Tag: revolution

Hel-lo, sailor!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
“All hope abandon, ye who enter here!”

Well, I’ve done it again.

I filled out the paperwork and trudged that long mile between El Rancho Pendejo and our neighborhood Vote Center to begin the process of tossing out various rascals and installing others.

The hope is that in the end we will have elected some folks who will have the common courtesy to sell us out in private, where we don’t have to watch over our coffee and Cheerios. The no-holes-barred, open-air whorehouse that reopened on Jan. 20, 2025, has not been a boon to the Republic or the digestive tract.

In point of fact, it’s been the shits.

I persist in voting because it’s the only real alternative to armed insurrection. There’s always staying home on Election Day, but that helped get us where we are, so, nuh uh. And I don’t have a passport, so running-away is off the table.

What worries me is the suspicion that if we ever reach the “up with halberd, out with sword” point, we may find that His Excremency King Piggy the Sticky-fingered and his gombeen men have deployed a band of A.I. brigands to empty all our accounts before we can armor up at our friendly neighborhood boom-boom rooms.

“Up the rebels!” and all that, but if we’re going after them for keepsies I’d like to be packing something with more authority than my 72-year-old teeth and toenails.

Gumsmoke

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
“Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Dog?”

What I need is a manifesto.

Everybody has one. How are The Authorities to understand why you act the fool if you don’t provide some sort of owner’s manual? A map detailing the weed-strangled, varmint-infested trails between your hairy ears?

Fun Fact: The word “manifesto” has its roots in Latin, deriving from the noun manus, which means “hand,” and festus, the scruffy character who in 1964 replaced Chester Goode as Marshal Matt Dillon’s deputy on the TV oater “Gunsmoke.”

Don’t let him bite you.

Thus “manifesto” means “Hand of Festus,” or, more accurately, “Fist of Festus,” something often found in some miscreant’s face.

As in season 12, episode 17 of “Gunsmoke,” titled “Mad Dog,” in which Festus believed he’d been bitten by a rabid mutt and was on the brink of a hideous death, which for some reason led him to beat the snot out of Goober from “The Andy Griffith Show,” who was on leave from Mayberry and moonlighting as a bad man.

So I’m thinking my manifesto should say something like “Don’t act like an evil Goober unless you’re after a puck in the gob,” which should suit the ever-shortening national attention span.

And maybe we should throw something in there about how you don’t want to get bit by no mad dogs neither. As Festus has taught us:

That hydrophobia, it’s a pretty sorry way to die, ain’t it, Doc? You know, a fellow gets shot, why, he’ll just fall flat on his face. Oh, he might kick a couple of times, that’s what makes the crowds turn out. But what I mean is he won’t go just snatching off his clothes and sashaying around trying to bite folks.

Of course, that advice may be coming a little late for a few of the strutting mutts who really need it. But don’t try to pin the rap on me, just because I suddenly have a manifesto. Their rabies ain’t my doing. I wouldn’t bite ’em with your teeth.

Adios, Fidel

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

From "Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War," by Che Guevara.
From “Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War,” by Che Guevara.

Fidel has left the building.

Say what you will about the man who tugged Uncle Sam’s beard through 11 U.S. presidencies — I’ll always remember him for his snarky offer to send observers to help oversee the recount of Bush v. Gore in Florida.

Revolutions are iffy things; they don’t always turn out as planned, as we have seen elsewhere. It’s not the initial cost, it’s the upkeep.

P’raps they should come with a warning label: “Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.”