Remember, you are stupid enough to be entertained by Tom Delay and have therefore given up your right to exist. You are hereby reminded to quit breathing the oxygen meant for others as soon as you can conveniently contrive the aforementioned painful death.

Good bye.

Good riddance. We'll not miss you at all.

Thanks and big smoochies,
Your bastion of good taste and well-earned elitism,

---the PseudoLatino

Guess who's visiting? And guess what they're looking for???

Yup. You guessed it. DWARF PORN. That's what the ENTIRE FREAKIN' WORLD is searching for! And finding on the website of Yours Truly. And finding in this lil' oh-so-innocent post.

How AWESOME is that, yo?

And . . . not to gloat, but here's some proof, starting with a map of total recent hits (yes, everyone from the South Koreans to Sarah Palin is following up on the PL):

Ok ok ok. That's only proof that the whole world loves the PseudoLatino. Not that they love Dwarf Porn. So . . . here's some proof of Dwarf Love (hysterically, to my way of thinking, from fucking ISRAEL!):

How 'bout those odd, quirky folks from Iceland? Immune to nekkid, copulating dwarves?

Nope:

Still. It must be isolated, right? The pure, blonde, fair-skinned Scandinavians are SURE to be immune, right?
Well . . . maybe not. Here's Norway:

An isolated instance? Uhhh . . . nope. Not to be outdone by the frigid and thoughtless Norwedgies, here come the Swedes:

And the Danes (duh):

And the ridiculously stoned folks in Amsterdam (where I first really learned about the ubiquity and all-inclusive nature of pornography). These tree-hugging druggies apparently don't wanna miss the DwarfPorn either:

And who can forget the immoral, godless Krauts? Pah! Natürlich!

And NO ONE dares doubt those infamously uninhibited LOVERS from Italia, no (this was probably a search by my skydiving friend Matteo, on a visit home):

As a matter of fact, Matteo's countrymen needed MULTIPLE DwarfPorn searches to quash their raging hormones (those Romans have Caligula in their genes, no?):

The Bulgarians--often and easily overlooked--love Dwarf porn as much as the next guy, it seems:

And the underratedly PERVY Turks are ready for anything!:

And the OTHER Turks, too:

Not to mention the other other Turks:

And, lest any MUSLIM wishes to stone the ISRAELIS for their Dwarven godlessness (and wants to ignore all those Dwarf-lovin' likely-to-be-Muslim TURKS), they should talk to the Egyptians:

Or the Portugese (not that they're Islamic, but they're clearly PERVERTS of the highest order):

Or the Pseudo-Portugese BRAZILIANS (they are always cruising the PseudoLatino's blog for naughty stuff):

In short, it seems that the whole world has a major boner for dwarves. Except for the Brits, and their stiff upper lips. The Brits prefer Groping their Grandmothers to Nude Dwarves by a margin of 3-to-1. Scary, but true (if you're taking your grandmother to England, perhaps you should head to Bristol. AND STAY THERE!!!):

(Bristol ROCKS, if you're travelling with Gams, anyway):

And enough of this already. It's 3:40AM on New Year's Eve and I have to be at work in 4.5 hours. *hoot!*
Peace, Love, and Dwarf Sex to one and all.

Your Beloved,
---PseudoLatino

Just FYI: according to Israel's own Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the grand total of Israelis killed by Palestinian "terrorists" in 2008 is 31. That's right. 31. Less than one-tenth of the number of dead Palestinian "terrorists" that Israel has racked up in the last 2 days alone. Go Israel! Show 'em what you're made of! Rah rah RAH!!! Yay TEAM!!

Any number of deaths is unfortunate, of course, but the contrast between these two numbers--and the ongoing disparity they help clarify--makes laughable every single word spoken by Israel's government regarding the current attacks on Palestinian Gazans (ooops . . . did I say "Palestinians?" Clearly I meant "evil, Jew-Hating, Hamas-supporting, so-called 'Palestinians,' " right?). Actually, pretty much everything we hear about the pooooooor beleaguered Nation of Israel is laughable. I mean, sure, those Israelis have GOT to unleash the Dogs of War on an organization that--in an indescribably brutal show of unmitigated and unprovoked (*hoot!*) violence--shoots 70+ rockets at their country and only manages to actually kill 4 people, right? CLEARLY these inept Hamas BOZOs are a credible (*hoot!*) threat to Israeli National Security! So fuck 'em! Let's burn their mothafuckin' houses down and show 'em what Israelis are made of, eh?!

Puh-LEASE!

Here are some numbers for comparison, all from Israeli sources (the numbers of Palestinian deaths were reported by B'Tselem, the leading Israeli Human Rights organization--sort of an Amnesty International watching its own country):

2006
Israelis killed by those pesky Palestinian "terrorists": 29
Palestinians killed by those poor lil' endangered, under seige Israelis: 657

2007
Israelis killed by those pesky Palestinian "terrorists": 13
Palestinians killed by those poor lil' endangered, under seige Israelis: 373
Number of Israelis detained by Palestinians without trial under "administrative detention" at any given time: 0
Number of Palestinians detained by Palestinians without trial for siding with Israel at any given time: 100+
Number of Palestinians detained by Israelis without trial under "administrative detention" at any given time: 830 (!)

2008 (as previously reported)
Israelis killed by those pesky Palestinian "terrorists": 31
Palestinians killed by those poor lil' endangered, under seige Israelis: 350 (+ roughly 120 more from violence in late February-early March 2008)

Total Fatalities (Sept. 2000 - Nov. 2008)
Palestinians killed by Israeli "security forces" in Gaza & the West Bank: 4781 ( + 350 for latest attacks)
Israelis killed by Palestinians (all "terrorists," of course) in Gaza, the West Bank, & in Israel proper: 1062
[note: this time period includes the so-called Palestinian War which--to no one's surprise--is claimed by both sides to have been initiated by the other and which resulted in much higher "terrorist" activity on the side of the Palestinians than any other period in the history of Israel (to find a single year total that comes close to the 2002 high of 457, one needs to go all the way back to 1948.]

All of these numbers are terrible. All are completely unnecessary. Nauseating, even. But the truly irritating thing here (well, aside from people being DEAD) is that--despite the clear fact that Israel is killing more Palestinians than vice versa by a wide margin--only Palestinians are held morally accountable for their bullshit. This is ridiculous. Of course the Palestinians use "terrorism" to fight back: when you're outgunned, outnumbered, walled-in, and surrounded you fight back in any way you can. You use uncivilized and undignified means and take aim at whatever targets you can actually HIT and at those which will be most effective. I don't know about you, but if I felt that the other guy had all the power and only negotiated with me when it suited him, I'd do the same fucking thing. It may be shitty, but it isn't any shittier than what the other side is doing. And I challenge ANYONE out there to make a solid, logical case that Israel holds the high moral ground here (PLEASE take me up on this! I'm aching for the fight). They don't. If the Palestinians are "terrorists," so are the Israelis.

Duh.

Now, when someone who ought to KNOW what's going on, someone like, say, John Dugard, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Territories makes a claim--in an official UN Human Rights Council Report--that Palestinian terrorism, while abhorrent, is the "inevitable consequence" of Israeli occupation and further warns that "the collective punishment of Gaza by Israel is expressly prohibited by International humanitarian Law" and tells us that, after examination, "the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid appears to be violated by many practices [of Israel], particularly those denying freedom of movement to Palestinians," what are we to think?

Well?

Do we really agree with the BBC Online reader who responds this way?

“It is fair to point out however that Mr Dugard's views are not those of the UN. Under international law, an occupied community is not allowed to adopt terrorist methods against the civilian population of its occupier. Occupied people remain under an obligation to conduct themselves according to the laws of war. So, while terrorism may be an ‘inevitable consequence’ of the occupation, that does not mean it is somehow legitimate. The UN, including the secretary general and the security council, have repeatedly condemned suicide bombings and rocket fire from Gaza: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi /middle_east/7273444.stm "

"Not allowed?!?!" Civilians with no meaningful leadership are obligated to "conduct themselves according to [someone else's fucking] laws of war?!?!?!"

Yeah.

Sure.

Right.

And even if the Palestinian responses are not "somehow legitimate," why is it that we don't hear anyone balancing their critique of the Palestinians with talk about Israel's numerous and well-documented (by B'Tselem, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, for starters) breaches of, for instance, the Fourth Geneva Convention (which, unlike the civilians living on the West Bank and in Gaza, the Nation of Israel has signed)?

Well?

Why don't more people say these things? Why is there no balanced discussion of BOTH sides' atrocities? Or, alternatively, if important, educated, & power-wielding people do say these things, why don't we hear about it? Where is the public discourse? Why do politicians, media outlets and academics the world over--and other folks who ought to fucking know better--continually kowtow to Israel's Shitholes-In-Chief, rushing to press their pre-moistened, worshipful, collagen-enhanced lips against the festering, puckered ass of Zion? I really wish I knew. Why is it that Israeli deaths are clearly more important to the western world than the (far more numerous) deaths of Palestinians? Nothing I have read of the history of the region leads me to believe that there is anything one-sided or unambiguous in terms of causes or effects. There are no innocents in this situation; no obviously wronged party which is only protecting itself. Yet . . . year after year after year . . . all we hear is "we don't/won't/can't care what the Palestinians have to say until they quit their acts of TERROR!"

Give us all a fuckin' break, wouldja? The instigators on both sides are assholes one and all, and simply because one group of instigators is "official" (like, with a real army and everything, Wally!) and the other is underground and largely faceless doesn't shine ANY important light on the actual CONFLICT. It is IRRELEVANT to the conflict. It's a simple matter of how the situation has evolved, and pretending that Israel is anything but a murderous bully in relation to the Palestinians is . . . well . . . just make-believe. Hell, even quasi-former-cum-interim Prime Minister Olmert (feeling unusually loquacious after pseudo-resigning [an act still very much in progress] in the face of corruption charges) acknowledged that Israeli policy was simply wrong-headed, and had to be changed. Radically. (These days, as a result of the recent situation, he's walking a very fine line on the subject).

Bah! I guess I've had about enough of this crap for today, boys and girls, so just remember:

Next time you go to bed and say your prayers to your favorite imaginary friend, remember to tell him/her/it . . .

In Our Lord's Year
of Two Thousand Nine,
Please FUCK ISRAEL,
where Your sun don't shine,
but please leave us Kletzmer,
& "The Band's Visit," too . . .
If You take revenge,
on the land of the Jew.

Shalom, Kol Tuv, & L'hitraot,
Yours,
---the PL

Since it's once again time for the freakin' holidays, I felt it appropriate to share a few lines that sum up the real "Reason for the Season" much better than any faux diety or the generic false piety towards one's fellow man so rampant in the lesser minds of . . . well . . . lesser minds. While I certainly hope each of you has a relaxing and enjoyable Thanksgiving, I hope you'll keep these Truths in mind while you're sitting across the dinner table from your obnoxious children, siblings, parents, or other brutally overrated relatives.

This Be The Verse
---philip larkin, 1971

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

 

Your bastion of Truth, Beauty, and the Any-Way-but-the-American-Way,
---the PseudoLatino

Would that Yours Truly had time to do naught but read . . . and read . . . and read and read and read. And read some more.

Year 2008 Non-Resolution #7: Increased Reading, continues to move forward satisfactorily.

The downside to this success is that, like most drugs worth taking, every high just increases the desire for the next fix. So much to read. So little time! And, appropriately for that particular choice of metaphor, today's eight-ball was served up by none other than William T. Vollmann, through the vehicle of his 1991 novel Whores for Gloria. It's a short, simple read, full of heart-breakingly sad, tender, sometimes violent and stomach-turning tales of street prostitutes in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco.

Many of the stories are lifted verbatim from Volmann's interviews with these women, some of which he includes, in fragmentary form, in one of the book's Appendices, "Profile of the Tenderloin street prostitute (1985-1988)." As he points out there, and elsewhere, "the unpleasantnesses of her profession are largely caused by the criminal ambiance in which the prostitute must conduct it." Those who read that and think "well, there's an easy way out of that 'criminal ambiance' isn't there? Quit doing it! It's disgusting and wrong, anyway!" are cordially invited to kill themselves now. No, I'm not kidding. Not a joke. Please kill yourselves now.

[pausing for the host of ritual suicides that Your Intrepid Guide to Meaningful Morality prays are now underway]

Some other time we shall have to go into the subject of why prostitution should be completely legal everywhere in this moralistic, ignorant and intolerant philosophical backwater we call the United States of America, but not today. And naturally we'll follow that up with an essay on the moral and social necessity of decriminalizing ALL drug use, without exception (please note that I didn't say "legalizing," and do a little research if all the big words are confusing you). But . . . let's not push our luck just yet. M'k?

M'k.

When I first read Vollmann's Whores for Gloria, along with his Rainbow Stories and Butterfly Stories, back in 1994, I was amazed. Not only by his writing, but by the topics that he had chosen to write about, and which he had addressed with absolute compassion and complete authority and authenticity. Of course, it didn't hurt that his was the correct point of view . . . dare I say the christian point of view (small 'c' required) . . . and that it remains the only workable point of view in the real world. Nope, that didn't hurt at all. It was also rather fantastic that he was addressing many themes directly which existed peripherally (or were simply taken for granted as true) in the works of other authors I was completely immersed in at the time: Thomas Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow), James Joyce (Ulysses), and John Barth (Giles Goat Boy), just for starters.

I highly recommend these works of Volmann, with whose more recent works (and he is a prolific writer) I am sadly not yet conversant.

Peace Out (and next time you see one, Hug a Hooker for Jesus!),
---the PL

ps

Here is a little bit of insight into Volmann, from an older interview which can be found online here:

. . .

AL Why do you write so much about prostitutes?

WTV Why I'm interested in prostitutes is because they have everything interesting in life all together: there's love, sex, and money. What more do you want? I feel comfortable around women. Paying for sex is always an easy way to get into a woman's life, if she's a prostitute. It's always great for me when I travel some place. If I really want to know what life is really like in one of those countries, just pick up a prostitute and live with her for a while. I see life as she sees it. I feel like I'm doing something and knowing something real fast. In a week, you learn as much as you would if you stayed in a hotel for a year. It's really great.

Whores For Gloria is not autobiographical. I'm not an alcoholic or a veteran. I did go around in the Tenderloin asking prostitutes to tell me stories. I'd ask them to tell me happy stories, and they'd try. They'd always end up being sad stories. It's always sad when you see other people unhappy. It's not that prostitution is bad. I think that many prostitutes in Bangkok and Thailand have a pretty good life: they get boyfriends, husbands, they can go out of it when they want. Over here, there's all this shame we have about our bodies. So when someone becomes a prostitute, she becomes ashamed of herself. And then, it's a criminal thing. It's easier to get hooked on drugs. There's nothing wrong with taking drugs occasionally, but if that's all you do, it's easy to end up on your way out. So that stuff is sad for me to see.

There's one story in Thirteen Stories, Thirteen Epitaphs that I wrote about a guy who goes to Bangkok and marries a prostitute. He would have done anything to stay with her. She felt bad that she wouldn't stay with him. There was a language barrier. She really couldn't explain to him why she wouldn't. Actually she married a couple of people, and kept doing her thing.

AL Is observation as good as raw experience?

WTV I think it depends on what's observation and what's participation. I started doing the crack stuff because these ladies that I was working with were smoking crack.

AL We've talked about writing, research, observation, and so forth. Some people have accused the photographer Joel- Peter Witkin of exploitation. What is the difference between observation and exploitation? This is a culture that pays models 500 dollars an hour for their pictures, yet pays nothing to the poor or the destitute.

WTV That's a good question. When I was writing Rainbow Stories, there was a piece on prostitutes in the Tenderloin called "Ladies and Red Lights." I was very concerned about exploiting them. I'd ask them questions. I'd always pay for the interviews. It was not actually that good a piece. It was a start of getting into that world. It was the best that I could do at the time. Since then, I've realized the best thing to do is that you try to become that person's friend. You do something for them. They do something for you. And everybody's happy. If you write a story about somebody, but in the meantime, she's puking in the sink because she needs her fix.... So you give her some money, and she can get fixed. She thinks you're the greatest. And you think she's the greatest too. You're both helping each other. I have some long-term relationships with some of those people. I feel like I've done good for them. I also feel grateful to them for letting me hang around and share their lives with them. So I don't think that I exploit anybody.

But that's the kind of thing: it's always a matter of opinion. I was interviewed by somebody in Davis a few days ago. She kept telling me "What gives you the right to play God?" She thought I was kind of awful. All I could say was "You can believe it if you want."

For instance, I'm going over to Burma to get this sex slave. I guess they have really young girls there: eight or nine year olds. They raise them like animals. Then they ship them out to whorehouses. Sometimes the Japanese want virgins and they don't want to use rubbers. So it's ideal for them to get one of these young girls. So I was interested to see how the process works, of buying a human being. Once I bought this person, I would have some kind of responsibility for her. I would try to set her up with a fruit stand, or a cigarette stand. I don't see anything wrong with voluntary prostitution, but I think that involuntary prostitution is pretty bad.

So this woman said "Well, you're giving her a taste of freedom, but probably she'll just end up the same way as she was before or worse. You're not doing her any favors." But I disagree. I figure you can't help anybody, but you can give them a chance to help themselves. If they take it, then that's great.

. . .

---the PL

Trying to unravel why other people's embarrassment, pain, and suffering can cause us to guffaw, to spew milk through our noses, or to otherwise convulse involuntarily most likely misses the point. The fact is easily observed: we--you and I, the common man, the average joe--DO find it funny. Cathartic, even. And frankly, I don't really care what the reason is. After all, I don't need to hear an infinitely detailed physiological description of an orgasm to fully EXPERIENCE an orgasm, and to know (and I mean really, truly KNOW . . . beyond a shadow of a doubt) that the Big O is one of the most powerful motivating forces in all of human existence. Do you?

I didn't think so.

And so it is with Schadenfreude. There should be no debate. Laughing at the often radical mishaps which befall other people isn't "crass" or "uncivilized" or "improper" or indicative of some foul flaw in our collective character. No. It's the norm. We all experience it, though there is certainly a threshold at which the misfortune moves into another, darker, realm of involuntarily elicited social response. At the mildest end of the spectrum, we've got America's Funniest Home Videos (and its clones in a dozen other languages and countries) to prove just exactly how liberating it is to watch our fellow human beings get kicked in the groin, fall off their bikes, or trip over a bench and fall face-first into their own triple-decker wedding cake while 250 people look on (many of them--Shock of Shocks--ROTF LTAO). At the other end, well beyond that aforementioned threshold, we've got cult classics like Faces of Death, or whatever it is that happens when we drive past the scene of a deadly automobile accident, or oft-viewed YouTube compilations of tragedy and carnage. Our discomfort with our own fascination clearly grows stronger as we move from AFV to FOD, yet still . . . we move.

Let's leave for some later date the darker end of this story, because TODAY what we're really here to talk about is vomit. Yes. I did say 'Vomit.'

Puke.
Emesis.
Tossed Cookies.
Technicolor Yawns.
Ad nauseam (hahahah . . . aren't I such the punster today!)

Vomit is, simply put, funny. So long as you aren't the one vomiting and the vomitor (or vomitatrix) isn't hurling on YOU, or into the backseat of YOUR car. Or, for that matter, your airplane. Which naturally brings me--at long last--to the genesis of today's post: airplane vomit.

During a wonderful, spring-like, beautiful saturday afternoon of skydiving, I was drawn forth from a bit of mealtime reverie by the sound of laughter coming from the Skydive Dallas hangar. The laughter was originating from several of my friends, who were unceremoniously gathered around the monitor of an inconspicuous laptop. Their laughter was intense, exceptionally loud, and interspersed with involuntary groans. At least two viewers had tears in their eyes. Being more hungry than curious at the time, I remained in my seat but, when quizzed later, one of the crying divers told me that they had been watching a YouTube video involving a hapless passenger on a small 4-seater aircraft who . . . well . . . let's just say she was having some problems keeping down parts of her surely-nutritious, largely digested dinner. And let's also say that the pilot, rather than acquiescing to her predicament, decided to go for broke.

I was curious, and so this evening I decided to hunt down the video and show it to my favorite Nurse amongst Nurses, the Valerina. It was rather easy to find. When, near the end of this pithy, 17-second video, the pilot decides to take his aircraft into a nosedive and treat his passengers to a couple seconds of Zero Gs, Yours Truly was reacquainted with his inner sadist. I laughed until I was having muscle spasms. I laughed until I was red-faced, sweating, and gasping for air. Why? I dunno. I don't care. Watching the Airsick Bag get filled, and then re-empty itself in the completely unexpected and explosive way that it does, is completely and totally wrong. As in "oh my god, that was sooooooooo wrong!"

It's also hysterically funny.

And then there's the TV Interview Vomit, which is funny, but less so. Why is it less funny? Because somehow, I think, it's less "wrong." Unlike the poor, innocent victim in the airplane, you get the feeling that this guy--who obviously showed up hung-over (or perhaps still intoxicated) to plug his ridiculous film festival--deserves what he got. Fortunately, the reporter's reaction is perfect: just the icing that this particular cake needed.

If you think this is just the PseudoLatino pulling wild theories out of thin air, consider this:

A 30-second advertising spot in yesterday's Super Bowl cost a whopping 2.7 million dollars. According to TiVo, Inc, the MOST WATCHED ad that aired during the game was created by E-Trade, so I'll just step aside and let the $90,000 per second advertisement speak for itself. (Do any of you actually think E-Trade is gonna spend about $270,000 of their $2.7 million for a punch-line that the overwhelming majority of the estimated 95+ MILLION PEOPLE who tuned in would find distasteful? I didn't think so)

Your Advocate for Upchuck,
Your Spokesman for Schadenfreude,

---the PseudoLatino

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov

As I am currently embroiled in the act of adding the epithet Skydiving Saboteur to my current title of Tango Terroriste, I have little time to elaborate upon these books for your general edification and amusement. I'll keep it short and sweet.

Anyone who is interested in an inventive use of language and a mainstream application of experimental typographical techniques would do well to pick up Foer's EL&IC. It ain't Thomas Pynchon, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog on the other hand, though entertaining, is far beneath The Master and Margarita in both imagination and execution. Still . . . I had to read it. I admit that when I discovered that the plot involved the unexpected consequences of transplanting the pituitary gland and testes of a petty criminal into a stray Moscow dog, I had to give it a shot. And even with my profoundly limited knowledge of 20th-Century Russian/Soviet history, the satire is pretty hard to miss.

In any case . . . enough for now. The Saviour of Bad Behaviour is off to do His thing.

Ciao,
---the PL

I could say that, but I won't. Just read it. There's nekkid women, decapitations, a gunfight between a vodka-swilling tomcat and soviet police, ritual blood drinking, murder, magic, betrayal, distortions in the space-time continuum, a Great Dane who remains faithful to his master across two millenia, . . . and did I already say nekkid women?

---the PL

This includes, most definitely, the dood in Turkey who recently found me by searching for "beautiful dwarf porn," or the Berliner (no, not a donut) who arrived by searching for "swinger party." Being nearly as fond of dwarves as Joel-Peter Witkin, Your Hero was able to assist these international seekers of sooth with my posts "Dwarf Porn, W.A.S.T.E., and Liberace's Grave" and "Blind Dwarf Swinger Party," respectively. This latter post was also apparently helpful to a visitor from Monterrey, Mexico, who was searching one evening for "swinger latino," and got little ol' me and my Blind Dwarf Swinger Party instead.

In light of this trend in PseudoLatino search targets, His Radiance the PseudoLatino Himself thinks it makes sense, hereby and forthwith, to proclaim the Year of Our 'Tard Two Thousand Eight as "The International Year of the Dwarf."

Of course this is in NO way meant to slight all the perverted Brits who (far more strangely, in my opinion, than googling for "dwarf porn") landed on my site by searching for "grope granny" or "groping grannies." Oddly enough (and with heartfelt, abundant thanks to the Anal Bede), Yours Truly just happens to have a rather popular post called, aptly, "Groping Granny."

I am truly an equal opportunity offender. Or at least I aspire to be such.

And with that, I again wish you all the happiest, dwarfiest year thus far in your lives.

Your Servant,
---the PseudoLatino

It seems as though Your Quasi-Infallible Pope de Tango earned his quasiness with last night's post. It would appear that I managed to delete the playlist (basically the whole point of that enterprise) while attempting to improve upon the telling of the Tale de Vito.

Fear not! Both the list and my infallibility have been restored. To view it (the list, not my infallibility--which is, after all, visible on virtually every page of this fine weblog for the whole world to see!), you can simply click here:

THE PLAYLIST

His Holiness,
---the Pseudo PopeLatino

PS

I admit it . . . the title should of this post should actually have been "Errata," but how many of you pervs would have read it with that title?

Right. That's what I thought.

Vito?

The conversation ended when my oddly-named companion started complaining about his μ-opioid receptors and my inability to grok Drinfel'd-Jimbo quantum groups. He then dropped into an uncomfortable 5 minute near-silence during which his insensate eyes rolled back in his head, drool streamed from his slack lips and he mumbled repeatedly, in a muffled pianississississimo, something that sounded like "Hare Krishna Hare, ate no Calamari, browsed with Mac's Safari, Hare Krishna Hare" . . . . He then suddenly caught his snap and began insulting my mother, my father, my father's father and my mother's mother and--eventually--all my ancestors back to some dood named Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, who he claims was schtupping Agrippina the Younger, the woman who was to become my progenitrix and who was sister to that oh-so-cool role model for U.S. Senators and Catholic Priests everywhere: Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus aka Caligula (yes, that Caligula).

Apparently this Marcus Lepidus was also a little on the slow side when it came to women and mathematics. However, unlike Marcus, complained Vito, Yours Truly would NOT be assassinated for his stupidity and he, Vito, would not have the unreserved pleasure of observing the event. He then vanished into thin air.

Fucking uppity leprechauns. Who needs 'em?

After such a strange and annoying conversation (one-sided though it was), the Tango Terroriste threw together some tandas and headed out to DJ all or part of the final Dunn Bros Milonga of 2007. For a change, I thought I would simply let you take a look at my playlist for the evening, which even includes--despite their generally poor performance and recording qualities--a few pseudo-obligatory tandas of Golden Era recordings. For my own amusement, and to demonstrate once again how EASY it is to put together a musically coherent tanda according to the prevailing mores of unimaginative Tango DJs worldwide, Your Fearless Leader adhered primarily to the one ensemble per tanda, all vocal or all instrumental, all similar tempo and style approach. In a later post, we will demonstrate how this simplistic concept of musical coherence demonstrates impoverished creativity and a lack of musical sophistication on the part of those who adopt it (the so-called "purists"). Musically astute readers will already discern in the list below some more interesting strategies for tanda composition, strategies upon which we will elaborate some other day.

For now, and without further distractions, hesitations, delays, dawdling, procrastination, or dilly-dallying, here is this evening's playlist.

With all due sincerity,
I remain,
Your Devoted Irritator of Leprechauns,

---the PseudoLatino

It's Stainboy.

And though Tim Burton may have falsely, though lovingly, represented My Hero and His Origins, Stainboy isn't upset about it . . . and he spent the better part of a post-Mythmas afternoon speaking with YOUR Hero, the PseudoLatino, about life, love (according to that vacuous billionaire dumbcunt Oprah), politics, religion, iPhone the God, economics, skydiving, Burning Man, and the dangers of jealous wimmins.

Naturally we spent LOTS of our precious time orally disquisiting--over the course of a passable Chipotlean lunch and too-numerous shots of Starbuckian espresso--on the theoretical dangers of these self-destructive, jealous, pole-dancing women who theoretically sing the Magna Carta whilst theoretically standing upon theoretical tables at theoretical office parties. This was, in theory, fine and dandy. However . . . betwixt and between topics that rat bastard kept getting his god-forsaken Teutonic drool on my iPhone! What's up with that, home-skillet?

In any case . . . short and sweet though this post may be, it was nice to see Ol' Stainboy once again, and to hear about His Heroic Exploits. Those of you who encounter Him, however, must remember to remind Him (and this, Dear Readers, is of vital importance):

Ask first, negotiate later

(That's for Stainboy to understand, not you . . . which is to say that YOU--unlike LA's only Superhero--should remind first, ask later)

Our pleasant reminiscences were followed by an interminable drive back to Dallas, and some totally, COMPLETELY lame excuses from the Bearded One regarding her inability to Come Out. She said she was "in" and wasn't "Coming Out" any time soon. Hmmmm . . . and here I was pretty damned sure she was hetero!

I guess you never know about some folks.

Your Beloved,

---PseudoLatino

So,--
Have,--
A,--
'Nother look,-- at the Army that
Wrote the Book,-- take the Path that you
Should've took-- and you'll be
On your way!
Get, up, and, wipe-off-that-chin,
You can begin, to have a
Whole new oth-er life,--
Soldj'ring for Christ,
Reas'nably priced,--
And nobody's missing
The Kids or th' Wife! So,
Here's the Drill,
Take the Quill,
Sign on the Line or any-
Where you will,
There's Heretics a-plenty and a
License to kill, if your're a
Brother in the S. of J.!"

---Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon

I wish you the happiest of holidays, Dear Readers, and I'm sure that by now most of you have opened your hastily-purchased and likely unwanted presents, exchanged obligatory, superficial cordialities with those you really have little or no desire to see and have descended rather quickly into innocuous smalltalk, socially-sanctioned drug use (some folks call it "drinkin'") and passive participation in the drug-enhanced athletic achievements of our youth's mentally substandard, amoral, petulant and radically overpaid role models.

In short, I'm sure most of you are celebrating the Winter Solstice in the usual way, gathered together with kith (if you're lucky) and kin (if you're not) and/or kin-in-law (if you've done something to earn access to the fires of hell) pretending you want to be there--perhaps feeling bad about yourself because you don't--and otherwise enjoying all the riches that our decaying American Empire has to offer: rampant consumerism, cultural superficiality, intellectual poverty, and the collected set of fairy tales that together comprise the majority of our so-called spiritual lives.

YummmmmmmY! What a great and admirable way to mark the passage of time and to stake out our place in History, don'tcha think?! By engendering neither peace, nor love, nor good will towards man, and by pretending--let us not forget!--to keep Jesus H. "Fucking" Christ in Christmas?

I agree whole-heartedly! What a nifty idea!!

And therefore, with the degree of warm-heartedness to which One and All have grown accustomed, Your Heroic Hagiographer would like to propose a toast appropriate to the season as it now exists . . . a toast to honor this remarkable accomplishment which stands at the end of 6000 years of recorded history, an accomplishment of which we are understandably and justifiably proud . . . a toast to the childlike, incomprehensibly STOOOPID beliefs of the Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Wiccans and adherents of 4000+ other irrational cults whose memberships thankfully continue to degrade with the growth of meaningful, useful knowledge of the world around us (with no small measure of relief, we note that the third largest 'belief' group in the world, after Christ-insanity's 2.1 billion and B.S.-lam's 1.5 billion is "Secular/Non-religious/Agnostic/Atheist," currently at 1.1 billion and growing). So please, lift your glasses with me . . . .

*the PseudoLatino raises his half-full glass and addresses the assemblage*

"My dearest Religious Believers of all stripes . . . as we gather together to celebrate the passage of yet another year and the renewal of our Hopes and Dreams, Your One True PseudoLatino wishes for each of you that the law-abiding Causalities of good ol' Mother Nature may unfold in a manner you find desirable and that you can continue, hysterically and erroneously, to label as "blessings" and "miracles" and "god's will" because you are, in point of fact, too butt-fuckingly ignorant to understand the universe in a more complex and factual way and because without the salvific of superstition you are too shallow, unimaginative, and cowardly to face the existential void and discover meaning therein . . . or to motivate yourselves to act . . . or to find love . . . or to discern the moral course of action . . . or, apparently, to do much more than wipe your asses;

"May you continue to misunderstand and pervert the teachings of your Prophets and Holymen--both real and imagined; May your irrational self-delusions and self-righteous ignorance continue to support your smug, groundless sense of spiritual superiority and the laughable belief that you, unlike the majority of mankind, are a follower of The One Truth (be it also the Way and the Life, or some other);

*lowering His glass to waist level, the PL takes a breath before continuing, somberly...*

"May your missionaries--each and every one--die horrible, painful, protracted deaths trying to proselytize their version of this Truth to those who have neither asked for it nor need it; May your clergies continue to extort tithes and submission from those in the world too poor and uneducated to resist them or, alternatively, may your cash-infused, ideologically vacant, suburban American, evangelistic mega-church leaderships continue to derive incalculable wealth from the fact that you are too fucking stupid to know that they are scheisters and con-men;

"May a local Priest sodomize your youngest Catholic child in God's name; May your younger sister contract HIV from an African boyfriend who didn't wear a condom because the Pope, cowering in fear inside his Pope-mobile, said it was a sin; May an Imam encourage your Muslim wife to wear a C4 strap on and rid the world of a few more evil American, or Sunni, or Shiite, or Jewish, or other infidel schoolchildren;

*with a special look towards His Horror Flick-loving friends, and a twinkle in His eye, he continues...*

"May you be invited to the World Premiere of Michael Bay's newest Zillion Dollar Blockbuster Jesus vs Mohammed: Requiem -- This Xmas There Will Be No Peace On Earth (based on a true story) and find yourself able, despite your clear mental handicaps, to recognize its ham-fisted attempts at metaphor;

*taking a breath, and watching a few in the assembly begin to squirm angrily, the PseudoLatino again raises His glass high...*

"May the pugnacious, war-mongering Israel continue to oppress the Palestinians living within "her" borders (yes, yes, we know . . . despite historical facts, there is no such thing as "Palestine," much less a "Palestinian," so how can the Israelis oppress one?) and disappear forever into the sea while those previously-mentioned American evangelicals cheer them on from the sidelines in the name of the Holy Babble's Book of Stupid Fucking Revelations; however--and this is important--may Israel remain protected from this disappearance until after she has managed to nuke The Rest of The Brown Ones (who are, after all, stubbornly getting in the way of various promises made by that immoral, violent dumbfuck of a hebrew god for the last, ohhhhhh, 6000 years or so) and give birth to at least one generation of three-legged, psionically-enhanced super Jew-babies--said Jew-babies being necessary to provide additional fodder for attempts, from the evangelical peanut gallery, at "learned" scriptural exegesis and interpretation of texts which were, after all, written by superstitious idiots in the first place;

*smiling, Your Host puts his nose down below the rim of the glass and breathes deeply, closing his eyes, pausing to savor the bouquet . . . after a moment he looks once again out into the crowd*

"And in general . . . may you all continue to base your politics, your wars, your child-rearing, your morality and your sad, spiritually impoverished little lives on hand-me-down, second- and third-hand fictions evolved from countless pre-existing cultures, passed down and parroted with unquestioned reverence from, and to, societies of uneducated, superstitious people who believed that their lives were charted by the alignment of stars and their illnesses caused by demons, who believed that bloodline determined human worth, who thought that an eclipse was a portent and a rainbow a miracle, who believed they saw the Virgin Mary in a piece of French Fucking Toast (or a tree, or a piece of coral, or in Britney Spear's stretch marks . . . oh wait! That's what real people think TODAY!!!), who believed that thousands of their innocent neighbors were witches, and killed them for it . . . from various peoples who, basically, had less understanding of the natural world than today's bottom-of-the-barrel third-grader.

*...and with a final flourish, He concludes...*

"Here's to your Religious Beliefs--moronic, one and all--and to the endlessly entertaining fanaticism and gullibility they engender and require (respectively, of course). It was of, though perhaps not to, those who hold such beliefs that the Great Secular Prophet Phineas T. Barnum so famously spoke:

" 'There's a sucker born every minute.'1"

*...looking around the room, meeting the eye of each and every guest, Our Hero drinks deeply, lowers His glass, and takes His seat*

And with that, my friends, I'm off to finish my drink, pour another one (or two, or three), and find something--anything--better to do than watch sports on television with other idiots who watch sports on television (yes. It's true. ALL people who regularly watch sports on television are fucking idiots. And that means you, IF you watch sports on television).

Hmmmmm . . . what can I do instead? Maybe I can go write something for my blog?!

Yeah. That sounds like just the ticket.

Hasta la vista, Baby,

---the Very Merry PseudoLatino

(1) Since P.T. Barnum never said any such thing, attributing it to him and accepting it as gospel is, uhhhhh, let's say it's just a weeeeee tad apt in this context.