Yakov Smirnoff and Rawstory's Laris Alexandrovna to wed ( a satire)

What a country:

"This is bigamy, I'm already married, and everyone's crazy except me," said the star journalist (or is it "Tsar journalist?) to the Russian, famous for telling fart-jokes about life in Soviet Union.

"Is big of you too," said the ex-Cold War asset, cribbing material from Marx...Groucho Marx. At least he has a cameo in Buckaroo Banzai, a movie that didn't grease his road to American citizenship that finally came in the form of a 1986 photo-op for the Reagan administration at the French-made Statue of Liberty.

"In Russia, wedding dress returns self to store, people so poor. In Russ--uh!" the bride cut him off, much to the relief of geriatric liberal tourists visiting Branson, Missouri, all three of them.

"You haven't lived in Russia for years...in Russia, in Russia! Is all you can say! In Russia--you are to be driving me insane in mad world. This Wall Street bailout is a coup d’état, everyone else crazy, especially Mistah Kurtz!" Her Pushkin and Conrad were showing, and the American Bastille was calling. Lewd, I know.

"Uh, in 'former Soviet Union,' only time people allowed to stand in line is on way to KGB headquarters and urinal, and urinal broken since Lenin died in 1924."

"Is no longer KGB--is FSB now stupid. Ach, life of poet is hard, and me with no dacha to run to," stated the would-be poetess, having once fallen into the reviled world of Madoff's NASDAQ and the whorish swamp of journalism where "gender-neuter person is wolf to gender-neuter person." Smirnoff went on (and on, and on...) with the usual: "In Russia--is 'polit-ical-ly correct'?--no one is old, even age stagnates because there is no money. Everyone is still young, even surviving members of Politburo. Last week, tractor go on strike in Smolensk."

"...That coup is now nearly complete and checkmate is all but unavoidable. We are in a crisis so dangerous that should these people succeed in their coup, your party affiliation will no longer matter, your American flag will be a nice collectible item of something that once was, and your version of God will be worshiped in secrecy because your freedoms will be owned by the few... ," came the perilous non sequitur from the bride.

"In Russia, we don't have coups anymore, is too expensive! Everyone just stay home and eat plaster, like in America now too," argued the groom with the Ukrainian bride. What a country. If you don't like it in Russia, you need to go to A'murka, pal. That'll learn ya.'


Postscript, 12.29.2008: I just keep knocking them out of the park. Larisa discovered this piece today and very charitably wrote a thumbs-ups on it! Thanks, Larue! She wrote that it was "paranoid" which I object to. My own opinion of her own journalism is very high, I think she's done and is doing very good work. But that doesn't change my opinion of the profession itself, it's a swamp, and hopefully she's cleaning some of it out with her stellar work.

That said, her hyperbole over the Wall Street bailout as a "coup" is most definitely paranoid when even the ruling class in America is going into meltdown, it was unwise and unwarranted. She wasn't alone in her alarmism back when a bailout was first proposed, and I don't believe her knowledge of history was good enough to be making such a bold and alarmist statement.

I should also add that she and I tussled during the Palfrey saga, and that she can take this satire as a kind of "apology." There's no point mentioning her recent sparring with another Huffpo columnist on the recent death of a GOP IT (computer tech) in what is definitely a case of strange timing. What I really protest is that Alexandrovna and others in journalism claim they have no agendas and that they tow-the-line of "professional objectivity," which is an insult to the intelligence of anyone with a pulse. But, a coup? That happened during the 1870s, we've been wage slaves to a kind of managerial Taylorism ever since.

We're watching the collapse of American capitalism, a reason for hope, and hardly a "coup," but the reverse. You miss these things when you don't have a good working knowledge of systems in crisis. Also, she bandies about statements on how people who disagree with her are "insane" quite a lot. She's not half-wrong, but welcome to the Internet. There it is.

A modest proposal: quit thinking that with every exposure of corruption that something's going to come of it. This system's in free fall and the guardians of it are even going to protect a bozo like George W. Bush in order to preserve long-held power and privilege. "Inaccurate"? "Paranoid"? That would be the "Wall Street coup" theory, especially considering we're staring an almost fully nationalized economy in the eye--that's socialism, and I have no problems with that. That means a scaling-back of the power of the corporations. Oscar Wilde.

OK, there was an inaccuracy: she does own a dacha. I wasn't aware a satire was held to the same standards as a doctoral dissertation, but then, she tried to adhere the rules of journalism to me once, someone who assuredly has little respect for the profession as a profession. Still, better her than others...

"Eli, Eli lama sabachthani?" Dude?

Ed.--A pal forwarded this. I find it very funny. Who can't relate to his sentiments? Why else would he have yelled, screamed, and wailed, "Lord,Lord, why has thou forsaken me?" Some think he was calling out to the prophet Elijah, which makes more sense than the orthodox reading (I prefer the unorthodox one myself). Crying out, "Oh God! Oh God!" in agony doesn't really jibe well with the rest of the story and the other gospels too well, does it?

Thankfully, that's a Synoptic problem for another time...

"On Sarah Palin and a Turkey," a theopolitical reflection by LenDavinny

There must be some kinda way outta here,

Said the Jester to the turkey,

I should be eating crow right now,

But I'd prefer moose jerky...

But I think I just figured it out from watching Sarah Palin pardoning a turkey who should have replied, "back at you," but was no doubt grieving his soon to be fallen brethren who were no less worthy of Salvation than he, just less lucky. Sarah should, but probably does not, empathize with a randomly selected lucky turkey. How could she not see the beauty in the irony of the only fitting sacrifice to match her sudden popularity and $7 million book deal?

But the truth came, as it always does for Governor Palin, during the interview as a turkey was being decapitated in the background while she chortled, or gobbled, on about this season of joy and celebration. Onlookers reportedly informed her of what was transpiring, or expiring, behind her and she said she didn't have a problem with it. Presumably, she and the turkey are both looking forward to a far better 2012 with great anticipation.

What do you call the syndrome when you get festive occasions reversed to the point that you celebrate Thanksgiving with a Halloween-appropriate turkey snuff film? Possibly, Holiday Dyslexia. And if it didn't have a name, let it have one now, and let us celebrate the noble life of another national treasure pratfalling toward a great destiny. I suddenly realized that I don't want to see her go, she's a national treasure.

I can't wait to see what she has in store for Christmas. Maybe a Santa Cottontail, hopping all the way from the North Pole, "Hippity hoppity, hippity hoppity, dash away, dash away all!" Or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Post Traumatically Disabled Alcoholic Vietnam Survivor for Veteran's Day. Think of the possibilities: even ingenious comedians like Groucho Marx, Madeline Kahn,or Gracie Allen couldn't hire enough good writers and deliver enough lines with the timing and sheer Providential luck with which the woman has been blessed.

And maybe it is a blessing.

Maybe people of her religious calling do have the ear of God who bestows a halo upon them and it is spangles of hanging lights like a jester's crown. And there's one thing for sure--if He's doing it, He's got a great and warped sense of humor. We already knew that, didn't we? Palin is immaculate in her innocence.

This innocence is so disarming that I go weak in the knees and have to hold back the tears for the righteous, and I hear God, the Highest of Holy Ventriloquists [Ed.--Hey, does that guy have his union card?] filtering through her somehow purifying, cleansing ignorance. And He tells me, "A funny thing happened on my way to the grave...oh come on down there! Walk it off and cheer up! Hasn't anybody gotten the message?" Guess not. Certainly not in Washington, "said the Jester to the Thief...."

And again, I can only say apologies to Bob and a round of applause for the rest of humanity. Give yourself a hand, Ladies and Gentlemen, and kindly walk around the blood and feathers on the way out. It's been great, huh?

No reason to get excited,

The turkey kindly spoke.

There are many here among us

Who feel that life is about a joke.

But you and I , we've been through that,

And that is not our Fate.

Election day will come again,

And for those of us without a clue, it never gets too late.

[Ed.--Come on, it was secret squirrel code to Bush to pardon himself...for farting. "And she's always a turkey to me."]