Cappy Rudyard

Rudyard Percival was born in Bombay, India, and soon moved to Bristol with his parents, brilliant botanical espionage specialists who worked together on an experimental British Navy submersible vessel. Despite rumors that they were victims of a freak accident that involved US Navy Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) transmissions and a tray of genetically altered darlingtonia californica (a.k.a. the “cobra plant,”) Rudyard was told that they both died of severe melanoma. He was then sent to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and was brought up by his uncle, “Cappy” Dick, the chewing gum magnate, and an older cousin, “Bazooka” Joseph Percival-Smythe. Spending his high school years in Shanghai smuggling Maotai across the Taiwan Straits, Cappy became involved in numerous illegal “free lobster” actions and tried his hand at saltwater seaweed farming. He returned to the United States in 2000, intent on the twin objectives of solving the riddle of his parents’ deaths, and stealing from the rich to give to the poor.

In 2008, I vow to:

1. Donate to Common Cause

Once the president is elected ’ere November -- barring a final double cross by the turncoat Cheney -- we will finally be upwind of George W. Bush. At that point, either the president will be a Republican (and I will be shipping out with Barrett’s Privateers) or a Democrat. But here’s the rub. It can get better, but no matter who is elected, it won’t get a lot better anytime soon. So I’m working hard to sink those Republican poltroons ‘til the election, and then working hard to sink the corrupt campaign system starting the next day.

That’s because both parties are dancing to the same mick-ficking piper. It has been years since anyone spoke seriously about reducing military spending or restricting the sales of weapons by US corporations, about equitable funding of public education, about a universal health care plan that doesn’t preserve the prerogatives of the insurance industry. Are these taboo subjects? They are if you want to raise the money needed to contest a national office. Unless there is serious campaign finance reform of the kind that Common Cause stands for, these positions will remain outside the mainstream and the ship of state will stay on its present course, listing toward a hellish corporatist dystopia.


2. Lay siege to Waveland

I have tried for years to find the coordinates to Waveland, the place whose corrupting influence wafts into our lives like so many unregulated plastic factories spewing out chromium-6. My sextant has failed me, but that doesn’t mean it is not possible to cut off their supplies, and starve the arrogant seadogs.

This is just a little place, but it is an alternative port, and by using it you avoid paying the tariffs that fund Waveland. We’re a free port – as is Stump Lane and the other links that Chaplain Montag maintains. So that’s a drop in the bucket. But how do we fill the bucket? Can we set up an alternate internet somehow, just in case the sinister forces that want to impose another wealth-based hierarchy here succeed? Any suggestions?


3. Start a “Miscegenation Now!” movement

Did I mention race? It disentangles itself from the azure, gleaming before my prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills. I’m thinking of sailing from this country (where some 5% of marriages are “interracial”) to Brazil (where the population is closer to 50% classified as “mixed race”). For what reason do we preserve these racial borders, only to waste so much effort guarding them? Throw them open, methinks. And if we haven’t figured out how to do that in the century and half since the end of the civil war, it is time to obliterate them!

Mrs. Rudyard has helpfully started knitting a line of “My other child is a Quadroon” tees, which I hope to use to spearhead a guerrilla marketing campaign. Slogans, jingles, and other ideas welcome!


4. Avenge my parents

With the advent of global warming, carnivorous plants are poised to move north, like so many busily-photosynthesizing killer bees. In some lab somewhere, a team of crack military scientists is honing their knowledge of the effect of 76 Hertz waves on those vegetables of mass destruction, poised to unleash their genocidal potential on unwary citizens!

Sure, to them Drs. Fahey and Cunegunda Arroyo Percival were simply “collateral damage” in their quest to spread their ideology du jour across the hammy countenance of an unwitting porcine world. But they are on notice: revenge is a dish best enjoyed while watching Navy scientists unwittingly served to their own murderous plants! And Cappy Rudyard's just the old salt to season them.

What're your New Year’s resolutions?

Kitsch

Rob Riemen defines Kitsch as "Beauty deprived of Truth."
And contests that Kitsch will be/is the downfall of Western society.
And says scary things about the preponderance of Kitsch in totalitarianism.

[The Nexus Institute: KITSCH AND THE CRISIS OF THE WEST (pdf!) Also, Word for Word: The Good Society (audio recording.)]

Now there may well be some quibbles depending upon how you define Truth, and whether you think Beauty is even possible without adherence to certain philosophical Truths in the area of aesthetics (which your humble narrator isn't at all qualified to discuss.)

Mr. Reiman seems to prescribe more support for the arts and more emphasis on creativity and the arts in education. An argument I can wholeheartedly embrace, (despite the disclosure I must make: that Mrs. Montag is an Art teacher.) It is an argument made quite eloquently and entertainingly by this guy (video.)

QUESTION: What is Kitsch, and how destructive is it?

Take this Blog. Because "everything that you read here is always the truth," the very worst one might rightfully accuse us of is the peddling of 'Truth deprived of Beauty.' Kitsch?

And what about Gil Thorp? Can I avoid helping to bring about the destruction of Western liberal democracy if I continue to take (admittedly perverse) guilty pleasure from following this comic strip, deprived of both Beauty AND Truth?

Christmas Eve, Sometime in the Future....

"Yap!" says Spot.

"No no no I’m not telling you!" says me.

"GRR," says Spot.

"STFU! You have to wait ‘til Christmas morning!" says me.

"Whine!" says Spot.

"Shh!" says me.

Spot wags his tail.

"I’m not telling!" says me.

Spot wags his tail.

"Nope," says me. "I won’t talk!"

Spot wags his tail.

"Stop that," says me.

Spot wags his tail.

I pretend to cave:

"Ok fine!" says me. "It’s a box of Pupperoni…"

Spot sniffs the package and growls.

I try misdirection:

"You got me. It’s a really a box of soggy old cigar butts," says me.

Spot howls.

I flat out lie:

"OK OK! Dangit! It’s a special-order New-Guinean dried-gourd phallocarp, custom made by highly skilled native craftsmen from only the finest materials expressly for a very spoiled dog!"

Spot starts tearing up.

I give up:

"Just kidding. It's a box of ham. Merry Christmas, Spot."

Spot runs around the room joyfully.

The End

((p.s. What's on your Christmas list this year?))

Image: Northern Star Press

Who's on YOUR speed dial?
Chaplain Montag of the First Knights of the 19 Quart Lobster Pot

While I appreciate the attitudes about marriage Reverend Cavendish shared here this past Sunday in the course of his eloquent endorsement of Mayor Giuliani, and in spite of his equally eloquent, though vitriolic, sleight against candidate Mike Huckabee, I contend it is Huckabee who holds the higher ground in the arenas of marriage and strength of leadership.

Huckabee's vision of marriage is one that calls upon wives "to graciously submit to their husband's sacrificial leadership."

Really, that's about all there is to say about that. Huckabee's is a leadership that inspires submission. Giuliani's marital track record indicates that he is perhaps too "sparing with the rod," if you take my meaning.

If Giuliani can't inspire submission in the ones who vow to love, honor and obey him, how can he be expected to dominate terrorists, despots, world leaders and the working class?

We need a potent, manly leader who isn't afraid to "throw the rod around," if you take my meaning. And in case you don't, my meaning is this: It's not just about justice, diplomacy, and politics. It's about what happens when They refuse to submit.

All the better if he's got a hot-line to the Man Upstairs. Mobile phones aren't just for "booty calls," Mr. Mayor.

Who's on YOUR speed dial?

Friends:

Recently, my newest friend Mr. Carbonetti has invited me to New York City to help the flagging presidential campaign of his friend, America’s Mayor, Rudy Giuliani. In particular, they are worried about the growing appeal of Mike Huckabee, who apparently talks to God on the phone.

Was Mike Huckabee really talking to God on the phone? I say no, because God has no need to use a phone to communicate. It is like saying the Holy Ghost rang your doorbell and impregnated your wife. The Holy Ghost has no need to pass through doors! He can simply float down through the ceiling with a bouquet of roses or a tasteful floral seasonal arrangement, a fine Merlot, then a little sweet talk and a little ghost action, and nine months later the baby mama has a human-ghost hybrid which is all the talk of the medical world!

But my point is not just that the pretender Huckabee was feigning talking with God, but that his public piety marks him as a hypocrite, and so “woe unto you,” Mr. Huckabee (Matthew 23:25)! The Book of Matthew tells us: “ when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly,” (6:6). In other words, you don’t talk to God in front of a large audience! You do that in the closet, with the door shut!

I know that as a child, I was so spiritually precocious that I spent most of my time in the closet. Indeed, my friend Mr. Patel recently complimented me by saying that I keep one foot permanently in the closet even when I am not inside the rectory! Since I have come into adulthood, I spend a much greater portion of my time in the closet praying, just as Matthew recommended. The rest of it is simply research. After all, if the best way to solve a crime is to think like a criminal, a clergyman would be remiss if he didn’t spend time thinking like a sinner!

But so many of you have said to me: “Reverend Cavendish, if God really does not have Huckabee’s number, yet I must still not abandon God’s Own Party, who is left besides cheating, abortionist-loving liars from blue states?” And it enriches me each time I tell you that there is a candidate a God-fearing person like yourself can support! That man is none other than Rudolph William Louis Giuliani.

I can hear you saying to yourself: But isn’t that the man who has been married three times, the third time after a pair of well-publicized adulterous relationships? Isn’t that the man whose business partner and former police chief is accused of defrauding the city by using a public space for an adulterous love nest? And doesn’t he himself stand accused of using public funds to guard and transport him to adulterous trysts? If this is all true, how could I vote for him?

To which I would respond with a simple question: When did it become wrong to be an adult? Indeed, adultery is proof that America’s mayor is capable of providing adult leadership. And remember what First Corinthians tells us about satisfying needs:

I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn. (1 Corinthians 7:8-9)

Clearly, America’s Mayor was burning. Because of 9/11, he was burning so much that marrying twice could still not contain. It is better to marry than to burn. So he married again. How many times has Mitt Romney married?

I ask you, if it is a matter of a Mormon who marries too few times, or a Catholic who marries too many times, which one do you trust? Let’s check that good book once more:

To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. (1 Corinthians 7:2)

By my count, America’s Mayor has avoided fornication three times to Massachusetts’ Governor one. There is no avoiding the conclusion that Romney is three times the fornicator that Giuliani is!

But, you ask, is it fair to have had the New York Police Department drive his mistress around and help her walk her dog? Today’s final reading is once again from First Corinthians:

But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. (1 Corinthians 7:33)

Indeed, now that Ms. Nathan is Mrs. Giuliani, the Holy Bible retroactively endorses his attempts to please her! And, to paraphrase the sainted Margaret Hamilton, her little dog, too.

You may still be skeptical, and more than one of you has pointed to the new satellite dish and jacuzzi behind the Rectory and asked whether my endorsement of America’s Mayor is just expedience. I ask, was it political expedience when Pat Robertson endorsed him?

In closing, I would like to point out that you will never hear Rudy Giuliani take a call from God in front of an audience. It is true he took a call from his wife in front of one. But this just shows how much he constantly burns! I am sure he burns so much that he spent whole days with her in the spacious closets of Gracie Mansion!

In short, it is because he burns that you can trust him. Randy, er, Rudy needs it so much that his adultery and multiple wives can only be seen as proof that he is using the cure authorized by God. Who knows what cures those single marriage candidates are using?

For instance, with respect to Mr. Huckabee, it would be irresponsible not to ask whether pretending to get calls from God isn’t a way to deflect attention from those rumors about frequent visits from the Holy Ghost?

Amen.

tip of the hat to:
http://www.dependablerenegade.com/dependable_renegade/