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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Come on, man.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

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You are here: Home / Archives for Sarah, Proud and Tall

Sarah, Proud and Tall wrote at Balloon juice from 2011-17.

Sarah, Proud and Tall

Live dispatches from the Royal Wedding

by Sarah, Proud and Tall|  April 29, 20114:52 am| 94 Comments

This post is in: #notintendedtobeafactualstatement

 

http://katemiddletonforthewin.tumblr.com/
http://katemiddletonforthewin.tumblr.com/

 

Note: What with Donald Trump behaving like David Duke and the many terrible tornado deaths, I feel a little guilty joking about anything.

However, as some fine young women once sang “Some Days You Gotta Dance”. On with the badinage.

9.52am BST – Well, my little carbuncles, I’m finally seated in the Abbey after being patted down for twenty minutes by a most obliging young Pakistani policeman. I haven’t had that much fun in months.

I was a little sad that he took my little Beretta away, even though I explained that I was a trained marksman and might need it if any revolutionary outrages were to be perpetrated during the ceremony. He was lovely though, and said he would put it somewhere safe and I could pick it up before I went to the lunchtime reception at the Palace, just in case Camilla got out of hand. Which was nice.

On my way in I was screamed at hysterically by several young women who apparently thought I was Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. It must be because the monkey-gland facial I had on the plane coming over made my nose go all wonky. The poor dear has had so many years of chronic cocaine abuse she can barely breathe without a short length of Louis Vuitton-branded hosepipe up each nostril, and with me in this new wig we look like twins.

The atmosphere in London is quite extraordinary, what with the street parties and the bunting and the crowds of nylon-clad chavs waving flags to celebrate the fact that a bunch of elitist wankers with no chins can spend more on a wedding cake than any of them will earn in their entire life. As a result, I admit that I’m quite excited to be here, even though I would normally be in sympathy with the 75% of London residents who are apparently cowering in their homes with the music turned up loud pretending the whole thing isn’t happening.

You may have read that the police are using special signal-blocking technology to stop the punters tweeting or calling from inside the Abbey. Never fear, I didn’t work in the CIA for 42 years and not learn a few things about sneaking information past the officialdom of third world countries. I’m carefully concealing my iPad under the most gorgeous stole made of dead badgers. It looks a bit like Robin Williams’ wedding night, but I think it’s fooled the police so far.

I’m sitting next to that nice Gareth Thomas, the rugby player – real football, dears, not that padded-up excuse for a game Americans play. I must say that William and Skinny Kate do appear to like their gays, what with Gareth and Elton and Edward and that young Australian swimmer in the pearls. There’s even a whole group of queens in dresses up at the front of the South Nave.

Just minute, dears.

Oh. Really? Gareth is telling me that the men in dresses are actually Archbishops and Cardinals and suchlike. Who’d have thought that Cardinal Brady would look better in a beaded Givenchy gown and Jimmy Choo pumps than I do?

10 am – Bear with me for a minute, dears. I’ve just spotted an empty seat next to that lovely David Beckham and I’m going to nip over for a minute to chat him up.

10.05am – How embarrassing. I’d been sitting chatting to David about his balls for a few minutes before I noticed the muffled squeaking coming from somewhere underneath me and realised the seat wasn’t empty and that I’d been sitting on little Vicky Beckham. I offered her a breath mint to make amends. She accepted, even if she did put half of it away for later. A girl has to watch what she eats.

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Live dispatches from the Royal WeddingPost + Comments (94)

10.09am – Heavens. There was a woman there wearing a hat that looked like a stork had swallowed a serving dish.

10.11am – Gareth is cruising a rather dishy Guardsman. I had to steal the Queen Mother’s line to Noel Coward. “I wouldn’t if I were you, Noel – they count them before they put them out.”

The flowers are quite lovely, by the way. I think green is so flattering to young skin.

I’ve only just recovered from the horror of Vicky Beckham’s hat. It looked like a pencil holder designed by Tim Burton.

10.20am – The bridegroom and the best man have arrived, wearing their nice hats. So useful for the less hirsute gentleman. I wonder if William is going to keep his on all day?

10.21am – Apparently not.

10.22am – Dear Harry does look so like his daddy.

10.38am – I spotted one gentleman coming in just now who appeared to be hepped up on crystal. I hope no one scares the poor thing.

10.42am – There is a woman in blue (apparently one of Fergie’s spawn) who is wearing an exploded bantam on her head.

10.50am – The Duchess of Cornwall came up briefly to say hello to me on her way in. Betty Windsor has obviously told Camilla that I know where the brake-line-snipping bodies are buried. She kept laughing nervously at me and giving odd little shakes of her head. It was like being befriended by a mule eating a toffee.

10.51am – The Queen has apparently come dressed as a yellow marshmallow peep. She may be the yellowest thing I have ever seen this side of George W. Bush.

11.03am – Jesus. I haven’t seen that much gratuitous train since “Atlas Shrugged”.

11.09am – Heavens, she’s thin. Vicky Beckham was glaring daggers at her. At least we can tell this isn’t a shotgun wedding. Well, not unless Kate has had the baby moved to her summer uterus for the week.

11.14am – Poor William looks skeerder than Donald Trump when his limo broke down in the Bronx.

11.19am – Awwww.

11.30am – Good grief. I’m going to ask Gareth to wake me up when the endless singing is over.

11.35am –

Joseph Nobles – Sarah, since you avoided the signal interference, you might have caught the understatement of the wedding. Dad was helping Kate get her dress arranged, lifting it up and around, and a TV perp evidently said: “Michael Middleton just making sure everything is unsoiled and undamaged”.

I don’t often admit that words fail me.

11.46am – When does the drinking start?

11.46am – Given the use of the term “sobriety” in the sermon, apparently the answer is never.

11.48am – Does David Cameron always look like a worried spaniel?

11.57am – It’s almost done. Cambridge has a new Duchess, Princess Anne can take off her ugly hat that looks like a licorice allsort, Prince Andrew can stop holding in his tummy, and Grammy can get a damn drink.

12.36pm – I’m off dears. Gareth’s Guardsman tells me he has a friend.

All in all, it was a lovely wedding. Kate looked stunning. William and his brother both looked dashing, and William and Kate are clearly in love, which makes for a nice change. There were wacky hats everywhere. No one comes close to the British on pomp and circumstance. After all, all they need to do is play “Jerusalem” and old ladies like me tear up. What more could a girl ask for?

All my love – Sarah xx

The truth is out there

by Sarah, Proud and Tall|  April 27, 20117:36 pm| 44 Comments

This post is in: Lizard Blogging, #notintendedtobeafactualstatement

Goddammit. I post a righteous <a href=”https://balloon-juice.com/2011/04/27/why-does-peggy-noonan-hate-america/”>rant</a> about the world thinking Americans are all insane and then half an hour later the entire United States goes stark raving birther-mad just to prove me correct.

Anyway, it was the 5th of August 1961.

Keith and I had been in Nairobi undermining the more moderate sections of the Kenyan independence movement because Jack Kennedy wanted to piss off the British. It didn’t take much work in those days – either to undermine the more moderate sections of African politics or to piss off the British. Death of Empire and all that.

We’d had a very successful couple of weeks, but it finally came time for us to leave. This pleased me no end, not least because Nairobi was a pustular, pestilent shit-hole that even the Brits didn’t want. Dust, dirt, disease and not a decent bar in the entire place.

We arrived at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport mid morning. Well, it was called an international airport but frankly it was just a room with one desk with two angry black men behind it which served for both ticket sales and check in. There was a goat tied near the door which they used to hitch to a cart for moving the luggage to the plane.

We lined up next to the goat to check in. I immediately noticed the young couple at the desk in front of us because they were a mixed race couple – he was black and she was white – which was still quite unusual at that time. He was trying to book airline tickets all the way through to Hawaii, which was causing untold confusion, while she was fussing over the most adorable tiny brown baby. It had huge ears, but a lovely smile. She kept calling the baby Barack, which I remember because I thought it an odd name.

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The truth is out therePost + Comments (44)

They finally sorted out their tickets and we checked in, and about an hour later we were all on our way to Heathrow via Cairo on the most terrifying plane in which I have ever traveled. I suspect they’d borrowed the airport goat to power the engines, and it was tired that day and was barely keeping the plane in the sky.

We were seated across from the couple. Keith had already fallen asleep, so I slipped on my sunglasses and pretended to be asleep myself and then listened in to their conversation to keep from being bored. She was called Ann and he seemed to be called Barack, just like the baby. She was holding the sleeping baby in her arms facing towards me. The young couple were whispering to each other about the “plan”. She seemed quite nervous, while he was acting bluff and unconcerned.

It all seemed very suspicious.

After about half an hour, Barack Sr looked around and appeared to satisfy himself that no-one was looking. He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a blank form which I could see was headed “Certificate of Live Birth”, along with a miniature typewriter, and proceeded to fill in the form. When he was finished he had Ann sign the form, and then he signed it twice at the bottom, clearly using different handwriting each time, then put everything away in his briefcase.

A stewardess came up the aisle and spoke to Barack Sr. At that moment, the baby woke up and opened his eyes and both the stewardess and I could see that they were yellow and had thin pupils just like a lizard. The baby stuck out its tongue, which was long and thin and pinkish-purple and which flicked up and licked across both of the baby’s eyes and then was slurped back into its mouth.

Of course, the stewardess screamed like Tippi Hedren at a poultry farm, which woke up the entire plane. Keith leapt to his feet but I carefully remained “asleep”.  Ann shrieked and clutched at the baby. Barack Sr fumbled in his bag and jumped up brandishing a weapon. It was long and silver and had flashing lights all over it. He aimed it at Keith and pressed the trigger. A long beam of red light flashed out and into Keith’s eyes. Keith froze immediately. Barack Sr then used the weapon on everyone else in the plane who was awake (except Ann and the baby, of course) and they were all immobilized as well.

I threw in a few fake snores for good measure and kept watching.

Barack Sr reached up and peeled off his face to reveal a lizard head – bright green scaly skin with vibrant yellow eyes. He took a deep breath like he’d just surfaced from the water, then began to rant like Glenn Beck with an amyl headache. He went on and on for at least twenty minutes about how nothing would interfere with their plan, how the lizard people would rise up from their oppression and conquer the greatest nation in the world and then the entire planet, how little Barry was the true hope of lizard-kind. All the while Ann and the baby chuckled evilly. After a while, he wound down, and sat back in his seat. Ann patted his hand and he put his human face mask back on.

About five minutes later Keith started to move. He shook his head as if to clear it, then looked around as if wondering what he was doing. He sat down and grabbed me by the shoulder to wake me up. Soon everyone else was waking up too. Keith had no idea what had happened. I played dumb, and all the while Barack and Ann sat there grinning like Newt Gingrich at a bridal fair, making faces at the baby and cooing.

When we got back to the US I reported everything but, of course, no one believed me.

It wasn’t until 1997 I saw little Barry the lizard baby again. It was a news report on the Illinois senate election, and I recognized those ears immediately.

Of course, now it’s far too late to do anything. The day will come and I, for one, will welcome our new lizard overlords.

At least then we will be able to stop talking about fucking birth certificates.

[Cross posted at <a href=”http://sarahproudandtall.com/”>Sarah, Proud and Tall</a>. Original post edited slightly for clarity.]

In other news, I will be vaguely live-blogging the royal wedding here on Balloon Juice direct from Westminster Abbey, commencing at about 10am London time (5am New York time) on Friday.

If any of you are silly enough to be up at that time and to give a flying crap about the <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/theroyalchannel”>family affairs of an inbred bunch of horse-faced Germans</a>, I hope you will join me.

Why does Peggy Noonan hate America?

by Sarah, Proud and Tall|  April 27, 20119:36 am| 35 Comments

This post is in: Decline and Fall, Get off my grass you damned kids

I adore plane travel.

I love the sheer improbability of nine hundred thousand pounds of steel, people and fuel flitting through the air like Nijinsky on a coke binge. I love the fact that there are beautiful women and handsome gay men whose sole function for eight hours is to bring Grammy more champagne. I love not having to elbow incontinent old people in the head in order to watch what I want on TV.

Most of all, I love the fact that I can have a nap and wake up in Amsterdam or Barcelona or Sydney or Rio de Janeiro. I’ve spent most of my life trying to travel to as many foreign places and meet as many foreign people as possible, even if I’ve had to hock my shoes to get there.

One of the other advantages of plane travel is that the enforced down-time waiting in airport terminals gives me a chance to browse around those corners of the internets I usually don’t get to. For example, the other day, while I was at LaGuardia waiting for Gloria’s plane to be refueled, I stumbled across an unusually coherent <a href=”http://peggynoonan.com/”>article by little Peggy Noonan</a>.

I’m not suggesting it is a great article. After all, when Peggy writes, you’re usually just happy if the piece uses recognizable words and the smell of vodka doesn’t filter all the way down through the printing process and transpire off the page. However, I thought her conclusion was interesting, if only because it looks like Peggy has managed to stumble in the gutter and land on her hands and knees next to half a truth:

<blockquote>The whole world is in the Hilton, channel-surfing. The whole world is on the train, in the airport, judging what it sees, and likely, in some serious ways, finding us wanting. And, being human, they may be judging us with a small, extra edge of harshness for judging them and looking down on them. We have work to do at home, on our culture and in our country.</blockquote>

My real problem with Peggy’s conclusion is that the real situation is much worse than she thinks.

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Why does Peggy Noonan hate America?Post + Comments (35)

The world doesn’t look at America and find it wanting. The world looks at America and worries what the hell it is up to now.

Now before anyone accuses me of being an America-hating Limey immigrant bitch, let me hasten to add that I love this country with all my heart. Any nation that produced bourbon whiskey, blues music, the cheeseburger and George Clooney’s ass can’t be all bad.

Further, many (perhaps even most) Americans are fine, generous, inventive, kind people.

I’m also not suggesting that the rest of the world isn’t messed up as well. One look at the Italian Parliament or the Japanese film industry or the slums of Brazil or anything involving Steve and Bindi Irwin or the Wiggles would suggest that the rest of the world has enough of its own problems to be getting on with.

America is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, the refuge of the homeless and the tempest-tost, that more perfect union whose alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears.

And yet, most of the time what the outside world sees is a nation of bloodthirsty war-mongers and religious dogmatists who think the way to world peace is more guns and more war, that democracy can be imposed at the end of a Gatling gun, and that drilling for oil, bringing on Armageddon or the fact that the indigenous population wears their handkerchiefs on their heads are legitimate reasons for invasion.

They read their papers and they read about a nation that went to war to throw off the shackles of a hereditary monarchy and then spent the next 200 years replacing it with the most dysfunctional political system this side of Pyongyang, a hereditary argentocracy in which the electoral prospects of a fat multiply-bankrupt television star with a triple combover can be seriously discussed, rather than being relegated to the funny pages.

They wonder at a nation that has the best medical system in the world in which 90% of the population can’t see a doctor without selling either a kidney or their oldest child into slavery – a nation that has the best education system in the world, and yet 72% of the population is so terminally incurious that it doesn’t have a passport and couldn’t find America on a map with a torch and a pointy red arrow marked “You are here”.

They deal with fat tourists from Texas in walk socks and flip-flops who travel overseas merely so they can shout at the locals in English in order to be understood and get directions to the Hard Rock cafe, and thereby avoid being exposed to anything remotely foreign while in a foreign land.

They fear America as a country of cultural imperialists, racists, Jesus freaks and Amway salesmen who want to turn the entire world into a sanitized theme park of sexless talking mice, big-eyed virgins, plastic cheese and expensive time-limited parking.

In the family reunion of nations, America is the crazy aunty with halitosis and a moustache who bails you up in the corner and tells you off because you need to lose weight and stop smoking, while all the while scoffing all the vol-au-vents and bogarting the joint.

America is a great nation. Americans rightly think so. The rest of the world rightly thinks so.

The real problem is that when much of America looks at itself all it sees is a great nation.

The rest of the world looks at America and, however much they may envy or love its wealth and its celebrity and its power, they see a great nation that is often demonstrably, certifiably fucking insane.

Grammy either needs a drink or to stop reading the newspapers. Probably both.

[Image – Unveiling the Statue of Liberty – Edward Moran – from <a href=”http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artwork.php?artworkid=15295″>Artrenewal.org</a>] [Cross posted at <a href=”http://sarahproudandtall.com/”>Sarah, Proud and Tall</a>.]

We’re off to see the lizard

by Sarah, Proud and Tall|  April 24, 20118:55 pm| 61 Comments

This post is in: #notintendedtobeafactualstatement, Assholes

Hello, my dears.

Great excitement and surprise at Shady Pines today, as I have finally received my invitation to the royal wedding next Friday.

In order to be entirely accurate, I should say that everyone else is excited and surprised. Marge is running around burbling about how beautiful Diana is, and the other girls have already started engaging in blatant bribery with spirits and pharmaceuticals in order that they might be chosen as my “plus one”.

I’m not surprised, given that I phoned Betty Saxe-Coburg-Gotha at Buckingham Palace last week and mentioned that I was a little put out that Elton Fucking John and that cadaverous bint Vicky Beckham received their invitations before I did. A few passing references to the special services I provided to Stupid George during the war and certain information about Paris road underpasses that Betty really doesn’t want leaking out, and before you could say “overprivileged inbred hereditary bloodsuckers” a nice little man in full livery was standing on the front doorstep of Shady Pines, panting and clutching an envelope.

Excited is probably also an overstatement. It will be nice to have an excuse to visit Harvey Nicks and Harrods, and Westminster always looks so lovely when it’s done up for a wedding, but it’s really just another chance for Phil the Greek to try to get into my pants. I’ve been dealing with him since 1952 and frankly it does get a little wearing fending off the racist old git’s wandering fingers.

Even worse, I then find out that Big Red Sarah isn’t even invited, and she’s the only member of the family I can actually stand for more than five minutes at a time. Perhaps I’ll call her and tell her that she can come with me. That will put a badger up Betty’s monogrammed knickers.

It all puts me in mind of the week before Diana and Charles got married. We were at Windsor, and I was sitting having breakfast with Betty. Charles was off communing with his cabbages, and the two of us were watching Diana up the other end of the table trying to eat her bacon with a spoon while taking the occasional sip out of the salt cellar. Betty said something about calling the wedding off because she didn’t want a vacuous moron marrying into the family. I seem to recall I asked her why she would want to break with a centuries old tradition, which made Betty cross for some reason.

Anyway, young Ms Middleton seems like a nice enough thing, even if she does look a bit like a constipated horse at an all-you-can-eat apple buffet.

A fairytale wedding of the balding and increasingly plain heir to the throne to a commoner with an eating disorder and a mad father, coupled with the frenetic attention of the British tabloids and the pathetic hopes of the British public for a happy ending.

How on earth could anything go wrong?

[Cross-posted as usual at Sarah, Proud and Tall.]

We’re off to see the lizardPost + Comments (61)

By the incompetent at the expense of the stupid

by Sarah, Proud and Tall|  April 23, 20119:14 pm| 110 Comments

This post is in: Absent Friends, Media, #notintendedtobeafactualstatement

When I got to New York last night, Gloria’s driver, Fred, met me at the airport in the town car, handed me a martini and whisked me off to Gloria’s little apartment on the Upper East Side before I’d even managed to finish it.

Dear Gloria was very well and looking more fabulous than ever. After we had caught up, we were driven to East 86th street to see “Atlas Shrugged”. Now, it might seem odd, on my first night back in the big city, to go see a film which we all know stinks more than Rush Limbaugh’s feet after he’s eaten a cheeseburger. However, given the amount of whining Ayn subjected her friends to in life, it’s only fitting we attend to witness her final humiliation now she’s dead.

Fred went and bought the tickets for us and then took the car home. Takings were obviously pretty grim, so the movie had been shunted to the smallest cinema they had. We had to walk through the foyer, out the back, past the toilet, down an alleyway where some rats were dancing in a circle chanting “Kill the pig. Spill his blood,” in Spanish, and round two more corners, until we reached a dingy screening room somewhere in Queens that had all of six seats in it.

We sat at the back, but we were still so close to the screen that every time that bloody train went through a tunnel I felt like I was back watching a porno at one of those old cinemas on Times Square.

We were the only ones in the cinema, except for a fat young man with green sweaty skin, who was staring fervently at the screen and clutching at his bag of cheetos like they were the bones of St. Therese of Avila. When the titles began, both of us cackled and Gloria hooted like a monkey, to the young man’s evident dismay. He kept turning around to ask us to stop, his yellow-flecked lips quivering at the injustice.

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Now, I have to admit that we didn’t really throw subsidized cancer medication at the screen. That would have been in the nature of a joke, Joyce. However, we had both stocked up on several pounds of peanut M&Ms and whenever Dagny’s cheap blond bob appeared on screen, we’d subject her to a fusillade of chocolate that made it sound like there was a hailstorm.

Slowly, the young man’s protests decreased and he slumped down in his seat, as it became more and more apparent that we were in the presence of true mediocrity.

Making a movie from the rancid scribblings of that vile and termagant shrew – a woman who never met a circumlocution she didn’t like and whose idea of character development was to have someone rape someone else – was never going to be a great idea.

However, to make this kind of complete stinker, it takes both true ideological single-mindedness and the kind of directorial genius that thinks that mise-en-scène is something to do with having rodents on set. Let’s just say that Paul Johansson thinks it is acceptable to put Grant Bowler on screen for 97 minutes without once making him take his shirt off, and as such is obviously truly artistically bereft.

The movie is cheap, amateurish and seems to have been stitched together from offcuts from “Weekend at Bernie’s” and the final season of “The Colbys”. The production values hit a height of crapulence that is exceeded only by the poverty of the script. No one ever shuts up. They just talk and rant and declaim, often simultaneously. This might be ok if the actors playing the “good” characters weren’t engaging in the most wooden acting since William Wyler cast Charlton Heston as a piece of petrified timber in Ben Hur, and the actors playing the “bad” characters weren’t chewing more scenery than Bette Davis and Joan Crawford on crack.

Ayn Rand may have been an evil old ferret with a heart of frozen poison and the morals of a tapeworm – in person, she may have made your palms itch with the urge to strike her and keep on striking her until she fell down – but at least she wasn’t boring.

This movie, on the other hand, is the only experience I have ever had which is more tedious than actually reading Atlas Shrugged. I haven’t been that bored since Andy Warhol asked Joe Dellasandro to hock up a loogie on the ground, filmed it for three hours and then made all of us at the Factory watch it in slow motion.

I’ve been to funerals that had a better script, livelier action and a happier ending.

Finally it was too much for both of us to bear any more, so we decided to leave. The young man was snoring, so as we walked out, Gloria shook him by the shoulder. He grunted awake and staggered after us.

When we were on the footpath, I turned to him and said, “Old Ayn used to say that evil requires the sanction of the victim. And you, sir, just got screwed royally by a dead bitch and her no-talent followers.”

Then I handed him fifty bucks and told him to use it to get a haircut.

And in doing so, I managed to do more good in five minutes than Ayn Fucking Rand did in her entire miserable fucking life.

Then we went and got very very drunk.

[Cross posted at Sarah, Proud and Tall.]

Welcome to the Pleasuredome

by Sarah, Proud and Tall|  April 22, 20112:52 pm| 134 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, #notintendedtobeafactualstatement

Hello, my dears.

Just a quick post to introduce myself because while many of you have met me before, some of you may not yet have had the honour.

My name is Sarah Howard. I’m 92 and I currently reside at the Shady Pines Home for the Violently Senile in Spokane, WA. I’m a good Catholic, Republican woman, but I hope you won’t hold that against me too much.

With the assistance of my nephew Charles and his flatmate Kevin, I have set up a little blog called Sarah, Proud and Tall, on which I share some of the more interesting and illustrative incidents from my long and busy life. If you like reading about Bill Donoghue being nobbled with a laxative-based mickey finn, or about David Brooks being cornered by a octogenarian with chronic incontinence and a rodent fetish, or about Ayn Rand being cold-cocked by Gloria Vanderbilt, then you may enjoy wandering through my archives some time.

I have been loitering around the threads in Balloon Juice for the last couple of weeks, telling the occasional little story and then looking forlorn and weeping with my face against the wall due to the lack of attention being paid to me – a little bit like Mitt Romney at the Republican Party convention.

However, my frantic blogwhoring and frequent offers of cash must have had some effect. I was sitting in the luncheon room making spitballs for Michelle Bachmann’s visit that afternoon. I should note that Shady Pines is jam-packed with wealthy, widowed Republican women. Sandra Frazer’s husband owned half of Connecticut and at least one of its Senators for most of the twentieth century, Gloria Peters was the mistress of three successive governors of Texas and poor mad Marge Albrechtson was actually on the RNC for years. As such, everyone who sets up an exploratory committee comes crawling to Spokane to try and pry our money from our liver-spotted hands.

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Anyway, in the midst of my preparations, I received an email from John Cole asking me if I would be prepared to share some of my stories with you from the hallowed ground of the Balloon Juice front page. Of course, I immediately said yes. As I was flying to New York that evening in Gloria Vanderbilt’s private jet, I suggested that I visit John in West Virginia to work out the details.

Later, after Mrs Bachmann had rushed from the building, her ears red and stinging, screeching that she would set her flying monkeys on us, I grabbed my Vuitton travelcase, stuffed my tea-cup chihuahua Mr Sprinkles in the side pocket of my handbag and headed for the airport.

The flight to West Virginia was a pleasant one. Gloria had stocked up on my favorite Ossetra and her steward, Simon, was as profligate with the Laurent Perrier as he usually is. We soon landed in West Virginia, and Simon had even organized for a police escort to whisk me to John’s house.

I was thrilled to meet John who, I am pleased to say, most closely resembles a young Sean Connery, with perhaps just a hint of William Howard Taft around the edges.

Dear little Lily got up on her back legs to snuffle at my handbag, and before we knew it she and Mr Sprinkles were happily chasing each other around the yard, with Rosie staggering and panting after them like Hayley Barbour on the trail of a roast pig.

After we had tea, John even took me in to see Tunch in his special room. His huge white furry bulk was slumped in the corner, fast asleep, and his Gamorrean guards were standing on either side of him. When he purred, his whiskers shook and the wall behind us vibrated. A young dark-haired woman in a metal bikini was slumped near him. She was also asleep. A long chain was clamped around her neck and extended across to Tunch, its end clutched in one of his mighty paws.

Just then, he slowly opened one yellow and baleful eye and examined us. His purring became louder and he inclined his head in what I can only describe as a benediction. Then his eye closed and he fell back to sleep as we backed carefully out of the room.

We had another nice cup of tea and then I went on my way to New York.

I can’t upload a picture of Mr Sprinkles because I am working from my iPad, but I will share one as soon as I can because I know you lot love the dog pictures.

Tonight, Gloria and I are off to see “Atlas Shrugged” and throw Medicare-subsidized cancer medication at the screen. I’ll try to report in tomorrow to tell you what it was like.

All my love,

Sarah
xx

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