Then for Manifest Destiny he struck a blow
Back when Texas was in Mexico.
Got raped and murdered in a donkey show
Fighting Santa Ana at the Alamo.
Davy, Davy Crockett,
What a hell of a way to go.
– Gore Vidal
It is with deep and sincere sadness that I note the recent passing of Fess Parker, a performer who, if you account for inflation, made more money for Disney than Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers put together. And when my good friend Gore phoned from Rome on Monday and left that final, long-unsung verse to the “Ballad of Davy Crockett” on my voice mail, well, I knew just what to do. Here’s to you, Fess – only your unique talent could have turned a truly questionable character like Crockett into some kind of iconic American hero, and by golly, in my book, you earned every Indian-head penny of your cut of all that loot you split with Mickey Mouse.
As regular readers of this Web log know, of course, yesterday was my birthday. But since the date of Easter – being, as we all know, the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox – changes from year to year, in 2010, my birthday was also Maundy Thursday, the Day of the Last Supper.
That spared me the usual twenty-four-hour gauntlet of practical jokes people born on April Fool’s Day are condemned by heartless Fate to endure for their entire lives, with, as I noticed yesterday, some very rare exceptions. This year, everyone was very affectionate and respectful. Too bad, then, I figure, that such a rare coincidence had to occur during the worst depression since Herbert Hoover occupied the White House, because almost every gift I got was a thoughtfully hand-crafted item of some sort or another. For example, Thursday I worked in the morning, taking off early after lunch, so the first birthday present I got was from Gretchen, my private secretary. There, in my e-mail Inbox was a message from her containing a URL hyperlink in Second Life to a big box of new clothes she had made from scratch (well, from SL prims, actually) for my avatar. Hand made clothing generally turned out to be a repeating theme for Tom’s birthday this year. On Thursday evening, after a dinner in my honor at her home in Fairfax, Virginia, my dear sister Rose gave me a Merino wool scarf she crocheted herself, and that night, when I hooked up with my girlfriend Cerise at my place in Great Falls, I got nothing less than a hand-knit cashmere sweater. Katje, my vegan sister-in-law, made me some cane and sandalwood huaraches, while my brother Rob dug his leather working tools, which I swear he hasn’t touched since at least 1996, out of storage and made me a belt from the skin of a sizable Burmese python his son Jason ran over three years ago in Florida. That made it, consequently, I was informed, a gift from both of them. Not that all my birthday swag was apparel. Rose and her husband Hank have a huge gaggle of children, all of whom gave me something. I think I now have the most impressive collection of pre-school white glue, macaroni, sparkle and crayon pictures, kindergarten construction-paper birthday cards, elementary school pottery, middle school shop class woodwork and re-gifted high school video game and music CDs of any uncle on the East Coast. I must, however, as Camus demanded, say “hats off” to Shannon, Hank’s brother’s wife, who, as regular readers of this Web log again will know, thanks to the scumbags of Wall Street, lives with Rose, Hank, Rose and Hank’s kids, Hank’s brother, and her own huge brood of Catholic children, all together in that same house in Fairfax. Shannon gave me a bottle of Old Bushmill’s 16, a fine malt whiskey slowly matured in a succession of charred oak bourbon barrels, Oloroso sherry butts and Port pipes. God Bless her Chicago Irish heart.
But it’s a phone call I got driving over to my birthday party at that house in Fairfax I want to write about today. There I was, motoring down the George Washington Parkway towards US 495, fretting over the lousy condition of the road surface and imagining what foreign tourists must think of America when their rental cars bump and jostle along as if this were some third world country, which, thanks to people like George W. Bush, Vikram Pandit and Alan Greenspan, these days it pretty much is, when my cell phone ring tone alerted me to a call.
I have a nice hands-free Bluetooth setup in my imported sports car, so I answered it. But these days, what with constantly changing cell phone and texting-while-driving laws morphing this way and that across the three local jurisdictions around metro DC, one can’t assume anything anymore. So I pulled off at an overlook and parked as soon as I could. It was a frequent client of mine – Michael Steele, Chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Steele: Tom! Tom Collins? That you?
Tom: Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Steele: Oh, you recognize my voice, huh?
Tom: By now, I figure I should, sir. How can I help you?
Steele: Damn it, Tom, I’m gettin’ beat up on here worse than a Baltimore crack ho who got caught stiffin’ her pimp!
Tom: No push? How whack is that?
Steele: So whack, the crackers at the Wall Street Journal be after me with their rhetorical Mac-Daddies.
Tom: Say what?
Steele: Sayin’ I have yet to define my role as RNC Chairman, sayin’ that I’m burnin’ up vital GOP funding, and, get this, Tom – sayin’ that keepin’ me at my job could cost the Republicans bad in November!
Tom: Unbelievable!
Steele: You better [expletive] believe it, my man. They sayin’ I could be the difference between a mere 20 seat pickup and a clear Republican majority in both houses of Congress.
Tom: What? A clear Republican majority in Congress next November? And if it doesn’t happen, that’s going to be your fault? Mike, if they’re saying that kind of stuff down at the Wall Street Journal, it ain’t just the ho’s in Baltimore who be smoking too much crack.
Steele: Damn straight. Tell me about it. And it’s not just the Wall Street Journal either. People dumpin’ on me all [expletive] over; I be totally sick of this [expletive].
Tom: Well, it’s not like you could lose your job, no matter what happens. Republican parties in at least sixteen states have to call a national meeting, then two-thirds of them have to vote that you’re fired. Why, for that to happen, you would have to be caught making the RNC pay the bills for simulated Sado-Machochistic, Sapphic floor shows involving whips, chains, rope and leather at some sleazy pervo-erotic nightclub which no decent Republican would ever…
Steele: Tom!
Tom: Yeah?
Steele: You [expletive] with me?
Tom: Huh?
Steele: You mean you don’t know that I had to fire Allison Meyers this week for doing exactly that?
Tom: Oh, sure, Mike, I knew that. But what I said was, you would have to be caught making the RNC pay the bills for simulated Sado-Machochistic, Sapphic floor shows involving whips, chains, rope and leather at some sleazy pervo-erotic nightclub which no decent Republican…
Steele: All right! So what’s your point?
Tom: That you, Michael Steel, were never caught doing that. Some misguided bimbo named Allison Myers, who, it looks like, done climbed up top of the Stupid Tree, jumped off and hit every damn stick on the way down – she got caught doing that. Not you.
Steele: Hmm, yeah. I think I see what you mean there, bro. Okay, then how about all that [expletive] [expletive] I’ve had to put up with people complainin’ about me making speeches and getting paid for them while I’m workin’ as RNC Chairman?
Tom: Those people obviously never had to scrape by in Washington, DC, on a paltry $223,500 a year.
Steele: And those [expletive] who been [expletive] about me takin’ private jet airplane rides? And [expletive] ‘till they can’t talk no more about me and my crew stayin’ at some decent cribs while we was lookin’ for a def place to hold the next Republican convention?
Tom: I say, it’s easy to offer advice about huntin’ down the pig meat if you don’t have to do it your own damn self.
Steele: Right on!
Tom: What do they know about fund raising, anyway?
Steele: [Expletive]-A! But… uh, what can I do about all these Republicans who have decided to make contributions to the Republican Governors’ Association instead of giving money to the RNC?
Tom: They’re only doing that because you’re scaring them, Mike. It’s simple, really – all you have to do in order to get Republican donors to start giving money to the RNC again is show them you understand their concerns.
Steele: Show them that I [expletive] what?
Tom: Face the facts, Mike. When you started your job as RNC Chairman, there was a $23 million surplus. Now the RNC is as broke as AIG, and here are all these trips to Hawaii…
Steele: Great place for a Republican convention!
Tom: Maybe. It depends on how you define “great.” I mean, sure, on one hand, maybe the delegates would have an unforgettable experience, but do you really think, under the present circumstances, that the public would consider a place like Hawaii a “great” place for the Republican convention?
Steele: So, you’re sayin’ we should hold it in Detroit or somethin’?
Tom: Could be. At least the voters wouldn’t resent you for living it up while everybody else is suffering.
Steele: But living it up while everybody else is suffering is what being a Republican is all about!
Tom: Okay, whatever you say, Mike. However, if that’s the situation, I would suggest you keep it to yourself.
Steele: No problem, I will. Gotta go now, though. The caterers just showed up with the creme fraiche blinis and beluga caviar for my afternoon champagne break.
Tom: Not to worry, Mr. Chairman. I understand.