the list and get a two-bedroom apartment?"

Could laypersons manage to compact so much misinformation into such a small amount of space, or does it take a lawyer's touch?

JUST IN, MUTTONCHOP RIGHTS' LATEST:

Carefully timed to coincide with Candidate's Night, a masterpiece of concentrated untruth arrives in all 1,600 Muttonchop City mailboxes.

Oh the fatigue and eyestrain! More prevarication per square inch than Ahmed Chalabi's Medal of Freedom application. I can't set you straight lie-by-lie, but just as an example of MuttonChop Rights methodology:

• see where it says that those "opposing *Fernando-Lamas reconstitutions argue that such and such a tax should be assessed"? That's entirely untrue. The *Bureau of Taxing People may charge a huge, honking tax on *ko-ops that priv---er, *monetize. Our poor little group, which should be called Cassandras for Fernanado-Lamas, has been WARNING that this big, honking tax MIGHT be assessed.
• Our poor, little anti-*monetization group has never requested that the Bureau of Taxing People charge this big, honking tax; we don't have the power. If we are pushed over the cliff into Monetization, the last thing we want is that tax. The Bureau of Taxing People is looking into this tax because they want the money. They don't give a rat's behind what *Ko-operators for Fernando-Lamas want.
• On the other hand, that honking big tax would be on the three to nine-hundred THOUSAND dollars that these apartments might fetch us at market rates, apartments we *ko-operators got, and pay almost nothing for, thanks to YOU THE TAXPAYER. THAT'S YOU THE TAXPAYER. WHO PAYS THE TAXES WE DON'T. YOU. NOT US. YOU.
• Don't you think you should get your money back?

And later, more about the death threats!

It's late, Mr. Polly and I are tired. But yes, more death threats. Mr. Polly came back from Candidate's Night (Mrs. Polly cannot attend thanks to a predisposition to bullshit-induced nausea). According to some of the Monetizers, we are interfering with their God-Given right to monetize.

*all names, appearances and search terms have been changed to protect the Pollys from the wrath of their lovely neighbors. Except that pale woman---she looks EXACTLY like that.

MUTTONCHOP CITY SUNDAY FUNNIES*

The Vertical Trailer Park, a non-fiction comic

*all names, search terms and some appearances changed to protect the Pollys from the wrath of their lovely neighbors.

Color Scheme

In a way, Hillary has Righty Wingnuts' undying admiration.
This little pink-and-black number is a tribute any Hillary supporter would be proud to wear. Oh, to be one of Hillary's Hellcats!

Today is my father's birthday. Above, I present one of his favorite ties, complete with coffee stain. This tie went out on the town and soaked up some excellent conversation along with the occasional spot of Bordeaux.

For his birthday, I propose a holiday: Burtday. Take your wildest tie to dinner, laugh with your family and friends, fight for the check and over tip the waitstaff.

Or eat in, and donate what you would have spent. But still you can wear the tie, and drink a toast to wonderful wearers of wild ties, like my father.

Pulp Non-Fiction: the Muttonchop City Election Guide

What if Ahmed Chalabi, Kathy Lee Gifford, Travis Bickle and Fredo Corleone ran for the board of the same apartment complex? You'd have election season at *Muttonchop City, the development for middling-income people where Mr. Polly and I all too really live. How awful is it? We escape from the tension by following the national election. That's how awful.


Muttonchop Election season heralds itself when beauties like this are slipped under Muttonchop doors:

from Donnie Angler, the lawyer who sued a 92-year-old lady for slander, this solid block of 4 point type completely filled the legal size paper. It didn't fit on our scanner.

Donnie Angler

One of New York's most colorful (single color, that is) neighborhoods moved almost as a single unit wholesale into Muttonchop, where they ran smack into another Ethnic group. Which Ethnic group? Doesn't matter--it's not the right one. Enough said.
From a proud mother of two, whose husband's name might have been---

oh, I don't know----Dominick?
Dom Boy, over six feet tall without his gelled hair spikes, stood up one Candidate's Night and thundered at the little Ethnic candidate: "ARE YOU GOING TO WORK FOR EVERYBODY, OR ARE YOU JUST HERE FOR THE ETHNICS?"

Finally, we have this from Toby Mugg, Esq., Personal Injury Lawyer, Titular Head of Muttonchop Rights, Incorporated, and counsel for Lonnie Angler, the lawyer who sued the 92 year old:

Note: the use of the word "NORMAL"--as in *ko-ops where people who haven't accepted subsidies can sell them for market rate. Muttonchop City IS subsidized----by YOU THE TAXPAYER. We pay 10% of the property taxes YOU pay. Mr. Polly and I pay $562 a month to live in a one bedroom, with balcony, including electricity and cable. We paid $25,000 for this *ko-op apartment in New York City, in a great location. We needed it, we qualified, and we are grateful and happy. YOU THE TAXPAYER made a difference in our lives. Now, if we sell our apartment for over ten times what we paid, don't you think YOU THE TAXPAYER should get your money back? YOUR property taxes are higher to cover the taxes we don't pay, year after year after year.Whew. Excuse me.

Mr. Mugg never uses the dirty word priv---oops, I can't either, it's that dirty, but it ends in "atization". I don't use it because I don't want my neighbors to Google this blog---we get death threats enough already---but Mr. Mugg doesn't want people using it because it sounds bad, it sounds so, so, so-----PRIVATE. So he uses "Normalize". And "Reconstitute." For convenience, we'll say "Monetization." But you know what we mean. When a lawyer tries to recast the language, you know he's up to something.

*all names, appearances and search terms changed to protect the Pollys from the wrath of their lovely neighbors.

THE MUTTONCHOP SUNDAY FUNNIES

Political Discourse in Twenty-First Century America

They tell you in Blogging school, first thing: unless you're aiming for a real niche market, don't nauseate your readers. So I hate to mention last night's Democratic debate. It stunk up the joint.

ABC thoroughly scraped its barrel bottom, where dwell Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous. The Costello and Costello of ABC did their best to put the moron in the oxymoron of TV journalism.
The first policy question, noted Andrew Sullivan, didn't occur till 53 minutes into the debate.
No, "debate" isn't the word for it. Show. The ABC Dumb Show.
Until minute 53, it was flag pins, Bosnia and bitterness. Mostly bitterness. On the part of the viewers.
ABC switchboard: 212-456-7777. Direct comment line: 818-460-7477.

Mr. Polly's position is that Reverend Wright, the flag pin question and the bitterness question are simply good excuses for whites looking for an excuse to not vote for a black. He thinks the country is too racist. I disagreed with him. I thought young people really don't have latent racism, really are beyond it, even if older voters still harbor prejudices they may not even recognize.

Perhaps Bill Clinton's rant against younger voters is because he feels this too. It's not that he's racist; he wants to blow Obama out of the----oops, unfortunate choice of words, he wants to torpedo Obama and regain the White House. For Hillary. Really.

Of course, Obama did remark that working-class Pennsylvania had problems that preceded Bush's presidency.

Bill took that as a slam against his spectacular legacy, and let the worser angels of his nature dictate what happened next: a full-out paranoid explosion. How dare Obama say that Bill never did anything for the working people of Pennsylvania! Well, Obama didn't say that. But let truthiness guide your spleen, and the rest is easy.

By now, you might suspect I'm not a fan of either Clinton. Not hardly.That being said, if by some exceptionally Byzantine politicking, Hillary gets the nomination, ugly as that thought is, I'll vote for her. Simply because she is likely to support policies I support. Policies. Policies. POLICIES!

Policy: "1. A plan or course of action, as of a government, political party, or business, intended to influence and determine decisions, actions, and other matters. 2.a. A course of action, guiding principle, or procedure considered expedient, prudent, or advantageous. b. Prudence, shrewdness, or sagacity in practical matters."---American Heritage College dictionary, 3rd edition.

We are not a reasoning culture. We are a reactive culture. After eight surreal, disastrous years of the guy we wanted to have a beer with, we don't know better. Are we voting for plans of action? No. We're voting for mascots of what we've determined is our team. Which is the warm and fuzziest? The other mascot's fans are so mean! (note: any resemblance to the Joker is unintentionally intentional)

I visited the Hilary Clinton website, to look at the blog. Like the comments sections of all the big blogs, it's full of cheerleading and teenage angst-filled grousing---from forty-year-olds. " Did you read what those others said on their blog? They're such snobs. I'm never voting for their team. Well they started it." And on the other blog: " No you did." "No you did." "No, you did."
Hillary and Obama's policies are virtually identical. McCain's policies and Bush's policies are virtually identical. Which is it you want now, health care or no health care? Fewer wars, or more wars? Decide.

If you want warm and fuzzy, buy a Beanie Baby. Of course, they're all made in China....